February 21, 2025 • 28 mins
Discussion of the youth sports scene with ESPN broadcaster Herb Kerkstreit.
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Why Johnny Hates Sports is broadcast live Fridays at 11AM ET on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Why Johnny Hates Sports is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Why Johnny Hates Sports Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Sports for kids in America began with what we affectionately
called sandlot ball, where kids organized their own games, made
their own rules, and played until the sun went down.
Then came along parents, I'm.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Gonna get you to night because you let me down.
I'll give what you do and let me down. I
don't care if you're going, I'll get you by. It's
a cloud of day.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Pretty sad to see that kind of behavior by a parent,
isn't it? And it comes on all too often. But
one of the things that you're probably saying, why you
got a jacket on? Because I thought you were in
Florida from we are in Florida, But it's a little
chilly this morning down here, but hey, God, do what
you gotta do. But here's the thing. We've got a
(01:38):
great show for you today. And one of the things
that I wanted to do is I do a podcast
for a post. And I did it for a while
and then people would say, hey, can you answer this
question that question? And I would say yeah, And so
one of the questions was about competition. And I always
(01:59):
remember I was running a wrestling camp where we had
a kid that came in and he just didn't need
to be there, and he kept going and the other
kids are too tough, and the poor kid at at
bad time. And his father came in one day and
he said, hey, you know, how's he doing.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
I said, he doesn't need to be here. You're just
making life miserable for him.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
He said, well, just trying to toughen him up for
the neighborhood kids.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
I said, it didn't work that way.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
So what I decided to do and I thought, you know,
rather than read what I did before, I thought, maybe
I'll just play.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
It for you.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
So I'm going to ask one to put it on
and watch and see what you see with this, and
talk to parents about being competitive and with their kid
and whether they.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Want to be there. So here's the video or actually
in the audio, so listen in.
Speaker 7 (02:54):
So when my last blog, I did my best to
try to tell you that by natures like to play.
This time it's why some kids like to compete. What's
the difference, you say, I'll start by telling you one
of the many stories in my youth sports diary. Maybe
this will help some of you understand the difference. I
(03:16):
received a call one day from a father asking my
advice about his six year old son playing t ball.
Here's how the conversation went. Fred. Every time I picked
my son up from baseball practice, the coach pulls me
aside and says, I just want you to know that
the whole time he is here, he is crying, saying
that he hates baseball and wants to go home. So
(03:38):
do you think I should make him stay and tough
it out, to which I replied, you have to be
kidding me. You are asking me whether you should abuse
the kid. Obviously, it's not that he doesn't like baseball.
He hates it. Get him out of the league and
give him a list of the following to choose from
sports drama, art, and music, and you'll see that sports,
(04:02):
and especially competitive sports, are not his thing. Now. I'm
writing this blog because I know a lot of you
are saying that you think the father should have made
him stay. I can hear it.
Speaker 6 (04:12):
Now.
Speaker 7 (04:13):
That's what's wrong with our society today. We're turning kids
into a bunch of quitters and whims. And to those
of you who are saying it, let me ask you.
Would you keep your kid in piano lessons if the
teacher said he hates playing the piano, or how about
if you enrolled him in an art class. In sports,
(04:33):
I suspect that ninety percent of the kids who play
t ball didn't rush to their parents and say, please
sign me up. Most parents just sign their kids up
while saying to themselves, isn't it what every other parent
does for their kids. I'm not saying that it's a
bad thing to sign your kids up for sports, but
the thing to keep foremost in your mind is, since
(04:56):
this is a competitive activity, does my kid like comp petition?
The bottom line is that while all kids want to
play and I don't mean just sports, not all kids
want to go to many Competition is not fun and
if it's not fun, then why make them do it.
Competition in children's sports is having a contest between one
(05:19):
team or another, and with competition comes rules, regulations, scoreboards, standings,
and championships. It can either be awesome or ugly, and
therein lies the problem in sports for children are, particularly
those below the age of ten. When adults lose sight
of the fact that competition for children must first and
(05:41):
foremost be enjoyable, challenging, and fun, then organize sports for
children loses all its value. In today's world, we see
children's sports mirroring games at the professional level. W several
years ago I met Gary Warner. Gary had written a
book called Competition, and nowhere have I read a more
(06:04):
in depth description of the topic. Here are some of
the most compelling things he had to say. One, we
are competing, not playing when we must make sacrifices and commitments. Two,
when we worry about defeat rather than fun, and when
pressure and stress take over, then we cease to play.
(06:26):
Three it's perfectly all right to choose either play or competition,
as long as you know what you're choosing. Or People
who don't care about records choose to play, Those who
chase records, choose competition five. Winning the competition is the
ultimate emotional release for the participant. It's an incredible feeling.
(06:49):
It strikes the ego, fills one with pride. Throughout my
career as the founder of the National Alliance for Youth Sports,
I've had numerous people write and call me about my
stance against competition for children. Nothing could be further from
the truth. As a former high school wrestler, I learned
(07:09):
through competition how to persevere when things were down. I
believe that competition, when played by the rules, instills young
people with the values of fair play, sportsmanship, and ethics.
Competition can build character traits in young people that will
last a lifetime. These are the qualities we admire in
(07:31):
people we live with, work with, and play with throughout
our lives. Individuals with a competitive spirit are usually the
leaders in every aspect of our society. So competition can
be a positive thing, but only if we demand it
be free of cheating, violence, and all the ugly occurrences
(07:52):
we have seen for far too long.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
So there you have it.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
In speaking of competition, we're going to be coming up
in a minute with somebody who was a great competitor
his name as Herb kirk Street.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
You've probably seen him.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
On TV on Game Day on Saturday and then on
Thursday night. You've seen him in the NFL games. But
Perk is one of the great people that we've been
able to have as kind of a spokesman for what
we're all about with the National Lives for Use Sport.
So our PR director interviewed Herb and some of the
(08:33):
great things he has to say.
Speaker 8 (08:34):
So listen in in this best selling book, a child,
while failing to live up to his father's expectations, is
shamed and humiliated beyond belief.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
He vows to never allow his own son to face
the same.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
So now we're in here from a Herb and he
and our PR director Greg Bok has.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
To say and questions to him. So I think you're
going to.
Speaker 6 (09:10):
Enjoy a right, great guy, thanks for having me. I
appreciate it that this is great.
Speaker 9 (09:16):
So just some briefly say that we work with all
youth groups around the country and all the US military
basis worldwide who run youth sports. So it's great to
get insights from athletes and coaches on.
Speaker 6 (09:24):
Their Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 10 (09:27):
So yeah, so let me start with for you. What
do you hope for readers take away from your book.
Speaker 6 (09:33):
Wow, I think more than anything this hopefully some of
the stories resonate, you know. Maybe maybe I've heard back
from a lot of people that, man, I can relate
so much to to what you went through, and it's
cool to to to know that aspect of your life.
I kind of know you in a different level, in
a different way. And so I'm very hopeful that you know,
(09:56):
I decided to be vulnerable and open up and talk
about some personal things that I don't normally do you know,
I'm you know, in the book, I talk about being
an introvert and kind of a quiet person in my
personal life, and it's not an easy thing for me
to do. So it's a little scary to do that.
And you just hope when you open up and talk
(10:18):
about some things that the most flattering thing that you
can hear back is not so much. Hey, it was
a great book, but man, I went through this in
my life or I went through that, and so thank
you for telling your stories. So that's that's my hope,
because I again, for people that aren't familiar with it,
(10:38):
it's a book about football, obviously, and how football is
impact in my life. It's a book about broadcasting and
kind of how I got into that world, and it's
also about just growing up as a kid and from
a divorce family and how that impacted me.
Speaker 9 (10:54):
Was it a fun process to go back and look
at your journey as a youth and how you've navigated
your life to the point.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
I don't know if that part was fun. That was
a little bit tough. You know. I had a comfort
level with the author, the co author, Gene Wojahowski, and
so it allowed me kind of like that movie Goodwill
Hunting with Matt Damon and Robin Williams. The first couple
of times they got together, it was like Robin Williams
(11:21):
just sitting there and Matt Damon just sitting there. It
was a little bit like that initially, and then as
time went on, I got more and more comfortable. Like
I said, a lot of that stuff I can compartmentalize
emotionally to protect myself and just hadn't really gone there
and thought about it, and so to kind of relive
some of that because he had talked with my mom
(11:42):
about it. It was a little about fun, but it
was therapeutic in some ways, just to be able to
talk about it, and I learned to really feel comfortable
and trust Gene, which make it made it a lot
easier to do that.
Speaker 10 (11:56):
Obviously, you played a bunch of sports growing up. Why football?
Why that tugget your hurt?
Speaker 6 (12:01):
Well, I loved you, right, I loved them all. Baseball especially,
It was probably the sport that came most naturally to me.
But football, I think initially I loved it. I mean
I grew up. I didn't need to be told to
go play. I just loved playing on my own. Back
in those days when I grew up, we played in
the backyard. You know, the parents didn't have to set
(12:22):
up a playdate. It was us in the backyard. And
depending on the time of the year, me and about
we had about fifteen or twenty kids in my neighborhood.
You know, it was football, it was baseball, it was
whiffle ball, it was pickle, it was hockey, and we
played everything you can think, freeze tag, I mean, you know,
(12:42):
four square got our big wheels out. We're in a creek.
So we did everything, you know, year round, and we
didn't have video games or computers or phones, and so
that's what we did. And and I was just I
just gravitated to football because I was pretty good at it.
So it know, when you're good at something, you kind
of enjoy it. And I just loved the concept of it.
(13:06):
I love the team concept of it. And I finally
started to play organized football in fifth grade.
Speaker 9 (13:12):
And you look back at the youth coaches you had
on your journey, like what type of impact did they
have on you and your development as not only an
athlete but as a person.
Speaker 6 (13:20):
That's huge, you know. I think all through my growth
and development, my coaches were very, very important to me
because it was another voice besides my parents of reiterating
core values of hard work and being a good teammate
and getting knocked down and getting back up and it's
(13:41):
okay to get knocked down. Just all those things that
I know I lived my life by. It started in
youth football. And so sometimes I watch youth football in
twenty twenty one and I get a little concerned because
I think there are some people out there that are
when at all costs type of coaches. And while I'm
(14:01):
the most competitive guy you're ever going to meet, I
want to win, not at the expense of not being
able to teach messages, and not just about life, of course,
but about the game, you know. I mean the kids
learn about the game and they fall in love with
the game by who they're around early in their lives.
(14:23):
And if you're all about just get out, get him
in there, if that's your style, you're going to turn
a kid off and he's probably not going to come
out for football in seventh grade or eighth grade. I
think sometimes youth coaches don't realize you're not Nick Saban,
and we don't care how many trophies you have, Like
your job is to make these kids fall in love
(14:44):
with the game so they want to play the next year.
If your kids all come back the next year, they
can't wait to play football. Mission accomplished. Whether you want
a trophy or you didn't. And I think some of
these guys it's just all about a troph feet and
all about them, and unfortunately that's not what it should
(15:05):
be about. In my opinion, I.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
Love that message.
Speaker 9 (15:08):
And then as a parent, you know how difficult it
is to have kids in sports, and a lot of
parents struggle with that. How did you and your wife
handle raising your kids through sports and what was the proach.
Speaker 6 (15:17):
You took well. We wanted them involved, you know. We
My concern with again very different from what I just
talked about with my era. My concern is gadgets and distractions.
And I think if you're not proactive, kids that don't
naturally fall in love with sports on recess or in
(15:39):
the neighborhood, you know, they are maybe necessarily introduced to
why they should fall in love with the game. And
so I think as a parent it was very important
for me to get my kids involved. And thankfully they
wanted to be involved. But they I don't want to
say they didn't have a choice, because they did. But
(16:01):
at the very early part of their lives they were
playing you know, t ball or coach pitch or just
as we've had them in basketball. We just had them
in stuff where they look forward to getting in the
car going to the game. Now, I will say that
the challenge for parents out there, and I hope they'll
(16:22):
hear me, is I remember reading this and Sports Illustrated
an article about dad's what not to do. You know,
you get in the car after the game and the
kids eight or nine or ten years old, and right
away you start drilling them what happened on that play.
What happened here? What happened? I mean when you struck
out in the third inning when the bases were loaded,
(16:43):
I mean that pitch was over your head, like what
were you thinking? You know? Wow?
Speaker 7 (16:47):
That?
Speaker 6 (16:48):
And I, again, I'm being very candid the competitiveness in me.
I would find myself potentially going there like asking them
about the game and wanted to know what about this?
What about? And I started this thankfully, thank god, I
started to see their faces when I would do that,
(17:09):
and I thought, man, I'm doing more damage than i'm
doing good, and so I need to contain my my
own competitive spirit that I have, not that I'm living vicariously.
I wasn't one of those guys. It was just I
like to win that spirit and I got to kind
(17:31):
of check that. So it was more of learning to
get in the car after the game. Hey, that was
a whether they win or loss, whether they struck out
every time or didn't play well, it was still a man,
that was a lot of fun, you know, did you
You know? It was more of that or just go hey,
where do you want to go? Get something to eat?
It was more of that kind of conversation. And I
(17:52):
noticed it was a lot more relaxed for them, and
they could they want to hang out with dad as
opposed to oh God, here he goes again. And I
did not want to be one of those dads. No
matter what. I wanted my kids to want to share
with me, whether it was good or bad. And I
didn't want them to have to feel like they could
(18:13):
only share with me when they hit a home run
or they scored a touchdown or it was all good.
I wanted to be their buddy, like their their their
life coach, not their football coach. But I learned that
through trial and error. That's the why I'm so emphatic
about trying to help dads not make some of the
mistakes I made when I was when when my boys
(18:36):
were really young.
Speaker 9 (18:37):
In the book, you talk about the importance of kids
hit playing a variety of sports growing up, Like how
important was that in your development to make it to
be a college football player. How import it was for
your kids to experience variety.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
That's another you know, epidemic I feel like is parents
are doing I called almost the Earl Woods syndrome where
they see the video of Tiger when he's two years
old and he hits a golf ball, and they they're like,
oh my god, I'm going to do that to my son.
And then you have these coaches that are all about specializing. Well,
if you want to be on my basketball team, and
we're working in the off season, we're working throughout all
(19:08):
the summer in the spring, like if you want to
make my team, you better be all in. And there's
a somewhat of a keeping up with the Joneses mentality.
And I get it again. I live this. So even
though I knew better, I would fall in line as
a young parent thinking looking around at everyone else doing it.
If I don't do it, my kid's going to get
left behind. So you really got to research this, try
(19:30):
to get around great coaches. I'm a huge advocate of
playing other sports because the main reason is when I
talk with these college coaches, whether it's Nick Saban, Pete Carrow,
I've talked to us about this, Jim Trussel, Urban Meyer,
you name it, any coach. All of them want multi
sport high school athletes because they feel that they become
(19:52):
a well rounded athlete by playing and participating in other sports.
The example in football is I can't tell you how
many coaches I talk to or say, guys can't catch,
guys can't track of football. You know, when we were
all kids were playing baseball in the spring, you'd be amazed.
If you're a good center fielder, chances are you're a
good receiver, or you're a good defensive back. He's like,
(20:15):
we have to start from ground zero of showing guys
how to track of football because they haven't done it enough.
And so it's amazing how these sports cross over to
one another and eventually maybe you settle in on one
sport and you see how far you can go with it.
But I'm a big, big fan of multi sport athletes
(20:36):
and would encourage all the parents out there to try
to get your kids to play in other sports. The
other thing, one sidebar is I don't know when this happened,
but they used to be in U sports. Your team
was blue, my team was red, the other team was yellow.
We're all going to get a you know, a coke.
We're all sprinting to the concession stand to get a
drink after the game, no matter who won. Now everything's travel,
(21:00):
everyone's got twelve uniforms. Dad's expectations are I don't hope
my kid's going to be a first rounder. I know
my kid's going to be a first rounder. And if
a coach gets in his way, we're going to get
on a different team. If an umpire or a referee
gets in mixed mixed calls against my son, we're going
to go after the ref We're going to go after
(21:21):
the opposing coach. It's because everybody has these now these
new expectations of my kids special my kids going to
the NFL, my kid's going to the NBA, my kids
going to the MLB, And it's like, no, they're not, like,
enjoy the ride. Why you can enjoy just the wins?
The loss is just the whole experience. And I'm not saying, hey,
(21:43):
make it fun. Who cares who wins, because again I
want to win, But just come down a notch or
two on your realistic expectations of your kid, because ninety
nine percent of them aren't going to go Power five,
aren't going to go to the into the in the NFL.
And I feel like sometimes these dads are pushing their
(22:04):
kid with the expectations of making it, and long term
that's going to negatively impact your relationship with your son
when he's in his twenties in his thirties, and you
know you want to have a great relationship with him.
That's great.
Speaker 10 (22:18):
Just last two questions.
Speaker 9 (22:19):
One, A lot of parents try to protect their kids
from rough patches and failure. But you talk about in
the book about your struggles at Ohio State those first
few years, Like how valuable was that to go through
some rough patches and how you've emerged better for going
through it. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:32):
I mean, once you get through it, it's ten twenty
thirty years later, it's great to look back at it
and say, man, even though I hated going through that ow,
it shaped me and molded me into the person that
I became. And as a dad, oh my gosh, there's
nothing more painful to watch your kids fail and to
watch them go through tough times. But I would encourage you.
(22:53):
I feel like we're in a generation of parenting where
we try to avoid failing our kids failing, try to
avoid any kind of bad teacher. Again, get them out
of that class. It's the teacher's fault. Let him go
through struggle, let him go through growing opportunities. Because look,
in your own life, you feel like you grew more
as a person when you succeeded in life or do
(23:13):
you feel like you grew and developed and learn more
when you failed in life? So I've just learned through
my own failures that as much as it's hurt me
to watch my kids go through tough times, as long
as I'm there for them, loving them, supporting them, telling
them it's okay, just kind of get knocked down. Let's
help them get back up, not fix the problem, but
(23:35):
like just try to encourage them. I think that's so
rewarding long term. Tough to go through in the immediate,
but such a reward long term.
Speaker 9 (23:44):
Love that message and then just get you out on this,
Like how much fun is it to do the job
that you do and on the eve of a college
football season to look forward to what's going to be
coming up in the next few months for.
Speaker 6 (23:54):
You, well for me, I mean I could literally like
shoot it into my veins, like I love what I do.
You know, I talk about that in the book. It
never gets old. I love the storylines. I love the players.
I love making it about the players and making it
about the coaches and making it about the storylines and
not making it about me. And so I just have
(24:14):
a love affair with college football, the pageantry, the history,
the traditions of it. It never gets old and if
it ever does get old, and I'll probably have to
find something else to do. But as I'm talking to
you right now, I just got off of Zoom with
College Game Day and we're talking about Week one and
the different games and I'm already like pumped getting ready
(24:36):
to go. That's awesome.
Speaker 10 (24:37):
Is there anything else that we should mention about the
book that you'd want people to know about.
Speaker 6 (24:41):
No, it's out there. You can find the audiobook if
you just go search through audiobooks, and obviously you can
find it at Amazon or Barnes and Noble or any
local bookstore. So just help people again, if they are
interested or they like to read, if they pick it up,
I just hope that it's something that can make them
feel like, you know what, I like, I said, I
(25:02):
can relate to a lot of these stories, and I've
been through my own trials and tribulation, so I appreciate
this book. That's that's my hope.
Speaker 9 (25:09):
Anyway, Well, this would be great to share with all
the groups around the country. So I really appreciate your
insights as we good stuff.
Speaker 6 (25:15):
You got it, Greg, thanks very much. All right, thank you, sir.
You having a good day, you too, all right, goodbye.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
What a great interview.
Speaker 9 (25:25):
You know.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
I was sitting here listening to that and watching her
talk about his kids and everything, thinking, Wow, wouldn't it
be great if every parent in America watched this and
heard what he had to say.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
I mean, it's just terrific. You mentioned one thing.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
About parents and their behavior towards their kids and putting
them down for things, and then later on how it
affected them.
Speaker 5 (25:54):
I was on a playing golf one day and the super.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
At the golf course said to me, so, what do
you guys do with the National Alliance for Youth Sports?
I said, well, our aim is to try to educate
parents and coaches on the same kind of thing that
Herb's talking about. And I got finished telling him about it,
he said, you know, I'm one of those people that
you're trying to deal with and the results of what happened.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
I said, what did happen?
Speaker 4 (26:25):
He said, When I was playing Little league baseball, my
father would come to every game. He'd scream and yell
at me and do like HERB was talking about.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
We get the car and we go home and whatnot,
and it just.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Affected me so much that eventually we got in an argument,
and I mean a real argument, and I didn't speak
to him and he didn't speak to me, and.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
He said, you know how long that was?
Speaker 4 (26:52):
Ten years we never spoke, And finally he came back
and apologized to me and said, I know I was
rough on you, and I want to apologize. But he
pointed to me, said that's what happens to so many
kids out there that go through this. So it's great
for our organization to be able to have somebody like her,
(27:15):
Kirk Street and others. And just to let you know,
like I was telling you before, some of the people
we have lined up.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
That are coming is I know you made your basketball.
You've heard of Danny Hurley from Connecticut. Danny's going to
be with us.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
And then I'm sure you've probably seen Greg Olsen on
the tight end, former NFL tight end.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
He's been on you know, ESPN.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
And then I got I said it one time before
in nineteen twenty four wrestler and that's been a long
time ago, but twenty twenty four Olympic gold medalist wrestler A.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
Mid Elber and then Notre.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
Dame Women's basketball coach de ol Ivey. So those are
just one of the people that the nationalize for you
sports and our PR director that you just saw there,
Gray is interviewing these people giving advice out there all
the time, which we're trying to get to do parents
across America. So with that, I want to thank you
for tuning in on this Friday morning and to see
(28:19):
your next Friday morning.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
This program is sponsored by Sir Dirff Publishing in the
interest or Better Sports for Kids, Better Kids for Life.
In this best selling book, a child, while failing to
live up to his father's expectations, is shamed and humiliated
beyond belief. He vows to never allow his own son
to face the same
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not
those of w FOCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
liability explicitor implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio
or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should
be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Sports for kids in America began with what we affectionately
called sandlot ball, where kids organized their own games, made
their own rules, and played until the sun went down.
Then came along parents, I'm.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Gonna get you to night because you let me down.
I'll give what you do and let me down. I
don't care if you're going, I'll get you by. It's
a cloud of day.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Pretty sad to see that kind of behavior by a parent,
isn't it? And it comes on all too often. But
one of the things that you're probably saying, why you
got a jacket on? Because I thought you were in
Florida from we are in Florida, But it's a little
chilly this morning down here, but hey, God, do what
you gotta do. But here's the thing. We've got a
(01:38):
great show for you today. And one of the things
that I wanted to do is I do a podcast
for a post. And I did it for a while
and then people would say, hey, can you answer this
question that question? And I would say yeah, And so
one of the questions was about competition. And I always
(01:59):
remember I was running a wrestling camp where we had
a kid that came in and he just didn't need
to be there, and he kept going and the other
kids are too tough, and the poor kid at at
bad time. And his father came in one day and
he said, hey, you know, how's he doing.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
I said, he doesn't need to be here. You're just
making life miserable for him.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
He said, well, just trying to toughen him up for
the neighborhood kids.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
I said, it didn't work that way.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
So what I decided to do and I thought, you know,
rather than read what I did before, I thought, maybe
I'll just play.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
It for you.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
So I'm going to ask one to put it on
and watch and see what you see with this, and
talk to parents about being competitive and with their kid
and whether they.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Want to be there. So here's the video or actually
in the audio, so listen in.
Speaker 7 (02:54):
So when my last blog, I did my best to
try to tell you that by natures like to play.
This time it's why some kids like to compete. What's
the difference, you say, I'll start by telling you one
of the many stories in my youth sports diary. Maybe
this will help some of you understand the difference. I
(03:16):
received a call one day from a father asking my
advice about his six year old son playing t ball.
Here's how the conversation went. Fred. Every time I picked
my son up from baseball practice, the coach pulls me
aside and says, I just want you to know that
the whole time he is here, he is crying, saying
that he hates baseball and wants to go home. So
(03:38):
do you think I should make him stay and tough
it out, to which I replied, you have to be
kidding me. You are asking me whether you should abuse
the kid. Obviously, it's not that he doesn't like baseball.
He hates it. Get him out of the league and
give him a list of the following to choose from
sports drama, art, and music, and you'll see that sports,
(04:02):
and especially competitive sports, are not his thing. Now. I'm
writing this blog because I know a lot of you
are saying that you think the father should have made
him stay. I can hear it.
Speaker 6 (04:12):
Now.
Speaker 7 (04:13):
That's what's wrong with our society today. We're turning kids
into a bunch of quitters and whims. And to those
of you who are saying it, let me ask you.
Would you keep your kid in piano lessons if the
teacher said he hates playing the piano, or how about
if you enrolled him in an art class. In sports,
(04:33):
I suspect that ninety percent of the kids who play
t ball didn't rush to their parents and say, please
sign me up. Most parents just sign their kids up
while saying to themselves, isn't it what every other parent
does for their kids. I'm not saying that it's a
bad thing to sign your kids up for sports, but
the thing to keep foremost in your mind is, since
(04:56):
this is a competitive activity, does my kid like comp petition?
The bottom line is that while all kids want to
play and I don't mean just sports, not all kids
want to go to many Competition is not fun and
if it's not fun, then why make them do it.
Competition in children's sports is having a contest between one
(05:19):
team or another, and with competition comes rules, regulations, scoreboards, standings,
and championships. It can either be awesome or ugly, and
therein lies the problem in sports for children are, particularly
those below the age of ten. When adults lose sight
of the fact that competition for children must first and
(05:41):
foremost be enjoyable, challenging, and fun, then organize sports for
children loses all its value. In today's world, we see
children's sports mirroring games at the professional level. W several
years ago I met Gary Warner. Gary had written a
book called Competition, and nowhere have I read a more
(06:04):
in depth description of the topic. Here are some of
the most compelling things he had to say. One, we
are competing, not playing when we must make sacrifices and commitments. Two,
when we worry about defeat rather than fun, and when
pressure and stress take over, then we cease to play.
(06:26):
Three it's perfectly all right to choose either play or competition,
as long as you know what you're choosing. Or People
who don't care about records choose to play, Those who
chase records, choose competition five. Winning the competition is the
ultimate emotional release for the participant. It's an incredible feeling.
(06:49):
It strikes the ego, fills one with pride. Throughout my
career as the founder of the National Alliance for Youth Sports,
I've had numerous people write and call me about my
stance against competition for children. Nothing could be further from
the truth. As a former high school wrestler, I learned
(07:09):
through competition how to persevere when things were down. I
believe that competition, when played by the rules, instills young
people with the values of fair play, sportsmanship, and ethics.
Competition can build character traits in young people that will
last a lifetime. These are the qualities we admire in
(07:31):
people we live with, work with, and play with throughout
our lives. Individuals with a competitive spirit are usually the
leaders in every aspect of our society. So competition can
be a positive thing, but only if we demand it
be free of cheating, violence, and all the ugly occurrences
(07:52):
we have seen for far too long.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
So there you have it.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
In speaking of competition, we're going to be coming up
in a minute with somebody who was a great competitor
his name as Herb kirk Street.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
You've probably seen him.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
On TV on Game Day on Saturday and then on
Thursday night. You've seen him in the NFL games. But
Perk is one of the great people that we've been
able to have as kind of a spokesman for what
we're all about with the National Lives for Use Sport.
So our PR director interviewed Herb and some of the
(08:33):
great things he has to say.
Speaker 8 (08:34):
So listen in in this best selling book, a child,
while failing to live up to his father's expectations, is
shamed and humiliated beyond belief.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
He vows to never allow his own son to face
the same.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
So now we're in here from a Herb and he
and our PR director Greg Bok has.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
To say and questions to him. So I think you're
going to.
Speaker 6 (09:10):
Enjoy a right, great guy, thanks for having me. I
appreciate it that this is great.
Speaker 9 (09:16):
So just some briefly say that we work with all
youth groups around the country and all the US military
basis worldwide who run youth sports. So it's great to
get insights from athletes and coaches on.
Speaker 6 (09:24):
Their Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 10 (09:27):
So yeah, so let me start with for you. What
do you hope for readers take away from your book.
Speaker 6 (09:33):
Wow, I think more than anything this hopefully some of
the stories resonate, you know. Maybe maybe I've heard back
from a lot of people that, man, I can relate
so much to to what you went through, and it's
cool to to to know that aspect of your life.
I kind of know you in a different level, in
a different way. And so I'm very hopeful that you know,
(09:56):
I decided to be vulnerable and open up and talk
about some personal things that I don't normally do you know,
I'm you know, in the book, I talk about being
an introvert and kind of a quiet person in my
personal life, and it's not an easy thing for me
to do. So it's a little scary to do that.
And you just hope when you open up and talk
(10:18):
about some things that the most flattering thing that you
can hear back is not so much. Hey, it was
a great book, but man, I went through this in
my life or I went through that, and so thank
you for telling your stories. So that's that's my hope,
because I again, for people that aren't familiar with it,
(10:38):
it's a book about football, obviously, and how football is
impact in my life. It's a book about broadcasting and
kind of how I got into that world, and it's
also about just growing up as a kid and from
a divorce family and how that impacted me.
Speaker 9 (10:54):
Was it a fun process to go back and look
at your journey as a youth and how you've navigated
your life to the point.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
I don't know if that part was fun. That was
a little bit tough. You know. I had a comfort
level with the author, the co author, Gene Wojahowski, and
so it allowed me kind of like that movie Goodwill
Hunting with Matt Damon and Robin Williams. The first couple
of times they got together, it was like Robin Williams
(11:21):
just sitting there and Matt Damon just sitting there. It
was a little bit like that initially, and then as
time went on, I got more and more comfortable. Like
I said, a lot of that stuff I can compartmentalize
emotionally to protect myself and just hadn't really gone there
and thought about it, and so to kind of relive
some of that because he had talked with my mom
(11:42):
about it. It was a little about fun, but it
was therapeutic in some ways, just to be able to
talk about it, and I learned to really feel comfortable
and trust Gene, which make it made it a lot
easier to do that.
Speaker 10 (11:56):
Obviously, you played a bunch of sports growing up. Why football?
Why that tugget your hurt?
Speaker 6 (12:01):
Well, I loved you, right, I loved them all. Baseball especially,
It was probably the sport that came most naturally to me.
But football, I think initially I loved it. I mean
I grew up. I didn't need to be told to
go play. I just loved playing on my own. Back
in those days when I grew up, we played in
the backyard. You know, the parents didn't have to set
(12:22):
up a playdate. It was us in the backyard. And
depending on the time of the year, me and about
we had about fifteen or twenty kids in my neighborhood.
You know, it was football, it was baseball, it was
whiffle ball, it was pickle, it was hockey, and we
played everything you can think, freeze tag, I mean, you know,
(12:42):
four square got our big wheels out. We're in a creek.
So we did everything, you know, year round, and we
didn't have video games or computers or phones, and so
that's what we did. And and I was just I
just gravitated to football because I was pretty good at it.
So it know, when you're good at something, you kind
of enjoy it. And I just loved the concept of it.
(13:06):
I love the team concept of it. And I finally
started to play organized football in fifth grade.
Speaker 9 (13:12):
And you look back at the youth coaches you had
on your journey, like what type of impact did they
have on you and your development as not only an
athlete but as a person.
Speaker 6 (13:20):
That's huge, you know. I think all through my growth
and development, my coaches were very, very important to me
because it was another voice besides my parents of reiterating
core values of hard work and being a good teammate
and getting knocked down and getting back up and it's
(13:41):
okay to get knocked down. Just all those things that
I know I lived my life by. It started in
youth football. And so sometimes I watch youth football in
twenty twenty one and I get a little concerned because
I think there are some people out there that are
when at all costs type of coaches. And while I'm
(14:01):
the most competitive guy you're ever going to meet, I
want to win, not at the expense of not being
able to teach messages, and not just about life, of course,
but about the game, you know. I mean the kids
learn about the game and they fall in love with
the game by who they're around early in their lives.
(14:23):
And if you're all about just get out, get him
in there, if that's your style, you're going to turn
a kid off and he's probably not going to come
out for football in seventh grade or eighth grade. I
think sometimes youth coaches don't realize you're not Nick Saban,
and we don't care how many trophies you have, Like
your job is to make these kids fall in love
(14:44):
with the game so they want to play the next year.
If your kids all come back the next year, they
can't wait to play football. Mission accomplished. Whether you want
a trophy or you didn't. And I think some of
these guys it's just all about a troph feet and
all about them, and unfortunately that's not what it should
(15:05):
be about. In my opinion, I.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
Love that message.
Speaker 9 (15:08):
And then as a parent, you know how difficult it
is to have kids in sports, and a lot of
parents struggle with that. How did you and your wife
handle raising your kids through sports and what was the proach.
Speaker 6 (15:17):
You took well. We wanted them involved, you know. We
My concern with again very different from what I just
talked about with my era. My concern is gadgets and distractions.
And I think if you're not proactive, kids that don't
naturally fall in love with sports on recess or in
(15:39):
the neighborhood, you know, they are maybe necessarily introduced to
why they should fall in love with the game. And
so I think as a parent it was very important
for me to get my kids involved. And thankfully they
wanted to be involved. But they I don't want to
say they didn't have a choice, because they did. But
(16:01):
at the very early part of their lives they were
playing you know, t ball or coach pitch or just
as we've had them in basketball. We just had them
in stuff where they look forward to getting in the
car going to the game. Now, I will say that
the challenge for parents out there, and I hope they'll
(16:22):
hear me, is I remember reading this and Sports Illustrated
an article about dad's what not to do. You know,
you get in the car after the game and the
kids eight or nine or ten years old, and right
away you start drilling them what happened on that play.
What happened here? What happened? I mean when you struck
out in the third inning when the bases were loaded,
(16:43):
I mean that pitch was over your head, like what
were you thinking? You know? Wow?
Speaker 7 (16:47):
That?
Speaker 6 (16:48):
And I, again, I'm being very candid the competitiveness in me.
I would find myself potentially going there like asking them
about the game and wanted to know what about this?
What about? And I started this thankfully, thank god, I
started to see their faces when I would do that,
(17:09):
and I thought, man, I'm doing more damage than i'm
doing good, and so I need to contain my my
own competitive spirit that I have, not that I'm living vicariously.
I wasn't one of those guys. It was just I
like to win that spirit and I got to kind
(17:31):
of check that. So it was more of learning to
get in the car after the game. Hey, that was
a whether they win or loss, whether they struck out
every time or didn't play well, it was still a man,
that was a lot of fun, you know, did you
You know? It was more of that or just go hey,
where do you want to go? Get something to eat?
It was more of that kind of conversation. And I
(17:52):
noticed it was a lot more relaxed for them, and
they could they want to hang out with dad as
opposed to oh God, here he goes again. And I
did not want to be one of those dads. No
matter what. I wanted my kids to want to share
with me, whether it was good or bad. And I
didn't want them to have to feel like they could
(18:13):
only share with me when they hit a home run
or they scored a touchdown or it was all good.
I wanted to be their buddy, like their their their
life coach, not their football coach. But I learned that
through trial and error. That's the why I'm so emphatic
about trying to help dads not make some of the
mistakes I made when I was when when my boys
(18:36):
were really young.
Speaker 9 (18:37):
In the book, you talk about the importance of kids
hit playing a variety of sports growing up, Like how
important was that in your development to make it to
be a college football player. How import it was for
your kids to experience variety.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
That's another you know, epidemic I feel like is parents
are doing I called almost the Earl Woods syndrome where
they see the video of Tiger when he's two years
old and he hits a golf ball, and they they're like,
oh my god, I'm going to do that to my son.
And then you have these coaches that are all about specializing. Well,
if you want to be on my basketball team, and
we're working in the off season, we're working throughout all
(19:08):
the summer in the spring, like if you want to
make my team, you better be all in. And there's
a somewhat of a keeping up with the Joneses mentality.
And I get it again. I live this. So even
though I knew better, I would fall in line as
a young parent thinking looking around at everyone else doing it.
If I don't do it, my kid's going to get
left behind. So you really got to research this, try
(19:30):
to get around great coaches. I'm a huge advocate of
playing other sports because the main reason is when I
talk with these college coaches, whether it's Nick Saban, Pete Carrow,
I've talked to us about this, Jim Trussel, Urban Meyer,
you name it, any coach. All of them want multi
sport high school athletes because they feel that they become
(19:52):
a well rounded athlete by playing and participating in other sports.
The example in football is I can't tell you how
many coaches I talk to or say, guys can't catch,
guys can't track of football. You know, when we were
all kids were playing baseball in the spring, you'd be amazed.
If you're a good center fielder, chances are you're a
good receiver, or you're a good defensive back. He's like,
(20:15):
we have to start from ground zero of showing guys
how to track of football because they haven't done it enough.
And so it's amazing how these sports cross over to
one another and eventually maybe you settle in on one
sport and you see how far you can go with it.
But I'm a big, big fan of multi sport athletes
(20:36):
and would encourage all the parents out there to try
to get your kids to play in other sports. The
other thing, one sidebar is I don't know when this happened,
but they used to be in U sports. Your team
was blue, my team was red, the other team was yellow.
We're all going to get a you know, a coke.
We're all sprinting to the concession stand to get a
drink after the game, no matter who won. Now everything's travel,
(21:00):
everyone's got twelve uniforms. Dad's expectations are I don't hope
my kid's going to be a first rounder. I know
my kid's going to be a first rounder. And if
a coach gets in his way, we're going to get
on a different team. If an umpire or a referee
gets in mixed mixed calls against my son, we're going
to go after the ref We're going to go after
(21:21):
the opposing coach. It's because everybody has these now these
new expectations of my kids special my kids going to
the NFL, my kid's going to the NBA, my kids
going to the MLB, And it's like, no, they're not, like,
enjoy the ride. Why you can enjoy just the wins?
The loss is just the whole experience. And I'm not saying, hey,
(21:43):
make it fun. Who cares who wins, because again I
want to win, But just come down a notch or
two on your realistic expectations of your kid, because ninety
nine percent of them aren't going to go Power five,
aren't going to go to the into the in the NFL.
And I feel like sometimes these dads are pushing their
(22:04):
kid with the expectations of making it, and long term
that's going to negatively impact your relationship with your son
when he's in his twenties in his thirties, and you
know you want to have a great relationship with him.
That's great.
Speaker 10 (22:18):
Just last two questions.
Speaker 9 (22:19):
One, A lot of parents try to protect their kids
from rough patches and failure. But you talk about in
the book about your struggles at Ohio State those first
few years, Like how valuable was that to go through
some rough patches and how you've emerged better for going
through it. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:32):
I mean, once you get through it, it's ten twenty
thirty years later, it's great to look back at it
and say, man, even though I hated going through that ow,
it shaped me and molded me into the person that
I became. And as a dad, oh my gosh, there's
nothing more painful to watch your kids fail and to
watch them go through tough times. But I would encourage you.
(22:53):
I feel like we're in a generation of parenting where
we try to avoid failing our kids failing, try to
avoid any kind of bad teacher. Again, get them out
of that class. It's the teacher's fault. Let him go
through struggle, let him go through growing opportunities. Because look,
in your own life, you feel like you grew more
as a person when you succeeded in life or do
(23:13):
you feel like you grew and developed and learn more
when you failed in life? So I've just learned through
my own failures that as much as it's hurt me
to watch my kids go through tough times, as long
as I'm there for them, loving them, supporting them, telling
them it's okay, just kind of get knocked down. Let's
help them get back up, not fix the problem, but
(23:35):
like just try to encourage them. I think that's so
rewarding long term. Tough to go through in the immediate,
but such a reward long term.
Speaker 9 (23:44):
Love that message and then just get you out on this,
Like how much fun is it to do the job
that you do and on the eve of a college
football season to look forward to what's going to be
coming up in the next few months for.
Speaker 6 (23:54):
You, well for me, I mean I could literally like
shoot it into my veins, like I love what I do.
You know, I talk about that in the book. It
never gets old. I love the storylines. I love the players.
I love making it about the players and making it
about the coaches and making it about the storylines and
not making it about me. And so I just have
(24:14):
a love affair with college football, the pageantry, the history,
the traditions of it. It never gets old and if
it ever does get old, and I'll probably have to
find something else to do. But as I'm talking to
you right now, I just got off of Zoom with
College Game Day and we're talking about Week one and
the different games and I'm already like pumped getting ready
(24:36):
to go. That's awesome.
Speaker 10 (24:37):
Is there anything else that we should mention about the
book that you'd want people to know about.
Speaker 6 (24:41):
No, it's out there. You can find the audiobook if
you just go search through audiobooks, and obviously you can
find it at Amazon or Barnes and Noble or any
local bookstore. So just help people again, if they are
interested or they like to read, if they pick it up,
I just hope that it's something that can make them
feel like, you know what, I like, I said, I
(25:02):
can relate to a lot of these stories, and I've
been through my own trials and tribulation, so I appreciate
this book. That's that's my hope.
Speaker 9 (25:09):
Anyway, Well, this would be great to share with all
the groups around the country. So I really appreciate your
insights as we good stuff.
Speaker 6 (25:15):
You got it, Greg, thanks very much. All right, thank you, sir.
You having a good day, you too, all right, goodbye.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
What a great interview.
Speaker 9 (25:25):
You know.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
I was sitting here listening to that and watching her
talk about his kids and everything, thinking, Wow, wouldn't it
be great if every parent in America watched this and
heard what he had to say.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
I mean, it's just terrific. You mentioned one thing.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
About parents and their behavior towards their kids and putting
them down for things, and then later on how it
affected them.
Speaker 5 (25:54):
I was on a playing golf one day and the super.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
At the golf course said to me, so, what do
you guys do with the National Alliance for Youth Sports?
I said, well, our aim is to try to educate
parents and coaches on the same kind of thing that
Herb's talking about. And I got finished telling him about it,
he said, you know, I'm one of those people that
you're trying to deal with and the results of what happened.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
I said, what did happen?
Speaker 4 (26:25):
He said, When I was playing Little league baseball, my
father would come to every game. He'd scream and yell
at me and do like HERB was talking about.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
We get the car and we go home and whatnot,
and it just.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Affected me so much that eventually we got in an argument,
and I mean a real argument, and I didn't speak
to him and he didn't speak to me, and.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
He said, you know how long that was?
Speaker 4 (26:52):
Ten years we never spoke, And finally he came back
and apologized to me and said, I know I was
rough on you, and I want to apologize. But he
pointed to me, said that's what happens to so many
kids out there that go through this. So it's great
for our organization to be able to have somebody like her,
(27:15):
Kirk Street and others. And just to let you know,
like I was telling you before, some of the people
we have lined up.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
That are coming is I know you made your basketball.
You've heard of Danny Hurley from Connecticut. Danny's going to
be with us.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
And then I'm sure you've probably seen Greg Olsen on
the tight end, former NFL tight end.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
He's been on you know, ESPN.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
And then I got I said it one time before
in nineteen twenty four wrestler and that's been a long
time ago, but twenty twenty four Olympic gold medalist wrestler A.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
Mid Elber and then Notre.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
Dame Women's basketball coach de ol Ivey. So those are
just one of the people that the nationalize for you
sports and our PR director that you just saw there,
Gray is interviewing these people giving advice out there all
the time, which we're trying to get to do parents
across America. So with that, I want to thank you
for tuning in on this Friday morning and to see
(28:19):
your next Friday morning.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
This program is sponsored by Sir Dirff Publishing in the
interest or Better Sports for Kids, Better Kids for Life.
In this best selling book, a child, while failing to
live up to his father's expectations, is shamed and humiliated
beyond belief. He vows to never allow his own son
to face the same
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