Devon Brown on Burnout, Rankings, and Letting Kids Own Their Journey

Rhett Parker: Hi, and welcome to another episode of Surviving Youth Sports. And today we have Devon Brown. And interestingly enough, kind of our first person who saw the show and reached out to us about coming on and telling about his experiences, you know, mainly as a parent and coach. But welcome to the show, Devon. Coach Brown: Appreciate being on. Rhett Parker: Now you have three kids and you do your own fitness, you have your own fitness business, you coach, ⁓ you still compete ⁓ in endurance events. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Coach Brown: Yeah. So I mean, sports has been a huge part of my life ever since growing up. grew up in a small town here in Indiana. I did a little bit of everything. I was the, the not late bloomer, but like I didn't start basketball till junior high. And I ultimately played for a small college later on. ⁓ but I was a kid that wore jeans to basketball practice my first year. Like my parents weren't cool enough and weren't in sports enough. So. Rhett Parker: That's hilarious, that's awesome. Coach Brown: Yeah, I still remember like one of my first times playing. was like, Oh, one of the like cool kids threw me the ball. So I took off running with it. I was like, Oh man, this is, this is never going to happen again. So my, my background with that, you know, being in small town, Indiana, everything's around around basketball is around sports, uh, town of about 15,000 and it would literally shut down when Friday night basketball happened. So the love for that kind of came there. We always laugh. Ironically, I have a swimmer as one of my kids because I quit swimming because I told my mom, I wanted more than nine moms to know that I was good. So I went to basketball where everybody knows what's going on. Um, but yeah, I've got three boys, their age is 13, 10 and nine, all different sides of the spectrum. Like I don't. Rhett Parker: Oof. Coach Brown: Compete as much. had my heyday. I played college. I got into like Ironman and ultra distance stuff and traveled. I've raced in China. I've raced in Japan. I've done like Spartan races, that kind of stuff and had a blast. Now my kids are taking up my bandwidth and as much as I hated to tell clients when clients would come to me and be like, hey, I don't have time to work out. like. ⁓ no, you just got to make it now. I'm in that thing where I'm like having to bring weight plates to the sidelines so that I can get a workout in. Rhett Parker: Yeah, no, I man and and that's interesting because. Man, I'm finding the same thing. You know, 230 hits. And you got the pickups. And then 330, they got more pickups and then you got my wife and I looked at our schedule the other day. And man, I swear I had like anxiety because we have 10 weeks coming up. There's three days where someone doesn't have a game. Three days, three Fridays, that's it. Someone has a game every day. And we kind of looked at each other We were like, man, I can't beat all these. There's no way. ⁓ And I'm not even talking about the same day, but... Dude, I don't want to be at a field till 9.30, seven days a week. Like I will get burned out. you know, I will get burned out completely. And I coached like four teams last year and I was so burnt. I found myself telling my, was like, it's like 8.30 and I'm like, all right, let's get this game over with. And I took a step back and was like, wait a minute. I love watching my kids play and I'm sitting here going. Coach Brown: Yeah. Rhett Parker: let's get this game over with, but I've been at the field since 4.30. And I'm like, ⁓ okay, that doesn't work. So we have to adjust too, right? You got to bring weight plates. I got to tell myself, shut my phone off during the day and go, I'm working out. Even if it's 30 minutes. How do you, and I say this, how do you do it? Because I know I've had to just take a step back and analyze. But we're all in this, especially with multiple kids. And we are trying to survive. How are you doing it, Coach Brown: Yeah. Well, so that's what I thought your guys's podcast is actually, ⁓ like a resource for like parents and be like, man, this we're in the grind of this life. How do we get out? And that's what kind of attracted me to it. But yeah, I, know, as, as a former athlete, you get the, you don't realize it, but you get the luxury of these compartments where they're clean. You know, I lift weights from 5 a.m. To 6 a.m. I eat breakfast at, know, it's, and I've lived my entire life that way. So. Rhett Parker: Yeah? Coach Brown: It's honestly taken me, gosh, we're probably 18 months now since we had a huge paradigm shift, which revolved around us switching clubs and doing things. Now our bandwidth has changed with that. But that's where I looked at that and said, I don't have hours to block out for working out anymore. I have to capture 10, 15, 20 minutes or do it in weird ways. So it's like, I always keep a ruck pack in my, in my. Rhett Parker: Yep. Coach Brown: in my vehicle, it's got a 45 pound plate in it. If I'm being not lazy, but if I'm being tired that day, I can just throw it on my back, walk around 45 is enough to move around and do squats and stuff. But it's not like, you know, pyramiding down from 10, eight to six and doing four sets of 90 seconds rest. And like this whole big thing, it's that's too, that's not realistic anymore. What's realistic for me is to be like, Hey, I'm going to be stuck. at the swimming pool for the next two hours. Our swimming pool is 40 minutes away from our house, so there's no way I'm driving home and driving back. But I can go out and be one of those silly guys walking around the town, doing things, go to the corner of the soccer field and get something in for me and check a small box that says, has done it, not check a box that said, well, I'm back at my 225 bench press and I feel good or, you know that. Rhett Parker: Mm-hmm. Well, and I think you said something really interesting. You can't lose yourself either. Like if working out or reading a book or you know, whatever your thing is or things as a sports parent, you can lose yourself really quickly. And then you start to put everything that's like your identity becomes your kids. That's not healthy. Under any circumstances, that's not healthy doesn't mean you can't give all your kids the opportunities. It doesn't mean that you can't You know support them and and and help them on their journey But it has to be their journey more than it's yours Being a parent it's part of your journey Can't be more though. And so you have to have those things that are yours And it's a, man, I got scared last year because I was like, man, okay, what am I doing for myself? And then I'm just, ⁓ I'm running people around and ⁓ it's to take a step back be like, all right, man, I can't coach every team. And I had, there's some tears. One of my kids wanted me to coach. Didn't work out. I'm coaching him next year. You mentioned swimming, know, swimming, golf, tennis, a little bit, ⁓ well, not a little, a lot different, right? I mean, we're talking very individualistic, non-team sports. none my kids ever done it. ⁓ And what's the difference besides obviously, ⁓ you have to with as many parents. Coach Brown: Yeah. So it's, it's, it's a totally. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's so like when I quit swimming and told my mom, I was done. chose basketball and she didn't say a word. She didn't fight back. She didn't do anything. And I was probably more talented in swimming, but basketball was where I loved it. And I felt recognized and part of something bigger. And then in college. had my mom down on the floor and told her, know, hey, this is gonna be my last hurrah. And she looked over at me and she's like, man, I miss seeing you swim, hon. And I was like, what are you talking about? You've never said a word. And she said, it wasn't my responsibility. It's your journey. So like, I've always held that. like, where swimming is like any individualized sports different is obviously like, it's you. You are, you're exposed. You perform, you don't perform. And with basketball, have that to an element, but with individual sports, you're also free to go chase without hurting others on your group. One of the things my oldest played basketball for a little bit, just randomly came home one day. was like, Hey dad, I don't play basketball. We never even told him I played. Like we had everything hidden because I did not want him to feel that he had to follow my foot steps. Footsteps. He comes in. He's like, I'm going to try it for a travel team. I'm like, buddy, you're going to get cut from a travel team, but whatever. Like, let's go do this. And he made it. And he played for a few years and he liked it, but he, he never got comfortable. He was a starting point guard and he's like, dad, I hate it when I turn over the ball. Cause I let my team down. I'm like, yeah, buddy, it's a, team sports or you have a responsibility to everybody. But then COVID came and he was out training. We find him ways of train. Nobody else was training. And he's like, dad, now I'm not happy. I'm angry that my teammates don't care. and they turn over the ball and they don't care. And I turn over the ball and I'm like dying on the inside. So like we recognize very early that individual sports being able to have that control was more in my kids' aptitude. But the training is different. I've always said, I think the two hardest sports, high school and college to be a part of long-term are swimming and wrestling because they are so isolating. Rhett Parker: Hmm. Coach Brown: Swimming you have coaches, but really your ears and eyes are on a black line and on ceiling tiles 90 % of your practice has nothing to do with another human being Wrestling, mean wrestling's got weight cuts and the whole thing of when a person gets a hold of you and you can't stop them That's that's a tough thing Rhett Parker: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. However, as a baseball player, when you fail as much as you do, I mean, it is an absolutely brutal thing because baseball in a way, really. Yes, it's a team sport, but like, hey, man, you're the only one hitting. It has nothing to do with your teammates. Nothing. You know, and pitching is probably a little bit less so. But, you know, the failure that's, you know, when you're individual. When you strike out, there's not really anyone to blame. If you don't win your swimming meet, you don't win your swimming meet. There's no outlet, and even as a parent, God, man, and I coach obviously quite a bit. Man, these people will find excuses. And you know what? Sometimes you just fail. Sometimes, like, how is that in swimming? Sometimes the guy's just better than you, or the girl's just, they're just better than you, and that's okay. It doesn't mean that you've done anything wrong. Coach Brown: Yeah. Right. Well, I mean, baseball is definitely a baseball and golf. There's you're trying not to fail more than you're trying to win. I mean, when you're you're a legend hitting one out of three. Rhett Parker: You Golf. Golf. ⁓ Golf. Golf. Don't even golf. can't. They're golf. Sorry. is. Yeah. Golf takes a special person. Coach Brown: Yeah. Yeah. Well, but I mean, when there's like, where it's different than swim, mean, swim, you're individually done. Nope. Very few swimmers actually worry about winning. That's like, that's a foreign concept in swim. Yeah. They may give medals or ribbons or things like that, but they usually go eight deep. It's not everybody gets an award, but it's also an aspect of like, Hey, the ball can't turn. If you're not faster, it's just not magically going to happen one day. So with swimming, a lot of times it's more about they, they lay out more like cuts and, know, you have to get this fast to earn this kind of meat and to go up in this type of team. So there's always that, if you're the worst swimmer on the team, literally you can be excited about improving your time. If you're the best swimmer on the team and you just dominated everybody. mean, my 10 year old is as fast and it's special to watch. He'll go out there and this past weekend, he'd lapped on a 500. He lapped the entire field and got out and was frustrated because he added time. So like it's, it's you versus your time, but your time also is, is measured against these other cuts and teams and so on. Rhett Parker: I know nothing about ⁓ I'm barely average swimmer. I feel like, you know, football or throwing a baseball. mean, there's no four hour trainings. You have your training and your, your body is not meant to, to, to, to do this. It's, it's not at all. ⁓ So you can only throw so many times in a day. You can only take so many hits in football. So swimming, mean, can you just go? what's, you know, give me the, what does it look like for your 10 year old, you know, and by the way, congratulations to him. I was looking him up a little bit. He seems like he's very dedicated and, you know. wants to be great, is awesome. We don't have enough of that in the world these days. Coach Brown: to circle back to that on the, the, like what his journey is, but like the, big thing was swimming. It's like, may be able to only throw so many pitches a day, but you can screw around with 90 other aspects of baseball as much as you want. I mean, with basketball, you know, I could go and shoot jump shots and you know, you have to worry about wear and tear on your elbow and cartilage and that kind of stuff, but you can also play one-on-one. can play pig. You dribble a basketball, your feet, you can find if you're a, if you love it, you can string it out. Rhett Parker: Yeah. Mm. Coach Brown: Swimming, swimming still, it's coming out of what I would consider kind of the dark ages. It uses that old like Russian periodization more and more and more laps, laps, laps. And we're starting to see some Olympians, Michael Andrew, Cam McEvoy, a weeks, weekends ago, just set the world record in the 53. And he came out and basically said, Hey, I'm only swimming 1500 meters, 2000 meters in a practice. And I'm not even swimming every day. And then he became the fastest human in the world. between weightlifting and doing other things. I think that swimming starting to embrace that science, that's probably the downside of where swimming so small is that the science is way, way, way behind. I mean, whereas baseball, you know, they're now starting to get, you know, the, like the sports bra as a monitor, how far they move to monitor, swimming starting to get there. But since there's not as much money in it, Rhett Parker: Yeah. Coach Brown: it has to wait till the bigger sports cycle through then it starts finding a way to adapt it. Rhett Parker: Awesome. And talk to me about, it's Gabe, right? His journey and, you know, what he wants to accomplish and what it's like as a parent, you know, to have somebody that's really dedicated to their craft at such a young age. Coach Brown: So we're in like this weird paradox and that's probably like the biggest thing that attracted me. What you guys were talking about because you had a lot of, you know, like things that make sense. And I've been saying for years, like there is no such thing as an elite 10 year old, like that, that makes sense in a vacuum. And I've had kids in my business that dad brings them in. They're like, Hey, this is the next soccer superstar. I know it. And I'm going, yeah, like he, you just brought in. Jump Java juice and he's played video games half the time we've talked and like, probably not that thing. I've had one kid in my 20 plus years that walked in me as a fourth grader, walked onto the court and she looked up at me and I was like, what's your biggest goal? She's like, I'm going to be a division one basketball player and just her aura. I don't know how to explain it. Like when you've got it, it's hard to explain, but she had it and three ACL surgeries later, she's still. Got a full ride to play basketball, like just had the body had the desire will parents that were willing to do. But that's super rare. And I think the mistake that a lot of people have is that if you're, if you're gifted, they look at that and go great. These gifts are going to get there. You lose those gifts pretty quick. If you're a hard worker. They're like, ⁓ you can outwork this. you can make, ⁓ you might be able to work yourself into a low level college like I did, but not, you're not making the Olympic team just based on hard work. Those two things have to cross section. You have to have the genetic help and the talent and desire along with that work and structure. And that's why it's rare. So when my 10 year old decided to like, be this swimmer, Rhett Parker: Feeding time! Feeding time! You have to get out, please. Feeding time! That is hilarious. And they couldn't make it 20 minutes. Awesome. Go ahead. Coach Brown: That was like, ⁓ you're good. But yeah, so that's like I've got three boys and they're all on completely different journeys. I love my oldest. I'm the oldest of three boys. He and I will have that bond. He will be a pretty good high school runner. In fact, he may be like contending for a state championship as an individual. He's not built like the second one. The second one is the outlier. He is a little bit bigger. His brain works differently. he is all in and when he's all in, he'll go through anything there. I always laugh. I'm like, you know, my oldest, he's experiencing feet problems right now from running and it's just as he's got, severs. So he's growing a little fast, pulling, but he went to physical therapy. He did his therapy just fine. And when physical therapy ended, that was the end of him doing anything on his feet. And so now he still struggles with it. If My middle guy, if he went to physical therapy and they said, take this pink cup and put it on your head and don't let that cup fall off for the next four days and you'll be magically cured. He would wear, that cup would not fall off. There's no way in the world. Rhett Parker: And you just said, I'm gonna add one thing to the hard work and genetics, luck. Because it is a real thing to stay healthy, to be in the right environment, to have the right coaches, the right trainers, like you have to get lucky as much as those other things. And there isn't an elite 10 year old because... your son in two years, four years could go, I'm good, I'm gonna go do something else. And that's great. There's nothing wrong with that. Now, there are people that are wired completely differently. There's also people that are really lazy that make $20 million a year playing sports, guys. They're just that much better than the rest of us. I just, parents... And I think what you're saying is exactly what we want to say here, which is, man, if your 10 year old is great and wants to be great, man, enjoy it. Enjoy it. Don't go, okay, what's the next thing? Enjoy that moment. Enjoy them trying to achieve. ⁓ man, you know, what did he run the 500? God, I wanted my time to be better. Okay, but like, what do we have to do for you? You want it, not me. What do we need to do to get better? And I'm going through it too, along with a lot of other parents. God, it's awesome. to see them like sort of fail, but still have success and go, ⁓ man, you know, my, my two scene wasn't doing this right. I need to do this a little bit better. It is for me, one of the best things happening right now with my kids age, you know, six, eight, 12, 12. They kind of want to get better. And you know, that's going to take them way farther. Maybe it's in sports. Maybe it's in something else Anybody that has that gonna be fine. They're gonna be fine and Coach Brown: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I think it's crazy because I think where parents get off the mark is that, or at least for us, my wife and I have to check in with each other on is like, just because they have talent and promise doesn't mean that you get to go chase it. Like, and I think that's where parents get wrapped up in this game of, man, my kid is the best, whatever. Great. And then you chase it. And then he's 10 years old. Like he was a wrestler. four years ago and wrestling was his, his world. Now he wasn't old enough to be any good at it, but he, that was his world and we were all in. And then one day he comes in he's like, Hey, yeah, you know, I've been doing this swimming thing on the side. I really want to chase this dad and see where I can go. And instead of, think sometimes we get stuck as parents and we're like, buddy, but I bought you the shoes and I, paid for the coaching and I did the thing. Like, don't you want to, let's just stick in this a little bit longer. And then that's where the problems happen is like, their kids, their chances are if their talent and their growth keeps up, they still may get distracted. And that's perfectly fine in our world. If our kid comes in and says, I'm the number one swimmer in the nation. I want to go try baseball. And we're like, man, buddy, you've never swing a bat in your life. Let's go see what happens. Rhett Parker: Yeah, that's funny. ⁓ So do you think that we push kids too much and we burn them out of what they want to do? Because I think we'll disagree on this a little bit, but I want to hear your take. on burnout because it is different with team and individual sports for a lot of different reasons. But I definitely want to hear your take. Coach Brown: Yeah. So burnout is like the dirtiest word. You might as well curse at me. Like it's so overused to me and use sports that I feel like it just, when I hear it, I just, I kind of opt out a lot because there is true burnout. There is real burnout out there. But the rough truth that I want most parents and kids to understand is they never trained hard enough, long enough and in circumstance to actually be burnout. What I think that more of the world experiences is two things. Number one, they're being pushed externally and that's no fun. That creates a distaste for the sport. Not necessarily burnout, but like I don't want to do this thing because I'm not the one driving. The other thing is that I think that most kids, especially around puberty time, experience like, I'm the top dog. So my 10 year old's like, he's on top of the world. He's ranked number one in the nation. He's the guy, the beat. Rhett Parker: Mm-hmm. Coach Brown: kid grows four inches next year, that changes that. Or if he grows four inches and he just doesn't understand his body, there's a period of time that every youth athlete goes through that their body doesn't make sense to them as a foreign language. And to equate that, my analogy is if you're getting paid a job, I'm telling you to create a hundred pieces for me and I'm going to pay you 50,000 a year to create a hundred pieces a day. And you're like, great, this job's great. I'm signing up for it. Well, a year from now, I'm like, Hey, I want you to create 125,000. And by the way, I got a doctor pay the 45 because of other things. And you're going, wait a minute, I'm doing more work and I'm seeing less financial results. How does this make sense? I bounce out of my job. I'm going to go find somebody else. I think that happens in youth sports where a kid is used to being at a higher level or used to being recognized. And now they're, they're not. and there's nothing they can do about it other than just stick there and grind. That to me is not burnout. That to me is like, what idiot would stay here for less money? Like, I wanna go try something else or I wanna go. So that's where I'm a little different in burnout. I don't know that enough train hard enough to actually appreciate real burnout. Rhett Parker: Mm-hmm. I think burnout's a very, it's a broad word, right? And I think, know, distasteful sport for sure. And maybe this is true in swimming and obviously running, it probably is true. We play too much and we are physically burning kids out in baseball. We're physically burning kids out in soccer. And I know this because my wife is a medical physician for sports medicine. And the athletes coming in ain't 22 year olds. They're 13, they're 14. And so you are right in that training. They're not training enough of their body. They're playing too much. Their body's like, dude, you cannot have the same. repetitive movement, especially going through puberty and expect like, yeah, you know, I'll be fine. You know, and I'm sorry about the severs, because my son went through it too. And there's nothing you can do about severs. So if your kid has severs, they're going to be fine. You just kind of have to deal with it. They can't get any worse. It's a horrible thing with your heel and it's very painful. ⁓ But the burnout, is to me, that's the physical part, but the mental part, leave your kid alone. If they just wanna be okay, let them be okay. If they wanna go play rec, let them play rec. Not everybody's wired to be like, man, I wanna be really good. It's fine. They don't have to be great. They just have to have fun and enjoy what they're doing. And like you said, your son wants to be great, awesome. Go be great. Go be great. Coach Brown: Correct. Yeah. Well, that's so there was a study with, uh, think it was Julius Randall. don't even know where he plays anymore, but in the NBA, he early on had gotten hurt. think his rookie year and they went in and looked at his knee and they basically said he has the knee of a 15, 10 to 15 year old veteran. And they're like, what in the world? And then they started seeing all these same knee injuries in the NBA. And it came down to. with the AAU system, these kids were logging crazy games and hours. So they were coming into the league super polished, but their bodies were close to breaking down. And then that starts to debate. Like, it's a tough thing. Once you get to that thing, like maybe you don't get exposed and you're not as drafted as well and stuff like that, but you've also shortened your career, which means that you're going to make a lot less and do so like there. ⁓ There is no right answer there. think it's, I think what would help a lot of parents and a lot of athletes is that they put in the footwork to look at both sides and say, what do I want? What are the risks? What are the other outcomes? And I think that that's, if you, that's how we play it is we go in there and the kid, my kid goes in there and says, Hey, my oldest swam competitively for a good while. And he came in one day and was like, Excuse me, I wanna go run. I'm like, great, go run. What do you wanna do with swimming kiddo? He's like, ⁓ you know, wanna keep it on the side. And then so the next season when he came in and he wanted a hundred dollar pair of goggles, I'm like, whoa, buddy, like you're keeping this on the side, which means our intensity is on the side too. Rhett Parker: Awesome. Yes. Yes. I love that. I love that. Coach Brown: So, and that's hard because you have to parent. One of my great sayings that I got from my dad was the most unequal thing is to treat everyone as equal. And in today's world, that's a very uncomfortable statement. And what it means for me, and for especially sports, is if you put in the intensity and the effort, we'll try to rise to that intensity and try to go with you. If you don't... That's fine, but we're not going to play keeping up with the Joneses just because you're, you feel like you have to. So swimming became a less priority for him. He got a little less act. We weren't punishing them with us access. just, got a finite bandwidth for finances. Like, so we just cut that back on the other end, Gabe wanted, we just went to Florida the race. And I'm like, buddy, like, this is, this is hard on our finances. I'll tell you what, we'll go race. You have to raise money for your own plane ticket. So we gave it back to him to say, Hey, if your intensity is here, you'll find a way to make that money. If it's not here, we're cool with, with hanging out over the weekend and not going. So I think that's like the big thing for us is like, you have to be able to walk away at any moment. You can only rise to their level of intensity, not exceed it. And if they're all in, it's a special, fun thing, but it's exhausting. You know, when parents look at me and go, Man, it must be nice to have such a fast kid. I'm like, he's my hardest of the three kids hands down. I love the kid. I spend a lot of time with them, but no, the ones that are just kind of in it and okay. I get to go run on the weekend because of that. Rhett Parker: And there was a baseball player that I had, really good kid. And I remember talking to his dad about five years ago. And God, was a really fringy Division I player, as a pitcher and a hitter, because he could really run as an outfielder. But he wasn't quite there. And the dad looks at me, great guys, and it was an attorney, goes, This is purgatory. Because he wasn't good enough to not have to go do everything. But he was putting the effort in to be really good. But it wasn't like he was like, okay, we're go to the local JC or a good division three or division because he was better than that. And the dad was like, this is purgatory. And I didn't really get it at the time. I get it now. Because he was right. He had to do everything. He had to do everything. And he's like, this sucks. Because I know he's sort of good enough, but it's not a slam dunk on either one. He ended up being a Division I player. He ended up only pitching. He's playing professionally in Australia now, the kid is. And in today's day and age, he probably isn't going Division I with the... changes to the portal and everything, but it's okay if your kid is just gonna go to a good small college. It doesn't mean you have to go to Florida or California or Texas or Indiana or wherever. You don't have to chase it. If your kid is what they are, that's fine. Embrace that, I think is what we're both saying. And I don't feel like parents do that. They feel like You know, I can go to Florida if my son's just okay and he'll be seen. Doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way for swimming. doesn't work. It doesn't matter the sport. Parents, if you think it works that way, you're wrong. I don't do a lot of absolutes on her, Devon, if you've listened to a lot of the, you know, my opinions on stuff, because I think Gabe's journey is going to be different than, you know, my eight-year-old Knox's journey. And we might view burnout a little bit differently, but that's okay. But I'll tell you one absolute, this might be my first one. You cannot buy or travel your way into making your kid a good or great athlete. You cannot do it. It's not possible. It's an impossibility. Coach Brown: Well, and I think you have to be careful what you wish for. That's what we always tell my boys is like, look, being the best at something, being okay at something and being terrible at something, like there's different downfalls with all of those. And you know, if you're, if you don't put your effort in and you get passed over that hurts. And if you put your, your effort in and you miss that hurts. there, there is no guaranteed path to happiness on any of this. But we always tell him, be careful what you wish for because you better know what you're giving up. with Gabe, he doesn't care. friends are the reason that he loves swimming and he wants to spend time with his friends. So we have to cultivate that in there, but he'll go through whatever mountain wall, anything he'll give up. doesn't drink soda. This kid is 10 years old. He drinks two sodas a year. This is my Sprite endorsement. He drinks two Sprites and they always come at the end of the season. And that came from one small conversation to talk about, Hey, know, carbonation can create, um, cramps and stuff and limit performance. So in his mind, he's turned that off. Now he wants to break loose at the end of the season and be like, this is my reward. we feed into that. My oldest one, we never have those conversations with because he doesn't desire that. And I think a lot of division one is always going to be the gold standard. But even at division one, there's so many levels. When I knew I was done with basketball, I could have chased a small division one at like Appalachian state or something like that. That sounded miserable to go away from my family because I knew there was no next level for me. I knew that once that thing was done, it was done. So what did I want to give up? And I didn't want to give up those things anymore. I think that's where a lot of, you know, I get an athlete and they're like, I want to go to vision one. I had a girl, great. phenomenal build, perfect build. And she had gotten hurt. She decided to change her sport. She wanted to go to visual and that sport. I'm like, you haven't played this since junior high. Like it could happen, but how big is she want to play softball? I'm like, how big is the, you know, the shortstop for Tennessee that you want to go to? And she's like, I don't know. I'm like, you're good. You're not going like, you're not going to ask for that because the, the, the giveaway is too hard. Rhett Parker: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And who division one people have great experiences all over the place. This division one division one like let things happen organically. Enjoy the ride and on that note, you know, give us the best piece of advice you have for athletes or parents coaches. You know, I I know that that you know. You definitely have an interesting journey with runners and swimmers, which is they're more narrow. So I definitely would love to hear this advice because it can be universal advice no matter what sport your kids are playing. And obviously, with your background, you're in it, man. Coach Brown: Yeah, well, mean, a few universal truths that we have with with parenting is number one is like I've said before, you know, rise to their intensity level, you never go beyond it. Be willing to walk away at any moment, because again, it's their journey, not yours. But then just just kind of as an athlete is like, lay your stuff out and what you do want and don't want. ⁓ again, with, with my 10 year old has been fun because Michael Phelps is the gold standard of swimming. Like every that's the one swimmer everybody knows here lately. And when he first started swimming, that was it. He looked at Michael's times. How does his time compare to him? And he started beating the times. And like, that was like his big motivation here lately. He started looking more at like, he's has, he has a lot of friends that are college swimmers. Like that world has poured back into them. And he started looking at programs going, yeah, you know, this one can win a championship, but nobody has fun on it, dad. And so lately he's gravitated towards trying to figure out Michael Andrew. Michael Andrew is an Olympian. Michael Andrew has a gold medal. Like it's crazy. And yet he's not known by a lot of people. And he gave, I'm like, what, attracts you to this? He's like, dad, he is amazing and he's having fun. And it doesn't look like when he gets done with his journey that he's gonna need therapy from it. And that's, mean, my, that's great as Michael Phelps is that's, that's his platform right now is men's health and advocacy for mental health. And that's great that he's on that platform, but it also means that he's gone through that journey of absolutely hating where he's at. And that to my kid right now is going, I don't mind the work. I don't mind the, the, the small things, but I'm not going to be miserable in this thing. How do we have fun? Rhett Parker: That's true. Sounds like we might need to get him on here. We followed up with a few of the athletes. We got a couple more coming when they listen to their parents talk. I think it's really a cool thing because he might have a different perspective than you that you don't even know about. And that's awesome. I really appreciate you coming on. This is a first. ⁓ the support that people like yourself are showing us is great because we are trying to survive and your survival is the same and different than mine and a lot of other people so ⁓ we really appreciate coming on. ⁓ Best of luck to your kids and you know maybe maybe maybe get Gabe on it when he's ready. He's ready to come talk about how fun swimming is and what he wants to do. I think that would be really Coach Brown: Yeah. So that like, that's one of the coolest things. That's where I feel like I'm doing okay. As a dad that I'm not overly sports obsessed is he got to do his first podcast here in Indiana. And when it was first designed, it was supposed to me and him. Cause you know, what 10 year old can talk on a microphone and the pre show they were just sitting there talking and doing. And I looked over, I'm like, I don't want to be a part of this. I just want to set back in the corner. And then if you watch the whole thing, it's with Get Indiana and Nate Spangle. If the whole episode as a dad is amazing because he just sits there and you can see joy and you can just feel that his hard work is is a staple, but the joy is real. Funny enough that some clips from it went viral. And then we got to learn the other side of it of like, hey, buddy, ⁓ a 10 year old saying he trains till he pukes and he trains six days a week and he lifts weights is not a common thing. And by the way, that's abusive in some areas. Now you got to deal with that. So I loved it as a dad. I would, I'm sure he would love to talk. He loves anything sports related. ⁓ but yeah, he's his own kid. We, we, there's things we align on and there's things we don't. Rhett Parker: Hmm. Yeah. Love it. 100 % and that's and that's the whole point of why we started this because there's other people out there doing podcasting. I'm not saying they shouldn't. It's not absolute. It's not an absolute. This kid and that kid and this parent and this situation, they're all different. And that's why we started this show. Definitely appreciate having you on and sharing with us what your journey is and to everyone out there, we'll just keep on surviving. Coach Brown: Appreciate it guys.