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The Funny, Expensive, and Exhausting Reality of Youth Sports · UNCOACHED

• Welcome to Uncoached, a podcast for volunteer coaches and parents figuring out youth sports as we go. Each episode we keep things pretty simple: five questions to talk about practical insights that you can actually use with your athletes. Today my guest is Jordan Rifkin. You might know him as Broke Dad Jordan on the social outlets. Thanks for being here, Jordan. As soon as you started popping up on my feed, I knew that your stuff would be a hit. You're obviously a very involved sports dad, but maybe give me a little b- bit of background on how in the world did this thing start? Yeah. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I didn't really know what would happen when I started this, but have two kids. I have an 11-year-old daughter and a 9-year-old son. My now 9-year-old has been obsessed with baseball since he was, like, two. I think out of nine birthdays, like seven of them were baseball themed. And my daughter has done a wide range of things. She did soccer for a little that she was good at, and then she said it wasn't for her. She did basketball for a little that sh- I thought she was good at. She said it wasn't for her. Softball, and now she is all in on dance and so is my wallet all in on dance. And I actually-- I have a podcast with a buddy that we started, started because we were sitting around one night about to go out to dinner with our wives, and our wives were talking about all the things they needed for the house and the clothes and all that stuff, and what they need for the kids. at each other "This is ridiculous." And so the podcast started based on the first few episodes are about what's in our wives' Amazon carts. Okay. Hence, like the whole broke dad theme. For sure And then from there we decided we wanted more of a social media presence and I am-- I guess I would say I'm the more extroverted goofy one between the two of us on the podcast. So I was like, "I'll try it." And I did a couple dad-based video content, and then I did something about my son's travel baseball, I think, and it seemed to get a lot of traction. So I've leaned into the whole youth sports theme, and I've tried to broaden it to just be inclusive of all different sports and activities. Dance, cheerleading comes up every once in a while in the comments. Soccer, baseball, a-anything you could think of, like equestrian comes up every once in a while. I did Talk about expensive. Geez USA Fencing reached out to me, and I did a collab with them. So that's kinda how it started, and I've just leaned into it and it's just a hobby for fun. Man, clearly a lot of pain points out there for a lot of people who are doing this 'cause it's like you see that invoice for all the youth sports stuff. You talk about the Amazon card, but man, just picture what you're paying and you know what you're paying for youth sports. It's nuts I would trade the Amazon cart any day of the week for Yeah. I'm seeing in youth sports invoices. It's and crazy. And people have different, obviously, perspectives on that For sure. What, hey, what's the name of the podcast, just so we, we capture that, and where can folks find it? it is Too Broke Dads, T-O-O Broke Dads. And you can get it pretty much anywhere you get any of your podcasts, Spotify, Apple, wherever you listen That's cool. I need to start following and listening in. It's really cool. that So at what point did you realize that youth sports had kinda turned into this full-time gig? And you could talk about when I think of the cost of youth sports, it's not only, it's not only the actual cost, but it's actually the time investment, too Yeah, I actually had this conversation my, my son had a travel baseball game last night. I was talking to one of the other dads, and we were talking about just this. My son, the second he was old enough to try out for travel baseball, we have... the youngest team we have here is eight U, his-- within the age, so he was a first grader trying out for eight U, which is second graders. And he made the team, and he's been with that team. He plays up, and I don't say-- A lot of people are like, "My kid plays up." My kid plays up because that's when he started, and he's wanted to stick with that team. He gets older, obviously size becomes a factor in that. But really when he started eight U, it's funny, my wife was a little hesitant "Travel baseball, I've heard it's gonna take up all our time, and it's expensive." And we both kinda... We talked about it and decided he loves it, so we'll go for it. And she was absolutely right. It takes up all our time and money. Yeah. Yep It is a lot of time spent doing it, and the older he gets, the nine U and now the ten U. Like we were in Cincinnati over Memorial Day weekend, Oh, wow Which was coincidentally my fifteen-year wedding anniversary. I joked that my wife has always wanted to spend our anniversary in beautiful Cincinnati. But you realize it does take up all that time and money. And dance is even-- I, didn't think it was possible. Dance is even crazier. But, everything we do, and I'm sure most parents will agree you do it for your kids. And, it's unfortunate that it has become so expensive because I think it prices people out, and Yeah it should be that way. And we can get into the whole private equity discussion on baseball clubs, which I hope they ban that 'cause it's nonsense. But yeah, it's my life now I always wonder, a lot of good points there, but I always wonder how many good athletes we're probably missing out on because of the cost is pricing them out Are you still there? for a s- brief second Okay, I wa- I was gonna say I... Here's the audio thing, right? We- obviously we'll cut all this stuff out. I always wonder how many good athletes we're missing out on because of the cost element. There's so many good athletes out there that probably just can't afford it at this point. But you brought up something. The whole dance world, I feel like I dodged a bullet, 'cause I've got a daughter who's going to be eight, and she started dance a little bit maybe two years ago we tried it, just to, we're trying a lot of different things. And she's very free-spirited. She loves to dance, and she likes fast, good upbeat music and things like that. But as when you start traditional dance, it's more of a traditional, let's do the right moves, and it's very slow, and you have to pay attention. She's "I don't wanna do this. I just wanna go out there and dance." And I was like, "Thank goodness." "Let's go play some soccer. Let's try some softball. Let's do some other stuff." And I feel like we dodged a big bullet with that one You dodge a second mortgage is what you dodged. my-- A-as I said earlier, my daughter dabbled in the other stuff first. some soccer, did some basketball, did some softball. And she started dance maybe like a year or so after some of her friends, but then she was all in. We did, when she was a toddler, I think we did like bal- like little ballet, and she's prancing around in her tutu, and got a lot of cute pictures from that. But then now she does... She's at a studio. She does lyrical, she does hip hop, and she just added jazz this year, and she wants to be in a duo or a trio, which apparently we don't find out till later, and I'm sure that comes with another invoice. But it's wild. And I've gotten a little flak on some videos from studio owners. But I get the internet is the internet, right? Like I, I think if anyone watches my videos, I assume I'm a sarcastic guy, I assume people can pick up on that. I shouldn't make that assumption 'cause not everyone can. but it's a lot. She goes to... I-- Her schedule for the next season, which we just got because she added another dan- She is-- one point, I think she's at dance on one of the days that she goes from four to nine Yeah the not to bash, to be clear not to bash dance, but talk about a lengthy amount of time to sit there at a recital or just the practice times to watch five minutes of your child doing something, right? You sit through everybody else's kid 'cause you're looking for that five to eight minutes and you're like, "Okay, there we go," and then boom you, then you gotta sit for the rest of it too. Those are the competitions, right? Yeah go to a competition, you gotta get there, an hour however long earlier before they go on. It's an hour away, and they go on, and they dance for two minutes, and then you gotta sit there till 8:00 PM because then that's the award ceremony, and you Great find out what the awards are, which who could even understand what those awards mean? I can't even begin to tell you how complex... I-- You need a PhD to figure those things That's right. Yeah. I believe it. Back to, dance or youth sports, I know you're out there seeing so many different expenses. What do you think the most ridiculous thing is that you've seen in your time traveling around? The most ridic- as far as expense, expenses go Yeah, just something you're getting charged for or, a line item that pops up as part of a team everyone, in the baseball world, and I don't know, maybe soccer is similar, but I think everyone agrees when you are paying tournament fees to get your kid in, and then you go to watch them, and there's a gate fee. Yeah. You're getting a wristband to go, like I, I don't know how many hundreds of dollars I've already paid to get my kid in, which I presume goes towards All the expenses. You would think it goes towards all the expenses, then they're like, "Oh, you wanna watch your ki-" I think the-- when we were at the last tournament, it was 22 or 40 bucks a person for the whole weekend or something. And, they, got you a deal These are, I guess these are decent size operations, and they gotta pay people. But I would rather it be a sunk cost where it's included in the entry fee for the team. If it was 300 a kid, let's say, to enter the tournament, tell me it's 400 a Right let me in and go. 100%. but those are-- to me, that's crazy. And then in the dance world, it's similar. There's a recital, not even a competition, like there's a recital, and I'm paying to go see my kid, and then trying to get those tickets to the recital is... I had a video. Again, it's like The Hunger Games. You gotta get on right away, and if you don't get it you're not getting a ticket, and there's maximum amounts, and then you go to click. It's like Ticketmaster, right? You go to click purchase, and they're like, "Sorry, the seats are gone already." It's what is going on here?" So you've got the bootlegger outside the event with extra tickets for family members. You got grandma trying to get some extra ones. Yeah, Man I'll tell you some of the things that I think are ridiculous are I got busted trying to bring in outside food for my son which drove me crazy 'cause they're like, "You have to buy it from the concession stand." I'm like, "Okay, cool." They had chicken tenders, pretzels, and hot dogs, and I'm like, "So we're supposed to fuel these kids for an entire day on chicken tenders and hot dogs? I can't get... I can't bring in fruit?" It really was very frustrating. The other thing my son started... We try a lot of different things, so we did a, we did some volleyball this winter, and volleyball has this rule, you may or may not know, that your players also ref games. They're line judges for the games. So whether you win or lose, your team is there reffing other teams. So long day, right? It's 8:00 PM. My son lost his game, then there's the championship game. We have to stick around for the championship game that we didn't get to go to so that they could ref ref that game. So not only did we pay for the team, we paid the gate fee to get in, we can't bring our own food, but we're also working the event, and I'm like, "What is this with volleyball? It's crazy." yeah. And I'm sure there's nothing your son would rather be doing Yeah. losing a game and being there all day sit and line ref, line judge the next game. I, that is... I did not know that. that's pretty wild It's nuts. I encourage everybody to try different stuff, but just beware if you get into volleyball, that's that's coming your way. So your content... all those nuances to everything Yeah. I, so I- your content is absolutely hilarious because I think it's so painfully relatable to everybody and anybody that's in this youth sports world. What's something in youth sports culture that parents have somehow accepted as normal that you think is just absolutely nuts? Boy I think That's a tough one. I, 'cause I think everyone everything as normal but also realizes it's all nuts, but just goes with it. Like, when we were kids, there were two team baseball bats that everyone would share. There Yes. helmets, right? Yes if the bases are loaded and someone's up to bat and you're on deck, you're like, "All right." Or there are four helmets and you're like, "All right, I guess either someone's getting out or someone's scoring and I'm getting their helmet next." now it's "Hey, did you see the new Easton Hypefire just dropped that's 400 plus dollars?" But everyone does it, right? Because this kid's got it and I don't want my kid If it does in fact help his performance and his hitting, then I gotta get it too 'cause I don't want him to be at a disadvantage. So that to me, that stuff is pretty ridiculous. It's like when you, I'm sure when you grew up too you wore a, you probably wore a T-shirt. I wore a T-shirt that was sponsored by the local pizza place, right? There wasn't three uniform options, a bag that you have to buy, five different hats. the alternate jerseys It's crazy, because now we, w- now we need a City Connect jersey because that's what the MLB does. The, all the s- the swag. My, my kid's 10U team, all of them have sliding mitts, and I don't... I'm fairly certain they can't even slide head first. No way. Not a chance. back pocket when they're up to bat, and they're ready to wear them, and I'm just going are we doing here?" Yep. The chains, I don't know if you have kids. Like all my son's baseball team, we got chains. Just the swag, just it's crazy. the reason half the kids do it, to be honest. They agree. drip It's a, yeah, it's a fashion statement at this point to play baseball can you blame them? Elly De La Cruz, Jazz Chisholm out there, you see all these guys with, Fernando Tatis is one of the Bruce Bolt Yeah. or whatever he's considered. looks cool A- and it looks cool and can do it. Jeez, when Jordan came out with his shoes he would get fined because you could only wear white and he had the black shoes. and now it's like everyone's got their own individual brand or they're tied to some brand and everyone's doing their own thing and, boy, kudos to these big brands for figuring it out, now that's The kids are doing it. For sure $90 baseball gloves that's crazy 9, 10, 11-year-olds Yeah. I can't do it. A- and they sh- they show up to tournaments too with their booths where they're p- pushing this stuff. I shouldn't say pushing, but they're trying to sell their stuff, and man, it looks great. It's attractive stuff. All the kids are hawking. They're like, "Man, I've gotta get this stuff." And I'm always telling my Luke, my, my son Luke, I'm like, "Yeah, sorry, buddy. We're gonna stick with these these Franklin or these Easton gloves that you've got here that we got on Amazon, 'cause we're not gonna spend 80 bucks on gloves that you're gonna grow out of in a year." Here's a $400 bat and you're hitting 150. Yeah. Bunch of ground balls. It's fantastic. I'll tell you what I think is crazy is and I'd love your perspective 'cause you're in this baseball world. So my son is gonna be 11, so I think similar type of age groups here in environments is kinda... I don't know if there's an expectation, but if you want additional help with hitting, with pitching, with catching, you have to pay additional help to get that, right? The coaching staff does a little bit of that, but it's not Again, we grew up, but we probably didn't have the greatest coaches either, but you were being taught how to hit, how to catch, how to pitch within that team environment. Now, if you wanna do extra and be good at those things, it's like you have to spend more to get additional help, additional time, and it's nuts. I don't know do you face the same thing? No pun intended, it's hit or miss with the coaches though. We've had some good coaches and not so good coaches. We've had some coaches that work on the fundamentals, but to your point it's okay, they're practicing two, three, four days a week in a team setting. They're not hitting as much. Typically they're working on fielding, some coaches are better than others at teaching mechanics. Some coaches focus on situational, fielding. But yeah, we do and I'm a sucker. I take my kid to I know And part of it is, listen I did not have a very long baseball career as a kid. I'll admit it. I am I joke because we can also get into the different types of parents that are out there, the ones that like were high school ballers and think their kid's gonna go pro. I'm the one that like I try and help my kid, but I'm cheering or making videos in the background for my social media during the games. So one of the reasons is truth be told, like I probably am not the best person to teach him, but the other is I'm his dad. I'm the last person that he is going to listen to I try and tell him to do something. And as I said earlier, and to your point, like A, you feel like you have to do it, and B, if other kids are doing it. Again it's this, I hate to say it, but it is a little keeping up with the Joneses, not from a financial standpoint, but from I don't want my kid to fall behind. and I've tried to talk myself off that ledge, so to speak, and say like my kid's nine. He hasn't even hit puberty yet. Like I always look around and I say, "There are some kids that are great here. There are some kids that are not so good." My kid's obsessed with baseball and the one lesson that I can tell him is th- you're gonna see kids that stick with it. You're gonna see kids that have never played before, and all of a sudden you're getting to middle school or high school and they decide to play, and they've gone through puberty and they've grown or they're athletic. I said if this is something that you wanna stick with, all I can tell you is to put in the time and effort and practice because you can't control your genetics." I'm 5'10 unfortunately. I don't see him getting much bigger than that, but you never know. And you gotta put the effort in because you look around and he's nine. This isn't gonna be the team that he sees when he gets to high school For sure. I, and you touched on something with the the parent side of thing and kind of keeping up with the Joneses. But so for me personally, it's been fun because I coached my son in baseball last year. We decided the organization went a different way, and so we decided to move my son to a different team and went through tryouts and everything. And so he's with a team, somebody else is coaching him. So I get the pleasure of just watching, which is fantastic. But I also am now in this parent chat, right? Like you see the other side of things and talk about there's just a wide spectrum of parent involvement. The worry, the stress that some families are going through just because they're like, "I don't know what to do. Should I get another lesson? Should I go to another coach? What's going on?" And I'm like, "You guys you gotta relax. These kids are, 10, nine, 10, 11 years old. They're doing it. If, and if something's gonna click, it'll click. You can't spend five nights a week doing this type of thing." But you touched on the parent side of things man it's crazy on this side to be honest It is tough and the team chat is something else that we can, I can spend hours on. But to your point with the parents, so when my son first started doing travel in 8U, he was young and it, I... it was new to me, and I was so intense about it. I remember vividly he had not been hitting and was-- we were at a tournament and he struck out, and I threw my hat down, and my wife looked at me. And that was the moment that I was like: Oops. am I doing? He is-- at that time, he was seven and a half, eight years old, and I'm, like, acting... I'm a grown man upset by... and since that time, really, I've taken a se- Like, I'll still, I might pace on the sideline in the spectator, but I'm like, I'm yelling to cheer for him. I'm never yelling at him like: "What are you doing?" But there are parents out there that are yelling. There are parents that are, getting frustrated, and there are other, like you said, there are parents that are just sitting there having a cocktail. I'm probably somewhere in between, but I have lear- After that moment I was like: What am I doing? A- all of that stems from my own insecurities, not my son's insecurities. All of that is like... I think all parents feel that, right? They think if their kid fails, their kid may be upset. And some kids are, and my kid is very competitive and he does. But at that time, I stopped and I was like, I-I think I'm more concerned about my own failures when he's doing that. So what am I do- I had my childhood, I had my chance to do this. And I tell him, I tell my son that. I was like: Listen, just go out there, have fun. I'm there to help. If you wanna go practice, I'll practice with you. If you don't, that's fine. I did this. I had my childhood. I'm almost forty-five years old Yeah I have no chance of playing professional baseball. I never did, but now especially. And so I just try and chill and relax and let him have fun. I try and not touch on the game after it's over. If it's the next day and he wants to talk... If he wants to talk about it, I'll talk about it. If he Yeah talk about it, I won't talk about it. But I made a video about the dad who is always helping and networking his son, into the lineup and joking around with the coach, and the amount of flak I got for-- Again, satire, sarcasm. To be clear, I, the coach asks me, I help out. I've gone to practices during the week to help out. I help out when I can and I appreciate the dads that help out. But fr- I loved that video because I got so much hate And I was like, I don't respond to the comments. I'm like, 'cause what I wanted to say was like, been that dad to help out, not to network, to help out, I'm good friends with those dads that do help out. But as far as the algorithm goes, please keep commenting because it'll just Yeah that's right. For sure. A- and hey, parents, coaches can see right through that stuff too, so if you're brown- brown-nosing a little bit they see it if they're Yeah, a, good coach and, honestly we've gotten lucky. In our travel organization here, it is not, they're not coached by dads of kids that are on the team. So I know there's a big, th- people take issue with daddy ball, they Yeah. Yep a- and we don't have that, which is nice. We have our rec league that dads coach. Obviously, it's a little more laid back. But as far as travel goes they're paid, and I use that term loosely, and I know my coach would use that term loosely too. For sure he has a real job and a full-time job and his own family. But never, it's not really enough mo- like he's it's, a little bit of money probably, but But we don't have to worry about that. You work hard on the team, and you put your effort in, and you'll be put on, put in the ballgame Yeah. A- and you, so you mentioned your son not hitting. I've, we've gone through a big stretch this spring with my son not hitting either, and it's like there's this fear of judgment that That, that's what it is obviously you want your kid to succeed and take that aside, but it's this fear of judgment, like all the other families are like, "God, here he goes again," or, "He's gonna strike out again," so it's been, it's, I think, I hope people can get over that fear of judgment and just worry about yourself, just focus on your own child Yeah it is. It's that idea of are they gonna think that my son doesn't belong here? I- is he-- the parents like embarrassed him? Are they letting the team down? you just, it's hard, but you just have to say "I-- Listen I'm here. I cheer for all the kids no matter what." There are definitely parents that only care about their kid and their kid alone, and, that's their thing. If that's what they wanna do, that's fine. I think, the, the-- probably not the appropriate setting to do that. Great But yeah, I feel that too. That ju- kids I won't share his batting average right now. But it's tough. Yeah Just eight. They're, nine and 10, right? You just gotta remember, hey, and even the big leaguers, right? Two out of, two out of 10, three out of 10, you're doing fine Yeah and that was the other point I was gonna bring up. Yeah, m- maybe a kid's hitting 150 at nine and 10, and the next thing you know they're a sophomore, junior, senior in high school, and they're the leadoff hitter on the t- there's so many factors that come into play, and I just want my kid to I have no aspirations or false conception that my son's gonna play in the MLB. I would ... He, again, he's nine, so I'm not telling him like, "Hey, kid, you're never gonna get there," Right I crush my kid's dreams like that? Exactly but there's so many other benefits of doing team sports that's, to me, that's what it's about 100%. All right, so if somebody follows your family around for a weekend at a tournament, what's one thing that would shock them? Oh, what is one thing that would shock them if they followed me around? think one thing w- that would shock them is perhaps the role reversal between my wife and I, Okay. Meaning what? People see my videos maybe and think, I'm super intense about it. I, again, as I said I might be pacing a little, but I also might step away from the field sometimes. I kid you not my wife will look at me like, "What's going on? How come he can't hit? What are we gonna do?" My wife's out of town right now, and shout out to Game Changer, my wife was watching from Game Changer. I'm not going to share the text messages that she sent me, but, like, when my son was up to bat or if a ball was The sun was dead in my ki- my son was in left field last night, we're playing at 6:00 o'clock at night. The team the kid on the other team just hit a rocket out to left field. My son looked up and it was way over his head. Now, I don't know if he would've got to it anyway but the sun was blinding sure. Yeah And he, and my w- all my wife sees, we had no video last night on Game Changer, so all she sees is, the stats Sure. Yep and the it game in play, whatever it's called. And he can catch a fly ball, he's great at it, and she was texting me like, "What's going on? How come he's not doing it? I can't believe this." So I think that would be the one thing that maybe shock people, that she can often be the more intense one. That's funny and again, like when I said when we were gonna start travel baseball she was like, "Should we? I don't know." And I'm not kidding, within a couple months of doing it, I'm getting videos of people on Instagra- like hitting coaches on Instagram or fielding coaches. She's sending them to me on a Tuesday at 3:00 PM saying, "Do we have to do this? Should we do that?" I'm like, "Lady, who are you? is my She's in it, man. She's in the zone. She loves it But meanwhile still doesn't know all, and this is not a knock on her, she'll admit it, but still doesn't know all the rules of baseball. Or she'll say something funny and Yep. like, what are you talking about?" I'll tell you what. W- we'll pack up for a tournament, and I'm always personally shocked by the amount of stuff that's in the car, in, in the SUV by the end of it. 'Cause I'm like, "Are we going to the beach or what?" Because it's wagons, chairs, coolers bat bags stuff for my daughter to keep her occupied on the side. We can talk about feral siblings another time. But it's it's crazy how much stuff. And I can't imagine ... It sounds like you're traveling a lot more. We stay a little bit more regional with our stuff. You're going out of town, so you toss in suitcases and everything else that you've got. It's nuts. And bathing suits different, just everything. I-- We literally packed the car to go to Cincinnati, and I thought it was all packed, and then my wife wheeled out more stuff, and I'm like, "What?" it's two and a half, three days. Although in her defense, that's no different than if her and I were going away for a weekend. I could wear the same outfit for the entire weekend, and For sure seventy-five different options. She'll pack a full suitcase. We'll get there, and she'll wear two things. Yep. Oh, it happens every time. but it's crazy. It's wild. Yeah, for sure my son's been playing catcher too, so add that to it 'cause we have the catcher's gear that's just a suitcase in and of itself. It's huge. It's a huge bag of stuff. It's insane All right, one, one final question for you, Jordan. Do you have a sports parent survival hack that you learned to save money, time, or even some sanity along the way? So I have yet to learn how to save money. A-and the time too, like it, it just is what it is. My one survival hack, I would say, and I know everyone doesn't participate in this, but honestly, have a drink. And I don't mean be the dad that's like getting trashed on the sidelines and yelling. Have a drink do-- something that gets you to just relax. Because at the end of the day, they're kids playing a game, and what matters is our reactions as parents on the sidelines and being supportive. Because guess what? They're not going to remember if they went O for three in a game. They're not gonna remember, frankly, if they won or lost a random game in June on a Tuesday night. What they're going to remember is the feeling that they had, and I know for parents, like you said, we're worried about the judgment. We carry that weight of our kid on us. So if there is anything you can do to... And I don't have a drink at every game, but like I said, sometimes I walk away. Sometimes I'll think, "Okay, maybe the game's not going well. What video can I make right now for Instagram or TikTok?" Yeah just do something that take your mind off it, 'cause at the end of the day, just kids. As far as my daughter's dance goes my, my one hack is my wife goes to those, and I show up when it's time for my daughter to dance. Okay. And then to the extent I'm allowed to leave, I leave. Yeah. my hack there Yeah, for sure. Let's be honest too to your drink comment, if you've got a fun group of parents, you are with these people so long throughout a day. You're on a Saturday, Friday night, a Sunday. You're an adult you have to find some fun in this too for you, otherwise it's just gonna be a constant grind. Because if you're like me, like we're going into tournament number 11 I think this weekend in the spring and it's just nuts, man. So it's like when can I have a little bit of fun and enjoy... I shouldn't say that, right? It- you're there to have fun to watch your kid, but it's also, get your point though. it's a grind, right? Like you wanna have some adult fun, let's s- let's say that be. It should be fun, and to your point, it is a Friday or Saturday night a lot of times. We wanna... I- if- For the parents that are worried about doing this because it takes up their weekends and whatever, to your point, if there's a fun group of parents, there's going to be some, maybe not all, and there might be all, make it your time to hang out. Yeah there are times that you're sitting having a drink, a High Noon or whatever your drink of choice is, and you're just talking to the other parents, and the game's going on in the background, and the end of the game, you're like, "Hey, great job." You may have not watched an inning, you're just like, "Hey, great." Move on. Yep. And the k- that's kids are fine? that is your life That's right, yeah. And it kinda goes with a hack that I found, I brought up earlier, getting turned away for bringing in food. I would encourage your parents to be expert smugglers. Bring a backpack, Oh yeah pack it in s- pack whatever you're bringing in something that doesn't look like a cooler, right? And, a- and get it done that way tip, ball bucket. Ah, nice. the balls out, throw some ice in it. They're not gonna ask you to open the bucket. You just walk in pretending like you're a coach or you're assisting. There's There's... ways. There's plenty of ways to get Jordan, there is your million-dollar idea. You create a cooler that it looks like a ball bucket, man, and you're good to go. my buddy may be working on that already. Nice. Okay. Maybe we'll, maybe we y- Won't unveil that yet yeah we might have to hold off on that. I don't wanna give up his idea Yeah. What a cool idea Yeah, so it, it's great though. What is, what do you do to get yourself to be able to enjoy the game and take out some intensity? Or maybe it's not intense for you to begin with No, yeah. Like when I'm a spectator and I'm a fan, it's Like I said we've got a good group, so you know, I know we- you say drink something I know you're probably g- we'll get some negative flack out there for that, but it's, you're in a nice Saturday afternoon, it's baseball you're watching. It goes hand-in-hand to be able to sit there, have a cold beer, talk, with some adults, enjoy what you're doing. So we do have a good group of parents on my son's team, and we'll enjoy that on a Saturday afternoon, late in the afternoon, right? Other than that, it's just trying to... I always constantly have to tell myself, "Enjoy this while it's here, because it's not gonna be there forever." I know I'm gonna be 65 one day and look back and think, "Man, that was so much fun. I wish I could go back and do it again," and I might have grandkids by then, but not for your own kids. So just try to always keep that in the back of your mind, too. I'm with you. It's great. I... By the end of the season, I feel like I'm ready for it to end, but to your point I don't ever really want it to end. But yeah, we're halfway through. We end mid-July. We have tryouts for next year before the season's over. And then we're back into it. I joke around, they get less of a break than, Yeah. th- Majors. MLB Yep, because they finish in mid-July, they start fall baseball in mid, late August. They stop that for a week or two, then when they have winter workouts, and we're right back into It's just constant. Yeah. We could talk a long time about that too. Jordan, this has been really awesome. I greatly appreciate you being here. You bring such a good fantastic light-hearted humor to youth sports that I think is well needed in the social environment that we're in. So thanks for spending some time with me. I would encourage everybody to follow you Broke Dad Jordan on Instagram. TikTok you'll have to help me out. Where all can people find you? Broke Dad Jordan on Instagram and Broke Dad Jordan on TikTok. Uh, And I have a Facebook page uh, Broke Dad Jordan. Um, I appreciate it. You know, I, I, I appreciate all my followers that I have. Uh, uh, If you wanna follow, please do. Uh, I, I am extremely sarcastic. That's my caveat there, okay? Don't take anything I say too seriously. We're just out here having fun. I also, as you mentioned earlier, have a podcast called Two Broke Dads with me and my buddy and co-host, Scott. you can find that wherever you find your podcasts, but it's fun. I encourage you to follow along, and I love getting messages too from my followers. I love to interact hear what you guys have to say. So appreciate it. This has been fun. Love following you and all your tips. It's great Awesome. Thanks so much, Jordan. if this episode helped you, share it with another coach or parent who's trying to figure this stuff out, too. You can find Uncoached and this episode wherever you listen to podcasts. You can watch the episode on YouTube, and make sure to follow the Coaching Dad on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook. We'll see you soon on Uncoached.