1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Former UFC Fighter Anthony "Lionheart" Smith on Coaching Young People: August 1st, 11:45am

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

Former UFC Fighter Anthony "Lionheart" Smith on Coaching Young PeopleAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You're listening to One-on-One with DP, sponsored by Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul, on 937 The Ticket and the Ticket FM.com. From the text line, Timmy V says, as the father of 11-year-old girl wrestler, I appreciate your observations of wrestling tournaments. We just expect her to be a good teammate and push her to learn from her losses. Hey, kids that feel like their dad, feel like they let their dad down by losing. all vital. Eric says as an informer,

I absolutely agree with what you're saying. It's important, right? That, that, the parenting aspect, if it is a priority, you have to know what the priority is. Like there are too many wrestling parents where wrestling is the priority. No, you're young people.

The priority, that's just a view. Yeah, 100%. And it's funny, we were talking about coaching earlier and how I don't want to coach fighters. So I help coach the club club program where Adley wrestles. And it's, it's just such, like, I don't know what they think the priority is.

Like, I don't understand, like, you'll have parents come up and they'll say, well, he's just not figuring it out. Well, he's not supposed to. This is really hard. This is really hard. So when he's listening to you at home, say, I don't know why you can't figure it out. And, like, the goal and the priority for me is to not win. It's never winning.

Are you working on the things that we worked on in practice? are you attempting it? Are you giving max effort? And then are we adjusting if we lose. We're going to have a little kumbaya session and we're going to talk about it. But you have to wrestle in 30 minutes. So like I really need you as a parent to shut up.

And just let me fix what we did wrong. And then we're going to go run out there again in 30 minutes. And we're going to figure it out and see if we could fix that. Like I never coached them to say like when Adley's going. I'm never saying I need you do this and then this and then this. and then turn her and then pin her and then win. It's not it at all. Hey, why don't we work that sweep single?

That's it. What are we working on? I don't really care about anything else. What are we working on? She goes out and hits the sweep single. She gets a take down and then gets pinned after that. That's a win for me. What did you do right?

It's a win for me. What do you need to work on? It's all the stuff like it. And I do the, it's the one part of coaching that I truly miss is the ability to negate the negative. Like to turn the negative. Listen, what did you learn? Right.

What did you learn? you're not supposed to get it all right. Like I don't have all the answers. I'm never going to have a half with the answer. And I also say the parents, I call them all together and I say, listen, I'm the coach.

Just like I'm not going to go to your house and critique your parenting. Don't come here and critique the coaching. Right. Let us lead. That literally is what we're doing and why we're doing it. We're trying to help you young people.

But I'm not coming. Look, if I'm not invited to your house to, Hey, Tim, terrible decision there. Terrible decision, mom. That was a terrible decision. If I can't do that at your house, don't do it to me. Right. And like, you'll even see a lot of the other coaches sometimes.

Like, we'll be at these big tournaments. And they'll come up to me and they go, how'd you do today, coach? I don't know. I'll tell you when they're in high school. Like today is, today doesn't matter. Not saying, it's not saying I don't care. Of course, I want them to win everything. But can you imagine being judged by who you were at, at that?

age? It's crazy. It's crazy to me. What are we talking about? Like, 12-year-old you wouldn't even listen. Wouldn't believe. We're not even talking about 12-year-olds, DP. We're talking about, we're talking about fourth, fifth, and maybe six graders. Maybe we start getting in middle schools, but like, most of the kids I coach are young. They're like around my kids age. A little bit older, a couple, a little bit younger, but I just don't, I, it's a whole bunch of people. that have no idea what it's like to compete at a high level. None of this, it's a bunch of parents that are living vicariously through their kids.

And you're never going to get a scholarship. Your nine-year-old is not going to get a scholarship offer. No. Based on defeating Timmy from across the street. Even, let's just imagine that Timmy has won Fargo and Vegas and all these huge tournaments at 8, 9, 10, 11 years old. That doesn't mean he's going to be good in high school.

It doesn't, because all the kids he's been smashed. who were being normal kids, riding their bike, going to the pool, enjoying their summers. But he's just got to head up on them now. You're going to slow down at some point. I remind them. And then they're going to catch up and you guys are going to end up in high school exactly the same.

I will remind them. And he may be burned out. There's a young Anthony Lionheart Smith who is not in that gym currently waiting for your son. Right. He is waiting. Anthony is doing some other stuff. The dude, you really got.

Don't worry about is Anthony. Not Lil Timmy from across the street. Balance is a real thing. Kids have to be kids. Kids have to be kids. Man. We'll toward the break. Second hour, we've got to say thank you to some folks.

We'll do that when we come back. We'll talk about his other two young. He's mentioned that we need to go into detail. We'll talk about the upcoming UFC cars. We'll talk about what's happening in Husker football and get him all excited. And I will remind you, the beauty of Anthony Lahn-Harsmith is that we are never going to cover everything in a sit-down that we want to cover. That's just not how it works And that's why I'm excited about it.

D.P. Anthony Lahn-Harsmith, Bach. We'll be right back.