Greg Olsen & John O’Sullivan on Raising the Standard in Youth Sports | Youth Inc.

Summary

Youth Inc. with Greg Olsen – Episode Summary

Episode Overview

Guest: John O’Sullivan (Author of Changing the Game, Every Moment Matters; coach, athlete, prominent youth sports advocate)
Date: November 18, 2025
Main Theme:
Greg Olsen and John O’Sullivan dive deep into the state of youth sports in America, exploring how to strike the right balance between fun, competition, development, and long-term life lessons. They address the problems created by hyper-organization, early specialization, and an overwhelming pursuit of winning, and offer ideas for restoring joy and proper values to youth sports.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. John O’Sullivan’s Early Athletic Origin Story

(Starts at 01:18)

• John reflects on growing up in Long Island, playing “everything”—soccer, basketball, wrestling, baseball, even pickup games on frozen ponds. His Irish father’s diverse athletic background had a major influence.
• Quote:

  “I was just that kid who never wanted to sit still and so just played everything…until sort of high school when I decided that, you know, maybe soccer would be my thing and pursued that.” (02:07, John O’Sullivan)

2. Discovering and Defining Joy in Youth Sports

(Begins around 04:00)

• John stresses the importance of joy (distinct from “fun”) in youth sports—a concept validated by research from Amanda Visik at George Washington University.
• Joy for kids comes from playing time, a challenging environment, positive coaching, and more, not just from “fooling around.”
• Coaches should use the “Would I want to be a player in this practice?” test.
• Quote:

  “At the end of a practice I ran, [I’d ask], 'Would I want to be a player in that practice?' If the answer is no, I probably shouldn’t keep doing that.” (05:27, John O’Sullivan)

3. Balancing Competition, Expectations, and Joy

(07:35 – 09:49)

• Greg distinguishes between “fun” and “joy” in competitive contexts, emphasizing age appropriateness.
• John underscores that challenging kids with love and high expectations fosters both development and true enjoyment.
• Quote:

  “It can be hard, it can be demanding, it can be competitive. That's still fun…It’s about competing. It is supposed to be hard. It is demanding. It’s just not demeaning.” (09:00, John O’Sullivan)

4. Results vs. Process: Teaching the Right Lessons

(13:06 – 17:05)

• Greg describes his team’s core approach: focusing on process, details, and consistent effort, not the scoreboard.
• Winning should be a byproduct; player retention and enthusiasm are key metrics.
• John: You can’t teach winning; you teach competing and controlling the controllables.
• Quote:

  “If I'm only focused on winning…I'm never going to be confident if everything that I'm striving for is out of my control. But I can feel confident when I know I have controlled all the controllables.” (16:01, John O’Sullivan)

• Notable Practice Ritual:

  “We break it down on ‘compete.’ It is the central tenet.” (17:10, Greg Olsen)

5. When and Why Did Youth Sports Shift?

(17:05 – 21:35)

• The incremental “professionalization” and “organization” of kids' time led to early tryouts, higher financial/time investments, and eventually, an unhealthy focus on end-goals (scholarship, admissions preference).
• Access and opportunity stratified as a result.
• Quote:

  “Once we started adding more money, more time, bigger commitments, then people started looking for, well, what’s the end game? What’s the payoff for this?” (19:24, John O’Sullivan)

6. Winning Culture vs. Development Culture

(21:35 – 24:44)

• John: Every coach and parent should ask, “What am I willing to compromise to win?”
• Short-term winning often comes at the expense of proper development and long-term athletic/life success.
• Avoid early “selection” for talent and ensure meaningful playing time for all.
• Quote:

  “How [kids] perform at 10, 11, 12 years old is a very poor predictor of long-term performance. So making sure that we’re teaching as many kids as possible, as long as possible…” (23:36, John O’Sullivan)

7. When to Prioritize Results & Specialization

(24:44 – 28:13)

• The conversation navigates where the line should be between inclusive development and competitive selection—acknowledging that every sport, and athlete maturity, is different.
• Practice value is often sacrificed in the youth sports “tournament every weekend” culture.

8. The Critical Role of Practice Structure

(31:26 – 35:53)

• Greg describes how having a large coaching staff enables every kid to receive reps and individualized instruction, minimizing standing around and maximizing engagement.
• John laments the common scenario of coaches unaware of how to run efficient youth practices—especially in baseball.
• Quotes:

  “No kid goes, ‘God, I hope we stand in line all day today.’” (35:19, John O’Sullivan)
  “Standing around irritates the out. I have such a hard time watching inefficiencies and wasted time…” (35:53, Greg Olsen)

9. If You Had a Magic Wand—Fixing Youth Sports

(37:12 – 40:46)

• John: Universal multi-sport youth clubs, providing access and exposure to several sports seasonally, would combat early specialization and FOMO (fear of missing out).
• Greg: Restricting out-of-season play (e.g., no 12U baseball tournaments in December) to preserve seasonality and variety.
• Both cite examples of top athletes valued by scouts because they played multiple sports.
• Quote:

  “The scouts were all so excited that he had played soccer until he was 15, that he played basketball, that he was fast and aggressive from these other sports…” (39:19, John O’Sullivan)

• Also, the overuse injury risk from specialization is discussed.

10. Notable Closing Remarks

(40:46 – 41:27)

• Greg expresses his appreciation for John’s work and vows to bring him back for more wisdom.
• John thanks Greg:

  “You give a lot of your time and energy to kids and youth sports and it means a ton to all of us out there…trying to change it.”

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “At the end of a practice I ran, [I’d ask], 'Would I want to be a player in that practice?' If the answer is no, I probably shouldn’t keep doing that.” (05:27, John O’Sullivan)
• “It is supposed to be hard. It is demanding. It’s just not demeaning.” (09:00, John O’Sullivan)
• “We break it down on ‘compete.’ It is the central tenet.” (17:10, Greg Olsen)
• “Once the investment became so significant, we needed to see it pay off.” (20:37, Greg Olsen)
• “How [kids] perform at 10, 11, 12 years old is a very poor predictor of long-term performance." (23:36, John O’Sullivan)
• “No kid goes, ‘God, I hope we stand in line all day today.’” (35:19, John O’Sullivan)
• “Standing around irritates the out… I have such a hard time watching inefficiencies and wasted time…” (35:53, Greg Olsen)
• “The scouts were all so excited that he had played soccer until he was 15, that he played basketball, that he was fast and aggressive from these other sports…” (39:19, John O’Sullivan)

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Memorable Moments & Takeaways

• Practice Structure Mastery – Greg outlines how his staff keeps ~50 kids constantly active and learning at football practice, stressing that process, structure, and development matter more than talent collecting or scoreboard obsession.
• “Compete” as a Culture – Both highlight that if you teach kids to compete—with themselves, their teammates, and the sport—they’ll outperform in sports and life, regardless of win-loss record.
• Personal Stories – Both guests reflect on their formative multi-sport childhoods versus today’s specialized, transactional approach.
• Magic Wand Vision – Both strongly advocate for multi-sport participation and preventing burnout by limiting out-of-season play.

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Full-Circle Conclusion

The conversation is energetic, insightful, and action-oriented, candidly acknowledging the pressures and pitfalls in today’s youth sports and repeatedly returning to the core principle:

• Development, joy, and character-building are the true wins for youth athletes.

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For Coaches, Parents & Leaders

• Regularly ask, “Would I want to be coached this way?”
• Prioritize development, inclusion, and learning—especially before adolescence.
• Structure practices so all kids are active and progressing.
• Resist overinvestment and specialization pressures; value cross-training and seasonality.
• Remember: The habits and attitudes built in youth sports carry far beyond the field.

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Episode timestamps provided for direct reference to key moments and quotes as requested.

Transcript

[A]

Youth sports in America are at a crossroads, and I'm here to help lead the conversation forward. I'm Greg Olson. Each week, we're sitting down with top athletes, coaches, and more to talk about what's working, what's broken, and what's next.

[B]

Welcome to youthink. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode here on Youth Inc. Super pumped for today's conversation. Author Changing the Game. Every Moment Matters Books. A guy who's really studied the world of youth sports, studied the impact that we can have have on youth athletes, John O. Sullivan. John, thanks so much for joining us here on Youth Inc. Greg, it's great.

[C]

To reconnect with you. We got to chat when you were on our Way of Champions podcast a little while back, and so it's, you know how much I think we both love chatting about this stuff. So super excited for today.

[B]

Yeah, and it's cool because, you know, you come at this conversation from a lot of different aspects, and we're gonna probably touch on all of them, of course. Author, coach, athlete. But I want to go back even further. Like, I want to go back to the origin story. Every young kid sets out playing some level of sports as a child. That's obviously the. The genesis moment of all of our stories. Everybody we talk to always kind of goes back to that first moment.

[C]

Like, what.

[B]

What is the first moment that you have that has started what's been a lifetime in the world of sports?

[C]

You know, I. I grew up, my. My dad was still playing sports, right. So I grew up in Long island, and, you know, I'm 53. So at that time, right. Everyone just did everything. You signed up for the fall soccer league, and then you played, you know, basketball, or I was a wrestler in the winter, and then you'd play baseball in the spring. And, you know, the. The pond used to freeze back then, and the lawyers hadn't gotten a hold of it yet, so you could still skate on the pond and play pickup ice hockey. And I was just that kid growing up, and my dad, you know, my dad was an Irish guy who played Irish sports, and then he actually played a year of college football at Fordham University, and then they dropped football, and so he had switched to other sports, but he played Gaelic football and hurling, and he was still, like, playing softball. So I have, like, lots of memories of going to softball games and tossing the ball with my dad and everything. But, yeah, I was just a kid who never wanted to sit still and so just played everything. And until sort of high school when I decided that you know, maybe soccer would be my thing and pursued that. But yeah, it just still to this day I don't really like sitting still.

[B]

Yeah, you brought up hurling, which I don't know if anybody knows what even that is. But I was at my kids baseball tournament last spring in Charlotte, North Carolina. And on the field behind us at the ball fields, there was these guys and girls, it was co ed running around playing what looked like lacrosse, but it was field hockey. It was, it was a very interesting. I had never heard of it. So of course we walk over there, the guy lets us try it out. Fast forward. This year I'm calling a game in Dublin, Ireland.

[C]

Nice.

[B]

And we walk into the stadium and it is like the home of the National Federation of Hurling. And the photos, I mean it was like a big, big deal. And I say all of that to say I don't understand how they play the game. I don't know if anyone outside of the two, two of us really even know what it is. But if you haven't seen hurling, go Google it because it is a fascinating sport.

[C]

Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. Right? And you were at, you were at Croak park obviously where I've been to games at. And it's unbelievable. It's so, it's such a cool sport. It's a flat stick. It's like hitting a baseball. You catch it barehanded, you get hit in the stick. All my dad's teeth were fake because he had gotten all his teeth knocked out. And he was just so sad that he still couldn't play.

[B]

Amazing. It's, it's a, a random aside, but nonetheless it's worth our listeners going to check out. Yeah, I want to talk about something. So at the core of, of of one of your most favorite book, you know, famous books you've written, most well known, changing the game. You talk a lot about like keeping the joy in sport, like keeping that, you know, parents, coaches, we've all probably been guilty of this. Where you can almost take the joy away from the kid and lose kind of what is supposed to be the value. I know I'm probably guilty of doing that at times. Like talk a little bit about that. Like what did your research show, what did your findings when you, when you made such a big point in changing the game. Like talk to us about where you came at that from and kind of what your experience has taught you.

[C]

Yes. So there's a ton of research in this. Right. That just shows when you ask kids why do they play well it's fun. I'm sure it's why you played and why I played sports is because it's fun. And. And so I use the word joy because I think sometimes adults think of fun as fooling around and not disciplined and whatever. But. But that's actually not what kids say. So there's a woman, Amanda Visick, George Washington University, has done a lot of research, and now she's replicated over and over and. And ask kids why they play, and they come up with fun, of course. So she says, define it. And they have these, like, what she calls these 81 fun determinants. And it's things like getting playing time, you know, an organized, challenging environment, positive coaching, positive team dynamics, all sorts of things. And so for me, 30 years of coaching, the question that I always asked myself at the end of a practice I ran is, would I want to be a player in that practice? And if the answer is no, I probably shouldn't keep doing that. But if the answer is like, yeah, I'd want to be part of that, that's when your kids are like, wait, wait, why are you blowing the whistle? Is it over? Are we done? That's when, you know, I think you nailed it. And so that's my thing. And you don't always get it right. But I think that's so important for coaches to understand that the kids got to want to come back, and they're only going to want to come back if it's fun, because there's a lot of other things, things to distract their attention. If you're not making it fun now, it can be hard, it can be demanding, it can be competitive. That's still fun. And. And I think sometimes people say, oh, it's competitive or it's fun. No, it should be both.

[B]

I think it's so. It's. It's such a good point, though, because I've probably said this before, like, gym class is fun. Recess is fun. That's not what, in my mind, competitive sports should be. Again, they're not. I'm not talking T ball when they're six years old. I'm talking high school sports. You know, the. The football team that we coach is seventh and eighth graders. These kids are 14, 15 years old. Boys like diff. There's an age appropriateness to all of this. So I think joy is probably exactly the right word, because at times, it's not fun in the traditional sense. But talk a little bit more about, like, what can coaches do? Like, what can we do to make sure in our Actions and in our messaging that we're not encouraging silliness, we're not encouraging, you know, everyone joking around and nobody. And this is not that big of a deal, and we're just here to participate, but also not take it to such other end of the spectrum that you do suck all the joy out of it, and nobody really looks forward to practice. And it's just beat down, beat down, beat down. Like, how can we be better communicating expectations, more joy, less about it being fun?

[C]

I think that's such a great question. And sometimes I use the thing of, like, joy and pleasure as the thing, right? So I always ask people, when I do talks like, has anyone ever run a marathon? Right. And, you know, people raise their hand. I'm like, is there any pleasure? Mile 20 to 26, I've done 1 0. Pleasure. Right. But do you still enjoy running? Yes, I do. Right. So it's. It can be hard. It can be that. So I really enjoyed. You posted a lot of clips this fall of you coaching your football team. And what I really liked about it was it was hard and you had really high expectations for those kids. But what you kept emphasizing is we're coaching you this way because we believe in you, because we know you are capable of doing these things. And so we're going to push it.

[D]

And.

[C]

And you know why? Because life is hard and it doesn't get easier and football doesn't get easier and life doesn't get easier. So we're preparing you for these things. So I think what was. And obviously these are little clips, but what I can see in your coaching is a lot of love. And there's a lot of love from you and your fellow coaches for these players. And because we love you, we're going to push hard, right? And it's going to be hard and you're going to be exhausted at the end. And at the end of that, you're going to go, and I can't wait to come back tomorrow. Right? And I think that's really important, you know, and you can do. You can do both. I think, again, fun is the word that kids would use. Joy is the word that adults would use. And I think we're kind of talking about the same thing. We just use different words to describe it. But again, it is about competing. It is supposed to be hard. It is demanding. It's just not demeaning. It's not, you know, diminishing the human being. It's not shaming and hurting the person. It's saying, improve this skill, improve this effort, improve this focus. And now when you've done that, now I'm going to ask you to do even more. And I think that's what we want for our kids. And certainly it's what I wanted growing up.

[A]

This episode of youthink is brought to you by RCX Sports. RCX was founded to break down barriers to access and expand participation in youth sports so every kid has an opportunity.

[B]

To play, to learn more.

[A]

We spoke with RCX's CEO and founder, Isel Reese.

[B]

What was the inspiration like, where did RCX come from? What was the problem in the youth sports world that you guys are trying to address and what has been that, that impact that you guys are making?

[D]

Yeah, yeah, you, you. So, so RCX, you know, we launched, if you will, in, in 2018. When we launched, we were already doing some things with the NBA and NFL. I was doing camps at a Super bowl actually for working with the NFL. But I'm a big fan and you appreciate this. If you get a play in a playbook and you can run this play and it continues to work, you don't change it. So as far as what it came to lead play creating events, it's a watch, rinse and repeat model for us. And so when we think NBA and wnba, so that was a two for there, it's league play. It's the same model, it's the same concept. NHL, street hockey, you know we got with NHL and initially we were saying hey ice and let's do three on three. We kind of got into think tank together and then you know we came up with ball hockey, street hockey. And so it's given opportunities, you know, across the board. Mlb, we work with pitch, hit and run, a long standing program. And so you know, we've been blessed to oversee that as well. Major League Soccer and working with them and now in this pilot phase with USDA of getting more kids involved with tennis. And so we're doing some unique things there. We're putting kids in jerseys, we're putting multiple kids on the court because my kids play tennis and it is a very expensive sport and a lot of times, you know, that's the first barrier that is there for kids. So we've built an affordable program and also giving kids jerseys and so forth. So they feel like they're in a team environment and just getting back to what all these sports are, which is fun and every kid should be exposed to it. And also the ability to have multi sports. So the thing that I like most about it is, you know, when we have this opportunity to work across all these different pro leagues and now governing bodies as well. When we all get in a room together and everybody's saying the same thing. Everybody believes in multi sport. Everybody believes every kid should have a great experience and opportunity at the rec level and not be priced out. You know, it shouldn't, it shouldn't come at a premium price point for kids that have a phenomenal experience in youth sports, you know, if they want more and other things. And I know it's a lot of things out there, but every kid in every community deserves that opportunity. And so, you know, it's things that we were accustomed to when we grew up. Right. And how do we, how do we get back to the basics of giving kids those opportunities? What really took things off and went to another level for us, in which I'm excited and honored that we've had the opportunity to do it, overseeing NFL flag football. We're well over 800,000 kids participating in NFL flag and it has truly become something greater than I anticipated. But, you know, good to get more kids involved in the game at all ages and continue to evolve NFL flag and what it is today.

[A]

For more from our interview and to learn how to find or start a team, visit youth.inrcx sports.

[B]

I appreciate you watching our clips. We had a blast making them and, you know, it was cool to kind of give people a look inside. And it's not for everyone. You know, we had some people that say, wow, this is too much. These kids, they're little and everyone can have their opinion, but nobody quits our team. Everybody sticks it out. The kid who's the star running back or the kid that didn't get a ton of playing time, they don't miss practice. They come eager to learn, and they come back the next year like that, to me, is where you can really evaluate whether or not what you're doing is working. Like, we win a lot of games, we score a lot of points, but if everyone's quitting, if everyone's leaving, the kids don't want to play again next year. You got to reevaluate, okay, well, we're winning, but are we really accomplishing what we're trying to do? In all of the things that we coach, we try to stress to the kids, you know, pretty much two things, like in regards to winning and losing, we don't coach to the scoreboard. We're not going to coach you harder or, or, or easier. Depending on if we're up 30 or down 30. It's probably going to be the inverse of what these kids would expect in a 30 point blowout that we're winning. We're going to actually coach you harder, we're going to be more demanding, we're going to be more sticklers for details. Like we are not going to build bad habits in those easy moments because then we got to undo those habits. And at another, at a later point. And then the second big element that we, we preach to our parents, we preach to our kids is like winning is going to be a byproduct of everything we do. We don't set out with the goal of saying we are going to win every game. We set out with the goal of saying let's really be great in warm ups, let's really be great. And how we get dressed for practice. Let's be really great with being on time, our attention to detail, how fast we play, our energy levels, our play style. Like let's focus on all those. And if we check all those boxes, we're going to look up at the scoreboard and we're going to win a lot. Yeah, right. Like it's a secondary component to doing things the right way and we believe in it. And in today's world, it's hard to convince people like that is the approach, but there is no other approach, regardless of what people want to say. I know there's a collection of talent going on. There's the, you know, it's easy to build super teams and at the youth level especially, like that's the easy way out in my mind.

[C]

Yeah. And I think the distinction or the word I might use is we teach competing, right? We're going to compete. And competing is about all the things I control, like being focused, great effort, showing up on time, paying attention to details, diving for loose balls, hustling on a play, chasing whatever it is that's competing. Because you can't teach winning. But if you compete every day, you know, we talk about all the time, win the day. Like just win the day by competing really hard. And if you win enough days in a row, you're going to, you're probably going to win on the weekend or at least you're going to give yourself the best chance. And I think this is what gets lost. As people say, oh, we're teaching winning. Like, I don't think you can, I think you teach people to compete. Because if I'm only focused on winning, think about all the things in a football game that affect that. The, the talent level of the opponent, the weather, the officials, all These things affect whether I win. Well, I'm never going to be confident if everything that I'm striving for is out of my control. But I can feel confident when I know I have controlled all the controllables. And. And I think what you did with that group, what I can see from afar, you set the expectation, this is what we're going to do. And at the end of this, the goal is to make your son a better human being, a more capable human being through football. Right. So the goal on Saturday, yeah, we want to win, but the purpose is something much, much bigger. And that's something that Joe Ehrman told me years ago, and it's always stuck with me. And you know that the purpose of this is much bigger than did we win on Saturday?

[B]

Well, it's the perfect segue. And we break down every huddle from the first ever weight room session in the spring when we get the sixth and seventh graders together for next year's team, all the way till the final huddle after the final game of the year. We break it down on compete like it is the central. I actually got it. Pete Carroll. It sounds so simple. It was the central tenet of Pete Carroll. I played one year with Pete Carroll in Seattle, but the one thing I took is like, if you center everything around, compete with yourself, compete with your teammates, compete against the opponent, just win everything you do. And it's amazing how good things coming. So we break down 1, 2, 3, compete every single time. But to that last point you made, and this is. And it's a great segue to my next conversation, like, when did youth sports stop being everything you just said? Which is values lessons. Take this into your later life as a husband, a wife, an employee, a boss, a friend. And when did it become what it is now, which for a lot of people is like a means to an end? We're doing this to get a scholarship. We're doing this to be a professional. We're doing this. There's some end of the rainbow goal as opposed to let's just build really great qualities and then let's see what path life has for us. Like, did you see, like a specific moment where that shifted?

[C]

I don't. I don't think there's like a moment, but I think there's a collection of things. Right? So someone once told me, or I read in a book, it was 1994 when the word play date entered the Webster's Dictionary. Before that, we just went out and played. Right. But with more parents both working and all this sort of stuff. We all of a sudden had started to organize our kids play. Well now if we're going to organize it, let's hire someone to be in charge of it. Right? So we started putting more time and more organization into our children's free time. And then the youth sports, the business of youth sports just started pushing the ages down of talents. Talent selection, bad word, but right. Cuts, tryouts, long commitments, travel, younger and younger and younger, Right. So growing up on Long island in the 1970s and 80s, I think I was like 15 the first time I went to Maryland for a game. Right. Before that, it was like you played in New York, you played in, you know, Jersey, maybe Connecticut, but it's like you're right there, you know, you never did an overnight trip. And, and so I just feel like once we started adding more money, more time, bigger commitments, then people started looking for, well, what's the end game? Right? What, what's the payoff for this?

[B]

That's a great point.

[C]

And I don't even think, Greg, I don't even think for a lot of parents, it's a scholarship. When I speak in wealthier areas of the country, and I would say the Greenwich, Connecticut's, the Washington DC's, the Southern Cals, you know what, they want their kid to play college sport for admissions preference, of course, to get into these super competitive schools, I don't need the money, I just need them to get in. And so this is a whole other dynamic that admissions preference for athletes drives a lot of this craziness. Because if you didn't have a scholarship and you didn't have admissions preference, would you really say, I'm going to spend 10 to $15,000 a year on youth soccer or more on ice hockey? Probably not.

[B]

It's such a great point. Like once the investment became so high, we needed to see. We needed it to pay off. Yeah, right. Like we needed to see something to justify the money, the time, the commitment, the sacrifice that we're making. Your entire childhood, back when it was just fun play at the local, you know, you're playing baseball. What you described as your childhood, that was mine. Like the same group of boys, even through high school, I played football with those boys. The day after the state championship football game, we'd walk in and join the basketball team. And then we joined spring and we just go around the calendar. Wasn't as much of a time investment. It wasn't as much of a financial investment, for sure. I think that's a really good point. When the, when the investment became so significant. All right, I want to see what we're going to get out of this. We don't want to just burn all this time and money away and not see anything in return. I think that's a really, that's really well said. Right.

[C]

And imagine if we put that in. That's 529.

[B]

Something else you talk a lot about and it's something that I try to preach from the rooftops, but I know it's a big part of your work is like develop like the winning culture versus the development culture. And if you just focus on the winning culture, oftentimes development gets left behind. If you go all in on the development culture, you can have both. It's a little bit of a more difficult journey if you don't have the best players. But in the long term it's best for the kids and, and you can build a winning culture. Like talk a little bit about that dynamic. And again, I know it's a big part of what you've written about and what you've studied.

[C]

Yeah. I think the question that every coach and parents should ask when they sign their kid up for something is what am I willing to compromise to win? Right. So this idea of, this idea that I'm willing to compromise the development of my player because if I'm coaching a nine year old soccer team, right, that's the sport I coach. I can take one fast kid and put them up top and one kid who can kick it a long way and put it in the back and I'll kick balls over the top all day and I'll win most of my games because eventually someone's going to make a mistake. But I'm not preparing those kids to succeed at 12 or 14 or 16 or I'm just preparing them to win today and they're not developing the skill set, the tactical understanding and all of that to be successful players 6, 8, 10 years from now, Right. Or I'm teaching kids to cheat. I'm teaching kids how to cut corners, I'm teaching kids to fake injuries or take dives or whatever. So what am I willing to compromise in order to win this 10 year old game is really a question that I don't think enough people ask themselves. And if it's like I'm not willing to compromise anything about this kid's development, well, I'm probably coaching and teaching in a different way. I'm also giving meaningful playing time to all my kids because we know very well that a kid at 10, 11, 12 years old how they perform then is a very poor predictor of long term performance. So making sure that we're teaching as many kids as possible, as long as possible in the best environment possible, letting them hit puberty, and then starting to say, okay, well, which kid actually might make it? Because I don't know that answer until they're done growing. And for boys, I mean, you might be talking 20, 21, 22, girls a little younger, but you know, so especially in youth sports, just teaching everyone, giving everyone meaningful playing time, holding them all to a high standard and not at a very young age, selecting out a few, because you probably picked just the oldest kids or the most developmentally aged kids, but you probably didn't pick the ones who might be good long term.

[B]

Yeah, it's outliers, right? It's, it's the Malcolm Gladwell work from a million years ago.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Have you found a cutoff when you think. Because I've coached on all ends of this, I've coached everything from early girls basketball, fourth and fifth grade. They've never seen a basketball. We're teaching them what the baseline is, we're teaching them what the foul line is. We're teaching. It's very instructional. Everyone's playing. There's playtime, rules and all that. And then, I mean, I've been a part of high school, but like teams that I've been responsible for, like seventh and eighth grade. Football is very competitive and these are big, strong kids and they're playing to win and they're representing their school. Like, so I've coached everything to that degree. Like, is there a clean designation, like a line where you say, okay, it's okay now to start getting them ready for the real world of sports, which is the best kids play the, you know, if you're bigger, faster, stronger, that's the way it goes. Like, because obviously that's what high school is. How close up till high school can we start playing by those set of rules?

[C]

I think every sport is different and I certainly think football, there's a safety factor as well. Right, right. So like throwing a kid out of.

[B]

Those conversations with our families.

[C]

Yeah. Like, there's a safety factor. And rugby's like that as well. Like you are, you could seriously get hurt in this environment and at the same time. But we want to keep teaching you the skills. We, we want to do the right thing. You know, there's also like, I mean, in other countries outside of the US where their populations are much smaller, they're also not afraid to say to a kid, listen, like, basketball might not be your sport, but this sport could be your sport, right? And so they transfer kids within. Because if I'm looking at a tiny middle school football player and dad's five four and mom's five two, like you're, he's probably not going to be a, a big kid anyway. You know, I, I, so I think if I'm a varsity football coach at a high school, I want as many kids getting playing time as possible. Especially a kid that I'm looking at and going, yeah, he, he just hasn't grown yet, right? I didn't grow. I wrestled at 98 pounds in eighth grade, right. And I was 170 soccer player when I graduated high school, right. So it's like I wouldn't have wanted someone to make a decision on me when I was in eighth grade. So I think it's just, if we take the safety piece out of it, how can we start making decisions now? Also I think, like, let's talk about high school sports. If I'm coaching, you know, varsity football and I got 60 kids on the roster, not everyone's getting playing time. If I'm coaching JV football, I can't get 60 kids in a game, right? So they have to understand that. And I think because of this youth sport environment where we're sending kids to tournaments every weekend and telling them the only value is in games, we undervalue practice. And so it's like, man, start valuing the reps you're getting in practice. And so every coach I think is responsible for, even if this kid might not play a lot of times in games, he's got to get, she's got to get a lot of practice reps. I can't sit kids out of practice and out of games and be like, well, you're just not good enough. Well, how am I supposed to get better?

[B]

Before we get back to the episode.

[A]

Let'S continue our conversation with, with RCX Sports founder and CEO Azel Reese to hear how they are working with professional leagues to elevate the youth sports experience.

[D]

These clubs and these teams of, you know, pick your sport. NBA does a phenomenal job as well. They've been wanting to do more. And so having this conduit and having us in the middle to kind of be an extension of them and, but this is all we focus on, right? So because at the end of the day, the pro leagues and their respective teams, they want to do more, but they also have a professional team or professional club that they got to run and they got to go get a Super bowl or go win a championship. Right. So, so, so having us in the middle to kind of be this is all I'm thinking about. My super bowl is youth sports. My super bowl is, you know, seeing, seeing these kids and them getting that opportunity. So now you got somebody who has expertise, but then also the league operator. So I'm gonna go to the other spectrum, that local park and rec, that local y. Those, those different type of groups, independent groups, those are what we call and we say that local league operator where those, those people that are those boots on the ground, those coaches that are volunteering those times, there's officials that are involved and getting behind them and supporting them. And so that's what we spend a lot of emphasis on and supporting those teams. 2000 plus league operators creating efficient efficiencies for them, giving them tools and resources, truly being that one stop shop for them and supporting them and servicing them so that they can deliver that good, that great experience for those kids within those respective communities. So, and that's, that's kind of how, you know, again we're connecting all the dots, if you will. And it's worked extremely well. You know, still a lot of Runway and continue to grow and accelerate it and enhance it. And I think it's a constant push to get more kids back in sport because at the end of the day there's still a lion's share of kids that are not playing sport. How do we get them back to, you know, to being involved and engaged with sport? Youth sports isn't, isn't going anywhere. But we do know that there aren't as many kids playing youth sports as it used to be. And some of it is because of barriers, some of it because, you know, a variety of things. And so I don't see any slowing down because I mean, you know, you have this opportunity to continue to enhance and pulling kids back in. And every parent wants, every parents wants their kids on a, on a local giving Saturday in their local community to participate and it also to be a better and great experience. And so no, I don't see this slowing down at all. I mean, I know we got our foot on the gas and we're going to continue to do it and it's working. And so there's also a lot of demand for, you know, from, from other sports that have, you know, inquired and asked, hey, how can we be on your platform and what you're doing? We see what's happening, but we want to make sure that, you know, we can continue to deliver and dot the I's and cross the T's and make it a good experience for, for the sports that we're involved in now.

[A]

For more from our interview and to learn how to find or start a team, visit youth.inc/rcx sports.

[B]

Well, it's so funny you say that. So one of the advantage, like when people ask us about we'll just stay with football because that's what we just finished recently. Our biggest advantage, yes, our coaching staff knows football. They played varying degrees, but that's, I wouldn't say that's our biggest advantage. Our biggest advantage is we have a minimum of five coaches, if not more, at every single practice. So to your point, we don't do. Okay, it's offense time. All right, 11 kids get in the huddle. 11 kids go play scout defense. Everybody else go stand on the sideline. We do say it's a two and a half hour practice. We'll do 20 to 30 minutes of team 11 on 11. So you can only have 22 kids. We had just under 50. We had like 47 kids on our team. So there'd be 20 some odd kids for that period. Some would rotate in, others wouldn't get as much. But for the two hours prior, when we're doing linebacker drills, all 10 guys in the linebacker drills, from the starter to the kid who's never played ever before in his life, DB drills, defensive line drills, whatever, every single kid is getting the individual session, the small group session of 7 on 7 or inside run or whatever group period we're doing. And we go from individual to group period to larger group to full scale team. But that full scale team is not until the last 20, 30 minutes of practice. You can't do that with two coaches, right? You can't do that with one coach in a sport like football. There's just too many, there's too many positions, there's too many things to coach. So that's our biggest advantage, is we can instruct in practice. We can do a great deal of individual teaching. Who gets the ball, how many yards, that's up for debate. But every running back on our team goes through the same ball handling, the same quarterback center, you know, quarterback exchange. They all learn the same footwork. They all, you know, all the different skills that involve in the position. So it's such a great point you bring up because we do take great pride and emphasis in our practice reps because we feel that's valuable. And what's so cool about football is it's really the only youth sport remaining that you practice more than you play.

[C]

Right. I agree.

[B]

Our kids, our kids practiced from May to October 15th. We didn't go a week without at least a minimum of three practices. This was all June summer workouts, all July, August training camp into the season. We played seven total games. We practiced for six months.

[C]

Yeah. And even in your game calendar, you practice four times or five times a week. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

It's, it's just a different sport and it's a little bit, it's jarring for some of these kids to learn the value of practice.

[C]

Yeah. And then also like number one, because of that design you had when the kids walked off at the end of the day, you could go, hey, John, what'd you get better at today? What'd you get better at today versus Nothing. Because I didn't get in coach, you know, and I think that's really important from the perspective of owning your development. Hey, everyone, today decide, what are you going to get better at today? The thing that, you know, people ask me sometimes, like what makes you. If I'm driving along the road and I see a sport practice happening, what makes me want to pull over and just go wait, can I just help for a second? And I would say for me, a lot of times it's like spring youth baseball and it's in here In Oregon, it's 40 degrees out and it's freezing and there's a bunch of 8 year olds and they got one kid hitting, some dad pitching, a bunch of kids standing around never going to touch a ball, and four other dads who are quote assistant coaches just standing there doing nothing instead of having five stations, right baseline station, fielding, throwing, hitting, rotate every 10 minutes. And then at the end of that day, the kids got all these reps of everything to be better at baseball. And they're not standing around because I guarantee no kid goes, God, I hope we stand in line all day today. Right. So this is the thing is, but we, we're also not doing those coaches a favor at the grassroots level by telling them, hey, here's what a good 8 year old baseball practice looks like. So they're doing what they did in high school, which isn't really helping them develop 8 year olds.

[B]

It's so just standing around irritates the out. I have such a hard time watching like inefficiencies and wasted time and not maximizing reps and stay. It drives me up the wall. It doesn't matter what the sport is. Some sports are more privy to standing around, right? Like, it's harder to run a baseball practice to keep everybody moving. It takes a lot of thought, it takes a lot of planning. Basketball is a little bit easier because even if you don't do a thing, you just roll a ball out and say, hey, we're playing five on five. Like every kid for the most part is engaged. Basketball's a little bit easier in that regard. But no, you're spot on. The last thing I want to ask you before I let you go, and this is why I love these kind of conversations, because you guys, people like you, you just bring so many really interesting thoughts that then I go and steal and implement with my teams. The last thing I'd love to ask you, like, big picture as you evaluate this landscape, as you kind of see the good, the bad, the in between. Like if you got the magic wand, you became the czar of the day and you got to say, okay, I'm going to change one thing. I'm going to implement one rule that is universal that everyone must abide by because I think it'll make the biggest impact in the positive for youth sports. What would it be?

[C]

Probably multi sport youth sports clubs, like a multi sport club where you sign up, like you sign up for your gymnastics gym and you pay a monthly fee, but you're doing, you know, eight weeks of this sport, followed by this, followed by this. So that. Because the biggest argument that parents make who have a kid who's a competitive young athlete is if I just do the rec sports, by the time we're eight or nine, all the good athletes are gone. They've moved into full time baseball, full time soccer, full time, whatever. What if we could keep all those athletes in a multi sport club where at least until 10, 11 years old, it was just seasonal sports. They got to sample a couple, they paid some money, but they got good coaching, good exposure, and then they got to say, you know what I like better? I like basketball best. I think I'm going to play more basketball. Like, I think that would make a big difference and allow parents to not feel the fear of missing out. That if I don't sign up for the travel basketball at 8, my kid will never catch up again. I think that could make a huge, huge difference.

[B]

Oh, there's a keeping up with the Joneses component to all of this. I've always said there's a lot of people that are doing things with their kids that they don't necessarily want to do or believe is right, but they almost believe they don't have A choice.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So they just do it almost against their own self interest, you know, and.

[C]

Against their kids self interest or they're.

[B]

More importantly their kids self interest. Exactly. My answer was kind of along those lines.

[C]

I.

[B]

My rule was you're not allowed, you cannot run sanctioned athletic events outside of your seasonal, the calendar season. So you can't run baseball events outside of the spring. You can't run basketball events outside of certain months. And if you want to expand it, you know, a couple months on either side to give a bigger chunk, great. But like we do not need to be doing baseball events with 12 year old kids in November.

[C]

Right.

[B]

December. Like it's just unnecessary to then start up again in February.

[C]

Yeah. Greg, I just had a kid that I coached for five years in soccer, was a first round pick of the Orioles in baseball, and I would go to his high school baseball because it's very close with him and his family. And there'd be 10 scouts there and they were all so excited that he had played soccer until he was 15, that he played basketball, that he was fast and aggressive from these other sports, and that, you know what, he's already this good and he's probably got an upside because he didn't spend his whole life playing baseball when he was 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 years old. So they're like, man, he's got an upside. And so imagine if this is all he did. Yeah, yeah, he's, he's done. He's a finished product. Yeah.

[B]

So true.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Jeff Francoire, Jeff Francoeur was on my pod a couple weeks ago and he was the exact same story. He was like an all state football player, obviously took the baseball path and got drafted. And he said the exact same thing you just did. He goes, you know what the scouts thought about, loved about me. They're like, this kid plays seasonal baseball. He might not be the best kid, but all the other kids who are better than him, this is all they've ever done. They have maxed out their potential. They've never missed a batting session. They've never. This kid takes five months off because he goes and plays football. He trains for football. Could you imagine when we get him for 11 months a year, how good he'll be?

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

And the fact that he's probably not going to blow out his elbow or his shoulder.

[B]

There's a whole. Yeah, there's a whole overuse. A whole overuse component. John, this is just, these are like my favorite conversations. I wish we could go on for two hours, but for the sake of your time. We're just gonna have to get you back for, like a recurring guest because there's so many other topics I want to jump in. But again, John o', Sullivan, thank you so much. Appreciate you joining us at you think and appreciate all the good work that you're doing in the space.

[C]

Greg, thank you so much for what you're doing because you certainly don't have to do this, but you, you give a lot of your time and energy to kids and youth sports and it means a ton to all of us out there beating the, beating the ground, trying to change it. So thank you for what you do and giving us such a big platform.

[B]

We're happy to appreciate you, John. Before we wrap up, let's close out.

[A]

Our conversation with our friends at RCX Sports. I spoke to a father and daughter who are living the youth sports experience daily to hear how RCX has helped them.

[E]

I get excited to know that they'll have memories of doing some of these things. They'll know that their parents were able to take them out to go play these sports. They'll make friends all over the city with the way our city is now, with not really community schools, because everything's chartered. You have, like, people spread all over the city. So it gives them a chance to meet new kids and have those experiences. And so that's something that brings joy to my heart, knowing that they're going to have a childhood that's full of joy, that's full of fun, and they get a chance to play all these different sports and see what they like. So that's been really, really exciting.

[D]

It feels like I'm a pro and.

[C]

It feels like I'm actually playing for the team I'm wearing, and it feels like I'm the big dream.

[E]

They've done a great job of going all over the city, connecting with different schools, connecting with different, with different communities and creating a cost that allows all families to get a chance to be a kid, part of playing, of getting a chance to be in the sports and to be a part of these teams. And so they've done a great job of just connecting with different community, different community members, getting the word out. I think you can tell by what's going on with 18th Ward that they're just doing an amazing job. They're not all trying to do just one sport. They can do many sports. So all those things create an environment that creates a great place for kids.

[C]

To learn and grow. Having fun is very important because what's the point of playing a game without having fun.

[A]

For more from our interview and to learn how to find or start A team, visit youth.inrcxsports. thanks so much for listening. If you want more, make sure to subscribe. As always, check out more on youth.in or across our social platforms.