Eddie Smith: You Can’t Buy Your Kid Opportunities

Rhett Parker: Hi, and welcome to another episode of Surviving Youth Sports. And today we have coach Eddie Smith from the University of Washington. And surprisingly enough, Eddie and I have known each other since I I want to say freshman year or high school, but welcome to the show, Eddie. Eddie Smith: Awesome being on, Rhett. Rhett Parker: I I we've talked about this for a while, like you coming on, and I d just because, you know, I think Eddie and I sometimes share these moments, you know, when he's out recruiting and stuff and I'm there of you know, talking on the phone of, you know, back in my day, or back in our day I should say, like, man, remember this, or it used to be like this, and and it's just so much different now than when we came up. so give us a little bit of your background. as a player and and and coming up the coaching ranks and it's it's extensive. So we gotta try to keep it short, can't go too long. but you've definitely experienced the this youth sports journey yourself, man. Eddie Smith: Yeah, absolutely. grew up in Olympia, Washington, went to North Thurston High School. from there I went to play at Centralia Community College because it was the only place that would take me. I got to go play at the University of Notre Dame after that, which was an awesome experience. And then I went right into my coaching career. And that's included stops at University of Virginia, Santa Clara, Notre Dame, Lower Columbia, Tulane, LSU, Utah Valley, and now the University of Washington. So it's been a fun journey, a lot of different levels. lot of different places in the country and while there's a lot of things that are different there's also a lot of things that are same no matter where you're at Rhett Parker: And I I I think what's interesting, going just real quick back to your playing career, because I know how much you love talking about it. And I've always told people, they're like, you got you know Eddie, you know, Eddie. And and I played with a lot of your teammates at Northurston, Summerball and whatnot. And you weren't the most talented guy. You weren't even close on your own high school team. And you guys won a state title, but like there's something to be said for Playing hard and getting everything out of your talent to be able to go play in college and the places you played. And I feel like a little bit we're we're missing that now. It's like, man, I got I gotta go 105 off the exit Velo or I'm screwed. And I I just don't I don't think people realize like you you kind of need to be a good ball player. It baseball, football, it doesn't really matter. Like you need to be a good player. to win, right? And and I give you credit because my God, every time we played you, it was like, God, this guy's up. Could be a drag butt. Could be a slash. This guy's gonna be annoying. He's not gonna strike out looking. I'll tell you that. It's gonna be an eight pitch at bat. And it was like, man, that that's a sign of a good ball player, right? Eddie Smith: Well Y you're right. No, I'd share this with you. When we go out and watch players, we wanna make sure they have a high floor. We wanna make sure they're already able to produce on the field. And you know the thing that I've always built our programs around is the weight room, once our players get here because we try to get players who you know already have a really high skill set. we feel like we can really teach that advancement and the physicality through the weight room once they get here. you know, if we do That's right and have great habits and have a great strength coach and strength program and those sorts of things. we want to get the highly skilled player who's already producing. and you know, the thing at the college level is hey, if you will get the highly skilled player who's also really physical and has all these tools, well, that's probably a guy that's also getting a lot of interest from the new New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox in the Major League Draft. So you usually have to choose one or the other to an extent. So for us, trying to find that guy who's got that skill set. That you use the word ball player. It's a word that we use all the time in our office. Find the ball player. Find the guy that's impacting the game that still has a ceiling ahead of him through, you know, just the natural physical maturity that happens from 18 to 23 years old. And then what we think we can do with having great strength programs and habits and a standard that's really, really high. Rhett Parker: Yeah. And like like you're saying, like, man, ball player. Like y you gotta be able to play ball. Because y you go to the metrics, are they are important. I'm not saying they're not, but and you have to produce. So if you if you're coming to me, and this is my opinion, a and and I I look at Some guys, you know, again, yourself. Jojo Howie is the pitching coach at at Virginia Commonwealth now. He's the head coach at Everett Community College up here. Jojo Howie threw 80, what, 85 miles an hour as a left handed I mean tops, tops. Like he had some 79 mile an hour fastballs in college. The guy dealt everywhere he went. He dominated VCU. Ever I mean, he was the number one at VCU. They just missed going to College World Series, right? Guy's a ball player. His metrics aren't crazy. I I tell you what, he threw summer ball against the team I coached, and I saw him the first time. I was like, my God, this guy's terrible. 30 innings later, he got two runs. We scored two runs and like 30 innings off the guy the rest of the summer. I was like, okay, well, this guy can really pitch and does Eddie Smith: Yeah. Rhett Parker: this and this and hides the ball and and just dominated. And you're like, okay. Isn't that what we like are looking for though? Eddie Smith: Well, you bring up a guy like Jojo, and I think this i is something that's so important for players, pitchers, especially. it's easy to quantify. Hey, you know, you go out and let's say you have twenty starts in a year, twenty outings in a year. there's gonna be five of those outings that you have your good stuff. There's gonna be five of your outings where you just don't have it at all that day. but hey, for t the majority of those outings, the ten remaining outings, you're gonna have average stuff and you gotta find a way win on that day with your average stuff. And I think that's what the separators are able to do is you know you're always gonna have those top tier talented players and they're gonna stand out and just get by on talent alone. You combine that with an incredible mindset. That's where you have a special superstar. But hey it's that next pool of players. There's a lot of players skill set wise that are in that pool. And to me that separator is just that consistency to be able to produce and help your team on the day Where you just have your average stuff as a pitcher or as a hitter position player, you're just not seeing the ball that well that day. Hey, can you draw a walk? Can you find one barrel in your five plate appearances and somehow draw a walk? You're on base two out of four, two out of five times now, and you know, play great defense. And you know, those are the kinds of things that I think separate you know the average player at any level. At any level, when you have average talent, you could still be an above average producer and an above average teammate by doing those things. Rhett Parker: Well, I'm gonna go back to you again. It it it it it could be a 11 pitch at bat, and the guy's cruising, and you drew eleven pitches, he's gonna be out sooner now, right? Like, you know, I I know how much you love talking about yourself, but I I gotta tell you, on the other side Eddie Smith: I think I guess I Rhett Parker: when we used to play against you, it was awful because it's it's like you were just a a nuisance. And and those guys are hard to but they're hard to beat. Because they're just gonna find a way to get it done, sometimes with less, sometimes with more. And man, I I feel like we we're losing that in in in and I'll just speak on baseball. There there's just it's not enough. I took strike three. Wow, it wasn't the pitch I was looking for. Well okay, we'll foul that off. Like and and then, you know, eventually he'll make a mistake. It's it's that's it's nature of the beast. Eddie Smith: there's no doubt about that. And I think you know, you talk about us losing it. I I think that it's probably emphasized less than it was twenty years ago when you and I were coming up through the system. Rhett Parker: Mm-hmm. Eddie Smith: I also think that just like a lot of things where there's still value in it, it it's something where the more you can have those traits where you're just a winning ball player, they're actually more valuable than ever because they're rare. I mean it's just simple laws Rhett Parker: Yeah. Eddie Smith: of supply and demand. And so Rhett Parker: Yeah. Eddie Smith: I think whatever position you play you can find ways to help your team win to impact that ballgame in so many ways and you know talent's part of that for sure but hey how can you be that guy that helps the team win that's something we're always looking for Rhett Parker: Yeah, and I say this to the kids all the time because obviously our perspective is different, right? I'm I'm trying to help kids and give them good advice and you're trying to recruit kids and but I I I I'm serious when I say this to kids, you know, there's a diff especially the high school kids now, and we talk about this recruiting, but there's a difference between being on the team at University of Washington and being good enough to be on the team and being on the field. There's a difference. And like you're you might actually, and I've said this a lot the last couple years, you might be better, like talent-wise than the guy who's 22. You might be better than him, like projection-wise, all those, but he weighs 215 pounds and you weigh 170. And you might have better bat speed, you might run for but like he's also got 650 college at bats, and you have zero. So like There's a difference between being good enough to be on the team and being good enough to be on the field. Eddie Smith: There definitely is and you bring up a really New topic here. Really, it's been going since COVID hit, when everybody got an additional year because of COVID, and it feels like through waivers and now an official five for five model that the NCAA has adopted, the sports have gotten older. And what I mean by that is you mentioned the difference between guy who was twenty one or twenty two years old and that freshman. it's no different than when you're in high school. School. You know, now with this five for five model, I always ask players, hey, how were you when you were an eighth grader on your varsity team? Well, in a lot of cases, they didn't play varsity as an eighth grader because they were in eighth grade. they weren't big enough, they weren't strong enough. and so the reality, though, is as a true freshman, you are now the same in your first year of college as a true f as an eighth grader is to a high school senior relative to a fifth year college. player. And so absolutely physicality is the biggest difference between you know, that freshman year in your fifth year of college. it's something where we put such an emphasis on that with our commits. We recruit to it to a degree. we don't have time to sit there and wait three years for you on our roster to blossom into a productive impact player. We We can't sit there and look at skills and say, hey, those are some good skills, and hey, if he puts thirty or forty pounds on, he'll be just like our fourth year shortstop. we we just don't have time for that because we can go in the system right now and and find a player who's already that player ready to go right now for us. And so, you know, for us to recruit high school players, which is still gonna be the core of our roster as we're building this thing at the University of Washington. Washington, we believe that we can get the best players in the state of Washington to the University of Washington and then develop them in a very traditional model. Yet the perspective that's so critical to have is that, hey, there's now, if you think about it, Only twenty percent of the roster is dedicated to each class because there's five classes instead of four. And so let's take a forty player roster, twenty percent of that, all right, well that's only eight players, you know. Twenty-five percent of a forty man roster is twelve players. So now you've gone from twelve players per class on average to eight players per class on average because the size of each class is just gonna decline with this five for five model. And so you gotta be that much more ready to go and play at the division one level to get that opportunity as a freshman now compared to ten years ago. Rhett Parker: Yeah. And You know, and there's probably some of my coaching friends that won't like me saying this, but but the reality is say you want to go to the University of Washington, just say you're close. You know where I'm going. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter from a you know, I want to be at UW, it's my dream school. Say you're not there out of high school. You can go to any school now. And if you go being all American. UW's probably gonna be interested in you, man. Like that, that is the reality. I'm not saying anything's guaranteed, but like this is the reality of where we're at. The biggest thing you need to go play. If UW's your dream school and you're not you're 170 pounds and you're trying to be an outfielder and you're close, go somewhere else and go dominate, and and you got a shot. Eddie Smith: there's no doubt about that. I think that the recruiting model used to be very, very one dimensional, maybe one and a half dimensions to it, where you recruited your high school classes, they came in in a nice, clean, traditional manner and marched their way from a freshman to a sophomore, junior, senior. Every once in a while you'd add in a junior college transfer. well that model's changed because Know the transfer portal has transformed everything and there's a lot of different routes to intaking players now. and again, as we build this thing, we would really like to get to a point where we get the best players from the state of Washington to come to the University of Washington and we build up because I do believe in internal development so much. I do believe that hey, if you're only out of place for nine months or even twenty-one months for like a two-year stretch. there's something to that continuity that's been there traditionally that allows players just to take some really big leaps, and so you know, one-year rental players they're a part of the game at every level right now. I don't think they're ever going to be extinct, or they're going to be something that we can completely remove ourselves from because they can absolutely provide value and plug holes that the team has. and we're trying to balance. Balance that every single day of, hey, we would love to have a roster that is in a very, very traditional manner. And if we get the best players from Washington to stay here, we can do that. Rhett Parker: we're loaded. I mean, this state is what one of the and you've been all over the country. This is one of the most underrated states in the country, hands down for baseball. Like people have no clue. I've coached and scouted in different parts of the country and people are they don't understand How good because we actually don't play as much as some of the warmer weather states. So our guys' ceiling is higher than people realize. That's go look. We have a ton of big leaguers per capita. We're we're one of the highest. but you you said something you know interesting in there, and and I wanna I I wanna tap tap on this a little bit because as I remember having A conversation with your pitching coach, Connor Lambert, a couple years ago, you know, when the rules changed. And especially LSU, I remember having some conversations with you about eighth graders. you know, it's like the one thing I'll say, while it might not always seem fair, because parents of today's high school kids don't realize this. The eighth and ninth grade commits, if you like hit a number and there was no roster sizes, I mean, guys were committing in 20 hours. And and and like with braces on, and you're like, Well, dude, there's no way you know if this guy's gonna be good. No way. Like, and so that's gone now. And some of the guys you're dealing with are men, they're not kids. And like, parents aren't even in it. They're not even I remember talking to Connor Hambert about this, like. He's like, it's great. yeah. I got when he was at the University of Portland. we got this kid from UC Riverside. I was like, yeah. I go, do you even deal with the parasites? He's like, dude, this guy's a grad transfer. He's 20 years old, he's been on his own. no, I'm like, I'm dealing with him, and you know, it's super clean and we're done. So there Eddie Smith: Yeah. Rhett Parker: is, it's not all bad, right? I just want to point that out. Like, when 14-year-olds were committing, my god. There was times I'd be like, my God. Eddie Smith: That was a that was a unique era, Rhett Parker: You don't even know who to go. Eddie Smith: there's no doubt about that. A lot of conversations about pre algebra. you know, every once in a while they'd be old enough that the conversation got to be about driver's ed, okay? that was an old player. That was an old recruit at the time. So, you know, to your point, you recruit a transfer Rhett Parker: No. Eddie Smith: now and you're talking to a grown man who's already had you know, to be weathered a little bit by the sport of college baseball that humbles all of us. you know, and it's a unique transition for sure. Rhett Parker: It's and I you know, you obviously when you're a college coach, you know, other sports staffs, you know, talk to each other and around each other and deal with each other at different institutions. It's not just baseball. Soccer's dealing with the same stuff. Basketball and football are nuts. Like it's it's it's and there's different, you know, nuances with all of them, but it's it is sports in general. so Okay. It's it's it's the wild, wild west out there. We we understand it. At least we're not recruiting kids that are 14 anymore. As I try to tell myself that to stay positive. Eddie Smith: Ha ha. Rhett Parker: you know, you know, the NIL stuff. I don't even want to go down that rabbit hole. But what I want to shift to is it really is the parents. It really is the parents. so I'm gonna ask you this question. just popped in my head. When you were ten to eighteen, what did you play baseball wise? Did you play Little League? Eddie Smith: Well, in Olympia where I grew up, Black Hills, it was Bambino at the time, now it's Cal Ripkin. so Rhett Parker: ripping, okay. Eddie Smith: played in that organization. and then thirteen through fifteen years old was Babe Ruth. And so really what that was is you basically just continued with the same guys that you had played with during Bambino. and then there'd be an all-star team every summer and after your regular season and you'd go try to play for like a state championship. We actually lost four in a row there. it was disappointing. And then high school baseball was kinda king, but we played junior legion and then couple of summers of senior legion. Rhett Parker: Yeah. And that model's essentially it's not gone, but it's definitely diminished. And I'm not trying to say, bring it bring it back. Dude, I played Tacoma Metro Parks Rec at twelve. And and then I played a little bit travel ball was just starting to happen at thirteen. And then fourteen, fifteen when I was in eighth and ninth grade, I played junior legion, and then I played a little bit of senior legion. And and then I and travel ball was a lot different back then. I played for triple play with 25 person rosters and there wasn't as many college summer leagues, so it was 19U, and half the guys were college guys. And we did we played every day of the week and we did batting practice and we did all these things. You know, but I I I'm bringing this up because Even it's true then, it's true now. Go get a passion. This is this is my belief. Go get a passion for the sport at 12. You don't have to be the best player. You don't have to be the best player at 15, 14. You don't. You need to go develop skills, a work ethic, passion for the game, and have fun doing it. That's what is important. You're around a lot of different stuff. Probably not around the younger stuff like I mean I am, trying to survive it, listening to people talk about stuff that's nonsense. What's your take? You can go now and then. You can go now. Give the parents some stuff, perspective wise, from somebody that's obviously been all over the country, played at high levels, went through the program that you went through, which essentially doesn't exist anymore. But what are we focused on that's I mean it's not right right now, man? Eddie Smith: gosh. you know, I think there's a lot to this. I think I've had a really interesting perspective as a college coach to be able to watch a lot of high school games, youth games, in a very neutral setting where I'm evaluating and needing to be as objective as possible about player evaluations and I see the emotion that gets wrapped up in it. yeah, I think the first thing is it should always be the player that's driving the ship in in the sense of the love for the game, the passion, and those sorts of things. And Too often I do see a player that just looks like he's out there playing because it's what mom or dad want him to do. And I feel bad for that player. Gosh, this game's so great. It's a fun game. maybe the player still loves the game, but he's just played too much at that point. you know, or maybe he doesn't love the game anymore and he's realizing that, but he's afraid to have that conversation with his parents. I think that's an unfortunate thing. It's gotta be the kid's journey. And not the parents' journey. it can't be daddy's do-over. nobody has thrived with that kind of upbringing in these sports. you know, both on field production or with their own mentality with that experience. I've seen that too often. you know, on top of that, I think that the pillars of team sports for the youth, They've been lost too often. They've been, you know, put in the back seat. And I think the things that team sports were created to provide in our schools and in our communities teamwork, hard work, working to win, finding a way to achieve, you know, the way that's wrapped up in an academic pursuit, leadership skills, just being a great teammate. You know, you're you're gonna be a teammate the rest of your life in your community, in your family, at your workplace. How can you be a great teammate? those things have been driven to the back seat and forgotten. I think those things need to be brought more to the forefront among parents and the values that are maybe talked about at the dinner table. Hey that's great you want two for four today or hey you went for four today go get them tomorrow Johnny but gosh I saw you play hard I saw you pick up all the gloves for your teammates again I saw you the first one on the field in and out every single day or inning. those are the things I think this game can teach us so much that I think need to be Valued so much because the reality is, even when I've coached at some of the schools that are the biggest brands in the country, still ninety-five percent of our players they didn't make their living in the game of baseball. They didn't feed their families with lifetime earnings that came from their playing careers. And so the game can teach us so much more if we allow it to. And I'm hoping that you know more and more families can remember those Things that the game can teach, and I think our sport could teach it better than any sport out there. You know, the amount of failure that comes with our sport, the reality that our sport is an everyday game. You know, people don't acknowledge baseball as the endurance sport that it is. Well, you want to talk about adulting. That seems to be the term that everybody wants to talk about. you know, in our generation right now, Brett. I don't feel like adulting today. What do you mean you don't feel like adulting today? You're gonna raise a family and you're gonna just tap out on a given day? Well, to me, baseball. the same way. What you you don't want to come to the ballpark to play today because it's your fifth game in seven days? Like you don't get that choice. Rhett Parker: Yeah. Eddie Smith: you know, right? You and I both have kids and we we know what that's like. Rhett Parker: Yeah. Eddie Smith: you know the the the world is gonna demand you to show up in different ways every single day as an adult and you know this game does the same thing. Rhett Parker: And my mine are locked away right now, so they don't bother the podcast because school quite hasn't started yet. So you you you said something really interesting and I really want parents to hear this because I've dealt with a lot of players over the years that were younger, right? Just you we used to do the trip stuff and I'm obviously not involved, more involved in my kids stuff now, but you brought something up. I'm out there because my parents want me to be out there. Let me tell you something, because this is the truth. I've seen it. I've seen it more than I probably would like to admit. That bill comes due, Eddie. Eventually the kid goes, I'm done. And it could be before college. It could be. I've seen it plenty in college where like, dude, I don't I don't want to do this anymore. Like I and and I've seen parents heartbroken over it. And and and when when I see the parents heartbroken over that, I go, Man, you didn't do this for him. You did this for you. Like, and I I and my heart sort of breaks for them. I I sort of have pity. But like, let's please like read the room. Make sure that your kids, it doesn't matter the sport, are actually in this sport because they love the sport and they want to do it. It could be at a rec level. It doesn't have to be, hey, I'm my goal is to play at the University of Washington. It's okay to have a kid who just wants to play rec soccer for his whole youth and loves the World Cup and loves to go to the Sounders games. It's that's that's fine. And you can build a relationship with your kid off of that and have passion to be a Sounders fan with them. Like, we're so hell-bent on, like, man, you know, I gotta be this. I gotta play at UW. Well, hey man, there's there's a lot of really good kids and players that have a great impact on our society. God, it's CJ Perry, sorry, this school just popped in my head, that go to Whitworth University, that by the way, won a ton of games this year. And Almost made the World Series, Division III. That's a great experience. It doesn't all have to be this. Like, and then and then you've dealt with a ton of players. Lower Columbia, one of the best junior colleges in the Northwest, you're the head coach there. LSU, obviously, top of the heap. Tulane, you've been everywhere, right? Washington, one of the best institutions in the country, great baseball program. How many guys have left? Those places that you had, and they go, God, coach, I just want to go play. I don't care about this. I I I just I'm not obviously have not gotten playing time here. Whether it's Lower Columbia or it's Tulane or Utah, wherever, and they go to a place, a Division III, an NAI, Division II, they drop down level and they go, Man, I had a blast. I love playing because I just wasn't quite good enough to play here. But man, I'm playing and I'm loving what I'm doing. How how many of those stories are out there? Eddie Smith: Well, yeah, you bring up a great point. we've already shared, you know, that I've had this journey that's taken me to all different corners of the country, ACC, SEC, Big East, Big Ten, Rhett Parker: Mm-hmm. Eddie Smith: Junior College, WCC, American Athletic Conference, the WAC. Rhett Parker: Yeah. Yeah. Eddie Smith: one thing I'll tell you that is been the most consistent thing. Everywhere I've been, all right, the coach writes out a lineup to win the game. And sometimes as coaches we don't get it right. Sometimes we're splitting hairs between Johnny and Billy and we choose Billy and maybe we should have chosen Johnny. All right. But for the most part, the lineup just starts writing itself out. It becomes really clear to everybody in the room who should be playing where by the end of a 56 game season. So I bring that up to say, listen, I think it's so important you recognize as a family that in college baseball You know, you're not paying a club program and that program is therefore just going to put you in the lineup to satisfy what you want. It's all about competition. And the beauty of that is, hey, I've had this happen countless times. The player on no scholarship, whether that's a freshman that's the latest player recruited in the class or somebody who, you know, hasn't played in two years and gosh, he has a good fall. And we give them few chances, and then all of a sudden they're your everyday guy and they're an all conference player. See that happen probably once every two years where somebody comes out of nowhere to become an all conference player, under recruited, unheralded type of a player. So that's a beauty in that. You know, Rhett, you bring up the situation that, you know, at Lower Columbia, we feasted on this in Utah Valley to an extent as well, where we would be able to go get players who didn't have a great experience or maybe they even. Even had a great experience. We're have this situation right now. One of the most incredible human I've ever coached, Mick Paul, is our starting center fielder at UW in 2026. Well, Mick was at LSU three years, he won two national championships. He comes in my office last year to says, Hey coach, I really have a hard time asking ya, but are you okay if I miss practice next weekend on Saturday, I get to go meet the president for our national championship celebration. Said, Mick, you better get on that flight. Rhett Parker: Yeah. Eddie Smith: you know, but now he's at Washington after a great experience at LSU, but he just recognized that there might be more opportunity on the field here for us. And so, you know, that story that you're sharing, it's a tale as old as time. it used to be that you had to go four two four, meaning You start at the four year school after your freshman year, you'd go to the junior college for a year and then hopefully go back to a four year school. now there's a little bit more freedom in where you can go, but it does happen a lot. Rhett Parker: Yeah, and i when you look back on you just said ninety-five percent of guys at LSU, you know, even if you make it to the big leagues, you're not set. Trust me, I I just you're not you're not. You have to go do other things too, you know, if if you don't get one of those big contracts, to be honest with you. But like ten years from now, these guys are gonna be like, man. God, my experience at at at you know the University of Puget Sound was amazing. And I have relationships and teammates that I'll know forever. And I played and I had a blast. They're not gonna go, God, didn't make it at UW. They that's not what happens. But I feel like as parents, we get in there, they gotta do this. They gotta do this. And the FOMO hits and all those things hit. And I watch it. You know, I even watch it, you know, here with with in little campus, Washington with with twelve year old baseball a little bit. You know, our team's done. And it was like panic mode because we've we've been together for four years and I was I I'm looking around like, dude, what is happening? You know, and and I'll add this to what you just said. Or I hijack this, my producer's gonna get upset. There were so many kids off my son's team that got recruited to play 13U baseball. I was bewildered. We had a good little team. Triple A team. We weren't even a majors team. Got some good little players. There's too many teams. If, I mean, we got people, hey, offer this, offer that. I'm like, what the? And guess what? The expectation now is you're gonna go play. But you're but they're recruiting. Okay ball players, these guys aren't big giant sluggers, and they're good players and they're great kids and great families. But I'm sitting back like, what is happening here? Now there's an expectation that like, man, Johnny over here is really good. He's got a shot. Where I'm like, dude, okay, this is not right. Eddie Smith: there's no doubt about that. Rhett Parker: What can we do? Like what what perspective do you have coaching at the highest level of college baseball for stuff like that, man? Eddie Smith: Well I Managing that a little bit right now. I've got nephew who's thirteen and I often you know have discussions with my brother in law about, hey, what do you know about this or that? And I don't envy the position that he and other parents are in because the choices and decisions you have to make right now in the game, I mean it is a large, large volume and high stress. I could understand that. And there's a lot of money involved. I would say this, you know, it's something Something where y you talk about the necessity to play and get on the field. I think especially when You know, you're talking about before high school, golly, make sure you're playing for the love of the game. make sure that, you know, you you're on a team that the player enjoys being on, the coaches, the teammates. I I I think there's been a lot chronicled about, you know, the ride home. I think there's so much to that. I got a little three year old and she goes to gymnastics and there's no competition involved at all and they spend more time tumbling all over each other than they do doing anything else and she loves it. Yeah, and I get to go every once in a while to watch her and when I do, you know, I just try to remind myself of gosh, just give her a big hug and tell her how much I had fun watching her. So I think there's just so much to that perspective. I saw something the other day, it was a little bit cynical, but it was a reel on Instagram that just popped up and it was something like, people think the worst part of high school baseball was going 0 for four. But the worst part of high school baseball was the car ride home after going 0 for 4. And it's just like, golly, you know, nobody, I don't care if you're in the major leagues on a multi-million dollar contract, should be letting that be the thing that you know is their identity or dictates their mindset, and let alone should it be something that a parent is imposing on their child. I mean it should always be about For the love of the game. You know, as you get into the high school level, if you have big dreams, by all means you should pursue those. it's very competitive. There's a lot of money involved, clearly, at the major league level and even the college level. but no matter how much money is involved, if you lose your passion for the game, if you lose your love of the game and your love of your team, love of winning. There there's nothing that will ever allow you to become the best player you can be and all that money that's involved and all those dreams you have of playing at the biggest level, they aren't gonna come to fruition. So I think if we could stay based and centered in that, that's the key. Rhett Parker: Yeah, I I'm with you, man. We've known each other a long time. this is great and your perspective is I think is really valuable. So as we wrap up here, for the parents andor players that are listening, what's the best advice that you can give? for for I mean for surviving use sports because you know, you you you only got a three year old and and you're picking a non-team sport. Congratulations on that. There's different problems with that. as I've had a different interviews with people in golf and gymnastics and figure skating already. but w what advice do you have that that you know can help people out there? 'Cause I think that's really what we're all about. Eddie Smith: Yeah, I think One thing I would share is golly, I I see so many identities wrapped into the sport and it's concerning to me because I think that you know it takes away at times from the core of a family or you know, you see families and you wonder, you know, how much how how much are they putting on that credit card? you know, and and and w is that in their best interest financially? And you know, that's for each family to decide of course, but I I think it's something where you're you're never gonna be buying your way to opportunities at the next level. You're gonna be earning that through one, taking care of business in the classroom. Rhett Parker: Mm-hmm. Eddie Smith: to having the ability and the talent and performing and producing at the level that's necessary for the level you're talking about. And so I I think it's something where there's just a a balance to all of that. I think that sports are a wonderful thing, obviously, and just need to be careful on what role that they play in a family dynamic. and then the last piece I would just reiterate and this is something I stole from Don Meyer, who's the all-time winningest basketball coach in college basketball history. He won a ton of games at the NAIA level, but just a coach. And a ton of great one liners. And and I just touched on this, but I'm gonna reiterate it. Play for the love of your game and play for the love of your team. And if you can stay committed to that right there, you're doing it for the right reasons. Rhett Parker: Yeah. No, I I think that that stuff's so powerful and we say it all the time here. There's also this little thing called genetics. Those that th those matter. so make sure you're doing stuff for the right reasons and you know, I I I always say and I'll add to what he just said, if you're doing it for experiences and you have a a blank checkbook I I think that's awesome if the kid wants to do it. I I whether the kid's good, average, bad or great, it it I I will never knock someone for doing that. I think we're all trying to figure it out. Even people like myself, that are in it. But this is great perspective. God. And we've known each other a long time. We've known each other a long time. This is Eddie Smith: A lot of years. Rhett Parker: Yeah, I'll you know, and we played, you know, against each other and had teammates that were the same and and yeah, I I think what you're doing and trying to help people is great and I can't can't wait to see the dogs dogs out on the out out on the diamond this coming year, brother. Eddie Smith: Awesome, Rhett. Thank you. Rhett Parker: Absolutely, man. That was great having you on, brother. Eddie Smith: Great day. Go dogs.