This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. I used to have high highs, division one level type players that would come to me and say, I only enjoy soccer when I'm training with you. I used to be like, that is not a compliment. That hurts. Why is it called I Hate Soccer? It's that. It's like, why are we turning this sport into something that they use to love? into something that is a job at 14 and 15 years old. All that stuff is conditioned through parents and coaches and other players. And it's like, man, where has the love of the game gone? Jason Collinsworth from the I Hate Soccer podcast. Man, I was just, we were talking before. My wife sent me one of your videos about the politics of ECNL and GA girls travel soccer, and I was automatically hooked. And since that, I've gone through, I've watched probably three or four of your shows. And Jason, what you're doing is really cool. Can you tell the audience why you decided to start the I Hate Soccer podcast and what's been taking place? so for the last 11 years i haven't worked for a club i worked for myself and i did my own training company and uh i started in 2015 in buffalo new york because i was out there coaching in the nwsl which is a professional league with when they still have the team so i broke off of that i started my own thing and for the last 11 years i've talked and developed and developed relationships with all these players and all these families. And then they would come with me with their nightmares from club. And all throughout those 10 years, I would always just like whisper under my breath or a parent would whisper under their breath. I hate soccer. I hate soccer because we're hearing these stories over and over and over again. So in about at about 2023, 24, a lot of my college or a lot of my players that I've had for eight years started going to college. And I, even as a coach at a high level, I really didn't know about the recruiting process. So I'm like, you know what? Once you get back from your freshman year of college, let's do a video where you just give me a deep dive into your recruiting process and your first year of college to let them know, let my younger players know what college soccer really is. and I really got consistent with it in 2025 last year and the first clip I put up on Instagram or the second clip blew up I gained like a thousand followers from one clip and it was actually about a girl who plays division one soccer and she was on RL and she used to think that being on an RL roster was a death sentence that you could never make it to a high level playing RL and that is the one that just catapulted me. And I'm like, you know what, I'm going to be, I'm going to do more, I'm going to do more and more and more. And then I started talking to coaches and directors and that's, that's how it all started. Well, I, and, and that's really the information, right? Cause you know, as a travel soccer family and you know, we just you know, we, we had gone eight years with our oldest. She played at GA level, us soccer level. We, she tried out for two ECNL teams, The lower level has been trying to get to ECNL, but they've been given an RL ranking to see how they do, you know, all this stuff. And after this, maybe I'll have you break that down so people understand what I'm talking about. But, you know, you're right. The same things as we keep running into the inconsistencies of the program, the inconsistencies of the development, the inconsistencies of coaching. Right. And so even and that's at every single level we've seen this. And I actually, before this show, my last show, which was a really strict motivational performance show, I did a seven-part series about travel sports in general. I covered volleyball, soccer, baseball, and hockey. And I had really elite, pretty much all former national champions or pro players on to talk about their experience. And the information you get from those personal stories is so powerful because what I got to is that everybody's journey is kind of unique, obviously, for their own physical development, their mental development of understanding the game. Right. And then also, you know, that that emotional gain of of, you know, whether you're siloed into just personal stats or you actually become a part of a club team that really is has a great culture and are seeking championships. Right. And there's all those differences. So, you know, I let's just start with your expertise. What are the differences between the the higher level clubs nationally for both boys and girls? well really it's a closed system it's not an open system and we have we're the only country in the world that has competing governing bodies at the youth level right so so we think that u.s soccer runs everything it doesn't u.s soccer founded in 1913 hasn't they don't care about youth soccer they didn't start a youth soccer league until 2007 everybody thinks that everybody thinks that us ysa is u.s soccer it's not it's a contract it's a it's a it's a contractor right so uh the us ysa was founded in the 70s as was a yso and u.s soccer didn't get involved in it full-on youth soccer until they started the development academy on the boys side in 2007. And people came at them and said, Hey, why don't you do this on the girls side too? And U S soccer verbatim said, we don't need to do it on the girls. We have the world's best female soccer players. So the girls got tossed aside that spawned U S club soccer that was founded in 2002 but they started the ecnl in 2009 okay to be kind of like the same thing but on the girl's side and that has morphed into an insane amount of clubs and insane amount of travel and very but it's a very high level ecnl is a very high level of girls i'm not going to say clubs and i'm not going to say coaches but it is a very high level of girls um and so now what has happened so u.s soccer u.s soccer once covid hit u.s soccer said no more da we're not doing it and that was they started the girls development academy in like 2016 So they gave girls soccer four years. They waited until 2015, 2016 to start the girls side. And then in 2020, COVID hit. And that was an excuse to close both shops. Wow. But the ECNL is still up there and they're gaining power. And then MLS, Major League Soccer, came in and started their, they kind of took over from the DA, but it's completely separate. So now we have an arms race of ECNL. It's ridiculous. We have an arms race of ECNL and MLS, but MLS is now merged or kind of partnered with the Girls Academy, the GA, which you talked about, which your daughter played in. GA and MLS versus ECNL. And it's who can get the biggest? who can get the biggest and it's crazy and then and then it's a war of we're better than you no we're better than you and they never play each other on the field so you don't actually get to know that who is actually better on the field and nobody cares about on the field because we're not allowed to win anymore it's all development over winning which is ridiculous but yeah so that's In a nutshell, that's you soccer today. It's interesting. All right. So those are those seem those are the overall parent ideas, right? How does a regional club get to decide or determine who they join like or who they get to play with? What are the criteria for the clubs that you're aware of or that you can decipher, I guess, is the best question. It's determined in a boardroom. room. It's determined. It's determined by who, you know, it's determined by does the other club in the area that's in that platform like us? Are they scared of us? Because there's a lot of gatekeeping going on, especially on, especially on the ECNL side. There are clubs that will keep other clubs out until I just had GTFC on, Greater Toledo Football Club, the director. They were forced to be in the RL for three years. RL is the second tier of the ECNL. They were forced to be in the RL for three years. They had a gold differential amongst their six clubs or six age groups, they had a goal differential of plus 1,000. And they were still kept out of ECNL because the Michigan Hawks are about an hour away and an hour and a half away. And the founding member of ECNL, and they keep them out and they said, don't let them in. And then eventually ECNL goes, guys, they're scoring a thousand goals. We have to let them in. The same exact thing happened to the Nationals, which is another Michigan club. They won three. You were talking about your daughter before we started playing for that club that won three USYSA National titles. Two. The Nationals, they had four age groups that were finalists. I forget what year it was. and the ECNL still kept them out. They've been applying and applying and applying. And it's because the gatekeepers that have been there forever kept them out. It's unbelievable. Wow. And in your estimation, why do you keep a program out? Because you don't want to dilute it and make it worse? Because you can't. Because the individual clubs have control of their own club, how many tournaments they play, where they go, what they sign up for. Right. So there's the governance and then the production of quality players. That's obviously not the same amongst clubs. So is that why you think they're being more gatekeeper-ish? I don't know if it's diluting the product. I because I, for one, personally, I want an open system. I want everybody to play under one banner. And then maybe if you a new club you just start at the bottom and then work your way up And then if you keep on winning you get promoted And if you do pretty poorly you get relegated to a league lower That's how the rest of the world does it. I don't know if it's... I think it's more about competition and worrying about losing their own players. Because they might treat girls better. They might have better coaches. and they might be, you can only, it's like the multi-sport argument, right? It's like, how do you know you love soccer if you don't get to play basketball or softball or baseball or whatever, right? It's the same with clubs. Like, how do I know that you're the best if I don't get to like maybe go train with them or see what they're doing, but they're in another league. And so it's, if you notice a lot of clubs, they don't promote their own club. They promote the league that they're in. Yeah. And it's and it's like, OK, now what are we doing here? And that's like the talking points. Right. If you ever watch if you ever watch like CNN and you get some of the some of the like the Democratic congressmen, they all say like the exact same phrase. It's like who emailed you this morning to say the exact same thing over and over and over again? Who emailed all of you? Well, the same thing happened with the Republicans in the ballroom last week and the whole ballroom. Yeah, it's the same thing. Yeah. I mean, it's like it's like what is going on? And it's like, wait a minute. You guys are all posting the exact same stats. It's like 42 percent of RL. We have a 42 percent increase of college coaches and GA only has 19. It's like you guys are all posting the exact same stat. Who emailed you to say all this? And that's why I had that left versus right thing. Yeah. It's ridiculous. One of your guests was, sorry to cut you off. One of your guests was talking about, you know, how you, like, essentially, or maybe you were saying it, I forget. But someone was saying that these, the bigger places, they're marketing companies, right? They're marketing their capabilities. and I think the underlying component is twofold. One, if you're an ECNL or GA, you're going to have your best crack at D1, D2, D3, right? That's kind of what the sale is. And then because that sale, that will mandate the level of your annual fees and what the parent is willing to spend on five national tournaments versus two national tournaments or whatever. Yep. Yep, absolutely. And it doesn't mean we're getting to a point where you can trot out any coach on some of these teams. And because you're in a platform, because you're in the ECNL, you're going to compete just because you get all the best talent. It's not necessarily that you're developing anybody. You're just accumulating. You're recruiting. You're literally recruiting. And it's like college, but for 13-year-olds. It's like recruiting for 14-year-olds. It's awful. We're professionalizing and skipping steps, I feel. Not just a few, most. We're skipping most steps, right? The development of these young athletes is an abomination of what it should be. I just want to really talk about my incredible partnership with one of my best friends, and that's Evan Hafer and the boys over at Black Rifle Coffee. I'm so honored to be a part of their organization and just really can't thank them enough for allowing me to participate. What I want you to do is go to BlackRifleCoffee.com, and I want to check out their new energy drinks. They have these incredible energy drinks that you can buy at all different kinds of stores, Walmart, Bath Sports, and others. Or you can go online and order, and if you want to put in your little promo code, FrogLogic20, there you get a little discount on stuff there. I highly recommend that. For me, it's my morning coffee. I am addicted to Black Rifle Coffee's Just Black. I think the Tiger Stripe Camo definitely reels me in. The other one I love is the AK Espresso. This one right here is phenomenal. Love these. But they have so many different things that you can get at Black Rifle Coffee. You will love it. Again, when you go over BlackRifleCoffee.com and you're checking out, type in FrogLogic20. Get your little discount quote and tell them already. Rutt, rut, send you. So to all those folks out there who love coffee like I do, please do yourself a favor and go over and check out my brothers at BRCC. The development of these young athletes is an abomination of what it should be. You know, and that's the thing that really impacts me the most. In particular, when you look at, you know, some of the statistics for percentages of people, so rough estimates, right, there's 385 to 400,000 girls playing high school age soccer, right? And out of that, you know, 2.4 to 2.8, go to D1, NCAA D1. D2 is 2 to 3.0. NCAA D3 is 3%. Total 7.9% of those girls make it into. And then another statistic, because we actually looked at sending Chloe to IMG, and they gave us some statistics, you know, for $85,000, $90,000, right? Exactly. We have a matriculation. it was uh 98 of the girls go play college you know two percent go play pro right out of out of here and then they broke down these other numbers of of um really uh like how many girls like what is it like 80 89 percent of kids that go on to play college come from the travel programs so it's like they basically are saying you can't be a three sport athlete in high school if you want to play college right you have to isolate at least by 13 silo yourself right even even before the post-puberty uh body kind of formation sets in and you realize that quickness or that iq or your strength development it's like no that's when they're in the bubble and that's when we have to get them dedicated doing seven international tournaments a year and all that as a long time player and coach and person who understands all this what is what is in your mind the biggest misconceptions that both the club right the club kind of puts forward or the coaches put forward to these young players? I think the biggest misconception is that development comes, not only comes first, but is development real? If everybody is being replaced by the new kid in town or somebody from three hours away, I was in Buffalo the last 11 years, And you wouldn't believe how many nine and 10 parents of nine and 10 year old girls were terrified when all their team was from Buffalo. And then. I was like, that's really good, but they're coming and they're like, who's coming? The Canadians players from Erie, Pennsylvania, people from Cleveland, Ohio, people from Raj. Yeah, it's insane. People from Rochester, New York, people from Syracuse, New York, people from Binghamton are going to come. And so these nine and 10 year olds like, well, we're we're we're at the best club we're going to develop. We're at the ECNL club. It's like you're going to be replaced. You're going to be replaced by the Canadians soon or by the kids that chose Flash over Cleveland Force or whatnot. And as a coach, I grew up believing that the European academies were unbelievable at development. And then I really started getting into the weeds about it. They release guys every year, too. they bring in guys from three countries over yeah to come and play in their academies at 14 and then i'm like wait a minute messi went to barcelona at 13 years old what happened to the he replaced if barcelona if barcelona is so good at developing talent why doesn't every eight-year-old that they touch end up being a pro. Is development real or are we just always looking for the next Mia Hamm? I think that's the biggest misconception. Now, and we copy curriculums and we copy drills and I think that I don't have kids but if I did I would I would find coaches that develop a relationship with my kids that that talk to them that tell them you know what you weren't you were below your standard today I think very they can be hard you can go to a kid and say your standard is here, you dropped today. And I want you, you mess up whenever you play really, really well, you messed up because I know what you're now capable of. Now this is your standard. And if you blow, if you fall below that, I'm going to be hard on you. That's what I would be looking for from a coach, not the fancy club, not the fancy licensing and any of that, just somebody that's going to talk to my kid because there's a lot of environments. There's a lot of environments where kids go and they don't get talked to at all by their coach at all at all I mean Chloe was the perfect example right she had one two three four five six coaches plus her high school plus uh one two three four high school coaches different high school coaches so that's 10 coaches right plus we had two outs or three outside coaches one who ran a d2 program one a one who plays uh kind of uh eastern european pro and then some other things and then another uh that uh has just been played high school and then like one year college and then had to stop for medical reasons but has been teaching shooting essentially oh and then we had another guy who owns the local soccer store so you know, you put all those coaches together. I mean, we're looking at 16 different coaches, 15 different coaches out of that group. There's been three that actually looked at my daughter as an individual player and able to have those unique conversations to set whatever the standard is right Hey listen let me articulate to you the expectations what I want to see from you in practice what I want to see for the game what I want to see you doing outside on your own right these are the things and then as the year progresses it like okay she got that skill set she got that skill set she got set that's it even with the good coaches we really haven't seen that map laid out obviously um but that was it out of the rest of the coaches like she was just the body on the field. And in many cases, it was just like until they could replace her with some outside person that was switching from ECNL to GA because they hated the ECNL program or they were going from GA or going from U.S. soccer. You know, it's just it's like now we're in this NIL phase or transfer portal phase of travel. Yeah. What are your thoughts on all that? Well, and those three coaches also probably made her realize I'm more than a soccer player because they actually get to know her and talk about things that aren't just soccer because we all know and we're worried about does she identify as a soccer player? Well, what happens when soccer players when soccer is gone? What like that moment can be tough for a lot of players. And as long as you have that foundation, but you also just touched on it. you just listed off 15, 16, 17 coaches. That another misconception is I developed that player. Dude, you, she's had 17 coaches. You didn't develop her. Like, you know what I mean? And a lot of coaches are territorial and they're defensive about that. Possessive. Yeah. Possessive. And the portal and like the stuff. I mean, yeah. I, when you bring up stuff like the transfer portal, and I know that you brought up, you've done some stuff on dusty lately. And so I am actually close family friends with Trey McKinney who plays on Michigan. Who's the freshman that was really good. Yeah. I've known, I've known his dad since I was nine years old. My sister, my sister is married to Trey's dad's best friend. So, and here's the thing about the transfer portal and all that stuff. I think that you should be able to leave toxic environments. I think I, and there's always a reason behind it. And it's not always because you're looking for a level up. Maybe they made a mistake and they realize that they're not at that level that happens. And maybe they were forced by a club coach to play at a certain level or to commit to a certain school because it looked better on an Instagram post that you went to an ACC school versus a Mac school. That happens. That happened to a player that I know. It's ridiculous what's going on. And I always say this to adults. If you got a job, if you got a transfer or an opportunity to transfer to, let's call it Nashville, and they're going to offer you $100,000 more than your current job, would you take it? Almost everybody would. Everybody would. Or even just stay in your own city, right? If you're in if you're in Boca Raton, Florida, and then the competitor just offers you one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in full benefits and everything else on top of what you're making now, you're going to go. Why are we blaming 18 year old kids? Why are we forcing 17 year old kids to make these decisions? Can they make these decisions? Yeah, that's what kills me. And the other thing, too, is I think, you know, and this is, I think, rightly deserved from clubs in particular down here. It's unlike, I think, most places in the country in terms of the negative aspect of parental influence, negative influence, pressure, putting pressure on the coaches, the programs, going crazy, thinking your kid is going to go play in the national championship game at D1 for Stanford. you know she's going to get recruited from them you know in her freshman year and you know she she she doesn't even have a pullback move or she doesn't have an opposite foot or whatever it is but yet they concoct and so that pressure that comes in too is another factor probably for a lot of the reasons coaches react in certain ways they do our clubs run that they do can you talk a little bit what you've seen why programs might be a little bit more um resistant uh uh for a dad you know i don't know what the right term would be to but they kind of shield these kids and they only want to talk to the kids why why do you is do you think that's a positive or negative i think it's a negative i really i always involved parents in everything that i did because I wanted to talk to the parents because the kid doesn't always tell you everything. So then, you know, and then I love getting the parents point of view. So like in my supplemental training company, I would talk to the parent, you know, and they would fill me in and like, yeah, this happened. And, you know, and then once mom or dad leaves, then I bring it up to the kid. It's like, your dad said this, did this really happen? And then she's like, no, it didn't happen that way it happened this way and i think you need that i think you need that as a coach and ego plays a big factor in it i think soccer i don't know if it's like this in other sports but something about soccer coaches are very territorial they're very defensive if you question if you question them and then they always want to give you a resume i've done this i've develop that. When I want your opinion, I'll give it to you. It's like, what kind of... You're talking about relationship building. That's right. Why would I trust you? Why would I trust you with my daughter if you are going to treat me like that? You know? You're not coming and telling me how to do my job. You know what I mean? But I am going to tell you about my job. And we're going to talk and show you what my... philosophy experience is yeah your philosophy yeah that's right do they have a do they have a philosophy they don't do you know how many coaches i've gone up to like the first thing i ever do when i work with a coach is i ask them hands down what's your coaching philosophy and nine times out of ten they're like my what i was like yeah you're written stated objective of what you want if you get to spend you know 10 weeks or 10 years with a kid what do you want that kid to become. That's your coaching philosophy. Right. And then, you know, next, next to that is like, what's your training doctrine? Like, what's the progression that you're integrating into the training, into the season, a year long season, essentially, like, show me what that looks. And nobody has this stuff. They've got all this crap written on their websites promising you that. Exactly. But, but you don't like, I'll go, I'll go to, I'll go to like, I'll start at the beginning of the season, go out, watch a practice. I'll come in the end. And it's literally, they're doing the same drills they've done. Oh my God. Oh my God. It's the same practice. That was the number one complaint I ever got from my players is that it's so boring. They just, we just do the exact same thing. We show up, we warm up, we do a little technical passing drill, and then we scrimmage. And it's like, why is everybody do the exact same thing and expect to be better? And that's, That goes back to my, is development real? Why do technical trainers have to exist? Why did I have to exist? My company shouldn't have to exist, especially for the amount of money that you guys pay. What do you get? What do you get? What is your ROI? But that's another thing about some parents that I see sometimes, and I get worried about this. all these parents pay all this money so for 10 years eight years whatever do some parents put pressure on their kid to play college soccer because they want an roi on what they just spent for seven years and then that puts unbelievable pressure on some of these kids i just had somebody on that i posted yesterday she was talking about one of her players committed and she goes and she asked the players like how happy are you and she goes i'm just happy for my parents what oh wow that's not right i don't like that yeah you know what i mean it's just oh i see you see it all the time you see kids make normal mistakes on the field whatever it is and and then what do they do they immediately look over to their parent to check if they're upset or they're angry or whatever I had one parent, not in travel, but in middle school, a sport at my kid's school. And the dad is on his iPad filming every time the child touched the ball. And then they're getting into arguments in the middle of the game on the thing. And I'm like, I'm almost like, I'm like, hey, buddy, let me, let me, you need, let's step outside. Let me just break some things down for you. Your kid's already under enough pressure. you don't need to be actively like coaching each each step each crossover each move i mean it's ridiculous so um all right let's break it out a little bit um what is the best uh in your mind what would be kind of the best formula for a player that's post-puberty right so they know what their body's going to look like they they they can get a good understanding of their speed capability quickness ball skills ball handling and traffic shot both feet defensive breakdown like they have those those that solid foundation to where if they want to they could start that process of climbing that you know the the ladder to potentially move into collegiate soccer what are the things that you talk to players to think about one thing is you touched on it being two footed i have t-shirts made up of like be two footed for my players because i think that think about the worst team that chloe ever played on right if you think of think of the worst team right and you think of the gap between the best player and the very worst player right now if think about chloe's best team think of the best player and think of the of the worst player it's a smaller gap that's the same with your feet i believe that if you're right if your right foot is here and your left foot is down here you're going to be an average player you're going to like like that team that had that big of a gap that was an average team at best right so if you're if you can be here and here individually, technically with both feet, all surfaces of both feet, I think you're going to be a great player or you're going to be way better than somebody that's just one footed. And that builds confidence too, because now a hundred percent, because now if you have two players coming at you, you have more capability of getting out of it because you two footed versus if you have two players coming on and you only have a right foot you going to you limited So that always that always been the foundation of what I do with my technical training. That's brilliant. I mean, I mean, I remember like I went, I played lacrosse in college at Penn state. And, and when I showed up, you know, I was, I was good. I'm just from Florida, smaller, not as many teams did a fifth year of high school, postgraduate year up at a big prep school and up north. But I was left handed, man. I had the left split dodge. I had a roll left and I almost had. So I show up and there's these kids from Philly and Long Island and, you know, in upstate New York and all these like hardcore lacrosse areas. They all had two hands. And so immediately I have this Herculean effort to just catch up, you know, with as many wall balls, like 200 right hand wall balls a day. And so it's like, you know, those gaps in your, you know, you would think like coaches on these programs would identify, Hey, here's your gap. I need you to go do 300 of these while you're on your own or 400 of these, but yet it doesn't seem like there's much of that type of thing. And that's why parents and kids have to go outsource people like you. Like, I mean, at one point we had Chloe with a passing guy. We had her with a shooting guy. We had her at a strength and conditioning guy. And we had her with a speed guy. Four outside coaches plus the program here. And you're like, what is going on? What do you guys provide? I what what's crazy is that when I have a player that works for me for seven or eight years they're very very very good on their weak foot so I have I have three girls that only their coaches will only play them on their on the left side of the field because they think she's left-footed she's right-footed she doesn't he he's been coaching them for three years and he doesn't even know that she's right-footed we're talking about that relationship building she's so good on her weak foot that she that he just automatically assumes that oh she's left footed she's right-footed he doesn't even know that and he works with her way more than with me or she works with me it's like how do you not know that you're the coach and they don't have time to break that all down individually because they're too worried on team focus and team tactics and group tactics and it's just that's lost another thing i'll add is that being completely two-footed allows you to be versatile in what position you play and if you're if you can play multiple positions at youth it's not a bad thing i used to have a player that was a really good like attacking center mid but then when when it was came time to sub she had to move out to the left or to the right and she hated it because the girl that came in for her could only play the 10 and i go look being versatile being able to play in multiple positions will only help you get on the field sooner in college she ended up going to nebraska wow she played she plays 20 minutes a game her freshman year, which is unheard of for a lot of girls. And now she just completed her junior year. She was their leading goal scorer. It's like, because you got the 20 minutes on the field, being able to plug and play wherever they needed you, got you to where you're the leading goal scorer for the team this year. That's what we're trying to convince our 14-year-old who is, you know, climbing slowly and deciding she's in that space of going up to the next thing. But, you know, I think the biggest challenge that I felt, you know, my wife's a former D1 athlete to played field hockey, has sat at, you know, hundreds of games, you know, and is now pretty astute on how to evaluate. And she was a captain of her team at UMaine back in the day. And, you know, and both of us know how to evaluate, you know, a player and our children in particular. And, and, but there's always seems to be this gap like of, of, you know, parents and their influence on their, their kids. What, what, what is some of the great stuff that you recommend some mental, mental skills development or mental development for, as it gets harder and harder, and then, and then how to match that with some emotional stability from the highs and lows that you're going to face as you climb the light. Like I remember Chloe went up and they played top hat in Georgia last year. And she's playing against three girls on the front line that are all going D1, that are all like 6-2. And she was freaking out. And it's like John is trying, my wife's trying to calm her down. And she, I don't want to let that get away. And then she gets on a field and finally settles in and does pretty decent. Like they only scored one goal on her. But but, you know, what do you suggest for kids in their own mental skills development and then their emotional stability development? Oh, boy. I mean, that's a huge question. And maybe we'll come back. Maybe I'll have you back in a couple of weeks and we can talk about it. But can you just touch on it? But what I find is they have to have somebody that they, I guess this is going to be my ego a little bit. When I deal with the higher level players, my sessions, my one-on-one sessions ends up being a therapy session. It's just them talking to me because they don't want to talk to mom and dad because they're too upset about what you got on the math. test, right? And you're dealing with pressure from all angles. And sometimes these kids just need somebody else to talk to. And sometimes somebody that's their own age isn't right. They won't listen. And they got their own bad advice. Yeah. Bad advice. Right. Right. So I, man, if I had that answer, I wish more clubs had some resources for those kinds of conversations. But that's where I think having a strength and conditioning coach or a technical trainer or a speed coach really is good for the athletes, not only because of what they're doing to your game, but what you're doing to your headspace, because it gives, because they don't control your playing time, what position you play. They don't control your grades on a test. They don't, they don't control that you're recruiting. They're just there to help you get better. And they're there to listen to you and to let you vent. And I think more kids need that because i agree they get one of the worst things though i used to have high highs division one level type players that would come to me and say i only enjoy soccer when i'm training with you i used to be like that is not a compliment that hurts because because i'm uh you know again why is it called I hate soccer? It's that. It's like, why are we turning this sport into something that they use to love into something that is a job at 14 and 15 years old? I understand the division one level being a job, a division two level being a job. I understand that. But why are we doing that at 14? At 15? It sucks. It does suck. It does suck. I think that's the real, if there's anything that I could, that I try and do, if anybody ever, you know, reaches out or asks or anything like that, like, you know, that, that coaching philosophy should root in the, the joy of being physical first and foremost, right. That, that sense of euphoria that comes from training really hard, managing that positive pain, converting it into self-confidence, committing to team orientation and finding real purpose and winning. Right. And, and not in a selfish way and not in a, you know, this negative, well, it's always political. The coach hates me, you know, and that's conditioned. All that stuff is conditioned through parents and coaches and other players. And it's like, man, where has the love of the game gone? And, and, you know, I think you're right. I think that's the thing that we, we need to get back to for sure. and it's just the relationship building i'll i'll bring back dusty may because i know what dusty may does behind the scenes because of what how often he's talking to trey and like and and just making sure that it's not just the x's and o's it's about you as the player too and going back to your question about talking to parents and stuff dusty may called trey's dad and said don't believe the rumors. I'm not going anywhere. It's like even the world-class coaches like Dusty Mays talking to parents, but all these youth coaches that coach a U-14B team have like, I don't talk to parents because I'm the best. It's like, what are we doing? I'm sorry. Jason, man, we got to wrap it up now. I'm sorry. I could talk to you for days about this. Maybe in the next few months. Yeah, I would love to come back, man. And I just think your wisdom and what you've learned in this endeavor is so fascinating. Where can people listen to the podcast, how they can follow you? And what's the name of your own individual training? I Hate Soccer Podcast. It's on everything. It's YouTube, Apple, Spotify. I Hate Soccer Podcast. Instagram is also I Hate Soccer Podcast. Training, I've actually kind of closed my training company down. I know I, I was in Buffalo and I got to a point where a lot of people in Buffalo wouldn't talk to me. They wouldn't come on the show. So I'm like, Oh, but Michigan is a different beast. Michigan is more of a hotbed. There's more clubs. There's more colleges. There's more high level colleges. We got Michigan, Michigan state right down the street. So I'm like, you know what, if I really want to go after this podcast, I need to move home and I'm back in Michigan. And now, and then I'm just focusing on this because it's all about impact. I felt that through my training company, I made more of an impact than if I was a club coach. And now I feel like I'm almost making more of an impact of the podcast than I did as a technical trainer. It's absolutely genius. And I love that you're unbiased. I love that you have people at every level on people who run programs, clubs, great coaches, players. I, I, I, anybody who's listening, if you know anybody that's a part of the club soccer in any way, shape or form, this is the podcast for you. I'm telling you it's so good. He's so good. Jason, I'm so happy I found you. You've got a huge fan of me. I totally respect that you tackle this and good luck and keep up the great work, man. God bless you, buddy. Thank you. You too. Thanks, David.
