Love Letters with Guest Coach Kirk Wagner

Today's Play: Coach Kirk Wagner and Amy Bryant explore the challenges of coach-parent relationships in youth sports, with an emphasis on managing emotional parental feedback. Kirk and Amy highlight the importance of coaches preparing for parental involvement while maintaining clear boundaries, and advise parents to be thoughtful in their communication to coaches to avoid negatively impacting their child's future opportunities.  

Today's Coach: Kirk Wagner is the Head Boys Soccer Coach at St. Pius X Catholic High School.  Kirk has extensive playing experience at the collegiate level (NAIA St. Edwards University where he is a member of the Hall of Fame), and professional levels (in Germany). His coaching career, spans over 35 years across high school, club, and collegiate levels.

To learn more about Bryant College Coaching, and download our new e-book, click here or go to www.bryantcollegecoaching.com

Picking Teams: A Playbook for Parents is produced by: Amy Bryant and Sasha Melamud

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Transcript

Amy Bryant: 0:08

Hi everybody, and welcome back to picking teams. Our guest today is Kirk Wagner, called boys soccer coach at St Pius, ex Catholic High School here in Atlanta, Georgia. Kirk has extensive playing experience at the collegiate, professional levels, and his coaching career spans over 35 years across high school, club and collegiate levels. Let's talk a little bit about when a parent is disgruntled.

Kirk Wagner: 0:38

What do they call that? Spilling Tea? Yeah, well, I want to stay employed and biased. I'm lucky. Let me give you a different perspective. And this is my own personal experience. I think in today's world, you cannot be a coach and not expect and prepare for parent problems. And I don't agree with now, there's context. Everything is context. But I don't agree with this, unless you're at unless you are, you know, headed to the MLS, or that's your path, context of soccer, you have a professional path or a curious college path. I don't like this era where coaches should not deal with parents like clubs High School. It's not this way. We have an amazing community that I fully expect parents and to have bad experiences at times, hard conversations with parents, because they love their kids, and this is the most most of them. This is the most precious commodity they have, and there's emotion involved. And you know, I have my a license in soccer, the highest license you can get. I constantly learn different teaching techniques. I listen to mentors who have nothing to do with the game that have taught the highest level, whether it's in academia or even your run the Mill High School teacher. And let's just say this, I think good coaches prepare and should welcome parents and listen. Get clarity. You don't have to agree that the maximum clarity before agreement. But, and you Amy, I know you called, I think you call it a parent expectation meeting. That's a mouthful, but I'm trying to figure out if you're going to say that myself, and that's a little bit my small brain to handle butting expectations for parents. Super important, but I want, I hope, coaches that are listening will not go right away to say just it's the parents. Yes, you have friends, you have these extreme parents that I've read, but most in my experience, love their kids. They're emotional, they want to have a conversation, and they want to watch and I welcome that. And I've had many of them be that bias, right where conversation, and I've had experiences where parents have brought me data. I mean, they went to this club in the world camp. You know, they have letters from coaches that highly recommend them play high school soccer for your program. And, you know, we all have these stories, right? And I have my fair share of what I call love letters, which is parents, you know, writing me things that would make most wins. But I don't take offense to that. I don't, I don't, I get it, and if I can be the vehicle for you to release that so it doesn't go on your kid, cool. I'm ready for that. Let's have that conversation. Because what it turns into, if you listen to the parent and you completely disagree what they're saying, once we get past the subjectivity piece, and we just look at where we're at and they hear, you're gonna most of the parents I deal with are like, I don't like it at all, but I get it.

Amy Bryant: 4:07

Yeah, we can respectfully agree to disagree

Kirk Wagner: 4:11

Absolutely. And I hear that and Amy, you probably too. It's funny, recently, I had a love letter I received, and it was apparent that it was a pre season game. It the game hadn't even started, but because their player wasn't on the field, their son was on the field, I got a text message immediately saying how unfortunate Pius was to hire me. And it just ran the gamut, right? And I didn't think anything of it. I didn't okay, I get it, but the game had started, and this kid being a key. Irony is the kid was a key piece without doing I didn't need to see the kid like I didn't need that. The parent didn't know that, but, but it turned out that the kid had a great season with me, but I shared that with fellow coaches at Pius, and it was hilarious. It was so innocuous compared to what they had. I mean, oh my god. I mean, one of the coaches who mentioned sent me a diatribe. It was like a 12 page. I mean, it was more than a love love letter. It was every page was just dripping with just vapid comments that were amazing and but hilarious too, like as if their daughter was, this case, a non biased kid. This was a former school used to coach at this kid he was ruining her career being the next MLS superstar. Yeah. And so what you learn when you share is that there's emotion involved in coaching. In the game. I don't come from the camp that you eliminate that motion. I want parents to feel. I want parents to love their child. I want coaches to feel and my players to feel. But have confidence, right? Let's have a conversation to make sure we're saying the same thing, and if we can walk away disagreeing, that's okay, at least we're clear. And that's really helped me, because ultimately it is my responsibility, and ultimately I will lose my job if I don't do it right. And I'm okay with that, because I have principles I believe in, and that's sometimes hard even in high school, which, as with any endeavor that I think I've taken on, I try to, I give it everything and but I do it within context. And in high school, my job is more than just winning a soccer game, right? We are, you know, I have a mission and value statement I've got to follow as an as an employee of the school, and I believe in my work, right? And I that that is very much a part of my program. And if you know, if I have accomplished that by by imposing some of that within my players, you know, I feel like I've done my job, and parents don't always see or understand that, right? But, but I've never had an experience yet today where a parent didn't do it because they love their child, they did it because they love their child, and emotion got the best of them, and once we have a conversation, they still may not like me or still I like what I've done, but we were clear and and the kids almost never, ever walk away from that situation to say coach was wrong,

Amy Bryant: 7:26

right? Well, a lot of times when a when a parent sends you a love letter, first of all, I love it. You call it a love letter. Love it, love it's complete reframing. And I wish that I talked to you probably 20 years ago, because I cannot tell you how many times I called it hate mail, right? And I can't tell you how many, how many lost nights of sleep I had because of hate mail. If I had just reframed that, oh, look at this nice, blunt letter I just got from one of these parents. You know, maybe I would have slept more over those years,

Kirk Wagner: 7:59

because it could get very personal. Amy, right? They look very personal and

Amy Bryant: 8:02

very personal.

Kirk Wagner: 8:03

It does make you check yourself and what

Amy Bryant: 8:06

that's right,

Kirk Wagner: 8:07

how you how you feel, right? I mean, it does hurt sometimes,

Amy Bryant: 8:10

yes, and it hurts a lot. A good coach recognizes that each individual on the team has their own personal journey that they're going through and is able to help them through that personal journey. No matter how many student athletes you have on a team, how many players you have on a team, they're still able to recognize the needs of each individual. That's a good coach, right? And so when you receive a hate mail or sorry a love letter, when you receive a love letter from a parent. It really hurts, because good coaches are truly trying to connect with each individual where they are. And so what I would say is, we're on this love letter topic, and parents, you know, hopefully this can resonate. Because, you know, I'll say one other thing too. Before I had kids, the love letters that I got, I was like, this parent's crazy, crazy right now that I'm a parent, I can relate. There have certainly been moments where I'm like, I'm gonna fire off this email and I'm gonna tell him how much I know, and I can't believe that this, you know, person, is treating my child like I get it, it comes from love for your child, just like you're saying all of that comes from love. But what I would recommend to parents is that they take a minute to breathe. First of all, never send an email or a text message on the fly. Always write it, let it sit for 24 hours at a minimum. Read it over again. Remind yourself the coaches aren't paid very much. They have other jobs, but they're they have families. They are human. To extend grace and then decide if you really want to send that email message, make that phone call, whatever it is. So sit on it for a minute. Nothing has to be handled within that moment of rage that you're feeling

Kirk Wagner: 10:06

absolutely, yeah, we have a 24 hour rule of pious, I know, and not everybody keeps it, but it's, I think it's, it's worth advice. And I love the idea. I think you're right. I think that's, that's a huge hack, right, which is, write it right then and there. Get it out, write it. Don't put the name on the email or write on paper, whatever your format communication is. Go to room and scream it out, whatever it is. Go ahead and go for it. Let that out and have a go. And then revisit it what you wrote and and with a cooler head, maybe you will gain insights that will provide a little bit more value. But say the Say what you need to say, but in a different way that might affect a coach in a bucket, better way.

Amy Bryant: 10:44

Yeah, right, and also So oftentimes, child will come home complain about something I'm not getting. Playing time. Coach doesn't like me. Coach has favorites. Coaches and playing me in my position, whatever it is, right? Child comes home, talks to parents about it, complaint, and parent sometimes automatically goes to, I'm in protect mode, right? I'm gonna protect I'm gonna fix, I'm in fixed mode now I'm gonna fix this. And they go to fire off the email. Well, instead, if we can also add in a parent coach mode, meaning, how can I coach my child in this situation to perhaps reframe how they're seeing the situation? Like, let's talk about this now. Your coach is playing you in a different position. Well, what do you think your coach is trying to achieve for the team as a whole by playing you in a different position? Or your coach, my coach isn't playing me. I'm not getting playing time. Okay. Well, how have you been doing at practice? Have you been giving 100% effort? How's your attitude? Have you shown up every day to practice on time? You know, like there are certain things that we can coach as parents. I hope we can be that buffer. There needs to be that educational piece with our kids, so we can help coaches, instead of automatically going to fix, protect, fire off emails. So I think that's an important step that a lot of parents kind of men. The other piece of that is they need to remember that sometimes they're not getting the full story, which is why it is important to have this communications with coaches. But again, respectful communication with coaches, like the coach might come back to the parent and say, Look, your kid's not focused at practice, and parent wouldn't know that kid might not be able to articulate that, and that could be a discussion for something else. Why? What's going on, what's on your mind? Is there something else we need to talk about here. And so again, we all work together from every stage of this process, then we can really make an impact as parents, as coaches and as players. And the last thing, last thing I want to say about that too. I'm sure you got fired off some thoughts for you. But a lot of times when parents write these love letters, kids don't even know. Kids have no idea, and they would be horrified to know that their parents set off that meeting. And I always like to point that out, because before you press send, think about what your child wants out of the situation. You know it's not going to get your kid more playing time by sending that email. It's not, if anything, it's going to cause a coach to dig their heels into the sand even deeper. So

Kirk Wagner: 13:31

Well, I think I think about the lesson here, right? The lesson really is okay. We tell parents. I know coaches tell kids all the time what you send on email is permanent, so you sent this love letter out that's permanent, and now we are in a position as coaches where a college coach says, Hey, I'd love to recruit XYZ player. And what do you do? You know, if you're ethically and morally on point, you have to share that with that college coach to say, well, we have something you need to be aware of. Or, or, you know, or maybe you have sit down with the student, like you said, and you say, Look, this is what happened. You're being recruited, and you and they're like so they're horrified and and now we're in a real dilemma all because of an emotional outburst that could have been handled differently. And so you're, you're really, you're really teaching the opposite and modeling the opposite of what you're telling a kid to do, because it will. And really, parent know this, it's just, it's, I think generally speaking, you know, the fringes are always going to be the fringes, right? I think on average, that regression to the mean is, most parents know this, and I think that they it's helpful to hear this from time and again. They make sure they're measured in their responses. But, but in general, it is, it is it really comes down that, down to that for me, which is, if we are all modeling and telling our children, look, everything is permanent, and it there's a record here, do you really want that in your file going forward? If you don't? And so let's find a different way and and as you said, it's, it's, it starts with, I think modeling correct behavior with your child. And then it goes to having a game plan to where, if there are problems, anticipate that, like before season, thinking, Okay, we may have problems with this coach, this coach, and I don't get our son don't anticipate that. Have a game plan. So when the issue comes, be prepared. You know, that's one way that the hack for dealing with that right? Because you're going into senior, your senior in high school, you're, you are playing on your you're in that dreaded tryout period for club, right, whatever support you choose, but soccer, this is a big deal here, right, which is all these parents stress about the tryout period and and you know you're going To be potentially put in a bad situation start have a game plan for that as a parent, and then when that situation arrives, at least, you have someone with a tool kit to grab toward and to use, versus going cold turkey and letting that emotion kick in and doing what you do as a parent, which love your kid, to protect and and have that fight or flight reaction to a situation that probably is going to be you're going to be worse off there than had you kind of pre prepared. So something to I

Amy Bryant: 16:28

mean, it's a great, great, great point, because then I think parents really need to understand that college coaches do check references. I mean, when they're recruiting, when they are recruiting players, they're thinking, in most cases, I'm going to have this player on my team for four years. Do I want a parent that is going to be sending me love letters? You know, every year? Am I going to have to deal with this, or am I going to have to deal with emotional outbursts on the sidelines? Am I going to have to deal with, you know, who knows? Am I going to have to deal with a parent overriding my coaching by communicating to their kid? And so there's all sorts of red flags that can be identified by how a student athlete participates in their club or their high school sports. And guess what? Coaches know? How the you know know all that the club and high school coaches, they're the ones that have the kids, they hold the key, in many cases, to a student athletes future. And so, yeah, your behavior is really important. Parents really, really important for your child's future.

Kirk Wagner: 17:43

Can we build this open Amy at 2001 is I reference your listeners to the podcast you did with the I may get this wrong, so correct me, but I believe she coached at Virginia. She's the hitting coach. Yeah. CJ. CJ, coach. CJ. I love her. The moment in the podcast where she talks about going out, I believe in Colorado to see a kid and and she was there to see the player, and what she witnessed was a child parent. I won't give it away because I want to be listening to podcasts, but a situation that one moment like no longer affordable, right? Because you're not going to deal with that. So that's kind of one thing I'd like for your listeners to think about. Another thing I think that might be helpful to your listeners is, I was recently at a call to showcase a game where they were college coaches there for soccer and some big schools, and one of the coaches I got to visit with, just we were just, kind of, as we say in Texas, kicking the tire and and I wanted an answer to something, which was, why do I see so many older players playing in college? Like, I don't get it, like I watched recently, high school players who've been on the play division one, and they were Clemson was in town. One of the two of them were at Georgia State, then went to the game and the lineup and everything. I seem to have a graduate student. There's a man on the fields like 26 years old playing college soccer. Personally, for me, fully against that. I don't get that personally. If I had the power I would prevent that. I don't. That's not what college athletics you should be about. But I digress, the point is, we're talking about that. He said, Well, we are. We're just not going to recruit many freshmen. I mean, you have to be national team or top level for us to give you for the big schools, right? And give you money. We're not I was like, why? He said we're not going to take a chance with freshmen, even if we do our due diligence, if, even if we know the kid the family would have you, it's just too high of a risk. And most of these college coaches at higher level want to feed their family. They have a great life. They are actually making good money. They have a great situation from a coach who coaches Lent and they're not going to take a chance in the freshman that is an unknown, whereas a graduate student is known, right? They're going to take a chance when the foreign kid is a little older comes over. Because the the the reality is, is that it's less risk. And so digest that for a minute. Here you have a situation where it's already difficult for these parents who have kids who, you know, let's, let's talk about the ones who are actually going and have a chance to play in college, right? Because that's a whole another topic that that we could probably do along for a long time. But let's just say we have a particular player that is a a is qualified as a true scholarship worthy division one athlete. It's already hard enough statistically to make that piece correct. Now, what's in your control? Well, your behavior up to that point is completely in your control, like it's algebra. And cancel that piece out, yep, right? Because it's already tough enough, and then taking out an effect, because their coaches are looking for that. Now, taking the coaches who are like, I'm not going to deal with a freshman, regardless of you, unless you are truly top notch, right? 1% of the 1% they're not going to take a chance, generally speaking. Now this is I'm paying with a broad brush, but in general, this is the feedback I got at this from these coaches, and they're all dying out. We're with the portal now with with all the money situation change that you're educating parents on, with the foreign influence on our sport, and kids coming over, with graduate students being available. You know, the likelihood of your kid playing, even as a freshman, is very low, much less getting in and getting the scholarship, etc, etc, etc. So if you can eliminate which, going back to the original point, you can eliminate the things you truly do have control over. And that's, that's a successful formula, it really is. And so, so get that piece right, because all the other pieces are so much more complicated now your control, not to mention the current wave we're in, and how coaches view and what they want in college and what they're getting and the opportunity. I mean, the demand is high and the supply is low, and that's a terrible informed businessman. That's a That's a terrible business to be in. So wanted to share those two thoughts, because I think it's it may provide a little context again and perspective on what's really happening now and what these parents are facing coming up, especially if you have a top, top notch kid.

Amy Bryant: 22:42

Yeah, and I'll add on to that, just for any families that are soccer playing, families and really want to play in college, because I think men's soccer in particular is a very complicated sport in terms of the options you're mentioning, supply and demand. So I think that it's really important for families also, you know, we're a little off topic here, but I want to, I just need to say this, to explore all of their options. And you know, you're talking about the upper echelon of, you know, college soccer, which is the clemsons of the world. You know, Georgia State has great programs, but there are 400 plus schools in Division three. There's about 200 schools in Division two. You know, I mean, st EDS with Division two. When you were

Kirk Wagner: 23:30

there, were they, we were a lot, because they're a bit different. Now, when I was there, was called NAIA.

Amy Bryant: 23:36

I think nai great

Kirk Wagner: 23:39

kids in our school, so we were competing against the big dog, but I think now they're good too.

Amy Bryant: 23:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back then there was a lot of overlap, but yeah, Nai is great option now too. Nai is like the original NCAA for a lot of sports. It's so anyways, my point is, explore all your options. The college soccer is good from top to bottom, because the supply is low in Division one. You know, there's just not that many options at the upper echelon, because of the international students, because of the transfer brokers also said, Hey, but by

Kirk Wagner: 24:14

the way, compared to your community, tell your community and players that I think, I think there's two schools Coach mentioned. He said there is a school in West Virginia, I think they're div two. He said they're, they wipe the floor with division one teams. There's a JUCO here. I think it's somewhere on the West Coast, maybe. He said, everybody wants to go there, because they also will wipe the floor with nearly every team. Now they have Brazilians, and they have all these, you know, foreign kids that come in that are really high level in the game, and they're using it as a platform, really, to get to them last they could care less cool as a platform to be seen and have some fun, right? So,

Amy Bryant: 24:55

so yeah, education and get an education. But yes, it's definitely a pipeline. And also the, you know, the eligibility in JUCO is a little bit different than it is for NCLA. So a lot of these kids couldn't play NCAA if they wanted to. And 26 year old, you saw, that's a rare scenario, that kid had to have had some sort of a waiver, public COVID waiver. Finally, injury, you know, whatever it is, but you really can't be that age. You can read, but it's very difficult to be that agent be playing in Division One, so you don't see that very often in Division One, the eligibility rules are a little different in Division Two and Division Three, JUCO and an Nai. So you see that a lot more so anyways, well, let's, let's wrap up here. And I'm taking a lot of your time already, but you are a parent. You have two boys at A and M you mentioned already, and then you have your two daughters, who are young, but I'm sure we'll start playing sports at some point. So as a parent yourself, what does it look like when you watch your kids compete? What values are you teaching them? How are you supporting them?

Kirk Wagner: 25:59

Oh, man, I've made, let's be clear, I've made every mistake in the book myself, right? So a lot of me, one of the benefits of being older is you can look back and grow. I would say that the greatest lesson learned from COVID I coached my boys. They were I sort of took the perspective of boys. You can play whatever you want. You play the sport you want. But naturally, I was a soccer player. You know, I had the history. I played a very high level. They knew about they soon learned about that. So they naturally went to soccer. And both my boys were technically very good in the game, but my son, and he was started high school. He he, he did me a real favor. He taught me something, and that is he came to me and said, Dad, I don't want to play soccer anymore. I don't want to play any sport. And I remember having to pause and catch my breath, because it was like What probably happened over this past Thanksgiving holiday, where grandma had to try it out. Some kid threw up the floor and shouted, all the floor. I mean, the shards of porcelain where my son were on the floor before me. And I didn't as a coach, I knew I couldn't show emotion or really react, by the way. I just said, Okay, son, you want to talk about it? And he said, No. And I carried on, and I remember having to take many, many long walks to process that. And where I landed was it was a real gift for my son, because you cannot do it for your kids. You know, if it's not organic, you can set it up, you can give them the shoes and the coaches and the training and this and that, and all the amount of money, time and effort I put in, my son said soccer. And they were good players, and they they could have, but my son hated competing. He did not like competing. And if you're gonna, you know this, if you don't have that competitive element, you're not going to go very far in sports, generally speaking. And and that was great. It was a blessing, because he did that on his own. He had the courage to come tell me, and and our relationship completely changed. It was, it was, it was great. And we had to, and I had to find new Amy, which is what I was realizing was, you know, I had these dreams and wishes suppressed. I didn't know if I could share it with him, but that's what drove me a lot. I and really what it was was the game gets so much any sport, and my sport in particular has just given me so much life. I wanted that for my son, and the blessing now is he plays their mural at Dana. He loves it tells me about like that. We play as a smoke these guys. I did is what have you. And so it's a it's a different world, but that's his world and and it's great, and our relationship was so much the better for it, because he just didn't enjoy that. So So I think with my daughters, I will follow a similar tactic, and then I want them to kind of figure out what sport they're going to do. I'm sure at some point, soccer will be a piece of that, and I will support them. And if they want to go for it, I'll support them 100% in that. But now that I'm an older parent and I have experience in and I've been able to use my poor sons as a, as a as a means to become better at this, I will probably only change the fact that I need to to keep aware of my own tendencies, which is to go right away to that, you know, how I see the world, and I'm obviously still working on that, right? You know, there's this big debate. There's always been a big debate. A lot of my parents I coach, say, Hey, should I focus on soccer, or should I play local sports? Right? I'm not going to be very popular with some of your listeners, because I come from the camp. At some point you have to choose. I don't believe in what Jack Nicklaus says, which is they should play all these different sports until as long as they can. I believe that up until about eighth grade or so. You always play sports. But when you want to focus, you have to focus, because this is our stock in soccer, especially if you're playing football and basketball and soccer, unless you are Deion Sanders or you're in that Ill called 1% it doesn't translate. You have if you're going to go high end and you're going to be an elite athlete, you have to focus on your sport and you have to go for it. That's my opinion. I could be wrong, but that's my experience. I don't expect that for my daughters, necessarily. Expect that per se for my sons, but I did know what it took to be and to take the next level and with my girls, I will probably the lesson there learned is, is that I need to understand that that's my tendency. And since I know that it's there, it's their journey to figure out I'm really there as a guide, and to almost be Socratic in the way I approach it versus thinking I have to answer it, because it's always changing, right? So, but, but one thing I will say is they do want to go for it. You know, as I tell the parents now, is they have to decide. You know, you have to decide, in my opinion, unless you have a kid that's super gifted, and some kids are that way, right? There is baseball and football, for example, right? They're two different seasons, and they do very well in that soccer is just a different sport, and it has, it's kind of like golf. You know, most kids have to. It's not easy playing golf. And if you're gonna play all these other sports and just think you're gonna go compete at the high level, playing golf not you need to. It takes a bit of. It takes time. So feel the rambling response. But I know that I can my girls can benefit from the lessons learned my boys, and if they want to go for it, I have some new ways to approach that, and hopefully they'll benefit from

Amy Bryant: 31:52

it. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing that journey to self awareness with your parenting. I think that's really helpful for other parents to hear lots of broken shards

Kirk Wagner: 32:01

on the ground there, yeah. But you know

Amy Bryant: 32:05

what I want to point out, too, and this is for parents to live like it's okay. And we figured this out, like your older son, he's like, I'm not competitive. I don't I don't want to do this, but playing sports is part of living a healthy lifestyle, and that is what you were able to support your son to do, as shown by him playing intramurals now in at Texas a&m So when a student so when parents say to me, Look, my kid doesn't want to play anymore. I'm like, okay, great. Your kid doesn't have to play at that level anymore, but they need to be doing something active as part of a healthy lifestyle. There's plenty of recreational opportunities we we have to become in this country so obsessed with success and making it to the next level, and we'll throw so much money on it to get to that next level, we're losing sight of the purpose of sports, and that is for exercise and fitness and community and joy and all of these other things. And that doesn't necessarily equate with being at the best level all the time. You know only a small fraction of kids are supposed to make it to that next level. And I know we're all trying to get our kids there at some point. We think we are, but that's not always the recipe for success. So I want to point that out. Well,

Kirk Wagner: 33:30

it's a business. Amy, right? It's a business.

Amy Bryant: 33:33

Yeah, absolutely.

Kirk Wagner: 33:35

You had that. You had the coach on as well, and she was definitely a veteran coach. I remember she, I think, played at Tulane. She was basketball, played at all coast, all different levels. She was also part of the Women's Association. Yeah, that's a great podcast. Let's do it, because her forewarning of what's happening in sports is spot on. It is, it is a business, and, you know, parents don't even like going to the work every day. Imagine having to go through that with your kid and the sport they're choosing to play. It is, it is a full on, especially in IL and all the other stuff that's happening now. I mean, it is. It's a business, and you better prepare for that reality. If, if you want to go that route, it's a wild, wild world out there right now, for sure,

Amy Bryant: 34:18

and piggyback on that. Like, do you want your child, even a young child, to feel like they are performing a job at a young age to get there? You know, that's, you know, food for thought, something for our listeners to think about as the end. But I so appreciate you being here. Kirk, you were, you were great. You brought up such wonderful points, and we will definitely have to have you back. Do you want to learn more about how to positively parent your athlete? Check out my new ebook called let them play. You'll like it. It contains more no nonsense tips for parents like you, available on Amazon for your Kindle or on my website via PDF or ePub.