Be consumed with developing and becoming a winning championship player, not just being a great skills player, being a winning championship player, what it takes to help your team win. Don't ever lose sight of that, whether you commit as a ninth grader or your opportunity doesn't come until you after your senior year in high school. Keep developing, being consumed with getting better. This is the Reformed Sports Project, a podcast about restoring healthy balance and perspective in all areas of sports through education and advocacy. HI. This is Nick Bonacore from the Reformed Sports Project podcast. My guest today is the head baseball coach from the University of Virginia, Brian O'Connor. After leading the Virginia baseball program to its first n c a A National championship in two thousand fifteen, five time a CC Coach of the Year and three time National Coach of the Year, Brian O'Connor has built his program into a college baseball powerhouse and turned Virginia Baseball into a national brand. Coach O'Connor and I dissect early sports specialization, snowplow parenting, and the fear of missing the recruiting runaway train. I got another awesome guess he's just another stunt. Really pumped having one of the top programs in the country, and I'm just to the death that having the head coach University of Virginia, Virginia Cavaliers and quite frankly, what I think is one of the most beautiful campuses in the country. Brian O'Connor coach, thanks so much for hopping on man. Hey, Nick, thanks thanks for having me. Um, It's it's really an honor. I've I've listened to a few of the conversations that you've had with other coaches. Great stuff. Man, you're doing great work. And um, you know this whole coaching thing, Nick, is we're all learning from each other, right, Um, I mean I'll learned from this conversation. I learned from you know, we all have mentors in our in our coaching life, but you know, we're all constantly learning from each other and involved it as we go along. So it's always fun to have these conversations and learn from each other. I appreciate you. You just made me feel you're gonna learn from me. This is great. This is great. So we're talking youth sports, athletic development, parenting and all of these things. Something you know a lot about from all your experience, and where I love to start this is this whole topic of early sports specialization. Um, where it starts. If your kid can kick a soccer ball really well, or swim really well, or hit a baseball well and their six, you know, it's like, oh my god, it's the next Tigerant, it's the next Trout Phelps. So in order to reach that level, ditch everything else, year round specialized, let's go. It just seems that's the formula that's being preached. Yet every athlete I play with is meant to the highest level, or I've spoken to every coach seems to really like the diversity, especially young ages of multiple sports. What's your thoughts on the whole early sports specialization versus sampling and playing a variety of sports. Well, Nick, you're you're hitting a hot topic with me because you know this is something that you know, all of us have been dealing with for years, and it's a really tangled web mess. Quite frankly, I've got some pretty strong feelings about it. Um. You know, it's it's You're exactly right. We get these young kids that you know, sometimes whether it's parents feel like, you know, hey, little Johnny can be the next great basketball player, football player, baseball player, whatever it is. Uh, that drives part of it. But there's also this industry that's driven it as well that I believe Nick has had a big impact on it, and that is, um. You know, there's a lot of people that are you know, profiting, making money, live their livelihoods depend on this specialization. This playing volleyball year round, right, um, twelve months out of the year, and you know, girls not playing you know, basketball and other sports as well. And it's, uh, you know, we've we've evolved. I really believe in the last two decades of there's a lot of people that you know, specialize in these types of things and they're part of driving this. UM. A lot of the parents, you know, end out believing in it and going that direction and believe that they're putting in kind of a corner in a boxing Nick that they believe that if they don't do this, that they don't play travel volleyball twelve months out of the year or travel baseball, then I'm hurting my son or my daughter. And you know, I'm sad to see it. Because I think it's totally the wrong thinking. I really do. I just you know, you're talking to a guy that played multiple sports in high school growing up, and in high school, I played football, basketball, and baseball. I would give anything to go back and play one more high school football game on Friday night, right. I mean, it was, you know, just an experience that I treasure and so um. But we've kind of as a society, we've went away from that for many of the reasons that I talked about. But you know, I think, you know, the the downside of this, of this small thinking of specialization is you know, if you're always training, right, then you're not learning how to play to win and how to compete. One of the advantages of playing these multiple sports is you're playing to win more often. Right, let's talk our sport to baseball. You know, you're playing in the spring, you're playing in the summer, you're playing in the fall, and in the winner. You're training or your training all around that. But when you're training, you're not you're not competing, you're not learning how to play to win right like you would be on the football field of the basketball court. Right. And so that's one negative of this specialization. The second one I would say, and possibly the most important, would be, you know, when you're playing basketball, you're playing football, there's plays, there's defenses that you have in order for the team to execute a play on either side of the ball and to be successful, to ultimately win the game. You have to do your part as an individualist part of a group. Right. If we're playing zone defense in basketball and I don't do my job in my position, well the whole thing breaks down and they score and we might lose the game. So there's this personal responsibility that you have as an individual to make the football play work, to make the option play work, or that basketball play or whatever it is. That that's there's great teaching moments, a great value in that. You don't get that by training in a gym, right, And so that individual responsibility back to the group for it to work is so incredibly important. And then the third thing that I would with you, Nick, is is the leadership. Right. You're not learning leadership hitting in a cage all winner or training with a trainer, right, You're learning leadership on a basketball court, a football field, or whatever it might be, volleyball, whatever it is that you play right, that you're having to lead others, You're you're having this responsibility that you have to step up and we don't get that in a training session. Now that said, is there a training component Nick, that I think is an important part of a athletes development? Sure there is, right, but there's I think there's crossover that you can get a lot of that training through playing other sports. I don't even want to get into and ill finish with this. I don't want to get into Nick talking about, like, you know, the the medical side of it. Are we training these muscles and training these things in one sport twelve months out of the year, and is that leading to these injuries? Right? I mean, that's a whole We're gonna need an hour to talk about that. I know we don't want to get into that, but that's something to consider as well. Right, So, I think you can get that training on these other athletic fields while learning to compete in your leading and you're playing to win. I love that, And you're right about the injury part. There's another aspect of it that I kind of want to circle into here is that you talked about briefly the injury you know, overuse, or whatever. But then you talk about the mental side, right, and I'm gonna give you a scenario and then we go from here, because this is what's happening a lot. You know, in order playing a certain travel team or whatever you gotta, it's expensive, so now it becomes this investment or you know, my kid needs lessons or whatever, and parents have you know, you know this is we have fear, you know, we fear our kids gonna miss out. Oh my god, they're not gonna get offers, they're not gonna get this. So all of a sudden, they leave a training center or whatever, and they just spend a hundred dollars an hour whatever it is, and the kid wasn't going hard or after a game, and we're in that car ride. They often say kids lose interest in sports in the car ride and at the dinner table by parents be rating or being overzealous with their own coaching, YadA, YadA, YadA, but also undermining the coaches or undermining other kids talking bad about Can you talk a little bit about that, because that's a lot of pressure for young kids to have to deal with. Wound neck. I mean, how did you know when you called me that you're gonna hit these hot spots with me. I love your questions. They're they're spot on and there and they're real issues, right, Um, you know they I'll say this about the parent in the car ride home and the dinner table. Right. There's a real balance. I really believe that because you know, we can't we can't be apathetic about what we do, right. You want your young person to enjoy what they're doing, have fun, but also learn the concept of playing to win and the value of competition and winning right and having successful I think it's a really really fine line for parents out there of how to handle that. You know, Encouragement is what I the word I'd like to use, right, you know, because encouragement also you know, you can encourage your youngster, but you can also be honest and reel with them about, you know, where they need to continue, approve and things like that. So that's a really really tough one as far as is how to handle it. But the you know, I'm I'm a parent, right, I'm a parent of three, two in college now. But then I have a young, aspiring fourteen year old baseball player, right, and he plays other sports too, but you know, he he wants to be the best baseball player he can be, and so my responsibility as I got it really challenging as somebody that's in the sport right and is a coach, and so a lot of times my son asked me for for my input, and I need to give him my honest input for him to improve. But you know, when the game's over, you know I'm going to his game tonight. When the game's over, I'm his dad. Right when he gets to the car and drives him home, I don't need to be talking about why he didn't make that player, didn't make this play. I can talk about and give him positive encouragement for him to still. Like you said, I love to play. They've got to want to do it. A lot of times these parents are the ones that are driving the ambition of their child, right. And so it's I just believe that, you know, you make it fun, You give them good encouragement and support them. You know, in no matter what happens out there on the field, you know, if you hear this all time right here, you hear the snowplow pair, I quite frank, I don't even know what the definition of that is or no no snowplow. I think it's lawnmower or something. You knocked down everything in front of him, clear the path for maybe the snowplow, and then helicopter. We come in and rescue them all the time. And you know, I'll give you a good example. I'll let you go with it. My son, my two older boys or wrestlers. My younger one of the two loves to play sports, but I think he's potentially the quintessential intramural athlete in college. Like, he loves playing, but he does not like to work very hard. Um my second one is ultra competitive, and like when he works hard, he's the opposite of me. When he's really physically getting active, he gets pissed and he wants to go harder. It's not me. And he's really talented in the sport. And this past year he has done a really good high school team and on ninety plus percent of the team is probably in the country or in the state. My son would have been the starter at the hundred and six pounds. He's he's pretty good on his team. They're pretty good. The one oh six kid went fifty one and oh is the day champ. So but I had people leading up to it going hold them back a year. You know, I have him going from wait and I'm sitting there going why the hell for what? Like what that me? Like? What are you gonna run away from competition? Like number one? Who get better being in that environment with that kid there and too he'll learn from that, he'll figure out what he needs to do to get to that level. And my point is nowadays coach so and so is not starting shortstop catcher getting enough innings on their twelve you team, the dad starts another team, they quit, they go here, they go there. So the pat's being arranged for the kid as opposed to fighting through, working through the adversity. And can you talk a little bit about that whole scenario, the value and maybe sitting the bench of the way in your turn, I don't know, No, there's I mean, that's the other thing in our culture that there's so many examples nickels. You know we're trying to do it for right. There's there's so many parents out there that they want their they don't want their child to hurt, they want their child to be successful so bad. Maybe in a lot of cases more than you know, the player does their their son or daughter does that. They're trying to pave the way for them, right, and sadly, we are teaching these young people the worst lessons we can teach them in life, right that when things get hard to hey, just hit reset. Right. I mean the kids are used to that culture because all the video games. Right, if the video games not going my way, I can just the reset and start over. Right. The life doesn't work that way. But what we are doing as parents, in too many cases, we are doing that for our children. We are you know, and I know it's out of love and you don't want to see your your your child hurting or not be successful. But you've got to reflect back. We've got to reflect back as parents and what has helped us be successful? Right? What helped our our parents parents be successful? You know, there is a little bit. There is hardship and life, right, there is failure. Stop trying to do it for them, right, Let them do it, because let me tell you, they're smarter than we give them credit for it. Well, we continue to try to do it for them. Nick. They know they're smart kids, right, and to think that they don't see that and know that that we're changing the situation aastion that we're just gonna go ahead and say, like your example, he he's got the sharting shortstop on this team. You know we're gonna go travel three miles to play for this team and pay more money to go do this because they promised him that he'd be the starting shortstop. They've promised him. You know, I deal with it recruiting all the time. I told kids and families all the time. They listen, I'm not going to promise you anything other than you're going to be treated fairly and honestly, and we're going to do everything as a coaching staff of the program to support you and your team needs to have the best possible winning experience and you can develop as humanly possible. But if you want me to sit here and tell you that you're gonna be a starting shortstop, you're talking to the wrong guy. Right. Why is that? It's not because they don't want the player, right. I don't want him to go somewhere else. But if he is ever going to achieve greatness, and he's ever going to be the best player he can be and ultimately maybe realize his dream and play at the major league level. He has to earn it period in the story, right, and if you just give it to them or change their situation, they're gonna know. They're gonna know that they didn't earn it, right, And so your scenario about your son let him fail, right. I know it's hard as a parent. I know it's very, very hard because you don't want to see your son or daughter art, But you're actually doing the best thing you can for them because that's life, right. Nobody's going to hand them anything in life. So let them work through that. When they come out of it and ultimately are successful and win the job or become the best player they can be, then they will have true self confidence and really believe that they achieve something, not that somebody just changed the situation for them to uh to play it. The other thing I want to I want to just go back a little bit, Nick, And you had mentioned that your question before about you know sometimes parents or players, you know, the complaining about the coaches and things like that. You brought this up at the end of your last year's Right. Let me tell you, I'm amazed at this all the time. Nick. Any recruit that we offer and comes to campus, we'd always sit down with the parents or the player and we talk to them, get to know them. I'd have a series of questions for them and things like that to get to know each other a little bit. But ultimately decided, am I going to offer this young person an opportunity to come to the University of Virginia. You know, I am amazed how many people through our conversations and I intentionally asked them, Hey, tell me about your your high school coach, you know, uh, to tell me about your travel ball coach. Talk to me a little bit about that. Well, I'm not asking them that nick to find out like what they truly I'm asking to see what do they say about their coaches? And I am shocked to hear how many parents and kids will, you know, say not positive things about their coaches. And I sit there and think, as a college coach, Well, I'm a coach. I'm sitting in a chair across room and what are what is what is he or his parents going to say about me when maybe their experience doesn't go smoothly right out of the gate, right, How are they going to feel? Right? So it's it's you know, hey, you make a decision to play for a program. You make a decision to play for a coach. Loyalty to those coaches is vital. And for the parents out there to support those coaches. And when their son or daughter comes home and starts to talk about this coach of that coach, you have an opportunity to teach them about respect, right. We have an opportunity to teach them how it valuable that is and their development as an athlete and as a person. When we come back, Coach O'Connor and I discussed recruiting. Welcome back where Coach O'Connor and I left off. We were about to dive into recruiting and the fear a stokes and parents and athletes that they're missing out. Coach, you know, you brought up the recruiting and and and my experience. I wasn't the best baseball player that was a little bit above average. I developed later. I was definitely a later bloomer. So I didn't really start getting looks to like literally my senior again, this is so it's a little different nineties. I start getting some football looks and and then all of a sudden, I start getting you know, contacted for baseball. We we had a really good year my senior year, and you know, I get a letter from North Carolina Wesley and from coach Fox. I'm like, wow, you know, I go see him play. Make a long story short. You know, at that time, my ability, my development, that was the best place I can go and I can play, I mean, and I felt like I can play there, and we were competing for national titles. But now forget it. If kids get D two D three letters and it's like, dude, to throw him in the garbage. And I think back my D one team. I mean, I've played with Tim Levi like we were in the same wood. Wouldn't bad lead together? Guy was an a al a C C shortstop and through I'm sitting there catching him, like what this guy's out of his mind. He's so good. But it wasn't like I was like that bad. You know. We won the Coastal Playing League championship that year. My point is I developed that was two years after, you know, it was two years later. And I think it's important people don't understand, like, not everyone's getting offered in eighth grade. But I think that's what drives a lot. So parents will point to the power five D one coach and say, you say one thing, and I'm playing Devil's advocate here. You say one thing, but yet you do this, And I argue, in a minute, there's like twenty kids in the country that get that, that are that good. Like I don't mean that literally, but there's not that many. That's a very small fraction. Isn't there something to be said? Aren't there still kids that develop as sophomores junior seniors in high school that still get attention and looks or is it like everyone's afraid of missing this runaway train? Can you talk a little about that? Yeah, you know this, this is tough, you know, the whole the whole recruiting college baseball recruiting because it's it's it's transitioned to be in so early and early, and so it starts to get people this feeling that, well, Jesus, I'm not getting offers when I'm in ninth grade or tenth grade. Maybe I'm not a major Division one player or things like that, and it's totally wrong, it's incorrect, right, And so you know, we're still recruiting players that you know, I mean, we're still looking for one more senior player right now, right, and so you know we're watching, you know, what's going on in Perfect Game down in Jupiter to see if somebody pops at maybe we add another player to our recruiting process. So I don't believe it's ever too late. Um, what I would encourage people to do is two things. Okay. One, develop, right, don't get caught. It's dreams and goals are fine. There's nothing wrong with having dreams and goals of aspiring to play at the highest level. And whatever your sport is, that's great. We need to have kids to have that. But that can't drive everything. What needs to drive everything is two things. One your development as a player, all right, Even those kids that commit in the ninth grade, Hey, guess what nick I mean? You know this, if they don't develop by the time they get to those college campuses, they're gonna get passed by and they're not gonna play. So first and foremost development can't can't stop be consumed with developing and becoming a winning championship player, right, not just being a great skills player, being a winning championship player. What it takes to help your team win, all right, don't ever lose sight of that. Whether you commit as a ninth grader or your opportunity doesn't come until after your senior year in high school, keep developing, be consumed with getting better. Just because you get that opportunity at a young age doesn't mean that you haven't figured out. You've got to keep keep progressing, moving forward. The second thing I would share it would be there's a lot of great options out there. Yeah, there're two Division one programs. Yeah, sure they are, But that doesn't like as you said, that wouldn't provide too many opportunities across this country, and now you know, not the worldwide of opportunities kids to come to play college baseball. So there is incredible, incredible opportunities at division to Division three in AI a junior college. Never turn your nose up to an opportunity, right, because you can have a great experience no matter where you're at. Hey, Nick, you know the Division three coach in Nebraska that has his Division three program in Nebraska. He cares just as much about his baseball program as Bryan O'Connor does about the University of Virginia, right, no question, and he gives his kids a great experience just like they have here. It's just a little bit different resources. We got a little bit bigger of a stadium. We might have to create three more sets of uniforms that they have. But it doesn't mean that you can't have an unbelievable experience like you had playing for Coach Fox at Wesleyan. Right, you can have a great experience and it can help mold and develop you. And hey, who knows that might lead to the major leagues, that might lead to opportunities, right, So don't turn your nose up to anything. And remember development never stops. You never know when that opportunity is gonna come your way. Coach, you're crushing it. You got me fired up. Tell me that you've got a room full of ninth grade of tenth graders and their parents in a room. You know, they're looking at you, they're listening, like, what can kids and their parents do to get themselves? What can the parents do to help the kids get themselves in a position to become college athletes? They might not be full scholarship. Do you want kids? But they can play somewhere? Right, Well, I think it first starts with us as parents, right that one, You know, like I had mentioned earlier, they'll try to do everything for them right, make them figure out. I talked about in every camp, every camp that we that we have, you know, I talked about failure and letting them fail, right, and that that's good, and not trying to do everything before them. Right. The other thing that I would say, Nick, is, uh, you know, you've got to try to put them in the most competitive environment that they can develop in. That also, you know, gives them opportunities if they so choose to play other sports, like we talked about at the beginning, Right, don't believe that you live in this silo and it's got to be this one thing, right. Get them in an environment where their challenge every day that they they step on the field of the court, right, that they're surrounded by coaches that are passionate about what they're teaching. You know, a lot of coaches are telling that they have the answers, right, nobody has all the answers in this game, right. But does that coach have passion? Does he teach with passion? Is he there to challenge your player and have them continue to develop every day to be the best player that they can be. I also would say that be consumed with being a great teammate. People ask me all the time, Hey, coach, you know, what does it? What do you look for in a player? That's a really tough question. There's a lot that goes into that. But first and foremost, we want guys that want to be great teammates, right, And secondly, we want guys that are winners. Right. We want guys that love to compete and win. You know, we could talk all about you know, our players were prepared now than they were twenty years ago to play and win the game in college and things like that. You know, a lot has been done on that, right. You know, just do everything you can to have your young person learn how to be a great teammate and learn how to compete and win. That's Brian O'Connor, had baseball coach at the University of Virginia. Thanks for listening to the Reformed Sports Project podcast dom Nick Boncourt and Our goal is to restore a healthy balance and perspective in all areas of sports through education and advocacy. For updates, please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and in Instagram, or check out our website by searching for the Reform Sports Project

Be consumed with developing and becoming a winning championship player, not just being a great skills player, being a winning championship player, what it takes to help your team win. Don't ever lose sight of that, whether you commit as a ninth grader or your opportunity doesn't come until you after your senior year in high school. Keep developing, being consumed with getting better. This is the Reformed Sports Project, a podcast about restoring healthy balance and perspective in all areas of sports through education and advocacy. HI. This is Nick Bonacore from the Reformed Sports Project podcast. My guest today is the head baseball coach from the University of Virginia, Brian O'Connor. After leading the Virginia baseball program to its first n c a A National championship in two thousand fifteen, five time a CC Coach of the Year and three time National Coach of the Year, Brian O'Connor has built his program into a college baseball powerhouse and turned Virginia Baseball into a national brand. Coach O'Connor and I dissect early sports specialization, snowplow parenting, and the fear of missing the recruiting runaway train. I got another awesome guess he's just another stunt. Really pumped having one of the top programs in the country, and I'm just to the death that having the head coach University of Virginia, Virginia Cavaliers and quite frankly, what I think is one of the most beautiful campuses in the country. Brian O'Connor coach, thanks so much for hopping on man. Hey, Nick, thanks thanks for having me. Um, It's it's really an honor. I've I've listened to a few of the conversations that you've had with other coaches. Great stuff. Man, you're doing great work. And um, you know this whole coaching thing, Nick, is we're all learning from each other, right, Um, I mean I'll learned from this conversation. I learned from you know, we all have mentors in our in our coaching life, but you know, we're all constantly learning from each other and involved it as we go along. So it's always fun to have these conversations and learn from each other. I appreciate you. You just made me feel you're gonna learn from me. This is great. This is great. So we're talking youth sports, athletic development, parenting and all of these things. Something you know a lot about from all your experience, and where I love to start this is this whole topic of early sports specialization. Um, where it starts. If your kid can kick a soccer ball really well, or swim really well, or hit a baseball well and their six, you know, it's like, oh my god, it's the next Tigerant, it's the next Trout Phelps. So in order to reach that level, ditch everything else, year round specialized, let's go. It just seems that's the formula that's being preached. Yet every athlete I play with is meant to the highest level, or I've spoken to every coach seems to really like the diversity, especially young ages of multiple sports. What's your thoughts on the whole early sports specialization versus sampling and playing a variety of sports. Well, Nick, you're you're hitting a hot topic with me because you know this is something that you know, all of us have been dealing with for years, and it's a really tangled web mess. Quite frankly, I've got some pretty strong feelings about it. Um. You know, it's it's You're exactly right. We get these young kids that you know, sometimes whether it's parents feel like, you know, hey, little Johnny can be the next great basketball player, football player, baseball player, whatever it is. Uh, that drives part of it. But there's also this industry that's driven it as well that I believe Nick has had a big impact on it, and that is, um. You know, there's a lot of people that are you know, profiting, making money, live their livelihoods depend on this specialization. This playing volleyball year round, right, um, twelve months out of the year, and you know, girls not playing you know, basketball and other sports as well. And it's, uh, you know, we've we've evolved. I really believe in the last two decades of there's a lot of people that you know, specialize in these types of things and they're part of driving this. UM. A lot of the parents, you know, end out believing in it and going that direction and believe that they're putting in kind of a corner in a boxing Nick that they believe that if they don't do this, that they don't play travel volleyball twelve months out of the year or travel baseball, then I'm hurting my son or my daughter. And you know, I'm sad to see it. Because I think it's totally the wrong thinking. I really do. I just you know, you're talking to a guy that played multiple sports in high school growing up, and in high school, I played football, basketball, and baseball. I would give anything to go back and play one more high school football game on Friday night, right. I mean, it was, you know, just an experience that I treasure and so um. But we've kind of as a society, we've went away from that for many of the reasons that I talked about. But you know, I think, you know, the the downside of this, of this small thinking of specialization is you know, if you're always training, right, then you're not learning how to play to win and how to compete. One of the advantages of playing these multiple sports is you're playing to win more often. Right, let's talk our sport to baseball. You know, you're playing in the spring, you're playing in the summer, you're playing in the fall, and in the winner. You're training or your training all around that. But when you're training, you're not you're not competing, you're not learning how to play to win right like you would be on the football field of the basketball court. Right. And so that's one negative of this specialization. The second one I would say, and possibly the most important, would be, you know, when you're playing basketball, you're playing football, there's plays, there's defenses that you have in order for the team to execute a play on either side of the ball and to be successful, to ultimately win the game. You have to do your part as an individualist part of a group. Right. If we're playing zone defense in basketball and I don't do my job in my position, well the whole thing breaks down and they score and we might lose the game. So there's this personal responsibility that you have as an individual to make the football play work, to make the option play work, or that basketball play or whatever it is. That that's there's great teaching moments, a great value in that. You don't get that by training in a gym, right, And so that individual responsibility back to the group for it to work is so incredibly important. And then the third thing that I would with you, Nick, is is the leadership. Right. You're not learning leadership hitting in a cage all winner or training with a trainer, right, You're learning leadership on a basketball court, a football field, or whatever it might be, volleyball, whatever it is that you play right, that you're having to lead others, You're you're having this responsibility that you have to step up and we don't get that in a training session. Now that said, is there a training component Nick, that I think is an important part of a athletes development? Sure there is, right, but there's I think there's crossover that you can get a lot of that training through playing other sports. I don't even want to get into and ill finish with this. I don't want to get into Nick talking about, like, you know, the the medical side of it. Are we training these muscles and training these things in one sport twelve months out of the year, and is that leading to these injuries? Right? I mean, that's a whole We're gonna need an hour to talk about that. I know we don't want to get into that, but that's something to consider as well. Right, So, I think you can get that training on these other athletic fields while learning to compete in your leading and you're playing to win. I love that, And you're right about the injury part. There's another aspect of it that I kind of want to circle into here is that you talked about briefly the injury you know, overuse, or whatever. But then you talk about the mental side, right, and I'm gonna give you a scenario and then we go from here, because this is what's happening a lot. You know, in order playing a certain travel team or whatever you gotta, it's expensive, so now it becomes this investment or you know, my kid needs lessons or whatever, and parents have you know, you know this is we have fear, you know, we fear our kids gonna miss out. Oh my god, they're not gonna get offers, they're not gonna get this. So all of a sudden, they leave a training center or whatever, and they just spend a hundred dollars an hour whatever it is, and the kid wasn't going hard or after a game, and we're in that car ride. They often say kids lose interest in sports in the car ride and at the dinner table by parents be rating or being overzealous with their own coaching, YadA, YadA, YadA, but also undermining the coaches or undermining other kids talking bad about Can you talk a little bit about that, because that's a lot of pressure for young kids to have to deal with. Wound neck. I mean, how did you know when you called me that you're gonna hit these hot spots with me. I love your questions. They're they're spot on and there and they're real issues, right, Um, you know they I'll say this about the parent in the car ride home and the dinner table. Right. There's a real balance. I really believe that because you know, we can't we can't be apathetic about what we do, right. You want your young person to enjoy what they're doing, have fun, but also learn the concept of playing to win and the value of competition and winning right and having successful I think it's a really really fine line for parents out there of how to handle that. You know, Encouragement is what I the word I'd like to use, right, you know, because encouragement also you know, you can encourage your youngster, but you can also be honest and reel with them about, you know, where they need to continue, approve and things like that. So that's a really really tough one as far as is how to handle it. But the you know, I'm I'm a parent, right, I'm a parent of three, two in college now. But then I have a young, aspiring fourteen year old baseball player, right, and he plays other sports too, but you know, he he wants to be the best baseball player he can be, and so my responsibility as I got it really challenging as somebody that's in the sport right and is a coach, and so a lot of times my son asked me for for my input, and I need to give him my honest input for him to improve. But you know, when the game's over, you know I'm going to his game tonight. When the game's over, I'm his dad. Right when he gets to the car and drives him home, I don't need to be talking about why he didn't make that player, didn't make this play. I can talk about and give him positive encouragement for him to still. Like you said, I love to play. They've got to want to do it. A lot of times these parents are the ones that are driving the ambition of their child, right. And so it's I just believe that, you know, you make it fun, You give them good encouragement and support them. You know, in no matter what happens out there on the field, you know, if you hear this all time right here, you hear the snowplow pair, I quite frank, I don't even know what the definition of that is or no no snowplow. I think it's lawnmower or something. You knocked down everything in front of him, clear the path for maybe the snowplow, and then helicopter. We come in and rescue them all the time. And you know, I'll give you a good example. I'll let you go with it. My son, my two older boys or wrestlers. My younger one of the two loves to play sports, but I think he's potentially the quintessential intramural athlete in college. Like, he loves playing, but he does not like to work very hard. Um my second one is ultra competitive, and like when he works hard, he's the opposite of me. When he's really physically getting active, he gets pissed and he wants to go harder. It's not me. And he's really talented in the sport. And this past year he has done a really good high school team and on ninety plus percent of the team is probably in the country or in the state. My son would have been the starter at the hundred and six pounds. He's he's pretty good on his team. They're pretty good. The one oh six kid went fifty one and oh is the day champ. So but I had people leading up to it going hold them back a year. You know, I have him going from wait and I'm sitting there going why the hell for what? Like what that me? Like? What are you gonna run away from competition? Like number one? Who get better being in that environment with that kid there and too he'll learn from that, he'll figure out what he needs to do to get to that level. And my point is nowadays coach so and so is not starting shortstop catcher getting enough innings on their twelve you team, the dad starts another team, they quit, they go here, they go there. So the pat's being arranged for the kid as opposed to fighting through, working through the adversity. And can you talk a little bit about that whole scenario, the value and maybe sitting the bench of the way in your turn, I don't know, No, there's I mean, that's the other thing in our culture that there's so many examples nickels. You know we're trying to do it for right. There's there's so many parents out there that they want their they don't want their child to hurt, they want their child to be successful so bad. Maybe in a lot of cases more than you know, the player does their their son or daughter does that. They're trying to pave the way for them, right, and sadly, we are teaching these young people the worst lessons we can teach them in life, right that when things get hard to hey, just hit reset. Right. I mean the kids are used to that culture because all the video games. Right, if the video games not going my way, I can just the reset and start over. Right. The life doesn't work that way. But what we are doing as parents, in too many cases, we are doing that for our children. We are you know, and I know it's out of love and you don't want to see your your your child hurting or not be successful. But you've got to reflect back. We've got to reflect back as parents and what has helped us be successful? Right? What helped our our parents parents be successful? You know, there is a little bit. There is hardship and life, right, there is failure. Stop trying to do it for them, right, Let them do it, because let me tell you, they're smarter than we give them credit for it. Well, we continue to try to do it for them. Nick. They know they're smart kids, right, and to think that they don't see that and know that that we're changing the situation aastion that we're just gonna go ahead and say, like your example, he he's got the sharting shortstop on this team. You know we're gonna go travel three miles to play for this team and pay more money to go do this because they promised him that he'd be the starting shortstop. They've promised him. You know, I deal with it recruiting all the time. I told kids and families all the time. They listen, I'm not going to promise you anything other than you're going to be treated fairly and honestly, and we're going to do everything as a coaching staff of the program to support you and your team needs to have the best possible winning experience and you can develop as humanly possible. But if you want me to sit here and tell you that you're gonna be a starting shortstop, you're talking to the wrong guy. Right. Why is that? It's not because they don't want the player, right. I don't want him to go somewhere else. But if he is ever going to achieve greatness, and he's ever going to be the best player he can be and ultimately maybe realize his dream and play at the major league level. He has to earn it period in the story, right, and if you just give it to them or change their situation, they're gonna know. They're gonna know that they didn't earn it, right, And so your scenario about your son let him fail, right. I know it's hard as a parent. I know it's very, very hard because you don't want to see your son or daughter art, But you're actually doing the best thing you can for them because that's life, right. Nobody's going to hand them anything in life. So let them work through that. When they come out of it and ultimately are successful and win the job or become the best player they can be, then they will have true self confidence and really believe that they achieve something, not that somebody just changed the situation for them to uh to play it. The other thing I want to I want to just go back a little bit, Nick, And you had mentioned that your question before about you know sometimes parents or players, you know, the complaining about the coaches and things like that. You brought this up at the end of your last year's Right. Let me tell you, I'm amazed at this all the time. Nick. Any recruit that we offer and comes to campus, we'd always sit down with the parents or the player and we talk to them, get to know them. I'd have a series of questions for them and things like that to get to know each other a little bit. But ultimately decided, am I going to offer this young person an opportunity to come to the University of Virginia. You know, I am amazed how many people through our conversations and I intentionally asked them, Hey, tell me about your your high school coach, you know, uh, to tell me about your travel ball coach. Talk to me a little bit about that. Well, I'm not asking them that nick to find out like what they truly I'm asking to see what do they say about their coaches? And I am shocked to hear how many parents and kids will, you know, say not positive things about their coaches. And I sit there and think, as a college coach, Well, I'm a coach. I'm sitting in a chair across room and what are what is what is he or his parents going to say about me when maybe their experience doesn't go smoothly right out of the gate, right, How are they going to feel? Right? So it's it's you know, hey, you make a decision to play for a program. You make a decision to play for a coach. Loyalty to those coaches is vital. And for the parents out there to support those coaches. And when their son or daughter comes home and starts to talk about this coach of that coach, you have an opportunity to teach them about respect, right. We have an opportunity to teach them how it valuable that is and their development as an athlete and as a person. When we come back, Coach O'Connor and I discussed recruiting. Welcome back where Coach O'Connor and I left off. We were about to dive into recruiting and the fear a stokes and parents and athletes that they're missing out. Coach, you know, you brought up the recruiting and and and my experience. I wasn't the best baseball player that was a little bit above average. I developed later. I was definitely a later bloomer. So I didn't really start getting looks to like literally my senior again, this is so it's a little different nineties. I start getting some football looks and and then all of a sudden, I start getting you know, contacted for baseball. We we had a really good year my senior year, and you know, I get a letter from North Carolina Wesley and from coach Fox. I'm like, wow, you know, I go see him play. Make a long story short. You know, at that time, my ability, my development, that was the best place I can go and I can play, I mean, and I felt like I can play there, and we were competing for national titles. But now forget it. If kids get D two D three letters and it's like, dude, to throw him in the garbage. And I think back my D one team. I mean, I've played with Tim Levi like we were in the same wood. Wouldn't bad lead together? Guy was an a al a C C shortstop and through I'm sitting there catching him, like what this guy's out of his mind. He's so good. But it wasn't like I was like that bad. You know. We won the Coastal Playing League championship that year. My point is I developed that was two years after, you know, it was two years later. And I think it's important people don't understand, like, not everyone's getting offered in eighth grade. But I think that's what drives a lot. So parents will point to the power five D one coach and say, you say one thing, and I'm playing Devil's advocate here. You say one thing, but yet you do this, And I argue, in a minute, there's like twenty kids in the country that get that, that are that good. Like I don't mean that literally, but there's not that many. That's a very small fraction. Isn't there something to be said? Aren't there still kids that develop as sophomores junior seniors in high school that still get attention and looks or is it like everyone's afraid of missing this runaway train? Can you talk a little about that? Yeah, you know this, this is tough, you know, the whole the whole recruiting college baseball recruiting because it's it's it's transitioned to be in so early and early, and so it starts to get people this feeling that, well, Jesus, I'm not getting offers when I'm in ninth grade or tenth grade. Maybe I'm not a major Division one player or things like that, and it's totally wrong, it's incorrect, right, And so you know, we're still recruiting players that you know, I mean, we're still looking for one more senior player right now, right, and so you know we're watching, you know, what's going on in Perfect Game down in Jupiter to see if somebody pops at maybe we add another player to our recruiting process. So I don't believe it's ever too late. Um, what I would encourage people to do is two things. Okay. One, develop, right, don't get caught. It's dreams and goals are fine. There's nothing wrong with having dreams and goals of aspiring to play at the highest level. And whatever your sport is, that's great. We need to have kids to have that. But that can't drive everything. What needs to drive everything is two things. One your development as a player, all right, Even those kids that commit in the ninth grade, Hey, guess what nick I mean? You know this, if they don't develop by the time they get to those college campuses, they're gonna get passed by and they're not gonna play. So first and foremost development can't can't stop be consumed with developing and becoming a winning championship player, right, not just being a great skills player, being a winning championship player. What it takes to help your team win, all right, don't ever lose sight of that. Whether you commit as a ninth grader or your opportunity doesn't come until after your senior year in high school, keep developing, be consumed with getting better. Just because you get that opportunity at a young age doesn't mean that you haven't figured out. You've got to keep keep progressing, moving forward. The second thing I would share it would be there's a lot of great options out there. Yeah, there're two Division one programs. Yeah, sure they are, But that doesn't like as you said, that wouldn't provide too many opportunities across this country, and now you know, not the worldwide of opportunities kids to come to play college baseball. So there is incredible, incredible opportunities at division to Division three in AI a junior college. Never turn your nose up to an opportunity, right, because you can have a great experience no matter where you're at. Hey, Nick, you know the Division three coach in Nebraska that has his Division three program in Nebraska. He cares just as much about his baseball program as Bryan O'Connor does about the University of Virginia, right, no question, and he gives his kids a great experience just like they have here. It's just a little bit different resources. We got a little bit bigger of a stadium. We might have to create three more sets of uniforms that they have. But it doesn't mean that you can't have an unbelievable experience like you had playing for Coach Fox at Wesleyan. Right, you can have a great experience and it can help mold and develop you. And hey, who knows that might lead to the major leagues, that might lead to opportunities, right, So don't turn your nose up to anything. And remember development never stops. You never know when that opportunity is gonna come your way. Coach, you're crushing it. You got me fired up. Tell me that you've got a room full of ninth grade of tenth graders and their parents in a room. You know, they're looking at you, they're listening, like, what can kids and their parents do to get themselves? What can the parents do to help the kids get themselves in a position to become college athletes? They might not be full scholarship. Do you want kids? But they can play somewhere? Right, Well, I think it first starts with us as parents, right that one, You know, like I had mentioned earlier, they'll try to do everything for them right, make them figure out. I talked about in every camp, every camp that we that we have, you know, I talked about failure and letting them fail, right, and that that's good, and not trying to do everything before them. Right. The other thing that I would say, Nick, is, uh, you know, you've got to try to put them in the most competitive environment that they can develop in. That also, you know, gives them opportunities if they so choose to play other sports, like we talked about at the beginning, Right, don't believe that you live in this silo and it's got to be this one thing, right. Get them in an environment where their challenge every day that they they step on the field of the court, right, that they're surrounded by coaches that are passionate about what they're teaching. You know, a lot of coaches are telling that they have the answers, right, nobody has all the answers in this game, right. But does that coach have passion? Does he teach with passion? Is he there to challenge your player and have them continue to develop every day to be the best player that they can be. I also would say that be consumed with being a great teammate. People ask me all the time, Hey, coach, you know, what does it? What do you look for in a player? That's a really tough question. There's a lot that goes into that. But first and foremost, we want guys that want to be great teammates, right, And secondly, we want guys that are winners. Right. We want guys that love to compete and win. You know, we could talk all about you know, our players were prepared now than they were twenty years ago to play and win the game in college and things like that. You know, a lot has been done on that, right. You know, just do everything you can to have your young person learn how to be a great teammate and learn how to compete and win. That's Brian O'Connor, had baseball coach at the University of Virginia. Thanks for listening to the Reformed Sports Project podcast dom Nick Boncourt and Our goal is to restore a healthy balance and perspective in all areas of sports through education and advocacy. For updates, please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and in Instagram, or check out our website by searching for the Reform Sports Project