Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - Was Becoming an Olympian Worth It? Shawn Gets Honest

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

We absolutely loved this interview with Shawn's parents where they open up like never before about Shawn's journey from small-town kid to Olympic gold medalist- and now, mother herself. In this conversation, Shawn and her parents share what her childhood was really like, the parenting style that shaped her competitive drive, the sacrifices her family made, and what it felt like growing up under pressure. We also talk about how that's affected our current parenting style, what they would have changed if they could, and if they had any regrets with her early on career. ALSO we are going on TOUR!! please come meet us and pre-order our book if you haven't already! We love you guys!Love, Shawn & Andrewif you want to preorder, meet us or get access to all the bonus content before launch day, head to https://thecouragetocommit.com/ NOBL gives you real travel peace of mind — security, design, and convenience all in one. Head to https://NOBLTravel.com for up to 46% off your entire order. for more details, head to https://goodwipes.com/EASTFAM to snag a free pack of goodwipes from Walmart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody. Welcome back to a couple things. With Sean and Andrew. Today I'm so excited for this interview. It is probably one of my favorites, and I think you guys will love it. We actually interview my parents. It's so cool. I saw a video about someone discussing how their parents raised them, and I thought it would be

fascinating to get Sean and her parents sat down to discuss how do you raise an Olympian. So it's going to be a fascinating conversation, and we hope you enjoy it. Also, our book is coming out June 9th. So if you're listening to this before then, please pre-order it. We're doing a bunch of fun things before launch. We're doing Zoom calls with y'all. We have a bunch of extra content that we're doing early access to chapters. And that's for people who pre-order it.

If you're thinking about ordering the book ever, please order it now. It actually really helps us out if you pre-order it rather than wait until the launch day. Don't ask me why. It's very complicated. But if you pre-order, it really helps us. And also as part of the book launch, we're out here in Los Angeles doing a bunch of press, which has been fun, I think, for both of us. And we're also doing a book tour.

We're going to be in four cities. We're going to be in Philadelphia, Nashville, Chicago, and New York City, not in that order. But if you want to learn more, then we'll link it down below. It's The Courage to Commit.com. You can find a tour button. And without further ado. My parents. Doug and Terry Johnson, aka Mama and Papa Jay.

This is a highly requested episode. It is. For those listening, we actually did an interview with you guys a couple years ago. and then that interview got lost from the cyberspace. Kind of. We're taking a different angle. We have to redo the interview that got lost, which is how you guys met,

your marriage story, all the lovey, mushy, gushy stuff because you got married at 16. But this one, everybody wants to know how to raise an Olympic athlete. All the hacks, the tricks and tips.

Yeah. What do you feed? What do you feed? baby to make him an Olympian. That's a secret. Sean ate pancakes for every day until she was, what, nine? Our kids are following in those footsteps pretty well. Literally.

Pancakes every single morning. So you think it's because of pancakes? Probably. Absolutely. And it was actually a bowl of syrup with a little bit of pancakes. Oh, that's the best way to do it. We talk about this a lot on our podcast. We've actually been on quite a few podcasts to talk about parenting and athletics.

today. Because as you guys have seen and as you guys get asked all the time, parents believe they can make it happen. As long as they find the right coach, they move to the right place, they put in enough hours, they feed their kid the right thing and go to the right school, then it's just a no-brainer. They'll go to the

Olympics or they'll make it to the NFL or they'll be successful and go to Harvard or Yale. You proved everybody wrong because I like did everything I could to sabotage your career. Because I wanted you home. Mm-hmm. I missed you. And I just kind of, I mean, at first, it was, it wasn't that way. It was just when it started getting bigger. I just felt like it was too big and too heavy and you were too little to carry all that. Mm-hmm. I remember Brenda Levis commenting to me, you know, and this was years in.

Who was our neighbor? Yes. And she was like, Terry, I never realized when you were just sitting there in the driveway that you didn't have your child there when all the others were running around playing. Interesting. Yeah, so I missed you. Do you think you can hack your way to kids' success? I really don't.

I think it's, you'll find out sooner or later. I know there probably are things that you can do, but if they're not enjoying it, not, then I don't think there's anything you can do. I think the most important thing to your child's success is accommodating them, giving them the opportunity to do whatever it is that might be their thing. but then I think no pressure. Less pressure is what allows the child to decide if it's that big deal to them or not.

I think from what I understand about how y'all raised Sean, it's interesting. First of all, like only child, daughter, y'all have a wonderful relationship. Very spoiled. Yeah. You guys FaceTime constantly. It's a bit annoying,

about that later. Even though I see each other every day, still FaceTime me in the morning. But you mentioned do what you can to give them an opportunity, your kids an opportunity to find their thing or to do their thing. And I know you guys made massive sacrifices. I could start the list. You guys can finish it, but I know that he's up early in the morning, late at night, doing snow plow, just to like, you know, have a second job because gymnastics is not a cheap sport and I think what parents kind of get confused about is oh I'm sacrificing because we're going to the soccer tournaments every weekend for three weekends and it's like I that's a set I'm making the sacrifice I just feel like y'all's sacrifice was a little more undirectional it was more like blank

like hey we're doing this so that you can have an opportunity we're not forcing you down this specific opportunity you know that makes sense it does and I mean I can I can I can say this as genuinely as, I mean, 100%, I never felt like I sacrificed anything. Because what we did that we ended up having to sacrifice for, and that was just monetarily, but we went so that we could be with her and so that we could be there to support her in case she needed us outside of her supportive realm, you know, at competitions. I just always wanted her to know that if she needed us, we were there. And we got the benefit of, you know, traveling, which we would never have done. I mean, traveling to us was going to Omaha from

Des Moines. And it grew. But it was, I never. felt like I sacrificed anything. I think we just kind of worked hard to accommodate what was necessary to keep it moving. Yeah. I mean, and for the fact that, you know, we had one child, I can't imagine having more. And, you know, one's going to lose. out one way or the other. No, because we have you guys. Yeah. No kids are ever going to lose out, okay?

It's my worst fear. We're seeing that in our kids, as you guys see clearly. But I get so torn with, I have such incredible belief in our children. They could do anything that they want. They could be anything that they want. It can sound so incredibly unreasonable. And they can still make it happen. And so I feel like we're at a place with our kids

where it's like, Jet, I want to race motocross. Okay. Let me figure out how to do that. And we figure it out. And each of our kids has so many, like, fleeting passions that they're wanting to do. And I feel like what we are doing right now, which is catering to all of their interests.

You want to try this and that and this. We signed you up for a whole year and you didn't like it. So now I got to don't get a refund. for that, we'll move on to the next thing, whatever. Each kid has their own passions, and they're juggling through them. Whereas a lot of people are doing the exact opposite. They have bought so heavily all in on one sport already at the age of four, five, six, seven. They're making every single t-ball game. They're making every flag football game. They're doing extra training. They're doing summer camps. This is just daughter asking mom and dad, what do you believe is the way to go?

Do you just let them jump Until something sticks on their own? Do we need to enforce? You don't quit You gotta stay the whole year, we bought it Or do you say You didn't like it You don't have to go back tomorrow

You're tired, you can skit Like I don't have a recollection of that No, I think there's a point There were quitting You know is not always the greatest thing, but I think you know

whether it's okay for him to quit or her to quit. And, but I still think you try to, you know, because at certain ages, they don't know what is right for them, but I mean, if you absolutely see that they're not having a good time, then yeah, pull them out for a while. I feel like recently, probably in the past month, our kids have taken up new unique ventures, motocross, rock climbing, all these things.

But then they're also, they've been committed to t-ball and softball, and they have so many games. So many, like an unreasonable amount of games. Double-headers at the age of four. Didn't know that was possible. And I don't know if this is right parenting on my part, but we have skipped 75% of them. We didn't last year. That was new this year. Last year, we made everyone and we made a point of it. And this year, I was like, they want to stay home and play.

Let's just let them play. But also, if you think about this, is my realization. Drew's going to get three at bats at that hour and a half long game. And zero ground balls hit her way because no one's hitting that far. So why don't we just play ball in the yard where she can just swing 80? times as opposed to three and i could throw her ground balls and oh you want to talk about like development and improving or whatever skills it's like maybe maybe she just play at home i don't know yeah i mean back when i was that age for uh middle school high school i mean it took up to then for most people

back in my day to you know say well okay I want to be a professional football player I want to play hockey but you know nowadays I think things are a little earlier than that. A lot earlier

a lot younger. It's funny because I remember on our Olympic team back in the day hearing Alicia Sacrimony's story who her story was she didn't start gymnastics until 6, 7, 8 and people People thought this was the craziest story ever heard in gymnastics.

She started so late. And now as a parent, I'm like, are you kidding? Do we have to choose for them that early? Right. But it is an interesting thing about our three kids. They have different appetites of desires, or their intensity of passions is focalized way different. You know, Drew is way quieter about her passions.

Jed is like, feed the beast, you know. And everyone knows he loves motorcycles. That's all he wants to talk about. But I'm curious. I heard one high school coach talk about how there's like this push-pull dynamic. And it's the parent's job to like foster, oh shoot. It's not push-pull. It's like the parent's job to love and then the coach's job to push.

But if the parents are pushing, then the coaches, he was saying he'll counteract that by like trying to love the kid. What was the dance like as far as Sean's passion with gymnastics? Was it like more of a jet? She loved gymnastics. She always talked about it more, more, more. Or was it more of a quiet type exploration? You know, back to all the different variety of opportunities that are out there for littles.

And there's more today than there were for you. but we kind of threw you into everything. Just because we didn't know what you were going to like. And to me it's just what you kept wanting to go back to is then how we started funneling it or trimming it down or whatever. But I think it just had a good amount of risk. for her because she was really interested in like that adrenaline stuff. But what was it like that?

What was that process like? I'm thinking about this in our parenting with our kids. Was it, hey, do you want to go back to gymnastics, Sean? Or was it Sean coming to you guys and saying, I want to go back to gymnastics? Or was it, hey, now we've tried everything? I think it was her, you know, like, I want to do this again. I can't wait to go back.

You know, that kind of thing. Yeah. Where there was others, she was just like, she was gone before the half hour was up. That sounds like Sean. That sounds like Sean. Yeah, I made up much. Which was soccer.

I really hated soccer. You know, when you were three, four, I mean, you were there playing. I mean, it was not, you know, and then as years went by, you started learning things that, you know, gymnastics that wanted you to go back the next day because, you know, I just, mom, I just learned the kip. So there's things like that that got you back into it. We get asked this a lot, or I get out, which is like, how often did I go?

How many privates did I do? How many, like, whatever? So from the age of like three to six, how many activities were you introducing and how many things was I doing? Maybe three or four, but not weekly. Yeah. Because, you know, like ballet, you wanted to wear the little thing,

but you did not want to go back and stand in line and not do anything. It was just not for you. And then soccer, you just ran off the field. Like, I'm done with this. So, I mean, there were several that we knew right away. Yeah. What?

It's kind of like jet. Yeah. Running straight off the T-ball field? Like, no, I'm done. Yeah. I'm over. You do that at soccer, too. Yeah.

At what? What? Well, it's just interesting. I'm trying to balance this parental approach where it's like, there's kind of this idea. of, I need to teach them. I know better than them. And like, I think people misapply that to athletics where it's like, oh, jet rain off the field.

I need to teach him, go back in and do the thing. You know what I'm saying? And it's like the weird parenting thing applied to forcing someone else's passion in some ways, you know? I think the parenting thing doesn't have to deal with athletics. I mean, I've always kind of. felt like, you know, if you teach them, you take your turn, you don't jump in front of somebody else, you don't, it kind of, you know, those kinds of things that you teach or guide a child through apply then to athletics or schoolwork or, you know, life.

Now, Sean's coach, even from an early, early age, had just stressed to us so firmly that gymnastics would help form her into an excellent human student. And, I mean, he spelled it out so differently than what I saw her doing. You know, she was just out there flitting about. So I think part of it gets taken out of your hands. But still, I think you have to give the little person a foundation of right and wrong, good and bad. And then let them apply it to their activity. We're hitting this with Drew. already, just like age-wise, not specific to her.

But in my sports, raising me, at what point do you push them to go back? So I come home, I've had a hard day, and I say, I don't want to go tomorrow. Or a week goes by and the next class is available, you know, where it's our time. I don't want to go. I haven't all time. What did you do? you didn't go. And, you know, and then, you know, a week later, you wanted to go back.

Why did you believe in that? Because it's very anti-culture right now. Mm-hmm. It's what we do. I'm like, I don't care. I think it just wasn't that important to us. I don't want to sound, you know, but you are our life. Mm-hmm.

we wanted to make sure you did what you wanted to do. And, you know, we had nothing in it to, you know, for you to become an Olympic champion. We just, you know, college was always, you know, on our minds as far as, you know, we got to make sure, you know, we save up enough money that she can go to college. And so, I mean, it was long into your gymnastics career that we knew you were going somewhere. And whether it was college or Olympics. When did you feel like it became apparent, the difference in skills? When people at the venues and stuff would tell us? us.

You know, even the guys, even the people putting it on said, you know, there's our next Olympic champion. And we heard that a lot. And that gets you thinking when you hear it from everybody. You remember, Mama Jay? Specifically, it was when you were eight at regionals. Remember that? Well, that was a huge deal, huge deal.

And it was then that I thought, wow. Why? Wow. Just because it was beyond just the local meets that we had ever gone to and stuff, you saw a competition that you hadn't seen before, and you were just like really that good. And you won, everything, came home with a bunch of metals and flowers. That's, you know.

Go ahead. I was just going to say, going back to a lot of the stuff we just talked about, things that I remember, which I, I mean, I ask you all the time when Jet doesn't want to go back to T-ball or Drew doesn't want to do rock climbing or whatever, when they fell in love with it the week before and now they're not.

We're constantly like, I would rather you stay home. Right. I want to play with you. I want to sit and cuddle and watch a movie. I want to cook dinner. I want to sit around the kitchen table. Like, selfishly, I don't care. But I have said this.

more times in my career that in whatever way you did it, with whatever motive there was, I always knew you didn't, you cared more about me than you cared about the sport. Whatever sport it was I was doing. And that gave me almost a superpower because it felt like it was mine and it wasn't yours. And you see it on the fields every day here

where it is the parent, sport that the kid is participating in. It's the parents' medal that they're trying to get. It's the parents' like title. It's the parent's scholarship. Whether they say it is or not, but the parent is so much more bought in than the kid ever will be.

And if you start that way, I don't think you can ever get past it. Because then the kid is trying to earn love by performance rather than knowing it's innate. And it's funny with our kids because we're so we're doing a lot very differently

with our kids than a lot of our friends but it's just like yeah we signed up for the whole season we're not going to make probably 13 out of the 20 games sorry why our kid doesn't want to go today that's it

but there are things that we're unflinching on just to just to clarify when it comes to well no certain activities like yes yes character included but like church. For sure. If they're like, I don't want to go, then it's like, no, we're going to go.

But I'm just trying to differentiate the priorities of, for us, a four-year-old baseball game is not high up on the list of priorities. Yeah. If they're... And they don't have an option with, like, school. And it'll change as they age. It just does seem like it's a fragile dynamic, that intrinsic passion, feeling like the parents are fostering that, as opposed to the extrinsic, like, trying to force something on it.

And even the way Coach Chow coached you is more about the intrinsic, like, values and the character and not the extrant. And I think that portrays itself in a lot of different ways, like, are you working on the fundamentals of the sport and make sure that you're dialed in with that? Or are you trying to fast forward and, like, compromising technique to try to just throw the bigger skill?

It's more, like, I feel like Chow is more preserving of the, intrinsic type, important fundamentals and foundation as opposed to the, let's just try to get through everything as quick as possible. But anyway. Real quick, back to what you were saying. Now, Daddy probably doesn't remember a lot of that, but I had more dealings with the moms and stuff, you know, and I don't know how many times somebody would say, you know, like after

Pan American games or, you know, big things. really big things. Would you reward her with? Reward her? Yeah. Because a lot of the moms, you know, they'd be like they, they lured them with like the newest Nike shoe was, she could go buy it if, you know, she got a medal. And I'm like, and then I got to feeling like really bad.

No. Because, well, no, you'd come home from, well, you came home from worlds, winning. And we just went to dinner I mean We didn't have a big celebration Or you know We were just happy to have you back home But it's weird

People do it different We went to fudruckers Like what? We went to fudruckers after every competition I just wanted a really juicy, greasy, greasy burger But But I think it just just goes to show that you weren't placing value on it.

Like there was excitement. Good job. Proud. I got to see like your, I was just as, I was very proud. And then to be able to celebrate that pride with you guys or with Chow and stuff was really cool.

But I didn't need a reward. But you guys, along with Chow, always raised me in gymnastics to not value the medals. it was always like the effort and like getting there and trying hard and we never talked about the competition afterwards it wasn't like oh how did you feel it was we were talking about pancakes at perkins and going swimming in the hotel pool and right yeah playing hide and seek in hotels and I don't yeah it was just for fun and I think we're starting to feel that even with our kids is like

how much do you celebrate their passions and talk about it? How much do you focus on it? How much effort do you put into it? Or do you just like let them drive it? Well, let them have, I mean, you just want them to have joy in what they're doing. Okay, can we have a very real conversation for a second? Once you switch to Goodwipes, regular toilet paper just does not hit the same anymore. It's one of those things where you try them once and immediately,

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And, you know, they'd say, do it this way, this way. And, you know, it took you a little bit, but you stayed focused. So another question that I feel like people would be curious about is there were multiple times in my career, it's weird to say career too in my hobby of gymnastics as a kid where you guys intentionally slowed me down or held me back. Sabotage. No. But why? And I don't say, also I want to clarify, I don't say why, like how dare you? It was a gift.

I left my sport loving it. Also, in what ways are you talking about slowing down? Thanks. Well, I remember Chow just, he was just flabbergasted. He said, you're the first parent who's ever asked me to hold her back instead of accelerating her. There were multiple opportunities where my coaches would come to them and say, I'm ready to go up a level. I'm ready to add more hours. I'm ready to.

I surpassed my age group a few times and so the next step would mean me as a eight-year-old being put with the 12-year-olds or there are multiple times of these where they would present this to them and they would say no. We're not adding more hours. She's not moving up.

She's not going to be in a class with a different age. But my question is within the parenting role back then, why? We didn't see the reason to push you. I mean, you were having fun doing what you were at, and we just didn't see any reason.

I mean, it felt like it was unnecessary pressure, you know, that, and when, how could you, I don't know, I worried about you being with not girls your own age, You know And Chow was just always like She's just having fun And then you know

I remember us telling him at one point You know You have to make her Want to be here Because we won't Ever And But he was

He was all about the fun of it I think He was I mean from what I witnessed From what I experienced Except for the stretches Well, yeah, there was there was some training that was kind of questionable. Was there a lot of friction between you two and chow?

Never. Really? I feel like that's pretty rare too. I mean, it's like, no, and you know, if we would, if I would go in and not have you with me and it was a gym day and he would know something was up, you know. And I would just say, I just don't, I don't think. she should be here today, you know, mentally or whatever. He'd be like, that's fine. See how she is tomorrow.

When you said, I don't think she should be here, was that a conversation you and Sean had or it was a... I think just more when I saw her showing stress or emotion, which that wasn't her. I just felt like she needed a break or, you know, just not to go today. But I was just not good about stuff like that. If she woke up super just beaten, tired, and I'd say, let's just stay out today. Let's go shopping today.

I don't think that's... Oh, I know, but it's... But I also think you keep positioning it as I wasn't good about that. I think it's the exact opposite. I think people sacrificed the well-being of children anymore for to pound in this idea of you committed. You went to it. You're disciplined.

You can't skip. It's, you know, I mean. Well, it just sounds so obvious that, like, you guys had a great job of being an advocate on behalf of your daughter as opposed to, like, an advocate for the team or for the performance or the, accomplishments that could be done. And it's like you weren't scared to have the awkward conversation with Chow about Sean's not going to be here today and here's why.

And I don't know. It's kind of cool to hear. And we wrote this whole book on the courage to commit. And I feel like the difference is it's like you can't commit on behalf of somebody else. You know, you can't commit someone to doing something else really. But I also see if you want to relate it to the book, their commitment to parenting was flawless. as far as... Commitment to you.

Yeah. Their commitment to you. Because in today's world and back then, there were so many voices and it got louder and louder and louder and it got a lot harder to have your voice in it. It started with teachers and then it started, it became with coaches and then it became with agents and head coaches of the United States and then the Olympic teams and, and, it got to be so loud where through everything you were so committed, diligent to protecting me.

Like I was driving as fast as I could through it all and you were desperately trying to protect me through everything. And I think the commitment side of it is you weren't committed to gymnastics. You were committed to me. above everything else. And I think that's where a lot of people get it wrong

is they get committed to the thing, not the, you know, child. Person. Now, it was a bonus that she won everything. We're not sorry that happened. But it also, you wouldn't have cared. No, no, I'm saying.

No, no, I'm just saying like, that was never a goal. No. I do think about this, though, because I won a couple of thoughts. I do think not to take the wind out of anyone's sales, but it does become apparent. If you have exceptional skill physically in sports,

that will show itself kind of early, I think. Like Sean, you said age eight. It was like a different game. So I think some people try to hang on and white knuckle, like, oh, well, she's 12 and maybe she's still got it, and they sacrifice the tenderness of that relationship to try to eke it out. Sean was incredibly gifted,

and I think it's like lightning striking that she found the thing that she loved, that she was gifted at, that, you know, was something that people widely appreciate and reward, which is gymnastics. I think everyone has been, made with a treasure like we tell our kids but not not all of them are something that is publicly appreciated like that but so there's like a genetic thing that will make itself apparent but then

i also am trying to balance like me i was pretty good at football not like this freak thing but i have a lot i have a whole folder of articles about you andrew yeah yeah because yeah because what Don't even go there. But there's this, so I feel like it's, it's widely known that Sean trained less than other girls. So it was like 25 hours as opposed to 40, is that right? And so it's like, okay, well, easy for you to say you were this freak athlete. And I, who is like good but not exceptional, it's like, I need to train 15 more hours. And like, let me, I need to have more imbalance in other areas.

and my, you know what I'm saying? But I also don't think that's imbalance. I think that is, this is where I think phenomenal coaches get it right and 99% of everybody else gets it wrong is every single child is different. There is no cookie cutter process or protocol or system a child can go through to guarantee success,

whatever that looks like. So I think you had this incredible passion for football that drove you which is what I have seen in gymnastics with some girls where it's like

you... Talent's not as much but the passions. No, I'm going to humor your humility at the moment and run with your narrative but I don't agree with it. I have seen in gymnastics

girls who do not have as much just lightning strike talent from the day one they walk in. But they have an undying passion for that sport, and they outwork everyone else. I think, okay, run with the narrative that you're saying with me, lightning struck, and I had a God-given talent. Approaching my entire situation with, not that this was ever the strategy, but like, preservation, how do we not burn that out so quickly and I can actually extend my runway to

see success was very necessary for me. I could have gone 40 hours a week and burned out by the time I was eight because I would have gone through every level of the sport and I would have gotten to a point where I was like, you know what, I don't want to do this anymore. Yeah. So I think having literally having the mentality of like every child is different all these people who keep reaching out and saying but how did you do it i need to know your coach your process your hours you're it doesn't matter you need to look at your child and see what they need you were about to say something no you forgot no can you describe chow's coaching style okay this feels absolutely insane to say out but we are officially less than two weeks away from our book launch.

It honestly does not feel real considering we've been working on this thing for years. Four years. So long. Four years. And seriously, though, we have poured so much into this book, so many stories, lessons, hard conversations, funny moments, all the things we've learned about commitment over the last decade together. That's right.

And I think the coolest part is that this doesn't feel like one of those books where we're pretending to have it all figured out. That's not how we wrote it. It's really just us sharing what we've learned so far. far in our lives and what's helped us through different seasons of life and marriage. And if you pre-order right now, we also have a bunch of really fun exclusive pre-order bonuses that we are so excited about. That's right. We're talking exclusive videos, behind-the-scenes stories, bonus content, honestly, just a lot of stuff we normally wouldn't get a share anywhere else. We've been doing Zoom calls with y'all. It's been a blast.

We seriously cannot wait for you guys to finally have this in your hands. Thank you so much for supporting this project and being a part of this with us. That's right. If you want to pre-order and get access to all the bonus content before launch day and before launch day only head to the courage to commit.com. Well, from the very beginning, I mean, he was always, you know, they had fun. They had, there were times where he was stern. But if you do things long enough and, you know, you're going to get good at it, you know, repetition if you just and chow was always you know of course do this 200 times and the next hour

but then you know i don't know if i've ever seen a coach hug his students as much as he did i mean and I think he just genuinely cared about you. It wasn't just him coaching you, I don't think. I think he latched on to, ooh, I have one here. I never got that from him. And I remember him saying that he felt so lucky that he had us as her parents. because we didn't beg for more and push her and counter whatever it was he was trying to do with her. But I don't know what other coaches are like because she didn't ever have any other coaches.

But he was absolutely the perfect coach. Chow was the one and only coach you ever had. I technically had two, technically, but my only other coach I had when I was three and four. Yeah. So you guys, you're tired at, what, 21? You and Chow were together for 15, 16 years? That is beautiful. That is so crazy.

I had, at Vandy, four coaches in five years at the college level. Yeah. The depth of knowing each other. He and Lee truly were like second parents. I mean, they were awesome. Something that Chow valued was what I was talking about. He coached every single person differently. and it was very apparent in the gym

to the extent that it caused a lot of turmoil amongst parents who didn't understand that concept every single girl that I trained with we probably had a group of 10 their brains operated differently

I needed like consistency routine I needed to have fun but I needed like I needed work I was a workhorse I wanted to like get the numbers in and do it other girls needed freedom. Some girls needed coddling, other girls needed more sternness.

And he would do that with each individual kid. And he said his job, and he even talks about it with, or he has said it to me, when he ended up retiring from like the Olympic training style, he said, I got exhausted of pouring all of my effort into knowing where each of you were at any given second of any day.

He said, it was my job to know if you were tired. if you were too over-stimulated, if you were burnt out, if you were excited. He said, my job at every practice was to read that. And he always said, I would read it in your eyes of how to push you, hold you back, or whatever it was every day.

He said, that burnt me out. Because when I, he had said that to me, he said, when I couldn't do that anymore, I couldn't be a good coach. It's kind of cool to think that that's what makes a good coach. is the ability to see and understand a kid different than the others. But now that you describe... It's the parents can.

Yeah. I was just about to describe your parenting style now. How you raised, Sean. Some people would say, like, discipline or... No. We did anything we could just to keep her happy. Well, I mean, it got to where, you know, we didn't like it either. But she was so busy that...

You know, when she got home, we wanted to let her do what she wanted, eat what she wanted, just because we both knew how much work she was doing. And so it was tough to, I don't know, Terry, help me out here. Well, I don't know that it was a style as much as it was, and it wasn't just a free-for-all. I mean, we both were very conscious of we wanted her to be a good person. And that was always more important to me than her being a good athlete. And so I think parenting style was just trying to give her a model to follow by doing things the right way. You know, honesty, integrity, good character, you know, and back to, like, in Jim,

I remember at the very beginning going to Chow and saying, don't let her disrespect you like that. Make her stand in line just like the other girls and, you know, and he'd just laugh at me, you know. It's all part of the plan. Yeah. No, but. Sounds familiar with Jet. We had a thing in our school that was called parenting with love and logic. And I think that's huge.

I always wanted cooperation rather than domination. I wanted her, I wanted to be able to talk to her and her agree, yes, that's the right thing to do. and versus I told you, you know, I mean, not that I never did that either, but I just think cooperation and showing them what's right. Okay, so there's that side of it, which is beautiful, and I think you guys executed that so well. I'm curious, was it, did it ever become a temptation, for lack of a better word? like the when the success started growing and rolling in, how did you all navigate that?

Because I'm thinking about high school parents now with NIL and here's money and here's a car and here's this. And you're like, oh, well, you know, we've been working late nights and early morning. Let me get a new car. Like how do you deal with that? I just, we, I'm not going to say I, we never felt like any of the gain belonged to us.

Because all the work came from her. Tried very hard to keep her earnings, her earnings, and by having a third party handle that so that, you know, Not that we never benefited. I'm not going to say that. But that could go ugly so fast that I never wanted a part of that. We've been talking about this a lot, which I can't even imagine what we all went through starting at the age of 12. When did John first start making money?

12, 12. Cheryl. Well, USA national team. Yeah. Kind of. I mean, yeah, you had like... $300 checks? Yeah.

Is that 12? Now then, that went to go for her training. Yeah. Her gymnastics fees because they grew. Yeah, exponentially. Technically at 12, I was starting to get my first paychecks. When I made the national team, you get like a monthly stipend is what they called it to help subsidize like all the costs of traveling and everything.

And then Cheryl was at 14, 15? No, 13, 13. My first agent. But we've been talking about with the NIL, all these college athletes getting paid, but now getting paid and recruited in high school. And you think back in our day, it was somewhat normal in gymnastics

for a girl to sign an agent at my age. So there were reputable agents and systems somewhat in place that had been around for a while. it haunts me to think all of these agents coming out of nowhere trying to guide or lack of a better of high school students through the process of acquiring thousands millions of dollars and parents who are being thrown into it i just can't imagine what it was like going through that at 12 versus high school, but I think it's nothing good comes of it. Daddy and I struggled really hard,

really hard with the agent thing. My words back then was it just felt so arrogant. But what drove us to use that avenue for you was

at your age, you were such at risk that if you got injured, you might never see a college scholarship. And by then we had probably burnt through anything we had tried saving for your college. You know what I mean? So it was a definite weight in the favor of going pro because I felt like you could

you could benefit. This was back before you could be earning money in college. You had to choose either the college or out. And you guys chose that at 13 or you all had that conversation. I also remember very clearly, even me, you guys put it very much in like my hands,

but I remember very clearly thinking up until that point, I dreamt of competing for collegiate, like gymnastics. And I probably might have still but at the age of 13 having had a year with the national team and just understanding the difference of intensity of what I had been raised in with Chow to see how the intensity of the USA team

I knew at 13 that three more years of that to get me to the Olympics I was going to be done yeah burn out long before oh yeah because the USA team was not fun it was a job and they treated it like a job and they stripped all the fun away and Chow desperately

tried to preserve that we overtrained, overworked we were trained like adults but I mean it just was it was not fun the honor was fun but I loved going back into Chow's gym

and if I could have preserved that longer I would have liked to have gone to collegiate but I just could see that burnout was definitely going to happen. Did you all ever think about like managing or being? Oh. No? Vershani never did.

No, because then you can't just be mom. You can't. She would have probably lost the freedom to be honest with us of her feelings. Oh, oh, no. It was a non-starter. Oh, no. No, no, no. Never. I have a question.

Never. Because I remember just now being served up being a parent. I cannot imagine being put in this position. But I remember I was 15 maybe, 14 maybe. It was my second Pan American Games. It was in Canada. Oh, yeah. I think.

I remember. And it's hilarious that you don't remember this. I remember I remember every international place I went to when I was under 15 because it was zero international places. I'm sorry. There were like 30. I was so interesting. I was at a competition. Went directly to the training camp.

I got selected for a team, which is how it worked. You got selected at a training camp. I got to come home for one day maybe or something to like pack and then I had to go fly to Canada. I remember the day that I came home And this had I had moments of this That had happened prior when I was younger But never like this

That day I came home I looked at my mom and I said I want to quit gymnastics And I don't want to go to Canada And now I've already been named to a team I have a flight booked internationally It was a team of four And I put that 100%

I remember sitting on the stairs crying Just like How did you handle that as parents? I can't imagine. You know, I almost remember that. I think I was panicked. Well, yeah.

That would be a hard one. I think I turned out over to you. Why? Because you're like, oh, we have this plane ticket and she's on this thing. They didn't have plane tickets. Oh, no, no. No. No, it's just the...

A lot of things. Yeah. I don't remember. Yeah. But thinking wise, I'm sure we sat. and talk. I don't even remember. I don't remember why.

Did you go? I went. Well, I think it's important that there's no memory of this because it clearly wasn't some wild, dramatic, emotional, explosive argument. You know what I'm saying? If it was, then there would probably be more record. So it's indicative of a balanced conversation where it's like, oh, yeah, it's just a conversation.

I probably turned it over to him because he could probably handle it with no emotion. No. And I, I couldn't. At 15, 14, I mean, that's tough for someone to,

you know, if she's not one to go, you know, of course you're thinking, okay, she's already committed, she's, you know,

the coaching. The unwinding. And so it's hard to say, okay Was there a good cop, bad cop dynamic between you guys? Like not explicitly or consciously but I do remember though

I don't think it was that time but I remembered when it grew when you want it out you just want it out so bad it was a second time and with your sponsorships and I'm not

gonna name anything but I just remember saying to an individual, this is not worth my daughter committing suicide over. You need to stop this. You need to make it stop right now. Yeah.

See, and who would want, I would not want to be responsible for that as her manager. She would never have made it anywhere. I would have been said, oh, honey, no, let's stop now. So I remember that incident. the Canada one.

The only thing I remember is I remember you on the phone with Chow or one of you. And remember someone saying, no practice today. Have her go to sleep. Just go to sleep. I end up going. I did well. It was fine. There was no emotional trauma there.

But I remember the second time around of what you're saying. I retired for the first time at 16 after the Olympics. I came back into gymnastics. At 19 is when everything's starting. to spiral. And I remember watching the Aveici documentary. I was just thinking about that too. And though I will never,

I'm not correlating, comparing myself to Aveci. I related to that documentary so much because Aveci is this renowned singer-musician and he had found himself in a position where his people, agents, sponsorship, touring,

managers, everything, just wanted more. The demand for Avici was high. We signed you, you're booked, you can't cancel, and it just got to be so much. Here's another show, here's this, let's travel there, we can fit that in, we could. And he ended his life. And not that was ever a thought that I ever had, but I remember there being a point where I want, like you said, I wanted out so bad. But it felt like I had no choice anymore.

You weren't given the choice. No, but you have all these spots, and especially at that age, I was then, you know, you guys, were no longer able to be the screeners of everything, I was technically an adult, so I was receiving it. I was hearing from the sponsors, I was hearing from the agents, I was hearing from everyone.

And they were just like, you have to, you have to, you have to, you have no choice, you're a part of this, you have to. And I had never felt so desperate in my life of like, I want to quit. And you guys would be like, quit, just quit. And in my head, I'm like, but I can't. I literally can't. Because of all these obligations and the money and the what?

Yeah, you just feel like you're similar to Mitchell Tenpenny. Say, like. The team. And Megan, you just feel like you're letting so many people down. That's one thing, and I remember it. Yeah. When you called me. Mm-hmm.

And I regret it to the day. I tried to talk in to stay in. Understandably. Finishing it. Yeah. But you ended up not. And I think... Yes, but...

But I think once you got done with that, we knew it was time, right? And I just, I regret that call. No. I wanted to say, quit, you know, come on home. But you did. I have recollections of both of you not playing good, bad cop, truly just being parent saying, based off

of how I was speaking, it would be like, well, you're so close. Okay, finish it if that's what you want. But then you had also told me if that's how you feel, just quit. Like, be done. So I think I don't have any recollection of those calls being bad

or like my dad just wants me to finish. I have recollections of you both giving me either option. Anyway. Real quick, I have to go back to the whole question of Momager or whatever you want to call. I don't know what you call that. But we committed early on to we never made decisions based on money.

Because then it's not healthy. So anyhow, I'm sorry, I interrupted you. No, no, no. A couple things. One, the good cop, bad cut thing. like it's I didn't mean it like a consciously okay you're gonna be real tough on her but I think you know there's there's some back to the intrinsic or inherent two different perspectives that naturally will put pan out be careful being so like conscious about hey I'll be hard till

then she folds with you like no our our exact dynamic is our exact exact dynamic with drew I Handle like Drew's Momentary back and forth You're dealing with this Because like she just

Being girl and mom I think she comes to me But if anything gets big enough It's a big It's a level-headed Serious conversation with dad Always Like we would bicker

And if it ever got big enough I'm going to like I would I would either go or I would get, no, I also just want to say, Doug, like the more parents of youth sports I see and now experiencing a little bit of that

and the, like, I feel like I could be a toxic youth sports parent because I freaking, it's so fun to see your kid do the thing, just there should be zero regret on your own part. You laugh at it. I mean, like being a tough parent out there. I mean, I've never seen it in you. I have my regrets.

I just, I ruined ice skating for Drew. No. Why? Oh, I ruined it. I bought into the whole thing. Oh. Yeah, here's the whole program.

Your kid's unique. Here's her accelerated, yada, yada. But y'all, to your credit, did an amazing job. naturally. Like, I don't think you guys had mentors in Des Moines who were coaching you through. It's incredible. So I'm just more and more impressed by you guys. I say it's a crapshoot.

Please help us with R3 because there's some scary endeavors we're going down right now. You guys are amazing. You should meet our parents. Both of you. They did a good job. All right. So ever since someone told me how easy. it is to break into normal luggage, I genuinely cannot stop thinking about it. Apparently,

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And, you know, even today I think about, you know, not having it around to play. And, you know, in other words. We did a lot of play, though. Yeah. I did. I will say, I've asked Mama this, too, like, would you do it again? And you both say no, which I 100% would probably say the same thing as a parent. Mm-hmm.

I would do it again and not change anything. truly as a child, I would redo the whole thing again. That's good to know. And I have told him this, because Drew came home the other day asking to do extended care, which was, I did Kids West, which was like the extended care. Before and after care. And I was like, no, you can't be at school any longer. And I remember, I did, you know, the before and aftercare.

I did gymnastics. I did all these activities. I have zero memories of ever. feeling like I missed out on time with you all. I always remember coming home. I remember having family dinner, always, at our counter. I remember playing in the front yard. I remember playing in the garage.

I remember having a full childhood. You did your homework in the bathtub? I'd sit and hold the book for you while you're having a bath. I don't remember that. There's only so many hours in a day. And when she doesn't get home from gym until eight, and then you got to feed her? I do have memories of being very tired,

but I also think every child has those memories. Yeah. Yeah. You would do it again, like Special Forces to show, or it's like, ah, prick. Or like go back to your favorite vacation spot, do it again. Like, oh, it was wonderful. If you want, if you're asking me what I,

go back in time and choose a different sport or not signed to the USA national team or I would do every single thing again. I think it's, it was a wonderful experience. It had major ups and downs, highs and lows. But I learned so much from it. I think I'll be a better parent for it.

I wonder if, I wonder if we asked 19-year-old Sean that question, or like right after you question. quit. I would still have done it again. I was blessed with phenomenal parents, a phenomenal city, a phenomenal coach that I still think is like second parents. Yeah. I had a bad out of my career, but I still liked that I went back. I still had fun with Chow. Me and Terry joke about it a lot, that we think Chow raised you more than half.

Are you saying I'm half Asian? I'm half Chinese? Also, we're making up for a lost time because now we're going to see you guys every single day. Lucky you. Okay. Thank you.

I'm not. I know. We could go for another out. We'll just do another part. You're going to have to come back on. You know what? We need to, based off of this, I want everybody to submit their questions for mom-mom and papa.

I mean, I was going to, yeah, that's fine. We could tease the next episode, but I was going to do like this or that. Okay, do it. No, no. Okay. Don't do it. Okay. Let me just do some.

Some are the, like, playful. Some are insightful because this was a really interesting conversation, and I feel like I learned a lot. So this or that. Structured routines or go with the flow? Structured routines. Yeah, I mean, I think so too, because it's, just like Sean already says, reputate, or repetition. Repetition. With flexibility.

Okay, early birds or night owls? This is your parenting style, how you raised you? Early bird. Early bird or night? Yeah. Homemade meals or Friday night takeout? Now? Well, homemade meals, but Fridays are.

eat out. Yeah, yeah. So both. As a parenting, though, always home-cooked meal. Oh, yeah. Mama J can cook. Always.

Strict bed times or stay up until you're tired? Well. Depends on how old. I mean. Strict bedtimes with flexibility. Okay. Yeah.

It sounds like Sean was tired anyway. Yeah. Yeah, we had no problem with that. Assign chores or help out when asked? Help out when asked. I remember this is maybe one like side effect of the, Sean was already working so hard at the gym.

I remember years ago you made a comment of like, man, I just, we didn't have Sean do a lot of the chores around the house. And now I have to deal with that. So thank you. One of the things I always joke about that said, you know, how did she,

how come her car, is always this dirty when, you know, I was washing my car every day. Yeah, yeah, and her car. Now my car and her car are both. Not because of me. First of all, Sean. You dirty air. You think you're clean, but it's just because they kept everything clean.

That's what it is. Okay, clean house or lived in mess? Oh, you're asking them? Us? Clean house. Yeah. You call yourself the tidy one, and him the clean one? Is that he delineated?

He cleans. I put everything in its place. Yeah. Okay. That's an organizer. Yeah. This is for discipline and guidance. The look or the lecture?

Oh. Are you kidding? That girl can glare. The silent treatment. I know, but I can also lecture. And you can give the silent treatment. Stone cold, Mama Jay. Look at the lecture.

Look. Yeah. Always. Let's see. Good cop, bad cop, or United Front? United. They're always united. Kudos to you.

Timeouts or loss of privileges? Yeah. Neither. Neither. Loss of privilege was always. No discipline. I don't want to say that was the threat, but. Yeah.

Yeah. There was no, I don't want to say there was no like. We never did timeout. No. And I never did that one, two, three because it's like, I better never have to get to one. Well, just on that note. Negotiators or because I said so?

Negotiators. Negotiators. Right? Yeah. Strict rules or natural consequences? We kind of had strict rules. I would say strict rules. Okay.

We'll do a couple more. safety first or risk takers? Safety first. And then. We broke the most. True. Risk taker. They all.

You need both. I like them both. Yeah. You can't get anywhere if you don't take a risk. Yeah. But hopefully you do it safely. Do dangerous things carefully. Yeah.

I knew that the motorcycle for jet was testy when Doug was like, hey, this is a lot. I was like, oh, Doug. I asked Dave, I said, this guy, write it. Oh, man. Okay, academic excellence or social skills? I'm going to say social skills. Yeah.

Planning ahead or last minute spontaneity? Plan ahead. With flexibility. Push them to. excel or let them find their way let them find their way we'll close there I would love to hear other people's questions based off this conversation but thank you guys for the time it is funny to think of every question pertaining to each of our kids because so different yeah I mean there's so many other things I want to add like personally just okay something like

nutrition that's such a household thing that applies to the sport it's like how do you support there but we can defer some of these. Greatest example to just answer that question. Because I was a kid, which I think is so important. Especially if you're like getting into the nitty gritty of like I was training four hours a day. Chow, I will never forget this. Pulled them aside after practice one day and said, is she eating enough? Like, and he said, I don't care what she eats.

I think you had said her favorite thing in the world is pancakes. He said, take her to Perkins after every practice. Make sure she's getting enough food and get her a huge stack of pancakes. He just, he needed to know that I was like consuming enough. It's so funny because we still eat so many pancakes now. I love pancakes. But then that grew to Saturday afternoon practice snacks. I would bring avocados and rolled up cucumber and turkey.

and anything that I could creatively come up with that was allowable for you. I have one more memory. I remember as I got closer to the Olympics and then the second time around the comeback, I remember, again, Chad was always worried about just, am I consuming enough? He didn't care what, like, he didn't really care what I ate. He didn't need to know that it was just, is she consuming enough? and so you my mom would home cook all of my favorite meals and pack them in a huge like travel cooler and we would travel with them by car to our competitions and you would set up my room with all

my favorite meals to make sure that before every competition every night I was so excited to eat that I would eat a lot of food that sounds like mama jay yeah You cook salmon, pasta, all of this stuff. All of it. Yeah. Yeah. You'd rearrange every hotel room I stayed in. Your mom was very busy back then.

The best. I don't know how. I did it, honestly. Because you both worked full-time jobs? Yeah. Wow. Thank you. Her work was awesome with her.

And my work, of course, I was self-employed. And by all the builders, they, they, understood and we were very fortunate in that way i'd come you know they'd we'd start a house and things i usually do in that house uh you know it was there when i got back so i could go in and do it but it but it's it was tough but it's challenge it worked out we get asked often about in-law dynamics and we've had our moments you know and we've had tough tough moments and conversations but I love our relationship I love our relationship I love our relationship I love our relationship it's like we can make fun of each other

than you more than anybody else we could Sean and I could not do anything that we do without you guys nothing our entire house our cars everything would fall apart if it weren't for you yeah yes it would yeah And it's, yeah, it's just, but I think you guys are getting better. We're getting better. Yeah. Slowly.

I think we're getting a little better. I do. We turned on, we found the water valve that we turned back on today. Good job. That's right. Yeah. You know, I think the whole, like not a handyman.

It was a joke. Just because your dad's like a freaking guru, doesn't mean I'm useless. The whole thing of it is it started when you were traveling and, you know, just trying to make your life easier. Yeah. When you're, when I know. how busy you are. And now it satisfies the same thing for me because I know how busy you guys are.

And the little bit that I can do just makes your life easier. You do an insane amount. And I'm grateful for all that you do. I'm grateful for who you guys are. And I'm grateful we get to hang out. I'm grateful. Yeah. You got a lot to be grateful. Thank you. Anyway, you got anything else? No, thank you. Love you guys. Love you. I wasn't saying you're not a handy. It's a joke.