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Why Girls Quit Sports: Words Matter More Than You Think! · Do I Need My Racket?

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Welcome to Do I Need My Racket?
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podcast brought to you by In Her Name Foundation, and I am Cindy Swain,
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the host of this show. Well, this is episode number 37 called Words Matter.
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Now, I know we've
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all heard that before, and it might sound kind of mundane that words matter
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because we all know that, but it's how we use them and how we put them in context.
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It's how we communicate with them
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that I want to focus on in this episode because words really do matter.
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So one of the things that I do when I first get up in the morning,
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well, actually first I go to the coffee pot,
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then I go to the couch and I read for a while
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and I write, I write in my journal.
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And at the end of every journal entry,
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no matter what kind of day I'm having,
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no matter what's going on in my life,
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good or bad, tragic, hard, happy, whatever,
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I always end the journal entry with this.
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Keep reaching, teaching, and touching hearts.
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Keep listening, learning, thinking, and dreaming big.
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And keep hoping and loving, and all will be good.
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So put a pin in that for just a moment, because we're going to return to
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that at the end of the episode.
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But I just wanted to put that out there
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so you could start thinking about those words.
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So did you know that right now, girls drop out of sports two times the rate
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that boys do?
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And the number one reason, it's not fun and there's too much pressure from coaches
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and parents.
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And you wonder, where does that exactly break down?
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And we're going to take a look at that in a minute.
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Because words matter and how they're used by teachers and parents and coaches,
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it matters.
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Our mission statement for In Her Name Foundation is empower, inspire,
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and create the next generation of young female athletes.
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And it's the same for the podcast.
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I'm empowering, inspiring, and creating voices in all the people that I interview
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and highlighting their story because it's important.
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They want to share it. People can learn from it.
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Well, here's an example of when I was listening to some words
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that kind of made me start to doubt myself.
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Over the last six months or so,
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there's been a podcast group that keeps sending me these emails
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promising me that they can increase downloads
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and monetize the podcast and all's gonna be great.
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One after the other, I would delete, delete, delete, delete.
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Well, for some reason, I decided to read this last one completely.
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And it said it was offering a 45-minute free consultation session.
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And I thought, maybe I'll learn something and why could it hurt anything?
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So I sign up, I get on the Zoom call with this guy.
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And I'm always curious when there's kind of what I call cold calls like that,
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when someone reaches out to you and you're not sure about their background,
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what they're up to.
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So the first question I asked after introductions was, well, how did you find us?
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And he punted on that. He said, oh, no, I don't want to talk about that just yet.
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I want to get into, you know, more about your podcast and, you know,
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kind of our program.
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And I thought, okay, well, that's kind of odd, but maybe he still knows something.
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So he started talking to me just right off the bat, like,
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so tell me how many downloads that you get per episode or per month?
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And I said, well, we do a monthly podcast and we probably get a couple hundred.
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And it's generally we have ongoing downloads for all the episodes.
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And he goes, well, is it closer to 200 or closer to 150? And I said, closer to two.
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Well, would you say it's closer to 175 or 200 or, you know, 180?
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and I'm like, what's the difference between 10 or 15 downloads?
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I said, well, it's probably a
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couple hundred. And he goes, well, would you like more downloads?
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And I said, yeah, I would. Anybody
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would as a podcaster, right? Well, how does that make you feel?
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And there he went, right for the
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feelings. And I fell for it, sort of.
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How does that make you feel that you kind of ceilinged out
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at 200 downloads? Does it frustrate you? Are you disappointed?
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And I said, well, maybe a little bit because you know sometimes
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when you put a lot of effort into a show you think it's going to be
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great and it just doesn't go very far um yeah maybe a little and you know
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then he he said um
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he said well have you ever thought about stopping the show I said no I haven't
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thought about stopping it I take a break maybe a month every now and then just
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because maybe I don't have someone
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teed up for an interview or I have a lot of other stuff going on
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and just don't have time to get to
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it because it takes a lot to put out an episode. There's a lot of editing.
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There's a lot of reading. There's a lot of research.
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And there's several hours, I would say 15 to 20 hours to put an
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episode out on my end anyway. And he said, well, is it worth it?
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And I said, yeah, it's worth it.
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We usually do, you know, I do the, I do the episodes for an audience of one.
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And I started
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kind of going into our mission statement again. He said, no, no, no, no, no, no.
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That's the business part of things. I want you to tell me how you feel about this.
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And I was just kind of, paused for a moment. And then he sent this back.
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He said, so what I'm understanding that you're
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saying is you're disappointed and frustrated that you're not getting more downloads
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and don't have advertisers. And you're thinking about pulling the plug on the show.
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And I'm like, whoa, I haven't
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thought about stopping, maybe doing some things differently.
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But I was kind of taken aback. I was
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like, he was literally putting words into my mouth
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and kind of stretching them to create doubt
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on all the work I've done. So I started backpedaling and I'm trying to explain the
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foundation and its mission, empower, inspire, create, and, you know, the podcast,
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why it's Do I Need My Racket? And he goes, no, no, no, no.
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I, you know, I don't want to, let's go on.
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We're going to move forward and talk about the four stages of the four levels
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that we'll go
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through. You know, and again, ask him, I go, how did you, how did you find us?
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Why, why did you choose Do I Need My Racket?
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And he gave a generic answer, like, well, I have a team that goes out
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and does research and they find these episodes or these shows
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that they think have potential.
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I mean, well, he probably said that to about a thousand people, but okay.
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So clearly he did not know anything about us, but I kept listening.
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And he said, well, are you ready to proceed forward?
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And I said, yeah, I am. So let's talk about level one.
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Level one is we're going to take your show
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and tear it apart, start from scratch and build it back up.
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And I thought, oh, I didn't know we needed to do that.
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You know, I was just, it didn't really give me much time to respond to
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any of these things either. He's just kind of firing these words at me.
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Because I was thinking, well, I think our show's pretty good.
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I mean, I think there's been a lot of great people I've
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interviewed. I've learned a lot. I've met a lot of new people.
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And that's what it's really about
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for me is meeting people and sharing stories.
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He goes, and then after level one, after we
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rebuild your podcast, we'll send it through this program that we have to,
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it's a search engine optimization program, which basically means that, you know,
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they record the transcript of the
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episode and then pick keywords out in a description and try to compact that so that
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when people search or download, do searches for things they want to listen to,
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the keywords will come up and
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our podcasts will be up in a higher range of downloads.
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And I'm like, that makes sense to me.
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Okay. Yeah, that would be great.
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And that's something that we've thought about and talked
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about, but just haven't gotten around to.
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Level three would be, this is where he said that they
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would get me on some high profile podcast episodes with other podcasters
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that would really help with downloads and advertisers.
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And I thought, well, I've been on a couple and there are a couple
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more I might be on and it kind of grows, but you know,
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that would be interesting to do that. And
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I'd be kind of, kind of started to do a little panic.
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It's like, I don't really want to be on
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a million different shows. That's not me. I've kind of raised my anxiety for a bit.
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And then level four, he said, well, before we get to level four,
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you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement
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because what we do there is proprietary
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and we're going to send your podcast through an algorithm.
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And then it was a lot of complicated tech terms that I didn't understand.
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And I was like, whoa,
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but he made me feel like my podcast
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and foundation was literally on their last dying breath,
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that we wouldn't survive unless we hired this agency which just isn't true
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but for a moment I kind of had those thoughts in my mind so
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then he goes well are you ready to move forward and I said
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sure because I'm thinking you know well how much is this going to cost
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and he said well right up
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front it's fourteen thousand dollars and I think I laughed and I don't know
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which hit the floor first my ass from my chair or the teeth
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that fell out of my mouth I was like fourteen thousand
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dollars? We don't have that kind of money.
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And he goes, well, if you pay, you know, we could do it
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today. And if you pay me $5,000 today and $5,000 in 30 days, we can make it 10,000.
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And it's like, we are a small nonprofit,
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which I explained to him numerous times throughout our chat. And yeah,
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we don't have that. We don't have that money in our budget.
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Well, then he goes, well, what could you afford?
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How about if we did four payments for $12,000, $3,000 a month for the next four
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months. And I'm thinking, you know what?
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He's not going to take answer for, he's not going to take no for an answer.
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So I pulled the parachute cord and said, I can't make any decisions unless I
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consult with my board.
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Got off the call, which was at the start was supposed to be just a 45
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minute freebie, which ended up into an hour and a half of persuasive debate.
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So when I got off
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the call I began to think I thought this is just ridiculous this shouldn't cost
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this much we're not interested but so I sent that back and I in an email
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that said it's just not for us thank you
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for your time and I asked him out of curiosity if we did our due diligence
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and paid all that money
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and after four to six months we go through your four-step program
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and nothing changes
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what are the guarantees he said there are none no guarantees after I pay all
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that money and I was like, do I have idiot written on my forehead somewhere?
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Who on, apparently people pay this
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because he threw those numbers out there, but not us. That's just not what we do.
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And as I did more
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investigating was level one and level two, we can do that for free on our own.
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And I'm already getting on some other people's podcast show,
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but the only thing he had magical was level four with
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some mystical algorithm, which I'm not really interested in that.
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And it doesn't cost 14, It shouldn't be $14,000 to go through one stage.
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But anyway, he wasn't satisfied with that.
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He sent me more emails. He said, well, maybe you'd be interested in this program
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where we would go through the first two stages,
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level one, level two for $3,000.
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And if you don't start to see results,
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we'll refund your money.
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And I was thinking, well, where was the refund when we were talking $14,000?
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And I still didn't respond.
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And then he sent me one more. He goes, well, I want you to do this.
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I want you to run your show through a test
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where you pick out keywords and see if it pops up on Spotify or Apple downloads.
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And no, I didn't even do that because I know that's what we need to do,
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but we still have some other work before we get there.
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And I didn't respond, so I just kind of let it go.
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But I learned a lot from that phone conversation and that Zoom call.
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Words matter. They can be persuasive.
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But I, at this age of 64, have enough insight and wisdom
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to understand when someone is trying to persuade me
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or think me into thinking something that I'm not,
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which leads me back to young people.
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Young people are so impressionable.
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They are, and words matter to them,
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and they stay with them. Those things that you tell youth
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will stick with them a lifetime.
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And hopefully we're sharing words that matter,
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that empower, inspire, and create, hopefully.
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I had an experience when I was in eighth grade,
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eighth grade volleyball coach. I was one of the only kids
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that could do an overhead serve instead of an underhead bump.
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I was on the A-team, practicing really well.
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We go to play our crosstown rival, Kennedy Middle School.
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I was at Hayes Junior High, and I could not hit anything over the net.
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Nothing. Not one serve went in.
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I was so nervous, and I was so upset how I performed afterwards.
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It just felt terrible.
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But the next practice, the coach said, you know what?
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I'm benching you. You're going to the B-team because you can't play under pressure.
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you choked.
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So what I took from that conversation that I carried with me, even in my collegiate
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tennis career, is I can't play under pressure, which wasn't true at all.
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Fortunately, my freshman
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year, starting my freshman year, I tumbled onto the high school tennis team,
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and I had a coach
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that believed in me and used words that made me believe in myself. You can do this.
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You can get through this. Have faith. Believe in yourself.
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And those words are the ones that are etched in my heart to this day.
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I'm going to give you some examples of words that perhaps actually should,
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not perhaps, that should be appalling that people use today.
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Say, for instance, our national leaders.
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They're throwing around words that everyone is hearing without any responsibility or
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accountability at all.
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What if you had a really shy high school student that sat in the back of
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biology class, finally got the nerve to ask a question for some clarification,
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and he or she
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stood up and said, teacher, can I, would you please explain that last bit?
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I don't quite
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understand. And the teacher turned and said this, that's a stupid question.
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Sit down, piggy.
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appalling, right?
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But that word, that phrase, those phrases, those words have been used
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from a national leader.
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What if you had a son or daughter on a basketball team and you're
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practicing, playing really hard and doing everything right in drills
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and the coach calls
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you over and says, wow, you're playing really well, but your brother's a retard.
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Yes, national leader. Use that word. It's appalling. Absolutely appalling.
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I'm going to say this again. We need
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people that use words with youth that empower, inspire, and create.
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So here are a couple of other instances which I think are kind of interesting.
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I had the privilege of being the public address
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announcer for Lansing Catholic Sports for 10 years, 2013 to 2023, and I loved it.
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It was kind of a mission for me.
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I loved infusing energy into what was going on to, you know, get people excited
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and into the game or the match
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and I pain I painstakingly always took time out to make sure
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if there was someone's name
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that I did not know how to pronounce I would seek out a coach a player
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or even the player themselves and say hey
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when you would you tell me how you say your name and
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it would you could tell it just a bright spot went on in their heart
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because someone actually took the time to do
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that I can remember many a basketball game or track meet where Swain my last
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name, S-W-A-I-N, not hard.
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When my son and daughter were competing in the same track meet,
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our name was said four different ways, swine, swing, swan, and swim.
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And you know, they laughed about it, we laughed about it, but it does matter.
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I sat through a girls varsity basketball game one
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year at opposing school, and this kid was called Laverne all night long,
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despite multiple corrections
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that her name was Lauren. We all laughed it off, but it did really bother her.
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So that's important. And so that was one of the things that I did.
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The other thing was I was privileged to everything
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that was said or done on the sidelines and in the stands.
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I heard it all from players, refs, coaches, student section, you name it.
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I heard and saw it.
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Saw some good stuff, saw some not so good stuff.
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There was an instance where, varsity volleyball match,
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Lansing Catholic was soundly beating another Lansing area school.
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The whole volleyball match maybe took 45 minutes max.
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The other team scored one or two points a set.
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But in the middle of the second set, the coach took a timeout and she goes,
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you guys aren't playing hard, you're lazy.
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Come out here.
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And she had them all line up on the floor, even the kids on the bench,
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had them drop down and do push-ups for 60 seconds.
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Thinking maybe that might motivate them to play better?
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Are you kidding me? They played worse after that.
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They just wanted to get off the floor and I don't blame them.
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Here's another example.
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junior varsity basketball game where the opposing coach was screaming at these
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girls all evening long. Don't do that. You're not fast enough.
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You know, just everything was in a negative tone all night.
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And she finally in the third quarter called a timeout, pulled this one kid aside and
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said, you're terrible. You're an embarrassment.
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Go sit on the bench where you belong. Shocking.
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Yes. Yes. Shocking. I couldn't believe it. So the girl went on the end of the bench.
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She was,
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you know, quietly sobbing. And later on, a little bit later in the game, the coach
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called her to put her back in.
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And that kid, good for her, she used her voice and said,
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no, I'm not playing for you. Here's one more example. Varsity girls basketball.
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Lansing
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Catholic was soundly getting beat by about 25, 30 points in the third quarter.
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The opposing school,
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Lansing Area School, that particular coach had a history of not, you know,
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clearing the bench even when the game was at hand.
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So as usual, all the starters or most of the top players played the
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entire game despite the game being already decided probably midway through the
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third quarter. Well,
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after the game was over, one of the girls on the bench got up her nerve
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and used her voice and went up to the coach politely and said, you know, coach,
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I was just wondering why I didn't get to play in
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the game. And this coach ripped her apart. Coach became unglued. Eyes were bulging.
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Face was red.
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Veins were poking out and said, you don't deserve to play. You're not very good.
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I've got two division one players.
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They're going to go to division one schools and play basketball next
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year. You belong on the bench. I could not believe it. Shocking. Appalling. Yeah.
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The coach walks off the floor under the locker room.
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This girl looks at her mom in tears and says, I don't want to stay
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for the boys game. I just want to go home.
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So her mom gathered her things, walked down the bleachers
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onto the court, put her arm around her daughter,
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and they walked out of the gym together. Shocking,
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appalling, right? Words matter. Words matter.
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And we need to think about how we're using words
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that influences kids because they remember those words, especially
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when you're young. But here's a happy ending to all of that.
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One of my most favorite seasons and my favorite teams,
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Lansing Catholic varsity softball.
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It was after a coaching change, a lot of seniors graduated, then the pandemic,
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and there were barely enough kids to just make field just a varsity team.
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And some of those kids the coach convinced to play were freshmen, and some were,
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you know, upperclassmen, and many of them had never even donned a mitt,
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stood in a batter's box, or even knew how to hold on to a bat.
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Their goal for that season was to be able to play a complete seven-inning game
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and not get run-ruled in the third inning by 15 or in the fifth inning by 10.
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And the thing that was amazing about those kids, they worked hard.
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They never quit. They cheered from the dugout.
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They stood in the batter's box, knees shaking, swinging that bat.
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You would never have known if you listened to what they were saying
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that they were getting trounced on the field.
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Never would have known.
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Loved it.
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Loved it. Because you know why?
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The coach used words that mattered, that inspired, that empowered,
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that created within them something new.
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They felt a part of a team. They felt important.
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They were valued. It didn't matter what the score was, win-loss record.
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They were part of something, and those girls were having fun.
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Yeah, having fun.
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So let's go back to what I shared with you at the very beginning of this episode.
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Those same words that I end every session when I'm writing in my journal.
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Keep reaching out to others.
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Keep teaching things that empower, inspire, and create.
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Keep touching hearts.
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Keep listening to others and what they're saying.
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It's important. And learn new things.
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Step outside your comfort zone and learn something new.
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Think.
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Maybe you need to take a step back and breathe.
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Maybe meditate. Maybe pray. But take time to just think and dream big.
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Don't limit yourself. Make your dreams big.
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And most importantly, keep hoping.
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Hoping for a better tomorrow.
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Hope for a better today.
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and keep loving.
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And if we can do some of that, if you can take one word out of all of that and do
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it for one day, or take one word and do it for one week or one month,
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if we can all do that, then all will be good because words matter.
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Well, I just want to thank all of you out there
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listening, for supporting this podcast and making it successful
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and supporting In Her Name Foundation
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as we continue to grow into the future.
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And as always, thanks again to Tudor Big from Big Sound
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& Lighting for editing and producing this podcast
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and for providing the original theme music.
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Now for a bit more about Cindy Swain, president and CEO of In Her Name Foundation
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and the host of this podcast.
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Cindy is a licensed physical therapist, certified yoga instructor, former
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tennis coach, and division one collegiate athlete.
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She is a happily married mother of three and spends
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her free time gardening, beekeeping, and cycling.
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Cindy loves the Kansas Jayhawks and is an exercise and sports fanatic.
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For more information about In Her Name Foundation, visit our website at
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inhernamefoundation.org.
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Join us on social media, Facebook, Instagram, and subscribe to our newsletter.
26:52
or make a donation.
26:54
We look forward to meeting all of you again
26:56
and sharing our next episode of Inspiration.
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Until then, see you next time and be prepared to bring your racket.