Episode Transcript
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[00:01:10] Speaker B: welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse with EMD Baseball. I'm Andy Kira Kutis, joined by my Wonderful Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How are we doing, sir?
[00:01:18] Speaker C: Great.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: How are you?
Today we are going to talk about what parents should not do.
We generally try to stay pretty positive on this, but we're going to get right to the the don't. And maybe we can get at the things that Family Guy referenced here that grind our gears, if you will.
So why don't you start us off?
What's your number one piece of advice or item that grinds your gears when it comes to parents in the recruiting process?
[00:01:54] Speaker D: Off the top of my head, making the process about themselves.
I think one of the biggest thing, one of the biggest don'ts is that you need to be able to separate yourself from the fact that your son is being recruited. And yes, you kind of are too as a family. Like you're being evaluated just as much as your son is.
And you can really turn the tide in a negative direction on visits at games, things like that, because it's, it seems to be, you know, all about you and you want to avoid that because when you get to college and I think that there's horror stories everywhere and you know, but for the most part, I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of college baseball, like they don't care about no one. Like there's not an AD in the, in the country that's going to entertain your phone call because you think your son should be playing over the other shortstop. Like this is a meritocracy and you're not There every day, you don't know what's going on. You're only hearing one side of the story, right? Like, you don't know if your son's actually coachable, if he's, you know, the other kid's better, all of those things. And sometimes that's hard to hear and legitimately see, but I think sometimes, like, you can really do yourself a disservice by, you know, kind of making it about you and, and getting caught up in the fact that, like, your son's getting recruited and, you know, you know, it's usually the we, right? Like, we're getting recruited. Like, you ain't, you ain't hitting my four hole. Like, I'm not recruiting you, I'm recruiting your son. And if I get any sense of fact that, like, it's going to be an issue when your son is here in my program, I'm going to pass and end up on a different player. And that's just the reality. I think that's, that's the truth for a lot of college coaches out there where, you know, essentially, as my wife likes to say, you know, is the, is the juice worth the squeeze? And I think in today's day and age, with a lot of stuff, like if there's any red flags from a, you know, reach out to the coach, you're bad mouthing your high school coach, things like that, like, the likelihood of programs sticking with you is probably pretty slim.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it, the thing that, it kind of trips me up sometimes is when you can tell that the parent wants it more than the child. And I think that that's really important to understand is like, you're, you can't want it more than your kid.
They have to be the ones who are driving the ship. They have to be the ones at the forefront of the process. And like, you nailed it.
[00:04:39] Speaker D: Like,
[00:04:41] Speaker B: you can't, you don't want to be the reason that your son doesn't get recruited because you're trying to dominate the conversation on a recruiting trip or, you know, that's really what sticks out to me is, like, when you meet parents in person and you've got the kid with them and the conversation becomes a mom and dad conversation. Like, there's a time coaches will seek you out to have those conversations because they're trying to get a feel for you because their, your son is a reflection of you in a lot of ways. And, you know, they need to know what that relationship looks like. Like, we certainly get asked about it in the process. Like, hey, Talk to me about mom and dad. Like, what do we got? Because coaches want to know. Because if. If a mom. If mom and dad are high maintenance, there's a decent chance that the kid's going to be high maintenance.
Not always, but, you know, these are assumptions that you got to make at, you know, to a certain extent, and, you know, it's an important part of the process from a coaching perspective to get to know the parents, and you want to make sure that you don't overshadow your kid in the process. I think that's.
It seems like an obvious statement, but it's. It's something I think a lot of parents need to just be very cognizant of how you're moving through this with your. With your son or your daughter. You know, not just from a baseball perspective, but if you're, you know, if you're a parent here and your daughter's an athlete and she's pursuing college athletics, make sure they're at the forefront of it.
I'd say, for me, one of the things that I try to at least be observant of was how do parents act at games?
And you're not looking for green flags. You're looking for parents who do dumb stuff, yell at umpires.
They're grabbing their kid out of the dugout middle of the game.
It just.
There's stuff that. It gives you the ick. When you watch a parent do certain things during the course of a game. Like, you don't want to be the loud, boisterous parents. Like, you want to root your kid on. You want to root your team on. Like, there's all that portion of it. Like, you should be a fan of your. Your son or your daughter when they're playing.
But there's a thick line that, you know, you occasionally see, probably more often than I would like at high school sporting events or travel sporting events, where parents get way too involved in what's going on, and they go from, you know, fan or observer of the game to, you know, trying to kind of be a part of it. And that's a red flag. 100% a red flag to see a mom and dad yelling at an umpire or, you know, bad mouth and a coach in the stands, oh, he doesn't know what he's doing or what's up with that pitch call. And, like, nobody likes that, you know, the armchair quarterback, you know, so just be be aware of how you interact at a game and don't think that coaches don't pick up on that stuff because we do, right? It's really that simple. Like we're, we're observing a lot. When you're at a baseball game, there's a lot of downtime to watch.
There's a reason that coaches get there early.
You know, I went to a high school game this weekend.
Luckily, the parents of the player that we went to watch their fantastic. And they watch the game and they enjoy the game and had a really good conversation with them and they were great. And there was no, you know, tomfoolery going on over the course of the game. But it was a 2 o' clock start. I was there at, you know, 12:30, I think I beat both teams to the field and you know, I sat in my truck and I just kind of watched watching how kids arrive to the game. I'm watching how people are going about their business and you see parents shuffle in and, you know, nobody knows that I'm there to watch a specific kid or anything like that. And you're observing, you got time in between innings and you know, the game, you know, lends itself to, you know, kind of the distractions that are going on around the field. And I'm glad to say that there wasn't any there. But I've been to plenty of games where, you know, you're kind of taking notes of like, all right, well that's that kid's dad and he might have had a couple before the game. He's a, he's a little loud right now. Like, okay, like what are we dealing with here? And yeah, it might not break the camel's back, but it's a mental note that I'm going to keep about, you know, all right, well I really like that kid. I think he's pretty freaking talented. Like, I gotta, I gotta dig a little bit on mom and dad here because I saw some stuff that I don't really like. Like, is this a one off or you know, is this kind of the, the kind of personality that we might be dealing with? And yeah, parents don't want to hear it, but it's the truth. Like
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[00:10:21] Speaker B: coaches,
[00:10:22] Speaker D: you couldn't be more right?
[00:10:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:24] Speaker D: And I think it goes so far as to say, like, you know, in our podcast last week, I talked about, like, a lot of guys will go incognito to incognito to games.
You might not know him there, and I might be down the first baseline and I start hearing you, you know, chirping the coach and how he doesn't know anything that he's doing and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, that's some red flag still. Like, you know, if you have nothing positive. If I hear nothing positive coming out of your mouth, I know what that car ride is going home.
You know what I mean?
Like, or I can, I can assume. I shouldn't say I know, I can assume what that car ride is going home.
And I, I can start making inferences of like, is there accountability there? Is there? Well, it's not your fault the coach doesn't know what he's doing. Like, well, I watch you swing at, swing through too fast or take two fastballs and then swinging a break ball in the dirt. Like, your coach ain't swinging the bat for your approach, man.
You know, and I think that there's, you know, it certainly starts to raise questions.
You know, I think one of the other ones, too, especially on visits, is when mom and dad dominate the conversation on visits.
Not to say that mom and dad cannot be involved. Right. Like you should be, especially when it comes to, you know, finances and things like that. And there's a caveat to this that I'll point out that, you know, when you do this long enough and you're sitting on the other side of the desk from families, you have a really good idea of how many times you've kind of been through this process of sitting in front of a coach and asking questions, you know, and if I know that it's your first time or your second time, the likelihood of the kid forgetting some of the questions it is that he's trying to ask is high. Right. Like, you know, it is. So, you know, if mom and dad had semester, you know, you have a couple ever extra Questions, by all means, you know, ask away, you know, but there's a distinct difference between the kid asking like one question and then mom and dad asking 47 questions.
Again, I'm not recruiting you, I'm recruiting your son. And it's, you know, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth when they walk out. Like, I don't know if he wants to be here. I don't know if, you know, mom and dad want him here more than he wants to be here.
I don't know if mom and dad think they're getting recruited, things like that, you know, but it's the reality, like, you want to strike that, that fine balance. And I, I think sometimes, you know, there's, you know, it depends on your, I guess, your level of, Your level of understanding in this business.
Right. Like, you know, I had, my parents didn't graduate from college, so, like, they had no concept of what any of this stuff was going on. Visits, like, they didn't really know what questions to ask.
Neither did I really. I just kind of listened, Sat and listened.
You know, if you can guess by the, the way that I can go on tangents, my father is just as. Is as bad, if not worse than I am. He'll tell you he's not, but he is.
He can talk, you know, but, you know, I think that, like, there's a distinction between, like, you know, having conversation, getting to know people, and, you know, organically having questions and then like, the distinct, like, wham, wham, wham, wham, wham, wham, wham. Mom and dad have 47 questions, you turn to the kid, and the kid's just not.
Has nothing. Right. Like, there's a distinct difference between that and I think that there's, you know, you kind of want to be a little bit more on the end of getting to know the family by, you know, maybe asking some questions that don't pertain to baseball and, you know, then also getting to know the coach and having your son or daughter ask the questions that, you know, are of a high priority to them in their recruiting process because it's going to show the coach that they're cued into what it is that, you know, they're looking to do what they want out of their student athlete experience, you know, and then while also getting some feedback from the coach of what they're like and, you know, what they have going on. And I think it's a little bit different now.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Right?
[00:14:33] Speaker D: Like, you know, when you and I came up in this, it was, you know, it was very guarded and veiled and you didn't know anything about your coaches. And, you know, you don't dare ask where, you know, by the time I left coaching, you know, everyone knew who my every. All my players knew who my wife was, they knew my son that, you know, they, they knew a lot of things that were going on in my life that, you know, we didn't know as players. Where, you know, it kind of humanize you as a coach, but, you know, it, it strengthens your relationship with players as to what's going on, you know, but I think that the back to my original point, the domination of
[00:15:09] Speaker B: the
[00:15:09] Speaker D: conversations with, with parents, and it goes so far as like, you know, being on every single phone call with your son with a college coach, like, at some point they need to be able to make the jump to have a conversation with a coach on their own. Like, you don't need to be involved in every single aspect of what's happening.
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[00:16:14] Speaker B: yeah, well said. The only other thing that I'll add as far as one of the big red flags for me is don't do the work for your kid.
The emails, communicating with coaches, posting on Twitter, whatever, it might be like you. And this kind of goes back to my first point around, you can't want it more than your kid. If your kid's not willing to sit down and write an email and send it to a coach, they don't want to play college sports bad enough.
And there's people out there be like,
[00:16:43] Speaker E: oh, well, emails are a waste of time.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: Like, they're not, they're not, right? It's one of those things that like, yeah, you might send 50 emails and only get 20 responses, but you get zero responses if you don't send any emails.
Right?
Every coach checks her emails and they want to see some. Honestly, they want to see players who've got a little bit of, you know, we talked about it recently, like a little bit of agency and coaches, we can tell when, you know your parents are writing the emails for them and they're responding or whatever it might be. But you know they need to, they need to put the work in, they need to take the time to do that. You know, they need to follow up with coaches. Like certainly don't grab your kid's phone and respond to coaches. I know that's happened before.
Like your kids need to be on top of it. There's lessons that they can learn about accountability, about organization, about hard work through this process that will serve them really well when they get to college.
You know, sometimes they need to make a mistake. Like part of, you know what we try to work on with kids is we try to coach them up on the things not to do as well as the things to do. You know, so if we set up a phone call with a kid at 7:30 and we want to sit there and we want to talk to them for 15 minutes and they call us at 7:32. All right, well that's a great teaching moment for us. They're not going to do that with a coach because we've already talked to them about hey, you had, you're supposed to call at 7:30, like call at 7:29. All right, done. Now we don't make that mistake but sometimes they have to make that mistake in order to learn. And I think it's really important to make sure you don't guard them from this stuff and they have to take accountability for, for what they want to do.
I just keep coming back to like if you don't want to put the work in college, sports probably isn't going to be a part of your future anyways because you know, no matter what level you play, you know, juco division, 1, 2, 3, it doesn't matter.
You have to be self motivated. You have to be willing to do the hard things. You have to be willing to do the things that are required of you at a bare minimum.
And in order to get recruited there's certain things you're going to need to do and mom and dad can't do them. They cannot be the people who do this type of stuff.
[00:18:46] Speaker D: I concur.
[00:18:48] Speaker B: Any other, any other items that grind your gears with, with parents process?
[00:18:57] Speaker D: I don't think so. I think we covered a good portion of them.
We could probably make a laundry list that would be a long. But yeah, I mean these are the high level ones that are, are easily avoidable.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: Let, let the, let the player lead from the front, make sure that they are doing the work I think in my opinion, the parents role is to be supportive, make sure that you, you give them everything that you can to help them be successful, but you cannot do the work for them.
And probably the simplest way to put it is like, don't do anything in a game to embarrass yourself or your son.
Like, I think that might be the best way to term up what we talked about earlier, about parents doing dumb stuff, yelling at umpires and stuff like, like, don't do anything that would embarrass your son. And you probably will handle yourself really well, you know, from through a coach's. Through a coach's eyes.
[00:19:56] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, I remember this isn't necessarily negative, but it's a, it's a point of remembering.
I remember we had a wild play when I was coaching at RPI and essentially there was runners on 1st and 2nd.
I want to say there was runners on 1st and second. We tagged a runner and then went to tag the, the base at second. But it. However, however this played out. I'm sorry. However this played out, we tagged the base and the umpire called him safe. The reason he called him safe was because the force was no longer in play. Like the, the runner had to be actually tagged. He had agency to go back to the base and not be tagged, right? Or you did. It wasn't a force out.
Bang, bang play. I go out and I'm talking to the umpire and he recalls the entire play exactly how I just saw it and explains why he called the guy safe.
And I was like, you're right. You.
You nailed it. Like, good job. So I turn around, I'm walking back to the dugout and I keep hearing someone yelling that he's wrong. And I was right next to our dugout and I was like, he got the call right?
And I'm not necessarily paying attention to who it is because I was like talking to our third baseman and I hear it again and I was like, guys, enough. He got the call right?
And like, finally someone dugout was like, yo, Glass, it's not us. And I look and it was one of our players dads that was screaming it. And I was like, yo, he got the call, right? Like, stop screaming sitting next to me in the dugout that he got the call wrong. But my point is like, he was an awesome guy. His son was the captain for us. He was caught up in the moment. And kind of to your point earlier, like, it was one of those one off things. Like, I don't think I ever heard the guy yell Ever. But his son made the play and he was, you know, he was fired up in the moment. But like, you know, it, you can exploit, like those things could be one offs and you, you dig deeper on it. But I remember that play vividly where I was like, I, like, I yelled at him. I was like, we stop. What are we doing here? Like, the guy got the call, right?
He still disagreed with me, but the guy did get the call, right?
[00:22:20] Speaker B: Rules are rules.
[00:22:21] Speaker D: Like, no, but I, like, you know, I just think that there's. And I, to your point, you know, I went off on a tangent there, but like the. To your point, I do think that. And I'll wrap this up very quickly. You can, you can aid in this process, right? Like, you can still be a part of the process with your son by, you know, kind of helping behind the scenes, right? Like, probably a good thing to do with your son to sit down in front of a computer and go through schools and create a school list and do some of those things together on, on what it is and come up with questions and press him on what, you know, what it is he wants out of his student athlete. Like you went, you know, if you went to college or, you know, if you played a sport where you did, like, you kind of went through it like, albeit you know, years ago and it's a different time now, but like, you have a little bit, maybe you have a little bit more of a feel for that or at the very least sit down and have an idea of what you know, hey, here are some schools that, you know, have your major. Let's throw them on there and see what happens. And I think you can still be a part of it while, you know, a little bit more behind the scenes helping versus being out in front trying to lead it and, you know, supplanting your son or daughter from that process,
[00:23:27] Speaker B: be an asset.
And there's a ton of ways you can do it without, without leading from the front.
All right, parents, hopefully that was helpful.
Some, some good lessons in there, some good advice. So thank you for listening, everybody. Tune in next week. We'll talk to you then. Thank you.
Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that, like, button for us. Check us out on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball.
[00:24:04] Speaker E: If you want to find out what
[00:24:06] Speaker B: me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.
