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042 - Building Better Humans w/ Zach Even-Esh
141 Plays6 days ago
What if the real victory in athletics isn't found on any scoreboard, but in the character forged through intentional training and genuine coaching? In this powerful conversation with Underground Strength Coach Zach Even-Esh, we dive deep into the transformative potential that lies within every training session.
With only 5.6% of high school athletes continuing at the collegiate level, we're forced to confront a fundamental question: Are we developing athletes, or are we developing humans? Zach brings decades of experience working with everyone from middle schoolers to Division I athletes, sharing raw insights about the current state of youth sports and the profound opportunity that exists within our training environments.
Old Bull Training Program - 7 Day Free Trial: https://bit.ly/old-bull-train
#BuildingBetterHumans #YouthSportsCoaching #CharacterDevelopment #StrengthCoaching #UndergroundStrength #ProcessOverOutcome #StrongLifePodcast #AuthenticCoaching #leadership
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Transcript
Youth Sports Injuries
00:00:00
Speaker
Is it normal for a high school girl to have both ACLs torn in high school? No. We know it's not, but it happens all the effing time. What about a middle school kid breaking his elbow, pitching, or getting Tommy John surgery? Oh, my Should that happen?
00:00:15
Speaker
It does happen, and I'm going to tell you why it happens. We're looking at kids who are pitching, you know, throwing 60, 70, 80 per game, yet they can't do a push-up, not 10 push-ups, not 20. It's almost like criminal, we said.
00:00:30
Speaker
If you're going to run a travel team, do a dynamic warmup with the kids. Do pushups, do band pull-aparts, do walking lunges. My son started playing baseball at age five.
00:00:41
Speaker
I think I never saw a dynamic warmup till eighth grade and never pushups and still dumb things like, hey, you lost the game, go run. So now they think exercise is punishment.
Introduction and Leadership in Athletics
00:00:52
Speaker
Welcome to the Captains and Coaches podcast. We explore the art and science of leadership through the lens of athletics and beyond. I'm your host Tex McQuilkin and today we take a little road trip to Soarnex headquarters in South Carolina for their annual Summer Strong event. I'm sitting down with the underground strength coach Zach Evanesh for a raw, unfiltered conversation about the state of modern athletics and what it takes to build character in today's athletes.
00:01:18
Speaker
We explore the shifting landscape of youth sports, from the politics of travel teams to the lost art of genuine athletic development. Zach shares his perspective on moving beyond the scoreboard to focus on what really matters, creating better humans through intentional training and authentic leadership. This episode is not about sets and reps. It's about the deeper mission of coaching with purpose, building unified cultures and empowering young athletes to become the strongest version of themselves, both in the gym and in life.
Coaching Challenges in the Social Media Era
00:01:50
Speaker
With that, let's hand it off to Zach who helps us raise the game. Ready, ready and break. Ready. action i'm sitting live at summer strong with zach evanesh let's go man i we caught up on the phone and i was sharing some struggles that i was having with the current high schoolers in which i was coaching and you're just i struggle too zach evanesh it was great i always i tell some i can't remember somebody was saying something to me they're like
00:02:21
Speaker
we're trying to talk about, Hey, you know, do you say this? you say, I'm like, I like to share my struggles. I don't want people to think that when I'm coaching, cause I've been doing it for a long time, it's easy. I got it. I still make mistakes. I still struggle.
00:02:36
Speaker
I struggle with the changes of today. You know, well I know we'll get into it, so we'll let it rip. But, um, I think it's important for people cause they watch on Instagram or YouTube, but And they get this one one hundredth of a percent, not even.
00:02:51
Speaker
And I'm like, it
Strength Coaches and Team Success
00:02:52
Speaker
ain't always like that. You just caught it in the great moment. Yeah. Yeah. And then you joke with training coaches and teaching coaches and respect to demos. You just got to be good for one.
00:03:03
Speaker
So when that same coach knowing that. That's right. Sees one clip of another coach leading or moving or a group moving. Yes. Then they judge the whole program based off that movement in good and bad.
00:03:16
Speaker
Or they judge it by who's in the video. Meaning I said this. um My buddies are here from Business of Strength, Varsity House. I said, people's perception of you is their reality. Meaning if I have a gym and let's say I'm in New York City or I'm on the border of New York City, well, who lives up there?
00:03:36
Speaker
Celebrities, pro athletes. And so if somebody sees you even taking a photo with a pro athlete or you were at this thing and you trained somebody once, they perceive you as better because they think you built that guy or that gal.
00:03:52
Speaker
And Joe Ken even said it's somebody posted something on LinkedIn or social about like, you know, kind of measuring the strength coach. And he's like, he's like, whoever wins the most games, that's who the best strength coach is like laughing that even if you ain't good, but if the team wins, you're great. And if the team loses next year, you suck.
00:04:11
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. I mean, crazy and unfortunate. Everything rolls downhill. Yeah. Often at the the higher levels, the head coach says, all right, well,
00:04:22
Speaker
It was the strength coach's fault. They didn't prepare him. They cut that guy loose yeah to try to buy them so one more, two more, three more years and bring a new coach in. I just feel for that strength coach who knows they're they're that guy, the change.
Athlete Development and Modern Sports Dynamics
00:04:35
Speaker
Strength coaches have said, you know, Joe Kent says this, my buddy Jesse Ackerman.
00:04:39
Speaker
He's like, we are in ah football. And he's like, we know what we got into. We know that this is how it works, that... If the team is losing, we maybe got another year, um but probably not.
00:04:51
Speaker
And we're going to be moving and we're going to live in many different states. And so if you're okay with that, not okay with that, if you know that's how it is and you're like, this is what I signed up for, then you could embrace it and you won't get emotional over it.
00:05:04
Speaker
But if you are like, hey, that's not the life I want to live, then don't get involved in football um because in football, there's just way too many moving parts. I've seen sometimes the best football players never show up to the weight room, never follow through.
00:05:18
Speaker
They were just physically, especially at the high school level, ah they're young men ahead of the others physically and mentally. um It don't matter what you do. And we're starting to like...
00:05:31
Speaker
Learn some of that in the college sector with all the transfers. um Can I develop you if you're only here for this semester? No. And so we want a deep dive in training. I know you love training techs. You deep dive. You want the science, the, you know, peeling away the layers.
00:05:50
Speaker
How many layers can I peel away? If you show up, it's spring football. And so then we're in season spring. Then you're going home for a few weeks. Then when you come back, we're preseason. Now I start to rethink Do I need to make this complicated?
00:06:04
Speaker
You know what? I think I'm going to put him on some machines because do I want to and go all in on this guy? He's already been to three different schools. He's probably leaving here too. And now I think it's taken away a lot of the purity of strength and conditioning, sports performance, whatever you want to call it.
Instant Results vs. Genuine Coaching
00:06:21
Speaker
And for me, it's heartbreaking because I'm very passionate. I'm not ah so black and white of we win. That's what counts. You know, I want the deeper aspect of training.
00:06:32
Speaker
And so that's not my style to be in that college sector anymore. Yeah. Even conversations here at Summer Strong with many of the college level coaches and even the Sorenex where they're shifting and creating more machines, these awesome machines, which I'll B-roll.
00:06:49
Speaker
ah I was messing around with those with training this morning because those are, you can just throw a kid on there. You can spend three years with them developing them. They're still creating their power, their strength, stability. Mm-hmm.
00:07:01
Speaker
and you don't have to teach them the more complex lifts. yeah So even big businesses are seeing this change and making major adjustments yeah to fill that need at that level.
00:07:12
Speaker
I would say we were viewed as teachers. Coach Ethan Reeve always said ah when coaches are like, I don't want to teach the clean. It's too complicated. He said, but you are a teacher. You're supposed to understand how to break it down, how to reverse engineer it, how to introduce them with it.
00:07:29
Speaker
But, you know, Rusty Witt told me a year ago, ah you know, 50% of the football team is new every year. And so football teams, from what i understand, are not really recruiting true freshmen.
00:07:43
Speaker
I mean, they say sometimes like two or three or four true freshmen come out. So I remember way back in the day, 08, Joe Ken was at Louisville, maybe it was 09.
00:07:55
Speaker
And they were playing Rutgers. So he brought his staff and trained with us. And I remember we were talking. It's Adam, you know, Adam Fype. It's Joe Connolly. ah There's a guy, Brian Dermody, who I don't know if he's at Iowa anymore. I think he became a pastor, who was a powerlifter, strength coach, powerlifter.
00:08:11
Speaker
But all the other guys are still coaching. Long story short, they were telling me about their introductory, ah like, what are you doing for the true freshmen?
Recruitment Changes in College Sports
00:08:19
Speaker
Like, we go for six weeks, all body weight, all unilateral. We're doing one-arm pushups against the wall.
00:08:26
Speaker
Bulgarian split squats, assisted eccentric pistol squats, you know, five-second eccentric, building them because they're coming from a high school program where all they did was squat, bench, and clean.
00:08:36
Speaker
Now, they're lucky, right now, those introductory programs are out because you don't get that. So it's going to be real interesting to see. what's going to happen to college sports, of course, with NIL, but more so it's a money thing.
00:08:52
Speaker
So like kids are, you know, now they're going to go to junior college or I'm going where you pay me. It's just changed. Coaches but for the most part are purists.
00:09:03
Speaker
It's just this thing that like, we love training. We love coaching. And now you're you're not teaching as much. You're like this, I don't understand. You're like a vehicle and just kind of moving them to places. And maybe, um you know, you're still in your thirties, but I almost wonder if like the generation of coaches that are in their twenties, if it just makes more sense to them because they grew up on a phone swiping away. So they're like not, you ah in shock when kids are coming and going because they've kind of viewed life as the way they view 15-second video or a five-second video. Bored.
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just swiping away. So what? That kid left at a semester. That's normal. And for example, when I'm
High School Sports Culture and Expectations
00:09:49
Speaker
coaching, yes, sometimes I'm recording videos, but I'm not texting anybody. I'm not checking emails or anything.
00:09:55
Speaker
But I said to a buddy of mine, I said, I think the high school kids today... They, if they saw their coach, like on their phone, they wouldn't be like, oh my God, coach is on his phone. Coach is on her phone.
00:10:08
Speaker
They'd be like, yeah, so what? We're always on our phone. That's what we do. But we, as the pure strength coach, you'd be like, no, no, no, you're locked in. This is their time. You're not supposed to be touching your phone.
00:10:18
Speaker
And I was telling you, my buddy coaches lacrosse. His practices are an hour, hour and 15 minutes. wow But he says, sure he says, back in the day, two hours, two and a half hours. I go, I bet you the kids like it today.
00:10:30
Speaker
He goes, they love it. They love a shorter practice. They don't want to do more. And he said, and if they can, now they want to go to club lacrosse or club wrestling or club name the sport for the next practice of the day.
00:10:44
Speaker
So they're never maximizing that session. They're kind of holding back a little so they could get to the next thing that day and sometimes three things that day.
00:10:55
Speaker
And so Sports are in a weird place. You know, I'm calling it lately the matrix. Explain. Meaning I'm a dad. You know, my daughter's going to be in college next year. My son's a sophomore.
00:11:07
Speaker
He's been big in baseball, but he's played basketball. He's wrestled. ah My daughter played basketball, but very heavy with tennis. And it's interesting, like starting with my daughter,
00:11:18
Speaker
She is a very good tennis player. She had one loss her senior year. She's a two-time county champ. Her loss was to the runner-up in the States in a tiebreaker. And you think there's going to be all these opportunities when you're younger.
00:11:33
Speaker
And the reality is there's not because you know we're in South Carolina. She loves it in the South, the warm weather, And we're looking and visiting at all these schools, and there's sometimes not one American tennis player on the team. They're all international from Ukraine and Poland and different areas of, you know, Russia, China, Japan.
00:11:56
Speaker
And it's like, whoa. You know, we've been investing in this, not because we think there's this payout at the end, but because my daughter loved tennis. It was like in her blood. But you do hope as a parent, hey, there'll be a payoff. Like we're not going to pay for college.
00:12:10
Speaker
Well, the college she's going to, the first
Sports Scholarships and International Players
00:12:13
Speaker
email was, we would love to communicate connect with you, but we are putting this out front that there is no ah scholarship for women's tennis here.
00:12:22
Speaker
And you're like, ah you're kind of heartbroken by that. Because on a football team, 80-something players, nobody's paying a dime. And some of them don't even play. Yet if you're in tennis, you know, I've seen my daughter, like, bleed out there. Like, she once had a match that was, like, over three hours in Georgia.
00:12:40
Speaker
It must have been over 100 degrees on the court. Just so tough. And so you just think that there's going to be, or you hope that there's going to be something at the end of the tunnel. And I've coached at Rutgers and Lehigh, but before NIL.
00:12:54
Speaker
But even during that time, Tex, what I saw was every two to three, maybe even four weeks, a kid quits the team. Some kids would transfer. Now, it didn't. It was pretty rare. I did see some kids transfer. But for the most part, they quit or they were kind of like the coach was like, listen, like you're you're just not making it.
00:13:16
Speaker
And so they kind of just stepped down. These are kids that, you know, I worked with wrestling that are state champs. Then they come to a school and like, they're like sixth in the depth yeah of it.
00:13:27
Speaker
And this thing that they grew up doing, you know, mom and dad hope that they're going to be able to watch them in college. And now they're like, you know what? I'm sick of this. I am just been doing it all my life, all summer long. I don't even know what it's like to have a vacation.
00:13:44
Speaker
Yeah. And so you're in this matrix. You're my
College Sports Dropout Rates
00:13:47
Speaker
kids, the best, my kids, this, my kids, that. And then you get to college and they're like, ah, and only that, um, you know what the percent of kids who compete in college, right? you want to, what is your, what have you heard is the percent of high school kids go to competing in college? at Any sport at all. Mm-hmm.
00:14:03
Speaker
i We were talking maybe five, yep six percent, something like that. Well, then my sophomore year, about half of them quit, at least a third. And so and how many are going d one And so but sometimes nobody in the school goes D1 in any sport in that year.
00:14:22
Speaker
But then, um but you have this thing like ah kids play soccer in New Jersey. There's travel clubs that have the kids or I guess their parents sign a contract that if you're on our, you know, McQuilkin travel soccer teams, you do not play for your high school.
00:14:38
Speaker
Yeah. That to me is heartbreaking to see the dismantling and the division Of school sports. It's really sad, Tex. Yeah, I saw that exact same same thing 2014.
00:14:52
Speaker
twenty fourteen I was up working at an Episcopal school in Washington, D.C. And their soccer team was good, but they still had students that would come to like the P.E. weight class with me as the the full school strength coach.
00:15:07
Speaker
And then they were amazing athletes. It's like, what are you doing? Well, then learn to come. They were on club soccer. They've already secured a Division I scholarship, so now it's just I have to get my P.E. credit for school. Yeah. so But a lot of kids are on these travel, whether it's baseball, soccer, ah basketball, lacrosse, they don't make it to D1 sports.
00:15:29
Speaker
And it's kind of...
Youth Sports Dynamics: The 'Matrix' Analogy
00:15:32
Speaker
I don't know if when the coaches are in front of all of the parents, they're like, if you are here, we will put you on the path to being a D1 athlete.
00:15:42
Speaker
I don't know if that's what they say or that's kind of the message that comes out. But some of the best wrestlers I've worked with at the D1 level were not the absolute killers in high school.
00:15:56
Speaker
but they made more progress freshman year than they built more sophomore year. And they, sometimes it took them as a fifth year senior to break through. Now, what we're seeing is in wrestling and probably other sports, you were mentioning the NBA, like ah kids getting recruited out of high school.
00:16:15
Speaker
Well, in high school, you have 17 year olds beating Olympic wrestlers. You never heard of that, but how that's one out of a gazillion. And so what I'm also noticing tech, somebody made a great analogy when I said the middle ah athlete is getting removed.
00:16:33
Speaker
It's like the ultra elite athlete. or you're getting killed. He said, it's like the economy. There's no middle class. I said, wow, what a great analogy. So, okay, you want to play, you want to wrestle, you want to play football.
00:16:47
Speaker
Football still hasn't been infiltrated with that year round stuff. You know, I think certain sections of Florida and California have the seven versus seven on seven stuff. It's all Texas. the Yeah. the Texas anywhere warm, right? Anywhere warm.
00:17:01
Speaker
But baseball is, I remember being in Florida for my kids. Every time we had the winter break, it was half tennis and baseball and half vacation.
00:17:12
Speaker
And so my daughter was on this, we'd go to the Rick Macy Academy where they filmed like the, movie what was the movie? ah The Williams, Sir Richard, was that what they called the movie? i don't know. but The documentary on, ah yes.
00:17:26
Speaker
That was Rick Macy. By the way, the Rick Macy Academy, amazing coaches, not just tactically or technically, but the energy, the atmosphere, the just the whole like it was electric.
00:17:40
Speaker
I loved it. High, like just just high level. Sometimes you go to places, for example, my son has been on travel baseball teams. All this stuff is promised. I'd say, hey, I'm is my son going to be taught how to pitch?
00:17:54
Speaker
Oh yeah, we develop all them here. We do the pitch and we do this. Then it's like, yeah, you want to do it? Okay. You paid your five grand or eight grand to be on this travel team.
Critique of Travel Teams
00:18:04
Speaker
Okay. We have a coach McQuilken. You could contact him and you could do privates.
00:18:09
Speaker
Wow. But I'm on this travel team. I thought I was paying for coaching. Then every week, there's like random kids rolling up to the dugout or making your son's spot. And you're like, this kid ain't even on this team. He's on their other team.
00:18:24
Speaker
And as a coach, as I've been saying, as this guy that loves the purity of it, you start it starts to break your heart. You start to see... you know, your child who you need to protect, not, you know, protect them from everything, but you just don't want, it seems like you're getting stabbed in the back.
00:18:45
Speaker
wait And it's taking away from the trainability. So the long-term development skill wise of the athlete. So what travel club ball is, and this is infecting lacrosse and it it makes me angry.
00:18:58
Speaker
It's not development. So it's just, it's just games. Yeah. yep You go to Florida, you play games. So then your son is getting... You games a day. We're going to be there for this long-ass tournament. So he gets eight at-bats.
00:19:10
Speaker
That's not development. No. That's eight at-bats versus batting practice because they now we're taking away batting practice. Who told these kids how to field? Hey, have these... you know Nobody. Right, nobody. How about let's... Now let's look at it from a sports performance, strength coach standpoint, whatever phrase people want to use. Right, Tex?
00:19:29
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Revisiting Youth Sports Injuries
00:20:30
Speaker
are. And now, back to the show. Ready, ready, and break. Is it normal for a high school girl to have both ACLs torn in high school?
00:20:39
Speaker
No. We know it's not, but it happens all the effing time. What about a middle school kid breaking his elbow, pitching, or getting Tommy John surgery? Oh my God. Should that happen? It does happen, and I'm going to tell you why it happens.
00:20:51
Speaker
We're looking at kids who are pitching, you know, throwing 60, 70, 80 per game, yet they can't do a pushup, not 10 pushups, not 20.
00:21:02
Speaker
Now, here's what I say. i had a conversation with K-Star about this, Kelly Sturette. You know how how like this is like it's almost like criminal, we said. If you're going to run a travel team,
00:21:14
Speaker
Do a dynamic warm-up with the kids. Do push-ups. Do band pull-aparts. Do walking lunges. My son started playing baseball at age five. I think I never saw a dynamic warm-up till eighth grade and never push-ups.
00:21:28
Speaker
And still dumb things like, hey, you lost the game, go run. So now they think exercise is punishment. No. There's... And and i actually, I get mad at myself because, you know, my dad is from Romania and Israel.
00:21:42
Speaker
So when we moved to America, my dad puts me in sports like soccer. And I always say, I wish I knew American sports like football and baseball because I could have coached, but I don't know anything about it. And so you you raise your kids and on these baseball travel teams, I'm who's on the all-star team, not my son, but the coach's son who drops the ball in the outfield over and over. It don't matter.
00:22:07
Speaker
And so I had to tell my son, can we curse text? i try I'll just bleep it out. you okay You do you. I had to say to my son one day, Ethan, he was young, third grade, maybe fourth grade, fifth grade.
00:22:20
Speaker
I said, you're going to have to work harder than everybody. He's sitting in the back and he was like a alternate on the all-star team. And I go, daddy never played baseball. And daddy don't go to the bars every weekend with these guys. And I'm not their buddies. I said, basically, daddy's not in the bleep sucking club. And he was like,
00:22:40
Speaker
And I said, do you understand
Coaches' Role in Athlete Health
00:22:41
Speaker
what I'm saying? I can't help you. So your problems will only be solved if you hit the ball out of the park. And even then, there's politics. Even at you think, hey, I'm going to get to high school. There will be no politics.
00:22:54
Speaker
It continues. And so text. So what's the answer, right? I could complain and rant about this. What is the answer? The answer starts with coaches who are educated, but who genuinely care. If I genuinely care about...
00:23:09
Speaker
the long-term health of a kid, meaning, hey, we could win this game if Tex pitches 10 more. But I also need to think, um if I keep throwing Tex, he won't be able to one day throw a football with his you know first son.
00:23:24
Speaker
And so you must think, is this exercise good just for now? Or is it going to negatively impact him five to 10 years from now? Because I'm doing wear and tear and I'm just focusing on points on the board.
00:23:35
Speaker
And I think if you genuinely care about the people, the kids, whatever you want to say, the age group, then you will... educate yourself on what is best.
00:23:47
Speaker
And it's also not just happening at youth or even high school. and I'm not going to mention his name. He won't care. He was a pretty outspoken guy, but I'm not goingnna mention his name. Played in the NFL for, I think, like 13, 14 years. And he was like making a post on social kind of ranting about like this coach should get fired. Like they have had a losing season over and over again.
00:24:07
Speaker
i go, if they've been losing so much, why doesn't the coach say, drop the ego and say, whatever we're doing is not working. We must change this. He goes, because in football, the ego is more important than winning. I go, even in the NFL, they will protect the ego and say, this is my way versus rather than be winning and lose their job.
00:24:30
Speaker
He goes, absolutely. Football is ah and it's crazy that The ego to say, we're doing it my way. I'm right. I'm better is more important than building a winning team in the NFL.
Leadership Insights from Nick Saban
00:24:42
Speaker
And then let's go down now in college. If it's about winning or you're going to get fired. But why did Nick Saban leave? Because even as much as he was winning, he was building better people. Isn't that in the all blacks book legacy? They said like better humans make better teammates, something to that effect. Something along those lines. Yeah.
00:25:01
Speaker
Yeah. And in many interviews with Saban, he highlights that. And one of the best quotes out there. Yeah. Character. And I love, I love his, his view on leadership. He's like, if you want to be liked, go sell ice cream. Oh yes. If you want to be team captain,
00:25:17
Speaker
Like, don't expect to be liked. You know, a a couple months ago, I spoke at Armando Strength and Conditioning Clinic with Boyd Epley. Awesome. And Boyd, I know you guys, when you were with Power Athlete, interviewed him twice.
00:25:30
Speaker
And I don't remember if he mentioned it, but he spoke about creating a, um like, a leadership council. Yep. Did he mention that? It was like he built... He brought, I can't remember if you had to be a senior, but if you wanted to be a leader and let's say you're the leader and I have a problem, I'm not going to go to the coach to complain. I'm going to go to the leadership council.
00:25:53
Speaker
And their job was essentially to say, the reason why XYZ is wrong is because... You show up late. You're not working hard enough. You miss our meals. When we're lifting, you're not working.
00:26:04
Speaker
Like the leaders were the ones who are going to say, this is the problem. You're not doing X, Y, z And I think that empowers. Oh yeah. And then in the players it develops the culture and the expectation of the team because the coaches have those expectations.
Continuous Improvement for Coaches
00:26:21
Speaker
Have they communicated it a down? So it is clear and everyone knows the the guidelines. And that's, that's why I love the, The captain, who you're in this position and it's your first exposure to difficult conversations, confrontation. Didn't you tell me to read captain's class or did Josh Sucher tell me to get it? He may have bought it for me.
00:26:42
Speaker
feel like you guys are always the book guys. We are. yeah But it's because there' there's so much to learn and then you do appreciate learning more. Because a lot of coaches don't because the ego's in place, which is okay. I feel like if I'm not getting better as a coach, I have zero right to tell a kid, you got to get better.
00:26:58
Speaker
but It's like I'm a fraud. if i'm If I'm not, I'm done developing as a coach. I already know it all. in It's a big key. Fraud. is self-awareness.
00:27:09
Speaker
You don't realize you're a fraud if you're a fraud. But then in self-awareness, and well why I love coaching, and especially at the the middle school and high school level, more often than not, a lesson that I start to see that my kids need, it's almost like a reflection of...
Strategies for Low Team Morale
00:27:26
Speaker
I could use a little bit of more of that in my life as well. this This past season, buy-in from seniors started to to tank, you know, those middle-season lulls. Yeah, so why does that happen? Why do you think that happens? So with this particular team, it was like, well, if we're...
00:27:44
Speaker
going to lose this game, why try? So then it's like, okay. heard similar. I'm going to not try so I don't fail and I save face. It's a crazy attitude. Yeah. So just like, why not like claw your way and lose with dignity? Why is that a lost art form? In my life, if it's thinking like if it's sport and competition, yes, I have that mentality. But then where else in life where it's like, I'm not willing to take the risk?
00:28:09
Speaker
Okay, because then I will save face here. So now I have to then step up in these certain so opportunities. So then look for small wins in my life to take this. So now I have, like you said, you would share...
00:28:23
Speaker
ah experiences and failures with your team, I now was trying to find failures to then present to them to say, hey, I'm still learning and growing and I'm 20 years your elder. Yeah. And if you're not making mistakes and failing, you're probably not really challenging yourself.
00:28:42
Speaker
You're just kind of like in the neutral zone. You're in the gray. But what you said is interesting because I heard a coach say that to me that They were going to a game and they were like, oh, how many points you think they'll score on us today?
00:28:57
Speaker
And I was like, who teaches kids to think that way? yeah what like and so And then they start saying things like, well, he like it's near the end i'm just I just need to be ready for my travel team.
00:29:10
Speaker
And I can tell you something I'm um proud of, Tex, that so we live in a little town. As you know, you've been to my house. Tennis Club. Yep. Two square miles. The K-8 school is on one side. They got great lacrosse, by the way.
00:29:23
Speaker
K-8 on this side, high school on the other side. And so my daughter was, you know, a standout tennis player. And private schools knew about her and were reaching out. And you could come here for free. And I said, Summer, you could actually be great in your backyard.
00:29:37
Speaker
You're going to have to do extra. You know, you may not have the amenities that a private school has, but I promise you,
Team Spirit Over Individual Success
00:29:43
Speaker
you could be great. If you want to go to public school, you could do it. Because that's the thing now. Right now, the private schools are really starting to dominate public schools because there's no boundary to where the kids could come from.
00:29:54
Speaker
But at the banquet senior year, and I love her talking about, you know, coaches that you get upset with her coach. I told him, I go, I go, you're a great coach because my daughter's intense and he knows how to like be the yin to the yang.
00:30:10
Speaker
Very impressive. if He also coaches basketball, like the way he stays calm. I said, dude, I don't know how you do it. But at at the senior banquet, he said, you know, You dream of getting like a ah blue chip tennis player like Summer, but then you also hear nightmares that they'll say things like, well, I'm not going to come to practice. I'll just come to the matches or I'm only going to come to the big matches or just the tournaments.
00:30:34
Speaker
He's like, Summer did none of that. And he goes, the way he goes, and ah and the way it really solidified for me was her last match was in the county finals.
00:30:45
Speaker
And it was like, almost gave me a heart attack because don't understand scoring still in tennis, but she was in a tiebreaker and she's like playing this girl for the third time and it's really hard.
00:30:57
Speaker
And she wins the tiebreaker and she gets off the court and the newspaper guy's there and he's like, hold up your plaque picture. And she goes, where's such and such playing? And Coach Ritchie is like, she's over there.
00:31:10
Speaker
And he said, not 30 seconds later, she's in the back of a fence, hyping up her teammate. where, you know, they wanted to like interview her for the newspaper. And to me, I was like, that's everything summer because tennis, yes, you'll be, I've seen 90 year olds playing tennis, but go that being a great teammate is like one of the best um compliments to be known of. And i I, wish I followed sports more, but I heard of an NFL hall of famer saying that.
00:31:38
Speaker
During his induction speech, he said, listen, I'm here because I've scored all these points and did all this stuff. He's like, but the best award is my teammates said I was a great teammate.
00:31:51
Speaker
And that is really lost today, Tex. And so the question is, how do we bring that back? Well, I think it's not a coach or just, ah you know, not just the lacrosse team, the baseball team, the wrestling team, the football team.
00:32:05
Speaker
It has to be a school-wide culture where everybody wants everybody to win. Like lacrosse is playing and we just finished our soccer game. Let's go to the lacrosse field. cheer We got to cheer them on.
00:32:17
Speaker
Or, hey, big day tomorrow for lacrosse. We're doing a short practice and then we're going to watch lacrosse. But you don't see that. You see coaches who are like, hey, you're on this team. Don't don't join that other team because then blah, blah, blah.
00:32:31
Speaker
You hear it in like you always hear um wrestlers saying, hey, football players should wrestle. I go, well, guess what? A lot of wrestlers should play football so they could spend more time in the weight room and get meaner. But we don't hear that.
00:32:42
Speaker
You always hear the wrestlers saying they should do with us. it You got to have the two way street. You can't just take and not give.
Unified Sports Culture in Schools
00:32:52
Speaker
And so we're in that world where even under the same roof, let's say you and I are at John Smith high school, you're a lacrosse coach. I'm wrestling coach.
00:33:03
Speaker
You and i we understand we would have a sit down and you, and you'd be like, Zach, I could get your guys in better shape, more power, more athletic. And then I'd be like, you know what?
00:33:14
Speaker
I need some of your guys who are like tougher to get on the wrestling team. Yes, let's have a meeting with our teams today after school. Let's start doing some training together. Hey, Zach, I'll have captain's practices where your guys come once a week.
00:33:27
Speaker
Hey, I'll have your guys come to our open mat once a week. But we don't have that. We have, it's I, i me, me. Not just from the kids. Where do you think they're learning it from?
00:33:39
Speaker
The coaches, the adults, the club sports. um And I don't see a whole too many administrators bringing people together. And so if you want to see winning teams, you must build a whole organization and culture around it. The whole school must take pride in it. We can't just take pride in football and then everything else is secondary. Or my school is big, basketball, everything else is secondary.
00:34:07
Speaker
let's I want everybody to win. And I don't see that coming from adults. What the other team is doing, and I don't think you could win at the highest levels.
00:34:17
Speaker
know um Like in the NFL, you see some of these players like taking care of the custodians or the chef or the people that work in the kitchen because they know we' we're only as good as the food and the people who clean and take care of us.
00:34:34
Speaker
That is... No ego being humble. e You know, Jocko Willing says it.
Decentralized Command in Sports
00:34:40
Speaker
yeah Or what's the ego is the enemy. Ryan Holiday. Jocko even says it with teams. He's like, you want to build a great team?
00:34:47
Speaker
Decentralize command. Give them leadership. Give them opportunity to make mistakes. They make a little mistake. Have a quick meeting with them. Give them one or two things. Let them go and win and lead.
00:34:58
Speaker
Let them do it. I don't see that in schools anymore. And culture. Yeah. were aligned that there's such an opportunity, agnostic of sport, ball, stick, otherwise, correct to accomplish that with a barbell.
00:35:14
Speaker
Yeah. So here we have a weight room unifies the school. It's all movement. Yeah. And then you are, and I heard one of the speakers say it earlier, you're focused. I think it was Andy Galpin. Like you're focused on it's you versus you. Yes.
00:35:29
Speaker
Even though we are squatting different weights and you're much stronger than I.
Communal Culture in Gyms
00:35:35
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I'm glad you accepted that so quickly. Then it's still within my respect of my, my program, my chart that I'm following my plan, I'm still getting better.
00:35:46
Speaker
And at no point do I deviate and just throw on whatever you're doing or feel bad about myself. When you compare that happens. Tech's also interesting is, um, yesterday me and Joe Riggio went to a commercial gym and the equipment was awesome.
00:36:02
Speaker
But when you go in, you know, this is where we are as a world. Everybody's got AirPods. So the music in the gym is like shit. um Everybody's listening to whatever they want. The less you curse, the less i have to edit. Okay. the Also, the music in the gym is low.
00:36:19
Speaker
and And here's what's missing. Nobody doing anything together. No. And you're done with your cable row set. You don't even get up to see who wants to work in. You just put your phone down and now you're looking at YouTube ah movies or whatever you're doing.
00:36:35
Speaker
So I think as a society, we're so far removed from that. And I remember when I started coaching at my high school six years ago, a kid entered the weight room with AirPods.
00:36:48
Speaker
And i said, we don't wear AirPods here. And he was like, took them out, like, looked at me like, what? I said, yeah, we're here together. How can I coach you if you're plugged out?
00:37:00
Speaker
How can you be a teammate if you're more worried about your music? So I said, guys, you can make a playlist, make as many playlists as you want. Here's my phone. Do it. Whatever music you like is what we're doing.
00:37:12
Speaker
But also, ah what if there's something dangerous happen? You can't hear me. And I could only squat heavy if my favorite song is on. Well, what if I go to this lacrosse game and we're away at our crosstown rival and the kids are shouting obscenities about my mom and my sister?
Fostering Leadership in School Sports
00:37:32
Speaker
That stuff happens.
00:37:33
Speaker
I need my favorite song to score, coach. the And so all this convenience, all this my music, me, hey, I'm going to do music. We is greater than me. So, like what you know, this is a rant. How do we bring it together?
00:37:51
Speaker
The people who are of influence need to actually do leadership stuff. Meaning if you are an athletic director, a school principal, you need to bring everybody together and say, this is our school.
00:38:05
Speaker
ah This is what we stand for. This is what I envision us doing together together. Now, if the, what did you say earlier? If there's no clear expectation, if there's, uh, if there's no expectations, nobody knows what the standard is. What did you Something along those lines.
00:38:21
Speaker
But imagine my parents' expectations then become the student athlete's expectations, unless they're like a senior and mature. And then there's AD, athletic department yeah
Fragmentation Within School Teams
00:38:34
Speaker
expectations.
00:38:34
Speaker
Then there's head coach expectations. And then there's football expectations where they don't value any other sport. Yes, we're on, we do it our way. And so that causes ah fragmentation. That causes no team. That causes disrespect of one team to the next or one coach over the other. I'm more important than you.
00:38:56
Speaker
We do, you know, that is not good. ah One interesting thing to say on that, and then one positive, that it is being accomplished at certain schools. So the interesting thing is there was a ah ah Division one high school or excuse me division one college lacrosse coach that came to Texas.
00:39:18
Speaker
And just being in the the team circuits, i had the opportunity to just... talked with him before the game and knowing this as a, uh, growing up in Houston and understanding football culture and then picking up lacrosse yeah connected to football politics.
00:39:36
Speaker
I asked him about how he was handling it. Cause football is God it was in Texas. And this man is a world renowned hu lacrosse coach.
00:39:47
Speaker
And now you had a ah football coach and he he said he's never been spoken down to like he was from the high school football coach. So a world-class accomplished coach that is just giving back to the game essentially is now just being put down because it's not football. Yeah.
00:40:07
Speaker
I know that life and i've I've seen that and I unfortunately have lived it And you can't pay me to be rude to other people or to look down on them. um We're on the same team.
00:40:20
Speaker
Let's win together. Public Yeah. So then the the positive, i just interviewed Patrick Nolan in Parker, Colorado. So he runs a facility, Pivotal, and he also is a contract with a local high school.
00:40:32
Speaker
I forget the high school's name.
High School Leadership Councils
00:40:34
Speaker
But he has parlayed his strength training into taking – over the leadership council at this high school. And so we explained, he explained that a little bit, but it's juniors only.
00:40:45
Speaker
So then um it's just preparing them for their senior year to take over responsibilities. Nice. Reason is juniors is like spring semester, those football dudes then step into like football. Correct.
00:41:00
Speaker
If he had seniors, then they would be spring and they'd be... Time out. Tex here at Train Heroic headquarters meeting with the team to talk about the coaching experience that I'm able to provide for my athletes.
00:41:12
Speaker
So if you're a coach and want to put your program out there on an app that athletes actually enjoy using, Train Heroics for you. I've been using it since 2014. delivering literally over tens of thousands of workouts to athletes. And Train Heroic allows me to provide the unique coaching experience that I want to.
00:41:32
Speaker
Uploading video, providing coaching feedback, directions, and building a community. That's why I love Train Heroic. And if you want to take your athletes where they can't take themselves, that they want to go, head to trainheroic.com slash captains and check out how you can deliver programming to them.
00:41:49
Speaker
And now, back to the show. Ready, ready, and ready
00:41:54
Speaker
See ya. That's right. there're Hey, i'm and like we said, 5%, 6%, maybe 7% are competing in college. In fact, Tex, even like when they do those signing days at high schools, like you might sign, ah like you might be taking the pictures, hey, Tex McQuilkin is going to
Senior Sports Participation Drop-off
00:42:12
Speaker
whatever. University of Miami. Yes.
00:42:14
Speaker
And then a month later, you're like, I'm not even going to college. Or you they are there a week. you You drop off. So it's like there's so much when seniors are kind of done with sports there.
00:42:26
Speaker
It's interesting how some of them are like completely done or there's just too much like unknown there. and Just Man, what you said is really heartbreaking hear that this world-class coach is getting talked down on. yeah Here's what I would have done if I'm the football coach. um Coach, I understand you're world-class.
00:42:48
Speaker
I'd love to take you out for lunch. I would love to hear what you've done that has helped you succeed and what you think are mistakes. Lunch on me. I would love to take you out if you have the time. Yep. Or come talk to my team.
00:43:02
Speaker
yeah No, I'm too good to learn. I am God. That is a major problem. And I got to tell you you know where that could be fixed? The athletic director could say, this is... What if they're both?
00:43:14
Speaker
What do you mean, what if they're both? In Texas, more often than not, the football... That's right. That is correct, is the athletic director. They don't teach a class. They're... Yeah. But the athletic director...
00:43:26
Speaker
I believe anybody who's in a coach, teacher, supervision standpoint, you essentially, you don't have an oath. It's like a silent oath, like police have an oath to protect and serve.
00:43:37
Speaker
Your number one job as a coach is to protect the athlete, to do what is best for the athlete, to treat them as if they are your own child, even if you don't have children.
High School Coaching Challenges
00:43:47
Speaker
And so what is what is best for them? How should they be treated?
00:43:51
Speaker
Not just on what they could perform in the sport field, but you're right. What if they're both? The administrator really should say, you know, here at John Smith High School or whatever you want to call it, Susie Smith High School, we, these are our values.
00:44:06
Speaker
This is what we stand for. And so if you, I'm going to tell you now, if you're here and there's disrespect towards other coaches or you are not, you know, treating these kids like humans, then it's over.
00:44:22
Speaker
And there is, um I don't know how it is in Texas, but in New Jersey, I see it. I've heard about in other states. They're struggling to find coaches for high schools. So teaching, people don't want to go into teaching because the schools are getting pretty messy.
00:44:38
Speaker
um Younger kids who get out of college who have a sport background, You know, back in the day, they would be like, hey, I'm going to go to this school and we're going to win championships or I'm going to rebuild the program.
00:44:50
Speaker
Now they're like, I'm starting my own club. I'm not going to get paid this crappy money. I'm going to do it my way. And so you now have um maybe inexperienced people going into a sport.
00:45:02
Speaker
And so I told you, like my son had two baseball games at major, large high schools. They don't even have a JV baseball team. You just need like 12 kids, 13, 15 kids.
00:45:14
Speaker
You don't have 15 kids for the JV team. Where are they? They don't like it anymore. They're in lacrosse. They quit sports. They hate it. the the That school's huge. We're talking about like 400 to 500 kids at each grade level.
Future of High School Sports Funding
00:45:29
Speaker
You don't have 15 for a JV team. Out of two classes or three even. Yeah. It's insane. And so it's scary to see that. So I've heard people who kind of try to predict the future.
00:45:42
Speaker
They're like, I think... um America will become a pay-to-play high school sports. Like a they say they do that in Europe. So you want to be on lacrosse or baseball? Yeah, you're going to buy your uniform.
00:45:54
Speaker
You're going to pay x number of dollars so we can get buses and pay the coaches and the referees. Well, that that is Texas lacrosse because it's a club. It's not affiliated with the school.
00:46:05
Speaker
Oh. So now coaches, they can get paid. Yeah. hundred thousand dollars. Whatever the fundraising is. Yeah. It makes it tricky.
00:46:16
Speaker
Which helped to attract this world-class coach down there. No doubt. Listen, it's great to make money. I want to make more money. That's going to, you know, if that helps me take better care of my family, that's important. But you want to know what else I've said?
00:46:29
Speaker
If I'm in a bad place with bad culture and bad people, I'll go, I'll take 50% less to be around good people. Yeah.
00:46:39
Speaker
No amount of money. No amount of money could fix that can ah pay for your stress and broken heart.
Critique of Early Sports Specialization
00:46:47
Speaker
Yeah. And being treated like like a human being.
00:46:52
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Yeah. Much on that. The the interesting thing with club sports and like the the travel ball, I mentioned that that there's no time to develop. You are paying not for coaching, not for.
00:47:09
Speaker
ah development you're just playing for thought you were they said you would that's right we're gonna develop intended here we will teach them this oh you're a freshman you're a pitcher only at age 14 i'm a pitcher only what well you've spoke paul excuse me i combined his name but paul skeins one of the top and MLB pitchers, like he did both.
00:47:34
Speaker
And then at LSU, finally, like they had to pull one away from him. Yeah. What what do you mean? Both or multiple positions? Pitching and just being a field player. Yes. So now... I could pitch and be infield.
00:47:46
Speaker
At college level, sure. I can ah hit and pitch, but they say it's like such a skill now, so you got to spend double the time. But what happened to being athletic?
00:47:58
Speaker
Does that not? I don't know.
Balancing Training Volume and Intensity
00:48:01
Speaker
To be honest, Tex. Yeah, i I should hunt down like a ah conversation with just to try to understand where they're... You should ask Eric Cressy. a couple of years ago, I heard EC say that the majority of his pro ballplayers were D3 guys, which shows... Sure, we're going to take over.
00:48:19
Speaker
I think a couple of things. Does it mean... So, all right, I was more of a freak in high school. I went D1. How many these d one players are getting surgeries? Yeah. That's, you especially if you're a pitcher, that's crazy.
00:48:32
Speaker
So D3, you get a little more rest. You have a little less like mandatory training time. um But we find those kids are just, listen, who is at their best at age 18?
00:48:46
Speaker
I don't know anybody, but when you're 20, massive jump, 21, 22, another big jump. And so I, you know, I told my daughter, I said, Summer, maybe D3 will be better for your body.
00:48:58
Speaker
Give you a break. She's like, I'm already training like four or five, six days a week. She's like, what's the difference? My daughter thrives on the volume. She likes that. But I tell her, go, you have to start managing that.
00:49:11
Speaker
You have to learn to like ebb and flow. it You can't just like kill six days a week. And so i also try to match when I talk about training and coaching. I not only organize training for what you need physically and your sport, but what kind of mindset do you have?
00:49:30
Speaker
um Do you love speed work? Well, then I'm going to lean into that a little bit more with you. Do you love lifting heavy? I'm going to lean into it. And then I'm going to say, listen, to really maximize this when you're squatting, we need to add jumps with this. I know you love this, but meet me in the middle and let's add this.
00:49:47
Speaker
At the high school level, these kids love some freedom.
Athlete Engagement and Ownership
00:49:51
Speaker
So I might say the last seven minutes, free time, could do arms, abs, you could do the more sets from the organized workout right there.
00:50:01
Speaker
Or I might say exercise 1A, 1B, 1C, body weight choice, or it might say jump choice, or it might say, you know, calisthenics choice.
00:50:13
Speaker
So it might, maybe be a little limitation on it, but they like the freedom and they, they now think this guy cares. He's giving me freedom. He's not just like telling me everything to do because kids like these kids like choices and options.
00:50:29
Speaker
Yeah. And what's funny is that UTSA, University of Texas San Antonio, and now on the Friday that i I observe practice and training, they just had a TV arm day.
00:50:40
Speaker
So coach just cranked what sport? Football. Yeah. UTSA football, he just cranked up the music all the way to 10 and just gave them the dumbbell racks.
Training and Athlete Confidence
00:50:49
Speaker
And it's like, well, whatever you saw on TV or read in a magazine,
00:50:53
Speaker
Just go do that for eight minutes. You know what's funny is... Well, you had 100 dudes doing all right crazy stuff. Oh, Dave Tate said 20 plus years ago... Like everybody says, hey, bench press is not functional.
00:51:05
Speaker
He goes, but guess what? If this kid increases his bench press by 20 pounds, 50 pounds, and his arms get bigger, I've now boosted this athlete's confidence. And he goes, what? You know, we always spoke about transfer of training.
00:51:17
Speaker
He's like, what is a greater transfer than confidence? And we hear Joe Ken, big house, saying that. um I remember at Lehigh once, like the energy of this one training session seemed to be a little bit like low.
00:51:30
Speaker
And so I taught them how to do running the rack dumbbell curls. And um I was like, you're pray you know, our strongest guys are probably going to go 40, 50, 60, 50, 40. And if you want little extra burn, you'll hit 30.
00:51:44
Speaker
And I remember some of the kids were doing like swinging hammer curls with the 110s, you know, just like do it was looked like a hang power clean. And so um I go back to the coach's office. I said, I got to tell you, team morale was kind of like middle of the road today until we did running the rack curls.
00:52:03
Speaker
Well, they had fun. They were doing like a hip hinge power clean with it. They got a pump. It made them feel better. And that is the art of coaching. Is that a scientific movement?
00:52:15
Speaker
No. But I say this in wrestling, the match begins when you weigh in. I said, you're teenagers. You see a dude who's jacked and you start thinking, oh, no, he's going to kill me.
00:52:26
Speaker
So I said, we need to look strong. Jim Wendler says win the game off the bus. yeah I want to get off the bus and they want to see us jacked and be like, oh, man, these guys are going to kill us.
00:52:36
Speaker
Because even in college, a lot of kids are judging the opponent by how they look. Oh, yeah. soon Yeah. two Two thoughts on that that. Again, that's the value of the weight room to help them.
00:52:48
Speaker
understand and it starts with the self-awareness and part of self-awareness is self-esteem like where do you you see yourself yes so if they're if we start to see help them see themselves as biceps packs traps would all the stuff where you the work you put in actually starts to show up on your body now we can increase self-esteem build confidence and create
Self-awareness in Athletic Development
00:53:14
Speaker
self-awareness that could be everything Because now that if I see somebody else that's not as jacked as me, I have the opportunity.
00:53:23
Speaker
And today the confidence is needed more than ever. there There's because of the lack of communication and the like being so much phone centric.
00:53:35
Speaker
You don't have these experiences to build confidence. Like, hey, I'm going to go talk to that girl. What do they do? I'm going to follow her on this app and like her photo. You're not building your confidence that way.
00:53:46
Speaker
You're like, man, I've been thinking about this girl. I finally spoke to her. Bang. That's like points on the scoreboard of life. And then in the weight room, building that confidence every day.
00:53:58
Speaker
That is everything. and But a lot of people, you you were mentioning comparing. you know As a strength coach, guess what I sometimes compare? I'm like, oh my God, we need more technology. We need to measure this. We need to measure that.
00:54:11
Speaker
And then I'm like, most of my kids can't do five pull-ups. what I don't need to measure all this stuff. S-H-Y-T. And so you got to, I don't want you to edit everything.
00:54:25
Speaker
You have to look at that to me is crucial. Not only is it one of the lowest hanging fruits, it's also one of the most crucial aspects for a teenager. And if we are real coaches who want to impact beyond sports,
00:54:38
Speaker
You're truly want to teach them a life skill. And I always say, I'm very open about this text. Like I, I have had, like, I struggled with confidence and a little bit of depression in
Personal Journey of Overcoming Challenges
00:54:47
Speaker
my younger years. And i always say weight training and lifting weights and the gym, like saved my life and gave me a life. You're having a bad day train.
00:54:57
Speaker
And i follow that to this day. My morning needs to start with exercise. Okay. It sets the whole day up for for great things. And you're controlling what you can control. Yes.
00:55:10
Speaker
So more often than not, we have to teach young men and women that a lot of the stuff outside of their controllables, it affects them negatively. So it brings them down and takes away from...
Training for Resilience in Athletes
00:55:23
Speaker
Emotional stress is harder than the toughest leg workout you ever did.
00:55:28
Speaker
So then helping them... step into it, lean into it with action, training and hard work, then now they're realizing that, hey, the world out there is not as or what somebody said on my social media, I'm no longer taking it personally, because I'm I'm doing the work. There's just some Gary Vaynerchuk does a great job of like saying like, he's like, listen, people don't give a F about you. They don't even know about your life. So stop worrying what they think about you or don't think about you.
00:55:55
Speaker
Just, you know, he tries to teach people as much as he's the entrepreneur business guy, teaches them to be happy with the simpler things in life. And you're saying, hey, don't compare yourself.
00:56:06
Speaker
to the other athlete. He says that in business. He's like, stop comparing yourself to this business, that business. You don't even know what's going on behind the scenes. Compare you to you. Be better than what you were and just like learn.
00:56:18
Speaker
He's like, happiness is the ultimate rich.
Coaching with Genuine Care
00:56:22
Speaker
There you go. Well, any parting words from the underground strength coach that you can hand off to our audience here to continue to learn, develop? we're just i I love what we said. I would hammer home the genuinely caring part. We can't teach that to anybody.
00:56:39
Speaker
If you don't genuinely care... You won't try to become better at the tactical. You won't try to become better. and know you've done work with Brett Bartholomew, Art of Coaching. He's the master of that stuff.
00:56:50
Speaker
He understands it deeper really than anybody else. so But if you care... you'll go down the rabbit hole on those things to try to impact kids better. You know, to this day, sometimes I look back, I'm like, man, I was too tough on that kid. He's probably going through something I don't even know.
00:57:07
Speaker
And I should have had a different ah avenue of communication with him. And because I care about that kid, I want to make it right. I don't want him to leave school and graduate and be like, man, Coach Evanesh never gave me the opportunity.
00:57:22
Speaker
And so the got If you genuinely care, you start learning how to be better at everything you do. And for the coaches out there, win together. like don't Who can you take with you?
00:57:34
Speaker
What other team? What other people? Don't win at the expense of somebody else because that to me is not winning. I don't want to step and hurt people on my way to something more for me.
00:57:48
Speaker
That to me is I can't, I don't feel good about that. And so it was a you know upsetting and heartbreaking to hear about the football coach talking down to this lacrosse coach, even if that lacrosse coach was not world-class.
00:58:01
Speaker
Any lacrosse. We don't need to talk down on anybody. how How is that good?
Better Humans, Better Teams
00:58:06
Speaker
So, and then from legacy. Everything I say, Tex, is nothing I've created on my own. I've learned it from books and other coaches.
00:58:13
Speaker
So, um all blacks, it said, you know, what better players. Better humans are better players and better teammates. That's why they sweep the sheds.
00:58:24
Speaker
That's why we leave it better than we found it. Oh, we use this weight room. Did you clean it up or did you leave it a mess? Oh, we were in the visiting team's locker room. Did you clean? Did you sweep the sheds or did you leave a mess?
00:58:35
Speaker
Leave it better than you found it. Boom. Boom. Easy day. I'm glad I get two days to hang out in Summer Strong. This is always a pleasure, man. and Yes.
00:58:47
Speaker
Maybe one of these days I'll get back to Jersey, but yeah we'll probably just be hanging out here. I remember when you were in Jersey, my dog was in love with you. ah Most dogs are. Who's not? That's right. Dog guy. Dog guy. And you had, I was impressed with the appetite. I went to the old time butcher and got all those steaks.
00:59:01
Speaker
It was you and Bobby. Yeah. You guys crushed the meats. Well, we drove from DC up there. Was it DC or Philly? You were in Philly, I think. We were DC.
00:59:12
Speaker
He and I lived in DC together. We drove up to Staten Island for. Oh, was it Staten Island? Yeah. oh Staten Island for a seminar. Way back. Manusquan. Zach, my friend. are That's all right. Let's go.
00:59:24
Speaker
ah Cool. All right. Underground Strength Gym. Yep. At Underground Strength Yeah, Underground Strength Gym on Instagram. Strong Life Podcast. Strong Life Podcast. And then have Evanesh. I think if they Google that stuff, it'll all pop up.
00:59:37
Speaker
Yep. Pretty easy to find. Easy to do. All right, bro. Thanks, brother. Thank you. See you.