How does one navigate the unpredictable world of sporting events and weather chaos? Join us at Warehouse 15, where I, the Grandmaster of Disaster, along with TJ and Coach Moreno, share personal updates and the latest weather conditions from California to South Florida. Our conversation takes an exciting turn as we spotlight the recent USA Taekwondo Open Tournament. We celebrate the amazing triumphs and acknowledge the challenges faced by athletes and coaches, with a special nod to Aaron Vorpal's commendable contributions to the Wisconsin taekwondo community. Travel stories weave their way into our discussion, highlighting the storms we've braved and the incredible memories made along the way.
Unraveling the intricate issues of tournament organization, we explore the hurdles coaches face with limited resources, scheduling conflicts, and electronic scoring failures. The unexpected drop in international participation at the US Open sparks a dialogue on the need for better planning and management. Drawing parallels with other sports, we stress the importance of high-level competition and national team cohesion for future success on the international stage. With an emphasis on leadership integrity and meritocracy, we advocate for improvements within Taekwondo organizations to foster a more inclusive and expertise-driven environment.
As we conclude, the spotlight turns to the vital support required for national team athletes. The conversation challenges the current system, urging a reevaluation of resource allocation to better prioritize athletes' needs and ensure they feel valued and supported. With upcoming opportunities like the Cadet and Junior Pan American Championships on the horizon, we underscore the dedication required from coaches and the importance of nurturing young talent. Celebrating the commitment of our taekwondo community, we reflect on the achievements of recent tournaments, including a playful nod to the challenges of visiting Reno, and gear up for the exciting opportunities ahead.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
We are back at the Warehouse 15 and I am
Grandmaster of Disaster, asalways, and I've got with me my
two most favorite people.
He's got Bronze TJ up I don'tknow why, because last week he
got the coaching award of theyear, or the century.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I forgot about promoting.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
You got to change that up.
How are you doing today, sir?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I'm good.
I'm a little bit under theweather, dylan.
We got a little bit of snow outhere trees falling in my
backyard, but you know we'realive all right, all right.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
And then what about you, coach moreno?
How is everything going withyou?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
everything is great, I feel great.
We have a nice, cool sunny dayover here in South Florida.
I'm wearing my soccer jerseyfrom Brazil in honor of my boy
Nishino's favorite team, so I'mexcited.
Actually, it sounds like wehave a good agenda today.
Talk about the US Open, all thegood things and bad things from
(01:17):
there.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
So I think we should get into it.
Let's do it.
Well, I want to give a shoutout to the Budo brothers because
, after listening to the podcast, my good friend Sifu Harinda
Singh, I'm wearing theirbeautiful jacket here, which I
think TJ has.
They are sending me a new onewith a blue interior because I
mentioned to my friend and sothey gave me the hookup.
(01:38):
So the Budo Brothers check themout.
We'll be posting their website.
I mean, I got to be honest.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
What about?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
your co-hosts bro what about co-hosts?
We don't get one take care ofyourself first before you can
take care of others.
I gotta keep myself warmbecause I'm in the.
I'm in chile, norcal.
I'm not in beautiful miamidrinking mojitos and I'm not in.
Where are you in north carolinadrinking mint?
Julia, julia, julia orsomething, what do they call it?
I do you have one of thosesummer outfits?
Do you go down to Kentucky andgo to the?
(02:07):
Whatever that big race is?
That's not mint juleps.
All right, just checking it.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
All right, let's get started today.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Enough about my.
Did I mention the Budo brotherstoday?
Did I mention the Budo brothers?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Now, we're not open to sponsors to sponsors, by the
way, just so everybody knows weare.
We have a handful of sponsorsthat have been kind enough to
send us well, at least send mestuff.
So, um, we got two other guyson the podcast who would like
some stuff, so we'll.
We, we will considersponsorship, even including from
usa taekwondo.
So if you guys are bored andyou got some extra um swag
(02:43):
laying around been a long time.
We are used to getting a lot offree swag.
You know we're all Olympiansand we got that big bag of 40,
50 items.
So, usa Taekwondo, if you'rebored and you want us to
represent, send us some stuff,go ahead, mr Moreno.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
No, I was just going to say real fast.
Actually I think we shouldshout out to like.
Because just gonna say realfast.
Actually I think we shouldshout out to like because every
week people are telling me oh, Ilike this, I like that.
But uh, one guy in particular Iwas talking to him.
He's a from wisconsin guy namedaaron vorpal.
He's actually running the thestate championships in uh in
wisconsin coming up in april andI told him I would give him a
shout out on the podcast becausewe were talking via facebook
(03:22):
and stuff like that.
I know his dad from years andyears ago when I was a kid
living in the Chicagoland area,and he's since taken over his
father's program for a number ofyears.
He has but a good guy out thereand doing good things for the
Wisconsin State.
So I want to give a shout outto my man, Aaron.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
One of the best states in the country is
Wisconsin.
They have one of the bestphilosophy programs at their
university in the country.
Believe it or not, Wisconsin isknown for philosophy.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Have you been to?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Wisconsin.
I have been to Wisconsin.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
There's no cheese and beer.
I've been.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I actually had, you haven't been to Wisconsin.
I've been to Wisconsin.
I've been to every state in thecountry at least once, and I
have been to some states morethan I would like to have been
to them.
I have been to states that havetornadoes and when I land, the
place I stayed in last timesometimes is not there, and I
have been.
We should do this one day to 77countries.
(04:17):
And there was silence.
Mic drop, Mic drop.
All right, we're getting on.
What do we got Coach?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
What do we got?
I don't know.
I think I've been through a lottoo.
77 is a lot yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
I mean, some of them are okay.
I mean, I've eaten more weirdfood in more weird countries.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
I don't know if this is good luck or bad luck.
I've been in a hurricane, I hada tornado take out my house in
Chicago and I've been in atyphoon in Tahiti, so I've been
in every windstorm you can have.
So just be careful, you mightnot want a vacation with me.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
You and I, I think you and.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I were on a.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
You and I.
I believe we're in a typhoon inTaipei.
We couldn't get on a plane.
Remember, they took our plane,that's true.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
That's true, I forgot about it.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
There you go.
We watched planes taking offand they didn't put our plane on
.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
But planes have been crazy lately.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Huh, you saw the last one in.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Toronto.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
That's crazy bro.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
You got to wonder if it's just social media 30 grand.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
For what?
Because it's just.
You gotta wonder.
If it's social media 30 grandfor what?
Because the upside down ride.
You pay good money for that.
At disney world, each persongets 30 grand I know 30 grand
for what each?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
person 30 they're giving no questions, as delta
airlines offered each person 30000.
They gotta hit me up with morethan that they had me turned
upside down, sliding down therail like thank god, I God, that
everyone survived.
Unbelievable, it's scary.
The crazy part for me is theyget complete footage of this.
There's some person filming atthe right time.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
that gets the whole thing all the way to the ground.
It's perfect, right.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know, anyways, Idigress, go ahead.
No, I was going to say, anyways, I digress, let's go ahead.
No, I was going to say, youknow, start with US Open.
We just got back from.
Well, I just got back from Reno.
Another long weekend ofcompetition, decent results.
I think overall there was morePan Am region we kind of
(06:19):
suspected it first More Pan Amregion countries than more
international countries.
There's a few outliers thatwere there in certain divisions
but level what I'd say middle tolow, low to middle, like a lot
of decent people at the top andthen a lot of fill-in stuff at
the bottom.
Um, another like for me, Ithink.
I think overall it wasn't theworst competition ever, but I
(06:43):
think there was a lot of littlethings that were just kind of a
little hectic.
And I think the biggest thingfor me this weekend like I was
talking to you about earlier,coach and Rayna a little bit was
I think we got to figure outhow this situation of holding
matches and not holding matcheswe fix that, because I don't
think that can be a.
That shouldn't be an issue atany level of a tournament,
(07:08):
especially at a g2 tournament,especially when like it's not
like you're.
If you're going as anindividual club, like you got
one coach.
If I'm bringing you 10 athletes, eight athletes, nine athletes,
and I'm being punished at thetournament, not being allowed to
get to their chairs, I don'tknow if it's a patu thing, I
don't know if it's a wt thing, Idon't know if it's a usat thing
, but there were several coachesthat you know trying to figure
out and jump in between matchesand running across all because
they wouldn't hold the matchesfor people that out there trying
(07:28):
to get 20 ranking points andfighting some decent players.
I think that has to berectified.
I mean, I know it was a littlebit of an issue with the juniors
and cadets.
That should be completely cut.
There should be no way you canstart a match for juniors or
cadets without a coach.
There should be no way thatthey're being.
That should just be likeimpossible.
(07:49):
But even moving on to thesenior side, for me I think the
biggest headache I had was thewhole weekend and just watching
everyone.
Being a little sporadic wasjust the simple fact of that
just having to manage your eight, nine guys with one coach.
You know what I mean Well.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I mean, let me, I'll go there and I have a couple
other comments, but you know itis.
It's interesting because I canunderstand a tournament trying
to run on time, trying to get it, you know, get it done quickly,
but not at the sake of quality,not the sake of safety, not at
the sake of business.
Because if you think about itlike you mentioned, coach, if
(08:18):
you bring 10 people, bring sevenpeople, let's say five people
right, you're bringing themmoney, you're bringing them
income, and all of a sudden, forsome reason, you get the bad
luck and you got matched 501,601, and 701.
And so you can't be in, and soyour students, their parents,
(08:39):
are going to be like, what theheck?
My coach isn't here and you'resupposed to pay for that just
because you had the bad luck ofhaving them all go at the same
time, which happens a lot, andfor them to say, yeah, well, you
should bring another coach.
Come on, how many real schoolowners have enough Like, okay,
five, you're going to take twocoaches for five people and then
(08:59):
you have somebody to run yourbusiness.
I mean, people aren't thinkingit through.
So I do agree with you, there'sgot to be something.
Um, it's got to be fixed better.
Um, they got to be a little bitmore understanding.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Um, even if it makes it run a little longer, I mean,
I think by the end it'll alleven itself out and the
tournament will run on time butI think so too, and I think on a
senior day they pushed it backan hour, like we were supposed
to start at30, and then we endedup starting at 8.30 or
something like that.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I can't remember the exact time, and they finished at
a decent time too, right.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Right, that's also my point, like it wasn't.
And again, I think everyone Ithink we talked about it last
episode we all assume the factof long days in competition,
kind of one of those things.
If it's ran smoothly enoughthroughout the day and they
finish later, I don't thinkanyone has any gripes about that
part.
You know what I mean.
It is what it is.
But but like to to rush throughmatches or not rush through
(09:51):
matches, to to not have enoughpeople to be able to slow the
rings down and let the coachescoach their athletes, is is a is
a big problem for me.
You know, I just, I just can't,I can't understand that you
know I.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I'd like to add like, obviously I wasn't there.
I watched a lot of matches ontape so I can't critique.
You know some things, but justfrom you know Mr Don Lewis, you
know he runs that Facebook page,wtu slash, usat data and facts.
He came out right from thebeginning and he said the US
Open had a total of 301 seniors.
(10:23):
If you think about it, he saidagain I don't know the numbers,
I'm just going off of what hesaid it was a 37% drop from the
registration.
No Uzbekistan did it come?
No Jordanians, no Koreans.
I mean, in comparison I talkedabout last week, the Canadian
Open is generally a smallertournament On the senior level.
Canada had more people, theyhad 307, 308, and this one had
(10:48):
the US Open had 301.
I think that's a big, that'scrazy.
I mean that can't, thatshouldn't happen.
I don't know who's to blame, orif it's the city, it's the
timing, the lack ofinternational relationships.
I don't know what it was.
Maybe it was just a bad moment.
I told you, specifically forBrazil, we have our team trials
(11:10):
this coming week and so a lot ofathletes didn't want to risk it
.
There was a handful, but notmany.
So I just think that's a bigbig thing to talk about.
I also know I'm not a foreignperson for competition, but in
the Ponce day they had a threeor four hour delay without the
electronic system and they wentto.
They went to a paper scoringand somebody mentioned in a
(11:32):
comment.
They said, hey, if thathappened for sparring, would
they go to?
Would they allow us to go topaper scoring?
And I was like that's a goodfreaking point, like that would
never happen.
So this is a big event forPoomsae.
It's a g3, g2.
I'm sorry, um, I don't know man, there's got to be some
standards there and just to kindof push the poomsae people
(11:53):
aside.
That's a again, I don't knowwhose problem, but if you're
hosting, I would say this if youwant to take the credit when
things are good, you got to takethe.
You got to take the bad whenthings are bad.
If you're going to be the boss,be the boss at both sides of
the uh of the field and I thinkusa, tigano or whoever ran that
has a uh a little bit of dirt ontheir hands.
(12:15):
You know from from thatstandpoint.
So something that probablyneeds to be looked into, you
know, for the future.
You just we can't accept that.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
We can't accept that as as ricky accept that as as
Ricky Ricardo would say ifyou're old enough to know this
reference, as Ricky Ricardowould say and I love Lucy, you
got some splaining to do, so I'msplaining, you know.
The reality is that if you're aprofessional and you're a
professional organization andthis is what kills me they do
all this and all these events.
(12:42):
Maybe this is what kills me.
They do all this and all theseevents, maybe not this one in
particular.
They make it look nice.
So if you look at the Grand Prix, the World Championship,
whatever, and they do all thisstuff to make it look nice, yet
they don't fix the mostfundamental parts of it.
Number one usually technology.
Number two are the humans thathave to implement the technology
.
So if you're going into thecheap seats to get the humans to
(13:04):
run the technology and theydon't have any experience with
it and then you get back topaper, that's a whole other
thing.
So you got to control thethings you can control, because
people remember how they'retreated and that's why people
don't go.
The other fact is, if theevent's in Reno, who's going to
Reno?
Only Canadians go to Renobecause Reno might be better
(13:26):
than most of Canada.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
No, I'm joking, but it's less boring than many
Canadians, so not really.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Canadians either, right, so you got to kind of,
you know you got to look at itfrom that way, but you know it
continues to be an embarrassment.
Um, and that's in part becausethe board is disconnected,
unaware or incapable, and noneof those are acceptable.
And then the people running theorganization are disinterested,
disaffected and they don't care.
And so when you have that kindof situation, you're going to
(13:53):
have these kinds of results.
Now it doesn't affect you atthat event as much as it will
affect you the next timesomebody considers going to the
event.
The way events grow people thatwere happy come back and new
people that don't know bettershow up.
So you'll always have those newpeople that don't know better
and they'll show up.
But the people that grow eventsare the legacy people, the
(14:15):
people that come back time aftertime after time after time.
So if your event doesn't grow,it means you're not taking care
of the people that are in thehouse.
And that's the same thing witha taekwondo school.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
TJ, let me ask you because I know I actually heard
it.
I think we spoke about it.
Maybe you were there so you canconfirm or deny.
I was watching.
I told you I watch a lot ofmatches and I heard you know
they were asking for volunteersto run the table, to run the
(14:45):
computers, and I'm like I'mthinking to myself as I'm here,
I'm like you're asking forvolunteers during the tournament
, like I don't think I've everheard that of all the not that I
understand all the languageswhen I've traveled but I've
never heard that.
And then when I'm looking at thetables and I'm seeing some
young kids and young kids, andagain God bless them because
(15:06):
they're helping out, but likejust the fact that again our,
our biggest event, the biggestevent in this country, is asking
for volunteers on the third dayand getting down to like kids
sitting up there running thesecomputers while these Olympic
level potential hopefuls arefighting.
It's kind of crazy, I'm notsure.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah, I'm not, I mean I saw.
I mean I I we see it all thetime, but I saw that this
weekend too, like some of thekids sitting there running and
operating their computers andstuff like that.
I just I know there was.
I think there was one, one ofmy a bunch of people were
talking about one uh match whereapparently they were.
They stopped, it was about toend, the referee stopped it, the
coach was on a card somethingand I guess the um it was like
the fifth gum john or somethinglike that, and I guess the
(15:48):
person at the computer hit forthe match to end and it like
recycled everything and theybasically couldn't get the match
back or whatever.
So they had to speak with thecoaches and have them kind of
like.
I think I guess the pointdifference was pretty good.
You know what I mean.
I guess they kind of figured itout.
But yeah, I, I don't.
Like I said, this goes back tothe whole holding matches thing.
For me there's no way, like yousaid, good on them and you know
(16:08):
I'm glad the kids are able tohelp out and be a part, but like
not at a senior day on a G2.
It's impossible to me.
Like it just it just doesn'tfeel right to me.
You know what I mean.
Like that at any other open inEurope I've never seen that at.
Even in other places in the PanAm region I've never seen a
(16:30):
child or a kid at the computersrunning those types of things.
Maybe I'm wrong, but maybe Ihaven't looked, but I don't
remember that being a thing.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
But what I'm thinking about is again, you know, I
know, you know we keep talkingabout your son moving into the
collegiate level, soccer andhopefully beyond, and now that
you're getting into again, Ijust don't understand.
This is the highest of the highin our sport.
This G2 is supposed to be oneof the premier events in the
world.
Okay, so make that equivalentto basketball or soccer or
(16:58):
volleyball.
You just wouldn't see a littlekid, a little 12 or 13 year old,
sit at the scoreboard trying topush, start and stop.
You know what I'm saying.
You just wouldn't see it.
I hate to say that, but that'sjust not acceptable.
That's Bush League on our part.
It's because in this country, Igot to blame us, got to blame
us.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Again, you got to go back to leadership you got to go
back to leadership.
I know, but go back toleadership you gotta go back to
leadership.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yeah, no, I know, I know.
But yeah, no, I know, go aheadtj gold medal.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I'm listening to coach arado, go, what do you say
?
I was just saying, like I saidus, I'm talking to the united
states.
If we're hosting this thing,this thing has to be done at a
high level, nothing elseacceptable.
Kind of back to my statementbefore when things are great and
you want to say, yeah, yeah,look at, yeah, look at us.
Okay, you're still the one incontrol.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, look at that,that's another, you know
blemish.
(17:52):
You know, so to speak, anotherblemish, I mean just because
I'll say it is the United Stateshad their team trials in
January, right, yes, and thereshould be no reason why you
don't have your national teamshere competing as a group cadet,
junior and senior, and I wouldsay specifically cadet and
(18:15):
junior, because their event isin April.
This would have been a fabuloustime to bring them all out there
.
Let them work with the coaches.
I mean that's development,that's world-class event.
You know, see how they respondblah, blah, blah.
Put them in some shirts, givethem a uniform, have a meeting,
(18:35):
just build some camaraderie andsome good team spirit.
I mean, I don't see anydownside in it, any at all.
And instead, oh, just show up.
I'm not sure, did they pay fortheir, their registration or not
for kids in the national team.
But even that is not enough.
I mean it should be easy easy.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I was about to say I think that's an easy.
I mean, again, planning wise,situational wise, having that
open right before in our owncountry, on our home turf, would
be, like you said, not onlyfrom that, but a great little
send-off and, like you said, achance to actually work with the
kids and have them in a, Iwould say, higher stress
environment than normal.
And, like you said, they putout a coaching staff or they
know who they're going to workwith.
(19:16):
So I'm going to say that shouldhave been some of the results.
It should have looked like that, it should have felt like that
and I know you said Cadiz Junior, for me personally, I would
like to see the seniors show upas a team.
That's just what I feel.
I mean, I think I'm almostpositive that more than about
90-some percent, a lot of ournational team members were there
and I think that would havebeen a perfect for me.
(19:36):
That's a perfect moment to workwith those guys.
In those moments, again, therewere some big matches.
There was some good littlematchups this this weekend that
I think you know it would havebeen great to have the national
team coaches in the chair, or atleast have the team together
and it feel like it was a I'llbe honest with you the us versus
them type situation and I thinkwe that was definitely a missed
opportunity on their part.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I mean, even more specifically, our senior
national team coach wasn't eventhere.
I mean, he wasn't even there.
I heard he was on vacation orsomething like that.
I'm like you set up yourvacation on your biggest
domestic tournament Like thatjust seems I don't need to be
there, like I don't get that youcouldn't do it the week before
or the week after.
I mean, that's for me, that'sjust a bad one.
(20:18):
The national team head coachwasn't even present.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
You got to blame the bosses on that one.
I don't care what you saySomeone's got to be like no, no,
no, we need you to do it a weeklater, a week earlier.
I need you to do somethingBecause they get the schedule.
My problem is they get theschedule first, they build the
schedule, they put everything in, so they know when stuff is
gonna be.
You know what I mean.
So I just that that that's a,that's a hard, that's a hard
sell.
For me it makes no sense.
(20:45):
I mean, you guys are ahead ofthe curve, they're ahead of the
curve on that and it doesn'thappen.
So well, you gotta, you gottaask yourself a question what?
Speaker 3 (20:54):
what explain it you?
You gotta ask yourself aquestion, um, and the question
becomes this the purpose ofevents?
And let me ask you the questionwhat's the biggest?
Becomes this the purpose ofevents?
And let me ask you the questionwhat's the biggest in your mind
, the biggest impediment to anindividual athlete or team's
ability to perform at a highlevel event?
(21:16):
What is the biggest impedimentwhen they show up at the event?
What's the biggest impediment?
What is that the biggest in mymind?
And I'll answer the questionfor myself it's experience.
So when you get a kid like myson, he goes to these camps
right.
Same experience you.
And the more experience youhave at high level events, the
better your results are.
(21:36):
The first time I went to um theworld cup I was, and it was in
the United States.
The good news was a year later,I won.
The first year.
I was like, wow, these guys aregood.
They're a lot better than Ithought.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
And the next, year the guy that won.
I beat him.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I lost to Amir.
First one I lost and the reasonwas I fought this, I got to the
final.
I got to the final.
First one I lost and the reasonwas I fought this, I got to the
final.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I got to the final, my first one, I'm just saying.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Well, usually I get to the final, I win.
I don't have any silver.
I have one silver medal, andthat was political.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
All of these silver medal stories keep popping up.
They keep popping up out ofnowhere.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Roll back.
Roll back because most of youweren't born.
So I was fighting in the WorldCup it was the first World Cup
ever in Colorado Springs andDaesung warns me about this guy
and he says I go, oh, I gotEgypt, great, excellent, and
he's like no man.
You know, this guy won a bronzemedal in the World
Championships.
You watch out for him, right?
So, sure enough, he was askilled competitor.
(22:42):
We um one of my favoritefriends of all time, amir Khadig
, and he is a doctor, smart man,smart man.
And he took me to school inthat match.
Like, to be honest, I don't, Ican't complain.
He understood the game.
He shut me down.
So I studied him for a year andfought him the next year and
beat him the next year.
What was the difference?
(23:04):
Well, 86 to 87 was experience.
86 to 87, I had one of my bestyears ever in 87.
Six international medals, sixgold medals in a row, six TJ six
, whatever.
So when I made it to a final, Iusually won.
Tj six, not whatever so.
(23:24):
Um, when I made it to a final,I usually won.
And that was the experience ofgoing to big shows, big events.
Had I not had that experiencein the world cup a year prior, I
would have went to the worldcup in Finland, where I faced
Korea in the final, and Iwouldn't have had the experience
and the sense of presence.
So when these kids go to theseus opens as a team, they're
gaining experience experience inbig shows, experience to get
(23:46):
off the nerves, experiencethat's what matters.
Now, when you have a coachthat's not there and just sends
the kids, there's no sage in theroom to say here's how you
handle it.
There's no Gene Hackman inHoosiers who's saying hey, let's
measure the court.
Hey, oh my Wow, this is the'smeasure the court.
Hey, oh my wow, this is thesame court at home.
(24:08):
There's nobody giving them thatknowledge.
So you set these kids free.
If they even show up, then youinsult the parents by not paying
for it.
And then you insult the parentsfurther.
They show up and it's a clownshow with kids running computers
.
So you know, it's all aquestion of perception and how
you handle yourself.
When I go somewhere, I choosethe place that I eat, for
example.
How does it look?
How does the food taste?
How does the wait staff treatme?
(24:28):
If the wait staff doesn't treatme well, I don't go back and
here's I'll give you one lastrecent story.
I have an 87 year old neighbor.
We go to breakfast once a week.
We go to IHOP and, unbeknownstto everybody, I'm 65 years old
now.
So I go in there and we orderthe five by five, by five, cause
he looked, you know, he's an 87and you know he, he likes us,
(24:52):
he doesn't, he likes to savemoney.
So we ordered two and I orderedthe same meal and I've ordered
it there for a couple of monthsalready and I get the five by
five, by five, for the six 55and over, by, not 65.
So I order it.
The woman mischarges us.
By the way, she doesn't tell usthere's a $7 special that day
for the same meal.
So I look at her and I go well,there was a $7 special.
(25:14):
She goes well, you know, allright, you didn't.
Well, you know, I said I don't,I don't really care about the
difference in price, I'm paidanyway.
But I get the bill.
There's a 55 and older for himand then for the other one it's
a regular meal.
So I look at her and I go youmade another mistake.
I said it should have been 255and older discounts.
(25:35):
So she goes oh, now, this wasobvious.
She didn't want to change hermistake.
She goes do you have ID?
I go ID ID for what?
My credit card.
I said can I see your managerfor a minute?
Now, you made a mistake.
You guessed what a manager.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I have.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
I want, manager, that I have.
You made the mistake.
Now you want me to give you anidea.
I've been here for like twoyears already eating the same
damn meal and you want to makeit like my fault.
We ordered the right thing.
We pointed to the same thing.
We order it every time we comein.
So I vote with my dollars,guess what?
I'm not going to that IHOPanymore, by the way, I don't
(26:16):
really love IHOP anyway, butI'll go to a different I hop or
I'll go get different.
You know Johnny's got a placetoo, um, but I do.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I took that as a compliment that you look less
than 55.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
She was trying to same waitress every week.
She knows I'm, she knows howold I am.
By the way, I am handsome, butI do look at least 55.
So I don't have that TJyouthful.
You know youth run Nevermind.
That's the insideful.
You know youth run Never mind.
That's the inside joke.
All right, moving on.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
So for me I mean, as far as the US Open, like you
said, I heard next year is goingback to Las Vegas, so we'll see
if it pumps up, because thattournament needs something, man,
it needs some juice, because itwas just between USA and Mexico
that was about it and not evenall the Mexicans fought, so it
(27:10):
was just.
It didn't seem like that highlevel.
You're right, tj.
I think in every Open the lastcouple matches get pretty good,
they get interesting, they getcompetitive, but I don't think
the USs didn't look verydominant on the male or female
side.
Um, I know we had, I think,five overall gold medals, which
is not, it's not bad, but itjust didn't seem like there was
a lot of metal production, youknow, other than those you know
(27:33):
specifically.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So like I said I wasn't there, so I can't say
yeah, but also I think that Imean I'm not sure either about
the actual numbers of the inmedals, but I think you, us, as
the country, usa, and there area lot more medals just because
there's a lot less countriesthere too, you know what I mean
like we're filling in a lot of,we're filling in a lot of spots
of, you know, the, thequarterfinals matches and the
(27:55):
ones before that prior, justbecause that's just who's in the
divisions, but that's just,that's just me.
Um, but I think I said, I thinkback to what you were saying a
little bit earlier.
I think that would have beenhuge to see the national team
there as a whole, kind of seethem performing as a whole and
kind of with whoever the staffwas going to be, and all this
stuff, whether it be cadet,juniors or senior level, both
ways right.
To have experience with thosekids in those moments or with
(28:20):
those guys in those momentsprior to getting to to the world
championship, to whatever eventthey're going to go to, and
what they do, would have beenfor me, that would have been the
right thing to do.
It would have been an easything to do and it was our open,
so I don't know how much itwould have.
I think it would have cost muchextra.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
So it's high performance plan, that's.
I talked about that last week.
I don't know.
That's my.
This is my pet peeve right now.
Like coach jennings, you saidthey, they're the one that put
out the schedule.
They know ahead of time.
So how does the highperformance plan not?
That's it, hey.
And we're going to the us open?
(28:55):
Hey, we'll be there.
You know, it's just, it's suchafter the fact, oh, oh, we're
going to.
It's just unbelievable.
That should be the minimum, thebare minimum.
So easy.
And to grab a surprise, what yousaid about experience.
I was going to say that youknow I have a little thing that
I coined coaching camps andcompetitions, and you know, as
it relates to competitions thatgive you experience, I believe
(29:18):
in the right experience and theright experience.
Like you said, the restaurant.
You go to a restaurant, thefood sucks, the waiter sucks,
the place looks ugly.
You're not going back.
You had experience but you hada bad experience.
And so with this, if they cango there with the national team,
be coached by the national team, be worked with the national
team, video review with thenational team, dress like a
(29:39):
national team, regardless ofyour results, you're going to
have a good experience becauseyou feel good that you're part
of the national team, somethingthat you earned, it's a spree
decor right?
Sure the opposite.
The head coach isn't there,they don't go to the junior days
(30:00):
, they don't go to the cadetdays, they don't outfit you,
they don't gather you, theydon't acknowledge you and it's
just kind of like okay, we'lljust take it Again.
The minimum, it's easy.
Like you said, coach Dennings,it's easy, that's an easy one.
We don't even have to thinktwice about it.
How can we sit here afterwardsand think about it?
(30:22):
And they did it.
It's not even our job.
I know last week we talkedabout, you know, if we're going
to throw some rocks, give somesolutions.
You know, like, why should wemake the solutions for you guys?
How hard can it be to do thosethings that we just talked about
?
Speaker 3 (30:35):
These aren't groundbreaking.
These aren't groundbreaking.
These aren't groundbreaking Ingroundbreaking.
These aren't groundbreaking.
In other words, I'm talkingabout, I'm looking at the can we
, I and I still challenge us todo this.
One day I want to build somebuildings, but on this one,
we're not talking about creatingsomething that doesn't exist.
This is common sense.
When you have a team and we'vebeen on a lot of teams together
(30:56):
and and the teams that I've I'vebeen leading, I've I've led
teams at TJ's on and we you andI've been on teams together,
coach we did our best to makethat experience meaningful to
the athlete, and the reason wasthey have achieved a certain
level demanding and respectingand expecting our respect as a
team member.
(31:16):
When an athlete comes in whohas beaten everyone else in the
country and shows up, he shouldbe treated as and this was
different when past leaderships.
It was like the coaches thatmattered under a certain
leadership and I don't want tomention the group In our
situation we respected theathletes.
We treated them likeprofessional players.
(31:37):
Hey, you guys have made thislevel.
By the way, here are these coolwarmups we're going to feed you,
we're going to take care of you, we're going to get through the
event together.
You don't have to worry aboutanything.
Head of team is going to takecare of everything.
Team manager is going to makesure you have everything you
need.
Need anything?
Let us know one If you treatthem like people that don't
(32:03):
matter, then they'll performlike people that don't matter.
They'll be thinking as you'regetting in the ring.
They won't be thinking itconsciously, but they'll be
going oh man, these guys don'ttake care, I'm going to just I'm
going to do my thing.
I'm going to stand on businessas they say right.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, my, my big like .
Again going back to that Ithink you said at the beginning,
the ones, that two things theones that have already shown
that they've won the situation,or when the team trials,
whatever they're on the nationalteam.
That's when I saw some stuffonline a little bit earlier
today or late last night aboutit was a talk about the original
black ops team, when they liketo call it, when they just took
(32:35):
a bunch of kids and traveledaround the country with them or
travel around the world withthem.
Like we have a selectionprocedure for a reason, like
there's a reason why thiselection procedure in place, why
don't we start with the peoplethat are actually on the
national team, whether it bejuniors and cadets or whatever,
and support those guys?
Like that's one and two.
I've heard in the past that, oh,they've never, they've never
supported the juniors.
Like my junior team trip was ahundred percent paid for a
hundred percent of that.
(32:55):
It's like food, flight, hotelregistration, uniform equipment
and when I say food, food, wewere getting money every day for
food to make sure we ate well.
Like it's very, very, very,very simple.
So anyone that's heard thatthat myth about they've never
supported the junior teams.
Yes, it's, it's complete bslike and to that point like,
once you do all this work, yougo to your states, you go to
(33:17):
your regionals, you go to thisterm, you do this term and you
win team trials and then they'relike oh yeah, by the way, you
got to pay to go to brazil.
That would have.
That would have deterred meearly in my career.
My parents would have been likeway, way, way, hold up.
We've spent all this money toget you here and now you've made
it to the top of the countryand we still got to pay out
money for a flight.
We still got to pay for a hotel.
(33:38):
We still got to do these things.
Then what is it a national teamfor?
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Like well, here's the math.
You want to know and I'll giveyou the math.
Take the salaries and thesupport and the plane flights
for all the staff I'm justtalking about CEO, coo,
whoever's in the building andwherever they are in some forest
in Kentucky.
Take the staff and all thesepeople, add up that number and
then take the support that theygive to the junior team for
travel to events.
And if those numbers are I knowwhat the numbers are and I know
(34:12):
what the results are going tobe If the one number is bigger
for staff than it is for supportof the junior teams, then
you've reversed the pyramid andyou're not doing your job.
At the end of the day, everydime United Way is one of the
best charities and the reason itis 80% of the money of the
dollar and the US OlympicCommittee is actually better
goes towards athletes,supporting athletes, to go to
(34:35):
events, to finance athletes.
If that number is here, thenyou're doing your job.
If the number is reversed inother words, jay Warwick, for
example, is getting on a planeto go shake hands with my
favorite person, cho, and go toa dinner and sit I've been at
those dinners paying my own wayThen that money's misspent.
(34:55):
Jay Warwick doesn't need to beon a plane, steve McNally never
needs to see another plane and,to be quite frankly, gareth
Brown needs to see one moreplane and that's back to the
country, to whence he came from,and he can join Paul Green and
they can go drink pints inwhatever small pub they can find
.
Because if our junior athletesaren't being financed, their
future is not being financed,the future of the sport, the
(35:18):
kids who need it, the ones thatneed money.
Juan Moreno and Herb Perez andTJ Jennings couldn't afford the
trips we went on unless theypaid.
I see your fingers moving, tj,my biggest thing is because.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Then we, because my biggest thing is when we, you
know, before we were talkingabout the statistics and like
how all the Olympians aregetting younger.
So we're not looking at 16 to18, 19.
If we're not looking at themand we're just focused on
whatever groups already probablyabove that age and been around
for a while, then are we takingthe best route to be successful.
Forget the future In 2028?
(35:53):
I don't understand.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
I'm going to go back and I want to come back real
fast, because we talk aboutsupport and again, I don't know.
All I know is our national team58, who's supposedly moving to
the Academy.
That's what I heard.
This.
Could they can confirm it again?
Deny it that he's supposed tomove into the Academy?
He was coached by a Canadian,not one other American coach.
Now if he said, maybe he saidthat maybe he goes, you know
(36:19):
what I like this guy.
I want him to coach me.
But I can't believe one of theacademy coaches didn't come out
there and say, hey, you're goingto be coming out, let us work
with you.
They didn't help him.
So that's weird.
But to your point, we want toalways talk about how scientific
we are, the plan we have, howwe know everything, how our
system is the best.
And you are exactly right, tj.
The statistics say how youngthe Olympic level athletes are.
(36:41):
The statistics say how youngthe Olympic level athletes are,
so theoretically, we should belooking at a 15, 16-year-old
right now.
So in the next two and a halfthree years they're 18, 19.
That should be our target.
No-transcript.
I'm a fan.
I'm a fan of some of theseother people, but you're not
doing the right thing.
Looking for the future, you'rejust, and again, this is what
(37:03):
tells me that they don't careabout the health of the system.
They don't care about the realfuture.
It's right now.
It's right now.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
They don't have anybody in the building to
understand the system, juan.
So let me be clear Obviously,high performance.
There's something called apipeline pipeline, and this is
not hard to figure out.
And so if you look at thesoccer pipeline cause it's one
I'm most familiar with right nowit's massive.
The soccer pipeline in theUnited States is massive.
So when these kids try to go tocolleges, 1% to 3% of the kids
(37:36):
that play soccer in this countrywill have an opportunity to
play soccer in college.
That doesn't mean thepipeline's broken.
It means the pipeline'sfunctioning.
You have this huge funnel ofamazing talent that you're
investing in and they go to toput it in our perspective, they
go to a dojo.
That's the basic AYSO level.
(37:58):
They then go to a club, whichis a level up.
You'd think that's more like ahigh-performing team.
Then they go to the next levelup, which is an academy.
That's like a peak performance.
Once you get to the academylevel, you're getting
sophisticated informationbecause you've shown that you
can absorb it.
You're performing, you'regetting support.
(38:18):
When you go to a professionalacademy, you're on track to
become a professional player.
And a good friend of ours fromCanada his son plays MLS next
down here T-O remember him, so Ican't remember DeSantos
DeSantos and his kid's playinghigh level soccer here and he
went through that process andthey take care of those kids.
(38:41):
Kids don't pay in academies.
They go, they travel, they geteverything taken care of and
they're treated Even thoughthere's many other clubs that
are good.
They're treated and mentionedand handled and coached because
they see the future in thesekids and then when they go to
colleges like D1s, their futureprofessional players, these kids
(39:05):
, the college coaches aretreating them like this.
So in our situation, if youdon't fill the pipeline, if you
can't fill a team trials, that'sdemonstrative of the fact you
don't have a pipeline.
If you focus on what is, in thefuture, called pipeline
blockers, or Herb Perez or JuanMoreno well, not Juan, but in
(39:27):
your later years In my run, bythe time I got to the Olympic
level, there was no need toinvest in me anymore because I
was a pipeline blocker.
I had ruined the pipeline, I hadtaken everybody in it and just
beat them, but I wasn't thefuture.
I had one last game, that wasthe Olympics.
(39:47):
Then don't spend any moreeffort or money on me anywhere
near it, except to support me toget there because the future
was behind me.
Peter Bardatos, billy, whateverall these kids that were going
to come up.
Sean Burke, don't invest in me.
Invest in the future at thesame time that you're investing
in the guy who's there, the guyon the bubble, they call it you
(40:08):
need to be investing in the guyswho are coming through the
pipeline and identifying wherewe got TJ from and TJ may not
remember that was you, me, bobGambardello, someone else I
won't mention.
We held a camp and we saw guyslike TJ.
We saw Bernard Posey, we sawall these guys that James Howe
(40:30):
you remember and we said theseare the future.
And guess what?
We were right.
And what did we do?
We invested and we did.
And where did they end up?
Us teams Invest in the future.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
I was going to say like I mean, listen again at the
minimum, and I understand thesoccer, it's a bigger pool, okay
, but at least listen.
We have state championship, wehave membership, we have state
championships, we have nowregionals, we have nationals, we
have us open.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
None, none.
That's what they're supposed todo.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
They're supposed to go to the juniors.
I know, I agree, and that'swhat I'm saying.
You're right, tj.
I mean, there's all thesepeople that are new school and
people talk about old school.
Listen, don't let anybody tellyou that it's never been done.
They've always paid their way.
No that is not true.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
And our country is big enough and should be strong
enough.
I know cadets are a relativelynew thing, but they should be
funding the cadets too.
Like it's a they're going to.
They got cadet worldchampionships and cadet
championships Like these.
All this stuff, whether youlike it or not, it matters and
it can't.
It can't go unsighted, it can'tgo.
I think I said that in one ofthe one of our uh earlier in one
of the other episodes.
Like I was surrounded by greatstaff and great people and, and,
(41:41):
and, and they had a vision ofwhere it was supposed to go and
what it was supposed to looklike.
And I'm not knocking nobody onnobody's staff, so don't, don't,
don't even try to take me there.
But I'm saying that we werebeing coached by the.
If they're the best in ourcountry, our head coaches were
there on ground, 10 toes downwith us when we were juniors.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Your coaches are supposed to be constantly
improving.
Your coaches are supposed to becoaching and improving
incrementally every day.
No coach is perfect and coachesneed experience too, and if
you're not on the mat at everymajor event, you're not doing
your job.
You've got to be showing up tothese events.
My coach, my son's team, got ared card, got a yellow on a
(42:21):
yellow, got a red card.
The next day there's an eventyou don't have to come.
You got a red card.
He's not allowed to coach.
Came sat in the stands stillworking.
Why?
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Because he's a professional coach.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
You should want to be there.
I don't want to watch there.
You should be there.
It's Reno.
These coaches don't want to bethere.
I got it.
They should be there.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
That's your job.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
I'm teasing you, I'm going to take one.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
No, no, no, I get it, but you're teasing.
But you're right, becausethey're not there.
Tj, you're right, they're notreally invested in being there
all day.
You know what You've got to betired.
That's my job.
My job is to go to Reno and tobe there cadet in junior day and
then come back the next day.
I got two days I'm going to betired.
I come back on Monday.
I can sleep.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
You know what I mean when is this training center?
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Is it in North Carolina?
Yeah, it's at the University.
I've never actually seen it.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
So North Carolina to Reno about the same, like I mean
you know, like if you're inReno.
I got it.
It's far, but my point is likeabout the same amount of stuff
to do.
You got IHOP and you gotwhatever.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
I had just a quick change, a quick subject.
I have some information, maybefor people listening, you know
they have this in Cadetero,mexico, in April.
They got the Cadet and JuniorPan American Championships.
But they have a couple ofdifferent events going on too.
They have the final Under-22Pan Am Series I think this is
going to be the fourth one andthe accumulation of all those
(44:01):
tournaments whoever is in thetop eight go to the Junior Pan
American series.
I think this is going to be thefourth one and the accumulation
of all those tournamentswhoever is in the top eight go
to the junior Pan American Games.
So it's the last one.
But, tj, listen to this news Ifyou go to that tournament, even
if you don't finish in the topeight for the overall rankings,
if you just finish in the topeight of that tournament, you
qualify for the senior Pan Amsnext year.
(44:22):
So people can go to thistournament.
You get in the top eight menand women, every division.
You get to go to the Pan AmChampionships next year.
For the cadets and juniors theyhave the national team
championship, but they also havean open and if you get first or
second in that open you get togo to next year's Pan American
(44:44):
Championships as well.
So there's a lot on the linefor people to go to this
tournament to get wild cards tocircumvent the national team to
get to these G4 events.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
So it's a good opportunity.
It really is.
And you're saying just toclarify, and you're saying and
you're saying just to clarify,you're saying top eight finish
at this one event, onequarterfinal finish at this one
event qualifies you for nextyear's pan am championships, as
a senior pan am championshipsand of course this last
tournament also will add intothe total for those other three
(45:17):
events, plus this last one, thetotal four points but there's at
least three right, you have toat least done three events.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
I don't know if they change it to three or left it to
two, I'm not quite sure.
But you know my point is somepeople were like why should I go
to this tournament?
Because I can't.
I can't crack the top eight.
There's another, uh, americanin my division already way ahead
of me.
I can can't, there's no way Ican jump them.
But you can get yourself a wildcard for next year Pan Am
championship.
So it's definitely worth goingand I would.
(45:48):
I would imagine it's going tobe loaded with some, some, a lot
of Mexican athletes and youknow there's a lot of good state
level Mexican champions overthere.
I mean they don't make theirnational team, it's going to.
It could be some yeah itchampions over there.
I mean they don't make theirnational team, it's gonna, it
could be some, uh, yeah, itcould be packed, it could be
rough, it could be good.
So if you got, if you're outthere thinking about it, you're
on the fence.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
I highly suggest it yeah, so I want, I want to I
want to transition to this uh, apersonal topic as far as uh, as
far as taekwondo goes, and andum, it's another conversation
doesn't really have much to dowith, um, much of anything else.
(46:29):
So, as most of you know already, because I'm the grandmaster of
disaster, I'm a ninth don blackbelt, certified by the kooky
one, and in that, in thatcapacity, I'm one of seven
Americans, maybe seven male,seven Americans that have that
distinction.
And most recently, they'vecreated this thing where they
(46:51):
went out and they hypotheticallysaid we're going to create
these kukiwan branches in theUnited States, and they went out
unilaterally, picked oneethnicity, as they always have
done historically, and so itreally calls into question as
bad as the USA Taekwondosituation is and as bad as the,
(47:12):
to be frank, the world Taekwondosituation is with regard to
leadership.
This is even worse the KukiwanUSA debacle because then they
went out and they named ahandful of people, and then they
named people to lead theorganization and they're not
ninth dons.
They're not ninth dons and, inaddition to that, they have no
(47:37):
history of creating content,delivering programming.
These are guys that ran dojongsin the middle of nowhere, in
Rochester, new York, for example, which I apologize to those of
you that live in Rochester, it'sin the middle of nowhere if
you're not from New York City.
So this is something that I'mgoing to be talking about a lot,
and I have been talking about alot, about a lot, and I have
(47:58):
been talking about a lot.
We've heard this story for manyyears and the story is one day,
this will all be yours.
So, as a guy who's been heresince one day and started
Taekwondo when I was very, veryyoung, that was what I heard One
day, this will all be yours,when you're ready.
So I beg and this is the samefor, for it's parallel to what
(48:20):
we're talking about here whenwill you be ready?
In other words, when will uh,if a herb perez isn't ready,
ninth don olympic gold medalist,pan am games, whatever,
whatever ran the coachingprogram for usa taekwondo.
Was head of the educationprogram for the for the wt, uh
technical director for the WT,technical director for the WT.
(48:40):
If a Herb Perez isn't ready,when will anyone be ready?
I created the content that USATaekwondo uses for their
coaching program, along withCoach Moreno and a few others.
So this is something you'llhear me talk about more, but
it's endemic in the sport.
(49:01):
How can we expect the thingsthat we're talking about?
You got to think about what theroot of the problem is.
The root of the problem isnepotism, favoritism, xenophobia
and nationalism, and in onecase, it manifests itself in the
kooky one in a uniformlyethnically non-diverse group
(49:21):
running a sport with little orno expertise.
So go in and try to use thet-con website as an example.
This is horrible, and theeducation stuff which I was
involved in with them for awhile is horrible, and it's
because it's.
That's the problem.
You look at theT's leadershipand the problems it has.
It has a fake diversity thatgoes along in it because there's
(49:45):
one person that runs a show andit's a nepotistic thing.
All right, let's go to USATaekwondo how is it not the same
?
They just exited certain peoplefrom the building and now it's
a non-meritocracy.
A non-meritocracy, it's basedupon relationships and how deep
you're willing to bow.
Are you willing to kiss thering?
Are you willing not to say theysuck, and then you may get a
(50:07):
chair at the table.
Well, that leaves third andfourth tier people, because
first and second and third tierpeople don't put up with that
nonsense.
Be like, I'm okay, I don't needthis, so service is always an
award-giving game.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
It's an award-giving game, though, like when they
talk about them being the bestNGB in the world.
What research is going to givethem the best NGB in the world?
I don't know what that means.
And then we're sitting here,we're watching our cadet and
junior teams and we're justtalking about not being funded
Spain, spain, spain.
Spain makes more money indevelopment than any other.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
NGB, I don't know the other ones, but it used to be
Spain.
I would say this.
I would say this I mean, youmade a good point.
You know Young.
You said when will he be ready?
People always say, oh, you'llbe ready.
You're of age, you're of rank,you're of experience, you've
been in multiple roles, why not?
(51:01):
It's the same thing for TJ.
Oh, you're not ready.
What I coached at a damn GrandPrix final, you can't coach at a
Pan Am Games.
And yet they bring this otherkid that's never coached at a
Pan Am Games and it's okay forhim.
So stop, you're right.
Whether it's in I don't knowmuch about the cookie one
whether it's in that culture,whether it's in USAT culture.
(51:25):
And now I mean again, we talkedabout it last week and I want
to keep doing this, but thegloves are off in the sense of
everybody knows.
Quit whispering about it.
We know what the real deal is.
You got people in theorganization that haven't had
schools, that haven't had clubs,that haven't developed athletes
, that just got positioned thereand now are running it and they
kind of will say I'm successfulbecause I'm here.
No, you're not.
People have been given to.
(51:45):
You're working with people.
You sit in the chairs.
You should be.
They're the best of the best,but you didn't deserve to be
there.
You haven't earned your waythere and if you took those
people out and inserted peoplethat should be, you would see
the level go through the roof.
You would see the energy, yousee the experience, you would
see the real love andunderstanding of the game and
(52:06):
the sport and of theorganization.
You would see it fly out.
But until they change that, itwon't.
Speaker 3 (52:13):
Love or hate the AAU.
Love or hate the AAU, if youwant a case and a business case
for success.
And he's recently departed forpersonal reasons, bobby Stone.
So when I met this guy, thiswas a guy who went into the AAU,
created success, created a hugeorganization because he was
inclusive, he was meritocracybased.
(52:35):
I'm not saying he didn't havehis own personal group of people
that he thought would do thejob, but what I will say is this
he went out and found the bestand the brightest and he
empowered people and he listenedto people and he put people in
coaching chairs and I've nevermet a person to say anything bad
about the guy.
Nobody speaks badly about theguy.
And so here's an example of oneorganization AAU Taekwondo,
(52:56):
growing exponentially.
And where has USA Taekwondogrowing exponentially?
And where has usa taekwondogone?
Well, I was in usa, whatever theversion of it was, way, way,
way back when, and I can tellyou it has lesser members now
than it did 40 years ago when Iwas competing for the 40, 50
years ago.
And so, like I said, withrestaurants like uh, coach took
(53:18):
me, coach moreno took me to thiswonderful ceviche place,
peruvian I think it was Peruvian, unbelievable.
I'm going to go back there andgo back there every time I go to
Miami.
And good service, good food,good people, and they took care
of us when we went there.
And I'm sure you can't get inthere certain nights of the week
.
Well, guess what?
(53:38):
There's always a table at USATaekwondo.
It's empty.
Come on in, it's always empty.
We'll serve you.
It's bad food, but at least youget some food.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
So I mean, that's really the question.
Speaker 3 (53:52):
Just show up, just show up, show up.
And if a guy doesn't show up,he doesn't feel good that day
you'll show up and it's a shamebecause we deserve better.
In a country of 330 millionpeople we're in virtually every
other sport.
It's competitive and at a highlevel.
You would say.
Taekwondo continues to flailwhen it doesn't need to.
(54:12):
We have some of the bestresources in the world.
We have well-heeled parentsthat, even if that's the
question, the parents can do it,but they're not getting the
information, the technique orthe success matrix.
And my one dig on soccer, justto compare it you have no idea
how it works.
I have no idea what pathway.
I know the one pathway whichwe're on works, but I have no
(54:35):
idea.
There's multiple pathways, tonsof kids, so they have all these
different pathways.
Taekwondo has a pathway butnobody joins it, so they have
kind of a more direct thing.
But I'll tell you this too theaverage soccer player in soccer
(54:56):
compared to the averagetaekwondo athlete in taekwondo
is not comparable.
You could, I could, take thetop tier of soccer kids,
athletically skill-wise, sport,intelligence, iq, and they're
better.
Why?
Because the pipeline's better.
Now in taekwondo the pipelinedoesn't exist.
It's selectively.
(55:18):
It's selectively deselectivebecause the people in power want
that to be the case.
A black ops team what are we inthe CIA?
You have a black ops team.
We had trials.
It was called show up, fight,get good enough and maybe you
get to leave the country.
And guess what?
We had the best results everbecause it was harder to get out
(55:39):
of the country than it was tofight Guatemala.
Anyway, it's the old man crankyman that was true.
All right Well so anything elsebefore we close up shop today?
Speaker 2 (55:55):
I was just a congratulations to all the
people that went out to the termin these last two the Canada
and us open, you know.
Congratulations on your resultsand uh, hopefully you guys will
continue to work hard and getbigger and better and next week
we another topic, another topicpj um, no, I don't got too much,
(56:16):
but I, like I said us opensdone with, we got two out of the
way for the year.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
Just looking forward to the rest of the year and some
other events, I'll say I'mgoing to do this.
I know we were talking aboutbeing fans earlier.
I know we kind of went back andforth a little bit, but shout
out to I'm going to say shoutout to CJ for holding it down on
the men's side.
(56:40):
Again, he showed up at the USOpen, which historically was and
it's always a tough division in80.
Interesting, so congratulations.
Speaker 3 (56:46):
Good on him, Good on his performance.
How was his outfit though Ididn't check his TikTok yet how
was his outfit?
Was he representing?
Was it as good as the Budostuff I'm wearing?
Well, as always, great timeagain.
My Taekwondo brothers and myrecently gold medal coach, TJ
(57:06):
elevated I see you still haven'tchanged your screen name and
Coach Moreno.
We got a lot of work ahead ofus.
We got a lot to say, a lot todo, but I'm going to say I want
to put out my congratulations toanyone that went to Reno and
survived Reno, and I'm nottalking about the tournament,
just the fact that you went toReno.
So I live pretty close to Reno.
(57:27):
I don't live close to Reno, butit's in my drivable distance
and I can proudly say I've neverdriven to Reno.
But this has been the warehouse15 and it's longer than 15.
And there's a reason it is 15.
Have we had a winner yet forour swag?
Because I got the swag ready togo.
We're going to pick a winnerand there was silence.
Speaker 2 (57:49):
All right, we're going to figure out, we'll get
one winner for the swag.
Speaker 3 (57:54):
All right, gentlemen.
All right, let's stop recording.
We are back at the Warehouse 15 and I am
Grandmaster of Disaster, asalways, and I've got with me my
two most favorite people.
He's got Bronze TJ up I don'tknow why, because last week he
got the coaching award of theyear, or the century.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I forgot about promoting.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
You got to change that up.
How are you doing today, sir?
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I'm good.
I'm a little bit under theweather, dylan.
We got a little bit of snow outhere trees falling in my
backyard, but you know we'realive all right, all right.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
And then what about you, coach moreno?
How is everything going withyou?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
everything is great, I feel great.
We have a nice, cool sunny dayover here in South Florida.
I'm wearing my soccer jerseyfrom Brazil in honor of my boy
Nishino's favorite team, so I'mexcited.
Actually, it sounds like wehave a good agenda today.
Talk about the US Open, all thegood things and bad things from
(01:17):
there.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
So I think we should get into it.
Let's do it.
Well, I want to give a shoutout to the Budo brothers because
, after listening to the podcast, my good friend Sifu Harinda
Singh, I'm wearing theirbeautiful jacket here, which I
think TJ has.
They are sending me a new onewith a blue interior because I
mentioned to my friend and sothey gave me the hookup.
(01:38):
So the Budo Brothers check themout.
We'll be posting their website.
I mean, I got to be honest.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
What about?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
your co-hosts bro what about co-hosts?
We don't get one take care ofyourself first before you can
take care of others.
I gotta keep myself warmbecause I'm in the.
I'm in chile, norcal.
I'm not in beautiful miamidrinking mojitos and I'm not in.
Where are you in north carolinadrinking mint?
Julia, julia, julia orsomething, what do they call it?
I do you have one of thosesummer outfits?
Do you go down to Kentucky andgo to the?
(02:07):
Whatever that big race is?
That's not mint juleps.
All right, just checking it.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
All right, let's get started today.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Enough about my.
Did I mention the Budo brotherstoday?
Did I mention the Budo brothers?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Now, we're not open to sponsors to sponsors, by the
way, just so everybody knows weare.
We have a handful of sponsorsthat have been kind enough to
send us well, at least send mestuff.
So, um, we got two other guyson the podcast who would like
some stuff, so we'll.
We, we will considersponsorship, even including from
usa taekwondo.
So if you guys are bored andyou got some extra um swag
(02:43):
laying around been a long time.
We are used to getting a lot offree swag.
You know we're all Olympiansand we got that big bag of 40,
50 items.
So, usa Taekwondo, if you'rebored and you want us to
represent, send us some stuff,go ahead, mr Moreno.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
No, I was just going to say real fast.
Actually I think we shouldshout out to like.
Because just gonna say realfast.
Actually I think we shouldshout out to like because every
week people are telling me oh, Ilike this, I like that.
But uh, one guy in particular Iwas talking to him.
He's a from wisconsin guy namedaaron vorpal.
He's actually running the thestate championships in uh in
wisconsin coming up in april andI told him I would give him a
shout out on the podcast becausewe were talking via facebook
(03:22):
and stuff like that.
I know his dad from years andyears ago when I was a kid
living in the Chicagoland area,and he's since taken over his
father's program for a number ofyears.
He has but a good guy out thereand doing good things for the
Wisconsin State.
So I want to give a shout outto my man, Aaron.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
One of the best states in the country is
Wisconsin.
They have one of the bestphilosophy programs at their
university in the country.
Believe it or not, Wisconsin isknown for philosophy.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Have you been to?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Wisconsin.
I have been to Wisconsin.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
There's no cheese and beer.
I've been.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I actually had, you haven't been to Wisconsin.
I've been to Wisconsin.
I've been to every state in thecountry at least once, and I
have been to some states morethan I would like to have been
to them.
I have been to states that havetornadoes and when I land, the
place I stayed in last timesometimes is not there, and I
have been.
We should do this one day to 77countries.
(04:17):
And there was silence.
Mic drop, Mic drop.
All right, we're getting on.
What do we got Coach?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
What do we got?
I don't know.
I think I've been through a lottoo.
77 is a lot yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
I mean, some of them are okay.
I mean, I've eaten more weirdfood in more weird countries.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
I don't know if this is good luck or bad luck.
I've been in a hurricane, I hada tornado take out my house in
Chicago and I've been in atyphoon in Tahiti, so I've been
in every windstorm you can have.
So just be careful, you mightnot want a vacation with me.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
You and I, I think you and.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I were on a.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
You and I.
I believe we're in a typhoon inTaipei.
We couldn't get on a plane.
Remember, they took our plane,that's true.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
That's true, I forgot about it.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
There you go.
We watched planes taking offand they didn't put our plane on
.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
But planes have been crazy lately.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Huh, you saw the last one in.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Toronto.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
That's crazy bro.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
You got to wonder if it's just social media 30 grand.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
For what?
Because it's just.
You gotta wonder.
If it's social media 30 grandfor what?
Because the upside down ride.
You pay good money for that.
At disney world, each persongets 30 grand I know 30 grand
for what each?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
person 30 they're giving no questions, as delta
airlines offered each person 30000.
They gotta hit me up with morethan that they had me turned
upside down, sliding down therail like thank god, I God, that
everyone survived.
Unbelievable, it's scary.
The crazy part for me is theyget complete footage of this.
There's some person filming atthe right time.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
that gets the whole thing all the way to the ground.
It's perfect, right.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know, anyways, Idigress, go ahead.
No, I was going to say, anyways, I digress, let's go ahead.
No, I was going to say, youknow, start with US Open.
We just got back from.
Well, I just got back from Reno.
Another long weekend ofcompetition, decent results.
I think overall there was morePan Am region we kind of
(06:19):
suspected it first More Pan Amregion countries than more
international countries.
There's a few outliers thatwere there in certain divisions
but level what I'd say middle tolow, low to middle, like a lot
of decent people at the top andthen a lot of fill-in stuff at
the bottom.
Um, another like for me, Ithink.
I think overall it wasn't theworst competition ever, but I
(06:43):
think there was a lot of littlethings that were just kind of a
little hectic.
And I think the biggest thingfor me this weekend like I was
talking to you about earlier,coach and Rayna a little bit was
I think we got to figure outhow this situation of holding
matches and not holding matcheswe fix that, because I don't
think that can be a.
That shouldn't be an issue atany level of a tournament,
(07:08):
especially at a g2 tournament,especially when like it's not
like you're.
If you're going as anindividual club, like you got
one coach.
If I'm bringing you 10 athletes, eight athletes, nine athletes,
and I'm being punished at thetournament, not being allowed to
get to their chairs, I don'tknow if it's a patu thing, I
don't know if it's a wt thing, Idon't know if it's a usat thing
, but there were several coachesthat you know trying to figure
out and jump in between matchesand running across all because
they wouldn't hold the matchesfor people that out there trying
(07:28):
to get 20 ranking points andfighting some decent players.
I think that has to berectified.
I mean, I know it was a littlebit of an issue with the juniors
and cadets.
That should be completely cut.
There should be no way you canstart a match for juniors or
cadets without a coach.
There should be no way thatthey're being.
That should just be likeimpossible.
(07:49):
But even moving on to thesenior side, for me I think the
biggest headache I had was thewhole weekend and just watching
everyone.
Being a little sporadic wasjust the simple fact of that
just having to manage your eight, nine guys with one coach.
You know what I mean Well.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I mean, let me, I'll go there and I have a couple
other comments, but you know itis.
It's interesting because I canunderstand a tournament trying
to run on time, trying to get it, you know, get it done quickly,
but not at the sake of quality,not the sake of safety, not at
the sake of business.
Because if you think about itlike you mentioned, coach, if
(08:18):
you bring 10 people, bring sevenpeople, let's say five people
right, you're bringing themmoney, you're bringing them
income, and all of a sudden, forsome reason, you get the bad
luck and you got matched 501,601, and 701.
And so you can't be in, and soyour students, their parents,
(08:39):
are going to be like, what theheck?
My coach isn't here and you'resupposed to pay for that just
because you had the bad luck ofhaving them all go at the same
time, which happens a lot, andfor them to say, yeah, well, you
should bring another coach.
Come on, how many real schoolowners have enough Like, okay,
five, you're going to take twocoaches for five people and then
(08:59):
you have somebody to run yourbusiness.
I mean, people aren't thinkingit through.
So I do agree with you, there'sgot to be something.
Um, it's got to be fixed better.
Um, they got to be a little bitmore understanding.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Um, even if it makes it run a little longer, I mean,
I think by the end it'll alleven itself out and the
tournament will run on time butI think so too, and I think on a
senior day they pushed it backan hour, like we were supposed
to start at30, and then we endedup starting at 8.30 or
something like that.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I can't remember the exact time, and they finished at
a decent time too, right.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Right, that's also my point, like it wasn't.
And again, I think everyone Ithink we talked about it last
episode we all assume the factof long days in competition,
kind of one of those things.
If it's ran smoothly enoughthroughout the day and they
finish later, I don't thinkanyone has any gripes about that
part.
You know what I mean.
It is what it is.
But but like to to rush throughmatches or not rush through
(09:51):
matches, to to not have enoughpeople to be able to slow the
rings down and let the coachescoach their athletes, is is a is
a big problem for me.
You know, I just, I just can't,I can't understand that you
know I.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
I'd like to add like, obviously I wasn't there.
I watched a lot of matches ontape so I can't critique.
You know some things, but justfrom you know Mr Don Lewis, you
know he runs that Facebook page,wtu slash, usat data and facts.
He came out right from thebeginning and he said the US
Open had a total of 301 seniors.
(10:23):
If you think about it, he saidagain I don't know the numbers,
I'm just going off of what hesaid it was a 37% drop from the
registration.
No Uzbekistan did it come?
No Jordanians, no Koreans.
I mean, in comparison I talkedabout last week, the Canadian
Open is generally a smallertournament On the senior level.
Canada had more people, theyhad 307, 308, and this one had
(10:48):
the US Open had 301.
I think that's a big, that'scrazy.
I mean that can't, thatshouldn't happen.
I don't know who's to blame, orif it's the city, it's the
timing, the lack ofinternational relationships.
I don't know what it was.
Maybe it was just a bad moment.
I told you, specifically forBrazil, we have our team trials
(11:10):
this coming week and so a lot ofathletes didn't want to risk it
.
There was a handful, but notmany.
So I just think that's a bigbig thing to talk about.
I also know I'm not a foreignperson for competition, but in
the Ponce day they had a threeor four hour delay without the
electronic system and they wentto.
They went to a paper scoringand somebody mentioned in a
(11:32):
comment.
They said, hey, if thathappened for sparring, would
they go to?
Would they allow us to go topaper scoring?
And I was like that's a goodfreaking point, like that would
never happen.
So this is a big event forPoomsae.
It's a g3, g2.
I'm sorry, um, I don't know man, there's got to be some
standards there and just to kindof push the poomsae people
(11:53):
aside.
That's a again, I don't knowwhose problem, but if you're
hosting, I would say this if youwant to take the credit when
things are good, you got to takethe.
You got to take the bad whenthings are bad.
If you're going to be the boss,be the boss at both sides of
the uh of the field and I thinkusa, tigano or whoever ran that
has a uh a little bit of dirt ontheir hands.
(12:15):
You know from from thatstandpoint.
So something that probablyneeds to be looked into, you
know, for the future.
You just we can't accept that.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
We can't accept that as as ricky accept that as as
Ricky Ricardo would say ifyou're old enough to know this
reference, as Ricky Ricardowould say and I love Lucy, you
got some splaining to do, so I'msplaining, you know.
The reality is that if you're aprofessional and you're a
professional organization andthis is what kills me they do
all this and all these events.
(12:42):
Maybe this is what kills me.
They do all this and all theseevents, maybe not this one in
particular.
They make it look nice.
So if you look at the Grand Prix, the World Championship,
whatever, and they do all thisstuff to make it look nice, yet
they don't fix the mostfundamental parts of it.
Number one usually technology.
Number two are the humans thathave to implement the technology
.
So if you're going into thecheap seats to get the humans to
(13:04):
run the technology and theydon't have any experience with
it and then you get back topaper, that's a whole other
thing.
So you got to control thethings you can control, because
people remember how they'retreated and that's why people
don't go.
The other fact is, if theevent's in Reno, who's going to
Reno?
Only Canadians go to Renobecause Reno might be better
(13:26):
than most of Canada.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
No, I'm joking, but it's less boring than many
Canadians, so not really.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Canadians either, right, so you got to kind of,
you know you got to look at itfrom that way, but you know it
continues to be an embarrassment.
Um, and that's in part becausethe board is disconnected,
unaware or incapable, and noneof those are acceptable.
And then the people running theorganization are disinterested,
disaffected and they don't care.
And so when you have that kindof situation, you're going to
(13:53):
have these kinds of results.
Now it doesn't affect you atthat event as much as it will
affect you the next timesomebody considers going to the
event.
The way events grow people thatwere happy come back and new
people that don't know bettershow up.
So you'll always have those newpeople that don't know better
and they'll show up.
But the people that grow eventsare the legacy people, the
(14:15):
people that come back time aftertime after time after time.
So if your event doesn't grow,it means you're not taking care
of the people that are in thehouse.
And that's the same thing witha taekwondo school.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
TJ, let me ask you because I know I actually heard
it.
I think we spoke about it.
Maybe you were there so you canconfirm or deny.
I was watching.
I told you I watch a lot ofmatches and I heard you know
they were asking for volunteersto run the table, to run the
(14:45):
computers, and I'm like I'mthinking to myself as I'm here,
I'm like you're asking forvolunteers during the tournament
, like I don't think I've everheard that of all the not that I
understand all the languageswhen I've traveled but I've
never heard that.
And then when I'm looking at thetables and I'm seeing some
young kids and young kids, andagain God bless them because
(15:06):
they're helping out, but likejust the fact that again our,
our biggest event, the biggestevent in this country, is asking
for volunteers on the third dayand getting down to like kids
sitting up there running thesecomputers while these Olympic
level potential hopefuls arefighting.
It's kind of crazy, I'm notsure.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah, I'm not, I mean I saw.
I mean I I we see it all thetime, but I saw that this
weekend too, like some of thekids sitting there running and
operating their computers andstuff like that.
I just I know there was.
I think there was one, one ofmy a bunch of people were
talking about one uh match whereapparently they were.
They stopped, it was about toend, the referee stopped it, the
coach was on a card somethingand I guess the um it was like
the fifth gum john or somethinglike that, and I guess the
(15:48):
person at the computer hit forthe match to end and it like
recycled everything and theybasically couldn't get the match
back or whatever.
So they had to speak with thecoaches and have them kind of
like.
I think I guess the pointdifference was pretty good.
You know what I mean.
I guess they kind of figured itout.
But yeah, I, I don't.
Like I said, this goes back tothe whole holding matches thing.
For me there's no way, like yousaid, good on them and you know
(16:08):
I'm glad the kids are able tohelp out and be a part, but like
not at a senior day on a G2.
It's impossible to me.
Like it just it just doesn'tfeel right to me.
You know what I mean.
Like that at any other open inEurope I've never seen that at.
Even in other places in the PanAm region I've never seen a
(16:30):
child or a kid at the computersrunning those types of things.
Maybe I'm wrong, but maybe Ihaven't looked, but I don't
remember that being a thing.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
But what I'm thinking about is again, you know, I
know, you know we keep talkingabout your son moving into the
collegiate level, soccer andhopefully beyond, and now that
you're getting into again, Ijust don't understand.
This is the highest of the highin our sport.
This G2 is supposed to be oneof the premier events in the
world.
Okay, so make that equivalentto basketball or soccer or
(16:58):
volleyball.
You just wouldn't see a littlekid, a little 12 or 13 year old,
sit at the scoreboard trying topush, start and stop.
You know what I'm saying.
You just wouldn't see it.
I hate to say that, but that'sjust not acceptable.
That's Bush League on our part.
It's because in this country, Igot to blame us, got to blame
us.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Again, you got to go back to leadership you got to go
back to leadership.
I know, but go back toleadership you gotta go back to
leadership.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yeah, no, I know, I know.
But yeah, no, I know, go aheadtj gold medal.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I'm listening to coach arado, go, what do you say
?
I was just saying, like I saidus, I'm talking to the united
states.
If we're hosting this thing,this thing has to be done at a
high level, nothing elseacceptable.
Kind of back to my statementbefore when things are great and
you want to say, yeah, yeah,look at, yeah, look at us.
Okay, you're still the one incontrol.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, look at that,that's another, you know
blemish.
(17:52):
You know, so to speak, anotherblemish, I mean just because
I'll say it is the United Stateshad their team trials in
January, right, yes, and thereshould be no reason why you
don't have your national teamshere competing as a group cadet,
junior and senior, and I wouldsay specifically cadet and
(18:15):
junior, because their event isin April.
This would have been a fabuloustime to bring them all out there
.
Let them work with the coaches.
I mean that's development,that's world-class event.
You know, see how they respondblah, blah, blah.
Put them in some shirts, givethem a uniform, have a meeting,
(18:35):
just build some camaraderie andsome good team spirit.
I mean, I don't see anydownside in it, any at all.
And instead, oh, just show up.
I'm not sure, did they pay fortheir, their registration or not
for kids in the national team.
But even that is not enough.
I mean it should be easy easy.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I was about to say I think that's an easy.
I mean, again, planning wise,situational wise, having that
open right before in our owncountry, on our home turf, would
be, like you said, not onlyfrom that, but a great little
send-off and, like you said, achance to actually work with the
kids and have them in a, Iwould say, higher stress
environment than normal.
And, like you said, they putout a coaching staff or they
know who they're going to workwith.
(19:16):
So I'm going to say that shouldhave been some of the results.
It should have looked like that, it should have felt like that
and I know you said Cadiz Junior, for me personally, I would
like to see the seniors show upas a team.
That's just what I feel.
I mean, I think I'm almostpositive that more than about
90-some percent, a lot of ournational team members were there
and I think that would havebeen a perfect for me.
(19:36):
That's a perfect moment to workwith those guys.
In those moments, again, therewere some big matches.
There was some good littlematchups this this weekend that
I think you know it would havebeen great to have the national
team coaches in the chair, or atleast have the team together
and it feel like it was a I'llbe honest with you the us versus
them type situation and I thinkwe that was definitely a missed
opportunity on their part.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I mean, even more specifically, our senior
national team coach wasn't eventhere.
I mean, he wasn't even there.
I heard he was on vacation orsomething like that.
I'm like you set up yourvacation on your biggest
domestic tournament Like thatjust seems I don't need to be
there, like I don't get that youcouldn't do it the week before
or the week after.
I mean, that's for me, that'sjust a bad one.
(20:18):
The national team head coachwasn't even present.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
You got to blame the bosses on that one.
I don't care what you saySomeone's got to be like no, no,
no, we need you to do it a weeklater, a week earlier.
I need you to do somethingBecause they get the schedule.
My problem is they get theschedule first, they build the
schedule, they put everything in, so they know when stuff is
gonna be.
You know what I mean.
So I just that that that's a,that's a hard, that's a hard
sell.
For me it makes no sense.
(20:45):
I mean, you guys are ahead ofthe curve, they're ahead of the
curve on that and it doesn'thappen.
So well, you gotta, you gottaask yourself a question what?
Speaker 3 (20:54):
what explain it you?
You gotta ask yourself aquestion, um, and the question
becomes this the purpose ofevents?
And let me ask you the questionwhat's the biggest?
Becomes this the purpose ofevents?
And let me ask you the questionwhat's the biggest in your mind
, the biggest impediment to anindividual athlete or team's
ability to perform at a highlevel event?
(21:16):
What is the biggest impedimentwhen they show up at the event?
What's the biggest impediment?
What is that the biggest in mymind?
And I'll answer the questionfor myself it's experience.
So when you get a kid like myson, he goes to these camps
right.
Same experience you.
And the more experience youhave at high level events, the
better your results are.
(21:36):
The first time I went to um theworld cup I was, and it was in
the United States.
The good news was a year later,I won.
The first year.
I was like, wow, these guys aregood.
They're a lot better than Ithought.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
And the next, year the guy that won.
I beat him.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I lost to Amir.
First one I lost and the reasonwas I fought this, I got to the
final.
I got to the final.
First one I lost and the reasonwas I fought this, I got to the
final.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I got to the final, my first one, I'm just saying.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Well, usually I get to the final, I win.
I don't have any silver.
I have one silver medal, andthat was political.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
All of these silver medal stories keep popping up.
They keep popping up out ofnowhere.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Roll back.
Roll back because most of youweren't born.
So I was fighting in the WorldCup it was the first World Cup
ever in Colorado Springs andDaesung warns me about this guy
and he says I go, oh, I gotEgypt, great, excellent, and
he's like no man.
You know, this guy won a bronzemedal in the World
Championships.
You watch out for him, right?
So, sure enough, he was askilled competitor.
(22:42):
We um one of my favoritefriends of all time, amir Khadig
, and he is a doctor, smart man,smart man.
And he took me to school inthat match.
Like, to be honest, I don't, Ican't complain.
He understood the game.
He shut me down.
So I studied him for a year andfought him the next year and
beat him the next year.
What was the difference?
(23:04):
Well, 86 to 87 was experience.
86 to 87, I had one of my bestyears ever in 87.
Six international medals, sixgold medals in a row, six TJ six
, whatever.
So when I made it to a final, Iusually won.
Tj six, not whatever so.
(23:24):
Um, when I made it to a final,I usually won.
And that was the experience ofgoing to big shows, big events.
Had I not had that experiencein the world cup a year prior, I
would have went to the worldcup in Finland, where I faced
Korea in the final, and Iwouldn't have had the experience
and the sense of presence.
So when these kids go to theseus opens as a team, they're
gaining experience experience inbig shows, experience to get
(23:46):
off the nerves, experiencethat's what matters.
Now, when you have a coachthat's not there and just sends
the kids, there's no sage in theroom to say here's how you
handle it.
There's no Gene Hackman inHoosiers who's saying hey, let's
measure the court.
Hey, oh my Wow, this is the'smeasure the court.
Hey, oh my wow, this is thesame court at home.
(24:08):
There's nobody giving them thatknowledge.
So you set these kids free.
If they even show up, then youinsult the parents by not paying
for it.
And then you insult the parentsfurther.
They show up and it's a clownshow with kids running computers
.
So you know, it's all aquestion of perception and how
you handle yourself.
When I go somewhere, I choosethe place that I eat, for
example.
How does it look?
How does the food taste?
How does the wait staff treatme?
(24:28):
If the wait staff doesn't treatme well, I don't go back and
here's I'll give you one lastrecent story.
I have an 87 year old neighbor.
We go to breakfast once a week.
We go to IHOP and, unbeknownstto everybody, I'm 65 years old
now.
So I go in there and we orderthe five by five, by five, cause
he looked, you know, he's an 87and you know he, he likes us,
(24:52):
he doesn't, he likes to savemoney.
So we ordered two and I orderedthe same meal and I've ordered
it there for a couple of monthsalready and I get the five by
five, by five, for the six 55and over, by, not 65.
So I order it.
The woman mischarges us.
By the way, she doesn't tell usthere's a $7 special that day
for the same meal.
So I look at her and I go well,there was a $7 special.
(25:14):
She goes well, you know, allright, you didn't.
Well, you know, I said I don't,I don't really care about the
difference in price, I'm paidanyway.
But I get the bill.
There's a 55 and older for himand then for the other one it's
a regular meal.
So I look at her and I go youmade another mistake.
I said it should have been 255and older discounts.
(25:35):
So she goes oh, now, this wasobvious.
She didn't want to change hermistake.
She goes do you have ID?
I go ID ID for what?
My credit card.
I said can I see your managerfor a minute?
Now, you made a mistake.
You guessed what a manager.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I have.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
I want, manager, that I have.
You made the mistake.
Now you want me to give you anidea.
I've been here for like twoyears already eating the same
damn meal and you want to makeit like my fault.
We ordered the right thing.
We pointed to the same thing.
We order it every time we comein.
So I vote with my dollars,guess what?
I'm not going to that IHOPanymore, by the way, I don't
(26:16):
really love IHOP anyway, butI'll go to a different I hop or
I'll go get different.
You know Johnny's got a placetoo, um, but I do.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I took that as a compliment that you look less
than 55.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
She was trying to same waitress every week.
She knows I'm, she knows howold I am.
By the way, I am handsome, butI do look at least 55.
So I don't have that TJyouthful.
You know youth run Nevermind.
That's the insideful.
You know youth run Never mind.
That's the inside joke.
All right, moving on.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
So for me I mean, as far as the US Open, like you
said, I heard next year is goingback to Las Vegas, so we'll see
if it pumps up, because thattournament needs something, man,
it needs some juice, because itwas just between USA and Mexico
that was about it and not evenall the Mexicans fought, so it
(27:10):
was just.
It didn't seem like that highlevel.
You're right, tj.
I think in every Open the lastcouple matches get pretty good,
they get interesting, they getcompetitive, but I don't think
the USs didn't look verydominant on the male or female
side.
Um, I know we had, I think,five overall gold medals, which
is not, it's not bad, but itjust didn't seem like there was
a lot of metal production, youknow, other than those you know
(27:33):
specifically.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So like I said I wasn't there, so I can't say
yeah, but also I think that Imean I'm not sure either about
the actual numbers of the inmedals, but I think you, us, as
the country, usa, and there area lot more medals just because
there's a lot less countriesthere too, you know what I mean
like we're filling in a lot of,we're filling in a lot of spots
of, you know, the, thequarterfinals matches and the
(27:55):
ones before that prior, justbecause that's just who's in the
divisions, but that's just,that's just me.
Um, but I think I said, I thinkback to what you were saying a
little bit earlier.
I think that would have beenhuge to see the national team
there as a whole, kind of seethem performing as a whole and
kind of with whoever the staffwas going to be, and all this
stuff, whether it be cadet,juniors or senior level, both
ways right.
To have experience with thosekids in those moments or with
(28:20):
those guys in those momentsprior to getting to to the world
championship, to whatever eventthey're going to go to, and
what they do, would have beenfor me, that would have been the
right thing to do.
It would have been an easything to do and it was our open,
so I don't know how much itwould have.
I think it would have cost muchextra.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
So it's high performance plan, that's.
I talked about that last week.
I don't know.
That's my.
This is my pet peeve right now.
Like coach jennings, you saidthey, they're the one that put
out the schedule.
They know ahead of time.
So how does the highperformance plan not?
That's it, hey.
And we're going to the us open?
(28:55):
Hey, we'll be there.
You know, it's just, it's suchafter the fact, oh, oh, we're
going to.
It's just unbelievable.
That should be the minimum, thebare minimum.
So easy.
And to grab a surprise, what yousaid about experience.
I was going to say that youknow I have a little thing that
I coined coaching camps andcompetitions, and you know, as
it relates to competitions thatgive you experience, I believe
(29:18):
in the right experience and theright experience.
Like you said, the restaurant.
You go to a restaurant, thefood sucks, the waiter sucks,
the place looks ugly.
You're not going back.
You had experience but you hada bad experience.
And so with this, if they cango there with the national team,
be coached by the national team, be worked with the national
team, video review with thenational team, dress like a
(29:39):
national team, regardless ofyour results, you're going to
have a good experience becauseyou feel good that you're part
of the national team, somethingthat you earned, it's a spree
decor right?
Sure the opposite.
The head coach isn't there,they don't go to the junior days
(30:00):
, they don't go to the cadetdays, they don't outfit you,
they don't gather you, theydon't acknowledge you and it's
just kind of like okay, we'lljust take it Again.
The minimum, it's easy.
Like you said, coach Dennings,it's easy, that's an easy one.
We don't even have to thinktwice about it.
How can we sit here afterwardsand think about it?
(30:22):
And they did it.
It's not even our job.
I know last week we talkedabout, you know, if we're going
to throw some rocks, give somesolutions.
You know, like, why should wemake the solutions for you guys?
How hard can it be to do thosethings that we just talked about
?
Speaker 3 (30:35):
These aren't groundbreaking.
These aren't groundbreaking.
These aren't groundbreaking Ingroundbreaking.
These aren't groundbreaking.
In other words, I'm talkingabout, I'm looking at the can we
, I and I still challenge us todo this.
One day I want to build somebuildings, but on this one,
we're not talking about creatingsomething that doesn't exist.
This is common sense.
When you have a team and we'vebeen on a lot of teams together
(30:56):
and and the teams that I've I'vebeen leading, I've I've led
teams at TJ's on and we you andI've been on teams together,
coach we did our best to makethat experience meaningful to
the athlete, and the reason wasthey have achieved a certain
level demanding and respectingand expecting our respect as a
team member.
(31:16):
When an athlete comes in whohas beaten everyone else in the
country and shows up, he shouldbe treated as and this was
different when past leaderships.
It was like the coaches thatmattered under a certain
leadership and I don't want tomention the group In our
situation we respected theathletes.
We treated them likeprofessional players.
(31:37):
Hey, you guys have made thislevel.
By the way, here are these coolwarmups we're going to feed you,
we're going to take care of you, we're going to get through the
event together.
You don't have to worry aboutanything.
Head of team is going to takecare of everything.
Team manager is going to makesure you have everything you
need.
Need anything?
Let us know one If you treatthem like people that don't
(32:03):
matter, then they'll performlike people that don't matter.
They'll be thinking as you'regetting in the ring.
They won't be thinking itconsciously, but they'll be
going oh man, these guys don'ttake care, I'm going to just I'm
going to do my thing.
I'm going to stand on businessas they say right.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, my, my big like .
Again going back to that Ithink you said at the beginning,
the ones, that two things theones that have already shown
that they've won the situation,or when the team trials,
whatever they're on the nationalteam.
That's when I saw some stuffonline a little bit earlier
today or late last night aboutit was a talk about the original
black ops team, when they liketo call it, when they just took
(32:35):
a bunch of kids and traveledaround the country with them or
travel around the world withthem.
Like we have a selectionprocedure for a reason, like
there's a reason why thiselection procedure in place, why
don't we start with the peoplethat are actually on the
national team, whether it bejuniors and cadets or whatever,
and support those guys?
Like that's one and two.
I've heard in the past that, oh,they've never, they've never
supported the juniors.
Like my junior team trip was ahundred percent paid for a
hundred percent of that.
(32:55):
It's like food, flight, hotelregistration, uniform equipment
and when I say food, food, wewere getting money every day for
food to make sure we ate well.
Like it's very, very, very,very simple.
So anyone that's heard thatthat myth about they've never
supported the junior teams.
Yes, it's, it's complete bslike and to that point like,
once you do all this work, yougo to your states, you go to
(33:17):
your regionals, you go to thisterm, you do this term and you
win team trials and then they'relike oh yeah, by the way, you
got to pay to go to brazil.
That would have.
That would have deterred meearly in my career.
My parents would have been likeway, way, way, hold up.
We've spent all this money toget you here and now you've made
it to the top of the countryand we still got to pay out
money for a flight.
We still got to pay for a hotel.
(33:38):
We still got to do these things.
Then what is it a national teamfor?
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Like well, here's the math.
You want to know and I'll giveyou the math.
Take the salaries and thesupport and the plane flights
for all the staff I'm justtalking about CEO, coo,
whoever's in the building andwherever they are in some forest
in Kentucky.
Take the staff and all thesepeople, add up that number and
then take the support that theygive to the junior team for
travel to events.
And if those numbers are I knowwhat the numbers are and I know
(34:12):
what the results are going tobe If the one number is bigger
for staff than it is for supportof the junior teams, then
you've reversed the pyramid andyou're not doing your job.
At the end of the day, everydime United Way is one of the
best charities and the reason itis 80% of the money of the
dollar and the US OlympicCommittee is actually better
goes towards athletes,supporting athletes, to go to
(34:35):
events, to finance athletes.
If that number is here, thenyou're doing your job.
If the number is reversed inother words, jay Warwick, for
example, is getting on a planeto go shake hands with my
favorite person, cho, and go toa dinner and sit I've been at
those dinners paying my own wayThen that money's misspent.
(34:55):
Jay Warwick doesn't need to beon a plane, steve McNally never
needs to see another plane and,to be quite frankly, gareth
Brown needs to see one moreplane and that's back to the
country, to whence he came from,and he can join Paul Green and
they can go drink pints inwhatever small pub they can find
.
Because if our junior athletesaren't being financed, their
future is not being financed,the future of the sport, the
(35:18):
kids who need it, the ones thatneed money.
Juan Moreno and Herb Perez andTJ Jennings couldn't afford the
trips we went on unless theypaid.
I see your fingers moving, tj,my biggest thing is because.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Then we, because my biggest thing is when we, you
know, before we were talkingabout the statistics and like
how all the Olympians aregetting younger.
So we're not looking at 16 to18, 19.
If we're not looking at themand we're just focused on
whatever groups already probablyabove that age and been around
for a while, then are we takingthe best route to be successful.
Forget the future In 2028?
(35:53):
I don't understand.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
I'm going to go back and I want to come back real
fast, because we talk aboutsupport and again, I don't know.
All I know is our national team58, who's supposedly moving to
the Academy.
That's what I heard.
This.
Could they can confirm it again?
Deny it that he's supposed tomove into the Academy?
He was coached by a Canadian,not one other American coach.
Now if he said, maybe he saidthat maybe he goes, you know
(36:19):
what I like this guy.
I want him to coach me.
But I can't believe one of theacademy coaches didn't come out
there and say, hey, you're goingto be coming out, let us work
with you.
They didn't help him.
So that's weird.
But to your point, we want toalways talk about how scientific
we are, the plan we have, howwe know everything, how our
system is the best.
And you are exactly right, tj.
The statistics say how youngthe Olympic level athletes are.
(36:41):
The statistics say how youngthe Olympic level athletes are,
so theoretically, we should belooking at a 15, 16-year-old
right now.
So in the next two and a halfthree years they're 18, 19.
That should be our target.
No-transcript.
I'm a fan.
I'm a fan of some of theseother people, but you're not
doing the right thing.
Looking for the future, you'rejust, and again, this is what
(37:03):
tells me that they don't careabout the health of the system.
They don't care about the realfuture.
It's right now.
It's right now.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
They don't have anybody in the building to
understand the system, juan.
So let me be clear Obviously,high performance.
There's something called apipeline pipeline, and this is
not hard to figure out.
And so if you look at thesoccer pipeline cause it's one
I'm most familiar with right nowit's massive.
The soccer pipeline in theUnited States is massive.
So when these kids try to go tocolleges, 1% to 3% of the kids
(37:36):
that play soccer in this countrywill have an opportunity to
play soccer in college.
That doesn't mean thepipeline's broken.
It means the pipeline'sfunctioning.
You have this huge funnel ofamazing talent that you're
investing in and they go to toput it in our perspective, they
go to a dojo.
That's the basic AYSO level.
(37:58):
They then go to a club, whichis a level up.
You'd think that's more like ahigh-performing team.
Then they go to the next levelup, which is an academy.
That's like a peak performance.
Once you get to the academylevel, you're getting
sophisticated informationbecause you've shown that you
can absorb it.
You're performing, you'regetting support.
(38:18):
When you go to a professionalacademy, you're on track to
become a professional player.
And a good friend of ours fromCanada his son plays MLS next
down here T-O remember him, so Ican't remember DeSantos
DeSantos and his kid's playinghigh level soccer here and he
went through that process andthey take care of those kids.
(38:41):
Kids don't pay in academies.
They go, they travel, they geteverything taken care of and
they're treated Even thoughthere's many other clubs that
are good.
They're treated and mentionedand handled and coached because
they see the future in thesekids and then when they go to
colleges like D1s, their futureprofessional players, these kids
(39:05):
, the college coaches aretreating them like this.
So in our situation, if youdon't fill the pipeline, if you
can't fill a team trials, that'sdemonstrative of the fact you
don't have a pipeline.
If you focus on what is, in thefuture, called pipeline
blockers, or Herb Perez or JuanMoreno well, not Juan, but in
(39:27):
your later years In my run, bythe time I got to the Olympic
level, there was no need toinvest in me anymore because I
was a pipeline blocker.
I had ruined the pipeline, I hadtaken everybody in it and just
beat them, but I wasn't thefuture.
I had one last game, that wasthe Olympics.
(39:47):
Then don't spend any moreeffort or money on me anywhere
near it, except to support me toget there because the future
was behind me.
Peter Bardatos, billy, whateverall these kids that were going
to come up.
Sean Burke, don't invest in me.
Invest in the future at thesame time that you're investing
in the guy who's there, the guyon the bubble, they call it you
(40:08):
need to be investing in the guyswho are coming through the
pipeline and identifying wherewe got TJ from and TJ may not
remember that was you, me, bobGambardello, someone else I
won't mention.
We held a camp and we saw guyslike TJ.
We saw Bernard Posey, we sawall these guys that James Howe
(40:30):
you remember and we said theseare the future.
And guess what?
We were right.
And what did we do?
We invested and we did.
And where did they end up?
Us teams Invest in the future.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
I was going to say like I mean, listen again at the
minimum, and I understand thesoccer, it's a bigger pool, okay
, but at least listen.
We have state championship, wehave membership, we have state
championships, we have nowregionals, we have nationals, we
have us open.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
None, none.
That's what they're supposed todo.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
They're supposed to go to the juniors.
I know, I agree, and that'swhat I'm saying.
You're right, tj.
I mean, there's all thesepeople that are new school and
people talk about old school.
Listen, don't let anybody tellyou that it's never been done.
They've always paid their way.
No that is not true.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
And our country is big enough and should be strong
enough.
I know cadets are a relativelynew thing, but they should be
funding the cadets too.
Like it's a they're going to.
They got cadet worldchampionships and cadet
championships Like these.
All this stuff, whether youlike it or not, it matters and
it can't.
It can't go unsighted, it can'tgo.
I think I said that in one ofthe one of our uh earlier in one
of the other episodes.
Like I was surrounded by greatstaff and great people and, and,
(41:41):
and, and they had a vision ofwhere it was supposed to go and
what it was supposed to looklike.
And I'm not knocking nobody onnobody's staff, so don't, don't,
don't even try to take me there.
But I'm saying that we werebeing coached by the.
If they're the best in ourcountry, our head coaches were
there on ground, 10 toes downwith us when we were juniors.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Your coaches are supposed to be constantly
improving.
Your coaches are supposed to becoaching and improving
incrementally every day.
No coach is perfect and coachesneed experience too, and if
you're not on the mat at everymajor event, you're not doing
your job.
You've got to be showing up tothese events.
My coach, my son's team, got ared card, got a yellow on a
(42:21):
yellow, got a red card.
The next day there's an eventyou don't have to come.
You got a red card.
He's not allowed to coach.
Came sat in the stands stillworking.
Why?
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Because he's a professional coach.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
You should want to be there.
I don't want to watch there.
You should be there.
It's Reno.
These coaches don't want to bethere.
I got it.
They should be there.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
That's your job.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
I'm teasing you, I'm going to take one.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
No, no, no, I get it, but you're teasing.
But you're right, becausethey're not there.
Tj, you're right, they're notreally invested in being there
all day.
You know what You've got to betired.
That's my job.
My job is to go to Reno and tobe there cadet in junior day and
then come back the next day.
I got two days I'm going to betired.
I come back on Monday.
I can sleep.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
You know what I mean when is this training center?
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Is it in North Carolina?
Yeah, it's at the University.
I've never actually seen it.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
So North Carolina to Reno about the same, like I mean
you know, like if you're inReno.
I got it.
It's far, but my point is likeabout the same amount of stuff
to do.
You got IHOP and you gotwhatever.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
I had just a quick change, a quick subject.
I have some information, maybefor people listening, you know
they have this in Cadetero,mexico, in April.
They got the Cadet and JuniorPan American Championships.
But they have a couple ofdifferent events going on too.
They have the final Under-22Pan Am Series I think this is
going to be the fourth one andthe accumulation of all those
(44:01):
tournaments whoever is in thetop eight go to the Junior Pan
American series.
I think this is going to be thefourth one and the accumulation
of all those tournamentswhoever is in the top eight go
to the junior Pan American Games.
So it's the last one.
But, tj, listen to this news Ifyou go to that tournament, even
if you don't finish in the topeight for the overall rankings,
if you just finish in the topeight of that tournament, you
qualify for the senior Pan Amsnext year.
(44:22):
So people can go to thistournament.
You get in the top eight menand women, every division.
You get to go to the Pan AmChampionships next year.
For the cadets and juniors theyhave the national team
championship, but they also havean open and if you get first or
second in that open you get togo to next year's Pan American
(44:44):
Championships as well.
So there's a lot on the linefor people to go to this
tournament to get wild cards tocircumvent the national team to
get to these G4 events.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
So it's a good opportunity.
It really is.
And you're saying just toclarify, and you're saying and
you're saying just to clarify,you're saying top eight finish
at this one event, onequarterfinal finish at this one
event qualifies you for nextyear's pan am championships, as
a senior pan am championshipsand of course this last
tournament also will add intothe total for those other three
(45:17):
events, plus this last one, thetotal four points but there's at
least three right, you have toat least done three events.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
I don't know if they change it to three or left it to
two, I'm not quite sure.
But you know my point is somepeople were like why should I go
to this tournament?
Because I can't.
I can't crack the top eight.
There's another, uh, americanin my division already way ahead
of me.
I can can't, there's no way Ican jump them.
But you can get yourself a wildcard for next year Pan Am
championship.
So it's definitely worth goingand I would.
(45:48):
I would imagine it's going tobe loaded with some, some, a lot
of Mexican athletes and youknow there's a lot of good state
level Mexican champions overthere.
I mean they don't make theirnational team, it's going to.
It could be some yeah itchampions over there.
I mean they don't make theirnational team, it's gonna, it
could be some, uh, yeah, itcould be packed, it could be
rough, it could be good.
So if you got, if you're outthere thinking about it, you're
on the fence.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
I highly suggest it yeah, so I want, I want to I
want to transition to this uh, apersonal topic as far as uh, as
far as taekwondo goes, and andum, it's another conversation
doesn't really have much to dowith, um, much of anything else.
(46:29):
So, as most of you know already, because I'm the grandmaster of
disaster, I'm a ninth don blackbelt, certified by the kooky
one, and in that, in thatcapacity, I'm one of seven
Americans, maybe seven male,seven Americans that have that
distinction.
And most recently, they'vecreated this thing where they
(46:51):
went out and they hypotheticallysaid we're going to create
these kukiwan branches in theUnited States, and they went out
unilaterally, picked oneethnicity, as they always have
done historically, and so itreally calls into question as
bad as the USA Taekwondosituation is and as bad as the,
(47:12):
to be frank, the world Taekwondosituation is with regard to
leadership.
This is even worse the KukiwanUSA debacle because then they
went out and they named ahandful of people, and then they
named people to lead theorganization and they're not
ninth dons.
They're not ninth dons and, inaddition to that, they have no
(47:37):
history of creating content,delivering programming.
These are guys that ran dojongsin the middle of nowhere, in
Rochester, new York, for example, which I apologize to those of
you that live in Rochester, it'sin the middle of nowhere if
you're not from New York City.
So this is something that I'mgoing to be talking about a lot,
and I have been talking about alot, about a lot, and I have
(47:58):
been talking about a lot.
We've heard this story for manyyears and the story is one day,
this will all be yours.
So, as a guy who's been heresince one day and started
Taekwondo when I was very, veryyoung, that was what I heard One
day, this will all be yours,when you're ready.
So I beg and this is the samefor, for it's parallel to what
(48:20):
we're talking about here whenwill you be ready?
In other words, when will uh,if a herb perez isn't ready,
ninth don olympic gold medalist,pan am games, whatever,
whatever ran the coachingprogram for usa taekwondo.
Was head of the educationprogram for the for the wt, uh
technical director for the WT,technical director for the WT.
(48:40):
If a Herb Perez isn't ready,when will anyone be ready?
I created the content that USATaekwondo uses for their
coaching program, along withCoach Moreno and a few others.
So this is something you'llhear me talk about more, but
it's endemic in the sport.
(49:01):
How can we expect the thingsthat we're talking about?
You got to think about what theroot of the problem is.
The root of the problem isnepotism, favoritism, xenophobia
and nationalism, and in onecase, it manifests itself in the
kooky one in a uniformlyethnically non-diverse group
(49:21):
running a sport with little orno expertise.
So go in and try to use thet-con website as an example.
This is horrible, and theeducation stuff which I was
involved in with them for awhile is horrible, and it's
because it's.
That's the problem.
You look at theT's leadershipand the problems it has.
It has a fake diversity thatgoes along in it because there's
(49:45):
one person that runs a show andit's a nepotistic thing.
All right, let's go to USATaekwondo how is it not the same
?
They just exited certain peoplefrom the building and now it's
a non-meritocracy.
A non-meritocracy, it's basedupon relationships and how deep
you're willing to bow.
Are you willing to kiss thering?
Are you willing not to say theysuck, and then you may get a
(50:07):
chair at the table.
Well, that leaves third andfourth tier people, because
first and second and third tierpeople don't put up with that
nonsense.
Be like, I'm okay, I don't needthis, so service is always an
award-giving game.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
It's an award-giving game, though, like when they
talk about them being the bestNGB in the world.
What research is going to givethem the best NGB in the world?
I don't know what that means.
And then we're sitting here,we're watching our cadet and
junior teams and we're justtalking about not being funded
Spain, spain, spain.
Spain makes more money indevelopment than any other.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
NGB, I don't know the other ones, but it used to be
Spain.
I would say this.
I would say this I mean, youmade a good point.
You know Young.
You said when will he be ready?
People always say, oh, you'llbe ready.
You're of age, you're of rank,you're of experience, you've
been in multiple roles, why not?
(51:01):
It's the same thing for TJ.
Oh, you're not ready.
What I coached at a damn GrandPrix final, you can't coach at a
Pan Am Games.
And yet they bring this otherkid that's never coached at a
Pan Am Games and it's okay forhim.
So stop, you're right.
Whether it's in I don't knowmuch about the cookie one
whether it's in that culture,whether it's in USAT culture.
(51:25):
And now I mean again, we talkedabout it last week and I want
to keep doing this, but thegloves are off in the sense of
everybody knows.
Quit whispering about it.
We know what the real deal is.
You got people in theorganization that haven't had
schools, that haven't had clubs,that haven't developed athletes
, that just got positioned thereand now are running it and they
kind of will say I'm successfulbecause I'm here.
No, you're not.
People have been given to.
(51:45):
You're working with people.
You sit in the chairs.
You should be.
They're the best of the best,but you didn't deserve to be
there.
You haven't earned your waythere and if you took those
people out and inserted peoplethat should be, you would see
the level go through the roof.
You would see the energy, yousee the experience, you would
see the real love andunderstanding of the game and
(52:06):
the sport and of theorganization.
You would see it fly out.
But until they change that, itwon't.
Speaker 3 (52:13):
Love or hate the AAU.
Love or hate the AAU, if youwant a case and a business case
for success.
And he's recently departed forpersonal reasons, bobby Stone.
So when I met this guy, thiswas a guy who went into the AAU,
created success, created a hugeorganization because he was
inclusive, he was meritocracybased.
(52:35):
I'm not saying he didn't havehis own personal group of people
that he thought would do thejob, but what I will say is this
he went out and found the bestand the brightest and he
empowered people and he listenedto people and he put people in
coaching chairs and I've nevermet a person to say anything bad
about the guy.
Nobody speaks badly about theguy.
And so here's an example of oneorganization AAU Taekwondo,
(52:56):
growing exponentially.
And where has USA Taekwondogrowing exponentially?
And where has usa taekwondogone?
Well, I was in usa, whatever theversion of it was, way, way,
way back when, and I can tellyou it has lesser members now
than it did 40 years ago when Iwas competing for the 40, 50
years ago.
And so, like I said, withrestaurants like uh, coach took
(53:18):
me, coach moreno took me to thiswonderful ceviche place,
peruvian I think it was Peruvian, unbelievable.
I'm going to go back there andgo back there every time I go to
Miami.
And good service, good food,good people, and they took care
of us when we went there.
And I'm sure you can't get inthere certain nights of the week
.
Well, guess what?
(53:38):
There's always a table at USATaekwondo.
It's empty.
Come on in, it's always empty.
We'll serve you.
It's bad food, but at least youget some food.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
So I mean, that's really the question.
Speaker 3 (53:52):
Just show up, just show up, show up.
And if a guy doesn't show up,he doesn't feel good that day
you'll show up and it's a shamebecause we deserve better.
In a country of 330 millionpeople we're in virtually every
other sport.
It's competitive and at a highlevel.
You would say.
Taekwondo continues to flailwhen it doesn't need to.
(54:12):
We have some of the bestresources in the world.
We have well-heeled parentsthat, even if that's the
question, the parents can do it,but they're not getting the
information, the technique orthe success matrix.
And my one dig on soccer, justto compare it you have no idea
how it works.
I have no idea what pathway.
I know the one pathway whichwe're on works, but I have no
(54:35):
idea.
There's multiple pathways, tonsof kids, so they have all these
different pathways.
Taekwondo has a pathway butnobody joins it, so they have
kind of a more direct thing.
But I'll tell you this too theaverage soccer player in soccer
(54:56):
compared to the averagetaekwondo athlete in taekwondo
is not comparable.
You could, I could, take thetop tier of soccer kids,
athletically skill-wise, sport,intelligence, iq, and they're
better.
Why?
Because the pipeline's better.
Now in taekwondo the pipelinedoesn't exist.
It's selectively.
(55:18):
It's selectively deselectivebecause the people in power want
that to be the case.
A black ops team what are we inthe CIA?
You have a black ops team.
We had trials.
It was called show up, fight,get good enough and maybe you
get to leave the country.
And guess what?
We had the best results everbecause it was harder to get out
(55:39):
of the country than it was tofight Guatemala.
Anyway, it's the old man crankyman that was true.
All right Well so anything elsebefore we close up shop today?
Speaker 2 (55:55):
I was just a congratulations to all the
people that went out to the termin these last two the Canada
and us open, you know.
Congratulations on your resultsand uh, hopefully you guys will
continue to work hard and getbigger and better and next week
we another topic, another topicpj um, no, I don't got too much,
(56:16):
but I, like I said us opensdone with, we got two out of the
way for the year.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
Just looking forward to the rest of the year and some
other events, I'll say I'mgoing to do this.
I know we were talking aboutbeing fans earlier.
I know we kind of went back andforth a little bit, but shout
out to I'm going to say shoutout to CJ for holding it down on
the men's side.
(56:40):
Again, he showed up at the USOpen, which historically was and
it's always a tough division in80.
Interesting, so congratulations.
Speaker 3 (56:46):
Good on him, Good on his performance.
How was his outfit though Ididn't check his TikTok yet how
was his outfit?
Was he representing?
Was it as good as the Budostuff I'm wearing?
Well, as always, great timeagain.
My Taekwondo brothers and myrecently gold medal coach, TJ
(57:06):
elevated I see you still haven'tchanged your screen name and
Coach Moreno.
We got a lot of work ahead ofus.
We got a lot to say, a lot todo, but I'm going to say I want
to put out my congratulations toanyone that went to Reno and
survived Reno, and I'm nottalking about the tournament,
just the fact that you went toReno.
So I live pretty close to Reno.
(57:27):
I don't live close to Reno, butit's in my drivable distance
and I can proudly say I've neverdriven to Reno.
But this has been the warehouse15 and it's longer than 15.
And there's a reason it is 15.
Have we had a winner yet forour swag?
Because I got the swag ready togo.
We're going to pick a winnerand there was silence.
Speaker 2 (57:49):
All right, we're going to figure out, we'll get
one winner for the swag.
Speaker 3 (57:54):
All right, gentlemen.
All right, let's stop recording.
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