Malcolm Gladwell & Dr. Michael Gervais on the State of Youth Sports and More

Summary

Podcast Summary: Youth Inc. with Greg Olsen — "Malcolm Gladwell & Dr. Michael Gervais on the State of Youth Sports and More" Airdate: August 19, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this richly insightful episode, Greg Olsen hosts Malcolm Gladwell—bestselling author of "Outliers," "David and Goliath," and more—and Dr. Michael Gervais—a renowned high-performance psychologist—for a nuanced conversation on the state of youth sports in America. With perspectives as a parent, athlete, coach, scientist, and cultural observer, the trio examines what’s broken (and working) in the development landscape for the next generation of young athletes.

Themes:

• The intense, often contradictory culture of youth sports in America
• Parental pressure, societal expectations, and the "outcomes over process" mindset
• Coaching philosophies, guided discovery vs. structured learning
• Specialization, late development, and long-term athlete growth
• The pressures of college admissions and the evolving role of sports therein

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The State of Youth Sports: High Stress, Low Stakes (00:40–04:37)

• Dr. Gervais opens with the metaphor: If Martians landed, they’d think parents in America had gone "off our rocker" pushing kids so hard for microscopic odds of professional sports success. “High stress, low stakes… most people are never going to get to this end thing. Except we hyperfocus... Parents live through their kids.” (C, 01:29)
• Gladwell observes the competitiveness of youth sports, contrasting it with the inclusive and community-driven nature of adult sports—especially running: “Why are so few people running competitively in high school?... We cheer the last adult finisher, but 11-year-old runners face a crazier, more competitive environment.” (B, 02:28)

2. The Nature and Identity of Each Sport (05:07–07:37)

• Olsen describes the stark differences in parental approach between his sons’ team sports (baseball, football, basketball) versus his daughter’s experience in track & field: “You’re not racing against other girls, you’re racing your last time... but with the boys, there’s one winner and one loser.” (A, 06:35)
• Gladwell and Dr. Gervais discuss “affordances” in sports: the unique characteristics that shape experience, pressure, and skill development.

3. Motivation, Process, and The Outcome Trap (10:22–22:40)

• Olsen questions how parents can push process, personal development, and enjoying the journey when society rewards only outcomes and Instagrammable successes. “‘Winning is a byproduct’ is great in theory, but hard to sell to a 12-year-old in this culture.” (A, 11:40)
• Dr. Gervais notes that in action sports (surfing, skateboarding), lacking mental or technical skills results in tangible consequences—unlike mainstream team sports, where mental skills are paid lip service.
• Gladwell recounts personal stories about natural talent, wasted potential, and the pain for parents when kids don’t share their drive: “There’s something painful about when we observe someone with potential and they don’t share our enthusiasm.” (B, 19:42)
• Olsen’s parental philosophy: Champions tying pride to process, not outcome: “You could go 0-for-3 and have trained hard and I’d be prouder than if you just got lucky.” (A, 21:10)

4. Process vs. Outcome: Participation, Potential, and Personal Growth (22:40–30:31)

• Dr. Gervais and Gladwell affirm that process orientation—building routines, focusing on personal bests—has universal value, not just in sports but in all domains of life.
• Gladwell: “We make the mistake of thinking the connection between work and results is innate, rather than something that can develop slowly over time—I didn’t discover real work ethic until my thirties.” (B, 25:52)

5. Coaching: Humanity, Bias, and The Long Game (38:54–47:52)

• Gladwell shares the transformative effect of a good coach and how their influence is often felt only in retrospect: “He’s doing his best coaching for me now, 30 years later…only now do I understand what he was telling me.” (B, 41:58)
• Dr. Gervais advocates for “guided discovery” coaching—promoting exploration and adaptability over rigid instruction, even if it takes longer to see results. “Structured learning gets results fast, but guided discovery—the long game—builds mastery.” (C, 45:50)
• Coaches are under pressure for immediate results (“parents won’t give me five years if the team doesn’t win now”), creating tension with long-term development goals.

6. Specialization vs. Sampling; Relative Age Effects (52:00–70:52)

• Olsen raises concerns about single-sport specialization driven by coaches' self-interest, not the child’s. “If a coach says you can only play on their team, that’s not in your best interest. It’s theirs.”
• Gladwell discusses “relative age” and Canadian hockey (from "Outliers"), the perils of fast-tracking only the oldest or most developed kids, and how Australia’s “handicapping” in youth swimming tries to even the playing field by maturity level. “Everyone should experience being the littlest and the biggest—there’s learning in both.” (B, 59:21)
• Dr. Gervais (NFL scouting): “We’d often look for guys with older siblings—scrappiness. Don’t always go for the most precocious or overdeveloped.”
• Discussion on “playing up” vs. “playing down”—today’s youth sports often favor keeping top kids as stars, rather than challenging them.

7. Navigating College Admissions and the Sports Arms Race (79:25–86:39)

• Olsen: Parents’ urgency is fueled by the fear that sport is their child’s only way into (top) colleges; it “feels like a competition” of bumper stickers and flagpoles.
• Gladwell: “The only thing I’ll insist on for my daughter is some kind of physical activity for life. Don’t make it a means to an end.” (B, 81:12)
• Dr. Gervais: There are alternative admission pathways—junior college could lead to top state universities.
• The trio agree that stress over admissions is real, but that abuse of the system (overinvestment in rare sports like rowing, tennis, etc., for admissions edge) is largely from the upper income echelons.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Dr. Michael Gervais (on today’s youth sports culture):
  “High stress, low stakes... what is this really about? I think they’d say, this is about parents living through their kids.” [01:29]

• Malcolm Gladwell (on the backwards nature of youth sports):
  “11-year-old runners are in a crazier, more competitive environment than adult runners are in.” [02:28]

• Greg Olsen (on process & outcome):
  “You could go 0-for-3 and Monday-Friday you worked your ass off—I’d be happier with that than the other way around. The outcome is not indicative of the work put in.” [21:10]

• Gladwell (on parent frustration): “There’s something painful about when we observe someone who has potential and they don’t share our enthusiasm for that potential.” [19:42]

• Dr. Gervais (on learning):
  “Guided discovery over time—the person taught through discovery has far more capability... Structured learning gets results fast, but it’s not mastery.” [45:50]

• Gladwell (on the long game in coaching):
  “He’s doing his best coaching for me now, 30 years later… only now do I understand what he was telling me.” [41:58]

• Gladwell (on sport and life):
  “The kid who learns he must pick football or baseball by age 11 is also the one who comes out of college stressed about finding his role in the world.” [76:18]

• Dr. Gervais (on specialization):
  “To tell kids to pick one sport before they even know who they are or what they like is a huge injustice.” [75:52]

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Timeline of Key Segments

• 00:40 – State of youth sports in America: parent ambitions, high-stress culture
• 04:37 – Youth vs. adult sports; inclusivity and participation
• 11:40 – Societal pressures, outcomes vs. process debate
• 19:42 – Parental frustration: wasted potential and personal drive
• 25:52 – “Traits” vs. “Skills”: work ethic as learned, not innate
• 38:54 – Coaching: humanity, bias, and long-term influence
• 45:50 – Structured vs. guided learning
• 52:00 – Specialization, club sports, and fragility of the long-term approach
• 57:25 – Relative age, fast-tracking, and handicapping in youth sports
• 66:01 – Choosing the right team and level for kids
• 79:25 – College admissions: sports as a wedge, parental anxiety
• 84:35 – Socioeconomic divides, sport as opportunity vs. exploitation

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Tone & Takeaways

• The conversation is frank, passionate, and often self-reflective. All three guests blend personal anecdotes with evidence and theory, admitting where they struggle as parents, coaches, and observers.
• No easy answers: The trio repeatedly highlight the tension between outcome pressures (from parents, coaches, and society) and the developmental, life-long value of sports.
• The episode ultimately champions process over outcome, diversity of experience over early specialization, and the long game in personal and athletic development. There is a plea for a culture shift: embracing the slow, messy, individualized nature of growth in sports and life.

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A must-listen for parents, coaches, and anyone shaping the youth sports landscape.

Transcript

[A]

Make sure you subscribe to both our YouTube channel and our RSS feed for all future conversations here at you think when we dreamed up this whole idea of you think. And Dr. Gervais and I have had many conversations on air. He's been a host, he's been a guest. I've been on his. We had one guest from the beginning that I said to have this conversation who has shaped a lot of my sleepless nights and has shaped a lot of the way I view youth, sports and parenting and, and development. All the things we're going to dive into. The white whale guest here at you Think from day one has always been Malcolm Gladwell. So for you to be here with us Today along with Dr. Gervais and I is an absolute honor. So thank you.

[B]

Oh, no. Delighted to be here.

[A]

I've, I told you before, I've read every book. I've listened to every one of your pods. I've listened to every episode you've ever done. Maybe no more popular voice on exploring. I mean, from your work in outliers and just many iconic landmark productions and landmark kind of pieces to really frame the conversation we want to have today. So I'm going to start at the highest level. I'd love to know both of your kind of views. Dr. Gervais. We've had countless hours discussing this on and off the record, but just 30,000 foot view, Martian framing, right. Someone lands here and they say, describe the landscape of youth sports in America today. Today.

[B]

Michael, you want to go first?

[C]

That was really good. You know, I'll take a first pass at it.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

I think if, if Martians landed and they saw what we are putting our kids through, they'd think that we were off our rocker. They wouldn't. I don't think they'd understand why the odds of going from, let's just stick with the NFL right now from high school to the NFL is 0.02%. And the way I like to frame you sports is high stress, low stakes because most people are never going to get to this end thing. So it is, it's meant to be a mechanism to learn more about who you are and to, you know, develop all the character values and some of the mental skills, you know, for life. Except we hyper focus. And I think the aliens would see this. Wait, you say one thing, but you do another. Parents and the odds are really, you know, astronomically out of whack. Like, what is this really about? And I think quickly they go, oh, this is about parents living through their kids. That's what we do here. That's how this works. Yeah. We live through our kids. So that's what I think the easy framing would be.

[B]

I think the other thing they would say, so I'm coming from this, from the perspective I'm a runner. And they would say, why are so few people running competitively in high school or middle school? By which I mean if you look as you know, road races in for adults, mass participation, thousands of people we construct in a lovely way have constructed an area of competition that is open to the very good and open to the mediocre. We don't make a distinction. Right, you don't. Not shamed for coming in last in a road race. In fact, I was just at 1 on the weekend. Some guy, older guy, came in well behind everybody else. We all cheered him because we thought good for you. Right. That's something beautiful. But in youth sports, it's weird. Like I once wrote something about why aren't cross country, why don't cross country teams have 40 kids on them? And why don't, why, why isn't the scoring system 1 through 40 as opposed to your top three finishers are your scores. In other words, why aren't we deliberately trying to create that same mass participation ethos for kids as opposed to right now with this weird thing where like 11 year old runners are in a way crazier, more competitive environment than adult runners are in.

[A]

So true.

[B]

It's completely backwards, right?

[C]

Yeah. That is interesting.

[A]

It's very interesting.

[B]

Yeah. It should be so that of getting, of creating a space. I, I learned this when I was, I was a, you know, a very competitive high school runner. Eventually quit. I got burned out, I think. Quit. Rediscovered running in my 50s when I was no longer national caliber. I was now, you know, on the high end of mediocre, maybe on the low end of reasonably good. But I was relieved of the burden of winning any race. And it, I suddenly realized this is really fun. Yeah, right. I was denied the fun. It wasn't fun when I was 14. It was, it was high pressure, as you say, high pressure. Lows, high stress, low stakes, high stress, low stakes.

[C]

Yeah. You know what's interesting about running is that in high school, so my son is 17 and he's in high school and there's a place for runners, but they tend to be a little different than the other stick and ball sports. Right. Just a little different. Track and field is more aligned with some of the more stick and ball sports. But running, it's kind of like, oh, they Just go away for a while and then they come back and they say it's great. But I don't think many people know what that runner's high feels like or, or that, that euphoric feeling.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So it's funny you guys bring up track. So I did a little track and field in high school, but now I have, so I have an older son who plays the traditional three American sports. He plays baseball, basketball and football. Every season moves to the next one like your stereotypical American young athlete. And then I have twin 12 year old twins and boy girl. My daughter just got introduced to track and field this past winter. She's got a great track and field coach at our school. Just kind of came out to practice, was not allowed to compete in the events and the, and I promise when I get to the point, it's a, it was such an eye opening experience for me because here I am since the boys were very little and it's like it's the most important eight year old baseball game ever. It's the most important nine year old baseball game ever. And if you're not making this team and we've, and we're watching it and we're guilty of it ourselves and we got to check ourselves and say okay, what are we doing? And then I would find myself with my daughter saying, you don't ever have to worry about going to a competition. Just keep practicing. You go to practice four days a week with your coach. Did you learn the hurdles? Did you learn how to high jump? Did you learn how to throw the shot put? Who cares how fast you run? Who cares? We're not going to know. We're not going to get a time on you because you're too young to compete in the meet. Then fast forward to this spring and summer. She was allowed to go to a couple meets as a sixth grader. We signed her up and my conversations in the car with her very different than mine with the boys. And Dr. Gervais knows I'm very honest about my role in all this.

[C]

This is the best part of these conversations. He's really honest with what, what he's.

[A]

Saying to my, I'm saying to my daughter, you're not racing against the other girls, you're not throwing the shot put against the other girls. What was your last time? The last time you ran? Beat your time. You could run a faster time and come in a worse place. You could win an event and the next week run a faster time and come in 10th. That's a great event. But we don't say that to the boys because there's one winner and there's one loser. Right. And so like, I'm in this weird place where, like, to your point, a sport like track creates that environment where it's easy to have that approach. We've created a landscape in a, In a, In a, in a plat. In a situation in society with football and basketball and baseball, the more traditional team stick and ball, where we don't have that luxury. It's did you win or lose? Did you get a hit or did you get out? The sport so much dictates, even just in my own household. So, like, now lay that out across the whole country. I think it's very interesting that you brought up running and just the nature of each sport has its own identity.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's owned the word that sociologists use its own affordances. It's one of my favorite words. No one ever uses it outside of academic articles. But like, an affordance is the set of. Particularly of. Of. Of character. Of characteristic. Characteristic uses or. Yeah, running.

[A]

It's very interesting.

[C]

So how would you. If you were coaching a child, you know, whether it's a, let's call it eighth grade, so they're somewhere around, you know, the beginning of teenagers, how would you start framing? If it was in running or track and field, how would you start framing?

[B]

Well, I have this discussion all the time with my best friend's daughter and son because I was trying to get them to run cross country failed, but I was trying to explain to them what training is. Most running, if you're a distance runner, is done really slowly by design. That's the best way to train. So slow that you should have a conversation with the person you're running with. Most running by design, especially if you live in the countryside, is somewhere that's physically beautiful, right on a trail, on a, you know, somewhere. And like, by design, you can't train. We're not going to ask you to train more than an hour or so a day. Can't you. You will physically break down. So like I've described a time limited, largely unphysically stressful, socially and aesthetically pleasant activity. That's what it is. And if you want to keep doing it at that level for the rest of your life, you can. And you, You're a winner if you do. And if you're one of the 5% and you discover along the way that, wait a second, I could go a lot faster.

[A]

Great at what.

[C]

So you would, you would start with like all of the benefits of movement, social, physical, physiological, environmental. So you'd start with all those. And then at what point would you start leaning in and pressing into like, oh, okay, you got something there?

[B]

And, you know, it would depend. I used to go running with my dad, who's a very good runner when I was. I started running with him when I running with him when I was maybe 11 or 12. And I remember the feeling, the pleasure that came when he picked up the pace. And I realized even then that not everyone had that pleasure associated with this kind of exertion. And he realized it as well. And I would simply watch a child and see whether they had that kind of. Does pleasure come from taking it to, you know, it's going to be what, 10% of kids or 5% of kids gonna have that particular pleasure?

[A]

Question again, I always apply it to like my boots on the ground. I don't obviously understand these concepts at the level that you guys do. I just experience. I just know them through my own experiences, both thinking I'm doing it right and oftentimes knowing I'm doing it wrong. There's like a practical component to all of this, right? Like, okay, in theory, this all. I sit here, we all sit here and say, this makes a lot of sense. Okay, but how do we now with the, with the society we're living in and the cultural impact that these kids are having, and the faces and the phones and the social media, there's a feedback element to like a. That rewards what society values versus maybe what innately these kids value. Right? So I see it with my own kids. It's hard to convince someone, even though it's in their best interest to go run, it's visually esthetically pleasing, it's rewarding, it's healthy, it's safe, it's very time. It's not time consuming. There's so many qualities. But in today's society, do we reward those activities? Are they held in a cultural significance that encourages kids to go out for the cross country team? So, like, that's what I see on the ground. Getting kids to do what's in their best interest at 12 and 13 is very challenging because what we know and what we try to implement is saying this is in your best interest is not what society is rewarding. It's not what their Instagram page is rewarding. It's not the kid they're seeing hit home runs and the kids they're seeing, they're fighting that. Right? So I guess my question to you guys is how much of these kids experiences are in our control as parents and how much are we really at the mercy of a society and a culture that we all don't have a ton of control over? We're just trying to hold on to the reins as they navigate their own paths. How, as parents slash coaches, do we try to continue to steer our kids towards certain activities, certain approaches? You know, the theory that the concept we always try to give our kids is like winning is the, is the byproduct of our actions, right? Like how you train, how you perform your routines, your habits. The winning will take care of itself. You know, the old Bill Walsh book. But it's very hard to convince a kid of that in the society. In the, in the society and the, and the culture that they're living in. How as parents, do we combat that?

[C]

I grew up in non traditional stick and ball sports, so I, I want to answer this in two different ways. Non traditional stick and ball action sports. So action adventure sports, surfing, skateboarding, motocross.

[B]

Oh, you're a Cal. Are you a California?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Are you a Southern California?

[C]

I. I sense disdain right there.

[B]

No, no, no.

[A]

A little something get into that.

[B]

Not, no, not, no, not disdain. A little glimmer of insight.

[C]

Oh, you now you.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Oh, that's fun.

[B]

You're starting to make sense to me.

[C]

Oh, good.

[A]

This episode of youf Think is brought to you by by Players Health, a company that believes youth athletes deserve the safest and the most accessible environments possible to play the sports they love. To break this down, I spoke with Tyre Burks, Players Health's founder and CEO, to hear the mission and principles of Players Health firsthand. We have a really special guest, the founder of Players Health, Tyree Burks. Tyre, thanks for joining us here on you think. I'd love to just hear a little bit about your background, a little bit about starting and founding of Players Health and really just why you saw a hole in the youth sports kind of world that you thought needed to be filled, and it is being filled by your work with your team at Players Health.

[D]

My background and where I grew up, the environment that I grew up in played a huge part of me creating Players Health. I grew up in the south side of Chicago. Sports truly saved my life and when I say that, like I had an opportunity to choose two paths. House either was the streets or sports. And fortunately enough, I chose sports. I was invited to come out to a youth football practice. I showed up early and I stayed late and it kept me out of the streets. And so there's been two things that I've been obsessed with. You know, the past, call it 15 years in my. Call it professional career, as I've been, I've been focused on safety and I've been focused on sports. Like, I've just been obsessed with those things. I know what a. It feels like to grow up in an environment where safety is a luxury and sports was a safe place for me through that experience. I had all these injuries growing up. I had. I got three bulging discs in my neck. I ended up tearing my hamstrings, broken fingers, ligaments, you know, just playing sports and playing football. We didn't have athletic trainers growing up with a school I went to, and then until I went to the college level, I really didn't understand policies and protocols around how these things are managed. And so when I look back over my career, I end up playing in the Canadian Football League for a couple years. And I decided to hang it up. I started to reflect on my career and go, hey, had these injuries would have been managed a lot better when I was younger, like, who knows what would have happened, but maybe I would have played a lot longer. And so I started to look at the impact that I wanted to make in, in my life and, and, and also in the world. And sports was such a. He played a huge role in my life, so I wanted to give back to it. And Players Health was my way of going about doing that. And so our mission has been the same mission since day one, which is how do we create the safest environment for an athlete to play the sport that they love? I think this is something that the world needs for our youth. And so we've been focused on leaning into creating those safe spaces.

[A]

Here at Youthink, we want to bring value to you, the parents, coaches, the athletes listening in everything that we do. Check out Players Health today and let them know. Youth Inc. Sent you. Now back to the episode.

[C]

So I'm gonna pull that thread a little bit further and give you my framing first and then maybe answer it in a way where research would suggest so. My experience growing up in sport is that if you didn't have the tools. So think about surfing now. Just make it dramatic for big wave surfing. If you didn't have the technical tools, the physical tools and the mental tools, if you didn't have those in place and, and you put yourself in a situation where the waves were big, they were just beyond your. Your zone of comfort. And it was more business, if you will, than fun. You get hurt or there was A chance that you could get hurt. And if you didn't get hurt, you would instantly know, oh, this is dangerous. I just got held under for like call it 15 seconds, which is a long time to be tumbling underwater. And then you, you come up gasping for air and you pop your head up and you've got another one coming on your head. So if you didn't have the tools, you could find yourself in a difficult, challenging, near dangerous position. So that why do I set that up is because from the inside out, this internal drive was I better get my mind, my mental skills right, my technical skills and my physical skills. If I want to go get better, if I want to go do the thing that seems like is interesting or challenging or that everyone else is doing, it didn't matter. But I knew that I had to build my skills, crosswalk that to modern day sport. Right now that's more stick and ball. Kind of traditional is that it is more about winning and skills are important, but mental skills are not. So it's almost a left behind narrative that happens in fleeting moments like things like, hey, make sure you're focused out there. Well, focus is actually a skill that you can develop and teach. Hey, be confident out there. This is the coach or the parent speaking. The mechanics of confidence are relatively simple and you can teach them. So it's a throwaway comment, the mental part in traditional stick and ball sports, whereas it's a forced function in action sports growing up. Meaning if you don't have it, you could find yourself in trouble. So you better go get it, you better figure it out. Yeah. So that's one of the ways I think about the narrative around young sport.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You know that we're shaping the.

[B]

I. Well, I was just going to say a couple of random things. One is that one of the reasons why parental expectations are as problematic as they are. You've already given us some of the reasons. But I always think about this with my respect to my wife who is I. This is key. This is also true of my older brother. But I'll stick with my wife for a moment, who is as naturally gifted an athlete as I have ever met in my life and has no interest whatsoever in doing any. She's a, as a runner is. I mean, first of all, if you watch her run, you're like, oh my God, I actually think I fell in love with her watching her run. Never seen anything so beautiful.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Just, yeah, this grace and. And then she's so good. She, she tossed off a five minute mile on a treadmill. After not having run in her late 30s. After not having run for, like, as far as I could tell, years.

[C]

Oh, she got an engine, too.

[B]

Oh, she's. Wow. She would be. I think she had a shot at being world class. Zero interest. If she was in here right now, she'd be bored with the conversation and would be like reading a book. So there's something painful about when we observe someone who has potential in something and they're not. They don't share our enthusiasm for that potential. And that's.

[A]

He just summed me up after 10 minutes with.

[C]

With.

[B]

That's what's going on with parents, with you and your.

[C]

Yeah, I was gonna say that was.

[A]

Me and my kids. No, no. I don't even mean as a dad. I just mean in my experience in youth sports, what you just said, if I could put it on a T shirt and wear it, is is me. My frustration lies. And I always say, if my boys were sitting here right now, I'd say, what's the. What's the saddest thing in the world? And they would roll their eyes and they'd go wasted. Potential. Right. Wrong or indifferent. Is that the wrong pressure? I don't know the. I don't know the impacts of that. It's just the only way my brain works.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If we're going to be. We're going to do something, we're going to be good at it. I don't. I am not good at participation. I'm just. I know it. I'm not. Do I probably lay that out on my own kids? Yes. Do I lay it out on the kids of the teams that I coach? Yes. And I'm the first to raise my hand and to say yes. I don't know any other way than saying, if we're going to spend all of this time and we're not going to go on vacations, we're not going to go. And you guys say, you want to do it, let's do it. And you are so capable of being great. And you say you want to be great, but I'm not seeing step one, two, three, four in the process. I always tell the boys, again, I coached my boys longer. My daughter's just gotten into more competitive sports. She was a little bit later in the. In the process. And I always say to them, I said, you could go 3 for 3 in your baseball game, but Monday through Friday, you didn't put the work in. You got lucky, you could go over three. And Monday through Friday, you worked your ass off and you were Doing your workouts and you were doing your routine and you were doing your product, you know, your progressions and all these little batting sequences that the kids do to, like, train different techniques and bat path and all this that they do. And you could go over three. I'd be happier with the second situation. You guys tie your success so much to the outcome and that you ignore all the steps leading up to it. And you might find if you put in poor outcomes, you might find success. I almost don't want you to find success because every time you find success, but you know in your heart you didn't work hard that week. You are reinforcing and a disconnect between the work and the outcome. I want you every time you don't put in a good week of work to fail in my brain, because at 12 years old, I don't want you to connect. I can do it anyway, because you can't. It doesn't work. That's just the way I process. Like, I don't want them to get confused. The outcome is not indicative of the work put in. And to watch people not put the work in, that they're capable and then get frustrated with the outcomes drives me up the wall. So that phrase you just met in Pat said in passing, that sums up my entire approach to everything. And it's a struggle in youth sports because not every kid is going to be as passionate as you are at 40 when they're 12.

[C]

Yeah, of course. Yeah. So when it would be easy to kind of, I don't know, think. All right, Greg, like, man, back it down a little. You're so intense. Like, are your kids sure that they want it as much as you do? Like, it'd be easy. But when you explain it that way, drawing a link between process, performance, and then outcome, that. That's like this recipe that would serve, whether it's in writing or relationship making or whatever, it would be just about anything. So that linkage underneath is really cool. And I will say I'll bring this forward, is that I was a good little soccer player. Okay. And it came very, very easy. And I'll give you an anecdote to or a story to bring this to surface. My family, they were pretty laissez faire in parenting. Yeah, I'll just keep it there. Pretty laissez faire in parenting. It wouldn't be uncommon for us to be late to the game. And here I am a. Let's call it a. I don't know, probably in fourth or fifth grade. This is early days in sport for me. And I was late. The coach knew the signal when they were already playing the game. When Mike is coming to the field, one of the kids had to leave and I would just run on. So they wanted to win. And even though that I broke all the rules, they rewarded me for being sloppy and talented. Then we moved to a bigger city and we went to a bigger city and it was a tryouts. Now I was the kid that just ran on and another kid had to come on. Poor kid, right? Did all the work. This is terrible coaching, may I say parenting as well. So I tried out for the team. I was making a B team. There's a bigger city, bigger. And I said, oh, no, I can't do B teams. And I left the sport. I wish my parents would have, like, said, wait, hold on, you've got something natural here. But they didn't know how to do what you know how to do, Greg. So in one way, you're giving yourself your kids this great service. In another way, maybe there's too much heat, there's a too much kind of intensity around it. Not for me.

[A]

True.

[C]

Yeah. But I didn't get what you're giving your kids. And my life would probably pretty different if I stayed in stick and ball sport. I'm very happy with my life.

[A]

Okay, bye. That's on the record.

[C]

Yeah, I'm very happy.

[B]

I. I wonder, you know, there's another piece of this I that I think would be worth talking about, which is this. The second mistake we make as parents is our assumption that what we're looking for is a trait as opposed to a skill, by which, I mean, you were sort of hinting at this earlier, Michael, but like this connection between hard work and the outcome that you were talking about, Greg, we assume that it's either there or not. And if it's not there, we have to like, as opposed to saying maybe this is something that emerges slowly. I know lots of people who didn't make that connection in other parts of their life until they were in their 30s. I didn't work very hard in my 20s.

[C]

You did not at writing or.

[B]

I spent the latter, the early part of my 30s, essentially goofing off at the Washington Post, sitting in an office in New York watching MTV and trying to do as little work as possible. I now work harder than I work harder at 61, than I did at 31. Way harder. Just took me a long time to figure out that there was this connection between what I wanted. And I wonder with kids too, where maybe we're just rushing them on this that like there's a moment. I use running examples. There's a moment as a runner when you really begin to enjoy the connection between the preparation and the outcome. And part of what's pleasurable about a nice long Saturday morning run is you're thinking, you're already thinking in advance what that's going to mean when I want to do something with it. Right. But I didn't have that when I was 14. I got that when I was 50.

[A]

Yeah. I'm looking at it through the frame of a 40 year old who's only professional athlete. Professional athlete. For my entire life, all I've ever known is trying to play at a high level and peak performance. And it's all.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I've almost been trained. And again, this started for me. I was the son of a high school football coach who was hard discipline, traditional old school high school football.

[C]

Legendary high school.

[A]

A million games. One of the most in northern New Jersey right outside of in Wayne, New Jersey, right outside the right down Route 3. And yeah public high school won a million games. Traditional high school. What you would think of as high school football in the 80s, 90s, 2000s. That was my dad. That was our program and it worked. And that's where I learned all of my habits, all of my grind. Our summer vacations for us were going to football camps and sleeping on the floors of the dorm like it's all I ever knew. But I also sometimes have to check myself and say, okay, these kids don't have 40 years of the experience in life. Life experiences of high achievement and what they're 12.

[C]

So do you Greg, to just check your orientation. Can I ask you some questions? Yeah. Just to better understand if there's a, a fundamental orientation to work from. And fundamentals a big word for me. Either I'm approaching success or I'm avoiding failure. And so in one of those two would reveal a lot of somebody's psychology. So if you, if you. Let's just do you and you'll see how this would easily bleed into your kids. That I'm terrified of blowing it. Go, go. When you were on the field, I work my ass off. I work. I was in film, I was doing everything. I did my mental image, I did all of my work so that when Sunday came I wouldn't blow it. Or was it more like, no, I got something and there's a lot of good here and I want to maximize this because it is so much fun to play and to play freely. Very different Orientations, very different psychological constructs that. And when I say psychological constructs, what a construct does is it allows the effervescent little, small, little conversations we have with ourselves kind of filter into something that has some weight over time. So when you played, which one were you? And then how are you doing? I would imagine you're doing it similar with your kids, not dissimilar. But can you just open that up?

[A]

My, my confidence. Everything about me was routine and preparation. I. All of my insecurities, all of my fears, all of my. I don't want to drop the ball. I want to make sure, like all of that, just the natural athletic fear, fears of failure that were in all of our brains. The only way I knew how to deal with them was I was so routine oriented. And I knew from Monday to Sunday morning at one o' clock if I did Monday's routine, Tuesday all the way through, when that ball was kicked off on Sunday, there was nothing more that I could have done. I did my entire routine, all my habits, from physical body work to catching to my practice habits, to my workouts, to everything.

[C]

And which one was it to. Because you were trying to make sure you were.

[A]

To void my confidence came through my preparation.

[C]

No, this isn't about confidence. This is about like a fundamental orientation. I just don't want to blow the chance I have. I'm going to maximize.

[A]

I wanted to win the game for the team.

[C]

So it was, it was more of.

[A]

I didn't fear dropping the ball, I didn't want to drop the ball. I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. You know, for the most part, I got a rush out of saying, if I do everything in my power to prepare for this week's game, I have the ability to go on the field and alter the outcome in favor of my team. That was a rush that I really enjoyed.

[C]

One, one, one little double click here. The fear of letting dad down and disappointing dad or the approach, like again, this is awesome. I love it. I actually have some physical stuff. I'm gonna see how far I can go.

[A]

Early days, probably both. And then if you asked me as a 16 year old kid, what do you hope to accomplish by the time I got out of high school, my answer without a shot of a doubt, would not have been earn a scholarship, would not have been go to the University of Miami. It would have been none of that. It would have been, I got to win my data state championship because we lost the last five. There's no doubt in my mind that Fueled a lot of what I did. I will say though, no one ever had to beg me or force me to go do the work. Yeah. For as hard as my dad, as hard as my dad coached us, he never had to over coach my interest in the work.

[B]

You've got a lot of your dad's DNA.

[A]

Yeah. And I've tried to take some of it and do it a little different and I've tried to do it a little differently because it's 40 years later, you know what I mean? But that's, that's the struggle that I have. It's like I want everyone to care. As and to your point, I'll give you a great anecdote story about trying to separate outcome from execution and just doing the best of our ability. And the outcome is not always going to go our way. So we're at our baseball game. I was telling you guys about Cooperstown, critical moment, semifinals, million people watching extra innings. You're not allowed to slide head first at home plate. So we have one of our kids, he hits a lead off double and extras. We're thrilled. He steals third base. Long story short, he goes home. Heat of the game, tie game, he's the go ahead run in the top of the extra inning. And what does he do? Heat of the moment? We've been sliding into home plate headfirst for four years. What does he do? Slides in home plate.

[B]

He's out.

[A]

The winning run, he's out. He's devastated. Everyone's, you know, we go on to win the game, so everything was easy. This is verbatim what I said in front of the kids and the families. This to me sums up what I hope. I'm not always doing this, but in my mind this is what I'm hoping to get across. I called him out by name. I said, you slid headfirst. We talked all week about not sliding headfirst. Did anyone yell at you? No, I said. Were you upset? Emotional? Rightfully so. You thought in your mind you cost the team the game. You hit a leadoff double, you dove in head first in the second base and beat the throw. You're covered in dirt. It's the eighth inning, we're exhausted. We've been here all week in a really critical moment. You fell back on a habit just playing hard. If we lost the game because you slid head first, I have no problem with it. Because you were going full speed, letting it out on the line. You weren't thinking about, I can't slide. I can. You were just saying, I got to get home because my team needs me. And you broke the rule. Who cares? The outcome was not as important as you just let it all on the line. You didn't fail us. And if we lost the game, I would have told you the exact same thing. I hope that's what our players. I want them to let it loose and do it right. I don't like when you know how to do it and you do it repeatedly wrong and get bad results and get frustrated and get disappointed. And I look at you and I say, well, try doing it. You know, I always say, if you fail once, try doing what your coach told you the first time. Like, if you, you know, I mean, like, try doing it our way and maybe you won't fail. Like. But he didn't. That is what I want the mantra of, like, my entire approach to be, let it rip, let it go. And if the outcome's not what you want, it's not going to be for the lack of effort. That's all.

[B]

Remember when John Thompson hugs the. The guy who. Did he throw the ball out of bound. No.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Do you remember that?

[C]

No, I don't.

[B]

Yeah. It's a credible moment. Where did they lose the. Was it the ncaa was in the March Madness. March Madness tournament. They might have lost the game.

[A]

Georgetown.

[B]

Georgetown. John Thompson's the coach. Just remember this. Ginormous.

[C]

He was like six without talking basketball.

[A]

Yeah. He's the head. He was a legendary, legendary.

[B]

One of his starters makes with the game on the line, like, incredibly stupid turnover or something. Really boneheaded. And, you know, the entire country is watching and the kid comes to the side, like, completely dejected, and John Thompson gives him his hug. I mean, it's like. It was an amazing moment. Yeah, it's that it was like just. It was understanding that at a moment of vulnerability, a. He understood the moment of vulnerability for the kid, but it's also. He was. The kid had been playing hard, was one of his best players, was not someone who. There's no utility in policing the action in that moment.

[C]

Well, you know what I love about that story? I've got one from Coach Carol and the Seattle Seahawks I want to share. But that story, why that's so radical is because Coach Thompson could lose his job. Because that's. How could you coach a kid that. That's going to do that? We've had it with you. We didn't met. Da, da, da. You can see the board of directors or whoever those folks are, and we all have those people that have. I don't know, the purse string or some sort of thing around us. Maybe not everybody, but most people do. So there's this thing. There's two things that take place in that moment is that we fall to. Actually, I want to ask you about fall to the level versus rise to the occasion. I want to come back to that. But in this case, I believe he fell to his first principle, which is a relationship based, human centered. I see this kid, I know this kid. I don't care that there's 16,000 and another million watching. 16 in person. I'm going to go over and take care of him. The outcome of what might happen to me for looking like I'm a poor coach and I'm allowing these mistakes to happen. None of that. His first principle must have been research or. I'm sorry, Relationship based. Coach Carroll did something very similar. There was. It was a playoff game. We had a kicker and the other. It was the Cardinals, I think, had a kicker. And both kickers missed. Oh, no, no. We weren't playing that this team. But it just so happened that both coaches had a moment in media to talk about the kicker. And Stephen Hauschka was our kicker and he said about Steven, who missed. Who missed a game winner or game loser. I guess in that case he says, you know what? You. Coach Carroll said, you hit some, you miss some. That's our guy. We're betting on him. We love him. Something verbatim. The other coach had said, that's what he's paid to do. I'm not sure how much longer he's going to be here, so you should have made the kick. Coach Carroll said, we love this guy. Like you're going to make some miss him. What. Where do you want to be in that equation? I think for a parent to really settle into, are you relationship based or are you outcome based? Are you process and performance focused or are you outcome focused? Right. And I think many of us. I think us is too big of a word because I don't want to speak for me or either you guys in this situation, but many people are beholden to what others will think of them and they don't want to embarrass themselves.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

At the risk maybe of taking care of another, which is a pretty twisted and complicated thing.

[B]

It's funny, we're talking about coaches now and coaches are such an incredibly important part of this equation, especially in youth, particularly in youth sports. They're. They're surrogate parents who are simultaneously who are under enormous pressure and in some cases unproductive. Pressure from the parents who they're standing in for. Oh yeah, right. That's this kind of sorting that. I mean, a lot of times they're. Excuse me, they are not. They're acting against their own instincts with kids because they know the consequences of not playing somebody. Or like the, the my are the. The idea that's been floated by some people of banning parents from youth force is one that I always come back to.

[C]

I kind of like it in my son's club volleyball. They are no longer allowing parents to coach their kids.

[A]

We have some policy, we have some groups back home, schools and stuff that implement that.

[C]

It's too complicated for the kid is their position.

[A]

It is complicated.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And let's talk more about coaching. I had it a little, but since we're on it, stay on it. Because I think it's a fascinating. Because it's kind of the double hat that I'm currently wearing and the hat, that double hat of my upbringing. Right. One of my favorite books you ever wrote, Talking to Strangers. You talk about like cognitive bias and how we have a hard time reading the other side because of our own inherent biases and our own perspectives and our own life experiences. And it oftentime leads to misinterpretation. We misread each other, we get off on the wrong foot. And then obviously in your book you dive into some like really incredible storytelling and whatnot, giving great examples of that in just applying it to, to youth sports and youth coaching. Like we all have our biases, right? Like we all gravitate towards certain kids that might remind you of yourself or the kid that brings the attitude. Like how, how do we a identify. We talk so much about identifying and developing talent of athletes at a young age. How do we identify and develop talent in coaching? And then secondly, what are the challenges of coaches? What are their biases? How do we make coaches aware of their biases? Like there is a human element to all of this that while we all think coaches need to be perfect and they need to make sure they have every single kid figured out how to coach them, how to push their buttons, it's unrealistic at the pro level, let alone the guy volunteering at a 10 year old soccer game. How do we evaluate the landscape, like currently going on in the youth world?

[C]

Love that question.

[B]

Yeah, I was, I did a, an interview with, I did this show last year with Kenya Barris and we interviewed Brene Brown and you know, she talks a lot about shame and the role that shame plays. And she was talking about her Experience as a swimmer, I think was a swimmer in as a kid and how her coach used kind of guilt and shame against her. And that was the moment when she began to think about those ideas a lot that showed up so much in her work. And I, I had a kind of slight quarrel with her because she presents these experiences with shame as if they are near universals. And I said to her, you know, I don't, I said, I don't, I don't, I don't think of myself as someone who's strongly oriented or motivated or experience shame. And she's like, oh, well, you're probably in denial or whatever. I was like, well, you know, I had a coach for years when I was a kid. He never used those strategies. I had, I had one of those men she coaches. Right. My point was like, I think she had such a kind of toxic experience with her coach that she came to understand that that's what coaching was. I don't think she had a model of someone who presented a really healthy, like my, my track coach. All my struggles with running as a kid were self inflicted. They were all in spite of it, not because of my coach. My coach was. I realized now as an adult what a magnificent person he was.

[C]

Special.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is it easier to reflect on the impact your coach has on you and in retrospect than it is in the moment?

[B]

Crucial point. This is a crucial point. I think he's doing his best coaching for me now, 30 years later. In other words, he died years ago.

[A]

That's interesting.

[B]

But I only now do I understand what he was telling me.

[A]

So, okay, so stay there.

[B]

It goes back because it goes back to this question of time again. We're always in such a hurry to kind of process the meaning of these relationships and things. What if it does take 30 years? You know what I remember there was a study of people were looking at, at the quality of teachers and their effect of teaching on school performance. And there's a famous study that was, I think was done at the Air Force Academy which showed that in a particular teacher's class, the kids were doing way worse than their peers in equivalent classes. And everyone was like, oh, that's a bad teacher. But then they looked further over time and they realized those same kids two and three years later were doing way better. In other words, the, they just didn't understand what this teacher was, he, he was doing or she was doing something complicated and really high level that they couldn't grasp in the moment, but they grasped upon reflection later on. That's a version of what was going on with my playing the long game. Running. He was. They're playing the long game and we. It's that lack of appreciation for the long game, I think that is also a part of this puzzle.

[C]

So when you said time, I love the twist that you just took us on. Cause when you said time, I was going to the. My son's coach spends during the week probably a little bit more time than I get to spend three days a week, two and a half hours. Like it's, it's club. Club is intense. That's a lot of time. And I get like an hour at night where he's like, you know, fitting in, homework and whatever. So like the amount of time that coaches get early on with the kids is remarkable. And what they're doing is, is that they are shaping a philosophy for improvement. And there's two camps, Structured Learning and Guided Discovery. Guided Discovery, this is the long game. So I'll give you an example. I think you and I have talked about this a bunch, which is, let's say Your kid is 6 years old, 5 years old, whatever, and you want to teach them how to roll. Most parents or coaches in certainly in the US will go to the top of the gentle hill and say, okay, I want you to tuck your chin and I want you to put your hands out in front of you and kind of put your crown of your head on the beginning of the grass and then just flip over and then we celebrate. Yeah, you did it. Okay, good job. Let's do it again. So that's structural. It's very structured. Do this, this, this, this mechanical boom. The guided discovery approach is the long game, which is like, okay, Malcolm Jr. You know, like little Malcolm. Did you have a nickname? Was it Malky or. No, no, we should not do that then.

[B]

Okay, so Malcolm, let's not start that.

[C]

Let's start that now. Okay, go ahead and roll. And the kid might roll sideways like a log or kind of over one shoulder and it doesn't look like a regular roll. That is guided discovery over time. The person that was taught through guided discovery has far more capability because they have a deeper range. They've experienced their whole body in different ways. They've tried things out. They've got to their comfort zone and the edge of their comfort zone and shaped it. Structured learning, the formal instruction bit, you know, they will get better at the forward roll faster. And those are the kids we pick because they got it quickly and, you know, fast. We're now drafting 19 year old kids into the NBA. That's what the most current draft 19. So we don't have time in the US for guided discovery, which is a base of mat for mastery as opposed to a base formal instruction. It's a base for high performance.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

That framing to me matters a lot.

[A]

Familiar with the book talent code, of course.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

In essence dives into deep learning and they follow, you know, the guys playing futsal in South America, America and why they become in the hours and hours where no one's actually coaching them and they're just playing and they talk about runners and why certain geographic location like that's exact. The art of deep learning takes longer but has so much more impact long term. It's a. I want to get back to coaching, but I want to stay.

[C]

But that's coaching. That to me that is creating discovery environment.

[A]

It's more of creating an environment that that's a safe space to have the ability to go out.

[C]

You were asking about.

[A]

I'm not great at that.

[C]

Well, what can we do to help? I'm not great at help coaches. Right. One is I'm just pointing to the value of the coach having some basic awareness of different frameworks. Are we approaching success or avoiding failure? That's a framework. Are we doing formal instruction or guided discovery? The long game or the quick wins, that's important. The other is that. That I found to be of credible value. So we're talking about individuals now, not systemic. And I hope we get to the systemic thoughts. But just put a line, a piece of a line across a piece of paper and think about what are the characteristics for an above the line coach and what are the characteristics for a below the line coach? You've had a below the line coach. You've definitely just shared with us an above the line coach. And if you start to get those characteristics in place, I think quickly you say I want to be an above the line coach. And then. So now you've got a bit of a model to work from. Are you about those principles or characteristics or are you more about the other stuff that's below the line? It's a nice little.

[A]

Can I give you guys a practical scenario? Because I'd love both of your opinions along those lines. What I see boots on the ground is in order for me to have the timeline to have real long term impact, it's obvious you have to have the ability to coach that kid for a long time. Right. To give that Runway for the. For it to pay off down the road. In today's environment, it goes back to my question earlier, I say how do we get our kids to have an impact when we give them great advice or we give them pointers? They're also fighting societal norms and they're also fighting societal pressures that combat what we're trying to implement and what we least think is in their best interest, right or wrong. So in order for me to coach a kid for enough years and say, okay, I'm in this long term, stay with me, stay with me. In today's world, that kid or family, parent, whoever's making the decisions will not give me five years to coach their kid. If the first season there was very limited individual or team success. So now the pressure coaches are finding is if I don't have some semblance of individual, if I don't show some return in the immediate future, I'm not going to have the luxury of developing these guys long term. It's when I draft, I draft someone in the NFL. It's why the NFL is all different than the NBA and we draft proven players. Because the old saying is if you draft the guy with a lot of upside, someone else is going to be coaching him. He's got to be good now or I don't get to coach him. It's the exact same thing at the youth level. If you don't have success, your good players, the ones that really have the ability to reach their ceiling and really play, play the long term game, they're going to leave. Yeah. So it's this weird contradiction where I'm in for the long haul. I want you to be a great high school player and we're going to start at 12. It's a six year Runway till you're a senior in high school. But if you're 12 and 13 year old years, your family or you don't feel an immediate, the team's not winning enough, the talent around you is not good enough, you're not developing as a result. We can't go to top tournaments to face great competition because our team's inferior. There's a million reasons I'm not going to get that coach that kid for the next five years. How do I combat that?

[B]

Yeah, I don't know whether you, how.

[A]

Do I play both?

[B]

I think you've got to create systems that, that, that kind of enable that, that, that, that, that level of investment. Also. I wonder whether, you know, there, this gets back to another thread of this which is the rules for developing elite athletes are going to be necessarily a little bit different than not. Rules is the wrong word. But the approach one takes to kids who have potential to be elite is going to be different from the approach for everybody else. And too many kids are being mistakenly put in the pre elite category. Right. And that's complicating your lot of these parents who are saying, I want to see results from yanking the kids. They, they have, they're, they're deluded about their child's prospects and they should instead be thinking about, you know, if we're playing tennis, you know, can I create such a love of the sport that my kid would be playing tennis when he's 70? That's what they should be like my coach, one of the reasons I loved him so much.

[C]

What was his name?

[B]

His name was Brent McFarland and he. I, I remember I had a disaster. I was a very good middle distance runner and a terrible cross country runner and I would quit in cross country races because I just couldn't bear the, the messiness of it. The kind of. It's just all over the place. It was just mayhem. I just, like, at a certain point I was like, I can't deal with the mayhem. And I would quit. And I remember being so disconsolate at an Ontario championship one year and he sat me down and he was like, I'm. I don't care because I'm not coaching you about right now. He made this exact argument. He said, I care about you as a runner. At. He coached a lot of battle. Yeah, 25 and 20. I was 14. He was talking to people twice my age. He said, that's when I care about it. That's what we're building towards. We're not, it's not about now. It was so liberating for me. That's one of the lessons I actually did not grasp until I was. I didn't realize how liberating that was until I started to run against.

[C]

You know, what I really appreciate was that the sensitivity that he's passed away and he's still coaching you as opposed to like he's actively coaching you. It's, it's a, he's.

[B]

In my mind.

[C]

This is like he.

[B]

Things he said to me in a, with a wink. He would always yell at us during, during interval workouts. Strong body makes a strong mind. And like. Which was. But he said it with a sense of humor. It was like, we're out here and you know, you may not be the greatest run in the world, but you'll be a better thinker because of this. Like, that's what he was saying. It was so much Fun.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I screamed out at my kids, by the way, with a sense of humor.

[A]

I just scream it at him. But I always think back again, the influence of my dad, right? And here's this hard ass, tough high school football coach. And you talk about, do kids really understand it in the moment? And then how do they view it in retrospect? In my mind, he's like the perfect example. I've told Dr. Gervais this story. He had a really cool tradition where the night before Thanksgiving, he did what he called the father son beefsteak. At our high school, we'd go after school and practice for the upcoming game, go up in the locker room, shower, come into the school cafeteria. And it was just the boys on the team, 9th through 12th graders, and their father, uncle, grandfather, father figure, whoever was in their life. And it was the 9th through 12th graders, the freshmen sat in the back. You made. You worked your way up to the front, and everyone sat there with their father slash father figure. But the cool twist on it was all alumni from my dad's first year in 1986. And the event still goes on without him. But his last year of coaching was 2013, so I was a senior in 2002. So for since 86 to 2002, these guys would come back the night before Thanksgiving, and it was guys that were freshmen in college, and it was guys that were 40 with teenage children, and they'd bring their sons. And the cool thing was the alumni could stand up and they would go in order of age, like, what year you graduated. So there were guys from the first year that my dad ever coached in the mid-80s, all the way to guys that were one year out of high school. They were home for freshman Thanksgiving holiday break. And they would get up and they would speak to the current place players and the current parents, the fathers, and I bet you. And when they would tell stories, they'd make fun of my dad. They'd, you know, whatever. But the point of it all was in the moment. There were times where we hated it. We hated him, we hated the discipline, we hated the hard, we hated the tough. And all of a sudden, now I'm flying back here from the West Point Academy and one of the cadets my dad coached, unfortunately he's passed away, presented my dad the flag that flew over their base in Fallujah, and guys who graduated from Ivy League schools, guys coming home from California bringing their sons out of college. Now to make it a night to come sit in a high school cafeteria at a public school in New Jersey to share about their high school experience. Like if you would have asked them to get up and speak to the room as a junior in high school, I bet you it would have been very different. There were probably nights they went home and he's an, he never tells me anything that I do is good. And then all of a sudden it was like, oh my God, he shaped my entire life. I just didn't know it. That that's like the lasting image that I have in my brain, like of my own existence. I want to transition a little bit, Dr. You touched on it in passing earlier, but I want to dive a little bit deeper. You talked about how we had this idea, especially here in America, of we try to identify elite players and put them on a different trajectory. And it's getting earlier and earlier and earlier. And I'm seeing this like in real time. Boots on the ground. Obviously, Outliers, a landmark publication that really dove into like fast tracking, of course the famous story that you provide in the book of the Canadian hockey players and the realization of their birthdays. And it's the bigger, stronger, faster athletes get access to the best coaching, the best training. And all of a sudden you look down the road and did those kids make it because they were the biggest 12 year olds or because they were the best 12 year olds? And, and the conversation of reclassing and now kids doing eighth grade twice, like it is a real conversation. I'm not saying all of it was inspired by outliers, but it's at the core of it. There's not a family that has a kid playing sports that does not know the work of outliers, does not know the work of relative age, does know the work of all of it. That is a landmark work produced by, by you. So I want to, I want to dive into that a little bit now. Obviously your research and what came from it and the, and the response to the book was tremendous. Now there's a practical element of where people are now applying what they learned and what they understood from your findings. And it's happening over and over in real life. The systems we create are geared towards the best young kids, are often the biggest young kids, the most physically advanced young kids. And it's something I have to remind my kids because they look at me and they say, dad, why are we not the big 12 year old walking out of the baseball tournament hitting 300 foot home runs and Johnny's dad is 59 and he's 61 and he's on every all star team. He's the star. He's getting selected to all tournament team and we fight that. And I have to say, this is not a race to 12. It's not a race to 14. Let's see where everybody is when they're 17. Like let's, let's just hang in there and fight and fight. But that's what these kids are facing. That is real. That is a stress that I see in my own household. How do we combat that?

[B]

You can do. I mean, there's really fun things you can do in individual sports. The Australians take this problem really seriously and they've done this thing in swimming where this pilot program where you can assess a kid's physical age, biological age or actually physical maturity age maturity level very efficiently and effectively from a limited series of proxies. So I can say you are, your calendar age is 12 years and 6 months. Your physical age is 11 months and.

[A]

11 years and age developmental spectrum.

[B]

Developmentally you are 11, but you are.

[A]

Physically and mentally, which I want physical here. This is all physical physical.

[B]

Whereas your, your chronological age is you're 12. So in some, in the, some of these races, what they do is they have two outcomes. They have the outcome of who came first and through, you know, seventh in the 100 freestyle. And then they do a second thing which is they, they adjust the times according to your level of physical maturity. And so handicap. Yeah, they're doing handicap like a golf handicap. They're doing handicapping. And what you discover then is that the kid who comes in last could actually be the. Using the handicap, the first race finisher. The other way to do it is in other sports you can't do it so well in team sports is can have kids graduate to the next age class level on their birthday so that everyone has a term during the year where they're the youngest, where they're in the middle and where they're the relatively oldest. So it's just staggered. So you have a fluidity. So instead of having a system where a group of kids are permanently in the eldest range group, you have everyone because you want kids. Ideally, everyone should go through the experience of being the littlest on the field because you actually learn a lot of stuff being a little something.

[A]

David and Goliath.

[B]

David and Goliath, yeah. And then you should also have. Have a term is the biggest because you get amazing boost of confidence if you're the biggest.

[C]

And so in the NFL, we would often ask in the draft selection birth order and we really liked the second and third in a family right so if you had two older brothers or an older brother, because there's a scrappiness that. That they would build that the first order might or the firstborn might not have.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So to your point that you'd want them younger.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And in youth sport, there is forever a conversation in the US at least in youth sport, certainly in the club level, in volleyball. Oh, Johnny's. He's young. Is he. He's going to stay back another year. Is he gonna. Like, there's always this, like, yeah, but he's young or. Yeah, but he's old for his age group. Yeah. So that's cool that they're doing it. Actually.

[B]

I remember talking to a running coach who had a very successful college program who loved to go to out of the way schools, and he would look at the. He had a girls cross track team, was a great. He would look for the shoes they were wearing. Yeah.

[C]

It's like, big pause.

[B]

If you're wearing like shoes that you got at Walmart and you're in the same age as everybody else and you're like, you didn't. You weren't held back a year or you weren't. You're like, oh, I want you because you're undeveloped. Like, it's the. It's the Canadian golfer corollary. Yeah. You want to recruit Canadian golfers because they can only play six months a year. So imagine if they go to Florida, they can play 12 months a year. Their upside is huge. Right. That kind of. I had.

[A]

I had a coach in Florida, a baseball coach in Florida, one of the Florida universities, big program. Tell me they don't recruit Florida pitchers. It's the complete opposite of what you're saying. They've done too much. They're maxed out. They pitch 12 months a year, their entire life. When we get them, shoulders are at risk.

[B]

Shoulders.

[A]

There's a physical deterioration component and there's also just a. There's nothing left. They've been pitching their whole lives, 12 months a year. They're. There's very little we can do to help them. But I want to stay. I want to get you guys both opinions on this, though, in a related kind of idea, when I was growing up, the really good kids, whether that was just because you were bigger than everyone or you were just one of the rare kids that it just came easier to. Even if it wasn't a physical size element, you were. It was clear when you watched him on a basketball court or a football field, that kid's different.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That kid would move up he would always. Everything was about making you play. The handicap was you're 12, but we put you with 14 year olds because that was more relative. Now all of a sudden you're in the middle of the road and now you're actually not just King Kong. Right. We are in the exact opposite society right now. And I'd be curious, like, was there a tipping point to this? Was there a moment in time, like, what has changed? The psychology where now the really good kids actually play down. What is that about? Is it because as parents and as adults, we love to see our kids be the best. There's like an ego element because we know it's not in their best developmental. It's not in their best interest developmentally. You should play at the highest level. You can survive.

[B]

Yeah. It's like Connor McDavid's dad lying about his son's age to get him to play higher.

[A]

Yeah. So why, why in America? And this wasn't always the case. When I was growing up, it was the opposite. Everyone was like, it was like a badge of honor to say, my kid's playing up a grade.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And he's not the best player, but he's, you know, he's only in seventh grade and he's my. I do the opposite.

[B]

Same things happen academically when I was a kid. You accelerate. I was accelerated.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

As a kid in school today, I'm, I'm. There's as much less of it, but I were many, many. By the time I got to college, I realized how many kids in those in that era were a year or even I was two years younger than my class. And that was not uncommon.

[C]

What. How old were you when you graduated high school?

[A]

16. Yeah, there you go.

[B]

We had five years of high school in Canada.

[A]

So.

[B]

Okay, you're one year delayed from.

[A]

So, so what, what is the psychology behind that? Is it, Is it a. Is it a.

[B]

It's a time. It goes back to the time thing. It's the. It's wanting to see the results of the intervention right away as opposed to trusting that the outcome of, like, when I was in high school, I did. I did high school one year less than everybody else. The short term results of that were a little awkward. I was two years behind my cohort. I was socially way out of, you know, I didn't go to my prom. I didn't like, I mean, it was weird. But then by the time I was, you know, in college and I was like, oh, oh, this is so fun. You know, I got out of.

[A]

Would you do it again if you could go back in time.

[B]

Totally, totally. But my parents had to trust that the longer term outcome here of having Malcolm being in a challenging environment, designed, surrounded by people who would push in places was more important than the temporary dislocation of being, you know, I was, I hadn't even hit puberty and everyone else there were, there was a girl in my seventh grade class who had a kid and I hadn't had puberty yet. That's, that's what was going on in my high school. Yeah.

[A]

That's interesting.

[C]

I think there's two parts to this is. One is I can hear the narrative like, why are we, what's the race? Why are we pushing so hard? Why are we taking the 14 year old and bumping them up, you know, to play with the 15s, like, what's the rush? Let them be kids. I can hear that in a very healthy way. And I can also hear exactly what you said, which is, you know, let's, let's, let's put Malcolm in a situation where he's challenged properly. So I think there's a thoughtfulness that is required by parents to really know their kid. And I, I'm sitting on both sides of those. I want my son to be challenged. And I also, I'm enjoying and trying to create as much of a.

[A]

A.

[C]

Ring fence around his, his childness, his youthness that I possibly. He's 17 and so he's coming right to the age where it's like, you know, I got one more year left with him, you know, so what's, does.

[B]

He, what, what, what sports does he do?

[C]

Yeah, volleyball is his, his primary sport. He's not going to play in college. He's, he could, he could come off the bench at a D3 or probably start.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Or come off the bench in D2, but probably start at D3. But he's, he's an only child, so he loves the social aspect of it and he's good, he's a good little athlete, you know, and so, but he doesn't have the drive to want to go further. He's doing it for a lot of other reasons, which I'm like, very cool. I think it's very, very cool.

[A]

You know, a question I get asked and I don't pretend I give my answer. I don't know if I'm right or wrong. But it's a, it's very similar to the conversation in your example you gave of yourself. I get a lot of parents that ask me all the time, like how do we find the right team? What is the right team for my son or daughter? What is the right level? The simplest way I've tried to frame it that. Again, you guys correct me if you don't think this is the right approach. I don't ever believe we should put the kids in an environment where they are the worst player. I think that brings all sorts of pressures and failure and especially at the young level. But I also don't think the kid, your kid should ever drive to be the best player by far on the team either.

[C]

So I was with, you'll appreciate. So the way I think about this is practice and play time. So how much time? Like high speed practice, there's a value in that. And if you're, if you're kind of under qualified and you're getting high speed practice, it's great, it can be really good. But at some point your kid wants to play and so, and there's something.

[A]

Right, that's the carrot at the end.

[C]

And there's something you can't quite translate from high speed practice to game speed. Right. So there's unique things that happen in games that are difficult to manufacture in practice. I was speaking with Steve Kerr, this was just three days ago and we were talking about the young, young kids going into the draft, the 19 year olds. And he said, you know, and I think he mentioned Georgetown as well. I think he, I can't remember the, the coach, he said, you know what I'm concerned about, they didn't go through a three or four year NCAA program where they were beating up on the less talented kids. So we want to take the ones that are the cream of the crop in NCAA in college and they're not going through that hardening, confident, building experience where they are far better than everybody else and they're dunking on a, B and C and like they are men amongst boys. So that's a really interesting take.

[A]

Would, I would approach it completely different.

[C]

Yeah, I, I, I love the idea that he's suggesting that meanwhile the best.

[A]

Player on his team though is the complete opposite of that path.

[C]

The, the joy and whatever.

[A]

No, Steph Curry, right. Like what hardened Steph Curry was, he was the complete opposite of what meaning.

[C]

But he came through a gauntlet in college. It was really hard. He did not beat up on the other kids.

[A]

So maybe. Right, but maybe I'm misinterpreting is, is Steve Kerr suggesting that the, the guys they're targeting to add to their team, he wants them to be the overly dominant, where they had nothing but success for four years in height college.

[C]

There was two camps. One is the gauntlet of NCAA is a value. Whether you are the one that is dominating or not. There's a value first and foremost. And if you are the one that is dominating, you're going to come into the league feeling a certain way about yourself. So you got a chip on your shoulder and you've learned some stuff or.

[A]

You'Ve had the kids that have only ever right. The LeBron James of the world to me are the Unicorns. There's very few of those Tiger woods. There's very few kids that we always say, oh, it's not about who's the best 12 year old. For LeBron James, it stood the test of time. He was been. He's been the best player at 12, 18, 20, 40. That's very rare. I think there's a callousness built up where the kids who experience nothing but success from the time they can remember and have very little failure, very little adversity, very. All of a sudden for most people outside of the elite of the elite, that day is coming. I personally think you want your kid to experience it as early as possible. I always joke like I want my kid to have his first really horrible experience in sports or girlfriend or school, whatever. And he still comes home to cry to mom on the couch at our house. I don't want him to be 24. I don't want him to be failure's coming, struggles coming. I worry sometimes about the kid who has only been the best player on the best team and been told he's the best player in the best team since he was 15. And now all of a sudden he comes to me in the pros. I saw it in our locker room. You saw it in the locker room in Seattle all the time. They were the five star recruiter recruit. They were the best player in their neighborhood. No one ever was better than you. They went to Alabama, Ohio State, usc, creme de la creme. Five star first round draft pick. And I'd say, well, you're going to throw for it's a quarterback. You're going to have a day where you throw four picks. You've probably never thrown four picks in your life. What?

[B]

What?

[A]

I don't know how you're going to react because I've never seen you deal with it. That's my struggle of the kid who's always now if it's LeBron James, he just continues to be the best forever. You can't bank on it. I like The Steph Currys of the world. I want a kid to, I know, I know what failure looks like because he's lived it well.

[B]

I think, I think, you know, in listening to this conversation I would just say that what we're really doing in a roundabout way is arguing for an understanding of the, the, the, the inevitable and fundamental heterogeneity of kids, that there isn't going to be one, one particular model that works for all the kids and it's going to differ by domain, by sport, by. And what you want is a coach in a system that's flexible enough and thoughtful enough to appreciate the differences in the kids coming in. You know, that's, I think that's the, you know what I went, what I did in high school is not something that most kids should do. But for me, I was in a country high school. I was, I had a lot of self confidence, I had incredibly supportive parents. It's fine. I wouldn't recommend it to everybody.

[C]

But the research is, there's a bit of research that's really compelling which is for high school boys in the bottom third of high school sport, it's really hard on their self confidence because they're picked last and they're picked last in front of everybody. So just think about the playground for a minute and remember the old way that we would line up, like there'd be two captains and then who's on and you select your team and inevitably if there's 12 kids lined up, there's three or four that are picked last and it's really, really, really, really hard on those kids. Great coaches, if there's a coach there, can frame the whole thing differently. They can take care of the one that maybe doesn't have the big foot but has, you know, a clever, something else and can maybe make them captain. So great coaches understand their people in a, in a, in a very sophisticated way. And that takes some time and some thoughtfulness to do so. And in the race to, you know, a 19 year old draft pick, it's really hard to spend that amount of time. And let's go back to your question, which is how do I pick a team? Practice and play time is an important one, but it's also the people and the process that they're going to develop your son or daughter through. And if the club doesn't have a clear philosophy, it makes it much harder to have some sort of predictability about what's going to take place in that, that club. The best, the better clubs, they're owned by humans. These are not like the government doesn't own clubs. Right. They're owned by usually, you know, one or two or maybe four or five families that pulled their money together 20 years ago or two years ago. And if they have got a system and a philosophy and approach where they train their coaches in the blank, fill in the blank. I'm sorry, X Club way, whatever the club name is, then you've got some sense of what you're going to get. But if you've got a club and it's left to the individual coaches to sort it out.

[B]

I don't know.

[C]

It's a little bit of a flip of a coin.

[A]

Yeah. And a bit of a, bit of a transition. But related to the idea of coaching and some of the conflict that these coaches are dealing with. Some of the, as much as some of the coaches are dealing with the repercussions and some of the pressures from the families, the coaches are also creating a lot of distress for the families. Families and the kids as well. For example, back home by us, there's a lot of coaches that put a tremendous amount of pressure on families that if I'm your basketball coach, you can't play baseball, you're not allowed to play football because summer we're going to be at AAU tournaments. You can't be missing for summer football, you can't be missing for a golf tournament. There are, it is the more the norm than ever now for youth coaches, travel ball coaches, high school coaches to come out and say if you want to play for me and have a chance to play on my team, you cannot play any other sport and give any other time to anything other than what I'm doing. And the advice that I always try to give, especially the high school kids at our school. Sports specialization is critical and not all of it, but a lot of it's driven by coaches, not necessarily in the school but like travel ball, peripheral coaches. And the advice that I always try to give and I'd be curious if you guys think what, what your guys thoughts are here is I always say that if there's a coach that tells you you can only play their sport, they're not telling you that because it's in your best interest. They're telling you that because it's their own best interest. So to your point about like are above the line, below the line, are you serving the kids or are you serving yourself? I think there's no greater injustice to these kids than these coaches making 12 and 13 year old kids pick their future, pick their sport. Before they've even hit puberty, before we even know how tall they're going to be, before we even know what they like. Right. So the idea of sampling versus specialization to me is probably at the top of the youth sports conversation in America. I'm curious. Curious your thoughts?

[B]

Yeah, that's. But that's. That idea of delaying our, our. These kind of confining decisions as long as possible is a very. And a useful kind of. Because of course then we repeat the very same false lessons we learn on the playing field we repeat in life. So the, the kid who learns that you got to figure out whether you're a football player or a baseball player by the age of 11 is also the one who's coming out of college and is incredibly stressed about finding what role they will play.

[A]

That's interesting. Yeah.

[B]

You know, as opposed to appreciating that they have. You really, you really do have your whole life to figure out what you want to do. Like you really do. And you could. The costs of switching careers in midlife are not what you think they are like, lots of people do that all the time, very happily and you know, or understanding that some careers, maybe you do them for 10 years and then it's fine.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

It's refreshing to hear you say that. I, I didn't know what I was going to do even coming out of college, so I had. And I was okay with it. You know, like, that was part of the, that was your Southern California.

[B]

You had parents who didn't show up on time. You were, you were well prepared for.

[C]

I was hardened by that.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. Awesome.

[A]

That's interesting. But no, I mean, it's something. The pressures of kids nowadays to stay alive in multiple sports is getting harder and harder and younger and younger, and I think it's a travesty. I want to really shift gears now to something I think is super important. And the most recent book I read of yours, Malcolm, was Revenge of the Tipping Point. And you talk about how college admissions uses sport to shape groupings. You talk about your one third rule, the rule of a third. And I just found all of that very fascinating. And I think it's especially relevant to today's world. There is a ton of stress on parents about what the future holds of their kids getting into college. And I think a lot of the, of the, the rush, the time element that you guys have both brought up about why we need to figure out what our kid is good at is because sports seems like the easiest avenue. Unless your kid is a brilliant thinker or brilliant mind. It seems like the easiest path to open that window a little bit wider and those doors a little bit wider to get your kid into college. It feels very daunting to say, my kids just get and get into college because of his SAT scores and his grade point average. Like, I think that's a huge motivating factor for these families to invest in what they're investing in in sports. Rush the process like they are. They don't have till 25, they got till 16. And if you buy 16, your college opportunities will be very clear in regards to what your skill level is in sport. I want to dive into a little bit of that. Like, what can we do to both recognize that that's real? Colleges do use sports to fill and fit different groups, both racially, economically, gender, all that, you know, different demographics, but also not make it like, paralyzing where it feels like it's the only way to get your kid into school. So what would you say to parents? So take out which sport? Because I know every sport brings a different thing. Just frame how parents should approach as their kids are getting into, like, approaching high school. And now they got this four year stress of like, I gotta get my kid to college. I almost feel like parents nowadays. It's almost like, check the box. You succeeded, you sent your kid off to college. You did your job. Nice job. Right, Wrong or indifferent. That's what it feels like to me. That because of the value society puts on, like that stage in life, you.

[C]

You think that that's happening now?

[A]

Oh, I, I do. Right, wrong or different.

[C]

I think that's actually more. It's hype. There's a more to that, which is like, congratulations, you sent your kid to a top 25 school or top 10 school. I think that, like, just going to school feels like it's not.

[A]

Not just getting into college, but going to the college flag that you hang in June when your kid graduates. Like, there's a. It's almost like a competition element.

[C]

It's wild. Yeah.

[A]

Maybe that's just what I view on the outside. Obviously, I've never said to.

[B]

Parents are clearly using it as a feather in their cap, in their conversations, the alien conversation.

[A]

So what should we. So what should we tell families? What would be your advice to navigate from 8th grade to 11th grade? That window where it's like, all right, we got four years to figure out what colleges, what. How do we use sport correctly? Yeah, as an avenue, as a tool to give you opportunities maybe greater than your academic being. I think it's amazing that there's kids playing. My older brother went to the University of Virginia, played football and a full athletic scholarship at the University of Virginia. He was a good student. By no means was he going to the University of Virginia at the time. They were a top two public institution along with like Cal and stuff. But he got a degree from the university, one of the top public universities in America. Never played a down of professional football. But he has a degree from a really prestigious. Only because he played football and was a good player. I think that's great. I think there's thousands of kids that share that story that this opened up doors that otherwise never would have been open to them. They're at community college. They're at the local state school.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

When done right, it can be an amazing engine of opportunity. But they're abusing it to your point. So like how would you frame it to people to do it correctly?

[B]

Well, I know. Here's what I'm. What I hope I tell my daughters when they come of age, which is the only thing I'm going to insist on is that you engage in some kind of physical activity because that's an important part of what it means to be a healthy person. I don't care what it is. I don't think it should be a means to an end. You're not going to be a professional athlete unless you know you have a better chance of being struck by lightning if you are. Hallelujah. Probably not. So probably don't. Don't and try and do something that you can do your whole life. And if they can find something that fits those criteria and it helps them get into college, so much the better. But I don't. I don't want to pursue any strategy. Deliberately choose a strategy that breaks any of those rules.

[A]

I'm going to play devil's advocate. Maybe. Probably this is fair to all of us. I. I'll just use myself as an example.

[C]

Go before you. I'm looking at that red thing that was blinking red for a long time and now the card says full. Ignore that. Okay. I want to make sure.

[A]

So we're good. We're recording.

[B]

What's up, by the way? What's our. What's.

[A]

I don't know what I'm. What time is your out time?

[B]

If we could wrap up soonish. I got to get back up. Yeah, yeah, totally.

[C]

Where's. Where's home base?

[B]

Upper east side. But I got. Yeah, I got.

[A]

Sorry. I get lost in these conversations.

[B]

I got kids I got to deal with yeah, yeah.

[A]

No, let me just. I'm gonna play devil's advocate. I'm gonna sit here and say, well, it's easy for you guys to say. You're not worried about paying for college. Your kids are going to be able to afford college. Like, I'm a single mother in South Miami. My only opportunity to get my kid to go to the University of Miami might be athletics. Yeah, might be.

[C]

So, like, I'm not sure that that's accurate.

[A]

I'm not saying it's true. I'm just saying this would be the counter argument. So I guess it's easy for us to say, like, I just want my kid to find something they like and if they do it in college, great. But for some people, like, sports is the pathway.

[B]

But that mother and her son are not the people who are abusing the system right now. The system is being abused at the other end. At the other income end. That's. And that. And that. That's what's poisoning the well. She's if. To. To. To. To talk more about this hypothetical mother. I'm guessing she's not the one who's screaming at the coach at. And she's not the one who's spent $85,000 on a private trainer. And you know, so I, I don't have a problem with her.

[A]

Neither do I, I think.

[B]

And maybe she legitimately believes that. Like, I met this guy recently, a Nigerian, good Nigerian guy who played in the NFL. Did not. Loveliest guy in the world. Parents, you know, off the boat from Nigeria. He didn't. That's not the game they were playing. Like, she's, you know, he just. You probably know this guy. I think he played.

[A]

Anyway his name.

[B]

Can't remember. Complicated Nigerian name.

[A]

But like, there's a lot of Africans now playing in the NFL. Like it's become, I mean, a big players.

[B]

But yeah, no, she's not. I don't. I think it's important that we understand that there are multiple parties participating in the system and they are not all equally culpable in its corruption. And I think it's so. I totally take your point about that woman and her son, but they're not what we're focused on here. We're focused on the people who are. Who are. Are screwing up something beautiful in the name of an end. That's not good.

[A]

And what are they exactly screwing up? I know you got into it in the book and whatnot. Like, they're, they're screwing up proportions. They're like, what exactly. The people at the other end that are abusing tennis and rowing. Like what actually, what is the outcome on.

[B]

They're corrupting meritocratic institutions. And they are more than that though. They are ruining something beautiful that is sport for their kids. They're denying their kids a decent shot at a pleasurable experience at something that is enormously, you know, this, we all, this table, we're all here because we believe there's something incredibly beautiful about organized physical activity. Right.

[C]

Let me add two, two elements to this because I'm going to double down, triple down on everything you said. And in California, just as a, as a avenue of interest to folks that are living in California. If your son or daughter goes, doesn't have the package to get into the top school that they were wanting to and you choose to go, if you choose to go junior college route, two years at a junior college with I think it's a 3.3 or 3.4 GPA guaranteed into UCLA, USC, UC, Irvine, probably Berkeley, there's a handful of schools that you're guaranteed to get into that's a different route. Now that's not that we're taking sport out of the mix because likely you're not going to go to juco, play juco and then find yourself for two years at USC playing football or basketball because that's not how that works. But there are other paths into universities that are quite remarkable.

[A]

Yeah, I, I just from parents that have kids in high school. The stress of the college admissions process right now, I never went through it. We were recruited athletes. I get, we could go to Notre Dame and go to. It didn't matter. So I never lived it. The anticipation of what that's going to be like in a couple years for my kids, just based off the conversations with parents around town that we know with high high school age kids, it's a real sense of stress. It's a, it's a significant sense of stress. How do I get my kid into a reasonably good university in college? It's not that easy.

[C]

Just for reference points, if we were to throw a horseshoe in a crowd of non stick and ball adventure sport athletes, 7 out of 10 likely didn't graduate high school. So just a frame of reference. The it's, you know, we are seeing it through stick and ball sport, rowing and you know, maybe there's a, a stick in that one. But the idea that there's this whole other pool that when they're talented they don't even go to high school, they don't finish high school, which is a.

[A]

Whole another conversation for a later day, guys. I mean, to have this conversation. Malcolm, like I said, from day one, you were the guest that we discussed you, your perspective, your study, your research, the time and effort you have put into really changing the way a lot of people view. So many of the topics we just covered are landmark publications, landmark studies. For you to be sitting here at this table along with Dr. Gervais and I, who we. You've hosted me, I've hosted you. We've co hosted. We've been guests.

[C]

This is a real.

[A]

To put it together. This is an absolute treat. It's an honor on behalf of, you think. Our entire mission to just empower and improve the world of youth sports and give these families a little bit of help and a little bit of hope. Your voice, your presence here, I can't stress enough just how much we value it and how appreciative we are. And all I can say is thank you to both of you for joining me here on you think.

[B]

Thank you, Greg. It's really a lot of fun.

[C]

Yeah. This is awesome. Thank you.

[A]

Thank you.