Latest / Do I Need My Racket? / If Only I Listen to What I See

Transcript

If Only I Listen to What I See · Do I Need My Racket?

• 0:23
  Welcome to Do I Need by Racket? podcast brought to you by In Her Name Foundation and I am Cindy Swain,
• 0:27
  the host of this show. Well, before I get to this episode, I just want to give you all a quick
• 0:32
  update on In Her Name Foundation and what I've been up to the last couple of weeks. I just
• 0:37
  returned from a road trip from western Kansas, a 12-day adventure, where we sponsored the second
• 0:43
  annual Carla J. Baker Legacy Tennis Tournament and it was a huge success. We had five area schools,
• 0:50
  Victoria Hayes High, Trigo Community High School, Norton and Goodland.
• 0:55
  And we also had about 35 kids and 10 coaches that showed up at the tournament.
• 1:01
  It was a huge success, and I am so excited again for next year, for our third annual event.
• 1:07
  But I also had the privilege of meeting with some of the kids prior to the tournament.
• 1:11
  I stopped by Hayes High's practice on Thursday,
• 1:14
  and I stopped by Trigo Community High School practice on that Friday prior to the tournament
• 1:19
  and spoke with the kids and just talked about the foundation and the podcast.
• 1:24
  It was just a great opportunity to continue to share and inspire those young people.
• 1:31
  But one of the other things I did was I met with the Fort A State University women's wrestling team and coaches.
• 1:38
  Some of you might remember I interviewed Victoria Gutierrez in Same Sunsets that aired last spring.
• 1:45
  And I promised her that if I got back to Hayes, I would stop by and see her.
• 1:49
  So I did.
• 1:50
  And what a treat that was.
• 1:52
  As I was sharing my story of how things happened,
• 1:56
  it inspired three of some of those kids on the team to come up and share theirs.
• 2:00
  And I'm happy to say they will be on future episodes of Do I Need My Racket podcast,
• 2:06
  probably later on in the fall.
• 2:08
  And I'm really excited about that opportunity.
• 2:12
  There's one more thing I want to talk about before I get into this episode.
• 2:17
  And that's the last one.
• 2:18
  Episode number 37 called, Why Do Girls Quit Sports?
• 2:23
  Because words matter more than you think.
• 2:25
  Well, in that episode, I highlight actual experiences that I heard and witnessed of some
• 2:34
  atrocious coaching, absolutely appalling coaching, coaches that should not even be anywhere near
• 2:41
  kids, but yet some of them still are coaching.
• 2:44
  But I also ended that episode with a positive story about what good coaching can look like.
• 2:50
  So if you haven't had a chance to listen to that one, give it a try.
• 2:55
  But for this episode, number 38, it's called,
• 2:59
  If Only I Listen to What I See, right?
• 3:04
  You know, there's so many times in life where we see coaches or as a parent,
• 3:09
  we want our kids to do this.
• 3:11
  We want our kids to be this kind of person.
• 3:13
  We want them to have this kind of profession.
• 3:15
  They're going to love basketball.
• 3:17
  They're going to be a great volleyball player, you know, whatever it is.
• 3:21
  But maybe as we try to imbue our viewpoints or put them in a certain position, we want
• 3:29
  that more than the young person does.
• 3:33
  And the thing to glean from this episode is the fact that my guest really understands
• 3:40
  how important it is for youth, for that drive, that determination, for that passion, the
• 3:48
  love of something.
• 3:49
  It has to come from within.
• 3:51
  it has to be completely organic it has to be from them and then as they take accountability from that
• 4:00
  they're successful and as they go out into life as they've learned to take accountability and be
• 4:06
  responsible for their likes and dislikes wow what a difference that makes in the world right well
• 4:13
  my guest for this show is Mike Hummel he is amazing the guy is kind he's gentle he's humble
• 4:22
  he's smart, he's articulate, insightful, all of those things. And he understands just that,
• 4:31
  that it has to come from within the child or the young person. It has to be organic in order for
• 4:39
  them to be successful. So this conversation I have with him is absolutely delightful. He's the kind
• 4:46
  of coach that every kid would want to perform for. He is the kind of coach that every parent would
• 4:52
  want their child to interface with just once in life. So without any further description,
• 4:59
  let's dive in and have a listen. Welcome to the podcast, Mike Hummel. You came to me and
• 5:29
  listened to a podcast that I did earlier in the summer, and you piqued my interest with
• 5:35
  your background. I did look you up because sometimes when people reach out, you're like,
• 5:39
  I don't know what's going on here. But anyway, I have Mike Hummel with me here this afternoon
• 5:44
  on the show. And I'm going to let you kind of talk a little bit about yourself. But just to
• 5:49
  barely introduce, you're a former track standout at Texas A&M, a record holder. And I know that
• 5:56
  you're a personal trainer, you train elite athletes, and then you've just started a new
• 6:00
  business venture. So let's let's just dive in and just kind of introduce yourself to the listeners.
• 6:08
  Yeah, thanks, Cindy. And I appreciate your due diligence, got to do your homework on the people
• 6:11
  that show up on your show. So I appreciated that. And I appreciate the convo we had prior to the
• 6:16
  one but yeah so um a little background so yeah i think i'm a family man so five kiddos so still
• 6:24
  under my roof so still in the thick of of things ages nine to 16 three boys two girls um and yes
• 6:30
  i did have many moons ago ran for texas a&m was a blast i i never thought i'd go to to that school
• 6:36
  i grew up telling aggie jokes in fact um i was thought i was destined for university of texas
• 6:40
  with the longhorn but um yeah and then moved on into to coaching after that coach track at smu and
• 6:46
  ran professionally for a couple years and realized that was never going to provide meaningfully for
• 6:51
  a family. And so, um, at that point jumped into tech and tech sales, but always coached on the
• 6:55
  side. I've always loved athletes and developing athletes. It's just, um, I love seeing the light
• 7:00
  bulbs go off for endurance sports specifically, just seeing if we make deposits today, a year
• 7:05
  from now, you're going to be blessed by the faithfulness. And I decided if they get that,
• 7:09
  man, it's so cool. So yeah, that's, um, and for a lot of time, a lot of my, my career has been
• 7:15
  coaching um track runners is kind of my background but more recently moved into junior triathletes
• 7:20
  and so they'll race about an hour some of them race 30 minutes but um what it's the format the
• 7:25
  the athletes do is kind of what the olympians in triathlon do so it's a called a draft legal
• 7:29
  triathlon so it's not something you and i would do cindy we're riding those bikes we're down in
• 7:32
  the aero bars like they're riding road bikes three inches from i have done drafting though i have i
• 7:38
  have to tell you oh yeah oh yeah because i you know riding in kansas in the wind um you know
• 7:44
  you're smart by endurance where you know we biked across kansas from colorado all the way to
• 7:50
  missouri and yeah you wanted to draft because otherwise there's sometimes the wind blows so
• 7:56
  hard you're just gonna like fall over but um yeah i have done drafting it's it's it's gutsy
• 8:03
  you have to really really be paying attention to what you're doing especially if you get in a group
• 8:06
  that rides real fast because one mishap in the whole the whole group goes over so it's it's a
• 8:14
  hard thing to watch and coach i mean that we are they they need to draft like they work as a pack
• 8:20
  out of the water and it's 30 35 miles an hour and you know we've seen lots of broken collarbones and
• 8:25
  wrists and that kind of thing so it is a little bit unnerving um anyway it's uh that's what i'm
• 8:30
  doing now and it's been a blast so i could i could ramble a little bit more but that's a
• 8:34
  probably a good snapshot of tell us a little bit more about your track background and running for
• 8:38
  texas a&m and and give give us a little bit more information about that sure so i was at 800
• 8:45
  and 1,500 meter athlete.
• 8:47
  So ran 1,500 is kind of what they call the metric mile.
• 8:51
  And so I loved cross country in high school
• 8:54
  and I did not love cross country in college
• 8:56
  because it doubled the distance.
• 8:57
  It was a 10K in college
• 8:58
  and I've always been a tall chap.
• 9:00
  So six, four and just, it was a lot harder to move.
• 9:04
  But I ran cross and track and then indoor track for them.
• 9:07
  And yeah, it was a part of helping build
• 9:10
  what has since become kind of a perennial powerhouse
• 9:13
  and track and field and won several national titles.
• 9:15
  I was on the cusp of that kind of helping win a national title well no we never did that but
• 9:21
  we've won conference a few times and we were just it was fun to be um like knowing that we were
• 9:26
  building something from scratch at least on the distant side they were kind of always a heavy
• 9:30
  sprint and jump school and the way track and field works collegiately you don't need a lot
• 9:35
  of points to be competitive and win a national title so you need two or three athletes that are
• 9:39
  exceptional and that tends to do the the trick so it was fun to be um kind of their freshman year
• 9:45
  through my victory lap. I definitely took a fifth year to graduate, but, um, it was, it was, it was
• 9:50
  awesome. I really still keep up in touch with some of those athletes. Yeah. I read somewhere that
• 9:53
  you set some records at Texas A&M. I did. Yeah. I was part of setting seven different school
• 9:59
  records, which is cool. So are they still standing today? The last one was broken maybe a year and a
• 10:05
  half ago. Cause my dad texted me and I think it's great when your dad's still tracking with your
• 10:08
  records, he's like, son, it just got broken. It was the indoor 1000 meter record, which was kind
• 10:13
  have an obscure one that was probably destined to stand but yeah it was funny so okay that's pretty
• 10:18
  impressive though so um yeah so then you went into coaching you coached at smu southern methodist
• 10:24
  university and you yeah i did and then was a um coach there with the distance crew they had just
• 10:31
  um lost or dropped their men's program and so they had um through different funding uh challenges
• 10:38
  that they had so it was with the women's program and so that was a um it was my first foray into
• 10:43
  what collegiate coaching looked like. I hadn't thought about it that critically. Um, and at the
• 10:48
  same time while coaching there, I was able to pursue in parallel kind of a quote professional
• 10:52
  career as a, uh, an athlete for running for a six. And so, um, again, was pursuing the 800,
• 10:58
  1500 meters at that time. Um, and you know, you're a quote pro runner making 30, 35 grand a year,
• 11:05
  plus your little stipend for being a coach. It was, it was not good living, but it was sufficient
• 11:09
  it was great you know how many years did you run professionally i ran full-time for three years and
• 11:15
  then i kept trying to pursue it in parallel while working part-time and other things and just wasn't
• 11:20
  a good fit i struggled with uh various injuries i was the time i had moved from the 1500 and tried
• 11:26
  to run a faster race most of the time as you get older you run longer races the body just isn't as
• 11:30
  snappy but i didn't actually learn how to move and run mechanically correct until after college
• 11:35
  and when i started moving correctly moving my six four frame properly and striking the ground
• 11:40
  efficiently like the light bulbs went off i'm running so much faster with less effort so the
• 11:44
  800 was actually a better chance for me to make the olympic team uh was my my thoughts just based
• 11:49
  on my leg speed and how dense and competitive the 1500 meters was so did you try out for the olympics
• 11:54
  but i did did not make them i was a top 10 guy but you gotta be top two to make the squad yeah
• 12:00
  well yeah it was it was fun and i again even even the way i proposed to my wife was like hey we'll
• 12:05
  get married you know sometime in september after the olympic trials i just remember it was fun she
• 12:10
  was i mean even from early on she was supportive of of the journey and knowing that it's like
• 12:13
  uh it's it's a it's a it's neat to have a passion and be gifted and to be able to do that as long
• 12:20
  as i did so yeah i i think we talked earlier when we were talking last week that i think that 800
• 12:25
  and 1500 especially the 800 i think that is like the toughest race to run because it's a distant
• 12:32
  sprint. It's so, so miserable. And the 802 in the last year for the U S has just become even more
• 12:41
  of a sprint. Like the guys are running one 41, one 42, one 43, every race, like one 43, one 44
• 12:49
  used to be, you're going to go win the Olympics. And now it's like just entry fee, you just to
• 12:53
  table stakes to get in a race or two. So it's a, they opened it up at sub 50 in the first lap and
• 12:58
  you're like man that's just brisk it is it is um i think we joked it's it's it's a fun event to
• 13:04
  watch for like middle schoolers or high schoolers when they uh take off in all a blazing glory
• 13:12
  it's so true about the three quarters of the second lap they they by the time they get around
• 13:20
  the last hundred yards they're literally crawling because they've just so it's so great yeah you
• 13:26
  almost look prophetic if you have kids that have never seen it you're like let me tell you what's
• 13:29
  gonna happen and it's like you just get to lay it out there and it plays out almost to the team
• 13:32
  to your exact point so yeah but uh yeah my kids were all on track and my oldest son actually he
• 13:39
  was a jumper high jump long jumper uh and he went to Aquinas College which is a school over in Grand
• 13:46
  Rapids and he did track you really you know it's fun and it's you know you it's so different because
• 13:54
  I got to see the stages in middle school and then high school and then on into college.
• 13:58
  And it was, it was really fun to go and watch those beats and, and yeah, watch that.
• 14:04
  So anyhow, I think it's good.
• 14:07
  I really, well, no, I just remember some of my fondest memories with my own folks where
• 14:11
  it was during college track meets, there was, there's a pulsing in the track.
• 14:14
  It isn't, you know, there's downtime between events.
• 14:17
  And so you're kind of stuck there and just kind of created natural pockets for, for conversation,
• 14:21
  which are sweet.
• 14:21
  So yeah, it's fun. It was really fun. So then, you know, you go off and you get married and you
• 14:29
  have kids, you know, from what we talked about kind of, and in your experience with coaching
• 14:34
  kind of, kind of pushed you into this new venture, this new business venture that you're doing. It's
• 14:41
  MP3 gummies, because you're really about how to give athletes at an elite level, the biggest
• 14:48
  advantage through, you know, making sure they're getting the proper nutrition and the proper
• 14:51
  supplements. So talk a little bit about your business. Sure. Yeah. So, um, I'll take a step
• 14:59
  back and maybe set the stage for what brought the business about. So, um, yeah, the, the product is
• 15:05
  called MPG, but the, the, the gummies were a product of watching some of the athletes, including
• 15:11
  my own older kids at a swim workout. So my older ones now do triathlon at an elite level. And I
• 15:17
  can talk more about that later, but they were doing a swim workout and about an hour into the
• 15:23
  practice the the second 30 right the last well last 30 and 45 minutes were rather technically
• 15:28
  sound like it needed sharpness very little rest and i just watched the mechanics of their stroke
• 15:33
  fall apart so i had about eight athletes in the lane but it was very noticeable to me because my
• 15:37
  son at the time was going through another massive growth spurt so he just he looked empty and he
• 15:42
  was doing similar work that the others had been doing but he looked he looked empty faster and so
• 15:46
  um as a you know you you know i just talked about being able to bike you know before the
• 15:51
  started for 50, 60 miles, you know, that you need carbs on a 50, 60 mile bike ride, like life's
• 15:57
  better with carbs. So, um, it's, it's the, it's endurance understands this, but club sport does
• 16:03
  not. And so their swim was an hour and a half. In theory, they should have been able to power
• 16:07
  through it. And most practices or, um, any sport, lacrosse, basketball, soccer, they, they might
• 16:13
  have a water break, but they're really thinking, man, I need fuel and an endurance for a high
• 16:17
  schooler. They're not running two hours and that's generally cycling like 50, 60 miles. So
• 16:21
  something i learned from the endurance side of things and even doing my own kind of half iron
• 16:25
  man and type stuff but these guys are just look like they were empty and out of fuel and so
• 16:29
  the next probable practice is we tried some different powders that had carbs in them
• 16:33
  in their water bottles and hey let's see if we can drink this and hold this
• 16:36
  down but they weren't drinking enough they're drinking like one or two ounces but they needed
• 16:40
  to get 16 you know 16 ounces of fluid in to make that work for them to power through the workout
• 16:45
  i'm like man coach that just makes my stomach bounce up and down yeah in the middle of a swim
• 16:49
  practice. And, um, and what, you know, we see it on the bike too, but, um, you can kind of eat like
• 16:54
  almost a granola bar type thing on the bike. If you're not going super hard, if you're going hard,
• 16:58
  it's not useful. So I went to work on creating a product that was kind of designed for club sport
• 17:04
  athlete, because I just saw a need for what the endurance world knows the club sport athlete
• 17:09
  doesn't where there's this gap between, you know, 45 minutes to 60 minutes where cognition gets
• 17:15
  sloppy. That's actually what parents notice first. And what science says goes first. Cause your brain
• 17:19
  needs fuel. It needs glucose to make decisions with. It's very, very, very documented. And then
• 17:25
  60 to 75 minutes in, you know, um, mechanics start falling apart and you start getting fatigue and
• 17:30
  you know, the body, just the body, the battery, battery, you know, the body battery rather is
• 17:35
  drained and you can see it. And then it's not a grit issue. It's not a suck it up issue. It's
• 17:39
  you're out of fuel and we can do better. And so, um, yeah, applesauce pouches work, granola bars
• 17:44
  work. There's a lot of things where you can get 30, 40 grams of carbs. I just wanted to make
• 17:47
  something where fueling didn't feel like a chore so i made a gummy that tastes like candy but is
• 17:51
  super clean that is kind of clinically backed invalidated with with the studies that exist out
• 17:56
  there in the market that say hey man i think adolescents need around this much and they will
• 18:00
  see a significant improvement so this kind of brings up something comical um uh so michigan
• 18:07
  actually michigan state is like the number one dairy ag program in all the the the state schools
• 18:15
  in all the country. And Michigan is the number one state for dairy. And so they push chocolate
• 18:24
  milk between or after workouts. Now, you know, call me silly, but I did the granola bar and did
• 18:30
  stuff like that, Gatorade, all kinds of stuff. But the last thing I wanted when I was hot after
• 18:34
  a workout was to chug a thing of chocolate milk. I mean, I'm just curious, what are your thoughts
• 18:39
  on that? Yeah, well, there's, we don't dislike milk, we just don't drink it over here. So it's
• 18:48
  a hard thing for me to think about drinking that much milk, especially after a workout.
• 18:53
  Yeah. What chocolate milk does have that body's kind of need after a workout. It does have some
• 18:58
  simple carbs and sugars. It has a lot of protein that the body also can need. But when you
• 19:04
  pasteurize milk, which almost everything's pasteurized, you lose a lot of the bioavailability
• 19:09
  of that protein and other things. So it kind of, it becomes not quite as nutrient dense as one
• 19:13
  might hope, but you do get the sugars. And a lot of times after a hard workout, that is pretty,
• 19:17
  pretty useful and so um i would think that would be next to impossible before workout
• 19:21
  or in the middle of a workout but potentially afterwards i i thought it's funny i was just
• 19:26
  talking about that exact chocolate milk use case with um nickel ultra it's like the workout beer
• 19:32
  like in what world is the is a beer a workout beer like they did a great job of tethering the
• 19:37
  marketing to it so i kind of like in chocolate milk to that i was like man that's well played
• 19:41
  marketers well played yeah that's funny because there's a ride it's called the down rack it's
• 19:46
  you ride from the michigan state university pavilion all the way to the mackinac bridge which
• 19:51
  is the bridge between the lower peninsula and the upper peninsula of michigan it's a five-day
• 19:56
  350 mile ride and on about day four three or four there was always a spot that someone had a caught
• 20:03
  lake cottage and we'd stop there and i you know i was in a group of mixed you know women and men
• 20:07
  and and the guys it worked at nine o'clock and their biggest thing was that that stopped they
• 20:12
  were having a beer and i'm like there's no way that i would be able to even ride after chugging
• 20:19
  you know a long neck or whatever after it's so funny that you know think about that but yeah
• 20:26
  or people's perception of nutrition and they're well we need the carbs and you know it's got a
• 20:33
  lot of good things in there to replenish pretty funny yeah that's a good stretch but you know
• 20:39
  That's what it takes sometimes to get spent on a bike, then more power to them.
• 20:42
  Exactly.
• 20:43
  The only problem with that is in about a mile down the road, we had to ride up out of this lake on an extremely steep hill.
• 20:50
  It was probably like maybe 14%, 15% incline.
• 20:55
  Yeah, straight up.
• 20:56
  And yeah, they never did make it.
• 20:58
  They had to get off and walk.
• 21:02
  He made your bed.
• 21:04
  He made your bed.
• 21:07
  So let's talk about your kids a little bit, because I know you'd mentioned to me that your oldest son is a elite triathlete and you travel to Europe with him.
• 21:18
  And yeah, so just talk about your kids.
• 21:21
  I know it's kind of humorous that you were telling me a funny story.
• 21:24
  Your second oldest son, his name is Track.
• 21:27
  His first name is Track.
• 21:29
  And he hates to run.
• 21:31
  Also correct.
• 21:33
  And also still humorous.
• 21:34
  Yeah, it is funny.
• 21:35
  It's cute.
• 21:36
  So just talk about your kids.
• 21:37
  Talk about your boys and your girls and how they've grown up in the sport
• 21:41
  and what they like to do.
• 21:43
  Yeah, man, a huge smile comes on my face.
• 21:46
  I love my kids.
• 21:46
  So we, as a family, don't really do organized sport until they're 10.
• 21:52
  So I think kids are over-specialized as it is.
• 21:56
  And even though the gummy business kind of focuses on club sport
• 21:59
  and those that have kind of doubled down on a particular venture,
• 22:04
  I think we're over-rotated.
• 22:06
  So we say no as a family till, till at least they're 10.
• 22:09
  But, um, so my younger two haven't really done much.
• 22:11
  They'll do some, we'll do some, my, my daughters are, uh, my, my daughter honor is 11.
• 22:16
  My other daughter's merit.
• 22:18
  She's nine and they are lovely creatures.
• 22:21
  They're just awesome.
• 22:22
  But they'll do like, they did the triathlon, um, the national race this summer, which is
• 22:26
  what we have more is no training for it to show up.
• 22:27
  They swam a couple of times at the Y and then would come to some workouts with their brothers
• 22:31
  and run around the track and hang out with friends.
• 22:33
  But it wasn't, there was no structure and no rigor to it.
• 22:36
  um, they'll do the same kind of thing with track meets that are kind of impromptu in the community
• 22:39
  that some of the retailers will put on in the summer. Um, I think my old, my 11 year old wants
• 22:46
  to play volleyball and I'm all for that. She's a, she's tall like her brothers. And I think at some
• 22:51
  point it's helpful if you're going to go down a path and to, you know, spend time in areas that
• 22:56
  you may be, um, genetically wired for. If she were to say she wanted to do gymnastics, I'd probably
• 23:00
  say no. I mean, I, I mean, it's cause I, I know what a tall lanky frame is going to do in that
• 23:05
  sport and it just it's hard so high jump maybe like your son but uh but volleyball is also a
• 23:11
  good option um and then working my way from the bottom to the top uh or the youngest oldest my
• 23:17
  third kiddo is named cooper and he is a boss he's full of life at everything he does and is a monster
• 23:23
  athlete um the uh he just started he's just now eligible at race age 13 is what they call it for
• 23:30
  the draft legal form of triathlon like his big brother so he loved it so he i was talking last
• 23:35
  night about he said dad's so fun when's the season like it's it's next april we still have
• 23:39
  some time so okay okay so um and then then um he played baseball for a while but um that was he
• 23:46
  just he liked he's he's one of those kids that just needs to move all the time and baseball does
• 23:50
  not reward frenetic activity yeah yeah so he was great at baseball but um and frankly there's a lot
• 23:57
  more financial upside in baseball but you know that's neither here nor there so because i think
• 24:01
  sports a small part of life uh then my second second kiddos you've already alluded to his name
• 24:06
  track um i he is by far my most tender and thoughtful human in the family um i call him
• 24:13
  when i was traveling this summer to get insights on what's going on in the house and what's the
• 24:16
  mood of the house he's he's great he's gotten into cycling and we talked a little bit about
• 24:21
  before the show too which is great so because he's able to ride a road bike alongside the guys
• 24:25
  that do triathlon and he's just good friends with them so they have a team of about 25 kids and he's
• 24:29
  really good friends with a lot of them so this gives him a an outlet he likes doing but he doesn't
• 24:33
  have to mess with swimming isn't to mess with uh the running which he loathes and you know he
• 24:38
  he grew to six four at like age 12 i mean he's he's when he talked huge human um and again very
• 24:45
  thoughtful so when you talk to him until he does voice change you're like how are you so big and
• 24:49
  sounds so so young yeah yeah yeah um and then my oldest um yeah kind of a different story for him
• 24:57
  he's um i don't know if i told you this he came to me at age 10 and said dad i want to do the
• 25:02
  olympics and triathlon i said then that's awesome you're 10 no let's just keep being a kid on his
• 25:07
  11th birthday dad hey it's been a year what do you think about training me for the olympics and
• 25:11
  triathlon i'm like awesome you're 11 but no 12th birthday same thing and i'm like man this is
• 25:17
  coming from it's coming from within like he's watched dad do the silly local sprints and half
• 25:24
  firemen's and that kind of thing but um so we uh we started training and he's done exceptionally
• 25:30
  well he's the national junior champion this year for the u.s um some of the junior national team
• 25:35
  and we'll represent them in spain here in about a month his name's graham graham so he's the
• 25:42
  national junior champion for uh triathlon what's the age limit on that then at what age so it's
• 25:49
  race age 16 to 19 16 so he's yep so he's race age 17 yeah he's he's uh congratulations that's fun
• 25:58
  he's a freak he's a freak he's a really good athlete but he's one of those kids that puts the
• 26:02
  work in and loves it and it comes you can just see it you know and it doesn't it it has to come
• 26:07
  organically it has to come from them they have to accept ownership of it before it's really theirs
• 26:16
  You know, I know that you and I both coached enough where you see a lot of outside influences
• 26:21
  and wishful thinking and putting kids in sports and it's more either coach driven or parent
• 26:27
  driven.
• 26:29
  And when you have those kids that are self-driven, night and day difference, night and day.
• 26:36
  It is.
• 26:37
  And I, when you couple that with, um, a teachable spirit and that athlete, like you just get
• 26:42
  massive returns on their training.
• 26:45
  And I just, that's, that's, he, he's in that in drugs.
• 26:47
  Actually, all my kids are really teachable, which I'm super thankful for.
• 26:50
  But I think what you just said, if it comes from an athlete from within and they're teachable, I mean, you just and you have a decent coach, too, and it helps.
• 26:58
  But like you just you have so much room for a compressed learning curve and a willingness to fail and having a multi-year mindset as opposed to, you know, a seasonal mindset, which doesn't tend to work in sport.
• 27:10
  Right. Not when you get to that level. It's not seasonal. It would be, you know, kind of a year long thing.
• 27:15
  I'm just curious. So what does a, what does a training session look like for your son? Who's
• 27:20
  the national champion for triathlon? What does it, what does a day look like for him in training or
• 27:25
  a week? Yeah. Um, I just had shared some data with my team before nationals. Nationals was
• 27:31
  about three weeks ago. So I've, this is fresh on top of mind. So they swim five days a week.
• 27:37
  They average around 15,000 yards a week of swimming, which is may sound like a lot, but
• 27:42
  club swimmers will swim eight to 10,000 yards a day. So in the big scheme of things, they swim
• 27:46
  a lot less. They bike a lot. Like they bike 140, 150 miles a week and five, 6,000 feet of climbing.
• 27:55
  So a lot of biking, but they only run 20 miles a week, 21 miles. So they've run very little. So
• 28:00
  the format of racing for them, it's a, it's a true sprint distance. So it's a 750 meters swim
• 28:06
  and then it's a 20 kilometer bike
• 28:08
  and then it's a 5K run.
• 28:09
  So it's about an hour
• 28:10
  and they're drafting,
• 28:12
  like I mentioned earlier.
• 28:13
  So we spend a lot of time on bike skills,
• 28:15
  but that kind of gives you
• 28:16
  this stratification of the training.
• 28:18
  We approach cross country with sincerity.
• 28:22
  We approach track with sincerity.
• 28:24
  The best triathletes in the world
• 28:25
  are running close to 13 flat in the 5K.
• 28:28
  And so fresh,
• 28:31
  they're running close to 14 flat off the bike,
• 28:32
  but it's just the level of talent
• 28:34
  But for these athletes, it's just exceptional.
• 28:39
  My son has a legit chance of breaking four minutes in the mile
• 28:41
  the time he graduates high school.
• 28:43
  So he's a 409 miler as a sophomore.
• 28:46
  And so you have that level of run on very little running
• 28:50
  because we put so much emphasis on the bike
• 28:52
  to offload the work and not beat up the body.
• 28:54
  So it's on a day-to-day basis.
• 28:57
  It's some variation of swim bike.
• 28:58
  It's usually two workouts a day, hour, hour and a half.
• 29:02
  every day like year round yeah yeah we take we take a week off and we know we have different
• 29:10
  seasonal emphasis uh where we may shift things around but yeah they train year round and they
• 29:14
  treat they treat triathlon like a sport um like a lot of the rest of the world does but just
• 29:19
  shouldn't have the same maybe um a lot of the u.s treats triathlon as a seasonal sport so they'll
• 29:26
  run track for their school then they'll start swimming and you know may be swimming in parallel
• 29:30
  Oh, but then they start biking in the summer and they show up like, oh, I'm behind.
• 29:33
  And yeah, there's a little bit of you are behind if you're trying to treat.
• 29:36
  You also have the advantage of living in Texas because you're in Dallas area, metro area.
• 29:41
  And so, I mean, you can bike your round there.
• 29:45
  Some places here, unfortunately, that's that's difficult unless you do like indoor biking, which I just that's not my favorite thing to do.
• 29:54
  I will do it if I have to.
• 29:55
  Yeah, I'd rather be.
• 29:57
  You'll laugh, though.
• 29:58
  You'll laugh because we, I mean, 90% of the rides are indoors all year.
• 30:01
  Are they?
• 30:02
  Yeah, it's mostly for safety, but also because when you have a group of junior-aged athletes,
• 30:10
  you have disparate skill, both by competency as well as power.
• 30:15
  And so my 13-year-old can bike next to my 16-year-old, even though a 16-year-old,
• 30:20
  even though one has a threshold of 250 and another one's a threshold of 425.
• 30:25
  Like they couldn't bike outdoors together.
• 30:26
  couldn't even sit in the draft of the older one. So I have a room in my house off the garage that
• 30:31
  started with one indoor bike and two, then four, and now it has seven. So I fold different groups
• 30:36
  in. And so it becomes a community event inside and they write a program called Zwift. But it
• 30:42
  lets us actually do less work and spend less time on a bike. Well, I can see that because when
• 30:48
  you're coaching, I mean, especially that age of kids, you need to have command over them.
• 30:54
  you know when they go off and you know ride you know 20 kilometers you're like okay uh all right
• 31:00
  either you ride with them or drive with them or do something or have to follow them but just because
• 31:05
  for safety reasons i could certainly do that for sure yeah we just did we're in we're in colorado
• 31:09
  for a month kind of training for the for worlds coming up but we did a ride up wolf creek pass
• 31:15
  last week and so um the we had you know five or six riders but we had three sag sag vehicles
• 31:22
  trailing the different groups to your point because they were all riding different speeds
• 31:25
  and it's a nine percent eight nine percent grade for 45 minutes and some people took an hour 10
• 31:30
  like it's just you couldn't so you need a lot of vehicles to support safety wise and also
• 31:34
  mechanically in case something goes askew so yeah it is more efficient but it's also um it isn't as
• 31:41
  fun and so we do have to get outdoors and we try to do that on sunday mornings when the roads are
• 31:44
  not as congested and we spend a lot of time in parking lots working on our bike handling
• 31:48
  set up cones we you know taking turns at speed and um you know i never really thought about that
• 31:54
  but that does make sense especially if you're racing because you know you can really lose a
• 31:58
  lot of time if you you know something happens or you get out of the pack and you lose your draft
• 32:03
  and yeah especially with that elite level so so you've got the world championships coming up for
• 32:08
  your oldest son uh and then what's what's up for him after that olympics olympic trials yeah so the
• 32:16
  the worlds we'll see what happens at worlds there's um we'll take a break after worlds we
• 32:22
  we did worlds last year uh his first year kind of eligible for it he did he did fine but he's got
• 32:28
  much bigger goals that she would like to podium um and then um we'll take a break and then cross
• 32:34
  country for him starts up he loves loves to run and so we'll i help coach a cross country team in
• 32:39
  dallas that's got 80 or 90 kids across middle school and high school and so there's a there's
• 32:43
  A lot of, I'm still consistently involved with those guys and, um,
• 32:46
  appear just a short term for, um, Colorado.
• 32:49
  I'll get back away from my fam to keep working with those kiddos. But, um,
• 32:53
  so yeah, we'll fold them to cross and the tri season will start.
• 32:56
  I don't know what, I don't actually know what tribe will look like next,
• 32:58
  next year. We kind of outgrew the junior series of races that are in the States.
• 33:02
  And so we'll, we will have more international races, but I'm not sure where,
• 33:06
  um, and, and you're just taking a group of boys, correct?
• 33:11
  Did you take any girls?
• 33:13
  I took, yeah, there were some girls
• 33:14
  that raced with us last year.
• 33:16
  Their folks came along, of course.
• 33:18
  But yeah, a couple of those girls graduated
• 33:21
  and then we've got some,
• 33:22
  so at Nationals, we took four of the top seven this year.
• 33:24
  And so two of those boys, my son and a lot of them,
• 33:29
  Nate, are here at the house training.
• 33:30
  They're both going to Worlds.
• 33:30
  And the other two are also young.
• 33:32
  And I think they will come race with us next year
• 33:34
  internationally as well, just to get your world rocked
• 33:38
  and go, what's the delta between where you're at
• 33:40
  and where you need to be?
• 33:41
  There's a lot of maturation that just physically happens,
• 33:43
  but I think you were just alluding to it on the bike.
• 33:45
  There's an efficiency that has to be learned and you can't really,
• 33:49
  you have to go do to learn.
• 33:50
  Oh yeah.
• 33:50
  And so that's,
• 33:52
  you would have to.
• 33:53
  Yeah,
• 33:53
  for sure.
• 33:54
  And so we'll do some more crit racing,
• 33:56
  which is really,
• 33:57
  you know,
• 33:57
  criterion style bike racing here in the States,
• 33:59
  but those are dangerous to know in,
• 34:02
  but there's a skill acquisition that has to happen.
• 34:04
  Yeah.
• 34:05
  They are crazy.
• 34:06
  Yeah.
• 34:07
  But that's the kind of racing they do on the bike.
• 34:09
  It's like very stochastic and very aggressive.
• 34:11
  And yeah,
• 34:12
  We were in France one summer when, um, we were staying, the tour de France went through
• 34:18
  the city and that's like, it's a super bowl.
• 34:21
  I mean, people are lying in the streets and the way they ride is just insane.
• 34:26
  I mean, just they're going so fast and they're so close together that it, yeah.
• 34:32
  Yeah.
• 34:33
  Yeah.
• 34:34
  And then we got to watch a time trial.
• 34:35
  That was kind of fun.
• 34:36
  Oh, that's cool.
• 34:37
  Yeah.
• 34:37
  That's beautiful.
• 34:38
  We love the, we love the tour de France.
• 34:40
  So, yeah.
• 34:41
  So I want to get to a couple of questions as we had this really nice conversation.
• 34:44
  last week and we talked about a number of things um first i'd like to talk about you know the
• 34:50
  difference between training girls and boys at this elite level and there are differences because
• 34:57
  you know girls mature earlier you know generally on the 14 and boys usually hit puberty after that
• 35:04
  so your training has to be tempered to where they are developmentally right talk a little bit about
• 35:09
  that. Yeah. Man, a couple, it's an example came to mind after our conversation we'd hung up last
• 35:17
  week, but so my son and a sweet girl, um, that we had jumped on the team earlier, they were
• 35:24
  comparable swimmers before my son's growth spurred and everything else. And she measured her success
• 35:30
  based on how well she was swimming relative to him. And then he, his body changed and matured
• 35:36
  and she was no longer as fast. And I, I knew this was coming and I tried to manage expectations for
• 35:41
  is, hey, I love how strong you swim.
• 35:43
  You're a beautiful swimmer.
• 35:45
  You're efficient.
• 35:46
  You will continue to mature.
• 35:48
  I just need you to know now
• 35:49
  that you won't always swim alongside Graham.
• 35:51
  Like that's just physically likely
• 35:54
  not going to stay the case.
• 35:55
  I'm trying to like almost,
• 35:56
  not tell her that she's a bad swimmer,
• 35:58
  but that's because I just watched her.
• 35:59
  They swam in the same lane for a year together.
• 36:02
  I'm like, this is not, this, we're going to uncouple.
• 36:04
  And so it happened and she thanked me for that.
• 36:06
  She said, man, I appreciate that perspective.
• 36:08
  Could help soften the blow,
• 36:09
  even though it still felt like a blow.
• 36:11
  so part of it is like the, just understanding, especially when they're young, when the boys
• 36:18
  haven't changed and they have, there's this, Hey, you're, you've been given the testosterone shot.
• 36:23
  The boys haven't yet. And when that comes the way God's made the bodies, it just, it flips. And so
• 36:28
  it'll get more lopsided and be okay with that. Like that's not, you're not doing anything wrong.
• 36:33
  You're not terrible. In fact, you're awesome. And so, um, the other, the other thing, there's lots
• 36:39
  the things with girls that um in training especially as an endurance athlete which i've
• 36:44
  seen so um i mean half of my my sweet team at a&m the girls were had feeding disorders and so there
• 36:53
  was a constant body image chase and i've done a whole podcast on that because i talked i spoke
• 37:00
  with someone that was an elite runner and um she had the bones of like an 80 year old by the time
• 37:06
  She graduated high school and went to run at University of Michigan and didn't.
• 37:13
  She couldn't.
• 37:13
  Yeah, I couldn't.
• 37:14
  Yeah, I just.
• 37:15
  Yeah, we talk about that.
• 37:17
  And, you know, body dysmorphia, especially in, you know, and it's with boys, too.
• 37:22
  You know, in a sport like that is so refined, that is so technical, you know, whether it's running or swimming or triathlon, you know, a couple ounces here, a couple ounces there, you know, shaves off a hundred of a second.
• 37:38
  it's a, it's a real issue. And, um, yeah, more prevalent in girls, but it's definitely there for
• 37:43
  boys too. But yeah, I would assume that you would try to, to talk about that to the kids too,
• 37:48
  um, and, and get them the right resources that they need, because that is a huge problem.
• 37:52
  Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's interesting being a male coach on that front, but it's, it's so,
• 37:58
  I just watched it tear apart our girls team and to your points, saw girls that should have been
• 38:02
  competitive that weren't. And so, um, if I see, and I did see it with some guys, guys, I think
• 38:07
  for guys sometimes it is intentional but a lot of times with guys it's um just like they're turn
• 38:14
  their brains off they're missing part of their frontal lobe as it is and they're just they're
• 38:17
  not eating like a job and as much as these boys are working they have to eat like it's a job and
• 38:22
  so there's maybe different reasons they get to that same end point but for for the the women it's a
• 38:28
  constant conversation with their parents and you know making sure they're not moving towards amenorrhea
• 38:33
  and actually having cycles which happens frequently in endurance running um it does and it's and it's
• 38:38
  and so um and then just the awareness of the way philosophically the way we train i think absorbs
• 38:47
  more ups and downs emotionally like i have just i train with the idea that we have a lot of my
• 38:53
  workouts are effort-based some are prescribed paces but even within that pace it's like here's
• 38:58
  a range and some days the body gives you this some days the body gives you this and the goal
• 39:02
  is consistency over time it's not to be on the faster end of the range and the maximum number of
• 39:06
  reps every day it's very okay to the lower end of the range and the lower end of the reps and that
• 39:11
  and i celebrate that in fact i will i will publicly bring an athlete forward to want you to know this
• 39:15
  person's selected out of the workout today because they weren't feeling it and that is awesome because
• 39:20
  tomorrow they will get back to work to recognize things recognizing success because that right
• 39:26
  there what you said is is really important is to understand what your body needs because you
• 39:32
  can't maintain that every single workout it doesn't work that way I mean I just was at the gym this
• 39:38
  morning I go with another you know person that I meet there and she and I we're on the upper end
• 39:45
  of the age range of women in their lifting weights but in today we were just for whatever
• 39:50
  reason both of us were just dragging like just like why is this so hard we were just here a couple
• 39:55
  days ago yes it's just this little yeah it's like you know what I looked at my friend Therese and I
• 40:01
  said you know what it's just one of those days we'll just get through it you know and and the
• 40:05
  next time we come it'll be better and it usually always is but yeah i mean i just noticed those
• 40:10
  days more frequently now than i used to but yeah you're right you have to you have to uh recognize
• 40:17
  that and i think teaching kids to understand what their body goes through developmentally
• 40:21
  puberty nutritionally the whole package has to happen in order for them to be able to compete
• 40:29
  at that elite level like that yeah yeah you're you're spot on i i i it's um it it's something
• 40:40
  that's uh mike one of my coaching philosophies is similar to my parent parenting philosophy which
• 40:44
  is water over stone if you say something frequently enough like it will permeate their
• 40:49
  little skulls they will they will absorb it even if they don't get it in the moment so um i do i
• 40:55
  i can't say this enough to my athletes like we talk about it so frequently and i bring athletes
• 40:59
  for that have done great i do want to celebrate a workout that's that's been a breakthrough workout
• 41:04
  for a person because some days their body does give them that and but those don't happen that
• 41:08
  frequently we talk about how frequently or infrequently those things happen and to not
• 41:12
  measure success based on a singular workout both good or bad and so for girls coming back to your
• 41:18
  original question this differences right they both bring baggage both boys and girls to practices
• 41:24
  that are not always physical and so you that allowance i don't have to understand at all i
• 41:31
  don't have to be a counselor i can be a coach i think i just lost you i do you good yeah i'm there
• 41:41
  yeah so you were saying you said you don't have to be a coach they bring differences to every
• 41:46
  practice yeah and you don't need to absorb those i think giving them a range of what success looks
• 41:52
  like is how you consistency bears the most fruit over time and so come back to the so that's and
• 41:58
  it keeps them engaged. The other big thing that I've seen, um, and it manifested in kind of an
• 42:03
  ugly way this year, but, um, it doesn't always, I, I just know it's top of mind more, but the girls
• 42:09
  on the team look at each other differently than the boys on the team look at each other. And
• 42:12
  there's, there's more, there's more, that's my spot. That's my, my thing. That's my, that's my
• 42:20
  destiny, not yours. And then the guys are like, man, awesome job. I wish I was faster. Like it's
• 42:24
  a very different response and so some of that um some of that's petty some of that's just the way
• 42:30
  they're hardwired but like we get to the heart of that both things like i need i need them looking
• 42:34
  externally um we don't let little seeds of bitterness uh flourish because that doesn't do
• 42:39
  either party well then there's everybody's walking on eggshells and when you're training
• 42:43
  at elite level you you want elite results um we don't talk about it like that but i know that's
• 42:48
  implicit in their heads and so well you know i i boys and girls just develop at a different rate
• 42:55
  developmentally neurologically their brains develop at a different rate and you know
• 43:00
  having a daughter and raise two sons all in sports um yeah i can i can say that it is it is and you
• 43:07
  know it's different issues for girls when they're 14 16 17 than it is for boys i mean a lot of guys
• 43:15
  yes they the boys change on a different different time path i mean they i say they go from boys to
• 43:21
  men from freshman to senior year in high school you know girls are already through most of their
• 43:26
  maturation before they hit high school so you know they're in a different they're in a different
• 43:30
  place and i think it's really important to understand that and be able to reach them and
• 43:37
  it sounds like you do a really fantastic job of that it sounds like you you really do look out for
• 43:41
  the whole kid and, you know, look at things that, you know, are really important to their
• 43:47
  development and let them develop how they're going to be instead of, I know some coaches
• 43:53
  get really stuck on a theory or a way to coach and they don't, they're not pliable.
• 44:00
  They're not, they won't, they don't want, they just, they just kind of narrow focus.
• 44:07
  This is what we're going to do.
• 44:08
  This has worked for me.
• 44:09
  I've done all this instead of, okay, well, say, you know, you've got a kid who your son is 6'4",
• 44:16
  and, you know, another couple of kids are a lot not as tall.
• 44:20
  I mean, his mechanics are going to be different than the shorter one, as with the girl, too.
• 44:25
  And you have to be able to take each kid and look at their strengths
• 44:31
  and put them in positions to be successful instead of look at a kid
• 44:36
  and force them into a place where they're just not going to be at their best optimum.
• 44:41
  you know what i mean does that make sense to you yes yes yeah it's um it's one of the reasons i
• 44:47
  have by design had a smaller triathlon team because it doesn't scale well so you can't you
• 44:53
  can't be that individual if you have a large team unless you have really awesome awesome and
• 44:58
  developed assistant coaches but um yeah there's just too much nuance and and i totally i totally
• 45:06
  support what you're saying so that gets me to the next part here and i think one of your questions
• 45:11
  you had um when we first met was you said what if it isn't grit you know the kid goes through all
• 45:18
  this training they do everything that they're supposed to do that you've asked them to do as
• 45:24
  far as nutrition and sleep and hydration and all of that but yet they're somehow missing the mark
• 45:32
  they're really talented and they're just not there and you know we talked about that there's
• 45:36
  there's the mental side that often gets pushed, pushed aside that we don't look at. And I think
• 45:43
  that, you know, is really important because we don't know what's going on in their private life
• 45:48
  with friends and family and school. And, and that those issues, I think I can speak personally,
• 45:56
  um, are huge. You know, I think it's, it's, it was something that was certainly missed with me
• 46:02
  when I was in high school and college that, um, you know, had gone through a lot with my family
• 46:07
  And there was there were no services really offered or no one ever thought, you know, here I am this really super athlete, super successful.
• 46:16
  She's fine. You know, she looks great. She's doing all this. She's fine.
• 46:20
  But on the inside, it wasn't because I was having a hard time matching that mental intensity at the level that I needed to play.
• 46:28
  It got overridden by just that personal anxiety and depression that I was, you know, kind of trying to keep tamped down.
• 46:37
  So, yeah, because we talked about that.
• 46:39
  And I think that's an interesting topic.
• 46:40
  So just, you know, shoot some thoughts out there on that.
• 46:45
  Yeah, it's hard.
• 46:50
  So some thoughts.
• 46:52
  Number one, I think that the analogy I share with my athletes a lot is it's like, you're like babies that are teething.
• 46:58
  You don't know that you're teething.
• 47:00
  You don't know why something's happening, but sometimes you do.
• 47:03
  But most of the time you don't.
• 47:04
  Sometimes we know it later.
• 47:05
  We know it two or three, four weeks down the road.
• 47:07
  And, oh, the tooth popped up.
• 47:09
  no wonder you were cantankerous. No wonder you were irritable. Um, so I think girls tend to know
• 47:15
  that better than boys. That's a general statement. So they tend to be able to bring to the table
• 47:20
  what's going on better than the boys, but boys don't often know what's going on. And that's not,
• 47:25
  that's not always, uh, applicably or applicable. Um, sometimes the boys are really articulate and
• 47:30
  girls are like, I don't know, there's a slew of things. And so, um, the, the incongruence
• 47:36
  with training and their output and racing is my, my first clue that something's off.
• 47:44
  Um, you can usually see it somewhere else, but that's, I'm a dude and I'm not always the most
• 47:49
  observant on the little things like that. So sometimes it's like, Oh, Hey, what happened?
• 47:53
  We didn't race like we were capable of. Um, and there's a, then I start kind of backing into the
• 48:00
  last month going, Oh, you know, they have been a little flat, a little dull, a little less sharp,
• 48:03
  a little less engaged. So, um, one of the, the, I have lots of thoughts on this, but like one of
• 48:11
  the other things I've, cause I have so many kids, I, I think about things like, um, my job as a
• 48:17
  husband, when we were, my wife was nursing, the kids was like in the middle of the night, baby's
• 48:22
  crying. Like I, I'm responsible if it hasn't been long enough for her to need to feed a kid again.
• 48:26
  Like I got to come up with some things. I got to pull out this big tool bag of tricks to get that
• 48:30
  kid to go back to sleep. And so I always think about what's in my quiver to help remediate a
• 48:36
  situation. And I felt like my job as a husband to bless my wife was to have a really giant
• 48:40
  quiver of things. Cause the one thing, if it doesn't work, I'm not off the hook. I'm still
• 48:43
  on the hook. So a lot of times you go through the whole quiver. So I can't always, I was always
• 48:49
  asking what else can I add to the quiver? And so I think about that as a coach, like what else can
• 48:52
  I add to my quiver that helps? Um, I, sometimes it's a direct resolution or remediation. Sometimes
• 48:59
  it's, Hey, I sense like this happened this year. Um, there's bitterness you have for another
• 49:05
  teammate i i need you to go own that i need you to work that through and if you guys cannot work
• 49:09
  it through i need to have your parents sit down with the two of you guys need to work it out
• 49:12
  together um that's a that's a path that i see eat away at and create that delta between what
• 49:19
  they're capable of and what they're training um there are a lot of times it's they as a an elite
• 49:25
  athlete they do a lot of training still by themselves and they think more of themselves
• 49:30
  than they should and so one of my other antidotes is proactive i don't i don't know that's the case
• 49:34
  but I have them, this happened at nationals last year. I had them before I gave them their
• 49:39
  individual race plan. We sit down and we talk through how they're going to execute on the
• 49:42
  different disciplines. You need to go meet three other athletes that you've been afraid to meet
• 49:47
  and come back and tell me one fact about them and I will give you your race plan. And so now you
• 49:51
  take the emphasis off. I'm worried about how I'm going to perform. I'm worried about me.
• 49:54
  Now I'm going to go engage. I'm going to move towards other people. And so they thought that
• 49:59
  was the weirdest ask, but they came back lighter and they came back with people they knew.
• 50:03
  Interesting. And I got to share this with you. I've talked about this on the podcast before. So, you know, the title is Do I Need My Racket? And I've started these tennis camps out in western parts of Kansas where kids just don't have a lot of opportunity to participate in a camp. Very rural. And, you know, we'd have to drive a long ways all the way to the eastern part of the state to have a coach or a club or something like that.
• 50:26
  And so this last year I brought it, brought it out to the kids. And one of the things that I love to do, I did this with my kids on the tennis team too, is that when I was coaching tennis is the first day camp. Um, I, I just had them all, they were from different schools or about 35 kids. I had them all just write their name and what school they're from, you know? And then the question I posed to them, it was a two day camp. Day one was, do you need your racket? And of course they're all looking at me like, well, yeah, we do. And we're here at tennis camp. Right. And I go, well, I want you to, I want you to take that racket everywhere you go all day long.
• 50:58
  lunch you know water break whatever you have that racket in hand drills running whatever we're doing
• 51:04
  you have it so the end of the day i asked him i said do you need your racket and they go yeah we
• 51:09
  need it for this you know we need to be able to play and you know you told us to carry it around
• 51:13
  with us and so yeah we need it day two name tag and then wait one word underneath that describes
• 51:22
  you because tennis can be a real individual sport but how do you bring them together so then
• 51:28
  there were, I had the gamut. I had eccentric, radical, creative, gritty, strong, you know,
• 51:35
  resilient, all this. So what I did with the kids is I, I took them in, kind of put them in groups
• 51:41
  that were similar words. You know, there's probably eight groups of two or three kids
• 51:45
  and we're all spread apart in the gym. And I said, you know, you, you radical and creative people can
• 51:50
  go that way. You, you strong people and gritty people, you go over there, you know, I kind of
• 51:54
  spread them apart I said or and then I had them all come because we were in the gym into the circle
• 52:02
  in the middle of the court tight I said or we can bring all of this together as one and are you
• 52:11
  going to be a good team if you go off in all your individual directions but when you come together
• 52:16
  and bring all those things together you're going to be a great team because in order to move forward
• 52:23
  to different tournaments. In tennis, a lot of times you have to win as a team. And it seemed
• 52:29
  kind of simple, but the reactions I got from those kids, it's like, oh, I mean, they got it.
• 52:34
  They're like, because what I was teaching them is the racket is an extension of yourself. And that
• 52:41
  goes for any sport, you know, or anything that you're really involved in. It's what you take
• 52:45
  from that off the court, off the track, off the field, and take it out into life. And how are you
• 52:51
  going to use it so i it was just a fascinating experiment it turned out leaps beyond whatever
• 52:58
  thought it did but you know by the end they were all like yeah you know there's like oh well i
• 53:03
  didn't i didn't i didn't know you wrote poetry i didn't you know because they're looking at these
• 53:07
  kids not by their names but who they are and yeah it was really cool yeah cindy i love that story i
• 53:15
  i mean from our first conversation last week i just tell just a thoughtful developer of people
• 53:22
  and that's a really sweet example of that so that's really cool and yeah when they only look
• 53:27
  at them in the lane of tennis and and nothing else like you've missed on 98 of the person that's just
• 53:32
  the thing they do with this season of life it's not who they fundamentally are so yeah yeah and
• 53:37
  the best thing after you know it's like well I drove back because my folks still live in Kansas
• 53:43
  I was checking on them too and some friends and it's like about a 1300 mile drive you know because
• 53:48
  I had a whole bunch of stuff I had to take with me at the end of day two there was a kid that was
• 53:53
  like a sophomore, I think a rising sophomore. And he, he looked at me and he was one of those kids
• 54:00
  that just didn't seem like he was dialed in the whole two days. Like, I didn't know if he was,
• 54:04
  you know, he looked at me and he said, are we ever going to get to see you again?
• 54:11
  That's so sweet. Made the whole, made the whole 1400 mile trip worth it. You know, two days.
• 54:17
  That's so cool. And I said, yes, I'll be back next year and there'll be more opportunity. But
• 54:21
  yeah you never know what's going on in their minds and you know i think taking them out of
• 54:26
  something because they'll look at each other differently if they know something different
• 54:32
  it kind of breaks down barriers you know yes it really does yeah so and i can tell i can tell by
• 54:37
  you the way you talk about your own children and the way you talk about coaching you do that too
• 54:42
  because there's a lot of times coaches kind of miss the mark they're not as attentive to what
• 54:48
  else is going on besides just what they're coaching i think that's probably one of my
• 54:53
  biggest frustrations over the years that i've seen is is like you can't see that i mean kind of
• 54:59
  obvious that you know and you just kind of you're waiting for them to kind of pick up the torch and
• 55:03
  you know kind of lead the way and sometimes they do and sometimes they don't so yes yeah it's it's
• 55:10
  i it's such a fluid it's sort of such a fluidity in person's life and i just i think they got to
• 55:18
  have healthy um understanding for its its gravity but it's also just its role it's not um yes i
• 55:26
  think we are called to be excellent i think character can coexist alongside of excellence
• 55:30
  it's not a that's a funny story from another day but i think character has to go alongside
• 55:37
  with excellence it's not yeah absolutely correct it's but you see well to your point earlier you
• 55:42
  see coaches that try to build one without the other and so it's it's not that it it it has to
• 55:49
  it ought to is uh and yeah i i think from um even the way my um well yes i just i totally agree
• 55:59
  what you're sharing so so i just i just want to talk there's so many kind of questions i have for
• 56:04
  you but um just like the one that just popped up in my mind i mean do you ever get to the point
• 56:09
  where you're just like just ticked off it's like what are you guys doing i mean do you do you don't
• 56:14
  you just seem to me this easygoing guy with a smile on his face that's very sincere and sweet
• 56:18
  but surely somewhere there's a bone that's just like ah i can't believe they just did that
• 56:23
  do you get mad i i don't um i have one of my my guiding principles is i can't want something more
• 56:31
  than my athlete does and so um i can paint a vision for it but i can't actually want it more
• 56:36
  than they do and and um i do find that with my son that that is probably the one person i don't
• 56:42
  get mad i just kind of power down i'm like what just happened but i do my um one of the dads on
• 56:47
  team um has he jokes with me he goes man you're the only coach i've ever ever known that this will
• 56:55
  look at my son or look at any athlete and go man you really wet the bed today what could you like
• 56:59
  what what happened and say it so so comfortably and so directly and like because i do we do there
• 57:06
  is accountability for how we do and it's not just the outcome but it's it's what what do we set out
• 57:10
  to do in the race do we execute against your race plan yes or no why not i want them to own the thing
• 57:15
  And so why didn't you own it? Like, that's a very normal question for me. Um, and what, I don't know.
• 57:21
  Well, that's not an acceptable answer. So I'm going to need a better answer. And that's the
• 57:24
  kind of tone I'll use to get to the heart of something. But no, I, um, I will, if I will say
• 57:30
  this, if an athlete consistently is pushing me towards maybe that, that what's wrong, like,
• 57:37
  like we're not, you're not doing the thing or something. We just offer it eventually. I'll have
• 57:41
  a conversation with a parent first. Hey, what's going on? I'm missing something. They're getting
• 57:44
  out of my skin a lot and I'm not sure uh what's going on here and you know we dress it with the
• 57:49
  kid first but yeah we I just I think maybe your last little bit of conversation the community
• 57:53
  is way more important than the coach that the hard work these kids do so if there's a if I'm
• 57:59
  bothered by something there's a good chance that others are bothered by it because these are really
• 58:02
  focused young people and so um this may not be your home but that's okay I don't have a I'm not
• 58:07
  I don't have a kingdom building mindset around the team we have so yeah yeah nice yeah um you know I
• 58:13
  So the kids that they went to Lansing Catholic High School and they all ran track for a coach, Tim Simpson.
• 58:21
  He was a really standout athlete.
• 58:24
  I think he did the mile at Michigan State and was in Olympic trials or something.
• 58:29
  And he's the mildest mannered guy when you talk to him one-on-one.
• 58:34
  But when the race is on, he turns into an absolute maniac.
• 58:38
  You can hear him.
• 58:39
  He's just like screaming at those kids and they don't think anything of it.
• 58:43
  They just keep, you know, they do.
• 58:44
  And he's been very successful because he's got a really intense, very solid training program.
• 58:50
  But yeah, because sometimes when you put your coach's hat on, you know, it's just people turn into, they metamorphose into something that's just not there.
• 58:59
  Something else.
• 59:00
  Yeah.
• 59:01
  Man, there are some coaches in our little circuit that you can hear a mile away.
• 59:05
  And I'm like, I know who that is.
• 59:06
  I'll learn from across the lake, you know, but mine's much more subdued.
• 59:11
  You know, a couple other things I wanted to get back to is we talked about kids needing more unstructured time and how the AAU and the club teams have come in and usurp that.
• 59:25
  Where kids are, you know, trying out for competitive teams or being put on competitive teams when they're five or six.
• 59:33
  And, you know, you wonder how exactly how competitive it is at that point, you know, for a six-year-old.
• 59:39
  Or being cats.
• 59:40
  Yeah, exactly.
• 59:41
  If even that, ants may be more likely.
• 59:43
  Um, so yeah, I, it's, it's, but it's a market based theme.
• 59:49
  You know, I've run into parents who, you know, kids like maybe fourth, fifth grade and they're
• 59:54
  on a club volleyball team and the, and the coach has promised them, yeah, I think, I really
• 59:59
  think she's got potential to play in college and, you know, maybe that there's an injury
• 1:00:04
  or something, that's how they come to me as a physical therapist.
• 1:00:06
  And I'm thinking, no, this kid doesn't have, you know, maybe, you know, might struggle
• 1:00:11
  to even make the high school team but yet families will spend thousands of dollars you know to see
• 1:00:17
  and the kid may end up quitting early whether they're good at it or not um what what are your
• 1:00:24
  thoughts on on the a the whole aau and club team kind of thing and it's really hard i and i went um
• 1:00:35
  you know i built a business supporting that ecosystem with the gummies so i i i but in doing
• 1:00:43
  that just the research around how much private equity and venture capital money is being invested
• 1:00:48
  into the club sport world you find several trends one specializations occurring it used to be 11 to
• 1:00:56
  12 now it's eight or nine where hey this is the sport you need to do um you find gated entry into
• 1:01:03
  camps or clubs that are if you want to get noticed you'll be on this team or attend this camp that
• 1:01:10
  have higher costs or have restrictions that are usually economic so you have uh you have a more
• 1:01:15
  of a polarization um in in general like i live in dallas it's a hub for club sport like that
• 1:01:22
  the dallas teams will go to chicago and they'll play each other in the finals and so and it's just
• 1:01:26
  uh but in general i find when i get up to here to colorado they don't care that much like so i do
• 1:01:33
  think that it's tends to be geographically based but it's so dense and it's such a pervasive part
• 1:01:39
  of american culture when we raced internationally this summer i talked with a few of the other
• 1:01:44
  federation coaches the australian coach a german coach an austrian coach and just their perspective
• 1:01:51
  on our pay-for-play model that became more pronounced during the world cup because we're
• 1:01:55
  over there during the world cup and some of that visibility had found its way internationally oh
• 1:01:58
  you guys operate far more rigorously how come you're never really good at soccer was the net
• 1:02:04
  result of those conversations and so i'm like uh valid questions um good question because you you
• 1:02:09
  as a culture over rotate on on things and so they two of those three coaches specifically used the
• 1:02:15
  exact expression you did a kind of a more playful model like a they they're more less structured
• 1:02:20
  more playful and we want holistic athletes um at the same time they're still developing monsters
• 1:02:27
  it's not but there's i i think i think a lot of things on this and it one it's economically driven
• 1:02:36
  it is very much economically driven because i mean my concern is with those kids that can't
• 1:02:41
  afford it they're just kind of getting left out and they might be really stellar athletes but
• 1:02:44
  sometimes you know if you don't get on the a do your team in basketball i mean you know your
• 1:02:51
  chances are less but if you are really really stand out you know you know people will notice
• 1:02:55
  well coming back to what we're talking about earlier with gymnastics and like high jumps right
• 1:03:01
  like i think parents the way you play it out you see this over and over and over molly's on a team
• 1:03:09
  molly goes to school with suzy suzy invites molly to be on her gymnast or volleyball team we have an
• 1:03:13
  opening we'd really need to be great she goes to try out the coach like hey she's really got a lot
• 1:03:18
  of potential really oh wow i didn't know that she's kind of invited by her friend but this is
• 1:03:22
  great so then they start down a path and there's not a lot of processing of are they genetically
• 1:03:26
  wired to be good at this can they the type of like when i mentioned my third son cooper he needs
• 1:03:32
  constant movement he loved baseball but it wasn't going to reward him long term the way he's wired
• 1:03:36
  emotionally he's going to be bored so those kind of things are not factored in along with just the
• 1:03:41
  way they're physically built um and then people's delusional and the problem is that what i see on
• 1:03:49
  my end is girls are just not going out now because oh i'm not good enough to play in college i'm not
• 1:03:54
  even going to go out so they're just missing the whole opportunity to just play a sport which can
• 1:03:58
  develop so many incredible things better grades better self-esteem less body dysmorphia i mean
• 1:04:04
  all kinds of things and you know that's what i hear and and it's true because there's so much
• 1:04:09
  pressure when they're younger and they get to high school and they're just like well i can't play
• 1:04:13
  because i'm not college material so they just quit well there's no there's no rec sport anymore
• 1:04:18
  at 10 11 12 no or 13 it's all it's all club or it's rec until eight or nine and then there's
• 1:04:24
  this gap where I think it's so formative and those weird wonky years of junior high that if you
• 1:04:29
  haven't been playing club, you're not going to play for the team. Um, and you know, I, that's
• 1:04:35
  one of the things I love about running and endurance training is that you, it's always an
• 1:04:40
  open, open hands. It doesn't, it tends to reward faithfulness over time. And, and you shouldn't
• 1:04:46
  actually start running at, at length until junior high. So like you're not actually benefited from
• 1:04:51
  starting at age six in fact you're more likely to be injury prone so i love the open community of
• 1:04:56
  cross country come on right i think there's more parity in track and field and cross country because
• 1:05:02
  you're that it's just like your product is how hard you put into it bottom line correct and how
• 1:05:07
  consistently you do it and and it's it's so true swimming's too technical in a lot of cases um
• 1:05:12
  and swim coaches and programs are a whole nother animal that are economically driven but um yeah
• 1:05:18
  yeah i and there's always outliers but you know it pains me because i think we talked about this
• 1:05:25
  too i think in our first call but a lot of kids self-select out of sport when they see a friend
• 1:05:30
  be better and they go that and that kid might be a division one recruit but division three and
• 1:05:34
  division two there's plenty of great great athletes and they don't see the world that way
• 1:05:39
  they see that's the top of the food oh i can't do that exactly because only you know if you if
• 1:05:43
  you look at high school athletes across the board only three percent of those that participate in
• 1:05:48
  you know whatever sport it is we'll go on to play college but only one percent of that three percent
• 1:05:54
  are division one material so but that's not what they see that's not what they believe yeah yes
• 1:06:01
  yeah yeah yeah it's it's a couple of kids on our triathlon team graduated and there's they they
• 1:06:09
  wanted to go get college paid for which is great so they're running at a d3 school and they're
• 1:06:16
  killing it and they're having the best time and they're getting to get repaid for um but their
• 1:06:20
  family supported that approach and it wasn't um they didn't have these division one they could
• 1:06:25
  one of them could run division one but they didn't have that mindset they didn't need it
• 1:06:28
  and they've they've um i think that's a it's a hard thing for a parent to it's mostly a cocktail
• 1:06:34
  conversation a parent wants to put out there oh do you know susie's killing it like it's just
• 1:06:38
  yeah we're all proud creatures and it's yeah anyway yeah that's a yeah that's a whole that's
• 1:06:43
  I mean, what we talked about is that, but then it graduates into like the marketization of sports in general, where it's gone from, you know, you, then you, then you go all the way up to the NIL stuff where it's like the power conferences are now just buying players and buying things, you know, and it's becoming a semi-pro the top five conferences, you know, in, in colleges.
• 1:07:08
  now i think i mean the ncaa that the heart the the cart get way out ahead of the horse on this one
• 1:07:16
  yes but yes yeah so but but that's what those kids are thinking now it's like oh man i could
• 1:07:22
  make some money off of this and so what happens is it just sucks more parents into the the aau
• 1:07:29
  cycle team in the marketing and they go lower age they go younger and younger and younger
• 1:07:34
  I interviewed a coach a coaching specialist from Michigan State and that's what her her she's a
• 1:07:43
  professor she's a professor there and she signed her four-year-old I believe it was up for soccer
• 1:07:50
  and it was kind of like this play group type soccer but and she she sent me the written part
• 1:07:56
  of this too because I said I wanted that in writing but the coach at the time said that just
• 1:08:02
  because, and it's a playgroup soccer where they just get the kids together and they run around,
• 1:08:06
  right? That's what the expectations are. But the coach at that time apparently had been approached
• 1:08:11
  that this is what he had to say or she was, just because your child is playing in this group
• 1:08:18
  activity does not mean that they're college material. So apparently, you know, usually
• 1:08:24
  things don't get said unless something's happened. Wow. That is so interesting. It is, isn't it?
• 1:08:33
  and it's, it's, it's mind blowing, but it's out there. I, I saw it.
• 1:08:39
  I've seen it every place we've lived in different, I've seen it ski in skiing.
• 1:08:45
  I've seen it in soccer and basketball and football where they drive all over
• 1:08:50
  Timbuktu. And, you know, it, it, they end up, you know, kind of flaming out.
• 1:08:57
  Yeah.
• 1:08:57
  I, I think some of the, a couple of thoughts that you've been talking one,
• 1:09:01
  you, your desire, you still ride and, and, um, you know, they're walking the, the, the
• 1:09:08
  playfulness that a parent has, um, tends to trickle down to the playfulness their kid
• 1:09:12
  has.
• 1:09:12
  And so, um, they, we, we do a bunch of zany things in our house and they see my wife and
• 1:09:18
  I do zany things and compete in random stuff.
• 1:09:20
  And, um, those kinds of things carry weight for the kids observing and they, they feel
• 1:09:25
  more inclined to be more playful.
• 1:09:26
  And that's a, um, that's a big part of, it's a big missing piece of the puzzle.
• 1:09:30
  And I think it's just not touted.
• 1:09:35
  Be playful and figure out how to communicate and problem solve because, you know, the thing is that kids are so afraid to fail.
• 1:09:43
  They're so afraid to put themselves out there.
• 1:09:45
  And that brings up a whole bunch of other issues, but they don't have that time to just be a kid, to just play.
• 1:09:52
  I think we're really missing the mark on that right now developmentally with kids.
• 1:09:57
  They need time to just be a kid.
• 1:10:00
  And I think I shared with you in a conversation we had is a neighbor said, you know, I could put your three kids in a cement room with a rubber ball and they'd find out how to make a game of it.
• 1:10:10
  And I thought that was an incredible compliment because we were always doing stuff.
• 1:10:15
  You know, like it was like we traveled a lot and we, you know, and, you know, games and art and music lesson.
• 1:10:24
  I mean, kind of giving them the opportunity to see what else was out there to just give them a chance to just, you know, play.
• 1:10:33
  I mean, I can remember a time where they were playing soccer in the front yard with a goal and my daughter was like five.
• 1:10:38
  So she comes out and one of the boys, all of her football gear, helmet, pads, everything way too big.
• 1:10:44
  And I was like, Jenna, where are you going?
• 1:10:46
  oh, the boys are going to take target practice at me with a soccer ball.
• 1:10:50
  And so they were, and she loved it.
• 1:10:52
  She was standing there and they were kicking the ball as hard as they could
• 1:10:54
  to see if they can knock her over.
• 1:10:57
  That's such a great example of what we're talking about.
• 1:10:59
  That's so fun.
• 1:11:01
  And what a great compliment your neighbor gave you where she's like,
• 1:11:03
  I could put them in a room with a road ball and they'd figure out a way to play.
• 1:11:06
  That's so great.
• 1:11:07
  Yeah.
• 1:11:08
  Yeah.
• 1:11:08
  Because kids are kids.
• 1:11:10
  And you probably know this, but the young adult and teenage brain
• 1:11:17
  does not actually completely develop until they're like 25 plus you know yes yeah and so you're still
• 1:11:26
  working with brains that are very pliable and malleable and asking them to do things that are
• 1:11:33
  just beyond their ability like you'd said earlier to really understand what's going on and and that
• 1:11:39
  sort of thing so yeah that's so good i think the dinner that the other thought i had on this is
• 1:11:46
  this will make me sound really, really, really old school, but I think families don't fight for
• 1:11:51
  dinner time because they're at these, they're at these sports and they're like, well, I've got to
• 1:11:56
  drive 45 minutes to make the team practice. That's so far away. And so, and instead of creating
• 1:12:02
  something that's in their own backyard. And so what happens is a lot of that playtime happens
• 1:12:06
  really organically after dinner or at dinner. And when you've removed that margin because you haven't
• 1:12:12
  fought for protection over just a meal like i think you the playtime doesn't happen it's not
• 1:12:17
  there's not a chance for that because you're spending it on a highway right and you just don't
• 1:12:20
  get you don't get that spontaneous time where um yeah it's funny things can happen at dinner time
• 1:12:27
  i mean sometimes it's hilarious you know like one of my sons wanting to tout his talent of being
• 1:12:33
  able to belch halfway through the alphabet you know stuff like that so ah so good some next level
• 1:12:40
  skills right there you should be so proud mom you're gonna be you know you'll be up for president
• 1:12:44
  soon so just in in you know kind of winding things up so if you had to say something to your kids
• 1:12:52
  like one sentence that you could kind of summarize life or what your hope for them would be or what
• 1:13:00
  would that be you're very attentive father you're very sensitive i can tell you you're an amazing
• 1:13:05
  coach to be able to pick up all these subtleties and read between the lines that's a gift and a
• 1:13:10
  lot of coaches don't have that and those kids are so lucky to have you as their coach and you know
• 1:13:15
  your kids are lucky to have you as a dad too because i can tell you're really devoted what
• 1:13:18
  would be like one sentence that you would you would like to tell them yeah i so we it's kind
• 1:13:29
  of three very short sentences and i say this frequently kind of a water over stone i want
• 1:13:33
  when i regretfully leave my house the output i'm looking for is for them to love god love others
• 1:13:38
  and be critically minded and they will they will flourish we have a lot of a lot of lemmings in
• 1:13:44
  society so i need them grounded but i think people just lose sight of others and of a god that made
• 1:13:50
  them and i think it's not i don't think it's overly complicated um but how we get there and
• 1:13:56
  what those how that manifests in each of the little souls is something that i'm interested
• 1:14:01
  with nice nice yeah i mean i can just tell that it just it exudes from you just across the screen
• 1:14:08
  that you're very sincere about that that's pretty awesome thanks cindy you're welcome kind of you
• 1:14:13
  so okay so now we get down to the end of the podcast where you know i'm going to ask you
• 1:14:19
  because we talked about the racket do i need my racket yes you need your racket because it's it's
• 1:14:23
  an extension of yourself as you walk off the track get off the bike out of the swimming pool
• 1:14:29
  so mike what is your racket i love saying excellence for young people so my racket is
• 1:14:44
  and that's not just sport but sports one of the modalities for that but i
• 1:14:48
  But one of my favorite proverbs says,
• 1:14:53
  do you see a man skilled in his trade?
• 1:14:55
  He will stand before kings.
• 1:14:56
  And so it's like this,
• 1:15:00
  what are we gonna get up and become excellent at today?
• 1:15:02
  And there's so many little things
• 1:15:03
  and it makes pursuit of something purposeful
• 1:15:07
  as opposed to reacting through the day.
• 1:15:09
  And it's just so good.
• 1:15:10
  So anyway, that fires me up.
• 1:15:12
  Hopefully it will till the day I go home
• 1:15:14
  and be buried.
• 1:15:16
  But I just, it's such a,
• 1:15:18
  I think I love it when light bulbs turn on
• 1:15:21
  and young souls and it's like man i'm on a quest for something a little bit different there's a
• 1:15:25
  there's a sign hanging up in that bike room i joked about where we bike indoors that
• 1:15:29
  um it says we are not here to do what's already been done and um it's just it's just a little
• 1:15:35
  little nudge a little reminder that we we're on a slightly different path and that's okay
• 1:15:39
  we can be a little bit countercultural and yeah and and i think too from i get with that is like
• 1:15:46
  to teach kids there's there's something bigger than themselves yep yes it's sport is a part of
• 1:15:54
  life it is not life and if they if it when as soon as they get that piece it becomes much bigger and
• 1:15:59
  these become foundational disciplines and rigors not the thing in of itself yeah it is bigger it is
• 1:16:06
  bigger yeah yeah i'm so glad you have a podcast like this where you can celebrate that it is
• 1:16:11
  bigger because too many are around this the nuance of the craft and the excellence of the thing and
• 1:16:16
  Oh, those are great.
• 1:16:17
  Yeah, but it's all about, you know, like the theme is what can I teach these kids that they can take out into life?
• 1:16:24
  Because you're going to take your racket, you're going to swing head on and hit stuff.
• 1:16:28
  You're going to have a lot of misses.
• 1:16:30
  And what do you do with that when you miss?
• 1:16:32
  You pick it back up and you keep swinging.
• 1:16:35
  And I think that's so important.
• 1:16:37
  It's what I've tried to teach my own kids and the kids that I come and contract.
• 1:16:41
  And that's the whole mission of the foundation and the podcast is to be able to talk about stuff like that because it's important.
• 1:16:47
  important for people to hear it too for sure yeah yeah this has been great cindy thanks for
• 1:16:53
  thanks for the time and the discussion well thanks for being on the show with me today
• 1:16:57
  oh absolutely well i don't have anything else to say that highlights this interview any more than
• 1:17:05
  if only i listen to what i see if only i listen to what i see take that out into life and let it
• 1:17:19
  work for you, just like Mike Hummel. Once again, I would like to thank all of our listeners out
• 1:17:27
  there that support this podcast and all of you out there for supporting In Her Name Foundation.
• 1:17:32
  And as always, thanks to Tutor Big for producing and editing this episode and the podcast and for
• 1:17:39
  producing the original theme music. Now for a bit more about Cindy Swain, president and CEO of In
• 1:17:45
  Her Name Foundation and the host of this podcast. Cindy is a licensed physical therapist, certified
• 1:17:50
  yoga instructor, former tennis coach, and Division I collegiate athlete. She is a happily married
• 1:17:56
  mother of three and spends her free time gardening, beekeeping, and cycling. Cindy loves the Kansas
• 1:18:02
  Jayhawks and is an exercise and sports fanatic. For more information about In Her Name Foundation,
• 1:18:10
  visit our website at inhernamefoundation.org. Join us on social media, Facebook, Instagram,
• 1:18:17
  and subscribe to our newsletter or make a donation.
• 1:18:21
  We look forward to meeting all of you again
• 1:18:23
  and sharing our next episode of Inspiration.
• 1:18:26
  Until then, see you next time and be prepared to bring your racket.