Tony Pike with Bob Mangine -- 10/2/25

Tony talks with Bob Mangine about multi-sport athletes on ESPN 1530!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Station East Coast Subs since e three sixty of Bout
Cincinnati from Cincinnati, sponsored in part by Penn Station East
Coast Subs. Handcrafted hot grilled subs, fresh cut fries and lemonade.
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Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome back. We're rolling along our number three thanks to
Penn Station on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station. Uh,
appreciate you listening in. Let's take this to our guy,
Bob man Jean from the University of Cincinnati and Nova
Care joining us each and every week as he does
right now.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Bob, how are you Tony having another great data on
here in Derrik Catland, you know, getting ready for basketball
practice and you know in two weeks we scrimmaged Michigan
up in ann Arbor, so it's exciting times on campus.
Plus we're playing Iowa State on Saturday.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
My big question for you, Bob, and you know, I
know we're going to get to an injury point of
view here, but eight years ago today the inception of
Sincy three to sixty happened. It is our anniversary of
Sincy three sixty today. I just wanted to know from you,
how has Cincy three to sixty changed your life?

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Great question. It's an unbelievable show. I have fun on it.
I get to listen to it when I'm in the car.
Some of your features, obviously I can't say your gambling
feature or your Picks of the week is my favorite,
only because I'm not allowed to participate. But some of
the callback responses that your people give are interesting. And

(01:40):
one of these days I'm going to leave a callback
and say something stupid like some of the other people do.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Well, thank you for that, Bob. What I want to
ask you is you kind of just alluded to it.
People are so entrenched in football season that's happening right now,
that you kind of get caught sometimes with how close
the basketball season is. And for some athletes that's the
case when you start talking about club sports or AAU
while they're alsco also playing for their high school team.

(02:07):
When you start talking about playing multiple sports, that maybe
cross over at once. Where is the line drawn? Because
there are so many people that say play as many
sports as you can because it's good for you, there's
also that line that we've talked about of making sure
you allow your body to rest. How do you walk
that line when you are trying to do two different
things and juggle at once.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
That's a great question only because, as he said, you know,
we're preaching now to parents and athletes alike that this
whole concept of specialization too early in their sports careers
is not good. These kids should be playing multiple sports.
You know, basketball players should be you know, participating in baseball,

(02:51):
and baseball should be participating in you know, track and field,
et cetera. And again, I think the whole concept of
having these athletes some specialized too early, and to me,
the two biggest groups that really abuse this are basketball

(03:12):
and baseball. I think too many parents you know, want
to just put their kids in one sport. And part
of it is, you know, it's easy, you know, I
only have to deal with one sport rather than trying
to get my kids around the gymnastics or swim and
dive or soccer. But the problem becomes you have to
have a fine line. I can let my kids play

(03:34):
you know, summer soccer, and then come back and let
them play football in the fall, and then come back
and let them play you know, basketball in the in
the spring or whatever, baseball in the spring. I think,
if you you need to let the kids play multiple sports,
but at the same time, it goes the other way.

(03:54):
I had a kid in the other day who's playing
you know, soccer this time of year. She's playing volleyball
at the same time, and you know then she's going
to go right back into basketball. Now you're talking overload.
You're talking about a a fourteen fifteen year old kid
who's trying to play three sports that all overlap for

(04:14):
about a month. And that's not good for your body either.
You know. It's like most high school kids, if they
play football, I have to take off a five day
six day period after football before they're allowed to play basketball.
Or if you're playing basketball in high school, you generally
have to have a four or five rest day period

(04:35):
before you're allowed to play baseball or you know, go
on to track and field. So but there are some
sports that are naturally i'll say aligned. So if I'm
got a football player and they're a skilled football player,
my old role at Comedy Catholic would be, well, let's
run track and field in the spring. Or if it

(04:57):
were a kid who is an offensive defensive lineman, maybe
throw shot or even wrestled in the offseason. Quarterbacks, you know,
let's go pitch in the spring, so that there's a
natural evolution of, you know, the sports that actually align
with each other. And I think that's the whole premise
of letting a kid play multiple sports. But if you

(05:19):
get a six seven eight year old and you say, Okay,
we're gonna play basketball, then we're gonna play summer AAU.
Then we're gonna play elementary school, then we're going to
play high school, and we're basketball basketball, basketball. I don't
recruit a kid today, well I don't do the recruiting,
but I'm suck with him. I get players today that
have come to us in college and they've already had
three four injuries before they even get here, and most

(05:43):
of them occur during AAU in the summer, more so
than any other time of year. So I think you
have that fine line where I want my kids to
play multiple sports. And my kids played soccer, they've tried swimming,
they all played either hockey or football, so that you know,
they did a variety of things, and then by the

(06:04):
time they got to be a freshman in high school.
You know, I would then say, okay, let's focus on
one or two and one played hockey and one played baseball,
and the other ones played football and maybe did a
little track or wrestling activity. So we have to sub
We've got to let them have some freedom to play

(06:24):
with that getting too sub specialized too early.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
How important then if they are having that freedom to
play multiple sports and you're active and you're always on
the go, go go, How important do the things that
maybe young kids are overlooking, sleep, recovery, stretching, How important
do those things become to the athlete, and how important
it is for the parents or the guardians to be
able to look out for that and push that to

(06:47):
the kids as well.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
Well. Number One, recovery is way underperformed in this country.
Recovery is just not done enough by the athletes, push enough,
or you know, in most cases, you know, unless you
played at the collegiate level or played at the professional level.
You know, how does the average parent know about recovery?

(07:12):
You know, And the bottom line is like you know,
using maybe contrast or you know, getting in the cold
tubs after they play, or this country's horrible when it
comes to stretching. I would say, if you look at football,
you look at college basketball, eighty percent of the players
have no clue even at that level coming out of

(07:34):
high schooler A and you how to stretch. They're all tight.
They don't spend enough time working their mobility. Mobility starts
at ain't nine ten years old. Strengths training starts at
ain't nine ten years old. And when I mean strength training,
I'm not talking about getting them in the wink room
and weight around, but simple things that like bandit programming

(07:59):
or working with somebody who might be a certified strength
coach who can get them into both mobility and strength
training and landing mechanics. People say to me all the time,
well one of these little girls fourteen fifteen, sixteen years
old have so many injuries. Well think about it. Let's
say I sub specialized. I want to be a soccer

(08:20):
player or a lacrosse player. I play you know summer
AAU programming, your own DP Olympic development programming. Then I
go right into high school. Then I come out and
play right in the indoor, then I go right back
to spring outdoor. When are you taking off? I mean
you played football right, you know, as soon as the
season over, where was your butt? Your butt was in

(08:42):
the weight room for the next three months, four months,
and then when we had off in the summer, where
where were you were in the weight room? These we
got high school girls that come into PLoud On campus
who came to pick up a forty five pound bar
because they've never been told to lift before. So, you know,
the bottom line is until we teach these kids' mobility

(09:04):
how to move, do some strengths training with and the
injury rate is not changing. You look at the little
kids with owner collateral ligament injuries in the elbow from throwing.
They've thrown too much. Okay, here's a newsflash. You're overloading.
You're too young of an age. You can't load that
much that fast. And so you know, the parents have

(09:28):
to protect their The whole idea of being a parent
is to protect your kid. The whole idea of a
parent isn't to make your kid the next Nolan Ryan,
you know. And the bottom line is these parents have
dollar bills in their eyes because they think my kid's
going to sign the next nil contract, or they're going
to get the next scholarship. You want them to get
the scholarship, or you want them to get the nil money,

(09:50):
you better make sure they stay healthy. And to stay
healthy means forget always worrying about what's worth they're playing.
You need to get them into with somebody who really
knows how to lift, who really knows how to work
on mobility, and get them in better shape and that
reduces the raising risk. Otherwise by the time we get
him in college. Heck, are females in college can't even

(10:11):
take a bar up off the ground because they've never
been in a weight room. Yep.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Obviously something that needs to be taken into accountability. Bob,
as always, thank you so much for your time. Enjoy
the week. College basketball right around the corner a huge
game in Niffert Stadium on Saturday. As always, we appreciate
your time.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
Are you in the box on Saturday? Are you on
the side?

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Back on the sideline, Baby, back on the sideline.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
I'll see on the sideline Tony out of work.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
That is Bob man Jean from the University of Cincinnati
and novacare from traveling to the game, walking to your seats,
partaking in postgame celebration, your body can take a beating
from all the activities on game day at Novacare Rehabilitation.
They understand how important it is for fans to be
there to root for their team. To the power physical therapy,
you don't need to let as pains or injury keep
you from the game. Find a center near you at
novcare dot com. Today we'll keep rolling along our number

(11:01):
three since e three sixty thanks to Penn Station on
ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Now your chance to