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Highland Park Lacrosse with Head Coach, Mike Pressler · The Bubble Lounge (Highland Park & University Park Texas)

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode brought to you by Kathy L Wall.
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• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bubble Lounge.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I'm Martha Jackson and last year my son, blake, started playing lacrosse and my daughter was also a senior and we knew a lot of the lacrosse players on the team.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: So Sean and I started going to all the varsity games and I got to tell you we were so impressed.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: If you don't know, highland Park won the state championship last year against the Woodlands.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: It was absolutely a nail biter of a game and such an incredible game to watch.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Highland Park is shaping up to be the best team in the state of Texas in lacrosse.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Not only does Highland Park have some of the most talented players, we now have one of the most successful lacrosse coaches in history.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Today joining me is coach Mike Pressler.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Coach Pressler has a very impressive background.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: He's coached everything from D1 through D3, usa college, post college, premier Lacrosse League.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: He has literally done it all and now he's coaching our boys at Highland Park on the road to repeat for the state championship.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: You are going to love this interview with Coach Pressler.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Do you have a product or business you want to introduce to families in Highland Park?
• 1:32
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• 1:33
  Speaker 1: With over 140,000 listeners and more than 200 episodes and a strong Instagram community, the Bubble Lounge Podcast is the perfect way to connect with families in the park cities.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Visit bubbleloungenet to learn more.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, coach Pressler.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Martha.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: I'm thrilled to be here.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: This has been a long time coming, hasn't it?
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Uh, I think over a year, as I remember.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: It's all good, it's going to be worth the wait.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited to have you in here today.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: You tried to retire briefly in 2022, after your season with Bryant, and that lasted all of what?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Two seconds and you are anything but retired right now.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Last week, when you and I were texting, you were throwing out some of the things that you're working on all very big projects.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I probably don't even know all of them.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Walk us through what all you're involved with right now.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, obviously, the HP, you know high school program at the top.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: I also coach Club Lacrosse that do with the Texas Nationals kind of partners, with my old Duke captain, Hunter Henry, in town here.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: And then I'm also the head coach of the New York Atlas in the professional lacrosse league and part of that duty is you're the general manager too, so you have a salary cap, you have to deal with free agency, you have to deal with the draft, so there's there's so many things behind the scenes, especially at the pro level, that are above and beyond.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: There's the coaching piece.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: So we're working a lot harder, a lot more hours than I was as a, as a college division one coach, but I really, really enjoyed you know, all the different hats.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Well, you'd have to, definitely.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: How on earth do you juggle all of this?
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Because I'm just a mom trying to do a podcast, driving the money grand multiple times a week and I feel overwhelmed and I got to tell you after hearing everything you're working on.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I feel like a slacker.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: How do you make it all happen?
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: You got to be organized.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: You know my wife and I, my wife Susan, is a great teammate.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: She does a lot of the clerical stuff for me.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: You know she took care of, for example, going to Orlando with the HP team on Sunday.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: You know, taking the team to Topgolf, taking the team bowling.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: You know doing some things away from the practice field.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: She handles stuff like that.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: So you know, great, great teammate, great assistant coach, great, great secretary.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: And just you know we get up early and we're on the phone, we're on the email, we're on the text, you know watching film.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: You know we have a one bedroom apartment on the KD Trail.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: That's our, our, our life at Highland Park.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: That's home.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: And then, every chance we can on the weekend or get a day or two, we actually have a ranch now in Meridian Texas.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: So that's kind of home base and you see, you go from, you know, mach 200 here in Dallas to like like zero, like no people, like out in the middle of nowhere.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: We do have a, a tower, we do have internet, we can work from the ranch, but we're definitely off the grid.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Well, that sounds like the perfect escape to me.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Well, I know you're no stranger to juggling many things.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: You were a starter for four years for both lacrosse and football, and you once said that you were better at football than lacrosse.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: So I just wanted to know how did you go from being better at football to becoming one of the most successful lacrosse coaches in the country?
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: I really liked playing football in high school and in college.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: I tried coaching football in college.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: I didn't really like coaching football.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Football is a is a coaches game.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Cross is a players game and I really enjoy kind of the, the weak process of of getting your team ready to play but for them to make decisions on their own on game day.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: In football so much of it is choreographed by the coaches.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: So it was a different dynamic for me and I knew right away when I was an assistant football coach at Hampton Sydney College in Virginia after one season there, that lacrosse was going to be, you know, the best option for me and the option that I really really enjoyed.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: More moving forward, you know coaching college.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Well, something that you said about your wife just a little bit ago that she was coordinating the top golf and some of the off the field things.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: I think things like that are so important and such a key part of building an actual team.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: You all are doing an incredible job of building a team.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many opportunities outside of practice to get together.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: It means the world to those boys.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Tell me your philosophy on actual team building.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: Well, first and foremost, we do a captain's meeting once a week.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: I take the captains out to lunch all over Snyder Plaza and you know, so you know great communication with our, with our captains.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: We, we just do a lot of things with the guys as much as possible away from the practice field, whether it's you know, you know stuff via an exercise, a homework assignment.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: I'm a big homework assignment, you know.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: I'll give them a video on leadership.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: I'll watch the video and have them respond to me in their own words what they, you know, take from that.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: So you know, big homework assignment of guys, especially in the off season, just keeping them connected.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: So, for example, today we were supposed to have a captain's practice at four o'clock.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: The weather shut us out at MIS and everybody's gonna do a workout on their own, and so their you know homework assignment is tell me exactly where you're going and what your workouts, what your workouts gonna be.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: And they're on their honor.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: And as I pick up my phone, 34 of the 36 kids have texted me already what their individual workout is from four to five this afternoon on their own.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: So for me it's you know.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Go back to the big picture here.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: It's the communication piece.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: You know I'm constantly, all day long, in communication with our kids, right About like anything and everything, from academics, you know, to ill sickness, to injury, to the recruiting, to, you know, lack of confidence, to building confidence, to where they are in the depth chart.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: So I think that's communication, and just touching all the players in all those different areas is a big part of what we do.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Well, you've coached every level D1 through D3, usa, college, post college.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: You've done it all.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: What made you come to this small little town and coach high schoolers, especially when some of them didn't have a lot of experience to begin with?
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: Well, there's two things.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: There's one family.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: First, my oldest daughter, Janet, moved down here two years ago, got married in Illinois.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: We have a house in Illinois where we're all from, and had our grandson 14 months ago.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: So that was a big deal.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: And neither of them are from here.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: So to come down and give them some family presence right here in Dallas was huge.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: And I've been coming down here for like the last 16 years with a bunch of the Duke, alums and Hunter Henry going on an annual hunting trip at his ranch in Coriola County.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: So really, really enjoyed our visits to Dallas and so I think those two things had a huge piece.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: And then the Highland Park job came open and it was like my wife and I you know 40 years of doing this, you know a leap of faith let's go.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: And you know, everywhere here we are.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: I wanted to give a personal thank you to our good friend and show sponsor, kathy Ellwall State Farm Agency.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: We have known Kathy for more than 15 years and there is no person we trust more when it comes to insurance than Kathy Ellwall.
• 9:20
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• 9:31
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• 9:35
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• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Well, what's been the biggest adjudge adjustment to coming to Highland Park?
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I would imagine it's quite a bit different than all the other areas you've worked in.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: Well the thing not being in the building coaching, so I only see the guys, the kids, during practice or, if I have, I see them in Snyder Plaza.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: I'm not in the high school In college.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: You see them in the weight room.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: You see them in the cafeteria.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: You see them going to class.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: You see them in study hall.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: They drop by the office during the day.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: You can shoot the breeze with them.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: They're sitting there watching film in the conference room.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: So that was a big adjustment for me, not having as much contact with the players as I did in college.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: But one of the great things I've really enjoyed is just the impact that you can have on this age group.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: You know the 14 to 18-year-old.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: I've really enjoyed that and you know kind of.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: You know mentoring some of these guys.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: You know getting involved with their lives, as I mentioned, away from the field.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: You know academically.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: You know with their career path.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: You know dealing with them and family issues.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: You know I've done a lot of that, a lot more of that, because the families are right here.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: You know our families in college are so many of them are out of state, so there's been a lot of that stuff and just being here, you know, for the boys 24-7.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: You know we have a rule.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: When I text them, they respond immediately, but on the other hand, when they need me, I'm there immediately as well.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: That's amazing.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: That's so great.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Well, how do you approach working with high schoolers versus college guys?
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: I think the big thing our theme was it began a year ago is that I wasn't going to tone it down, they were going to tone it up.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: So you know we have treated our players at Highland Park like Division I student athletes.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: We've held them to a very high standard in a very professional approach and amazingly, they've responded for the most part the discipline, the confidence, the accountability.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: You know young men want to be held accountable, they want to, they want to be led, they want to lead and just providing all those examples and then when they reach these things in life, the confidence that they receive moving forward and you know I'm a huge, you know you get these guys as young boys, you turn them loose as young men, and that's been our theme for a long, long time here.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Well, I can definitely tell we had the captains on just a couple of weeks ago and I was telling you before we started recording just how impressed we were with them.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: They had such confidence.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: You could tell that they just had very strong work ethics.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: They spoke the world of you.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: They absolutely love playing with you.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: They absolutely love playing lacrosse and being a part of this program and it just it really is a reflection of everything that you're doing there.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it starts, you know you filter it down through the.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: You know, like in the military, you know you got the general and the colonels and all the way down to the sergeants and corporals and the infantry and you know we have a really good hierarchy that way.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: And then our assistant coaches.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: We have two new coaches on the staff this year that have been lights out and I think what the players see is that we got great gel with the coaching staff.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: You know Jacob Stover with the goalies, taylor Claggett with the face off guys, matt Dunn, who I hired from the PLL, is arguably the best defenseman on the planet.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: Spencer Parks played at Caroline, and Towson coaches with the Nationals he's doing the offense.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: And so the kids, our kids today are so perceptive and when they see the chemistry, you know with the coaching staff, that filters down to the chemistry, with the captains to the seniors, all the way down to those two freshmen, harrison Brown and Griffin Hamner.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Well, they spoke about them and what really struck me is they said that you know, even though they're freshmen, that they've become some of their best friends, like they don't give it a second thought that they're several years younger and less experienced, and all that they just completely embraced them.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: They have been and they don't.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: You know there's no hazing, there's no like talking down to those kids.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: You know and that was a problem actually when I got the job over a year ago you know there was unbeknownst to me there was a lot of class division, right, and you know the sophomores hung with the sophomores.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: You know the seniors were the seniors.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: We have erased every bit.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: You know Ben Boyer is is, you know, taking the freshman home from from Moneygram.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: You know we're making sure everybody's got rides.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: You know those kind of things that have just kind of happened.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: And so it's truly been.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: You know it's been.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: You know it's 36 strong.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: It's been a team with zero division, zero bias at any level and 36 guys really, you know, all have their oar in the water.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: You know we're all want the same thing and we're all, you know, busting our tail to get there.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Well that that is quite an accomplishment, because I know that isn't necessarily how some of the other organizations operate and that that really speaks volumes about how you run the program.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: Well, I think too just to add that Arthur said we bring tremendous humility to our kids.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Here I talk about all the time a great man is a humble man and you know we don't, we don't talk about ourselves.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: You know we don't beat our chests.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: You know we don't.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: You know it's not all about us we're.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: You know we, we're sitting in the background, let everybody else talk about us.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: You know, let's just, let's just work on things that we can control.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: And being a, a great man, a humble man, being a gentleman you know we talk about that all the time.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you go to school and I've seen this a couple of times like there'll be one of our guys will walk through a door right.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: There'll be a person 30 feet behind him.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: He'll hold the door till that person goes through.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: You know, and I'm a I'm a huge like gentleman guy with, with our boys you know a scholar in the classroom, you know a gentleman off the field, but on Saturday afternoon nobody is more competitive than our kids.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: So we got to have all three.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Well, I love that.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Well, I can confirm everything you're saying.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: I have a freshman that has been playing lacrosse for only a couple of years now and he's constantly quoting things that you say.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Now coach Pressler says this, and he's just such a man of integrity His word is his word.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: You know, once you give your word, there's no backing down, and so he hears you loud and clear, and I love that.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: It's nothing.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: The same theme for a bunch of different spots.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: Spots here, stops here, but the same theme for for 40 years.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Well, we love hearing underdog stories here in the Bubble Lounge, and I wanted to ask you if you've ever had an instance of a player that maybe didn't quite have the skills that you would normally look for, but had just something special that you recognized within them, that you felt like you could help turn around and turn them into an amazing lacrosse player.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: There's a couple of those come to mind, but this is something I've said to our players in the past.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: Like you know, any coach that says that they don't have favorites in a way is not telling the truth.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: And my favorites are hardly ever the stars.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: My favorites are the underdogs, my favorites are the guys who overcame adversity.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Those are the guys that I root for.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: And you know we have one in particular our 1997 co-captain at Duke, tim Spinoe, never, never saw the field in four years, elected captain by his peers and being kind of a non player on Saturday afternoon, and the job that he led, how he led that team from, you know, from the bench, from the locker room off the field, was off the charts.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: And another thing, back to, you know, the loyalty piece we talk about Tim Spinoe has been a major donor to every stop that the old coach has been in his entire career.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: And we have a bunch of those Duke guys that are HP donors as well.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: I've heard you say that before.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: I mean again that speaks volumes for them to follow your career along the way and to be donors at each of your organizations you've been involved with.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: That is incredible.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: Well, it's anything else, martha.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: Like you want loyalty in life, you got to give it first.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: And a lot of people talk about loyalty and you know we say this to the boys so many times loyalty is lip service.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: You know, when they're loyal till things get hot, they're loyal till they face adversity.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: You know when we are our crew, these Highland Park kids, when we face adversity we meet it head on.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: And you know again, just just part of you know building these, these high school young men, into, into tremendous gentlemen, tremendous scholars and very, very successful guys when they leave us.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Well, how do you inspire players to be their best, especially at the high school age, because you're getting them at a little bit of an awkward age when I always say you know the brain isn't fully developed, sometimes the best choices aren't being made.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Best decisions aren't being made.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: How do you inspire this group of kids?
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Well, I think you spend a lot of time as best you can really get to know them individually and I could tell you 40 years of coaching, the old Newt Rock D days, the Vincent and Barty days, you know, of screaming at kids and and putting them down, and those days are over with me.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Are we tough on them?
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: Do we hold them accountable?
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know there's some guys that you can.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: You can jump their back and you're going to get a response.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: There's some guys you do that and they're going to.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: You know they're just going to melt and and for you as a coach, to use all your techniques.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: You got to know the young man you're dealing with here and you know there's so many techniques you have as a coach to.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: You know, like for me, at the end of the day, I'm always citing the last couple of kids on the bench.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Everybody knows that John Allen's a star.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Everybody knows Wesley Allen.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: Wesley Iverson's a star.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: Quinn Gordon's a star.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: They don't, we don't, I don't need to acknowledge them, those, those other guys Bo Schembeckler, one of my all time mentors, mentors at the University of Michigan, michigan.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: You coach the last five players on the roster harder than you coach the top five because you're coaching morale and so you're always, you're building up.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: Those other guys and those are the guys we talked about before in my world have become my favorites over the years.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: Those guys who've overcome adversity, been too small, not fast enough, not strong enough, that somehow hung in there and persevered, and that's what I get like emotional about that.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: Those are the guys that are mean the most to me in this profession.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Well, that just has to be so fulfilling for you to see them turn around and become better players and better men.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: It's just got to be a wonderful thing to observe.
• 22:57
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• 23:04
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• 23:08
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• 23:16
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• 23:30
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• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I love talking to coaches In fact, you're the second coach we've had in the studio just today because I love hearing their different techniques, like what you're talking about, and their different approaches and everything like that.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: But I was telling you before we started recording that I feel like you coaches, especially you, get a better version of our boys than we see at home.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: They respond a little bit better to the coaches versus the parents and I just wanted to see if you have any tips for all the parents out there of how we can apply your coaching methods to our parenting.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: That's a great question.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: I can remember back in the dark ages, when I was that age, I didn't say anything to my parents either.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: So I don't think that's changed from the seventies to today.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: But this age group is just a tough code to crack.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: We got kids in the team.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: I'd say one sentence and they're going to go on with a 15 minute answer.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: And then there's other guys that I get no sir, yes sir, like I can't, and that's where you go to the text.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: You go to that and then you force them to write it down, and I'm a huge believer in that.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: Force them to write it down because then it's there, right, if they just say it, it's kind of in one ear and out one ear.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: But to answer your question, martha, about parenting, you know I had two division one athletes my daughters lacrosse player and a volleyball player.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: I know one thing with those two if I tried to guide them one way, they were going another way, and so fortunately their mother kind of took care of a lot of that.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: But that's a difficult.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: I mean I don't really have an answer for our parents, I wish.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: I did.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Well, so you were talking about your daughter playing two sports.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: You did as well, and in the meeting recently you talked about how you feel like people should play multiple sports.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: You're really big on that.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Talk to us a little bit about that, because it is hard to juggle it all and make it all happen.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: But why do you think they should play multiple sports?
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: There's so many different lessons you learn, just on the men's side.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: Football is entirely different than lacrosse, entirely different than basketball, entirely different than soccer.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: And think for me, like for a college recruiter, one of the many boxes you look for is competitive spirit.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: And if a guy's playing lacrosse year round, your question like what's this?
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: It's a spring sport and we talked about club before clubs.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Club.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: We get that, but what are you doing all that other time?
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: And so those football guys, for example, that come right to maybe basketball or right to lacrosse or football to lacrosse, the lessons they learn from that sport and our sport to the other sport are invaluable.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: They'll let me a lessons, and as a college recruiter I mean 95% of the division one, coaches out there.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Division two, division three, they want multi sport athletes and there wasn't pro lacrosse till recently, but even the pros.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: You go back to the best pros all state and football in high school, all district and basketball.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: So I just think that part of it too.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: Great competitors want to compete year round and the only way you do that is play multi sports.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Right, right, that's an excellent point.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Well, you were just mentioned recruiting and, like I said, we went to the recruiting meeting the other night.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I was very fascinated with the whole process.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Can you talk to us about that process?
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: Sure it's.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: I think, as I mentioned the meeting, there's a lot of myths out there, untrue, that you know parents get together and start talking, and I've heard a lot of it now being here a year and a half.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: It's so untrue.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: You know people get caught up, like in the social media, the recruiting that like, for example.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: That is nonsense.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: There's not one college coach that pays one iota to any social media Is that right.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: Totally and, unlike like football and basketball, you have the four stars, the five stars.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: You know all these rankings.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: You know inside and across, ranking these guys whether it was a three star is has nothing to do with the college coach's decision, because you know, the college coach now is not only recruiting the kid, he's going to invest scholarship money in them, university funding in them, and so he wants to see this young man and know this young man really really well before that offer is presented.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: So some website guy is not going to give zero tangible information to the college coach in that process whatsoever.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: And then I think for for a lot of parents I think I said this at the meeting too, Martha is that if there's a young man with so much social media, that's a turn off right to the college coaches because you don't want to team sport.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: There's 45 guys, there's one white ball out there and not everybody can touch it.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: So to be a great player at the college level, you got to be a great teammate and by demonstrating like this mass amount of social media, you're not painting, in my opinion, the appropriate picture that you want to present to the college coach.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: And you know, and the other thing.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: I've said this to some of our parents too.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: Some of these parents that go to these events are crazy.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: They're crazy right, and all of a sudden there's Lars Tiffany, the Virginia coach, and he's looking at somebody's son.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: That's his parents.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: I'm seriously all sudden he'll list.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: Nope, we're not going there on the pad and it's my job to be so upfront and direct and honest with our HP parents and I've really enjoyed that part of it too, being the agent on the other side and in.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: We work as hard Recruiting our for our kids.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Whether it's division one, Division two or division I could care less it's, it's college lacrosse.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: You know, if I play club lacrosse, which is fine, at Texas or Georgia or Clemson, I can't help you with that.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: That's.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: That's good, great.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: But it's division one, two or three that I can help you with well, that's what I was so impressed with at the parent meeting the other night Just everything that you were talking about, just the links that you go to to get the boys in front of these Coaches and the phone calls that you make, and just you're able To really get them in front of some excellent choices there.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: And just, you know, just so proud to see that.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: And then the other thing too is the academic fit.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: You know that.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: You know we're using our sport like I never would have got into Washington only no way, not my own, no way and To use the sport to maybe get you in somewhere you know academically and emissions wise, where, just based on your transcript and ACT, that's not happening.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: That's huge.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Will you all have some really big games coming up right oh.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: We have murderers row here.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we go to spring break.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: We play Tabor Tuesday.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: Img is, like I said, like like culverts, like playing the Russians.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: Img is like playing the Russians.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: You know, they got 21 year olds out there.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, men.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: And then we play Exeter on on Friday.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Fly back, give them the weekend off.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: And then a week from this Friday, next Friday we play land in a home, severin at home Tuesday.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: And then Torrey Pines.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: The only team that be to see you ago is coming back to Highlander.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow so we have, you know six, you know three, two teams from New England, img, from Florida, dc, eastern Maryland and obviously Southern California.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: So, and that's kind of the end of that kind of non out of state, non-league play, and then, once we come back after that, here we go, it's Texas across to the end of the year.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Well, the fans have been doing an excellent job of coming out and support.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I've been so impressed and so excited and I just want to reiterate guys, please keep coming to the games.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Every time that guys come on the show, the captain's there Tell us how important it is to have you out in those stands cheering them on.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: They absolutely love the energy.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: It means the world to them.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: So please keep coming to the game and for information on the schedule where they quick and they visit.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Go to the website.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: It's Highland Park lacrosse org so I'll include that in the show links.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: But this has been just wonderful talking to you.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: It was definitely worth the wait and I appreciate you so much for being here.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you all the things you're doing for our boys and for being a part of our program at Highland Park.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: My pleasure, martha's.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: I say every day, and every text I send to these guys.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: At the beginning it says gentlemen, good morning, good afternoon, good evening.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: And then the last two words go Scots.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: That's wonderful.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you again, and that's been another episode of the bubble lounge.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: I'm Martha Jackson and we'll catch you next time.