Surviving Youth Sports
Surviving Youth Sports is a podcast and platform where athletes, parents, and coaches share real stories and honest perspectives from every level of the game. Our guests include the influential voices behind the superstars, parents, mentors, coaches, and former athletes who have lived the experiences that shape today’s sports culture.
Expect real conversations about the journey behind the scenes, mental health, motivation, recruiting, parenting, and personal growth. Subscribe for weekly episodes that reveal the truth about what it really takes to survive youth sports.
Devon Brown on Burnout, Rankings, and Letting Kids Own Their Journey
This week on Surviving Youth Sports, Rhett sits down with coach, parent, endurance athlete, and fitness business owner Devon Brown for an honest conversation about burnout, pressure, rankings, recruiting, and what happens when youth sports starts taking over family life. Devon shares what it’s like ...
Matt Dumouchelle on Why Winning Too Early Can Hurt Development
Matt Dumouchelle joins Surviving Youth Sports to talk about youth hockey, athlete development, parenting, and the pressure surrounding modern youth sports culture. Matt is a contributor for The Coaches Site, host of Coaching Crossover, and someone deeply involved in helping youth sports organization...
Alonzo & Logwone Mitz: Discipline, Legacy, and Letting Kids Find Their Own Path
Alonzo Mitz and Logwone Mitz join Surviving Youth Sports as the show’s first father-son duo, bringing two different generations of football, parenting, and perspective into one conversation. Alonzo shares his journey from Florida to the University of Florida and the Seattle Seahawks, while Logwone r...
Derek Bingham: The Hard Part of Coaching Other People’s Kids While Raising Your Own
Derek Bingham joins Surviving Youth Sports for a personal conversation about what it really looks like to coach, parent, and stay present in the middle of a busy sports life. As the longtime head baseball coach at Lake Washington High School, Derek has spent more than two decades helping other peopl...
Jason Collinsworth: When Youth Sports Stops Being Fun
Jason Collinsworth, host of the I Hate Soccer Podcast , joins the show to talk about a question more families are starting to ask but don’t always say out loud: When did youth sports stop being fun? After more than 20 years of coaching and working closely with players and parents, Jason has seen the...
Drew Reiners: We Paid for Perfection — The Reality Behind Youth Sports Tournaments
Drew Reiners, founder of West Coast Premier Tournaments, joins Rhett Parker to unpack a side of youth sports that rarely gets talked about. With nearly two decades of experience running large-scale baseball events, Drew shares what it actually takes to organize tournaments that thousands of families...
Brandon Harmon: The Youth Sports Blender
Brandon Harmon is a college baseball coach at Gonzaga, a dad of three, and right in the middle of what he calls the youth sports blender. Something every day. Practices. Games. Car rides. Repeat. In this conversation, he and Rhett Parker talk through what that actually looks like. The nonstop schedu...
Andrew Walling: Who Are You Without the Game?
At one point, Andrew Walling was at the top. Throwing mid-90s. Big opportunities. A path that looked like it was only going one way. Then it didn’t. Injuries, pressure, and the weight of expectations started to take over. Confidence slipped. The yips showed up. And for the first time, he questioned ...
Marc Wiese: The Game Ends, The Relationships Don’t
Rhett sits down with longtime coach and mentor Marc Wiese, whose career spans youth baseball, high school state championships, college programs, and USA Baseball. Having coached his own sons and thousands of players along the way, Marc brings a perspective shaped by both success and reflection. This...
James Lane: The Truth About Youth Sports Parents
In this episode of Surviving Youth Sports , host Rhett Parker sits down with basketball coach James Lane to talk about the reality of youth sports from multiple perspectives. James has lived nearly every side of the game. He played Division I basketball, coached at the college and high school level,...