We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - Let Kids Play: Fixing Youth Sports with Linda Flanagan

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

406. Let Kids Play: Fixing Youth Sports with Linda Flanagan Why have youth sports become a pressure cooker of competition, money, and burnout instead of fun, growth, and play? Journalist and author Linda Flanagan joins us to break down: -The three biggest reasons kids' sports have changed for the worse—and what we can do about it.-How parents can rethink their role on the sidelines, engage with coaches, and set healthy boundaries.-Why specializing in one sport too early can actually hurt long-term athletic success.-The hidden consequences of linking kids' self-worth to their performance. About Linda:  LINDA FLANAGAN is a freelance journalist, a former cross-country and track coach, and the author of Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports—and Why It Matters. A graduate of Lehigh University, Flanagan holds master’s degrees from Oxford University and the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy and was an analyst for the National Security Program at Harvard University. She is a founding board member of the New York City chapter of the Positive Coaching Alliance, a contributor to Project Play at the Aspen Institute, and a regular writer for NPR’s education site MindShift. Her columns on sports have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Runner’s World, and she is currently co-producing a documentary series on mental health in collegiate women athletes. A mother of three and a lifelong athlete, Flanagan lives in Summit with her fabulous husband, Bob, and a small menagerie of pets. She is still floating over Malcolm Gladwell’s recent claim that Take Back the Game was one of his favorite books last year. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There's something about the spring that just makes me crave a getaway. I'll never forget one of my favorite trips with friends a couple of years ago when we headed to the mountains in the spring. The flowers were blooming, the air was crisp, and we stayed in this cozy Airbnb cabin. It had huge windows with the most beautiful views of the landscape, and the kitchen was perfect for cooking up a big breakfast together, we had all the space we needed to relax and unwind much more than a hotel could ever offer. Spring is the perfect time to plan a trip with your family or friends, especially if

you want more space and privacy. Whether you're looking for a quiet getaway or a place to celebrate together, Airbnb gives you the chance to stay in the best local spots where you can truly soak in the season. For your next spring getaway, book one of the most loved homes on Airbnb for a truly memorable stay. Trust me, it's the perfect way to experience the seasons in style. It is getting very close to book release time. Our new book, We Can Do Hard Things, Answers to Life's 20 Questions, comes out on May 6. You can pre-order We Can Do Hard Things anywhere you get your books or you can go to treatmedia.com you can also join us for a virtual event that we're doing on publication day you guys were doing a live virtual event because since the

tour sold out so quickly lots of you were sad to not be a part of it and we can't stand your sadness so we're hosting a virtual event to support those who could not get tickets and to support our beloved local independent bookstores. All the proceeds from this virtual event are going to these local bookstores. They show up for us. We're showing up for them. May 6th. If you pre-ordered the book from an independent bookstore, you don't have to buy it again to come to the event.

Please register for the event by uploading your indie order at treatmedia.com and just click the option that says I've already pre-ordered from another indie. Okay, we'll see you there. Hey everybody, this is Amanda. Before we dive in, we want to say this. We believe in the power of sports. As the daughter of a football coach, the wife of a basketball and baseball coach, as myself the coach of my daughter's lacrosse, basketball and volleyball teams, and as the mother of two kids whose selfless, grounded coaches and dogged teammates

have strengthened their grit, confidence, and leadership through sport, I know how remarkably invaluable sport can be to grow us and connect us. But as we are talking about today, sports are neither good nor bad. Sports are an empty vessel. And depending on what you fill that vessel up with,

sport can either be deeply nourishing or deeply toxic. Today, we are talking about the flood of money and dramatic increases in stress and pressure in the sports industrial complex that are poisoning the vessel of youth sports for kids and families. Journalist Linda Flanagan helps us unpack what's gone wrong and how we can bring back the best of what sports have to offer to our kids. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. And today, to help us figure out what has gone wrong with kids sports and how we can make it just a little healthier for our own families and communities is Linda Flanagan. Linda is a freelance journalist,

a former cross-country and track coach, and the author of Take Back the Game, How Money and Mania are Ruining Kids Sports and Why It Matters. She is a founding board member of the New York City chapter of the Positive Coaching Alliance, a contributor to Project Play at the Aspen Institute,

and a regular writer for NPR's education site, MindShift. She is also currently co-producing a documentary series on mental health and collegiate women athletes. A mother of three and a lifelong athlete, Flanagan lives in Summit with her fabulous husband, Bob, and a small menagerie of pets. I will tell you, Linda, the perspectives we're coming from. So my sister, Amanda, is a coach of her daughter's basketball team

and has coached in her community and lacrosse and volleyball, but all at the rec league. So that's a very distinct. That's important. Very right. And so she comes from that perspective. She has already noticed some kind of murky ickiness that comes out. Abby has been slightly involved in sports. So I hear.

Throughout her life. I don't know if you know about her, but she has been excellent at the sports. Yes. She has that reputation. Yes, medals and things such as this. So she comes from an amazingly unique perspective on this. I am a mom, Abby is also this,

but of a child who has just committed to a D1 soccer school. So we have been through and experienced the whirlpool that is what I've heard many people call the sports industrial complex, okay? And so what Abby and I have talked about every single day for the last years of this is something is very wrong. Something is very wrong from the nervousness of the kids on the field to the cutthroatness

to the parents freaking out on the sidelines to the old boys clubs of the running the club systems to the pay to play the amount of time the amount of money just something is very wrong and I just want to start off the conversation by saying we're gonna talk about a system and we're gonna talk about behaviors and we're gonna talk about all of that and I'm gonna judge the shit out of it and what I want the pod squad to know right off the bat is I am also in it and of it.

If you enter the whirlpool of this place, you are in it and you can resist and you can be upset. But when I talk about the parents behavior on the sideline, they are losing it, but I got it in me. I turn into something else. I'm wise enough at this point to mostly control it and keep it inside me. So I don't end up on Instagram.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So. I get it. That is the perspective that we are all coming from. Can you tell Linda what you were so amazed by that she said that shifted our paradigm right away?

Yeah, so obviously I have a very complicated relationship with youth sports and the way that I personally experience them and then the way that I experience it as a parent. And one of the things that you said, it like stopped me in my tracks because I really had to think it through. And it's this belief that sports are good for kids. And I want to start our conversation off there because I'm sure everybody knows that that is a belief that I have held, that I lived by,

that I brought into my parenting philosophy. Is that true, Linda? Is sports good for kids? I believe sports are good for kids. It's a matter of degree. It's rec sports, a physical activity of all kinds, play of all kinds. It's a complicated question that depends on the age

of the children and of course their own interest in the sport. I think so much of it is about the child's interest dictating the terms of play. But I would, of course exercise is good for kids as separate from sports. And sports, I should clarify and say that sports are a bit of an empty vessel, but depends on who's providing them, what kind of

coach there is, what's the environment that the kids are playing in, what's the parents scene. All of that plays a role. Sports are, we have to remember, they're just made up games. They're just made up activities. They became a part of public schools in 1903. Before that, they hadn't been in schools. I mean, these are made-up things that we've decided have value. And I think they can be very important in certainly getting kids outside and off their phones, which is huge, and being with other kids. But they're not by definition all good. Can I ask it just in a slightly pointed way? Do sports develop good character in kids? If you look at the research, there's not any evidence showing that sports build character. There's a meta

analysis of 40 years that says, looked at all the chapters and data and said, there's no evidence that playing sports develops moral reasoning or sportsmanship. But if you dig a little deeper and think about what do we mean by character, and I think I love this definition that Angela Duckworth has, and she's a professor at University of Pennsylvania. She defines it in three ways. Strength of mind, which would be curiosity, open-mindedness, having good judgment, strength of heart, being generous, compassionate, caring, and strength of will, determined, courageous,

brave, dedicated, and strength of will, determined, courageous, brave, dedicated, all those things. I think it would be hard to say by most standards that sports, by definition, built certainly those first two, strength of heart or strength of mind. I think most people think of sports building character with regard to building strength of will. I want my kids to be dedicated and determined. And I think while there's no evidence, again,

there's no evidence that it does this, I think this is what we lean into when we think of sports building character. But given the current youth sports environment, which is very competitive and expensive and cutthroat, I think you'd be hard pressed to say, especially that sports build strength of heart, passion, kindness, caring. I think a good coach can do that.

A good coach can work to develop those strengths in players. Yeah, I want to stop there and say that this is a really important idea for us to understand as parents and people making decisions for our children. And I am really into an era of testing assumptions, that if we're just assuming things and jumping in, that's not the first step. The first step is to test all assumptions. And when we say sports are good for children, that's kind of like saying religion is good for children. Okay, what kind like saying religion is good for children.

Okay, what kind? Good point. What system? No, religion is not good for children. There are some religions that you can enter your child in that will destroy them and destroy their spirit and they'll spend the rest of their lives trying to recover from that.

There are some spiritual communities that you could get involved in that might become fertilizer for your kid's soul. Sports are as an empty vessel as religion is, right? Because even when you say exercise is good for kids, I test that assumption. I had a childhood where maybe the way that exercise was presented to me was not at all healthy. The thing is not inherently good or bad and must be examined. When you say sports builds character,

everything you're saying sounds correct to me in terms of testing that assumption because in the current system we have, I see a little bit of the opposite, the kind of cutthroatness you have to be. So many kids are performing because they are being scared into performing. And so what might look like resilience, what might look like short-term performance is actually fear-based. If we're not

testing those assumptions, we might be building the absolute wrong kind of character that we think they are, correct? Absolutely. Yep. I think, again again sports are an empty vessel. I believe done in the right environment there can be great for kids. I think exercise in the right environment in the right amounts it is an empty vessel. So we do have to challenge assumptions about what's good for us and our kids. And I think one of the things that really sticks out when I'm listening to both of you talk right now is my personal experience. And what I believed brought me great character traits. In fact, we're just great coaches.

People in my life that taught me the lessons that I was kind of couching in the whole term sport, right? And I think that that is really important. My mom told me this when I was very young. She said, it is important that you guys play sports. And she told me this when I was older too. She was very careful on what coaches she put me in front of.

And now I'm seeing that with our 16 year old daughter, with her club coaches. There's some questions that I have that I'm wondering, you know, is this a good place for her to be developing as a full upright adult one day? And I'm not a hundred percent certain. Can you just give us a little bit of just background as to why this has happened in youth sports?

Your book really does a great job at it. Yes. So I identify three main reasons for the change in youth sports from, you know, the way it used to be when it was more low key and relaxed and child driven. The first is that it's a big business. We think we all know that, the youth sports industrial complex.

The numbers are all over the map in terms of how much it's worth, but it's roughly a $30 billion industry. The Aspen Institute reported that parents spend between $30 and $40 billion a year. Now the industry developed this way for a variety of reasons, starting in the 70s when public funding declined for parks and recreational type programs that were open to all. Private enterprise stepped in and started filling that void. Then we had Title IX, which brought more girls in. Great. So there's more demand,

and business starting to fill in the gaps. And then a pivotal moment was Disney's opening of the Wide World of Sports Complex, which is so interesting to me. I talked to one of the guys who was there at the beginning, and he said, look, it was was we needed to put heads in beds. It was a strategy to get more teenagers at Disney World, because they generate revenue when they go to the hotels and parks and most teenagers tire of the Magic Kingdom. So they developed this complex

kind of, you know, as an experiment. And then they found when 9-11 happened, that parents pulled back, travels slowed way down, but it didn't slow down to Disney's Y-Bowl Sports. And that was a light bulb moment for them and for other communities who decided, well, why can't we build a complex in our town and get those tax dollars and get kids coming? And so that business side of it took off and there are no like real controls on youth sports. I can hang up a shingle and say I'm a coach and I mean, I have been a coach, but I can just say, you know, come to me and I'll show you how to lift weights or I'll give you specialized training. It's

kind of all over the place in terms of the industry. And now private equity companies are buying into it. Oh, shit. Okay. And I just have to share this quote with you. Okay. So a large private equity firm called unrivaled started just last year and they've bought up a ton of these. They bought up the Cal Ripken complex. They bought up Cooperstown. Oh my God. Those are the two places we go with our baseball. Here's what the guy who runs it, who's been charged with running it said. There's almost an insatiable demand

for youth sports experiences. What exists today is a fraction of what we think the potential is. Right. So, okay. So this is only gonna get bigger or as long as parents keep paying and signing up for this stuff. Okay, so that's money is the first one. The second big factor

in changing youth sports is the shift in parent attitudes toward kids. And I think this is to me the most interesting because it's not just sports, it applies to all things with kids and their activities. I'd love to quote Jennifer Senior, the author who said, kids have moved from our employees to our bosses. And what she meant by that is our parent lives come to revolve around them. There's been like a flip. This also started in the 70s when there was a recession and

parents started worrying about their kids' economic futures. We had a decline in the number of kids parent families had. It went from four to two, so they were scarcer and more precious. So each one needed to be, you know, all that extra attention and also changes in the family. There were more divorces, so single-parent homes, two parents working. It made sense that parents felt more nervous about their kids. The word is anxiety. Parents are so worried about how their kids are going to turn out. And on top of that, this is when we started hearing about stranger danger, child abductions. And of course, now we have it in our pockets so we can hear about every awful thing that's happening everywhere and

we get the message, don't leave your child unattended for a second. So all of those factors has led to what the sociologist Annette Leroux calls concerted cultivation. We feel we have to cultivate their every little skill and interest and nudge them in any possible direction. Maybe they like to draw, we sign them up for our classes. We have to cultivate every talent. And this is really true in the middle

and upper income households. And sports are obviously a very popular activity in this country. We love our sports figures, Abbey. They're all over the place. NFL had 93 of the most broadcast shows last year, of 93 of the top 100. We love our athletes. It's a high status activity.

We want our kids to be high status. And there's something, you know, we assume that sports build character. It kind of stands to reason that it would lend itself to wanting to put your kids in sports for all those reasons. And the final one, so it's money, changes in perspectives on children and kind of what we owe them and what they owe us. It feels like they're a reflection of us. It's up to us to make them good, responsible people.

And the third is changes at colleges and universities. They're so expensive. It's impossible to get into, and athletes get all kinds of advantages that most parents are aware of. All of those in combination, I'm sure there's things I'm missing, have contributed to this environment where youth sports are so intense. And from what I understand, the young parents I know, they feel they have to do, they have to get their kids in you know three years old they got to start taking tennis lessons and four join the soccer club and basketball and everything or you're

gonna fall behind you don't do it now they're gonna fall behind and by the way you need to do it year-round You know, the quick and dirty description of all of this is just like capitalism, like late stage capitalism enters into kids sports and takes over. And what always happens is that it becomes a bit of a hunger game situation. And it's because it's all based on scarcity. And in every system like that, whether it's, you know, Hollywood or writing or sports, the way the system continues is they hold up a few examples of exceptional people that made it. Abby and I talked about this last night, how she has some guilt about being this.

It's a carrot. Okay. So the Oscars. I wouldn't say guilt. I would say I have a responsibility. Okay. Yeah. The lottery runs because we all know about the winners of the lottery who got so rich.

So,.0001% will become the lottery winner, will become Abby, will be on the Oscars. But that culture holds that up as possible. And so, all the parents who are, bless their hearts, in a hunger game situation, we can look at all of this as judgmental and how can you be that way. But one way to look at it is these parents have brought their kids into the capitalism Hunger Games. And everyone is looking because of our commitment to not taking care of the social fabric,

but every man is on his own. Every family feels like a startup that's trying to survive. It's not just that their kids are our bosses. It's that we are on our own. We are fricking little startups trying to make it. And it could be seen, although it gets totally convoluted and horrific,

as an act of empowering our kids to make it in one way or another. I think it is grounded in this idea that this is going to be helpful to you. You know, it might help you get into a better college. We're living in such a competitive society. I think many of the parents and kids who are good athletes, they have a real competitive spirit anyway, and they want to get in there and compete and fight for it. And I think there's something to be said for that because we are in a competitive society. But at the same time, when you think about character and how we define character, it seems like that's kind of the opposite of building strength of mind or strength of heart.

It's about building the ability to beat other people. Right, right. Not just on the field. Going through the D1 process. I mean one of the things we just try to do is just at least talk to our kid about what she's in. Like all the time saying look at what's happening. It would be hilarious to think that the kids who are making it are the most talented kids in the country. That is hilarious. These are the kids who are making it are the kids whose parents

have enough money to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on all of these trips and all of these, and have the kind of job where they can be done at 4.30 and sit in a fricking parking lot from six until 10 o'clock. I mean, there is no meritocracy in sports in any way. And so the one thing we can do is repeatedly point to the water the kids are swimming in so that they can see the system.

Yeah, do you have any like statistics on how many kids actually go and play in college and then how many of those kids go and play in professional sports? Yes, well, writ large, it's six to 7% of high school athletes go on to play in college. Wow.

2% get any kind of money, and 0.3% get a full ride. So even those who get money, which and that's just D1 and some of D2, very few of them get a free ride. For most kids, their sports career is gonna end in high school. If they're able to play in high school.

And then maybe they'll go and do running and swimming and all kinds of things you can do independently, but their team sports are going to end in high school. And that's another thing about high school is that with this club world, it used to be when I was growing up, I got interested in lacrosse in eighth grade and I played my first season in eighth grade. I played ninth grade on my JV team, 10th grade made varsity.

That was a possible thing. Now with all this club stuff, you can't just try a sport. If your parents haven't cultivated it when you're like five, by the time you're six, forget it. Like you can't try something new, but there's no making your high school team unless you have like nine years of experience before high school. It's insane. At least around here, I live in Northern Virginia. You have to be an expert at your sport. Well, that's the perception and is true to some extent in some sports. But if your kids are like really naturally athletic and they played a lot of sports growing up and they pick up a

lacrosse stick in eighth grade, the right coach will, if that coach is willing to work with your child and your child is good, they will probably be okay. In part because some of those kids who started playing at five or six are going to be injured or just sick to death of it and not want to play anymore. There's a calculus at stake here. You know, if you think, well, I want my five year old to start playing so that she'll have the chance to play in high school. Maybe, or maybe she'll just get sick to death of it. Or terror ACL in middle school, which happens. So there is that perception, but other sports also, running is my sport, you don't need to have any prior training. And also the top people in

sports medicine would tell you, build the athlete. Don't focus on one sport. That advice clashes with the reality of all these kids playing one sport starting at age six or seven. I think what's important that we do need to kind of dig in right here is this idea of individualization of sport at a young age. Can you talk about how most of the Olympians played multiple sports? Yes, well, I mean, you could speak to that. We know that the top athletes

played multiple sports growing up. It's evident, you know, Tom Brady, Roger Federer. Abby Wambaugh. I think Megan Rapinoe, you played multiple sports, did not specialize. And many argue, the sports medicine people argue that playing these multiple sports helps develop different muscle groups, different skills, working with different coaches. You're not tearing down your elbow, say, or your knees.

You're working on your entire body. So the vast majority of the top athletes played multiple sports. And there is one very interesting study by a man named Arne Gulich, who's a German man, who studied the population of the top adults and the top youth. And he found that they were basically separate populations. In other words, the very top adults were not at the top when they were youth. The very top youth didn't make it to the top as adults because they had been trained, you know, that young kids, they get, oh, we spot talent. We have these talent identification programs.

Oh, that kid's good. Focus all the resources on them. And then they just sort Peter out. They reached their max potential at a younger age. So I mean, there's all kinds of evidence that the way we're doing it by picking who we think is going to be good, focusing all our resources on them is not really in that kid's best interest and certainly not in the best interest of all these kids who are left out. Yeah.

Maybe they're not good and they haven't even gone through puberty, which is when the real game. Yeah, this is totally my experience growing up. I played multiple sports. I was getting more advanced in basketball and in soccer throughout high school. And the time that I needed to play soccer, because I was on the youth national teams,

that started to ramp up. And so I really coveted the basketball season. As a break? Yes. It was so important for me. And also now looking back, the thing that I was like most known for as a soccer player was heading. And how did I learn the timing of a jump

more than I did, not playing soccer, it was playing basketball. it was playing basketball. It was playing basketball that made me one of the best headers in the entire world. And so like, I just think of this and I have to also say and admit it is really difficult as a parent to be in the system and to now being required for our children to literally sign contracts with clubs

that require you to pay dues for 12 months to be a part of this club system or you will get left behind and then you won't be seen by the college coaches. And honestly, like Emma, she ran track when she was younger. We had her doing a lot of things. But then there's a time like 12, 13 years old where these club systems kind of get their talents in you. And it's so hard to break free up from. And so I just eventually we're going to talk

about that in this conversation. but I just wanna say like, for any parent listening, multiple sports is the best way to keep your kids from getting injured, from also the mental burnout. Your kid does need that mental break. Yeah. Can I just ask you something Abby, and both of you, did you feel you couldn't say

no she's playing one season and will pay for the whole year but she's not playing the spring or they then kick her off the team? Yeah I mean it's also complicated because it's not just our decision. This is a decision that she becomes involved with because she doesn't want to miss practice, she doesn't want to miss the weekend games. She doesn't want to miss the consistency in the training. It's like this confusing game. I guess they're putting us in a position where we have to say yes in many ways. I have tried to get her to quit like six times. It's a family joke. Can we talk about this whole like testing the assumption of this entire endeavor?

It is a bit of a family joke, but I think there's something to explore here. When Abby came to the family, everyone jokes that she upgraded our family system, which was a commitment to mediocrity. Yeah, they were all in rec league sports. And I sensed something wrong and the girls were in gymnastics, okay? And that was fun. league sports. And I sensed something wrong and the girls were in gymnastics, okay, and that was fun. And I had this moment where the woman from the gym walked over to me and sat down next to me and I was like, oh, here it comes. And she said, your girls are really talented.

And I think it's time for them to come for nights a week. And I said, girls, you want to play soccer? We never had a good run. Thank you gymnast teacher. I'm watching them. I'm stuck here four hours a day. I understand they're not super talented. Like something else is going on here. And also I am trying to avoid this,

like suck into one thing. And also then it takes over the whole family's life. And then they're all revolved around this one thing. And then by the way, what does that do to the kid? Then the kid knows our whole family's life is revolved around my performance in this one thing. And that's not what we're doing here. That ups the pressure so much.

I'm confused in general about pursuit of excellence. in general about pursuit of excellence. I feel like assuming that we should all be pursuing excellence, I've experienced and know too many people who are the carrots of the system and watched their mental health, their physical health, I've felt it in myself. I think the cost of it might be too high. I think that everyone's a victim of systems

of exceptionalism, everyone who doesn't make it, and especially those who do make it. I was listening to you talk about a podcast. Can you tell us what the long-term results on mental health and emotional health of those D1 athletes is? Yeah, it was very surprising and counterintuitive to me to find that D1 athletes, and studies done by a woman named Janet Smith, who found that D1 athletes had lower quality of life measures,

had worse sleep, lower well-being measures, and less physical activity than their non-athletic college peers or their non-versity athletic peers. And you're talking about long-term when they're like 40 or whatever. Yes. In their 50s, yes. They surveyed later, they were less active, more unhappy or unsettled than their peers who hadn't played. Another point though, which is related because I think college sports are a little, are so extreme is that the single best predictor of whether you'll be active later in adulthood is whether you played a varsity sport in high school. To me, that's the sweet spot is varsity sports in high school, if you can do it, great. And then it kind of develops that habit.

Maybe that's an old fashioned view, you leave out the club stuff for a minute. But college sports, they're a whole other ball game. I mean, the commitment that's required, the physical, the exhaustion, they have two full-time jobs and it takes a massive toll. Yeah. From early morning workouts that need a boost, to late night drives that need vibes, a good playlist can help you make the most out of your everyday. And when it comes to everyday spending, you can count on the PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard to help you earn the most PC optimum points everywhere you shop. With the best playlists, you never miss a good song. With this card, you never miss out on getting the most points on everyday purchases.

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What do we mean by almost? I mean, you can't get a well-groomed lawn delivered, but you can get chicken parmesan delivered. Sunshine? No. Some wine? Yes. Get almost almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. See app for details. Can we talk about parent sideline culture and what is going on? I want to start by telling you that when Abby came and said we couldn't be mediocre anymore, which by the way, I think our kids are as confident and beautiful. What Abby brought was absolutely necessary. I wouldn't change it in any way.

But we were on this like fancier team or something. I don't know. I guess when we started the club. An elite team of some kind. But the kids were still babies. It went from rec league to the travel soccer system. Yes. And that happens very young, I should say. And the sidelines just got wild.

I couldn't believe it. There was screaming, there was yelling, there was just so much behavior that is never tolerated anywhere else, right? And so they came up with this idea of like a field marshal that one of the parents would have to monitor all the parents' behavior. And so one day I was the field marshal. And when I tell you... Which she loved. By the way, she loved being a field marshal. Because I used to bring blow pops and like put them in all the parents' mouths. And I would say,

suck this so you can remember to not suck. Like let's just all not suck today. That's great. But one time when I was the field marshal, one of the dads on the sideline lost his shit to the extent that he started screaming, running on the field. In this crazy system, it was my job, the 5'2 field marshal, I had to run, go onto the field, talk down this six foot five man who was our parent on our sideline. Then he wouldn't leave the field. The referee was excusing him from the playing sidelines.

So then the referee told me it was my responsibility to get this guy to the parking lot. They had to call the police. I mean, the extent we have lost control of the sidelines and the behavior we are modeling for children in this spot that we are calling character building, please tell us, how did we get here? What are you hearing? What are we gonna do about it?

Well, we do know that since the pandemic, parent behavior has gotten worse. During and after the pandemic, we've lost 20% of sports officials because part of that was age-related and not wanting to get sick. And part of it was understandably tired of being on the receiving end of a lot of abuse.

I know that communities are trying to do things about it. And we can talk about some of those things. There are groups that have silent Saturdays, zero tolerance policies, teams where they have the captains from opposing teams come out and read a statement, like at a basketball game. This game is for fun. It's so we can enjoy the sport and play.

I mean, it seems so insanely juvenile. They're teaching the parents. They're coming out. Reminder, we are out here to have fun. Yes. But I think it's all a reflection of the fact that we parents feel so tethered to our kids' performance and how they play and if they score, it's like our goal and it matters so much to us. And you just feel it so much more as a parent, which is why I often recommend that parents miss games. Just don't go to games if you're getting too wrapped up.

It's not good for anybody. Don't go to the games or miss some. I think that that's really good. I think I heard you say, and this like really hit me, if your kid does really well and you feel elated and you have an outsized happiness. And then on the converse, if your kid does poorly and you parent are upset, that is something to be thinking about and to be aware of. And I think Glenn and I do a pretty good job at keeping this in check,

because honestly, it really does not matter if my kid plays well or doesn't. The times that I get like really pumped for her is when I know she's been struggling and she's been having a tough time at practice or she hasn't been playing it in her, from her words, like her best. And then she like kind of comes into a game

and comes into herself. That's cool to me. Cause I'm like, wow, like look at what you've been able to do. That's so cool. How can parents fix themselves? Besides not just not going like, do you have any like tips for parents who are sitting on the sideline,

who do you recommend parents watch practice? Cause that's a thing. Oh no, I can't imagine. And first of all, like, don't you have something better to do? Yes. And second of all, it's not, I guess to me, it's not helping your child. If you're standing around second guessing the coach and offering suggestions, it's not helping the child. It's very confusing. And kids get really torn up when the parents and the coach don't agree and it's just so confusing. I think it's helpful to,

when you're struggling with it as a parent, to know that it's gonna be a struggle and that just learn to recognize it and to keep your mouth shut. And another really important bit of counsel I read from a coach named Steve Magnus is, don't make a big deal of their wins, of their great games. That's right.

Yeah, be proud, but because you're sending the message that it's sort of conditional, and then the kids want to play well for you, not because they love it. We as parents, our job ought to be to establish an environment where they feel able to indulge their interest and get better because they like it, you know, to develop their intrinsic motivation for the sport, not because they're pleasing mom and dad or anybody or even the coach, but that they love it and they're doing it because they love it and they enjoy it and they feel they're with a team that they love, not because they're pleasing somebody. That's right.

That's been the, I would say, and the pod squad kind of knows I've gone through quite a bit of a recovery process from professional sport. And I would say that that's probably the thing that I've had to reckon with the most, is this, what do I want? And like, I was thinking about this two days ago

when I was going on my walk and I was like, wow, like you're walking right now. Nobody told you to do this. Nobody's paying you for this. This isn't something that, you know, the television screen, the cameras are looking at. Like you're doing this because you know that this is good for your long-term health,

cardiovascular, you know that this is good for your long-term health, cardiovascular, you know, wellness, all of the good things that you get from going on a walk. And honestly, when I was playing and up until maybe like three years ago, it was hard for me to find the motivation to do something without the belief that somebody else is gonna watch it or I was gonna get something good out of it. Or you were gonna make someone proud. You wanted me to, I mean, Linda, it would not be out of the realm for Abby

to come home from a walk and say, I went for a walk, are you proud of me? We're 48. And I do think about that word a lot and poor parents, like we just can't win for losing, but I do often think about what is the shadow side of the thing I'm saying. If I'm saying, I'm so proud of you

because you scored so many goals today, there's a shadow side of that. If I am proud of you because you scored goals, it is also automatically true that I will not be proud of you if you do not score goals. In fact, I'm a little ashamed. I'm not be proud of you if you do not score goals. In fact, I'm a little ashamed. Yes. I'm a little ashamed of you. That's why language matters. I'm very particular about this one.

I never say the word proud because it's kind of a trigger for me. I only say, gosh, I'm so happy for you that you feel good about that performance. And I don't say I think you did well or I think you did poorly. We ask her, how do you think you did? How do you feel about that game? And then she informs us. And so that informs the things that we can say to her as a mirror back.

Like, I'm so happy that you feel that way. Or like, oh man, I feel, I'm so bummed that you feel that way about yourself and about your performance. And then sometimes Abby will come in the room and secretly say, wow, I had a different assessment. Like we actually don't add, Abby doesn't add her assessment,

but she often has a very different one than the one the child has come to. I'm actually so happy for her that she feels that way because I thought she'd double suck. And also, I just want to say this as a shout out to all the parents and maybe some helpful tip for a parent. If your child asks you for your assessment and only if they do is when you give it to them. Yeah. And I will tell you, we've told Emma, hey, if you

ever want me to let you know how I felt about the game, just ask. I'm happy to give you coach Abby's perspective. Take a guess how many times she's asked me what my perspective was. Zero. Yeah. Zero times has my child wanted to know what gold medalist, World Cup champion,

Abby Wambach had to think about her game. They don't give a shit about what we think. So just know that, know that. When you are gonna go analyze your kid with your kid on the drive home, my God, do not talk about the game on the drive home. Yes, I know. It's so obvious. I just can't understand why that hasn't resonated with all paras. I'm also interested in short term, how do we help our pod squad families carve out pockets of health inside this system that is not going to change tomorrow?

What do you think, sister, as a parent of young kids, like what do you want to know about this whole system? I'm so in it that I don't even know what... Oh, that's good. ...how to start it. I'm not even close to the college situation. I guess I'm interested if there is any data on what conditions, what parameters, what kind of context you can help create for kids to have short-term, long-term health success, benefit from sport, as opposed to like where the red flags are. When you say long term, the people who have been total immersion, high intensity, actually

fair worse, like where's the sweet spot and what conditions can parents do to create that sweet spot so they would get the benefit of sports without the, the detriment that is the flip side of it. Well if you can X out all the influences that are saying specialize early, you know, sign your kid up, five years old, all of that. You know, in a perfect world I think they play a lot. Unstructured play outside with like-minded age-related peers, a little older, a little younger. I spoke to the professor, Peter Gray, who's really an expert on play.

And this is where kids learn emotional resilience. They develop confidence. They develop a feeling of competence and independence. So this is something we've taken away from kids. Let your kids play unstructured and get out of the way. As they get older, I think it's great to introduce them to sports that doesn't have to be organized. In elementary school, I think some rec teams are great. I think they're wonderful for kids to meet other kids.

If they're like local and they're low- and the focus is on development, fun, keep dabbling and exploring what interests them. There's this document called the Children's Bill of Rights in Sports that is a big thing in Norway and we've started to adopt it in some communities here in the US. The first principle is let children decide what they want to do. Ask them what they want to do. Ask them what they want. And as they get older, and if they're interested in a particular sport, and those who are, indulge it to the extent that you're comfortable with as a family. I think you hold off on specializing as long as possible, as long as you think.

It's doable that they'll be able to still be competitive, but not at first grade, not in second grade. It's not in their interest to do it that young. But as they get older and then they decide they want to, I think it really has to come from the kid. And there's this quote I love from Steve Magnus, that Olympic coach, there's no such thing as an 11-year-old sports star. So get over your eight-year-old bringing home a trophy. Like, don't make a big deal of it and let them dabble and then kind of choose their own path. And with any luck, they'll play in high school

on a varsity team if they're good enough. I, frankly, am really split about whether, particularly for women, if college sports are so great, I'm not sure I'd want my daughter to play for a college team. Why? Well, if you look at the data, and I'm involved in a documentary project on mental health of collegiate women athletes, it's called Beyond Stigma. And if you look at the data, and I can share it with you,

in 2023, the NCAA did a survey of mental health of men and women in college sports. It's like over 20,000. And in every single measure, the women did worse and sometimes significantly worse than the men. So overall, 44% of collegiate women athletes felt constantly overwhelmed by all they had to do. The men, it was just 19%. 29% of the women felt overwhelming anxiety, just 9% of the men did.

Women athletes report much higher rates of clinically significant depression. They get injured a lot more. I'm sure, Abby, you're aware of this in your career in sports, that they tear their ACLs four times the rate that men do in sex-comparable sports. injured a lot more. I'm sure Abby, you are aware of this in your career in sports that they tear their ACLs four times the rate that men do in sex comparable sports. And the ACL is the big ligament in the knee that when you tear it, it's a long rehab process and usually require surgery. And half of those people are going to get arthritis within 10 years. So there's like a long-term consequence of tearing your ACL and girls get it a lot more than boys and women more than men. Women get concussions more. Women who have body shamed more. I don't want to sound like so negative about

sports. It's just that I think the way they have evolved so that it's basically two full-time jobs, the way they have evolved so that it's basically two full-time jobs, collegiate and male athletes, both. They have two full-time jobs, the division one level, another survey. You can look it up. It's called the goals. Goa LS survey. The NCA puts out, the athletes report spending 33 hours a week division one on their sport and 35 on their academics. I mean, that those are two full-time jobs. They also have very little control over their summers, their vacations, holidays, what they can study, whether they can travel abroad. And if you're Abby Wambach, that might be fine.

If you are just so driven and so damn good. But a lot of the kids, they've kind of like fallen into it or they're good and they got noticed and they ended up on a Division I team. I think that's probably pretty rare because you really have to want it to be on a Division I team. But it might be a lot more than you realized. And I think that high school girls, you know, who have this intention should be aware of what's coming. Because it is intense and it's relentless. And it's very, very challenging. Yeah, that's why I think it's so important what you're saying. It can come across all of this talk as negative.

But what I want to say to the pod squad is, I feel like telling you all of these things and lifting the veil on all of this is a public service to you. Because if we don't analyze carefully what the big door prize is that we are sacrificing our children's entire lives for and our mental health and our money just so that we might become this 3% or 1%, let's for sure look at the 1% and make sure that that thing is good to us, is what we want. To me, it feels like one of the only ways out of the system

is figuring out do we even want the prize of the system? The reality of the prize, right? Because the perception is not the data. Yes. And we're already in it. I wanted to do this episode to say to all of, let's just analyze it before we give away our lives for it. Can we talk about coaching culture?

Yes. I was raised by a football coach, my sister and I, we have deep respect for the ideal version of what a coach can be. I can tell you that when our daughter has been doing her visits to colleges and all of that, I have sat down with these coaches and looked them in the eye and spent time with them

because I have seen what I think is coaching that is just unchecked ways that coaches approach kids as a former teacher that would never be tolerated in a classroom. And for some reason, when we put children on fields with these leaders who are creating such important pathways in their brains and in their bodies, there's no guidelines. Parents don't know what's acceptable, what's not. We can listen to a coach say things or be a certain way that feels wrong to us, but because of the Wild West nature of it,

we are convinced by everyone else that this is how it has to be done. That for some reason, the best way to motivate a child on a field is completely different than what is acceptable and best practice in a classroom. We use shame, we use fear, we use bullying. I mean, even the term locker room talk.

It says there's a certain thing that's acceptable in the world. And then there's this whole other thing that is okay because it's done in a locker room. Yeah, it is so weird. And one of the things that was like so important to Glenn and I, because like we're literally giving our child to a different family for four years. And we're assuming that this coach and the coaching staff in total is going to take over in some ways the parental guidance of this child while they are developing in some ways the parental guidance of this child while they are developing in some of the most important years

of their developmental lives. In terms of how they see themselves, their self-esteem, you know, what they're thinking about as they become young adults. And so you have to be mindful of that. And I wasn't going into some of these meetings with these coaches being like, oh, you're looking at our daughter

and hopefully we were like interviewing them because it was, she's like our most prized possession. One of the three of our children, they're our most prized possessions. And we just are basically hoping that they want our kid but you have to be interviewing these coaches as parents. Because the power differential is so huge. You are giving your kid, it's like you're giving your kid to a fundamentalist church and you need to make sure it's a good minister. Like this is just an

empty vessel. This could develop the absolute worst in her or the absolute best in her? What is a good coach? What should parents tolerate? What should they not tolerate? It's hard for parents. I grew up in an era where the yelling at us was normalized. When women's sports and women's soccer especially became more monetized, you saw more men get involved. Right? And I think that that's why it's so important to me

in terms of like how we can progress as like a culture is I really do think it will benefit young girls to be coached by young adult women. And this is not across the board. I just think that for the most part, it's good to see women on the sidelines, but there's so much that I was conditioned to believe was normalized coaching behavior

that I actually take myself out of the equation often. And I ask Glenn and like, what lands for you? And she's like, that's emotional abuse. And I'm like, got it. Okay, interesting. Yeah, you tolerated in sports, but the best coaches know to connect with the players. They're positive. They try to develop intrinsic motivation. They find a way to keep it fun.

Even at the top levels. You look at Steve Kerr, it's all about being positive and getting the most out of young people. You motivate them by giving them agency and finding ways to help them improve and feel like they belong and that you care about them as a coach and you want them to do well. It's not about being a general on the sidelines. And that has been normalized and that's the depiction of coaches in media. But those aren't the ones that produce the best results. There's plenty of evidence that shows that, that it is connecting with young people that

is motivating to them, especially young people. I always felt as a coach that they just need to know that I see them. I see you, I know your name. I want you to do well, I care about you. It's like, that's the bottom line, especially in the youth level and in high school. Like they just wanna know that they matter to you. And I think that really the good coaches know that. That's where good coaching starts

and connecting with the players. I think my favorite coach of all time, her name is Pia Sundahag and of course she's Swedish. So this makes a lot of sense. But when she first came to our team, the women's national team, we've been coached by men and a woman prior to Pia. And for the most part, it was very negative based. And then here comes this Swedish woman and she will not show us a negative clip in film ever.

And actually it was really hard for us to get used to it first, cause we were so conditioned to only work on things that we failed at, that when she only was bringing these positive clips, like look at what you've done here, and then trying to like magnify and replicate all of these positive moments that happened throughout a game, it really changed the way that I approached the game. It was like rather than picking out and nitpicking all of these failures or problems,

we were actually only focusing on the things that we do well. And then psychologically and energetically and mentally, that just changes the dynamic of the entire package, right? So I just think that I say this in a way that it's also hard for parents to know what is really happening inside the locker room. If your kid doesn't talk to you about it, or they're feeling a little bit shame because they're getting bullied or emotionally abused by their coach. What are some things that we can do to start these conversations with our young

kids to kind of open the door of understanding what they do want and what their experience is on the field and then how we can communicate best with them so that they can maintain this sweet spot that we want them to be in. Well, I think it starts by asking them and that you are very clear with them about what's not acceptable. In our family, we don't call each other names.

We don't belittle each other and you shouldn't accept it in a coach. And you know that so that they understand that even if the coach is doing it, that this is unacceptable to you. So they can recognize that it's wrong. We had this incident in my family where my son came and told me what was going on with one of his coaches, and he knew it was wrong and it bothered him. And I think as long as they feel that they can do that and then you can then weigh in

and say, yes, that is wrong. And I'm going to talk to the head coach about that. That is wrong. We don't do that. You just have to feel like you've given them permission and that just because the coach is doing it doesn't mean it's okay. And I think girls especially need to hear this in my experience and what I've heard from other coaches, they're very compliant, you know, how many I'll do more. It's, there's this compliance that I think girls really need to learn how to say

stop, or I'm not doing that. And isn't it precondition to all of that is your kid, because you can say that all you want, but if your kid knows my mom's world and identity is attached to me as an elite athlete and her entire community is built on that team and she will be devastated to lose this team, it doesn't matter what you say. They won't bring that to you because they know that it will be devastating to you. You have a responsibility even before that

to separate your existence and your identity and your sense of belonging in the world from your kids's sport. Because then when something happens, it's not catastrophic. It really can be theirs. We have this we thing going on. We play travel baseball.

We are the team. No, you're not. You are actually not. It is your child. You need to like support them to the extent that they wish. And then you need to have your own ass life precisely because when things break bad, when they don't make the team, it is not a family leveling experience. It's just a team.

Well, and that's the trouble with, in my view, with some of the travel teams and those club programs, the parents really develop a sense of community. I mean, on the one that's nice in a way, because everybody needs community. But on the other hand, the sport is for the kid. That's right. And the more your whole life revolves around how the child does and, you know, if they want to quit, God forbid, then your social life goes down the tube. And I think it's really important for parents always to remember that the sport is for the tube. And I think it's really important for parents always to remember that the sport is for the child. So if they wanna quit, they've had enough of it,

it's not the end of the world for you. Linda, how do you feel about paying your child for goals and winning things? Oh, I think that's terrible. Okay, thank you. I'll tell you why. I once had a father who promised his daughter an iPod if she would finish in the top 20 of a race.

Unbelievable. She was very lackadaisical. And she did. She finished in the top 20. I think that's terrible because there's this thing called commercialization effect where when you tie, attach money to every activity, it takes away from the non-market value of that activity.

And even at the Division I level, researchers have found that those Division I athletes who had gotten athletic scholarships were less interested in playing than those who had not because it's like they associate it with this monetary reward. And if I'm not getting paid, I mean, Abby is kind of like you're saying going for a walk because I want to not because someone's making it. I'm not getting paid to do it because I want to. That money I think has a very corrupting effect on motivation and how your perception of the activity itself. It's like ironically cheapening it.

Yes. Even though you're giving money for it because you're like, the goal was worth so much more than the money if you actually could internalize what it meant to you. Yes. My dad paid me for goals in college. Did it motivate you? Did it help? It really did motivate me, but it's interesting because in my retirement,

I've been retired for nine years, 10 years coming this December. And early on in my retirement, I started doing marathon training. Well, what did I think? I was like, Oh, I'll get a shoe deal. That that's good. I started learning how to surf. I started golfing. I'm like, oh Maybe I'll do some pro-ams and maybe I could and so like all of my thought process

has this Basis of understanding that like oh sports is a way to earn Money in a weird insidious way. So now I promised myself. Okay, whatever sports and hobbies I'd take on for the rest of my life, Abby, you don't need to earn money. You just do it for fun. And so that is totally changed. First of all, I suck at surfing, but it's incredible. She's turning down deals left and right. Linda. No, it's incredible to me that I'm actually enjoying the process of doing something I'm not good at, athletically. Yes. I think that's great. Yeah. It's okay to not be great at everything.

Yeah. You know? It's fun. It's nice to dabble and learn new things and to get better. And that's motivating in its own right. Yeah, totally. Can I just say another thing that annoys me and then we can just not talk about it

because I feel like it's going to be touchy. Have you noticed, Linda, in club soccer, also in like college soccer, that there feels like there's a system where the whole coaching staff is just a little old boys club where they just control everything and their entire vibe is not to let anyone else in, like actual celebrated female athletes who would be unbelievable coaches and role models for these girls. And they use tricks and they use the system to constantly replace themselves with their protege who's the next guy. And they make it impossible for women to infiltrate the system.

And so what do you think about that? Well, I mean, it is an old boys club, you know, that since Title IX was passed, ironically, we saw a drop in women coaches at the collegiate level. It used to be 90% of college women's coaches were women for coaching women's teams. And now it's 46%. It's a men's club. Men still kind of control the space. And I know many high school athletic directors, Bobby Moran at Thayer Academy, great athletic directors, constantly trying to recruit women coaches, but it's harder. There aren't as many women. And I experienced this when I was coaching my son

in baseball, when he was a rec team like you, Amanda, what you're doing, I was the only woman that did it because it kind of violates the norms. So, you know, sure at the college level, you know, they're not eager to have Abby come and do a talk. Is that right? I'm gonna say this because I know that she has to be careful about what she says.

I am less careful. I don't have to be careful about what I say. I think about it a little differently than you do because you've not been in it for all of the years. I've been conditioned to believe that some of this stuff is normal. It's been normalized to me. I can understand how it can look and feel for

somebody who hasn't been in it. I guess what I've seen from the outside and then you say from the inside, it feels to me like when an Abby or say some of her at the same level friends approach or try to involve themselves in coaching staffs that I would think they would be falling over backwards. You would think. Yeah, former national team players, former professional athletes. At the club level, cause their kids are in it, or at the college level, because they went there.

It is perceived as more of a threat to shut down than a gift to accept. And they are pushed to the side and there's resistance. There is no room for you here in a level that stuns me. Yeah, it's a really interesting thing. It's kind of baffling because these men who have built these college programs or these systems for many, many years, some of which I'm friends with

and trust and actually were some of my favorite coaches. It's interesting to me that the first thought isn't, okay, I've built this system of women. I've built this 30 years of plus of alumni that many are actually in the game coaching at other colleges, lower level colleges, because they haven't established themselves yet. I have all of these other women who could potentially take over for me.

To me, that feels like such a full circle, like here we are, okay? But it's interesting to think about how it's not the path that they take. They, you know, hire more men in their coaching staffs, and then they groom these men to take over for them when they want to step away from the game and they do it in such a way that it makes it kind of impossible for the college to pick their own coach. They tell us we arrange it so that we have, I quit at a certain time that's too late for anyone to vote and then my protege this guy he will step in and then there will be no time

for any sort of inquiry and this is how we will continue. Yeah but that's how all college teams do it. I mean that's what Tony Bennett just did at UVA. That's what UNC just did to make sure that they can anoint the next person. They're continuing their structure that they've built. It's also payback for servitude. For those low level coaches. It's like an apprenticeship. It's like an apprenticeship. The problem, I mean, that seems like the system as to why their apprentices are not women

is a whole other question, right? That's right. Because that system could still work if they were intentionally trying to say these women should have women leaders. Or if on the other side, maybe we have as many men coaching women, for example, as we have women coaching men. How about that? How about would that be fair?

Like when you say it that way, everyone's like, oh, that can't be. Yeah. Why the hell not? Yeah. And I just want to say this because I just think it's really important that this is not to say that all men that are coaching women's sports

are bad. Of course. And this is not to say that any of them are bad. This is just to say that any of them are bad. This is just to say that statistically speaking, I would like to see a lot more women, like Lenin just said, I would like to have the inverse of what's going on in the men's programs. However, many women are coaching the men's teams. I think that that should be the percentage of men coaching women's teams. Yes. I totally agree. What do you do about the fact that

there aren't as many women who wanna coach? Is that true? I don't know the statistics on that. My understanding is there are not nearly as many women apply for the coaching jobs as men. All I can tell you is anecdotally, what I have seen happen again and again is that when the women try, they are shut down.

And I've seen it with my own eyes with the most elite athletes in the world. Well, and you also just don't show up at an application for a college coaching job. You work your way up to that. And I'll tell you what, I am coaching like no one gives a shit about the teams that I am coaching. It's the lowest rec league you can possibly imagine. And there is still an element of browness there where... So true. It's not awesome.

It's not awesome. It's not a great feeling. It's very different. There's another woman coach with me every time. We like directly talk about it. It's a real thing. And of course they don't want to because it kind of sucks. And so if the environment didn't suck, I'm sure they'd want to.

I just wonder how much that has to do with, because I know title nine happened in 1972 and then the compliance inside of college sports didn't really start happening until the mid to late 90s. 90s, yeah. And so that's really when more women were playing college sports. And I think what you're seeing now is that progression of those coaches graduating from the colleges. And you've got about a five to 10 year ramp up period

where you're actually in the coaching world, but at a lower level, maybe at a different college as an assistant coach and you get to work your way up. So I wonder if over the next generation, we will see more women influxed into women's sports coaching. However, we also have to talk about what Glenn is talking about, whether they get let in, right? Like not just from the athletic departments,

but it's from the former coaches that have been stewards of these programs for 30 plus years. Yes. And women coaches are generally more harshly judged than male coaches and considered soft. Like your coach Pia, who is positive, that can be construed as not serious. Yeah. Like she's just a lightweight. So it's all tied up with masculinity and sports masculinity male values. So it's a hard domain

to feel comfortable in. And you know, with any luck, more women will. But I also wonder in your case, Abby, if there was like you were a threat to them, you know, that they weren't eager to have you come in and, you know, yeah, I think so. I mean, much better job. Not not from where I went to college, because I was coached by a woman in college and the team now has a woman coach. And so they actually call upon me quite often for advice and talking to recruits as like a fun little, Abby Wambach, you can talk to her and come to our school thing. But I do see it.

I do see it across the board. I want to offer one tiny, because we need to wrap up here and I can tell you that the best we've been able to do is continue to see it all clearly. You're in the Whirlpool. If you're going to step in, you're going to be in the whirlpool. It is very important to keep seeing the whirlpool for what it is. Keep talking to your kids about what it is. We can't fix it all, but we can say, did you notice how much this is costing? Do you notice who's getting this attention?

Do you notice those parents on the sidelines and what's happening? Do you notice how that makes your friend feel? What are the things that we can say or not say on the sideline that make you feel supported? That seems like the most simple, ridiculous thing. That's a game changer for you. It has been, one kid wanted a certain thing, the other kid wanted nothing said. The third kid want mom please just was very specific.

Please stop saying good try. Good effort. That makes everybody know I just screwed up. Like specific things like that. She's like mom, the only people that say good try or good idea are when I did it wrong. I'm like, wow, that's so true. Very specific with me.

You can do that. You can ask your kid, what ways do I show up that make you feel embarrassed? What ways do I show up that make you feel good? What do you wanna talk about in the car after? Do you even want me to comment? They'll tell you if they believe that you'll listen. And I think, I just wanna also say say that having had the sports experience and career that

I had, I have been conditioned to believe that sports were the end all be all for me in my life and my identity. And I also have had to pay a price for that. I've had to unlearn this kind of identity in some ways now that I no longer play soccer. And I will never play soccer again. I know that. And I don't know, I sometimes think of an alternate reality where I didn't go play professional sports and maybe I'm still playing soccer and I'm still enjoying it for the rest of

my life. But you couldn't literally pay me enough money to go play soccer again because I played it long enough. And I also want to say that even because I have my experience, I do think in total, if you're in touch with your kids, sports are really good for your kids to be involved in. Just be in touch with them and talk to them and communicate with them about what they want. Let them be the driver. And also, I don't want my kid to be the boss of our family. I don't think anybody out there does, but it just starts to happen slowly, but surely. And then this sports club thing becomes like

there's this insidiousness that takes hold and and you're suddenly in a cult. Yeah. It's like every autopilot. There's no more intentionality over anything. that takes hold and you're suddenly in a cult. Yeah. It's like every other cult. Yeah, it's autopilot. There's no more intentionality over anything. It's just pull the bar down on the seat and we're off. And then you're off.

I think the other thing, what I actually care about, and then getting clear with myself about where there's a rub between the two. Because if I actually care when my kid doesn't perform well, then I need to be real intellectually honest with myself about is that what I'm doing here? Is that what I actually care about? Or do I actually care that they're in here working it out for themselves, getting back up again, lifting up their teammates, like really distilling what you

care about. And then when you inevitably feel sad or disappointed or discouraged or you can be like, oh, breathe through it. But good thing, that's not what I actually care about. Because what I actually care about is this thing. And you can ground yourself there. But it gets really confusing in the moment if you don't actually know what you care about. That's really good. And I think it's really important to have other things in life than sports.

You know, for all kids, even those like you, Abby, who are as good as you or on that path, that they have other outlets in life so that all their eggs aren't in one basket, so that if they get hurt, they're not bereft. And so many of the experts say this, that kids need multiple sources of meaning in their life. It's not just from a sport. It's from something that's not quantifiable. Maybe it's knitting or cooking or art or working in an animal shelter, but other sources of meaning in their life so that all is not lost when their athletic career is over at whatever

age that is. But if it becomes everything, it's gonna be a very hard readjustment. So you wanna encourage kids to do other things besides sports, have downtime. And also not the only source of connection to you in your relationship with your kid. Yes, oh that's good.

Because then they might be thinking, I give up my sport, I give up my bond with my dad. I give up my sport, I give up my time with my dad. I give up my sport, I give up my time with my mom. Like you need the multiple connection points with your kid too, because that's really confusing to them. You guys, thank you. I really appreciate that you're having these conversations.

I think just exposing all of this and talking about it is gonna help just in that. Just to make all the parents feel less crazy and be a little more intentional about the decisions we're making. I think also parents need to try to reclaim their agency somewhat, especially when the kids are young, to not feel like they have to do two seasons of soccer

when their kids are nine years old. They don't have to do this. It's a choice. And that club coaches aren't the boss of them, that they can assert their agency as parents. And this is what we value. We value being home on Sundays or Saturday morning, whatever the case may be, but that you can carve out some time separate and apart from sports and not be beholden always to the coach. Right. And there's a cost to that. There's a cost to that.

But what we are here to say is there's a cost to not that. There is a cost to saying, we are actually not going to do that. But there are so many costs involved with just giving up everything. And so make sure that you have analyzed what that prize is and make sure you want have analyzed what that prize is and make sure you want that prize for your kid before you give up everything in your family to get it. Thank you, Linda Flanagan. It's so great to have you.

Enjoyed this so very much. Thank you guys. It was great to talk to you all. The book is Take Back the Game. I love the subtitle. How money and mania are ruining kids' sports and why it matters. So important.

Thank you for your work. Good luck out there, Pod Squad. See you next time. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us. If you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things first Can you please follow or subscribe to we can do hard things?

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We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our executive producer is Jenna Wise-Burman, and the show is produced by Lauren Legrasso, Alison Schott, and Bill Schultz. You