Sideline Sessions

Adam Sarancik

Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in, everyone. You are listening to Sideline Sessions on the Be Podcast Network. Thanks as always for being with us. And today we're actually going to have part one of what's going to be a two part conversation, a couple of episodes. The second one will come up a little later in this season of the show.

Today I'm talking to my guest, Adam Sarancik. And we're gonna be talking about his background, his coaching philosophy, the goal of creating champions for life, a lot of those broader benefits of having kids participate in sports a lot of this conversation will center around baseball, but then in the second conversation, we'll get more into the specifics of Developing championship baseball teams and players.

To give you a little bit of Adam's background, he's the owner of Elevate Sports Academy and mentors student athletes in physical conditioning, nutrition, career and college counseling, and sports skills. He has spent most of his adult life mentoring youth ages eight to 22, as I've said, in baseball, but also in softball, soccer, [00:01:00] and basketball.

In baseball, Adam's teams have consistently won championships at every youth league and high school level and in administration. He has served as a league founder, board member, and coaches and players clinic director. He has frequently written articles that have been published in ABCA's Inside Pitch, Collegiate Baseball News, CoachesInsider.com, and more, and also has written a handful of Amazon bestselling books on coaching baseball, including Coaching Champions for Life and Teacher Role Model Mentor Lessons Learned from a Lifetime in Coaching. Adam, welcome to the show.

Adam Sarancik: Thank you, Ross. Thanks for having me. Not only do I want to thank you and for having me, but more importantly for the content you put out. I think it's awesome that you cover so many sports and really try to dig deeper into the why and not just what most of them do in The what and the how and secondly, I always make a habit.

I think it's very, very important to take a second and thank all of the coaches, administrators, [00:02:00] volunteers including umpires and officials for youth sports. I don't think they get thanked enough unless you do it. You don't realize how much is involved in doing it. It is a 24, 7, 365 job not enough thanks or appreciation.

So. And every one of these podcasts I do, I want to take a moment and thank all of the people who work so hard to make the experience for all the boys and girls that are involved the best that it can be. So, yeah, thanks to everybody.

Ross Romano: And this season of the show in particular, we're hearing a lot from youth coaches, coaches in little league and police athletic leagues and officials that work in with youth leagues, right? So we are definitely getting those perspectives here and cutting through some of the challenges that.

That we're aware of around creating really positive youth sports environments and all those dynamics and really showing how it can be done sharing some ideas for ways that leagues can [00:03:00] support coaches. Who might be of varying levels of sports expertise, right, but have an equal interest in really working with kids to make sure that these are great opportunities for everyone.

And so it's always great to have different voices on the show and hearing what everybody is working on. And with that in mind, would love to have you fill in a little bit more of your story for our listeners. You know, your background, how you. initially got involved in coaching and kind of how your perspective on coaching has developed, shifted and cemented itself over the years.

Adam Sarancik: yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so I'm originally raised in Whittier, California, and to give your listeners a little trivia and baseball reference Whittier, California is where Isla Borders is from. So everybody says, who in the heck is Isla Borders? Well, Isla Borders was the first woman professional baseball player.

Bill Veck, when he owned the [00:04:00] Chicago White Sox, one of their franchises was the St. Paul Saints, and in 1997 he signed Isle of Orders from Whittier, California to pitch. She actually made seven appearances for the team that year, and so at least in the post integration era, she was the first woman to play professional baseball in America.

So that's Whittier, California from my baseball perspective. When I grew up, Ross, I was really lucky to be in a neighborhood with a lot of great athletes and in an area with a lot of great athletes, so. Jamie Quirk, who wrote the forward to my first book and who was a 18 year MLB professional and a lifelong professional coach both bench coach, pitching coach, whatever in the major leagues he and I were the first well, we were the nine year olds that made the 11 and 12 year old.

Division, so we're the only two 9 year olds in the 11 and 12 year old division. And then Gary Carter, the Hall of Fame catcher, he and I were the [00:05:00] only two sophomores in our league to make varsity that year. Now, the only reason I'm mentioning that, that was my first lesson. in sports about the difference between very good and great.

I was very good making an 11, 12 year old team at nine and a varsity team as a sophomore. They were great. Jamie was 6'4 and 195. Gary was like 6'1 and a half, 6'2 and 210. So it, it set a standard for me athletically as a baseball player of what I needed to aspire to. And then Jamie's family I knew very well.

And He and his brothers and sisters just set a standard for how to act with really a class way of going about your life and stuff. So that was from a personal point of view and a baseball point of view, that was great to grow up in that environment. I have a younger sister who, she and her husband have run Le Havre Little League for 40 years.

And a lot of baseball College and pros have gone through that league. She's also been the district 56 [00:06:00] administrator for a long time in charge of you know, like 5, 000 players and dozens of teams and my brother in law is coached in that district and league forever and ever so and then my brother He got the beef in the family.

He was a football player, nose tackle and center and was an elite football player. And he was the center for Steve Deburg, some of you are old school football, NFL people might remember Steve DeBurg, DERP. DeBerg as a quarterback for the 49ers and things like that. So, grew up in that environment. Maybe more importantly for coaching though, grew up at a time and with an interest in a lot of great coaches.

So, Rod Dato at USC, Augie Grito at Cal State Fullerton, John Wooden you know, of course, at UCLA in basketball. And I started watching them coach and learning from them. You know, I always tell coaches some really important things to elevate your game as [00:07:00] a coach is watch coaches, coaching a bunch of different sports, not just your sport.

And don't just watch a game, watch how the coaches coach. And if you want to understand how the coaches are thinking watch what happens off the ball. Don't just happen don't just watch what's happening. You know, as a result of the ball and its movement. But watch what's happening off the ball.

And you learn a lot about coaching strategy and thinking like a coach. So that was I think really, really important to me that I actually went to practices and watch these great coaches coach. My particular philosophy, person, athlete, player, actually ironically came from my years as a, Bodybuilding coach, specifically a coach of women bodybuilders and you would say what the heck How that came about was when I coached bodybuilding and women's body bodybuilders in particular they there wasn't any difference in the standard that they competed to how hard they were their level of perfection that they wanted to meet, albeit kind of a [00:08:00] stereotypic standard or whatever.

The difference was when we got done with that year or two years of training to sculpt their bodies to be as good as it could be to meet this stereotypic standard of perfection, when that competition was over for two or three weeks thereafter when the body weight started to come back and the fluid started to come back and maybe the abs weren't as rock hard as they used to be.

The guys just seemed to take it in stride. The women almost went into a state of mild depression. I mean, it was like they could not handle the fact that their body wasn't perfect in their mind anymore. And yet to anybody looking at them when they gained that little bit of weight and flew it back, that was the perfect body.

What that taught me was if I was going to successfully coach before the training started, during the training, and then in the debriefing after the competition, I was really going to have to get to know the person and make sure that I connected with that person if I was really going to do my best in managing the mental side of the game, [00:09:00] which you learn real quick is as important, if not more than the physical one is a key to the other.

So that was a huge, huge challenge. Moment in my coaching career like, oh wait, this is more than just coaching sets and reps and programming exercise and things like that. There's a whole personal side that I need to factor in. So that was kind of the foundation for my person athlete player philosophy.

And then I. You know, made the mistake like most coaches early on of thinking winning games and championships made me a good coach, and yet I realized that wasn't the case, and I'll get into that in a little bit, but so that led me to develop or start Elevate Sports Academy, where I was going to work with the players in all three categories, so as athletes, we were going to train them in the gym to be physical conditioning wise the best they can be.

We were going to mentor them in ways as a student and in their careers and college aspirations, and then as well as nutrition and recovery and all the [00:10:00] things that go into that, as well as the sports skills. So it was a more holistic approach and training. So I went from just coaching teams and players to taking this more holistic approach to making sure that.

They were solid after their playing days, at least their playing days that is associated with the school were over with.

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Ross Romano: So Adam, in this conversation we're talking about the foundational why of coaching, right? The broad benefits young athletes get from participating in sports and building people through sports. And you know, I'm feeling like a, an important question to answer to, Lead that conversation and contextualize it is what are the reasons for sports participation in the first place, right?

Before we can really define why a coach to coach, or what a coach should do I think we need to have a clear understanding of why , [00:11:00] why sports are something that. Our young people should be doing right. Why they exist. What are the reasons why you know, it can be beneficial and they can grow via participating and that is regardless of what sport is, right, or you know, necessarily the athlete's ability level.

There's. Clearly parts of that as well. But but yeah, how would you define if you're making the case right to a kid or to their parents about why it's great to get involved in sports, what's that all about?

Adam Sarancik: Well, here's where I'm gonna maybe light up the internet and take a little bit contrary point of view from what typically happens nowadays in America, and I'll contextualize it that way, as opposed to what should happen. So stating it in a positive way. If you are involved in a league, and a sport, and with coaches, Who take the person, athlete, player approach, you will come out [00:12:00] with some very strong life skills that you will use far beyond your coaching days.

So as I say, coaching life lessons within the game for beyond the game. If that's the approach that your league is taking and supporting, And your parents are taking and supporting, and the coaches are taking and supporting, you're in for a great experience, all right? The problem is, nowadays, and this is a whole nother podcast, right?

It's that I've done many times, but, nowadays, it is an obsession, sports. And so, if you're gonna play on the top team, in whatever sport, it is a year round, almost obligation to be considered part of the program, have to be eligible for the top team. It's, they play multiple, on multiple teams within a sport, within a season.

They play multiple sports. And it becomes an absolute obsession to [00:13:00] the exclusion of a balanced life, and the concept of student athlete gets reversed. Athlete comes first, and student comes second, and a balanced life is achieved. And now we're all about our league team, our travel team, our 7v7 camp in the offseason, etc.

And it just becomes a year round obsession. So, I think it can be very healthy and very good if it's kept in balance. And that's one of the, Things I always try to counsel parents and don't do what everybody else is doing even athletically Ross people tend to go and they say well I'm going to play football basketball and baseball because being a multi sport athlete is really good Okay, it can be again another podcast to get in all the details Theoretically it can but I spent a lot of time Ross watching youth practices That are associated with school.

Bottom line is if you really, truly want to be developed as the best [00:14:00] athlete, you would be much better served taking a season off and spending just as much time. In that season, as you would in that sport, and having yourself trained by a really highly qualified, credentialed, experienced strength and conditioning, physical conditioning coach, and if you want to do a sport as a part of that season, do something like martial arts, which trains the physical and the mental at the same time, and you will come out of that four months a much better athlete than you would being the second string guard on the freshman football team, etc, etc.

You see what I'm saying? So there's a lot of mental, physical, sports and life benefits that are potentially great for participating in sports. I'm just not sure nowadays how often that really occurs if you look at it objectively. Yeah, definitely.

Ross Romano: So once now that's been identified, right. And there's a variety of different [00:15:00] people who would serve you know, potentially as coaches within that it could be a coach for, One of the teams, it could be a strength and conditioning coach, another coach, a mental performance, right? Anybody who works with athletes to get to the why of coaching, why should coaches coach?

And I also think with like, as part of this, it's also important maybe to explicitly identify some of the Bad reasons. Like, I, I do think sometimes you know, your previous response notwithstanding, right, but some of the whys and the, here's the things we should do and et cetera, we run the risk of it sometimes being a little bit of a frictionless listening experience for a listener and it all, like, it sounds bad.

Good, right? If we're not also identifying, look, if you're doing this, that means not doing this, or these are a variety of [00:16:00] great reasons why you might want to get involved in coaching and coaching youth and high school sports. But also, there's some other reasons that would be bad reasons. That would not be the right way to go about it.

And if we really want our listeners to learn from this, to put these ideas into action, and to be reflective about their own interests and the way they're approaching it I think sometimes identifying, here are some of the things that might be easy to not be thinking about if you're just hearing some of these

Probably sound good to everybody.

So tell me like what why should coaches coach? And if there are some reasons that would say, look, if that's the reason why you're getting involved in coaching, that's probably not the right reason. Yeah.

Adam Sarancik: can tell by my first response to the why is it a good idea to participate in sports? That's kind of the way I look at this whole coaching experience after all these years anyway. I kind of take a step back and say currently what's being done and again, I'm [00:17:00] not criticizing coaches.

They're out there putting So much time and energy trying to give the kids a good experience and god bless them for doing that I'm, just saying I think if the leagues and the coaches would take a step back and really ask themselves the why are we? Doing this I think and especially from the kids perspective I think they might see things a little differently.

So If I could, Ross, in the way I look at it, it's like four different categories that I think would help contextualize this and give the people a framework. Why should coaches coach? What are the roles that a coach actually should play? How do we look at the team members as a three part development pro project?

And then finally, what are the outcomes? If we do it right, What are the outcomes that are going to occur, okay? So, why should coaches coach? I gotta say, even myself, when I started 40 some years ago in coaching, I mean, I thought, I'm gonna teach these kids the fundamentals of the game, teach them how to play the game really well, and we're gonna win games, and we're gonna win championships, and I'm gonna [00:18:00] be a good coach.

And I found out that there's a lot more to it than that. So the first thing that has to happen for the play for the coaches in the league, you have to have this paradigm shift away from yet you're the most important thing to do in coaching is win games and championships to developing players of high moral character and integrity.

Okay, that's really what you're trying to do. You're trying to teach life lessons within the game for beyond the game Using sports as the vehicle. Okay, it's the quality of the person not the player. That's the most significant outcome You have to make that fundamental shift because when you do that Ross You'll then all of a sudden you'll benefit all 12 players all 15 players, whatever You're not just going to be worried about.

Okay, who do I pitch and catch today to win the game? You're going to constantly look at Everyone is an equal because you're going to want to develop all of them as quality people. All right, so that's that gets the whole hierarchy. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to win and all that I'm, just saying the [00:19:00] priority at all times is to remember that Sooner or later these days as a baseball player or whatever sport are going to come to an end and it's going to be what you taught them about life through the sport that's going to carry on and matter.

Alright? So, your success as a coach is not defined by wins and losses in championships. Your team is not defined by winning or losing. It's how they react to winning or losing. That's how your team is is going to be judged. There's only two standards for a game. Could we beat our toughest competition today?

And, did we inspire other people by the way we went about our business to be better in their own lives? If you did those two things, you won, regardless of the score. If you didn't, you lost, alright? Your players you want to teach to be successful and significant. Number one, successful. That means taking your gifts and abilities and developing them to be the best you can be to have a self actualizing career.

And more importantly, to be significant, [00:20:00] to use those, use what you do to serve others, particularly the less fortunate, and to make the world a better place. Okay? So that's the whole paradigm shift, the why that needs to shift, so that you know, you can do what you do to benefit everybody, all right? The roles of the coach are threefold, all right?

Number one, you're a teacher, all right? We always say, master teaching what you know before expanding what you know. The biggest deficiency in all of youth sports is an understanding of the methodology and how to go about teaching the fundamentals of the game. Just because you were a great player once, it doesn't mean that you're now currently a great teacher of the game.

There's a whole big difference. I've had a ton of great college and pro players as assistant coaches who knew how to play the game really well. They did not know how to teach it. Matter of fact, they didn't know that some of what they were taught and what they [00:21:00] thought was the correct way to do things was actually wrong.

John Wooden told taught me a great lesson mentioned how much I learned from these other coaches. You know, everybody in coaching is always worried about discipline. How do we discipline? How do we hold players accountable? Things like that. John Wooden said, he said we spend so much time worried about discipline, and yet if we master teaching and increase the self esteem of our players by making them better at what they do, if we got really, really good at teaching, 90 percent of the time our focus and effort was on teaching.

Most of the discipline stuff goes away because the players are just saying, I'm getting better every day and I'm just having so much fun thinking. I mean, realizing I can be better than I ever thought I was going to be. So that's something that I think it's really under played with coaches and leagues, the get better every day philosophy that the mantra that we say, get better every day, get better every day.

That starts with coaching. You need to get better as a coach every day. Okay? [00:22:00] Secondly, we're role models in everything we say or do. I mean, coaches all the time preach, stay in the moment flush the past this pitch, this moment in baseball. And yet you watch them coach and the players watch them as role models.

They're constantly chipping at umpires. They're constantly yelling out to their players on what they should have done in the game. And yet, Their instinctive reaction should have been, What what we as coaches should we have done? How did we fail the players in our coaching? That should be the initial reaction.

It's, I have a saying that, When things go wrong, look first in the mirror with honest intent. I mean, look at yourself first, alright? So as a role model, it's very simple. You can't coach champions for life if you're not a champion for life yourself. And then finally, as a mentor I think what we have to do is, let's just use baseball as an example.

We have to stop just being satisfied with baseball as a game adversity. [00:23:00] and learning by inference and experience and implication how to deal with adversity. I actually think you can proactively goal set and design into your season, into your weekly and daily practice plans, Life lessons, alright? And that's why I wrote the book Takeaway Quotes for Coaching Champions for Life.

Quotes are a really easy thing to use and discuss. Kids today are not very verbal. They're tremendously tech savvy, but they're not very verbal. So getting them to express their feelings and express What they're trying to learn and have learned is really, really useful. So quotes, acronyms, guest speakers, role plays, these are all really, really important things to teach you these life lessons to kids, how to be better sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, students, employees, community, and business leaders.

All these things that we're trying to actually. support the parent and the family in doing. These are great ways of doing it. So you're a teacher, [00:24:00] you're a role model, and you're a mentor. And I think we, we have to look at our role more than just as a coach of sports skills. Does that make sense? Let me pause there before I get into the three part development project of a player and just get your reaction to that.

Ross Romano: I think it's really critical to discuss this because in this type of endeavor, right? Reasons and motivations matter because they will. ultimately determine and influence how one performs their role and what the participants get from it. And you know, it's not a way of saying that Anybody who volunteers is not performing something positively.

You know, I'm certainly not, don't want to gloss over the fact that especially in in many youth organizations and leagues and communities nationwide, it's there's not always another applicant, [00:25:00] so to speak, right? I mean, there's a lot of. Parents or other adults who are volunteering to fill these roles.

because they want to make sure that the program exists so that kids have a chance to participate and they might not feel like they, it's the thing that they are the most interested or most qualified for but they're saying, well, if I don't volunteer, then they're just not going to have the program and then it doesn't exist.

But of course, I also know that those who are listening to this are the ones who want to. Do the best job they possibly can. And and yeah, it does matter. Like if we compare it to other things, right, where it's like, if you're giving money to a particular charity as long as it's a good organization, it doesn't really matter what your reasons are you may really believe in their work.

You may want a tax deduction. You may want to show off to something. It doesn't matter as long as they get funded and they can do their work. Your reason doesn't. doesn't matter to the practical outcome. If it's, if we're talking about on the [00:26:00] individual policy level and you know, there's a politician who's promoting a certain policy, it doesn't really matter if they just think it's politically advantageous or if they really believe in it.

If it's a good policy, it's a good policy. If it's a bad policy, it's a bad policy. Like what's happening in their internal life doesn't actually affect the outcome of it. But in this case, I mean, in order to execute the role You know, if I'm signing up to coach eight year olds playing soccer, because I just want to see if I can get myself a trophy, then it probably means that I'm not going to make sure everybody has an I'm not going to perform that job the same way I would, if I said, look, my job is to make sure that they all have a great experience, they learn the skills, right?

Am I somebody who's actually interested in learning about the sport so that I can teach it? Or am I? Not putting any effort into that at all and just rolling the ball and saying, okay everybody run around, you're not going to learn anything while you're here. And so,

Adam Sarancik: my experience, Ross, you bring up a really good point and something [00:27:00] I was going to stress at the end, I think I'm going to discuss it now, because you bring up a really, really, really important point is we need to empathize more with the coaches and why they're involved. I mean, they've got sons or daughters on the team, or maybe they just love coaching.

And they're there, but you know, you almost got to get some, why are you here? What is it? And I think the single biggest thing lacking in sports in many cases, and I don't ever want to overgeneralize because it's not true everywhere. But the thing I see over and over and over again is a lack of leadership from the league.

All right. You've got by and large, many times parents who are volunteering time after work and on weekends and on holidays, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. To these kids. All right. Well, they only have a certain limited amount of resources equipment You know, they certainly don't have their own facilities, etc.

And the leagues Are not really empathizing with them when it comes to most importantly the fact that they really have never taught eight year olds, twelve year olds [00:28:00] Boys, girls with different learning styles. I mean, you got to understand that to be able to teach, the first thing you got to do is understand the learning modality that that kid you know, really most effectively learns through.

So kids today are mostly not auditory learners. They're visual and kinesthetic learners. When the average parent is not a trained teacher, doesn't have a master's in teaching, and doesn't know about how to teach this sport, Using visual and kinesthetic tools. No one's ever taught him that. Well, guess what?

If you really want to effectively teach these kids not just how to play the game, but to do the individual skills of the game well, you're gonna have to learn those things. Well, who's gonna teach him that? The league should be Arranging for not just a clinic. Everybody has a clinic. All right, that's not good enough.

All right I'll just real quickly and this again another whole podcast. Here's the way it should be done You have talented people getting involved in [00:29:00] coaching. All right who played the game. Let's just say baseball for example You have some parents there who understand pitching. You have parents that understand catching.

You have parents who understand infield play, outfield play, hitting, whatever. Guess what? How about you take the entire league and divide them up two, three times a week and send them to those coaches who really understand pitching and catching and outfield play and hitting And then on once a week they can be with their own team and learn how to play the game.

Because kids can learn real quickly how to play the game. They've been playing very complicated games since they were three years old. What's really tough to learn is how to throw field and hit a baseball well. And guess what? That's not something that the average parent can teach. Well, okay, I'm not saying at all, but I'm saying at an elite level.

So maybe you want to pull the talent in your league, divide them into who really knows this stuff, and we send kids to learn from [00:30:00] those people who actually know what they're talking about, and know how to teach it, and if you don't have enough of that, You need to bring people in who do. It's the same thing with the athletic piece and the dynamic movement routines.

You shouldn't just show them basic dynamic movements once at the beginning of the year and then have them come back and just tell them at the beginning of every practice and game, go do it. No, you should be actually teaching them how to do it and progressing them through the season and season to season so that they're getting better.

You know, as athletes. If we're going to ask them to play different sports, how about we actually improve their athleticism, okay? So anyway, I digress there, but that just gives you an idea of the lack of structure, the lack of systems, the lack of leadership from a league wide perspective that is missing to really supply the teaching component.

for these kids so that they can all benefit. And again, you gotta develop the entire [00:31:00] ability spectrum. Some leagues are not set up to develop the entire ability spectrum within a team or within the league. Only the best players and the best teams seem to improve a lot. The bottom and the middle doesn't get the attention that it needs for a lot of reasons.

Again, another podcast, but

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. It's an important point though, because while of course many of these leagues are civic and community organizations, right, they're not designed for the purposes of being professional, but they, there's a leadership void that might exist if they're not putting resources and supports in place to ensure that those who are stepping up to coach teams are supported have both.

You know, advocacy and support and also training and skills. Similarly to a lot of conversations I have on other podcasts in our network here about how things might work in schools when

Adam Sarancik: yes,

Ross Romano: there's certain things that the school leadership isn't taking a [00:32:00] responsibility for proactive. you know, communication and parent engagement and providing the right resource to teachers and leaving them by themselves on an island that it's unfair.

And in these cases with the sports teams, I think it's easy for the other people, parents or whomever, who are not coaching or volunteering to come up with their own perceptions or narratives of why people are doing what they're doing, or if they're doing a good job, well, oh, that guy he's probably coaching because he just, he's, he likes to be in charge, or he's power hungry, or this coach, they don't know anything what they're doing.

Well, in my experience, like I haven't seen A lot of examples where these leagues are turning away coaches, right? They, they're, it's not like okay you're critical of this person who's doing it. Did you volunteer? Could you do better? Did you offer to it? Like, I think 90, 5 percent of the time, right?

The people are doing it for purely positive [00:33:00] reasons. And it doesn't mean that they're all experts at what they're doing, but they're doing it because they want to do something positive. They want to provide an opportunity for kids, but they deserve to. Yeah, to have some training, to have some clinics and camps and things like that, to say, look I'm willing to put my time into this, to doing this and I would like to make sure I'm doing it well.

I don't want to do a bad job. I don't want to feel like I'm just on my own or or that everybody is kind of being critical, right? And but

Adam Sarancik: let me

Ross Romano: for leagues to think about.

Adam Sarancik: absolutely. Let me fill in a couple of things here. So I have my master's in teaching degree, and everything you're saying, Ross, is absolutely right. When we study to be teachers, they emphasize different learning styles, teaching to the entire spectrum. And as you just pointed out, That's the same with coaches and coaching sports, right?

You've got different learning styles. You've got different abilities, even with on a certain team and a different [00:34:00] ability. You don't do that naturally. And yet what leagues do is they prioritize, because it's a lot of work, the administration of setting up games and tournaments, and they judge success in their programs by wins and losses.

All right, and you as a coach, if you win a lot of games, and this is all the way through high school, you're a good coach. And no, you're not. That's not the standard, okay? But that's the standard by which every coach is judged in most instances, is whether you won the championship or won a lot of games. If you're winning, parents are happy.

Well, guess what? The kids are not necessarily happy. If they didn't improve and if they didn't feel like they got a connection that made the whole experience worthwhile for them. So we have, and I'm not going to name any names, but we have programs here in our area that are very, very successful programs, win championships all the time, both at the youth level.[00:35:00]

And at the high school level and the parents and the coaches and the administrators thinks these are great programs and they don't realize the reason that those programs are winning is because the players can afford to go hire private trainers to teach them how to be elite athletes and elite players.

That's why they're winning. It's not the league. It's not the coaches within the league. They're not being developed there. They are just getting their skills that have been privately trained and developed now exposed in those leagues and those games and tournaments. They're thinking, oh, we got a great league.

No, you don't have a great league. You know, you got a great showcase for the talent that's being developed other places. And that's the whole hypocrisy and fallacy that is going on many times in youth sports.

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Ross Romano: I'd love to ask you about the benefits or competencies that [00:36:00] young people learn from participating in sports and in a way where we separate out or even eliminate considerations around sports ability or skills, right? The kid who signs up to play youth basketball and they're going to play for a few years and that's As, as much as they're going to go in that sport or somebody who goes out for the you know, the baseball team in high school and they play on the team, but they don't have the ability or even necessarily the interest or intention of taking it beyond that.

But they just want to be part of that team and participate in the sport. What are the things that they gain from being a part of that team, from participating in that sport that. You know, that, that happened through sports. Right. But that are of course, about their development as a person independent of anything to do with how good they are or are not at the sport.

Adam Sarancik: Right, right. [00:37:00] Well, ideally, if the coaches and the league take a person athlete player approach, they're going to become better people, they're going to become better athletes, and they're going to become better players if the league and coaches have been trained to design their practice plans, training sessions, and development programs with that holistic, three part development you know, approach in mind.

If all they're doing is playing the game to win the game, they're not getting very much out of it. They won a trophy. That's literally what they got out of it, all right? But if you were proactively designing Life lessons within the game using quotes, acronyms, role plays, guest speakers, and stuff. Then you're learning individually skills like planning, organization, goal setting, self discipline, tenacity, perseverance, accountability, empathy, self [00:38:00] sacrifice, compassion, forgiveness, and empathy, right?

That individually you can learn all those things if the program is designed correctly. And then as a group, you're learning how to be good servant leaders. How do we learn that? Community service, right? We go out and do community service projects, things volunteering without the expectation of a monetary return.

And from your sport, let's just say baseball, the most important games that you play every year are not the ones in your league. They're the ones that you play with children with disabilities. You're just you're Miracle League games, you're Challenger games. So you're you're sending a message to these kids that community service, being involved with the community is important, being involved with the less fortunate is important, right?

And then as teachers within your game, you're teaching them about accountability. So you're pairing players up with similar abilities and things to work on and having each other, there's a system to do [00:39:00] this holding each other accountable to get better. So you're teaching them how to teach and how they hold each other accountable.

And from a leadership point of view, you're asking a different person to step up. every day to lead dynamic movement routines, to be a captain at the end of the practice, game simulation or scrimmage, so that you're teaching leadership skills as well. So again, if you're thinking about it more than just whether we're playing this well or not, but saying, okay, how do I get these kids to learn how to be a teacher?

Okay, how do I get them to learn how to hold each other accountable other than just barking at them? You should hold each other accountable. How do we teach them to be? Leaders how does specifically do we go about doing these things then all of this stuff can be taught and you can derive a benefit if we wanted to become better athletes, again, you can't, you can become a better athlete in any sport, but it has to be taught, and it's not.

If you go out and [00:40:00] watch the average youth practice, there's a lot of telling, and youth, in youth sports, telling is not teaching. You have to be able to demonstrate it, and you have to be able to break it down in a met you know, in a methodic way, a building block, scaffolding way, starting with dry mechanics.

I mean, in baseball, the average youth coach starts hitting ground balls or having a player hit the ball. Well, in the six step teaching process, that's step five, not step one. Okay, and most coaches don't understand that. So yes, you can become a better person and all of those life skills that I've listed Yes, you can become a better athlete.

Yes, you can become a better player and you can get all that from any sport that you participate in, but only if the league has designed it, supported it, and trained it to be that way. If you're just gonna set up leagues and administer games and tournaments And rely on [00:41:00] whatever training they're getting at home or through private trainers to excel, then the rest of the kids, the majority of kids, are really not going to get much out of it.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. I think there and there's so many of the the benefits of having been a part of sports programs and other really other things that kids do that. I think they really have clarity around how that was beneficial oftentimes in retrospect, right? But it, they're not necessarily the reasons why we do it.

But when we think about you know, our experiences, I I, my high school graduating class had almost 700 people in it. So there's it's a lot of people, right? But because I played football, basketball and baseball and I'm in honors and AP classes and honor society, and also involved in other clubs and activities, like through all those different things, you're having a chance to develop relationships with all different people from [00:42:00] all over the school who you wouldn't necessarily know because there's so many, if you're just.

in kind of these isolated pockets, right? And how does that influence your perspective just as a human, right? And the ways in which you just understand your community and all of those things, in addition to relationship skills and leadership skills and all that kind of stuff that You know, there's a, an important community purpose to these things to say, like, this is especially team sports, right?

You learn how to work together to support one another, to be accountable to your teammates, to all those different skills that oftentimes are relatively unique among youth experiences, right? To be put in an environment where this is a necessity and a requirement and it certainly benefits you down the road as you're involved in other organizations professionally and otherwise.

[00:43:00] And but I I think it's like easier and easier Just with the some of the trajectory of society and technology and the way things work now to to not to opt out of involvement in those types of communities without. Being intentional about it or even as you referenced the hiring elite private coaches and tutors and that kind of stuff that is if you're really passionate about a sport and you have the means and you think it can help you, it's not that you shouldn't do that, but that also is very much the opposite of it.

A lot of what it means to participate in a team and to be a part of that and it's really important even in those cases with those young athletes to really make clear to them and instill in them the importance of being a good teammate and all of those things and so, it's it's really, it's interesting, but I think it's so great to be able to reflect back on all of that knowledge to [00:44:00] now the person who's on the other side of it, the parent, the coach, the young athlete who is considering the reasons why they might want to get involved to say, look there's all these things that are going to benefit you for the rest of your life.

Because you will have had these experiences and you know, in addition to potentially you find a sport that you really love, you're really good at, and all the things that come along with that.

Adam Sarancik: Yeah. I know. I spent a lot of time in the last 15 years watching coaches coach and teams train. And everything you're saying, Ross, in theory, should be true, and is the experience for some of the participants and families. I'm just saying, if you really look at it objectively, it doesn't exist very often. I mean, they play games, they win games, they lose games, they have trophies [00:45:00] handed out, they have Refreshments after the games, and yet there really isn't a structure there to develop persons, athletes, and players.

It doesn't exist, and it should, and it could, but it doesn't. And what is so sad in America now is that a good chunk of American youth are being swallowed up in this obsession with sports from the time they're seven or eight years old until the time they graduate high school to the exclusion of better study habits getting and interviewing for and getting real jobs.

Volunteer work, charity work, having a balanced life. They are literally going from baseball practice to flag football practice to lacrosse practice, over and over and over. They're just playing games, chasing wins and trophies, and This balance is completely out of whack. And then when it comes time [00:46:00] to choosing a college, they're choosing it backward.

They're going to a showcase in a sport they're really good at, seeing what colleges are interested in giving them a scholarship, and that's how they're basing where they're going to go to school. And yet, that's completely backward. And yet they don't know any other way because everybody else is doing it the same way and they've been swallowed up in this tidal wave of sports obsession.

And it's like, time out here. What happened to student athlete and the priority on student coming first? You know, where are we training the kids how to think about you know, what careers you might want to be and choosing a college. based on the education that's going to lead to that career. Kids get to college, and again, another podcast, and they have no idea, other than they wanted me to play baseball here why they're at that college, and they think they're getting a scholarship that's going to defer the education cost, when the reality is, no, you're paying the school thousands of dollars to play [00:47:00] baseball, and you're going to end up with a piece of paper for a degree that you can't ever use or don't want to use.

That's the reality of it, alright? So yes, you're absolutely right. Sports can be great. It can. And under the right system, it could be very beneficial, personally, athletically, and sports wise. Most of the time, Ross, right now, it's not. If you look at it objectively, if you actually look at what's going on in the leagues, at their practices, their time would be better spent in other places.

And that's why I'm being such a strong advocate for a change in the way leagues and coaches are doing what they do. And it's happening. I'm not saying again, I don't want to overgeneralize here. It is happening in places now and thankfully so, but it's still a very small minority cases

Ross Romano: yeah, no, I mean, those are, they're all important points because I guess the thing that needs to come up again and again is accountability. [00:48:00] Accountability of the systems and structures to foster. successful outcomes for the people within them, especially young people. All right. And this, and especially when we talk about the college thing, right, this is something that yeah it's a whole bigger conversation, but it affects all different types of things.

It's certainly a point that's been brought up when it comes to the cost of education and student loans and things like that, and saying, look, We're expecting 18 year olds to make these kind of decisions about the finances that are going to affect the rest of their lives or for the college stuff with things like NIL, right?

It's a big thing to say, okay, on the one hand, is it fair that coaches have absolute freedom of movement to do whatever they want and to go for the biggest paycheck? Is it fair that colleges can make money off of the student athletes and the athletes can't? Yeah, maybe that's not fair, but is it a good system where they can just continue to transfer repeatedly and go wherever they think the [00:49:00] money is and then maybe there isn't money there and they move again and there's not a lot of thought being put into what am I learning here?

What's the

Adam Sarancik: Yeah. Why am I even here?

Ross Romano: You know, like Even if that's technically fair to make that their right is it really serving them? And is there a better way to go about it? And even if so, even if those are the parameters and who are the responsible adults within this system saying, we have to help them.

These young people be in a good position for success and be successful. And we have to, and we can't just abdicate that responsibility and say, Oh, well, the rules are different now. So we're just not going to worry about that at all. In fact, we're going to feed into it because we're going to try to encourage them to transfer to our school, right?

Adam Sarancik: Look at it this way. Everybody has to eat, right? So, are you going to eat at a bad restaurant just because they give you a free coupon to eat there? [00:50:00] That's a scholarship to a university. It overall may not be a bad university, but it may not be one that's the best fit for you based on what your career might be.

But who's teaching these kids how to analyze and think about what careers they want to potentially pursue and how to choose a college based on that? based on that. That's not happening most of the time. And if it is, it's being overridden by the backward approach to getting a scholarship. What's happening now, Ross, is kids are going to play baseball because this college is giving them a scholarship.

They're coming out with a degree and they're going off and doing a career that's the default. I didn't want to sell paint, but that's what I'm going to end up doing. I'm going to go work for this paint company and I'm going to sell paint. Because I didn't get any education at my college or an inspiration to do something that You know, I'm really going to be self actualized in doing so.

You're not going to take food [00:51:00] from the restaurant just because I had a free coupon. You're not going to use the free coupon for bad food. And yet nobody's helping these kids to determine you know, why do I need NIL money, right? If what I'm going to get out of it is just wins and losses in a sport.

And in three or four years, I don't have anything after that. You know, I've got some money. There's not very many people that are going to make millions. They're going to be Caleb Williams or Olivia Dunn or something like this, going to make millions. The average player is going to make thousands, but that's not really worth it.

from a lifelong perspective of what's going to make you happy in a career, right? But we get so caught up in these sports and pursuing the sports, and these wins, and the glorification of playing college sports, that we forget what college should be about in the first place. You know, we just we totally lost can I add it here something Ross real quickly?

I know we're getting to the [00:52:00] end a couple of things from my coaching experience on what the outcomes Can be if you do it right from a coaching perspective. Let me just real briefly go Through these things one of the things you learn like I say, I did it wrong beginning I just coached fundamentals and won a bunch of games and championships.

And yet, once I started taking a more holistic approach, 10, 15 years down the road, when I get communications of appreciation, letters, emails, whatever, from players, it never was about the wins and losses. It was always about how I made them a better person. Over and over again, I get all these fantastic letters or communications of appreciation.

It was always about the fact that I made him a better person. So it sent me a message. Hmm. Maybe this isn't. what it should be, the priority on wins and championships. Second, even if you're not lucky enough to do it for 10 or 15, whatever years, okay, let's just say you're coaching your kid or kids through whatever teams or whatever. All it takes is for you to [00:53:00] make an impact on one person and that person using what you taught them about life can inspire other people in so many countless ways in their lives. And that ripple effect can be. Exponential and immeasurable, but it's directly correlated to the quality of the mentorship they received while they played for you, all right?

So the old saying is, to the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world. So you, to have a huge impact in a bigger picture way, you don't have to coach for 10, 15, 20, 30 years, all right? You can coach for just a few years, do it right, inspire those kids. and teach them the life lessons that should be taught and they're going to go on and be great doctors, dentists.

You know, engineers, whatever. And then third, and I'm a very religious, spiritual, faith first person, I'll just put it this way, too. I have a saying that when [00:54:00] you're taking account of your accomplishments daily and in your life, Make sure that your scorecard and his scorecard are the same. All right, he doesn't care how many great athletes you trained or how many wins or championships you have.

He only cares how many people you taught to be good people to help others and to make the world a better place. Okay, so if we really want to take a big picture point of view of things, right? Just make sure that you're working with the right scorecard when you're Tallying up what you accomplished in your life.

Ross Romano: Yeah, and many of us are not it's often probably the exception when we're fortunate enough to learn about the long term results of the work we put in. Right? And the truth is, if You know, contribute positively to people's lives. You don't know what that might mean to them. You don't know [00:55:00] how you may be the only person who did that for them or saw it or how it might lead to the future.

And in the sports world, I mean, in this day and age there's coaches and front office, there's all kinds of people that work in positions in pro sports, for example, that didn't even play in high school. Like they weren't they weren't. Talented athletes, but they had an experience with the sport.

They love the sport and they took it to a level that you wouldn't necessarily expect because. somewhere along the line, they got an opportunity. And in addition to all the other things that happen outside of sports and and the ability to develop relationships and to choose a positive path and all those kinds of things.

So

Adam Sarancik: Yeah, the saying is, we should all plant seeds for trees that will never sit under.

Ross Romano: Right.

Adam Sarancik: He said, all plant seeds for trees will never sit under. Yeah, that's what you're talking about. You're inspiring. You're layering the foundation. You're [00:56:00] teaching life lessons. You may or may not see the fruit of those seeds but plant them anyway.

Yeah.

Ross Romano: So I want to close this conversation with one final question. And that is basically complete this sentence, right? If this is a a mission statement for a youth sports program. An athlete has benefited from being part of our program.

Adam Sarancik: Well generally, if they'd become a better player, a better person, a better athlete, and a better player. That's my philosophy. If your program is designed to make sure it proactively, specifically designed to help them become better people, better athletes and better players, they will be champions for life because they will be great teammates and they'll be great members of the community long after you know, they're, they participated in your program.

And that, Ross, really comes down to the why. Why do you have a program? Why do you have a [00:57:00] program? If you have it just to win games and championships, that's one thing. But if you really want to impact kids beyond playing on these teams, and have the parents and families buy into the program, and be loyal to the program, and promote the program, you'll have a much bigger why for your program than just winning games and championships.

All right, so yeah.

Ross Romano: awesome. Well, everybody listening if you're not already subscribed, this is a great time to do so. can subscribe to sideline sessions because later on in this season, we'll have part two of our conversation with Adam, especially for those of you. Who are involved with the sport of baseball. We're going to get a lot more into specifics around coaching championship teams and players in the sport and get into a lot more in the weeds detail there.

So, come back for that and also just stay tuned for the rest of our. Season here where we will be having all kinds of conversations and and it's a great season because we have all kinds of [00:58:00] perspectives here. We're going to get the perspective of those who have been officials in youth leagues and a variety of coaches and former athletes and all the different things that they've learned in their experience that can help each of us in whatever our roles are.

in in sports with student athletes. So please do subscribe. Thanks for being here. And Adam, thanks so much for being here.

Adam Sarancik: Oh absolutely, it was my pleasure. I look forward to part two.