Speaker 1: The only real important thing in the world is that
Speaker 1: we developed these young men and women in such a
Speaker 1: way that they understand how to compete, and they understand
Speaker 1: how to play fair, and they understand that they are
Speaker 1: not going to be defined by the outcome of this game.
Speaker 2: This is the Reform Sports Project, a podcast about restoring
Speaker 2: healthy balance and perspective in all areas of sports through
Speaker 2: education and advocacy.
Speaker 3: Hi, this is Nick Bonacor from the Reform Sports Podcast. Today,
Speaker 3: I'm speaking with Adam Gold, longtime North Carolina sportscaster who
Speaker 3: just celebrated twenty five years on the radio. The host
Speaker 3: of The Adam Gold Show, Adam covers North Carolina's collegiate
Speaker 3: and professional teams, talking sports year round, a staple of
Speaker 3: sports radio for over two decades. Adam was named the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two North Carolina Sportscaster of the Year and
Speaker 3: is an Emmy winner for a multi platform documentary on
Speaker 3: the influence of money and college sports. Adam and I
Speaker 3: discuss why it's important to remember that players mimic both
Speaker 3: the good and bad behavior of their coaches, the media's
Speaker 3: role in professionalizing youth sports, and why as a coach
Speaker 3: he prioritizes players mental and emotional wellbeing over the technical
Speaker 3: aspects of the game.
Speaker 2: I am really really excited. I have someone who I
Speaker 2: listened to daily. He's a long time sportscaster. He's a
Speaker 2: damn stud. He was named the twenty twenty two right, Adam,
Speaker 2: I gotta blow you out man, twenty twenty two North
Speaker 2: Carolina sportscaster of the Year. And you just celebrated twenty
Speaker 2: five years on the radio. So Adam gold Man, thanks
Speaker 2: for hopping on.
Speaker 1: Adam gold The pleasure is mine. Nick. The word stud
Speaker 1: got me. It has been a long time since I
Speaker 1: have thought of myself in that manner, but thank you.
Speaker 2: Listen. My job is to have We're gonna have a
Speaker 2: great interview. We're going to talk about some important things,
Speaker 2: and I got to stroke your ego a little bit.
Speaker 2: Maybe you'll come on. That's fun. But what made me
Speaker 2: want to and for those listening, wanted to reach out
Speaker 2: to Adam having come on. Obviously I listened to him
Speaker 2: all the time. Covers you know, majority in the Triangle
Speaker 2: area in North Carolina and also nationally professional sports and
Speaker 2: collegiate sports, particularly here in North Carolina, and Adam, like
Speaker 2: I've heard you talk about youth sports. I know you're
Speaker 2: a sports parent, and we recently just had like a
Speaker 2: piece of legislation in the state of North Carolina that's
Speaker 2: like up for review, and I want to start here
Speaker 2: with you because it's something that's near and dear right
Speaker 2: here in our state talking about, you know, making a
Speaker 2: law outlawing participation trophies in youth sports. What the hell's
Speaker 2: going on there?
Speaker 1: I you know, for the life of me, somebody brought
Speaker 1: it to my attention and just said, have you seen this?
Speaker 1: And I went and read it and it's only like
Speaker 1: a two sentence bill, and all I could think of was,
Speaker 1: who hurt you that you would actually take the time?
Speaker 1: You know, it didn't take a lot of time to
Speaker 1: write it, because again it's a two sentence bill, But
Speaker 1: who hurt you that you would go and actually think
Speaker 1: that this is something necessary as the participation true the
Speaker 1: anti participation trophy. People feel like this is a scourge
Speaker 1: upon our society from their perspective, at worst, it's a
Speaker 1: net zero. At the absolute most evil, it's a net zero.
Speaker 1: It's neither good nor bad. It is not a sign
Speaker 1: that our society is becoming somehow soft. I'll kid, you not.
Speaker 1: We talked about it on the radio for about thirty
Speaker 1: minutes one day. It was actually because we were and
Speaker 1: had finally given up waiting for the state senator who
Speaker 1: wrote it to respond to our calls and texts to
Speaker 1: come on. I mean he gave us, he gave us
Speaker 1: his phone number and then ghosted us, which is fine.
Speaker 1: I don't I mean, that's fine, I don't care. But
Speaker 1: I hadn't talked about it because I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about it with him first. But it had been like
Speaker 1: two days and he's not getting back to us, and
Speaker 1: they weren't even session, so I mean, he could have
Speaker 1: easily just said, hey, can't do it now, would love
Speaker 1: to do it in the future. He just was not
Speaker 1: interested in having a conversation, and that's fine. I don't
Speaker 1: blame him. I wouldn't be either. So we talked about
Speaker 1: it on the radio and actually had somebody use the
Speaker 1: term that's why we're creating sissies today, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's a thing that just happened. Cool. You know, it's
Speaker 1: funny you called me a sports parent, and I am.
Speaker 1: My son plays fairly competitive youth soccer. He's fourteen. But
Speaker 1: I also coached for a long time. I coached before
Speaker 1: I had kids. I coached when I lived in Baltimore.
Speaker 1: I coached baseball twelve thirteen fourteen year old kids in
Speaker 1: a city league. I coached for three years there. I
Speaker 1: coached when I moved to Raleigh. I just loved doing
Speaker 1: it and I was I'm a baseball player first, as
Speaker 1: I know you are, so I wanted to coach little
Speaker 1: league baseball. So I had no kids. City Raleigh allowed
Speaker 1: me to coach a team, so I coached for a
Speaker 1: couple of years Citi Raleigh, and then I married a
Speaker 1: woman and she had already She already had a son,
Speaker 1: which was awesome. He was at the age where he's
Speaker 1: starting to play sports, so I coached him in basketball,
Speaker 1: and coached him in baseball, coached him in soccer at
Speaker 1: the why level, which is really what this guy is
Speaker 1: talking about. It's that level of soccer, the rec league
Speaker 1: level of sports. So I've been in both sides of it.
Speaker 1: I've been in the parent side of it, and I've
Speaker 1: been to the coach side of it, and I can
Speaker 1: actually see problems in both areas that need to be
Speaker 1: dealt with by not just smart people, but people who
Speaker 1: are aware of all of the elements in play.
Speaker 2: That's a great segue because I know you've spent, as
Speaker 2: I mentioned, the majority of your career covering high level
Speaker 2: collegiate professional sports. What changes have you witnessed over the
Speaker 2: span of the twenty five years that you've been covering
Speaker 2: at those levels and you know, good, bad, are indifferent,
Speaker 2: and what if anything have you noticed has trickle down
Speaker 2: to youth sports?
Speaker 1: Well, everything trickles down to youth sports because everything they
Speaker 1: see they do so And again, my son right now
Speaker 1: is playing at a pretty high level of classic soccer,
Speaker 1: so it's very competitive, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's still just youth sports, right And the roles for
Speaker 1: substitutions are different. It's not like you start and when
Speaker 1: you come off the field you're done. There's free substitutions,
Speaker 1: so it's still kind of a hybrid. And I'm amazed
Speaker 1: at the way everybody celebrates a goal or you know,
Speaker 1: acts on the field, and they act exactly as what
Speaker 1: they see. Yeah, no, I don't have a problem when
Speaker 1: people celebrate goals. I don't have a problem when I'm
Speaker 1: watching the Premier League. If I'm watching Liverpool and Arsenal
Speaker 1: I don't have a problem when Gabrielle Jsus scores a
Speaker 1: goal and goes to the corner and shushes the crowd.
Speaker 1: I have zero problem with that, and I really don't
Speaker 1: have a problem that much when I see players do
Speaker 1: it at my son's level. But all I'm saying is
Speaker 1: that they copy everything they see. At some point it
Speaker 1: becomes this is what is done, and again I'm generally
Speaker 1: okay with it. There are times when it seems excessive unnecessary,
Speaker 1: but that's what they see, and again I think that's
Speaker 1: basically harmless. There are certain gamesmanship that happen at the
Speaker 1: professional level that have no business at the youth level.
Speaker 1: But again, we're imitating everything that we see, and I
Speaker 1: think in some ways that has trickled down to the
Speaker 1: adults that have something to do with youth sports, and
Speaker 1: they treat it as though this is the be this
Speaker 1: is the absolute most important thing in the world, and
Speaker 1: the only real important thing in the world. Is that
Speaker 1: we develop these young men and women in such a
Speaker 1: way that they understand how to compete, and they understand
Speaker 1: how to play fair, and they understand that they are
Speaker 1: not going to be defined by the outcome of this.
Speaker 2: Game as you were talking right there. I literally as
Speaker 2: you were saying, it trickles down to the adults in
Speaker 2: youth sports. I literally visualize, you know, watching loup panella,
Speaker 2: you know, going bananas. Yeah, you know. And then you
Speaker 2: say it doesn't happen all the time, But turn on
Speaker 2: social media. You see it doesn't matter the sport. But
Speaker 2: you'll see a baseball coach at a nine YOU game
Speaker 2: or a basketball you know, they Bobby Knight, the fifteen
Speaker 2: year old referee, they're freaking loop Penelli in the twelve
Speaker 2: year old umpire at a seven U game. It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, that's a great point, Like it's not. And
Speaker 2: I interviewed Jim Calhoun and he talked about it. He's like,
Speaker 2: it's not the same. Like we're being coaches at the
Speaker 2: kyle and professional level are being compensated millions of dollars
Speaker 2: and high salaries. There's a lot more at stake. Volunteer
Speaker 2: coaches don't need to mimic the likes of the intensity
Speaker 2: of a final four game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I think it's funny. I'll just bring up
Speaker 1: a an anecdote from a youth game that my son
Speaker 1: played in, and this is actually this is about a
Speaker 1: year and a half ago, so he wasn't even playing
Speaker 1: at this level yet. NCFC has three tiers of football.
Speaker 1: They have REC, which is really just these kids aren't
Speaker 1: all that great or for whatever reason, they didn't have
Speaker 1: the time to devote for the extra practice every other
Speaker 1: week to play at a challenge level, so they're just
Speaker 1: playing REC. They can get on the field, run around,
Speaker 1: kicking soccer ball, and that is purely just you know, fun.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't even matter if they didn't keep score. Sure,
Speaker 1: there's that, and then there's Challenge level, which is the
Speaker 1: middle point between REC and classic. The level kids they're
Speaker 1: not quite good enough to be high level competitive players.
Speaker 1: And for most of his time, jack my son Jack
Speaker 1: was playing at that level. And we were playing a
Speaker 1: match and Jackson keeper and one of his best friends
Speaker 1: was one of our forwards, and a team we were
Speaker 1: playing against the coach was screaming not only at his players,
Speaker 1: but screaming at referees throughout the game, and it took
Speaker 1: about fifteen minutes twenty minutes for this to happen for
Speaker 1: him to get going, and then by the time we
Speaker 1: got to the second half, the other team was screaming
Speaker 1: and yelling at referees. Teams will take on the personality
Speaker 1: of their coach, whoever is in charge of leading them,
Speaker 1: especially at a youth level. It is just an absolute
Speaker 1: guarantee that if the coach behaves poorly on the sideline,
Speaker 1: the players will behave poorly on the field. It is
Speaker 1: a direct I mean, it's immediate, and it is an
Speaker 1: absolute certainty. So predictably, that game got out of hand
Speaker 1: at the end and to the point where parents got involved.
Speaker 1: It was a very ugly scene and it was it
Speaker 1: was shameful to even be a part of it. I
Speaker 1: know this is going to sound like, well, my son
Speaker 1: would never do anything like that. There's no question that
Speaker 1: our team said things to the other team in the
Speaker 1: course of the game, but it definitely began when the
Speaker 1: other team just went absolutely I could not believe we
Speaker 1: went to an eleven midway through the first half. I'm like,
Speaker 1: why are we here? And then they ended up tying
Speaker 1: us in like the last sequence of the game, and
Speaker 1: so our emotions are our players emotions were pretty raw,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden I realized that we have
Speaker 1: a bunch of kids arguing and there was nothing physical
Speaker 1: about it. And then parents got involved. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: what is going on here? But it really began because
Speaker 1: the other coaches decided that. And I think this is
Speaker 1: the way they act. This is just the way they coach.
Speaker 1: And look, it's not that important to get a call.
Speaker 1: It just isn't that at that level, It's not that
Speaker 1: important to get a call. I get you know, when
Speaker 1: we're getting up into really competitive sports, I get it,
Speaker 1: but we weren't at that in challenge. But again, this
Speaker 1: is about the adults also mimicking what they see on television,
Speaker 1: so working the refs, screaming at the refs. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie and say I have questioned a
Speaker 1: call or I have asked a question, what did you
Speaker 1: see here? Why did you say that? Why did you
Speaker 1: do that? But you know at that point, these are
Speaker 1: these are not the best referees in the world. Pretty
Speaker 1: safe to say that many times these are sixteen year
Speaker 1: old boys or girls who are just you know, making
Speaker 1: an extra twenty five dollars on a Saturday, So why
Speaker 1: would we be giving them a hard time? Real quick
Speaker 1: about referees. And I actually wrote this down because I
Speaker 1: thought it was important. I think the most important and
Speaker 1: not just how coaches and players deal with referees. We've
Speaker 1: told our players don't ar don't ever argue with a
Speaker 1: referee a You're not going to change their mind and
Speaker 1: be You're only going to make them mad at you.
Speaker 1: If you want to ask them a question in a
Speaker 1: respectful way. I have no problem with that because I
Speaker 1: think that is helpful to you and them. But the
Speaker 1: referees that we deal with on a regular basis, and
Speaker 1: I'll just use the sport of soccer because that's what
Speaker 1: my son plays. Your primary job or basketball too. Actually
Speaker 1: it works out well. Your primary job as a referee
Speaker 1: is not to call the game. It's to protect the players.
Speaker 1: And we can say, well, you have to get the
Speaker 1: calls right. Sure, we'd like you to get the calls right,
Speaker 1: but again, these are not professional referees. They're going to
Speaker 1: get a lot of calls wrong, and they do, and
Speaker 1: you just deal with it. But games will get out
Speaker 1: of control physically unless the referees do a better job
Speaker 1: of policing it. And that is the only thing that
Speaker 1: I have ever argued with a referee about as when
Speaker 1: I was a coach, is can we please make sure
Speaker 1: that nobody gets hurt here? Because I have seen games
Speaker 1: physical and I'm not even arguing that a foul. It
Speaker 1: could have been just two guys fouling each other.
Speaker 2: Sure right.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that we deserve to call or they
Speaker 1: deserve to call. I'm just saying the way we are
Speaker 1: playing this match is way too physical, and it is
Speaker 1: your job to make sure that nobody gets hurt. That
Speaker 1: is the first job of the referee. So that's the
Speaker 1: only time I have ever yelled with a referee. And
Speaker 1: I actually he was running past me and I said,
Speaker 1: are we going to protect these kids from each.
Speaker 2: Other or no?
Speaker 1: And he looked at me. Up. I'm like, you think
Speaker 1: this is okay, because I don't. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: care who you put call a foul of, but that
Speaker 1: has to stop. Uh So that was my only concern.
Speaker 1: The only time I've ever as a youth referee, as
Speaker 1: a youth coach in soccer, it's the only time I've
Speaker 1: ever yelled at a referee.
Speaker 2: I think that's I mean, I want to say it's
Speaker 2: it's obvious, but I mean it's not. I mean, I love,
Speaker 2: you know, sports, I love the physicality. My sons are wrestlers.
Speaker 2: I mean, they played football. I love hockey. I love
Speaker 2: all you know, I love when things get a little physical,
Speaker 2: but there's a there's a right physical and there's a wrong.
Speaker 2: And I think to your point, and I mean, maybe
Speaker 2: you got to have a little bit of feel, but
Speaker 2: you can kind of sense when things are getting a
Speaker 2: little chippy, you know, when you see a little a
Speaker 2: little extra, you know, And that's kind of I think
Speaker 2: what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: I I mean, soccer is a contact sport. Basketball is
Speaker 1: a contact sport. They are they're contact sports. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of physicality. There's a lot of danger involved in
Speaker 1: playing these sports. Even at the competitive youth level, there
Speaker 1: is a ton of danger involved. I've seen kids, uh
Speaker 1: break bones. I saw a match that we played in.
Speaker 1: It was actually it was a challenging match. It wasn't
Speaker 1: even a classic match. I saw collision on the on
Speaker 1: the field actually involving my son as a goalkeeper, where
Speaker 1: he came out to play a ball and he collided
Speaker 1: with turns out a friend to his uh. And it's
Speaker 1: just an honest, innocent collision. There's gonna it's gonna happen,
Speaker 1: and that kid suffered a separated shoulder and a broken
Speaker 1: classical There are going to be injuries that happened, but
Speaker 1: that didn't happen because the game got too physical. That
Speaker 1: was just a freak. But these are contact sports and uh,
Speaker 1: they just have to be. You just have to monitor
Speaker 1: it and not let it get out of hand, because
Speaker 1: again that that's the first job of youth officials. It's
Speaker 1: to make sure the kids don't get hurt as best
Speaker 1: they can.
Speaker 2: You know, I've heard you talking about this a lot,
Speaker 2: not just you, but I mean it's a nationwide topic
Speaker 2: right now. It's completely changed the landscape of recruiting and
Speaker 2: collegiate sports, the professionalization even you call professionalization of youth
Speaker 2: sports for crying out loud, forget about collegiate I think
Speaker 2: it's been professional for you know, as long as we
Speaker 2: can bring back. But as a radio host journalist, what
Speaker 2: role does the media play in terms of exposure or
Speaker 2: more specifically, in perhaps fueling the exposure and hype around you,
Speaker 2: you know, young athletes who are still developing not just
Speaker 2: as athletes, but maturing as individual people as well, particularly
Speaker 2: when it comes to things like nil. How can the
Speaker 2: media not like, for instance, I give you an example
Speaker 2: you might see in baseball and particular now there was
Speaker 2: a big rule change here recently where collegiate baseball used.
Speaker 2: I mean, you see kids in seventh and eighth grade
Speaker 2: announcing their commitments, and you have some quessanies out there
Speaker 2: that are literally doing like live Instagram. I mean, these
Speaker 2: are I don't want to name them, but they's some
Speaker 2: of the biggest gorillas in the room in travel baseball.
Speaker 2: Having seventh and eighth graders announced on Instagram their commitment
Speaker 2: to accoueage. Well, theoretically, there's nothing binding with that commitment.
Speaker 2: You don't sign a national letter and until you're a senior.
Speaker 2: There's so many kids who commit and then that they
Speaker 2: don't develop and that scholarship goes away. But yet you
Speaker 2: have people in the media fueling the Listen, there's only
Speaker 2: going to be how many Lebron James are going to
Speaker 2: be being called the Chosen One at seventeen years old?
Speaker 2: So how does that help the overall development and their identity?
Speaker 2: And how does the media do you think play the role?
Speaker 2: And maybe the good and the bad of that.
Speaker 1: I think it all comes down to. In my profession,
Speaker 1: I think there's not a lot of honest, like thoughtful
Speaker 1: perspective on things like this. The way what you described
Speaker 1: to me is more of a parental issue than anything else.
Speaker 1: As a parent. You know, let's just pretend that my
Speaker 1: fourteen year old is good enough right now to be
Speaker 1: college is if you want to play here, you've got
Speaker 1: a spot. Well, let's just assume that that's true. Am
Speaker 1: I going to encourage him to go on his Instagram
Speaker 1: account and commit or have some sort of a show. No, man, Like,
Speaker 1: I know too much about life to know that. You know,
Speaker 1: you know what could really change between fourteen and seventeen
Speaker 1: years old. Everything your body could change. You could stop growing,
Speaker 1: you could grow too much, you could grow too much
Speaker 1: in the wrong direction. There's a thousand things that could
Speaker 1: happen to kids that I would never I would never
Speaker 1: encourage them to put themselves out there like that because
Speaker 1: it just I think it's a bad look. And I
Speaker 1: think those types of things are about parenting more than
Speaker 1: they are about anything else. And I'm not going to
Speaker 1: teach anybody how to parent. You do whatever it is
Speaker 1: you want, but I don't. I would not be interested
Speaker 1: in having my son do that. But like all this
Speaker 1: other stuff, in all I mean, it's what they see,
Speaker 1: you know, the high school seniors and with the hat show,
Speaker 1: and you know what those kids have achieved at that level,
Speaker 1: if they want to have a little fun with it,
Speaker 1: and if it's good for their high school and all
Speaker 1: of that, and in some respects it's a life changing thing. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: do I like it? Not? Really? Do I hate it
Speaker 1: to the point where I'm gonna complain about it? Nah,
Speaker 1: they gonna do it. But I do think that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people who do what I do for
Speaker 1: a living that they're looking at it from all right,
Speaker 1: we have to celebrate this because this kid is either
Speaker 1: front by area or coming to school in my area.
Speaker 1: So you're going to play it up. So we're kind
Speaker 1: of feeding the beast. If we didn't want it, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't give it the attention that they are seeking. But
Speaker 1: I do think that we look at these things. I
Speaker 1: literally could care less. I don't follow recruiting at any
Speaker 1: level in any sport. I do not know who any
Speaker 1: of let's just say, dukes in becoming basketball players are.
Speaker 1: If they were sitting in this room with me, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't know who they are. I will figure them out
Speaker 1: when they get on campus in the fall. And I
Speaker 1: will say that about any sport. I just don't know.
Speaker 1: Every time you go up a level, whether it's from
Speaker 1: youth sports to middle school, middle school to high school,
Speaker 1: high school to college, the cone is getting narrower and narrower.
Speaker 1: It's a big code at the bottom. It's an inverse code.
Speaker 1: It's not like an ice cream cone. The further you
Speaker 1: get up, the more narrow it gets. And only the
Speaker 1: best team going up. It's going to get harder and
Speaker 1: harder and harder. And enjoy your youth sports while you can.
Speaker 1: But man, the older you are as you keep playing,
Speaker 1: the more serious it becomes, the more serious the people become.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not a fan of all that,
Speaker 1: but I think it's a parent Pasian.
Speaker 3: When you return, Adam and I discuss why playing sports
Speaker 3: at the youth level is an achievement that should be celebrated.
Speaker 3: Where we left off, Adam and I were about to
Speaker 3: talk about why sports can be a life changing experience
Speaker 3: for kids when coaches prioritized well being over results.
Speaker 2: Just judging by the fact that you said you wouldn't
Speaker 2: know who the uh you know, the top duke recruit
Speaker 2: would be if they were in your office right now,
Speaker 2: I'm guessing you wouldn't know who the top ten you
Speaker 2: nationally ranked kids are in the core. Let's say there
Speaker 2: are nationally ranks.
Speaker 1: Why why are there that?
Speaker 2: Exactly? That's my point.
Speaker 1: Why do we have that?
Speaker 2: Exactly? It's a money grab. That's why.
Speaker 1: Yes, somebody gets paid to rank ten year olds in
Speaker 1: a sport. I'll never, ever, ever in my life understand
Speaker 1: why that's a healthy thing. It just look one of
Speaker 1: the things that I've always believed in. And this goes
Speaker 1: back to my time coaching, and it was I stopped
Speaker 1: coaching last year. I coached my son at a challenge
Speaker 1: soccer team because I had the opportunity to do it,
Speaker 1: and last year was the last year I'm ever going
Speaker 1: to coach. I believe that the kids are so much
Speaker 1: smarter than the adults to them credit. And just to
Speaker 1: go back to the dufus in the state legislature who
Speaker 1: wrote the bill outlawing participation trophies for the lowest level
Speaker 1: of sports, basically because those are the only people who
Speaker 1: give out participation trophies like city leagues. And by the way,
Speaker 1: playing is a level of achievement. Making every practice, making
Speaker 1: every game is a level of achieve especially.
Speaker 2: When seven years old. For crying out loud exactly.
Speaker 1: So the players, the young boys and girls who play,
Speaker 1: they understand how good they are. They understand how good
Speaker 1: the players on their own team are. They get the
Speaker 1: hierarchy of who's good, who's not, who should play more,
Speaker 1: or who should play. They get all of that. We
Speaker 1: don't have to protect them from any of that because
Speaker 1: they get it. I mean, I can't even put a
Speaker 1: figure on it, but I'll just say they are five
Speaker 1: hundred percent more intelligent than adults give them credit. And
Speaker 1: I think we would be much better to stop trying
Speaker 1: to protect them from that and just watch, just watch,
Speaker 1: and if a problem comes up, then we can address it.
Speaker 1: But I think you create more problems by trying to
Speaker 1: prevent a problem that doesn't really exist. I've coached I
Speaker 1: don't know how many years, it's got to be a
Speaker 1: dozen years total in Baltimore City or Raleigh and then
Speaker 1: youth Sucker, not all as the head coach. But I've
Speaker 1: coached probably for ten twelve years. I've had zero Actually, no,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say zero. I've had one parent problem one
Speaker 1: and it's because I was coaching Baseball City and after
Speaker 1: our first practice, I had all players and all of
Speaker 1: their parents around me, and I was saying, I have
Speaker 1: one ground rule, and this ground rule is not for
Speaker 1: the players in front of me. The ground rule is
Speaker 1: only for the parents. Do not coach your kids. Don't please,
Speaker 1: I'm begging you. Don't coach your kids while we are
Speaker 1: at practice or while we are at a game. If
Speaker 1: they're doing what I have asked them to do right,
Speaker 1: then let them do that. Do not tell them to
Speaker 1: do something, because who may be telling them to do
Speaker 1: something that I have asked not to do or I
Speaker 1: am not telling them to do. I want you, as parents,
Speaker 1: I'm taking all the pressure off you. Come watch your
Speaker 1: son play, enjoy it, and be there for them if
Speaker 1: they have questions. I've told every single player if there
Speaker 1: is a problem with anything I am doing or singing
Speaker 1: to you, please tell me you're not going to hurt
Speaker 1: my feelings. I want to know if you are okay.
Speaker 1: I want all of you to have fun. I want
Speaker 1: all of you to be happy. And I have one
Speaker 1: parent who didn't like the fact that I told turn
Speaker 1: not to coach her kid and she had two boys
Speaker 1: on my team, and I said, if that is a
Speaker 1: problem for you, and you would like to have them,
Speaker 1: move to another team. I will call the league and
Speaker 1: will get them switched. I have no problem with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize at the time that one of her
Speaker 1: sons would ultimately be my best player and the other son.
Speaker 1: And they were not twins, but they were born in
Speaker 1: the same year, so they played at the same level.
Speaker 1: One was like in eighth grade, the other was in
Speaker 1: seventh grade.
Speaker 2: Perish twins or something like that.
Speaker 1: Right, the eighth grader was my best player. The seventh
Speaker 1: grader was my smartest player. And I still I still
Speaker 1: have a relationship with that kid who was in the
Speaker 1: seventh grade then today. I still communicate with him. This
Speaker 1: is twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: So he is married, he's got kids. I still talk
Speaker 1: with him today. Needless to say, they didn't leave the team.
Speaker 1: They told their mother coach is right, you just need
Speaker 1: to sit and watch. She did not like me from
Speaker 1: that moment, but her boys. She allowed her boys to play.
Speaker 1: I never had a problem with her, but she also
Speaker 1: really didn't say another word to me for the balance
Speaker 1: of that season. But the parents need to stop being
Speaker 1: coaches on the field. I see it every game. I
Speaker 1: gold every single game. You just have to shut up
Speaker 1: let the coaches coach. If the coaches are not good,
Speaker 1: they're not supposed to be good. They're not paid, they're
Speaker 1: just parents for the most part. But we're doing the
Speaker 1: best we can. I don't know a soccer ball. I
Speaker 1: don't know if a soccer ball is blown up or stuffed,
Speaker 1: but I know kids. I know. My job was to
Speaker 1: manage the emotions of what at that point, depending on
Speaker 1: the age, twelve, thirteen or fourteen year old kids. I
Speaker 1: wasn't coaching them in soccer, right. I have an older
Speaker 1: son who played. He actually did the technical coaching. It
Speaker 1: was my job just to make sure everybody was in
Speaker 1: a good headspace. That was what I did. I think
Speaker 1: that's my best skill as a coach, to recognize when
Speaker 1: kids needed, uh, just kind of a mental break, or
Speaker 1: when kids need to be told, look, you're you can't
Speaker 1: do this. You're hurting them, You're hurting your teammates. Uh,
Speaker 1: they all want to be they all want to be
Speaker 1: good teammates. That's what I found is that the if
Speaker 1: you have, if you have good players, they generally all
Speaker 1: want to have all want to be good teammates. I
Speaker 1: think I rambled. I'm not even sure it made me
Speaker 1: sense there.
Speaker 2: I love it, especially the teammate part. But I want
Speaker 2: to finish with this. I mean, considering your longtime involvement
Speaker 2: in sports, what positives and negatives do you see in
Speaker 2: the youth sports experience today? And what do you want
Speaker 2: for your son or your kids in their youth sports experience.
Speaker 1: Uh, that's that is a great, great question. Problem I
Speaker 1: see in youth sports is unfortunately, like everything else in life,
Speaker 1: it's become a money grab. For instance, and this is
Speaker 1: not Germane too NCFCU because I see it in every
Speaker 1: single goal club that pops up, and it gets back
Speaker 1: to a parental problem. If a kid is not good
Speaker 1: enough to play classic level soccer, somehow the parents feel like,
Speaker 1: how can we we're as good as that player. You
Speaker 1: might be. The evaluation process is not foolproof, but there's
Speaker 1: not spots for everybody. But what those what the clubs
Speaker 1: will do is that they will create another level of
Speaker 1: team and every As a matter of fact, in the
Speaker 1: last year, two clubs that didn't have a third or
Speaker 1: a fourth team created one because there was a demand
Speaker 1: by parents who wanted to get their kids into classic soccer. Essentially,
Speaker 1: they're glorified challenge teams where they're just not good enough
Speaker 1: and that's it's okay, not everybody is good enough. What
Speaker 1: we're doing is we're kind of inflating their sense of well,
Speaker 1: how good we are and don't I don't think that's
Speaker 1: fair to to the kids. But it's really about how
Speaker 1: much money can we get out of parents. Youth sports
Speaker 1: are too expensive to begin with, and then we get
Speaker 1: into that. So that's the problem I have with youth sports.
Speaker 1: It's ultimately about making money. I want for my son
Speaker 1: whatever he wants to get out of it, So it's
Speaker 1: not about what I want. Look, what I would love
Speaker 1: is for him to be good enough to get some
Speaker 1: scholarship money to go to school. But if he wants
Speaker 1: to take soccer beyond high school, then that's what I
Speaker 1: want for him. I want him to be able to
Speaker 1: do that. I want him to I mean, at one
Speaker 1: point he was like, I'm going right to Arsenal's academy.
Speaker 1: Of course you are, But you know, I just want
Speaker 1: him to be able to get everything he can out
Speaker 1: of it, and I'm going to help him do that
Speaker 1: to a point. I'm not going to baby him about it.
Speaker 1: But here, this is work that needs to be done,
Speaker 1: We'll get evaluated. They'll tell you what you need to
Speaker 1: improve on, and then it's up to you. Mean, part
Speaker 1: of it is up to them. How hard are they
Speaker 1: willing to work? And that has to be told. It
Speaker 1: can't do the work for them. So I mean, I
Speaker 1: was a very competitive youth athlete. I was a very
Speaker 1: good baseball player, but I wasn't willing to do what
Speaker 1: was necessary to continue beyond high school. And that was
Speaker 1: my own fault. I do regret that, but okay, that's fine.
Speaker 1: I got through it. I'll help him understand what he
Speaker 1: needs to do through the help of the people who
Speaker 1: really know what he needs to do to get better.
Speaker 1: The positive of it of youth sports is when the
Speaker 1: adults handle it properly, it is a life changing experience
Speaker 1: for the kids. And if the experience is positive, it
Speaker 1: does not matter what the end game is. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if these kids go on to play high school
Speaker 1: or college or they just develop a love for what
Speaker 1: they do and they play adult rec league later on
Speaker 1: in life. As long as the kids have a positive experience,
Speaker 1: that's the only thing that matters. And I will tell
Speaker 1: you this my most gratifying thing. I've one quick thing
Speaker 1: to say about coaches, And then I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: my most gratifying thing as a coach. Coaches have to
Speaker 1: make sure at the youth level to have it not
Speaker 1: be about you. There are a lot of coaches that
Speaker 1: want to win, and let me tell you, I have
Speaker 1: never gotten enjoyment out of winning. The enjoyment I get
Speaker 1: is watching the kids. And I'm an emotional person to
Speaker 1: begin with. But we won a soccer tournament, our last
Speaker 1: hurrah as a club last May, and it was the
Speaker 1: first time in three years because of the pandemic that
Speaker 1: we had traveled as a team in stayed in a
Speaker 1: hotel and the kids got to play in the pool
Speaker 1: when they weren't playing soccer, because that's what it's all about.
Speaker 2: Is there an indoor pool.
Speaker 1: Nobody cares about anything else. And I couldn't keep it
Speaker 1: together emotionally. Had nothing to do with the fact that
Speaker 1: we want and had only to do with the fact
Speaker 1: that they had a blast. They accomplished something that they
Speaker 1: tried to do, and they did it as a complete team.
Speaker 1: Everybody played, everybody contributed. I pointed out something that you
Speaker 1: did positively in the game to help us win. It
Speaker 1: got very emotional for me because I saw what it
Speaker 1: meant for them. I don't care whether my team wins
Speaker 1: or loses a game as a youth coach, that's not
Speaker 1: the job. The job is to make the experience positive
Speaker 1: for kids. And if you do that right, I mean,
Speaker 1: you might win by accident, Yeah right, I mean that's fine,
Speaker 1: and I'd rather win than lose, because they'd rather win
Speaker 1: than lose. But my interaction the relationships I still have
Speaker 1: with every parent other than that woman back in the day,
Speaker 1: that that I've encountered and I've developed friendships with, and
Speaker 1: I still see a lot of the players because you
Speaker 1: know my son, you know, you come across each other
Speaker 1: down the road at different levels. It's just it's it's
Speaker 1: heartwarming to know that the experience was good and that
Speaker 1: the kids grew of it, and you can see when
Speaker 1: you see kids get better or you see kids really
Speaker 1: enjoy each other and being teammates and developing friendships. It's
Speaker 1: the greatest thing in the world because you feel like
Speaker 1: you're actually having a positive impact on who they are.
Speaker 1: I don't miss the time that it took to be
Speaker 1: a coach. It's not just the practices and the matches
Speaker 1: and all of that, but it's the headspace that you
Speaker 1: use in preparing for practices and matches and the decompressing.
Speaker 1: I don't miss that time. I'm glad I have that
Speaker 1: back because I don't have enough time in the day
Speaker 1: to do everything I want to do anyway. But I
Speaker 1: absolutely miss being around, you know, the thirteen of the
Speaker 1: fourteen year old kids and watching them grow as players
Speaker 1: and kids and being around and seeing them interact. I
Speaker 1: mean that it was That's what I got out of it.
Speaker 1: It had nothing to do with win. We had plenty
Speaker 1: of years where we didn't win and I still had
Speaker 1: a good time doing it. So it's really about that.
Speaker 1: But you got to make it positive for them. The
Speaker 1: kids are smart enough to understand and if there's a
Speaker 1: participation trophy at the end, if they participated, that's an achievement.
Speaker 1: That's an accomplishment, and that state centator can go stuff it.
Speaker 2: Adam freaking Gold, I love listening to you. Where can
Speaker 2: they connect with you?
Speaker 1: I am available on Twitter at a gold fan if
Speaker 1: they want to hit me up there. I don't do
Speaker 1: the other forms of social media, but you can also
Speaker 1: reach me on You can send me an email a
Speaker 1: goldfanat me dot com.
Speaker 2: I love it man. Well, I appreciate your time. I
Speaker 2: can't wait to listen to you later. Big fan for
Speaker 2: a long long time, and I can't thank enough for
Speaker 2: coming on and sharing.
Speaker 1: Nick. Thank you very much. I appreciate that a lot.
Speaker 1: Thanks for reaching out, it was an honor.
Speaker 3: That's Adam Gold, longtime sportscaster and former youth sports coach.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Reform Sports Project podcast. Dominick
Speaker 2: Bonacor and Our goal is to restore a healthy balance
Speaker 2: and perspective in all areas of sports through education and advocacy.
Speaker 2: For updates, please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram,
Speaker 2: or check out our website by searching for the Reform
Speaker 2: Sports Project