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Youth Inc. with Greg Olsen
Kirk Herbstreit Breaks Down Miami vs. Indiana & What Parents Get Wrong About Recruiting
00:39:56
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- [00:00]
Greg Olson
I'm a fan of the Miami program. When I grew up, those impressionable years, for me in high school, Miami was the early Miami. Miami was Michael Urban and blowing people out and doing backflips on the sideline and coming out in the smoke.
- [00:12]
Kirk Herbstreit
Irvin's still doing backflips on the sideline. 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. Welcome to you think. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode here on you think. And today is going to be a really special one for a lot of reasons. A guy that I really look up to, we now operate in the same world. Probably the busiest guy in the football season. Probably the biggest, busiest guy in the face of the earth. NFL analyst, college football analyst, all around great guy. So much to dive into. But Kirk, Kirk, Herb Street. Really appreciate you taking a couple minutes to join us on you think?
- [01:02]
Greg Olson
Yeah, man, glad, glad to be on with you there. There's a lot going on. NFL playoffs, your, your squad Monday night. Let's go. National championship, home game. I mean, how much better does it get?
- [01:14]
Kirk Herbstreit
You can't, you can't write it up any better. We, we got a shot. I, I guess my first thing is, does the you got a shot, man. I, I, I'm a big Mario crystal ball believer, but can we pull it off?
- [01:23]
Greg Olson
Think about that in 2026. Now we're sitting here saying, do the Miami Hurricanes at home have a shot against the Indiana Hoosiers? I mean, that's where we are with Portal and Nil and Kurt Signetti, what he's created. And you know better than anybody what a culture does and to do it in the blink of an eye. I mean, this is one of the, if you look in the history of college football, this is a program that has suffered more than anybody. And for him to get them to the playoff last year, and they were outmanned a year ago at the line of scrimmage, Notre Dame and Ohio State, it kind of proved that. And then they kind of reshuffled some things, brought some people in and, man, they have been just dominating people, especially in the postseason. So your question, crazy enough, is a fair one. You and I were talking just briefly when we came on. I, I think the biggest thing for Miami, can imagine what that scene will be like, is Indiana has been taking people out just chokehold in the first quarter. And I think Miami has got to find a way to just kind of settle into the game, have some success early and kind of get some confidence, like we. We can do this. Yeah, we can beat these guys, no doubt.
- [02:45]
Kirk Herbstreit
Well, I. I've been very outspoken in my support of Mario. So me and Mario, crystal ball, we go way back. He. I first met Mario this summer going into my sophomore year. He was the assistant tight end coach. He was like the GA you know, like back when I guess there was even.
- [03:00]
Greg Olson
Wow.
- [03:00]
Kirk Herbstreit
Yeah. So he was the GA At Miami. He was working with Rob Chidzinski, who at the time was the tight end coach. Butch Davis was the head coach.
- [03:07]
Greg Olson
Oh, yeah.
- [03:07]
Kirk Herbstreit
So my. So my dad took Greg. Shiano was our connection. We knew him from back home and whatnot. But he was the coordinator at the time, defensive coordinator at the. So anyway, I meet Mario that summer. He ends up going with Shiano to Rutgers. I'm growing up in New Jersey, so safe to say Mario Cristobal was at every track meet, baseball camp. So I've known Mario for 25 years, so I say all. And then he eventually became my tight end coach at Miami at the end of my career. So I say all that. No one knows college football better than you. No one gets to see behind the curtain. No one gets. Talk about the job that Mario has done. And just again, we all think of the legendary Miami teams, but it was a broken program for a long time. And all of us, former alum, we look back now with such pride. But like, give. Give our listeners an idea of just the job Mario has done. And just a couple years ago, they're losing the Middle Tennessee State and now they're in the Natty.
- [04:07]
Greg Olson
Yeah, yeah, I know, because there is so much focus on Indiana and Kurt Signetti. But I think you. You bring up an excellent point, not just because you're an alum and a friend of Mario's, but I'm a. I'm a fan of the Miami program. When I grew up, especially kind of those. Those. Those impressionable years for me in high school, Miami was the early Miami. Miami was Michael Irvin and. And Miami was blowing people out and doing backflips on the sideline and coming out in the smoke.
- [04:33]
Kirk Herbstreit
Irvin still doing backflips on the sideline.
- [04:35]
Greg Olson
I know, I know. But man, it was Miami. It was Florida State as in Oklahoma. I would throw those kind of three teams in, maybe Notre Dame occasionally. And so they. They gained a reputation of not only dominating on the field, but as we know, we've seen all the 30 for 30s, but like the way they went about it and then, then the, the, the Butch Davis 99, 2001, 02 kind of era when they, they got it going again. And then of course the, the Nevin Shapiro stuff. And then the program almost faces the death penalty. And then they, they've tried a lot of different coaches to no avail. Everybody would talk about the swaggers back. They would focus more on the swagger than actually blocking and tackling. And so I mean, I, I remember in 2021, I, I, because I'm a fan of Miami, I have friends like yourself and others that especially the, at the time, the Bear, Chris Fela, he's so emotional and, and just like almost distraught. That is basically our program's done. And I just remember going on the air one time and being like, Miami has to figure out like, does football matter anymore? Like if you're out, then you're out. But a lot of your alums think you're in, but you're not really showing it. You're in the alignment. Just like in the NFL. The owner, the gm, the head coach, college football, it's the president. Used to be the president, the, the not now we have GM's president right in the head coach and the AD have got to be aligned now we have, now we have money involved. But, and, and I remember Miami people, yourself, Jonathan Vilma, a lot of other people saying, holy cow, you got their attention. And they're, they're actually getting serious now. And all of a sudden they, they, they started to let some people go. And instead of the medical school being the focus, that's still the focus, but let's get into football and let's make that a priority. And they went out and got Mario crystal ball. And what I love is Mario didn't do it like that. You know, to really hit the, the bottom of the bottom, you gotta, you gotta weed out some, some guys, right? And you gotta, you gotta slowly build it. In my opinion, Butch Davis did this and you experience this. To watch Butch, it wasn't a quick fix with Butch. He slowly built it up. So when they had that 99, 2000, by the time they got to 01, they were gone. They were taken off and it had a chance to be sustained. And I really think that as much as we're excited about where Miami is right now, I think this reminds me of 2000 when Miami was just knocking on the door where they potentially can be and where they can go long term. And I really think that he's doing it with, as you'd expect, meat and potatoes, offensive linemen, guys that love football, which is, by the way, very hard to do in the Portal era.
- [07:24]
Kirk Herbstreit
Right.
- [07:25]
Greg Olson
Nil era. And in this Instagram era, everything is a reflection of your individual brand and what's in it for me. Never been harder to build team and I think Mario has done that. To his credit, Kurt Signetti has done that. That's why I think they're both in the national championship. So I applaud what he's done. I applaud the resources behind the scenes and the commitment that Miami has made. And they just needed a chance. They needed a chance. They were an underdog. Going to Kyle Field. That was one of the wildest scenes I've seen all year. Towels waving, a home playoff game. And they, they, they got down to the wire, found a way. They go back down to Texas against Ohio State. Another tough game for them. Underdog mindset. They got it done there. Same thing. Think about where they've gone. All these trips on the road and now they get to go to their backyard. I can't even imagine that scene with their home fans, with the Indiana fans trying to buy every ticket. It's going to be electric on Monday night. But I'm happy for Mario and I'm really happy for the Canes and their alum.
- [08:32]
Kirk Herbstreit
Yeah, we're a house full of Canes. My wife went there, I went there. Family members. So we are, if you ask my 13 year old daughter, she's in seventh grade, mind you, she in her mind, that's where she's going. So I love it washed.
- [08:48]
Greg Olson
That's good.
- [08:48]
Kirk Herbstreit
I was like, well, we got some work to do here, girl. We got to figure it out. And all right, so let's, let's go to the step prior. Like the biggest question we get here on you think is, you know, we have people submitting emails and people messaging us on social media and they say, okay, I have a son or a daughter who loves basketball, football, baseball, whatever it is. The day of the high school athlete is very different than the day of the high school athlete of you and I. Where high schools came to our schools, they started recruiting us. If you were good, maybe your junior year, sophomore year, you made a decision as a senior and that's where you went. By and large, that's what your career look like. Those days are over. So talk to us, talk to our listeners who are out there who say, I have a son or a daughter. They love Playing sport. They're a great high school player, but we can't get colleges to come talk to them because we know the quickest way to build your program, whether it's football or girls basketball, is you go out and you get older, more established veteran players in the portal because the idea is to get better quicker. What would you say that landscape looks like boots on the ground for those families?
- [09:57]
Greg Olson
Well, I have four sons. My, my oldest two are. Are 25 now, and my youngest has just turned 19. He was a senior in high school last year. And this was, this was going on. This, this was kind of his. His class was really the first of it. He. He was being recruited. We went to some camps. You know, that, that was something that I found, especially at quarterback. Every, every position's different and every sport is different. In my case, my only experience as a father going through this was, oh, you got to get to the lead 11. Oh, you got to, you know, got to get to this Nike camp, got to get to that. And I, I was very hesitant because I got around that his sophomore year, and it was craziness. It was nothing that felt good to me about true evaluation. It just felt like a money maker. And so I talked with a lot of college coaches and I asked them again what you just asked me, and their recommendation was to send my son to schools he was interested in. So he was interested in North Carolina, he was interested in North Carolina State, he was interested in Notre Dame with Marcus Freeman, he was interested in Michigan. And so we went to the actual camps, their campsite, where their coaches would actually be out with the running backs, with the tight ends, the tight end coaches with the tight ends, and North Carolina tight end coaches with the tight ends and doing drills with them. The quarterback coach, the real North Carolina quarterback coach was with the quarterbacks. And he's watching my son and about maybe seven or eight others, not 400 others. Seven or eight others work out. Right? And so you're planting some seeds just by going to these individual camps. And for my son, that's what kind of between that and then the film that, that you have, obviously that's got to trigger a thought, but it is so challenging because what you're saying, Kurt Signetti or Mario Cristobal, if they need a quarterback, am I going to go take a chance on a kid that we think is going to develop into something, or am I going to go get this kid out of Miami of Ohio who is a sophomore? He started for a couple years. We know who he is, and we're going to go take him and bring him in as kind of a veteran. I still think because it's early in the game, I still think there is a path for a tight end, let's say like Greg Olson, who's a high school junior senior and I know you're an elite player, but I still think there is a route for that player. That's not a five star, that's maybe a three star kid. That, that, that, that, that the guy like Kyle Whittingham at Michigan now is going to look at and say I, I still want to kind of like the NFL. I want to build through the draft and then I want to sprinkle in with the portal. I don't want to now, now there's other coaches are going to say I'm doing everything through the portal. Maybe that's not for, for a father out there, that or a mom. Maybe that's not the route or the school for you. But I promise you there are still coaches that want to find the young Greg Olson's and build their team. And hey, Greg may take a year or two to develop. We need him in the weight room. We need him to kind of develop and mature. But I'll tell you what, by the time he's ready to go, he's going to be a red shirt sophomore and he's going to be ready to take off and we're going to develop him. I still think that there are a lot of guys that want to, at least in the football world, there are a lot of guys that still want to go that route. And I just think you got to do your homework. You got to really turn back the, peel back the onion on the programs and the coaches to find out what their goals are and what their background and their history is with this new world that we're in with Nil and Portal.
- [13:43]
Kirk Herbstreit
So it's such a great point. I want to, I'm going to put development to the side because I think that environment of when now, development, later gets earlier and younger and younger. But I want to dive into that as a separate piece. But I want to stay on this because I think it's super fascinating. So what would you tell a family again, son or daughter? It doesn't have to be football, but obviously that's the world we live in. But I think to the most part it's, it's kind of universal through all the major college sports is, is it better to go to college as a young freshman to a lower? In the days we came out, you Pretty much decided between your best offers. If Notre Dame and Miami and Ohio State were offering you, you didn't go to Central Florida, you didn't go to ecu. But nowadays there's an argument to be made. Instead of going to Notre Dame and waiting three years, two or three years to play like when we were coming out, you can go play at a mid major, you can go play at a, at a power four school, at a non power a group of five school and then transfer your way up. So what do you think's better? Do you think it's better for your kid to go play young and early at a lower level and then work his way up in the portal? Or, or go to that top offer, go to that Power 5 Power 4 school, the Georgia's, the Alabamas, where you know, you might not play as a true freshman, but maybe by sophomore junior you've developed and you've learned. Like which path do you see kids taking more of?
- [15:09]
Greg Olson
Great question. And I don't think I can answer that. I don't think you can answer that. In my case with my son, I brought that very scenario up to him and he was determined to go up. He wanted to go up. Even though he knew Bryce Underwood, the most highly sought after recruit in the nation, was going to be his classmate in the quarterback room, he didn't blink, he didn't worry about it. It wasn't like, oh my gosh, this isn't fair. He, he, he wanted to be like, you know what all the attention is going to be. This is his view. Yeah, I put it in as a dad, I put it, I didn't say here's what you're going to do. Of course I said, here's option one, we could maybe look at this. Or here's option two. Like, what do you think I'm really big on now? Because I had four sons, I had a lot, I messed up a lot. I'm never one to ever have like, here's the answers everybody. I failed. I failed a lot as a dad, you know, And I readily admit that I'm so competitive. When my twins were 8 or 9 playing youth baseball, because I love baseball, I almost couldn't control myself because I was trying to like be that dad, to try to correct them. And I just finally, thank God I saw their faces one time and I kind of like caught myself. It was a really emotional moment for me because I didn't never wanted to be that dad and I was being that dad. And so I had to pull back. I was like an assistant coach, I. I ended up just sitting in the stands and I became a cheerleader. If they struck out, you know, I. I didn't. I didn't go up to the back of the bench and say, hey, you know, you got to keep your. Gotta keep your, you know, now, early. I. I admit I did do that. Not. Not crazy, but I. So I failed a lot. And so by the time I got to my third or fourth son, I was much more chilled. I was much more. Is it in your heart? Not in my heart. Is it in your heart because, you know, because you went to the highest level as much as it's in your heart, Greg, if it's not in your daughter or your son or, you know, or anybody out there, their kid's heart, they're never going to make it, you know. So to answer your question, I think you have to put these options in front of them and explain them to them. And then I think it's really important for just their own development to let them work through that and think about, man, do I want to go to ecu, and maybe I got a better chance to play early, and maybe if I kick some butt and I'm playing as a freshman or sophomore, maybe then I can look to walk in and you've seen my tape, and I'm ready to start right now. As opposed to going to a Michigan or a Notre Dame or Miami and learning through, getting mental reps and developing. And there's. It's two totally different paths, especially in 2026. So I would just encourage you to get your son or your daughter involved, kind of lay it out for them, and let them be involved in. In making those decisions.
- [18:16]
Kirk Herbstreit
What's up, guys? Do you want custom fanware, like this cricket shirt for Charlotte Christian School? We've got premium apparel from your favorite brands. The best part about it is I don't have to just wear it to Charlotte Christian's events. I can wear it to golf. I can wear it to lunch. It's turned into my uniform. Go right now over to youth.in Sign up for our newsletter. It talks about our podcast for that week, our interview guests, all the breaking news across the landscape of youth sports, and you can win one piece of merch for your school by going to sign up today. And remember, it's not dot com, it's Youth Inc. Now back to our episode. It's all such great advice, and I'm right alongside you, dude. Like, I have driven home from a lot of games. I mean, just last night, going to My son and my daughter's basketball games at school. And I sit there and I'm just like, yeah, I. And I have. And I am the first to admit, like to all the parents around me, they kind of laugh because they know me now. I'm like, let me just get it out of my system during the game. And then after the game I'm good, but I just, I can't help it. I know it.
- [19:16]
Greg Olson
I'm gonna go stand in this corner.
- [19:18]
Kirk Herbstreit
And I'm just gonna pay attention to.
- [19:19]
Greg Olson
Me, Pay no attention to me.
- [19:21]
Kirk Herbstreit
Just ignore me. And then we'll go out for pizza. Yeah, but like, you need give me my space.
- [19:26]
Greg Olson
Yeah, dude, I'm. I'm right there with you.
- [19:28]
Kirk Herbstreit
I'm ready. I can't help it. I can't help it.
- [19:31]
Greg Olson
I can't either.
- [19:31]
Kirk Herbstreit
I. It's just. It is what it is.
- [19:34]
Greg Olson
Yeah.
- [19:35]
Kirk Herbstreit
So we spend a lot of time working over at the kids school, me and my dad who were, who was my high school football coach.
- [19:40]
Greg Olson
He.
- [19:40]
Kirk Herbstreit
I had two brothers, we all played college ball. They were quarterbacks. Somehow I got. Somehow I got left out of the picture. There I went. My older brother Chris went to Notre Dame and then finished at Virginia. As a quarterback. Yeah. And then my younger brother was like a national recruit. He could have gone anywhere. He went to Miami. He finished his career at UNC Charlotte. But like I always say to my dad all the time, I'm like, talk to me about like why I didn't get to throw the ball. Like, he's like, because. Because you were too close to Chris and somebody needed to catch it. I was like, it's bullshit. God, I would have made so much more money anyway, so I love it. It's the best. So my dad coached all of us hard, you know, typical high school coach there for 40 years program, year in, year out, very consistent. So now he lives down here in Charlotte with us. And for the last four years, my dad, me, Luke Keakley, Jonathan Stewart, we all coach. It's the best. So we coach the kids team at our kids school, Charlotte Christian. So we're allowed where we coach the middle school, but obviously the high school kids are around us and we've got college bound athletes and kids. So everyone always comes to me, right? They're being recruited. How do I get recruited? What should we consider friends of ours? So as I've taken in, and I haven't gone through it as a dad, so I don't know this landscape like I know the former one, but tell me this is the Advice I give them. So again, this is just my. I haven't been through the fire like you, has I? My advice to them is use athletics to get yourself into a school that otherwise you wouldn't be able to get into. If you could get into an Ivy, if you can get into a Notre Dame, if you can get into a Virginia, Chapel Hill, so on and so forth. And maybe as a student, that's not your world. Maybe you're the tier or two below. I say value that now, playing time and all that, that's going to come and go. In today's world, there's no perfect fit. You're going to go where you think you have a perfect path and. And tomorrow two transfers could come in. If you're going to just jump around chasing playing time, then, I don't know, have a lot of it. I don't have a lot of advice for you on that. Like, you just going to have to get lucky. But like, I just think there's such an avenue through athletics that we can just forget being a professional, forget earning a living. If you could get a better degree, a free degree, a partially free, whatever that element is above what your baseline academics, in my mind as a dad, and just that would be my goal for my kids. I have no visions of my kids becoming professional athletes. I have no visions of them becoming college athletes. But if their involvement in sport gets them a better college, acceptance gets them into a better academic situation, to me, that's what I would value in today's landscape. Am I crazy? I don't know why else.
- [22:39]
Greg Olson
I have nothing to add. And I think what's challenging, if we're just being candid, I call it the Earl woods syndrome. My generation of parenting, I'm a little older than you. When Tiger woods was 3 or 4 years old, he was on, I don't know, it was the Tonight Show. He's on a show. No one knew he was going to become Tiger Woods. And he like, look at this little guy hit the golf ball, you know, and his. And his. And his dad was on there and he's talking about all we do is hit the golf ball and blah, blah, blah, and then he becomes Tiger Woods. So all the dads, my generation thought that's. That's what you do. So whether it was basketball or it was football or it was golf, baseball, that's when playing one sport 12 months out of the year really took off. And I call that the Earl woods syndrome, where parents like my age saw that because I felt it. Wow. You know look what, look at Tiger woods became. So that's what I'm going to do with my kid. And I think what happened is just, we, we, this is what we're going to do. This is what we're going to do. And a lot of the kids that Tommy John surgery, they're burnout. By the time they get done with playing 85 games when they're 12 years old, it's summer baseball and they're kicking ass and they got all these rings and trophies. By the time they get to high school, they're like, tommy John surgery, I'm done. I don't really love it anymore. They're burnout. Right. And I, I bring that up because I think what you're saying, a lot of people that education and get them into a great school, it's going right over their head because they're thinking, greg, have you seen my son? Like he's, he is going to the NFL. Like he is going to be so cute story what you're saying, but this doesn't really apply to my kid. He's been shortstop all the way through. He's a point guard. So I like what you're saying, but maybe that's for the other parents, not, not really for me. I swear to you. I guarantee when you say that that's what some of the people are saying, what you're saying to me because you and I are around this. We know how it's rarefied error to get to college athletics. That's rarefied air. Oh, the world where you went and Luke went and Jonathan Stewart went, that's like one in a million. One in a million to go up there. And yet that Earl woods syndrome, we can't let go of thinking our kid's been the man since he was 5. And so your approach, your advice is spot on. I hope you'll continue to do shows like this and everybody you talk to because I, I think when I talk about education, my son's at Michigan.
- [25:25]
Kirk Herbstreit
If you win, he won.
- [25:27]
Greg Olson
He won. We just went through the Sharon Moore stuff and it was like, oh my gosh, everyone's leaving. I was like, who, who are they going to name coach?
- [25:35]
Kirk Herbstreit
Because my kids, you're going to walk away from Michigan. Nothing against these other universities, but yeah, you're going to leave a potential four year degree from Michigan to go to. Again, not bringing up other names, but no, no chance. It's probably not going to be Michigan. Right, Right.
- [25:52]
Greg Olson
And here comes Kyle Winningham, so from Utah. He's a, he's buttoned up he's old school values when is. But they could have named anybody. My son was staying at the University of Michigan. He'll be there for four or five years. He's going to get a degree and, and hopefully down the road maybe he'll have an opportunity to play. Who knows? We'll see, we'll see how that goes. But when you bring up education, you bring up what an opportunity. I think it's almost like watching a, A Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart. Like, you know, it's like the 40s or 50s like an education. What? Yeah, but you're so crazy man. I mean it's a game changer if you can get into a Virginia or you can get into a Notre Dame, whether it's volleyball or basketball or baseball. Oh my gosh, this is a 40 year plan. Not, not roll the dice and we're going to the league. No. Oh, you're not going to the league. You might, but in the meantime let's go get an education.
- [26:49]
Kirk Herbstreit
Well, because we're making six month decisions. Right. Instead of 25 year decisions. It's a perfect segue. So Adam Grant is like this world renowned author and he posted something he wrote, hidden Potential. He's written like a ton of really, really interesting books on everything you're talking about. And he released this big study about like early specialization creating great early athletes. And when they've tracked them and they like chart them over long periods of time, kids that specialize in one sport get better faster. So it's misinterpreted as they're better than the multi sport kid or the kid that doesn't play travel or so on and so forth. But over a long period of time it's kind of like a J curve. There is when you do multiple sports there is a little bit of a bottoming out and then you end up accelerating. And over long periods of time early specialization making better youth athletes is actually making worse long term adult athletes. And because it's not a 25 year long term push it forward development. So I, I, everything you're saying is not just what we all feel. It's backed up by like hard science and data. We just, it's, we just have to continue to champion this and get more and more people to take a deep breath and say okay, I am willing to play the long game. Which is easier said than done certainly.
- [28:18]
Greg Olson
Yeah. Because I going back to again my younger days of My kids are 7, 8, 9, 10. Even though I knew better. Like we're talking right now, we both know Better.
- [28:29]
Kirk Herbstreit
Yeah.
- [28:30]
Greg Olson
Well, it's really tough when you, you go out for the travel baseball team or the travel volleyball team or the travel basketball team, and you just got out of wrestling or you just got out of football, and these other kids have been playing it year round and you go out for tryouts and they're hitting ground balls and these kids are turning to and flipping around and your kids just, you know, he's fielding it, but it's not like that. Yeah, yeah. So. And they're making cuts and they're, you know, it's very easy as a parent to feel like, oh, man, which sport do we. Is he really best at or is she really best at? We. We might need to err on focusing on that a little bit more. It's easy to fall down that road because you do see other kids who are doing that and you feel like your, your child is behind. I'm with you. I'm a massive advocate. Like, when we were kids, we didn't know any better. There weren't any books, there wasn't anything online. You were just like, hey, it's the summer. Backyard baseball, you know, hey, it's. It's the fall. We're playing football. It's. It's snow. Where I lived, it's snow coming down. We're playing hockey, street hockey, we're playing basketball. Like, we didn't, we didn't know we were getting better as athletes, but by doing all these different things, we were like, to your point, the long play was making us so much better. But it's really hard. It's easy to sit here in this controlled interview and say that. But boy, when the bullets are flying and you're watching your kid compete and you want him or her to be better, it's easy to say, we need to work harder with our speed coach, we need to work harder with our hitting coach or whatever, you know, So I, I get it. I understand it. But I'm with you. The more you can get them involved in other things, the better off they're going to be.
- [30:14]
Kirk Herbstreit
Yeah, there's a keeping up with the Joneses effect going on here where I don't necessarily want to do this, but when I look around at my peers, if I want my son to make the baseball team at his school, which is highly competitive, all the travel ball kids are going to be the ones that make it. So do you. It's, it's. I, I totally get it. And we fight it. In my house, we fight it. My wife and I, we talk and I'd Sure. That's why I started this. That's why I started. You think, right? To talk to people like you, to talk to James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits and Malcolm Gladwell and Tom Brady. Like people that come at it from all different perspectives and angles. Because I find myself raising three kids, two sons and a daughter and, and I, I had no experience in the girl sports space so I, I've learned to be like a girl dad and like a sports girl dad, which has been incredible. But like I find myself laying in bed at night saying if I don't have the answers, if I'm doing all this wrong. As someone who's literally spent his entire life in locker rooms in sports, in team, I'm sure there's a lot of other people out there that don't know jack either. Like, let's go out and find these. So hence the inspiration. Last. This is the last thing I want to talk to you about because I know you got a busy week and a lot going on. Again, no busier man in America in the football season than you. I don't even know how you do it. But the conversation for another day. The last thing I want to talk about is we've danced around it but like the idea of development and whether you want to come at it from the younger age or you want to talk about what that's done at the college level with Portal and what that's done at the NFL level. There's been a lot of conversation about how does that pathway of kicking the can of development down the road for momentary wins and whether that's the 12 year old baseball team that just assembles on game day and kicks everyone's ass or the college transfer portal, so on and so forth. It's happening at younger and younger ages. How do we recapture the notion of like let's just get better, right? I hear Signetti talk about it a lot where there's just this like over just this obsession with constant improvement. Is that the exception in college sports nowadays or is there more of it going on? We just maybe don't see it at the forefront?
- [32:31]
Greg Olson
Well, I think unfortunately there's an epidemic in youth sports and that epidemic is put the best players on a travel team of whatever the sport may be and beat everybody by 100. I remember my kids were 5 years old and they're playing coach pitch and no one even knew. I mean you had kids hitting the ball and they'd run to third base. Like I'm talking them age. I mean if you got an Out. It was like they got an out. This is awesome. You know, like, it's that level of baseball, and I am a baseball guy, and I just wanted them to learn about, hey, if there's a man on first and the balls hit to you, where do you go with the baseball instead of just heaving it over to first base?
- [33:12]
Kirk Herbstreit
Let's.
- [33:13]
Greg Olson
Let's think about ground balls. To me, man on first. Oh, we have a force out at second. So I'm going to take the ball and I'm going to try to just to. Don't have to execute it, but just to think about what. And you got coaches. After the kid throws it over the first baseman's head, they're just, they're run. I mean, they're trying to score 40 runs, right? They're just run. Instead of like, okay, we'll just advance one base. It's all good. Like, we're not trying to. You know, but these guys think they're Nick Saban, right? They. They think they're trying to win it. And this is happening in every sport in every league all across America. And how do we develop kids and teach them about sportsmanship or about the rules of the game and how to get better, how to be a good teammate? Like, all these things are gone. None of that stuff matters. It's all about winning, and the organization's about making money. So that's what youth sports had become. When you were a kid, or I was a kid, you'd have a green T shirt on, I'd have a yellow T shirt on. We'd have a guy out in right field. It was kind of like he didn't really know what was going on. You had a shortstop that was good, the pitcher was good, maybe the first baseman could catch. That's about all you really had. And at the end of the year, you take two or three guys off the red team, two or three guys off the yellow team, make a little all star team, maybe play in a tournament or two, and that was it. You're playing in the creek, you're at the pool with your buddies. But now, you know how it is now. Yeah, I live it.
- [34:40]
Kirk Herbstreit
I live it.
- [34:41]
Greg Olson
Yeah, it's travel this and travel that. And to get into the games as Grandma, she's got to pay her 20 bucks with a ticket to get like, what the hell are we doing? This is insanity. So to your question about development, that's gone. Unless you find a person like you who's taking the time because you've. You've gone to the highest level you care about kids. You're a. You're a person that people should be drawn to. Luke Kuechley is a person people should be drawn to. Jonathan Stewart, because you guys have gone to the highest level and you know, hey, guys, let's pump our brakes here. This is what's really important. And I hope there are more and more people around the country that are raising kids in this. This cesspool and saying, whoa, we gotta. We gotta stop doing this, dude. That's our only chance. Because it is all over the country in every sport. So unless you find a great local coach for your sport, whether it's girls volleyball or whatever it might be, or you can get online, and nowadays you have access to be able to plug into. You find somebody who really kind of gets it, and you can watch videos and you could share with your kids, or maybe the whole team can sit around and. And watch a video, like, from somebody like yourself. I think that's your only chance. Because if you're talking about youth development, I think it's about winning at all costs, getting trophies and these organizations making money. That. That's where we are with youth sports. So you got to find a local coach, you got to find somebody online, and then if you get it to the high school level, you got to pick a high school. Sad as this is, I mean, we just went to the high school wherever you lived when I was. Of course, now you got to think about, well, you know, this school in Charlotte is a really good school. Do we have to move my son to Atlanta? Because I know this coach is really good. Like, I mean, that's. That's sadly where we are with development and perspective. I was a public school kid myself. Moved to Nashville. My kids went to private schools. I didn't know anything about private schools and kind of as a parent, figured my way through that. So I think you have to really, as a parent, see what's really important to your kid. First and foremost, are they in love with this. If they're like, they go to sleep thinking about it, they wake up thinking about it, then you got to do whatever you got to do to help them develop the right way. If they're kind of into it, but they're on their phone, and unless you're telling them, hey, you, have you worked lately on your. Your stuff? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm working on it. Then I don't think you really have to make the sacrifice of whatever. You know what I mean? Like, if they're.
- [37:36]
Kirk Herbstreit
Trust me, I know what you mean. I know exactly what you mean.
- [37:40]
Greg Olson
Do it. And it's special. And they. And they're like, you look out the window. Like my four son look out the window, it's dark out, it's 38 degrees and he's throwing the ball in a net. I didn't tell him to go throw out at 10 o' clock at night on a Tuesday at 38 degrees with flurries coming down to go out there and throwing a net, but that's what he's doing. He'd wake up in the morning before he drive to school, he'd be out there throwing, you know, do. And I'd be watching him like, do this rotational thing. Like, I didn't know anything about it, but he did. So because of that, I was willing to do whatever for him because it was his dream, not my dream for him, his dream. So if your kids have a dream on their own, find people like Greg Olson and others that care about him as people and want to develop them the right way. I think that's your only chance, man, because it's so hard to find people who have perspective.
- [38:35]
Kirk Herbstreit
So it's so well said. Well, Kirk, I know it's a busy week. You're doing play NFL games, you're doing game day, you're doing college football games. Now you got the Natty and game day. Someone's got to keep McAfee's shirt on. Can we. I. I hope he ends up somehow on the Scott on the high dive at school again. That was.
- [38:53]
Greg Olson
I'm sure he will.
- [38:54]
Kirk Herbstreit
That was an incredible Miami University, by the way. Oh, it was all time. Good luck, man. Have a great call. You're a guy that all of us who've kind of entered this arena in the last couple years have always looked up to and really gotten a lot of inspiration. Man, you do a great job. I don't know how you balance it all, but a lot of respect for what you do. And thanks for joining us.
- [39:14]
Greg Olson
Absolutely. I appreciate you having this podcast and the message that you get out there. I think it's so important. I'm just. It's an honor to be on this, to just share some stories again. I don't ever want to come across like I have answers. I just have experience of making mistakes and have learned from my own mistakes and just try to share those with people. So keep spreading the word. Keep doing what you're doing. You're one of the best, obviously, already at doing this. So thank you so much for having me, and I'll look forward to seeing you Monday night.
- [39:45]
Kirk Herbstreit
Look forward to it. Tom. Mario. Let's do it.