Sports-Life Connection With Topeka’s Top Coach | Chad Parks

There's not hardly anything where you always feel like right problems are fickle, but you show up because of discipline. You show up because of consistency. Dude, I'm the coach that I feel like being here every day and I love this sport. This is my favorite definition of a coach A person who takes someone from where they currently are to where they want or need to go. Now, I'm sure there's people in Oklahoma that can spell. I'm not one of them. I'm like a real life thesaurus source.

Today we have Chad Parks, the Topeka Area.

Director for FCA Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Let's go, let's go. Thanks for having me. Welcome to the podcast man. Glad to have you.

Give us a little bit about Chad. Who's Chad Parks?

Oh man, so I'm an Okie. I grew up in Oklahoma.

Oh, okay, I thought you meant like Oakland Topeka. Yeah, yeah, Not quite.

Boomer Sooner.

Yeah, boomer Sooner, big time Love Sooners. But yeah, I'm an Okie. I ended up going to college in Kansas so I wrestled at Labatt in Fort Hay State and then met a Topeka girl, my wife Lori. And she got herself out there, and then we ended up coming back to Topeka, and so this has been home now for 23, 24 years, topeka just suckers you in and you just never leave, absolutely. Absolutely Cool. You said, you wrestled a little bit.

You're being modest, give it to us. You wrestled at Fort Hayes. You're a big deal.

Yeah, so well. So my dad's a national Hall of Fame wrestling coach in Oklahoma. Wow Co fame wrestling coach in Oklahoma Wow Coach for 37 years. Um, I started I don't know when I started wrestling, when I could walk, basically. So I think I was probably three or four when I started wrestling. Uh, wrestled all the way through high school, wrestled five years of college. I was on one of those um special college programs where you finish a four-year degree in six years.

So one of those things called doctors.

Yeah, so I didn't get a doctor. But so now I wrestled the three colleges. So actually wrestled missouri valley college. We won a national championship when I was there and the coach that recruited me had left. I decided to transfer so went to labette here in kansas. That's how I'm one of the top juco's in the nation. Lots of oklahoma kids would go wrestle there, so went down, wrestled there and then out of fort hayes state um ended up being a college all American got to have um some great experiences wrestling in college and then, as soon as I was done, went directly into coaching. Yeah, Pretty much new, you know, being around my dad, being around some great coaches that's what I wanted to do.

So, wrestling has been I don't know. Just I would say like a part of my life, has been a huge part of my life.

In the blood he's been grappling before he could walk.

Yeah, that's cool, that's right, it's grappling right, that's a thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not an idiot, I know, so he was also your pe teacher.

He was my physical education high school, right in eighth grade. Yeah, eighth grade, eighth grade I have chad parks.

Chad parks is the reason I I'm the athlete I am today you have this sculpted physique sculpted.

We got Adonis right here next to me. That's awesome man. So what was it like? So when you moved here, did you start teaching and coaching? Is that kind of what you were doing?

Yeah, so when I very first came here and it's funny I wanted to coach in college and I had stayed and coached coaching college for a year at Hayes and my wife has some opportunities as well. She was a college softball player. She did not want to coach in college, so we both had PE degrees. Trying to decide where we're going to go, Knew it probably needed to be a city in order Cause, if you know anything about PE teachers like they don't leave, so those jobs, don't open up very much, so like, okay, we're gonna have to be in a big city with a lot of schools and so, um, I would get an offer somewhere but there'd be nothing for her, or vice versa.

So we ended up having opportunities here. So when very first came to Topeka we were in 501. So my wife taught at Topeka high and then she was a coach at Topeka high and then I taught at Jardine middle school and was coaching there and at Topeka high it's a jar down for three years.

You don't know better whenever you're just coming out of college. So they're like okay, you are the head eighth grade football coach and I had a football background. My dad coached football as well. But like you're the head eighth grade football coach, you're the head middle school wrestling coach, and that was the last year they had middle school wrestling in 501. You're the head track coach, you're running and I was the head assistant pika high.

So I did that for three years make you think this is normal. Everyone does this. That's exactly.

I literally thought this is normal and it was just like doing something all day, everything's fine. The building's on fire, everything's fine, yeah so, and then when I came out to shawnee heights and had the opportunity to take over as the head high school coach at heights um, I was the head middle school, so I was a middle school p teacher, head middle school coach and then high school wrestling coach, but I was like I'm doing nothing in the spring, like.

I understand now.

I'm not a rookie anymore.

I'm allowed to say no, that's right. Yeah, wow, what was it like coaching wrestling? For how long were you doing that?

So I did that. So three years and then and this I just finished my 20th season as a head wrestling coach at Sean McPherson. Wow, and I'm the head girls and boys coach there. Absolutely love it Like it is one of my greatest passions.

Wow, it's one of those things that you know, it's like God's given us all different gifts and abilities and that's one of the things that just lights my fire. You know, for me I feel like it's sort of part of the ministry. It's sort of part of the ministry. It's one of those things, building relations and of course I love the sport of wrestling, right, but like building relationships with my coaches, building relationships with our athletes, helping them develop into the best people they can possibly be, not just the best wrestlers Of course we want them to be great wrestlers, but help them develop in every area of life.

It's been huge, so it's one that, like when I wake up, I'm often thinking about wrestling or coaching when I go to bed, I'm often thinking about wrestling or coaching, and I like it a lot because there's never a point where it's like I have this thing figured out. Every team's a little different, individuals are different, and so there's always a challenge of like, how do I create the greatest culture? How do I create you know technically like, what moves are best for this group?

what drills?

are best for this group. So I love coaching overall, like I coach my son's flag football team.

I enjoy that nice just coaching is a really, really fun thing to me I, I have so much respect for you in that realm because there's so many teachers that they teach, they teach to coach and you know some of those coaches like, yeah, you know, you just like the sport, you know, get to screw around with you know a bunch of high school kids or whatever, you know, it's just kind of a I don't know a jock grown up, um, but you truly embody, like, yeah, you teach to coach, but you, you know, coaching is your ministry. Yeah, and it's such a cool like you can just see that, uh, in the, the culture you create, the, the buy-in from the athletes that uh, I mean, you guys have. You have so many different like creeds and mottos that you're. You guys recite at the end of the practices Uh, walk us through some of that, cause. I think that really speaks to the culture you've built over 20 years. Yeah.

Yeah. So I think culture is one of the most important things you can have, right. So, whether that is if you're the CEO of a company, if you're a coach, whatever, it is right. So, if you're a pastor, like you, want to have a great culture, and so for me, like something I've done over the years is read a lot right, listen to a lot of podcasts, listen to a lot of books and read a lot of books. But do I want to, or have I studied some of the greatest coaches? Absolutely, and I've been blessed to be directly under some great coaches study some good coaches, go to clinics, conferences, but I also like to look outside of the coaching realm, right?

So, I'm going to read a book like how did the CEO Chick-fil-A make that?

one of the best organizations.

How did Cody Foster make advisors one of the best organizations? Who can I study and what principles of success can we take and utilize Right? So, when it comes to some of the mottos and things that we have, I would say the very first one is TCOB. Just take care of business, and I know Elvis had TCB, but it's so funny because I'll have people. If you see TCOB wrestling around here especially, but in a lot of places people know like that's Shawnee.

Heights Wrestling.

It's been a brand for a long time, that's cool.

It's not just a brand Like there's so much buy-in around that, like these wrestlers, when they're out in college, after they're done with your program, they get it all tatted up on them.

Like it's just like a life motto for these guys yeah yeah, it becomes like a mindset or a motto yeah, it's kind of a lifestyle.

But at Labette one of the greatest coaches that I've ever been around, coach Thompson. He's amazing. He's in a couple of different wrestling hall of fames and was a good wrestler and incredible coach a true mentor almost like a father figure for the wrestlers, you know, and but that was our model there TCOB, and so we bought in.

So when I became a head coach, I was like that's what we're doing, we're, you know, utilizing it and really it's just taking care of business in every area. So we want to take care of business on the rest of the mats, off the rest of the mats in the classroom, in your personal life. And it's easy thing to say like and do we have some rules, policies, procedures? Yes, but overall, like, if you're, if you're tcob, and if you're taking care of business in every area, then you know, you know that you're doing the right thing right, so we can have a discussion with the wrestler who's maybe not doing well academically.

Hey, are you TCOB in the classroom? Cause I see you have three different assignments missing right now in this class. That's why you have a D you know, and they could be like no, I'm not coach, Right, and then we can have that discussion. So that's a big one for us. Another one for us is get, and which is gratitude, effort and toughness. So you know, and we use that in lots of ways, but things like we don't have to, you know, go to practice on Monday. I get to go to practice on.

Monday and it applies to life.

I don't have to go to work, I get to go to work. I don't have to lift weights.

I get to lift weights and then we go in and then we break it down and we talk about the power of this sort of modern type enlightenment, gratitude, light and true Like. Look at, like the neuroscience of gratitude biblically. I mean 157 times in the Bible it talks about Thanksgiving, right? So we talk about that and do a lot of mindset stuff around gratitude and then what are actual gratitude practices? And then effort wrestling is just a tough sport, everything about it. Cleaning the mats is tough, like there's nothing about it that doesn't require a lot of effort. So we discussed that a lot and I remember something my dad always said working, you know, or growing up he was a super hard worker and I think I started mowing.

So I started mowing when I was nine years old. I wanted to go to my first overnight wrestling camp and my dad was like, okay, you can go, but you got to pay for it. And our high school principal lived across the street and so I walked over and I say, can I mow your yard this summer and I want to go to this camp. Would you be willing to front me the money? And she said yes. So I went to this camp and what was hard is then you mowed the rest of the summer and never got to see the money.

But my brother has some yards too. So by the time I was a sixth grader I had like 20 yards. When I graduated high school I had like 35 yards. So I would practice, you know, and or in the summer I'd be like mowing all day, long before I could drive. My dad would like just drop me off in a block with a mower and a weed eater.

Back then we didn't have blowers or like a broom, you know yeah, so I do and he painted houses and then, when I was down mowing for the day, I would go paint with them wow, Wow For me like my breaks were getting to go to wrestling practice, getting to go to baseball practice. So hard work has just been a part of our family and our lifestyle and so the effort piece it just. You know, and I ran a podcast for quite a while and I've been blessed to talk to some super high level people and you know there are you can add us to the tally, absolutely so we want to be efficient in everything.

We, I understand, believe in efficiency, and I don't believe in doing something just because that's the way it's always been done. I should. We should look and explore what's a better way to do it, but, like, no matter who you talk to, people that are highly successful have put in work right, there's just like no way around yeah, there is yeah yeah.

And then the toughness piece. We go and we talk about toughness and, um, yeah, we got to be physically tough. And so I'll often tell my wrestlers like, hey, you're just not that good looking, so there's no reason, when you shoot in, to not, you know, to turn your head sometimes.

Sometimes people are not saving anything.

Yeah, yeah some people aren't afraid to get, or they are afraid to get hit in the face right, yeah you cannot be afraid to get hit in the face and I tell them wow, apply it to life too. Like hey, man, life, like I just kind of throw some things at you and you got to be willing to jump in there and like, try to take those things on. We try to teach those lessons.

But then also toughness isn't just physical, emotional toughness so we talk about emotional, mental toughness as well, and that just kind of comes with the sport. And then emotional toughness. And I think the number one thing we talk about that is like, hey, what's the? What emotion is the strongest? And I always ask my kids, you know, and they'll be like you know, throwing out different emotions, anger, fear, all the things and and then love will always come up and tell them love is the strongest emotion, right? So, as Christ followers, I mean, we know, like Jesus literally died for us on the cross because he loves us.

Right, love is the strongest emotion, like if you love somebody or if, as a parent, when you love your children, like you'll do anything for them, type thing, right. So we want to utilize that, we want to love one another. And love's not soft, love's not like all cotton candy man, right? And uh, you know, love ends. So if I have a two-year-old and they run out in the street, I might, you know, yell, I'm hey, get out of the street or whatever, right?

I'm gonna have to spank their bottom, and not because I hate them, it's because I love them. I don't want to get hit by a car, right Right, the reason why we have guardrails in life. So love is helping people get where they need to go, and sometimes that's a little bit harder, sometimes it's softer, sometimes it's a. It's a hug or an arm around the shoulder or just sitting with somebody who's upset Right, and other times it's pouring into them and other times it's kind of helping guide them so we talked about that.

And then the last thing with the emotional piece is, um, not going it alone like a lot of people, just become an island right emotionally and realizing like you need a support system so you need to be able to trust or align.

So those are the things that we teach when we talk about get, and then this year, one we focused on a lot was win the day, and then the win stands for what's important now, and so whenever we are forecasting and thinking about the future, and especially in sport, we worry about outcomes so much, and that causes a lot of pressure and nerves when we're doing that. Let's just come back to what's important now, like what can we actually do? What's the next action step? How can we be where our feet are? So that was something we focused a lot on this year.

That's great. How do you create buy-in with kids who I don't know they maybe aren't as committed you know and just are there on the team?

Yeah, that's a great question. It's funny because I believe in transformational coaching. Right, I wanna make sure that we're helping people transform their lives, not transactional, not. What can I get out of you?

or from you you know, but when I very first started coaching I don't think I was a transactional coach, but I was a much different coach and I was very intense. I just came from wrestling in college and more old school mindset and I remember the very first year I was coaching at Shawnee Heights as a head coach, specifically having this one young man in the room, and we worked hard Like when I look back I'm like I don't know how like it was, like a break you practice every single day it was not intelligent.

That's just kind of how we trained back then and uh so. But I remember having this young man in the room who did not work hard. It was always kind of messing around, not working hard, and I'd get so frustrated and I just like I don't understand in my own mind. I'm like I don't know how you can be on a team and like not want to be good. How can you not want to try to be a state champion or be the varsity guy or whatever? And I had a couple of different conversations with him and the good thing is, as the year went on, he started kind of buying a work harder and he was like a third string type guy. But anyway, one day we were talking and I was asking him you know the team talking to the guys about their goals and he was like man, he's like coach, I just, I just want to be on the team, I'm just happy to be here.

And I remember laying in bed and thinking, being like I don't understand that, and then all of a sudden it kind of hit me like wait a minute, like it's better that he's here.

Right.

Then out on the street somewhere around, messing around, getting in trouble, and then just realizing like, okay, this is not college wrestling, this is high school wrestling and some of these kids just want to. They want to be with friends, they want to have fun, they just want to have a place where they can hang out.

If we can inspire them and help them get better along the way, that is awesome and that's one of the goals, and we need those kind of kids in the room, right, and I often say like and this goes with every sport, but our sport, or this is where I focus on but I just say a lot of times that kid needs wrestling more than wrestling needs him, yeah, and so when we're working with the kids, they're just kind of there and maybe like they're not the big time wrestler or maybe they're third string and they don't even care, they're just kind of having fun. I mean, hey, as long as you are working hard in here and you're trying to get better and you're helping your teammates, that's a great thing. Now, if not, then we're going to have a conversation like hey, buddy, you got to pick it up because I want you to help your teammate get better too.

But I think that we've coached long and culture changes all the time and you you can't get lax because you know just a few things can allow it to slip. But overall I think we've built a strong enough culture that when you walk in as a freshman and you see what the juniors and seniors are doing, you just kind of follow suit and then you don't really know any other way.

It's like this is what we do here 100%.

And then we've been real blessed to have some older athletes and I empower them. I believe the player-led teams are stronger than coach-led teams. So my job is not just to create followers, like, we want to create leaders who can then help create leaders. So sometimes I'll have to go and remind them that hey, listen, I want you to go talk to so-and-so, or remember, like, I want you to step up in this area, and then they get to go and have these conversations. But yeah, it becomes just that's what we do here. Nobody knows any different and and nobody knows any different.

Then, when you're a junior or senior and you see that freshman not doing that, you go have that conversation with them Like hey that's not how we act in the room, or this is what we do in the room.

Yeah, yeah, it's like you're not even giving the option to not buy in. It's like, hey, this is what we do here, there's no other option. Yeah, it really. Team, yeah, yeah, how have you seen? Uh, I love the idea. Uh, especially, like you know, a lot of these kids might not play college, so they're really getting something else out of this to take with them and so being developed for all of life. How have you seen that happen? Like, what about wrestling transfers into the rest of life and increases them as a leader, as a person? Yeah, good.

So and it's one of the things too, I think you have to be intentional as about as a coach, about teaching those things right. It's like if I show you a double leg takedown, how does that apply to life, right? Okay, now maybe you've got to defend yourself at some point, or protect somebody else or something.

or Job interview yeah, job interview. Take down the other candidate.

So for the most part, I think we make sure we try to point those things out.

So you're drawing parallels? Hey, this is how this applies to other areas of your life. Here's why what we're doing matters outside of wrestling. So you're saying that, yeah, we literally say it Cool.

So I want them to know, you know, ask them like hey, how many of you feel like and be 100, how many of you feel like being at practice every single day? Of course you get a couple kids be like raise your hand, I'm like dude, I'm the coach, I don't feel like being here every day right and I love this sport.

There's not hardly anything where you always feel like right feelings are fickle, but you show up because of discipline, you show up because of consistency, and so I tell them you know, when you're in a regular job one day, even if it's a job you love sometimes like on a Monday I'm fired up to go to work. Sometimes you're like I do not want to go to work. Well, you don't just stay at home and sleep in, because you look back and like the days you didn't want to go to practice but you still showed up. You realize, like, like that's just the kind of person I am. You know, I think james clear said like every time that you do something, you're making the decision for the kind of person you want to be right it's a vote for the kind of person you want to be, so it's what we tell them like every time you're

showing up for practice. It's the vote for the kind of person you want to be. Every time we come down here we lift weights in the weight room, it's the same thing. Every time I come and work hard in wrestling practice, it's the same thing. And the cool thing is, like when you look, when you look at that and I just kind of like make that like a little, uh little micro piece of that, how many times you not feel like doing something?

but once you start now you feel like doing it, yeah right, yeah, like a lot of times, like the feelings follow exactly exactly right.

So your physiology changes your psychology, yeah, so there's a lot of times, um, I don't, and I work out almost every day, but like I don't necessarily feel like working out Once I start working out and I get warmed up, I'm going now, I'm in it, and then on those days when you're done, you almost feel a little more like proud. You're just like I did it.

I always say when you, when gains are made on your worst workout days, because those are the ones, those are the days you don't want to be there and you know, if you only worked out on days that you wanted to work out, you know you wouldn't get any bigger or any smaller, depending what you're doing.

But it's the days where it's like I don't think that was a great workout. You know, I didn't have a good attitude, didn't want to be here, but I showed up. You know those are the days where you're making progress even within a good workout.

The most gain is when you're like really pushing it the hardest you know, like, like on your 10th rep, that's the one that matters the most you know in terms of like muscle and things like that. So yeah yeah, that's cool.

So you've coached a ton of people over your 23 years of coaching football, wrestling all in between. Who are some of the top athletes that you've coached?

Um so James yeah, lebron James.

Yeah, lebron. So I didn't want anybody to know. But LeBron, he has the Coach P product. So no, I would say I'd probably look at like all the Arm Rooster Brothers.

Yes, prime specimen of athleticism right here. That's good, that's funny.

No. So I would say, you know, if we just look at like success, and success comes in many forms. But Austin Willis Austin.

Willis played football for me and then wrestled for me and just talk about a freak athlete. So wrestling, especially guys wrestling, girls wrestling is is you know cause it's newer, right, so you could wrestle for a couple of years and girls and develop and get really good. But like boys, a lot of these guys have wrestled since they were five, six, seven years old. So austin didn't start wrestling until high school. We could not get. He played football for me in middle school. We tried to get him to go out for middle school wrestling. He wouldn't. High school he came out and he ended up being a four-time state placer.

So he places in state his very first year wow so four times state placer, had over 100 wins and over 100 pins in high school wow and then he goes on to play college football.

So went to emporia state university, went there for a track scholarship, walked on football, played for two years, got you know, a little bit of special teams time. I remember he called me and just was like hey, coach, I don't think I'm ever going to really step on the field as a starter. I think I want to transfer, can you help me? So I was like I'm gonna start reaching out to people I know. And and I started reaching out to some people, two days later he calls me back and says nevermind, I'm staying. It's like what happened so well, one of our starting slot backs just transferred. Another guy got hurt yesterday at practice towards ACL. He's out Coach called me in and said you're going to be the guy that year. He ends up being an All-American.

Wow so he has a great junior year, great senior year and, uh, so austin is five, nine, 170, 175 pounds, can absolutely fly, so he does his pro day there at emporia state and so and he also won they have like a strongest athlete of the like, strongest pound for pound athlete, strongest athlete of the year award. He won it. So at 175, he was benching over four, he was squatting 600 something.

Dang.

Freak, wow. So he ends up running a 429 at his pro day and so they invited him to KU's pro day because there'd be a lot more scouts there. So he goes to KU's pro day. That evening he calls me and he says hey, um coach, I got some people talking to me and I said would you run? He goes, I don't know. I said what do you mean? I don't know. He's like I don't know. This time he goes. I ran and all I know Playing for the Bills the.

Detroit Lions. So that's one. And then we got to look at Wyatt Hubert. So his brother, austin, was an incredible athlete too and played for Washburn, and then Wyatt ended up being a star for K-State and then made it to the Bengals for a little bit. So those are guys that made it to the pros, yeah, and you know. So there were lots of great people to coach them and that's really cool.

And then you know, for athletes, tanner, gardner, so tanner. So when I student so I actually student taught at shawnee heights before I was at jordan and speak a high and I met tanner was helping coach and then I became like a private coach for tanner. So even when I was coaching speak a high we would train off season. He trained lots of places but he ended up being a multi-time all-american for stanford university oh, wow he's the I think he's still the number one.

I think he's won more matches than any other wrestler in the pack 12 wow, that's wild yeah, so, and we've had a lot of great athletes over the years. I've had an opportunity to yeah, at least have like a little part yeah, yeah, oh, that's wow yeah.

So you've been for over two decades coaching mostly middle school, right, coaching high school. I taught middle school, okay, you taught middle school, okay. So coaching high school, how have you seen in the 20 years, that generation change, like the kids coming through your program and then, kind of as like a sub question, what would you say are some of the biggest challenges high school students are facing right now?

good questions so the changes I've seen. It's funny because you will hear people and I think every generation has done this forever right, you're like oh, this next generation is lost right, these guys don't work hard. This next generation soft, yeah, yeah, and I remember like I read a thing about.

I read a thing and I was talking about that they could use those exact words, talking about this next generation soft, yeah, yeah. And I remember like I read a thing about. I read a thing and it was talking about that they could use those exact words, talking about this next generation soft and lazy. And then like the writing actually came from like the 1920s, wow.

Yeah. So when you read it like, I was like yeah, and so I think everyone has always done that.

But I would say, you know, if we're looking at how kids have changed, one is just, people aren't outside very much anymore, right? So back when I was coaching football, so back when I grew up playing football, like we were outside all day long, we were acclimated to the heat, we were used to it, so we were in the Oklahoma heat and then, you know, we could jump in. We did three days and things like that. We did like two weeks and three days. Well, now, like they don't even get to have two-a-days and they don't get to start until, like, school has started. There's no, which is probably a good thing though. Now our football programs, they work really hard in the summer and kids are outside some, but some of it's safety Kids. Just, you can't go ride your bike for eight hours in the day like you used to be able to. I mean, there's a lot of wild people out there right.

You want, it's protected. The kids just aren't outside as much, so that's a little bit different.

Overall, you got to look at and Justin and I were kind of talking about this before we started recording but sports specialization a lot of kids specialize a little earlier now, or the other thing even if they're playing a lot of sports, it's like it never ends, right and and we're in the same situation. So I have four kids and I have two boys that are fourth and sixth grade. So looking at them like they go, they play travel soccer and so we play in kc every single weekend, practice here in capito or in kc. So they're playing in the fall and they're playing in the spring, and then they go from fall soccer directly into indoor soccer in the winter time both play basketball, which is kind of weird with me being a wrestling guy, okay.

These are your sons yeah, these are my sons. They both play indoor soccer and then they go right into basketball. So you know, on the weekends it's like they got like this game and that game or they have like during the week time. You know, they're at soccer practice and directly to basketball practice, and then right now in the spring it's soccer and flag football, and so you know, we're looking at our schedule and it's like almost every single night you know, lots of kids are that way.

Yeah, so you'll have kids that are coming in and they're playing a fall sport, but in the evening they're still going and doing pitching lessons, they're still doing batting lessons, or it's just a lot. So I think that's something that used to like you had a season when that season was over, you move to the next sport season.

That season's over and you have some people that maybe didn't do all like three sports, or just did one, or, but now it's like everything just overlaps so much and they're constantly going and I think this is a big thing. Kids don't have free play anymore. You know, think about like, and you could probably still do this. It just doesn't happen. But you could give a group of kids a ball, even if they didn't know rules. They would come up with a game Right.

Whether it was in the field or if it was in a driveway or whatever. They would come up with a game A cold sack, yeah, and now like that doesn't happen because everything we do is so organized. Yeah, so we've taken away the ability of the kids to just be creative and have fun.

And so I know for us and collaborate with each other too. 100% Like they're having to figure out how to work together without a parent.

Yes, yes. So in you know PE whenever we do activities, I mean I like to give the kids this was middle school PE, but like a lot of autonomy, and so I would tell them hey, like you guys need to figure out, like, how do I, what are strategies to this game? I know you just learned this game right, what are the strategies? And be able to work together and things like that. But wrestling practice, I think, is a good example of this with my high school wrestlers Early in the season. The first few times that we say, hey, we're going to have open room, so we come in, we're doing everything structured and like, all right, we're going to do 10 minutes of open room time and the first time I may just go five minutes work on whatever you need to work on. You'll literally just see kids looking at you with like deer in the headlight eyes. What?

do I work on?

And tell me what to do, and so you know, I'll tell them them hey, sometimes we're gonna walk around and have specific things. I got to see you compete on saturday I made notes. I know what you need to work on, but the first couple times I want them just to figure it out yeah, hey, work on what? You think you need to work on yeah, and then once they do that, and then again we'll start trying to. You know, walk around late in the season. I can be like, hey, open room time, and they're just on it.

They're already working on things they need to work on They've kind of got it figured out.

And so they're probably already planning to like when we get open room.

I need to work on this thing, so yes, but at first, yeah, they were like you need to tell me what to do, because every coach tells me what to do Wow. You know. So that's. I think that's a big thing, Jonathan Haight.

I don't know how you say his last name. He's a psychology guy. He talks a lot about like trying to return parents to some of that free play.

A lot of the like millennial parents, specifically, are like, you know, not just helicopter parents, but like lawnmower parents. You know where they're, like I will remove every obstacle in front of you, you know, and hovering, and like any playtime with a child is with a parent directly and you're like, hey, these kids need to be outside with their friends without you there, Cause they don't know how to resolve conflicts because you resolve the conflicts for them and they don't know how to collaborate and they don't know how to, like what you're saying, come up with ideas and things. Cause it's just like, well, mom or dad, they'll do it for us. And and he's really trying to like analyze and you know he comes from a psychology background, so he's analyzing like, hey, I think a lot of the rise in anxiety in like college age kids is cause now they're out on their own and they don't know what to do, they don't know how to organize their time because someone's always done it for them, and so I think that's really interesting that you're seeing that as well.

What would you say like what are some other results of? Like the overscheduled? You know you're saying like one of the big changes is kids are like so scheduled with multiple sports. What are. Why is that? Why do you think parents are scheduling their kids more and things like that?

I think there's a few things. One is and again we try not to get caught up in it because I know these things but it is okay, if I don't do all this stuff, my kid's going to fall behind.

So like fear of, yeah, yes, fear that they're going to fall behind and they're not going to get the opportunities that these other kids are involved in every single thing, and it's just simply not true. It's simply not true. So if we look at studies and I was again I was telling Justin this earlier like most people that make it to a professional sport or the Olympic level or some sort of professional level, a lot of times they did not start playing that sport till they were like 12 to 14 years old.

So, it was one of the sports that they found or discovered late. Okay, also, if we just look, I mean you can take somebody and start them in a sport when they're six, seven years old, or start the kid in the same sport when they're at 10 or 11, then catch up pretty quick because cognitively and just as far as coordination, they can catch up faster, right, and so they're able to do that. But you feel like, okay, well, I can't get on this select team if my kid's not playing, and so therefore, here in two years they're not going to have a chance to be able to play at the higher levels. So I think that's one of the things.

Do you think that's legitimate, like is that real, or it's more just a fear in our minds? I think's more fear in our minds so you're saying, even if a kid like in today's actual sports climate they could not start until like eighth grade and they would still if they have athletic ability they could be fine.

Yeah, and it would depend on the sport. I would say yeah, but we've had. We've had a lot of success with wrestlers who didn't start till pretty late. Now the problem is sometimes it was not until their junior or senior year. They're finally caught up and they didn't do well.

Well, even the guy you were talking about that went and played in the NFL, right Like he didn't start football until pretty late, isn't that what you said? Or he started wrestling late.

Oh, okay, he started wrestling late, yeah, and then, yeah, we had five week middle school season. No youth club came in. So his freshman year in high school was like his first true year. Four times state placer ended up placing in Fargo, which is the biggest freestyle wrestling tournament for a high school kid, Ended up being a college, all American you know, and he had wrestled for four years in high school.

That was it, wow.

So you know, but there are sports and let's say like a skill sport, you know baseball. Yeah, like you're probably going to need to develop some of those skills at an earlier age. Saying that, does every kid need to have private batting lessons and private pitching lessons and all this stuff? Probably not. A lot of those kids just get burned out and tired.

Wow and so one of the side effects I think that happens again. I'm not saying that you shouldn't start a kid young, but maybe we don't have to be as crazy about like just constantly have them going or trying to do all the extra stuff. If they're going to figure it out, they're going to figure it out. And that's another thing too is having that internal drive. Right, because if you, as a parent, are always pushing they got to want it. And studies show that. Right.

And if I'm the one always making them do that, eventually they're going to push back against that. If they want to do it, they're going to figure it out. And what's cool is, like some kids like I've had high school wrestlers do this where this kid is wrestling as a freshman, a sophomore, a junior and like just kind of there, just kind of one of those guys we're talking about, just kind of in the room, and all of a sudden, like something just flips in them and then next thing you know they're like one of the hardest workers in the world and they're winning matches. It's like they had a different, I don't know. It's like um, maturity hit them all of a sudden, right. So I think when a kid really decides that they want it and this would apply to every area of life, if I really want to be a great artist, I'm going to put time into it, I want to be great at playing the piano.

You can force them to do it. So it's kind of like as a coach, you know, I could fear somebody into doing something I could do this, or I should do it. Yeah, Like well, that's only going to last so long. That's like a really short motivational window. And then there's you're got to pull them back.

Yeah, it's so good.

Which can be a scary thing too, cause sometimes parents will say that, well, my kid wants to do this. I'm like, yeah, but and I heard this from a great division one wrestling coach that I'm a good buddies with, and he said this exact words yeah, but your kid also wants to wake up in the morning, eat a stickers bar. You let them do that because that's what they want.

Yeah.

He wants to drive 150 miles an hour. Yes, so there are times where, like, even if a kid wants it, has a lot of drive, you have to pull them back a little bit, or, as a coach, I got to figure out how to do that.

Teach them, yeah, guardrails.

I gotta be like all right, yeah, yeah, here's guardrails, and all right, hey, I love it that you're coming down a little bit, right, because you're burning your body up right now. So and then-.

Yeah, like teaching them how to not get injured and yeah, things like that, and that's the other thing I want to move into is when we're doing all these various sports, especially as you begin to get older, you have to be very intentional about rest and recovery, and that's something we didn't know, you know, even 10 years ago ago near as much about, wow, so something we're making sure we're teaching our athletes all the time control the controllables. What are things you can't control? Your effort, your attitude, your aggressiveness but like what are the physical things you can't control? All right, I should be getting eight to ten hours of sleep, yeah what's that look?

like what time? If here's the time I'm gonna, you know, get up, I have to get for school, so let's go backward. What time do you need to go to bed?

Right.

And then, what is your pre-sleep routine look like? Are you on your device? Are you playing a video game? Are you still like mentally just jacked up and excited when you lay down and now you can't sleep for the next hour, so you end up scrolling on your phone more right? So having good sleep hygiene, controlling that because if I don't sleep well, my body won't recover well, I can think as well. Therefore, I'm not going to practice as well, I'm going to struggle in school becomes a negative cycle.

That's so funny. You said that I was asked the other day by someone what's something I have bought, that what I would have spent more money on than I did, and my answer was my kindle. And I bought a kindle for the sole purpose of it to replace my scrolling on social media right before bed it completely changed my pre-night, my pre-sleep routine, which changed how early I get up in the morning because you know, I kept struggling over and over and I just chalked it up to.

I wasn't disciplined, that. You know, I can't get up in the morning and work out, I don't. You know, I sleep in all the time and I just thought I just sucked. And then I I don't know why it hit me. It was like you know, know what, maybe you don't suck, like, yeah, you suck, but maybe we can do something about that, yeah, and so I switched from scrolling to reading my kindle and it just puts me to sleep.

So I'll start reading like 10 o'clock at night and uh, it's nice. I mean there's not as much blue light on it, but it's also. There's just not as much as much dopamine hits that is it one of those?

uh, like paper looking texture? Yes, yep it's it.

What is that called? It was the uh paper white paper, white paper, white.

Those are so cool. Yes, and.

I think there's still some blue light that comes from it, but it's not nearly as much.

It's not nearly as much, and I noticed a huge change.

Wow, not just my sleep routine, but just my productivity. And you know in business and life because I was getting up so much earlier, and so I told someone, quality probably went up. Yes, and so I told someone. I was like yeah, I paid 120 bucks for that Kindle.

I would have paid a thousand or like just the way it changed my uh, so that's super important. Well, that leads right into another issue that I think this generation is dealing with man, attention spans are getting shorter and shorter Right and think like, if you get up in the morning and the first thing you do is check your phone and you're scrolling social media, you're just like you said, dopamine hits and it's false dopamine, Right, If I go work out I'm getting a real dopamine.

I put in good work for something else. I'm getting a real dopamine hit Now. I'm just getting those little hits all the time Right and my brain's just seeing a million things. Now and I know, even for me, if I do that, it's hard for me to focus back in. So, and kids are just getting on doing that. They're doing it in the morning when they wake up, they're doing it before they go to bed.

And so years ago I wrote, I wrote a blog and I was like, okay, I'm going to keep it between, I'm going to keep it under this number of words. Okay, so I wrote a blog. Then I ended up writing a book and I was like so I read a book that um, Cody Foster had given me. Actually, I remember reading that book and thinking like, man, if I ever wrote a book like this is the format that I want. And again, it was like you don't have to have a long attention span. It was every chapter. It was like a different lesson. There were some guiding questions. At the end, Every chapter was like three or four pages long and it was a leadership book. But so when I wrote my book that's kind of how I did it and I was like, okay, I want this to be like an airplane book where, like you could read it, get off, and you don't have to go back like a week later and like, oh, where was I at?

Because the next chapter is something totally different. Talk to us about that, yeah, so a game changing moves.

His name in the book and really like that was written, for a couple of reasons. One is I've had some tremendous coaches in my life who've given me guidance and wisdom. I wanted to be able to share that and I don't want to get lost, right? I want other people to get to learn those lessons. I want children to get to learn those lessons Also, when I was mowing, and this is something I think is really important lessons Also when I was mowing, and this is something I think is really important.

So had a lot of people I mowed for, but in particular, there's some people that stand out and there were some elderly women I mowed for and I knew, like when I go mow their yard, okay. So when I was like, ms Wade shipped right down the road from me, when I mow Ms Wade's yard, that has to be the last yard of the day, because Msade is a widow, she's elderly, she's lonely. When I get that mowing, what is she going to want to do? She's going to want to talk. So I would go mow her yard and beetle again. Last one of the day is the same thing. I would knock on her front door. She had two chairs on her front porch I would sit in the chair.

Wow, she would walk out with two glasses of ice and two dr peppers andppers. We'd crack them open, that's cool. And then we'd sit there and talk, right. Miss Coffee was another one, miss Jackson was another one, and they would just pour into me Now, at the time and they were all strong believers and I was not a believer at the time Wow, at the time I would just be like, oh man, I just want to go home and get a shower.

I'm going to shower.

I'm so tired and then I want to go out with my buddies, you know. But I also had a heart for my elders and I was like I want to stay here and be respectful and listen. That's cool, Okay. And then now, looking back, I'm like man, they taught me some incredible lessons, so I want to be able to take these lessons I've been taught and put them in the book.

That was one thing. Another thing I want to be able to do is take those same lessons and back them up with scripture. So every chapter has guiding scriptures that connect to that chapter, and then it has guiding questions where you can go in, you can answer these questions, and how do these lessons apply to my own life? So that's why the book was written, or how it was written, and I do a lot of speaking, so it opened up more doors for speaking, which was awesome, and really it opened up just more doors for relationships.

So that was a big thing too. I knew nothing about the book writing process, which is which is funny when you're doing that, because it's also how God works and how just so many people are interconnected. But when I had started blogging, I was doing a lot of leadership stuff and I had a few people tell me, hey, you should write a blog. And I'm like I don't even read blogs, yeah, and. But then I started writing blogs and I would just put them out on facebook and they were due real well, and I would be like in the most random places and somebody didn't really know what come up like, hey, man, that blog was awesome. Talking, I was like, oh, that's cool. So, okay, maybe they're making a little bit of an impact. And then when I wrote the book, this was nice Again, I'd met with Cody Foster and Cody's a good buddy of mine. But I just said, hey, you're like the most connected dude I've ever met. You know anyone who has helped people write books? And he's like, oh, yeah, I got a guy who's helped a couple of New York times bestsellers and then he connects me right away. So here's the funny sort of backstory on this. When I asked Cody this, I was not planning on writing a full-blown book. What happened was I'd been blogging, had some success in those areas. He knew what I blogged about.

I had written a book called not a book. I had written a couple-page thing called the Christmas Chicken. I came home from wrestling practice over Christmas break. My family they do it every year they're making sugar cookies and they're using Christmas cutouts, right. So there's a Santa Claus, there's a Christmas tree, there's a cross, they're making those. And then we had a chicken that did not belong in this. My son.

Luke at the time was like four or something and he wanted to make the Christmas chicken the Christmas chicken.

My wife tells me that when I get home I'm laughing and go down to my office and just hit.

So I wrote a story about the nativity scene, but from the perspective of the animals. It was from mainly the perspective of this chicken. That was right, and so I wrote that and I brought it. It was just literally for my children. I brought it upstairs and I read it and then, when I got done, Laurie was like that might be the best thing you've ever written.

Which was kind of like dang hey, I write all these blogs. I actually tried the leadership stuff put no energy into this, exactly.

That's so funny. And but she was like we need, like I think this should be a kid's book. It should be published. Oh, that's cool. And so when I asked cody that I was like, just like, okay, I'm gonna try to publish this like a christmas little kid's book. Well, I meet with this guy and this guy is hey, cody tells me all about like these blogs you've been writing and all this stuff. I'm going to write a book about leadership and sports and all these things. So I'm like I can't not tell this dude about the Christmas show.

He's holding he's had like two or three like New York times bestsellers, you know, and um, so I end up when I leave that meeting he would. This was over Christmas break. He was like I want you to have everything written and brought back to me by spring break so your entire manuscript. And I was like, okay, he goes. I know it's not a long time in this wrestling season. He said, but we need to put a deadline on it or else you won't do it.

So I came home to Lori, I'm writing a book and I have the next three months to do it and I don't know how to write a manuscript. So I'm like Googling how do you write a manuscript? What kind? Because I'm thinking, if I'm going to give this to a publisher, like, what font do I use? Like what format do I use? So I'm teaching myself all this stuff. This is before ChatGPT. Yes, 100% so. And I didn't have Grammarly or anything.

Yeah, one thing about me is I'm a good writer, but I also grew up in Oklahoma, so I'm an Okie, so sometimes I also write in Okie. I always say like I'm sure there's people in Oklahoma that can spell. I'm not one of them. I'm like I'm a real life thesaurus because I can't spell. And so there's times I'm like, oh, I can't spell, I had to figure out a different word, right. And I'm like if you grew up talking to how we talked and then you learned how the word was spelled, you're like there's no way to spell that right, that's not a word yeah, so that's kind of how I am.

So I wish I would have grammarly back then at least. But I had, you had the little paper clip in microsoft word.

Yeah, hey, I see you. You're trying to write a manuscript here.

Yeah, so I this was, this was good. Okay, because I had the blog, I had data and I could go and look and see which one of these have been open or read the most.

Which of these have done best on social media, which of these go in the construct that I'm looking for in this book and which of these are outliers that don't belong in this book, right? And so I was able to put those things together and so I kind of had a list. I'm like, ok, I can just take each of those blogs and I can put them in that can be a two or three page chapter and format it how I want. So I had not started the book. I sat down the first day of spring break, told laurie you got the kids next couple days and I literally put the entire book together 235 pages in like three days now, I had to go back and then write an introduction, could not figure out introduction.

Um, I, I kept asking people, I kept coming up with all these title names and sending out people. I'm like, oh, like this one, like this one. And they're like, oh, the title doesn't really matter as much, but I'm like, but it does. Yeah, once I figured out the title and then I was able to write the introduction Right, and then I took the manuscript to that guy, I was insanely nervous. I'm like, okay, he's going to tear this apart and be like why am I helping this kid? And uh so, but we met back up and he said this is really good, we need to get it out.

And then he's like you got to find a publisher and I was like, okay, you helped me do that, I don't know how to do that. And I sent out just in the wrestling world, to a bunch of coaches I know and said does anybody have connections to a publisher? This is like a full circle moment. So this guy that I know much better now I only kind of knew of him Then we had met maybe once emails me and says hey, coach, I got a chain that kind of was sent around by some coaches.

There's a guy in Nebraska that runs a company called cross training publishing. They publish almost everything for fellowship Christian athletes. I think this would be, I think you guys would be able to connect. So I emailed that guy and he says, yeah, send me your manuscript, I send it to him, we get on the phone, we get off the phone. I walked downstairs, I told Lori, I was like I think he's going to publish this book, but I'm not sure, like I don't know what. We just the conversation we just had. Long story short, they ended up publishing the book got to go out as an FCA magazine. They got to go to all these different, various places through FCA and then now, of course, I work for FCA full time. Wow, so yeah, so that's kind of how it came about. So that's a journey all in a and then what?

you don't realize, as an author too, is you are responsible for almost all the promotion. Yeah, so I had to learn how to like get on social media and promote. I had to learn how to to get on social media and promote. I had to learn how to use like, utilize connections with people and things like that. So I learned a lot about promotion in that process.

Yeah, I didn't make a ton of money writing the book it wasn't the goal of it anyway and so it became Amazon number one bestseller. Um, it was so. It was number one seller. In wrestling it was like top five in Christian devotionals for a long time and wasn't meant to be a devotional, but it's kind of formatted that way.

Right yeah.

So, anyway, but the number one thing I learned is, like man, utilize your connections that are out there. You already know a lot of people that can really help you out. Don't be afraid to ask, and then sometimes you just got to jump in when you're not ready. You know, those were a couple of lessons I learned from that book.

Well, that's awesome.

Crazy.

I haven't heard that story.

That's that. That is really cool. I've read it, but I've never heard the story.

If you had a parent in front of you that you know had a five-year-old and they hadn't started all of that yet. And you know, and we don't want to waste that what would you say is like the ideal, like if you could start over. This is the way you should do it to not, you know, overbook them too early, but still prepare them in an adequate way. What would you recommend?

Yeah, and I feel like, because we have a sophomore and a senior, my daughters are and then my boys are younger, I feel like we've done a pretty good job with the boys. Not only we did a bad job with the girls either on this, but I reached out to a lot of coaches and coaches that had children and say what's your perspective and thought process on this? How do we do this? I don't want to burn them out, but you also don't want them to miss out on opportunities. Um, I say, get them involved. Right, I'm going to use soccer as an example. My boys love soccer. There's lots of soccer around here. Throw them in like just a little rec league, let them play. Now the problem and this is a real problem let's just say they play rec for two years and then you realize like okay, they're not going to get much better. Like doing this Because it's truly rec. It's truly beginners.

Okay.

Then you have to kind of transition to like a tryout team where you go and try out and then they're going to play for that team. But I would say, still do that. Still put them in those type of arenas. Right, the wrestling there's a lot of youth wrestling clubs around here. You can go put them in that basketball you could play in a power league, then you could move them up and go play at sports zone, those type of things. So I say, still put them in those things, let them do it. But don't hear, this is a big thing, it can't be, it can't be their world Right, and this is something still that we talk about all the time. So I still have to deal with is my identity is in Christ. My identity is not in success in sport. Right.

And I still deal with, because I grew up being a very good athlete and I grew up putting a lot of my identity in my success and so when you are achieving and you're doing well, you're on top of the world, and when you don't do well, you just crash Right.

So, even as a coach, I catch myself. You know. I want sports to be a way that I can help kids become so. This is my favorite definition of a coach a person who takes someone from where they currently are to where they want or need to go. Where they want to go, their desired outcomes or their goals, but also where they need to go.

They don't know where they need to go.

We're going to help them get there.

So, as a coach, it's one of my jobs and then, but I want them to realize, like your, if you want to stay title or don't want to stay title, that does not determine your value. Okay, now, we put so much on outcome here in America. Okay, in all of our sports. So that's something I think is really important to teach the kids. Hey, we're playing this, we're having fun, we want to develop and get better. But, bro, dad, you're freaking out on the sidelines and your kid's seven years old and I have. I have five or six kids that are wrestling in college right now. From my high school team, we've sent tons of kids to go compete in college. I've never had a college coach call me and ask me how did this kid do when they were seven? How did this kid do when they were 10?

They want to know. Okay, coach, I've already researched and I see they're a high school state placer. Okay, that's great, I know they're a good wrestler. Tell me about their work ethic. Tell me about their personality. Tell me what kind of team player they are. Tell me about their family. Right, right, they want to know those types of things. What kind of student are they? What are their, what's their GPA? And a lot of times we've already given them those types of things.

But those are the things that they're asking. So when you got a parent who is putting a lot of pressure on a kid and I've seen and this is something we constantly have to deal with a kid that comes in who has done a lot of sport, but they are so afraid to make a mistake, or so afraid to lose and again, so that I had this discussion with my parents.

So I'm tying this all back into when you got a five-year-old and they're starting, let them go play these things, but let them understand like it's play it's fun we're developing our skill sets.

Later on down the road it's going to get more serious. Let's still not take the fun out of it. You know, even like at higher levels. And I tell kids, go back to when you very first started wrestling, or go back to the very first start of this sport. Why did you do it? How did you feel? Right? Let's keep some enjoyment in it, but it gets so serious at such a young age right now. Don't let it do that.

If you catch yourself freaking out on the sidelines, you better check yourself. You better walk away, go breathe, do something and realize, because perception is reality. So this is like a speech I kind of give a lot of our wrestling parents and we're blessed, we have a lot of great parents, we really do but I give them this speech. So I say, okay, listen, I know you love your athlete, we love your athlete, we all want your athlete to succeed, right? But perception is reality. So when your athlete does well or they win, if you're high-fiving them and hugging them and telling them they're awesome, that feels like love. If your athlete loses and you yell at them or gripe at them, or you walk away and give them a cold shoulder and don't talk to them for an hour. Wow, that feels like a lack of love. Right.

Now, outcome is tied to does my mom or dad love me Right? Right Now, like man, I'm so afraid to make a mistake because if I lose or mess up, I'm going to get chewed out on the way home. I'm going to get chewed out immediately or they're not going to talk to me, they're not going to love me anymore. Right, that's a lot of pressure. Can you imagine, like as a kid, like that's what you're feeling, right, and again, mom and dad don't mean for that to be the case, right.

They love their kid yeah, but this is how the kid perceives it. So we've got to tell them. Like you have to make sure that you let them know, like, hey, I love you, I love watching you compete, great effort out there, those types of things, maybe on the car ride home, cause there's been several studies about that. Like for athletes, like the worst time is the car ride home.

That's when they're getting chewed out, right. They would rather stay with the team and not have to go deal with that. So it is. Let them bring it up and then have a discussion. Let the coaches coach, coach. So when my kids play soccer, I don't say a word. One. Like I didn't grow up playing soccer, I don't know a lot about soccer, have I learned? My daughter played for nine years and my boys have now played for a lot of years. Do you know what offsides is?

Yes, it took me a long time to figure that out, so confusing I said how's that offsides?

But I don't say a word when my kids play, not a word. And if the team scores, whether it's my kid or somebody else, I'll clap just like everybody else. I just said they're completely silent. Okay, every now and then my wife would get all excited, and so sometimes I'd be like, hey, they've reached the bottom of my leg.

Like, like, cause she's like coaching our kid on the field or something.

She oh sure, sure, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're excited.

You love your kids.

Yeah, yeah but.

You want them to do well, yeah, so I saw this a few years ago. I thought it was hilarious. We're playing some team and this is like second they're like second graders, right and this kid, he gets burned a couple of times and he had a parent on the sideline that just kept yelling at him. He finally there was his mom and he was like stop coaching me, that's not what my coach told me to do, I'm gonna do what coach said to do. And like ran back out there, wow, and I was like man and it was. It was just that a tournament we were at, so I don't know who the team was or who the kid was or the mom, but I was like man, that's, that's good right there, because like mom's got to realize that his coach is coaching him right, let his coach.

So even if you knew and again I don't know about- soccer.

But even if you knew and again, I don't know about soccer, but even if you knew a lot about the sport, let the coach coach. And then, if you do know about the sport and you want to work with your kids at home, cool, work with them at home. Right, we can play catch with the football, we can do some skills, we can whatever it is, but it just it can't be everything, especially when they're little. And if it is everything, it's going to cause a lot of pressure, they're going to get burned out, they're not going to want to do it anymore or they're still doing it but they're not enjoying it, right, yeah, and again, we don't always enjoy everything. We talk about that feelings being fickle.

But man, if I'm playing a sport and dedicating four months to it, hopefully I enjoy it somewhat, hopefully I'm motivated and want to do this thing and not doing it because other people expect me to do it. So I think when we're looking at kids, those are big things. Let them know you love them, support them, give them opportunities. And then you also got to look at your family priorities. What are our priorities If missing church every single Sunday is and we've had to miss a lot of Sundays because we're gone for our kids. So there's like man, is that work for our family finances? Can I put this kid on the soccer?

team in this league. Can I put them in this volleyball league If it doesn't work for our family financially? We just can't do it Right. I know you want to give your kid opportunities, but I promise you they're going to find a way if they want to be good. So that's all there is to it.

I have a question before maybe we get into end up with some rapid fires. You read a lot, you consume a ton of wisdom and you clearly just have a wealth of knowledge to share. What are some of the top books that you've read? Gang, let's go three.

Okay, cause I'm sure you could give me hundreds, yeah.

So my favorite author, probably of all time, is Andy Andrewers. Right, andy Enders is incredible and I don't know if you guys are writing his books, but it's funny because when he talks about his books he goes people don't like he's a New York times bestseller but he's like people don't know how to label my books. Some call them historical fiction, some put them in leadership, some put them in business. So he writes a lot of stories with historical fiction in there, but they just have principles of success.

Wait, did he do the traveler's gift? Yes, oh, that book is amazing.

Yes, so my, my number one from Andy Andrews is the noticer, and so there's three of them, right, I would put all three of those. Well, let's just go with the first one. The noticer is an incredible book and it's just all about like perspective, okay, I would say, woven within a great story, and it's one of those ones. Sometimes you're reading a leadership book, you're reading a deep book, and like you're getting value out of it, like you can only read two pages at a time and you're just like I'm about to fall asleep, right.

So his books are like watching a movie yeah, it's almost like you're reading a fiction book where you're just like locked in and you're learning so much. So the noticer is incredible. The traveler's gift is incredible.

Those are two really, really good books. Um, I would say John Maxwell's. I believe it's called 16 laws of communication. That's a book in the last couple of years that has impacted me. So because I do a lot of speaking and I also believe that communication is key in any sort of leadership. Now, he gives a lot there about when you're actually speaking in public and things like that. But If you are going to run any sort of organization or if you're going to have a great relationship with your wife, communication is key. So that's a very, very good book. I would put that up there in the mix the Men we Need.

Yeah, in the last year or so has been one of the better books I've read. So again, there's lots of books I could go, but I would just say like, overall, for me is the noticer and then the last couple of years. Those are ones that have really stood out to me the men we need.

who wrote that?

It is Brant Hanson, brant Hanson yeah.

That one's funny too. Yeah, he's a funny dude, he is a funny.

he is a great writer.

Yeah, Does, I'm trying to think of the concept. I'm trying to think of the concept. It came from you. I think you read it somewhere the two chairs concept. Yes, is that a?

book? Yes, okay, so I'm glad you brought that up. Yes, bob Bodine. If you guys don't know who Bob Bodine is, go look him up. I love this dude. So a long time ago, through a different business opportunity I was in, we were down in Texas and I got to hear Bob Bodine speak at this leadership and business conference and he was incredible and so he wrote a book called the Power of who and that book was it blew up and did real well. So here's the cool thing about Bob Bodine. It's a name a lot of people don't know, but he has a company I think it's called Bodine Eastman. He is sort of a headhunter and like job is if university of alabama and he mostly does sports. If they need a new head football coach, he is the guy they go to.

So he's the guy that put deon sanders in colorado. He's the guy that put bud selig in major league baseball as the commissioner like he is behind the scenes on all kinds of cool things, so I got to hear them talk about the power of who and just a real quick synopsis of that.

People say like, okay, there's five degrees of separation, or six degrees of separation or whatever Power of who just basically says and it's kind of like I was talking about in my book everything you need to be successful is probably right around you, your friends. So you have like true friends, then you have like true friends, then you have like acquaintances, and then you might even have people on the outside who are willing to help you. They're a fan of what you do and you don't know it. They can help you succeed. So Bob wrote that and then he wrote two chairs.

Two chairs is an awesome concept and I've been re-implementing this in my life just recently. So what two chairs is is having a conversation with you and God. You literally pull up a chair when you're praying. That's God's chair. This is your chair, right, because I know I'm very guilty of this. I try to pray throughout the day various times, but let's just say I'm doing some morning prayer. It might be a sort of a rote morning prayer, like giving God a little thanks, praying for my family, whatever, and then I'm out, right.

I'm on to doing the next thing, and I don't sit and listen to God, and so I did this pretty well for a while. Like everything else in life, like you need to have consistency right. If you do it a couple of times, you're creating a habit. If you don't do it a couple of times, you're creating a new habit right.

I got away from it. So the week before, through my podcast, I had written out here's all these people I want to bring on the podcast and I haven't done my podcast in a year and a half but I've been doing that. He was on kind of the wish list. I don't know Bob in person. I've just heard him, I've read his books. So I reach out to him on Instagram, send him a DM. He doesn't follow me. I follow him, right, so it's just going to go to request and say I would love to have you on my podcast. He writes back and says let's do it. I'm like what? In the world.

Okay, so gives me his phone number, we get on the phone and then we schedule it. We end up and we're Zooming. So we talked for 30 minutes before we start recording and Bob says you know what? I don't do this for a lot of people and he goes. I don't know why. When I read your, your message, he goes something to me just said do that podcast.

Wow All right, cool.

So we do this amazing podcast. We get done. He stays on for like an hour and just pours into me. I'm talking, like if you meet Bob Bodine or you talk to him you'll walk away. Just he is the most energetic gonna pour into me. I mean, like I was, like I had to go work out for three hours after Bob Bodine you know it was like so hyped yeah so hyped.

He's one of those guys we're getting off of the Zoom Again. He's just been pouring into me. This goes back to his the power of who. So he's like, yeah, he's like, yeah, I got a, got a lunch here in like 30 minutes. And, um, it's a guy I meet with every single thursday and I'm like, oh really, he's like, yeah, he's like it's this guy, tanner gardner. I go what he says, tanner gardner.

And I said, remember earlier, I said yeah they're wrestling for stanford yeah so tanner at the time was an associate athletic director at Rice University. That's where Bob lives down there. I had no idea he knows Tanner. Tanner doesn't know that, he knows me. Now, right, the power of who, like he goes it is less than six degrees or five degrees.

And he had literally just been talking to me about that. And then he's like going to lunch with Tanner. That's funny. I spent years training in wrestling. Wow, I'm like what in the world? So a couple weeks ago, before our state tournament, I'm like you know, and I'm nervous as a coach man. Like I know the potential our team has and as a coach I try to be a real source of confidence for my athletes. Cool, collective confidence, right Feelings and the way you feel is contagious.

If you're nervous, they're going to get nervous right. The way you feel is contagious. If you're nervous, they're going to get nervous Right. So even when I am a little bit nervous, I don't want the kids to feel that, right.

So I want them to be around me and be like I can go out and crush anybody, right, when I'm standing around coach parks. I want them to feel that way. So, but behind the scenes, sometimes you're worried about things, right? So text Bob, leaves me a voice message, gives me some great advice. We ended up getting the phone talking for a little bit and then we're texting again and he was like two chairs, like go and talk to God about this stuff. Go and ask him God, what do I need to do? Right, I was like I've not been doing that, so I since then have. And you know he was like, and actually just did a little Instagram reel the other day on this. But we should be like you can feel energy, you can feel passion in people, right, like when somebody is passionate about something maybe the Legos, I don't know be the most random thing, I don't like Legos but if you're passionate about Legos, like I like hearing you talk about it, it's just like, oh man, you're into it, Right.

But at the same time, like if we're going to put energy into stuff we have to refill, we got to. You got to put gas in your car, right. If our battery is running low on our phone, we've got to charge it. So I've really been dedicating time in the morning to have a chair pulled up on the other side of my desk.

Praying but then stopping and listening and it's amazing how much more recharged I feel walking away from that. Then, whenever I don't spend time listening to God, when I just pray and run right now it's like pray, spend time. Actually ask God, what do you want me to do today? Um, psalm 90, 17, okay, talks about the favor of the Lord, but it says establish the work of our hands. If I you know, let the favor of the Lord be upon us. Establish the work for hands. Establish the work for hands says it twice. Yes, I want God's favor, but I also want God to establish the work of my hands right.

So I can ask God what do you want me to do today? And then let him establish it before I step out, so that kind of re-energized you. Anyway, all that goes back to the two chairs and the power, who was all written by Bob Bodine. A lot of wisdom in that.

That's so cool. It's been years since we've connected.

But when I sit down in the morning to pray, I do that. Sometimes it's not like I go grab a chair from the kitchen and put it right in front of me, but sometimes I'm sitting on the couch and I'm like looking at the other side of the couch. It's like that's where the Lord is in this conversation, and it's so hard to sit and listen. But man, so many people pray and myself included, especially in a world where we're so rushed and trying to go on to the next thing. You know, I got to spend my time with the Lord. That way I can go do my thing. It's like, you know, taking time to just listen. It's so powerful, it is.

It's so good.

Yeah.

It reminds me of Martin Luther, famous said said uh, I have so much to do today, I need to pray for at least three hours yeah.

Yeah, yeah, like we, we miss how much we really get from that. You know, yeah, it's so good, man. Well, this was, this was amazing, this was so good and, uh, we probably could keep going for two more hours. Honestly, it's so good, um, but we like to end with a few rapid fire questions and just kind of, you know, just impulse response. First thing that comes to your mind Um, what's a favorite restaurant in Topeka?

mind um what's a favorite restaurant to pika, I would say overall I'm gonna go, probably iron rail, iron rail, let's go around.

Yeah, although I love mexican food and I'll that we have so many good mexican, food.

Yeah, I don't necessarily have a favorite. Yeah on mexican food. So all right, uh how many potholes did you hit on the way over here today?

Man 27, 27.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm on the low side. On the low side, your odometer rotates every time. Yeah, I spent a lot of time swerving. Yeah, are you a coffee guy?

Not really, but I am a caffeine guy.

Okay. Do you have like a coffee shop you go to or a place you go to?

Um, so you know, it's one of those things, like with the fca, I get to go have coffee with people right yeah and um, I don't know man, so right, I don't even know what the name of it is. Right across from washburn university there's a little coffee shop right there coffee bar, yeah coffee bar. Yeah, yeah, so I have the coffee bar because a lot of times I do a lot of work with washburn university students and their football team and stuff like that. So I'll just go directly across to that's awesome bar, that's a good one.

Um, yeah, I don't. I don't have a consistent.

Wait. So what do you mean?

you're a caffeine guy, are you like energy drink guy, or so for years, um, for years, I took spark, which was some avicare, and so it's like a mental focus, energy drink switched up. And there's one. There's a company called X Endurance and they have a product called Focus and I love that product. So Alpha GPC and I'm also a nutrition nerd, but Alpha GPC and caffeine and B vitamins anyway. So when I wake up in the morning I drink a product called Zil from a whole different company, and then about 10 minutes later I drink X Endurance's Focus. I probably consume right around 400 milligrams caffeine a day, sometimes maybe closer to five, but usually 400.

It helps me focus so much and I know that when. This is why I very first started drinking Spark. But when I was 19, I got introduced to Spark, would drink it like for athletic purposes but started realizing like, okay, I'm two pages into this reading assignment or this book and I can actually remember what I read, whereas my whole life it had been like two pages in I've already forgotten, was thinking about 12 other things, had to go back and start at the beginning. Then I realized like for me, caffeine it's really benefits mentally.

What's your opinion on Celsius, the energy drink?

I don't know. So I just I have this immediate, because I do love nutrition. I just have this immediate and my daughter drinks Celsius, Um, some of those other drinks. I don't drink anything out of a can. I just feel like if it comes in a can like that, it just probably can't. It might have good nutrition, I don't know what are these other ones come in powder form.

Oh, do you put it in water? Yeah, I throw it in water. Yeah, so I just throw it in, like a shaker cup shake it up and down. Yeah, gotcha.

And yeah. So I just feel like, okay, if it's going out to the mass public and if I can get it at like the gas station, it probably doesn't have the greatest nutrition in it, Right? And so that's why I don't personally and they might, I've literally never had one.

I don't know anything about that, yeah, yeah, so well, chad park's not approved so well.

This reminds me. This reminds me of a story. Do you guys remember when itunes like you, all of your music was listened to through itunes? And uh, when I was in college this dates me, but when I was in college I heard a story of it was a friend, of a friend who was gonna pull an all-nighter to finish some paper or something like that. And you know, college students would like use adderall and stuff to like try to focus, yeah and uh. And so this guy was gonna it was about to pull an all-nighter takes an adderall and is like, while he's waiting for it to kick in, is like deciding what music he's gonna play. And if you remember from back in the day, itunes it was like your library would be like all disorganized because you would like download things from LimeWire and the names would be all messed up and stuff like that. So he starts like correcting the names of the songs to, like, you know, organize it better, and he spends the next six hours organizing his iTunes library and doesn't do anything on his paper.

He was locked in, yeah. So it's like yeah, man Brutal.

Cool If you're doing a home project, you go into a home Depot, Menards or Lowe's home Depot or Lowe's. My man yeah, let's go. We do need to start keeping tallies. We do, we do, um, I'm. What is one thing that Topeka is missing. If you could bring something to Topeka restaurant a thing to do what's something that you'd you'd bring?

wrestling stadium. Yes, yes.

So no, I would say and I think this is just because of where our kids are at right now, but not only so. I've I've talked to a lot of leaders in Topeka about these various things Okay, it doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense for us to invest a ton in like a lot of big time soccer, because can we outdo Kansas city and soccer? Probably not.

I mean, like our kids are playing at Garmin and they're playing. You know there's like four or five different complexes they play at. That are amazing, Right, but it would be really great if we have like a full-blown soccer complex here right, so we didn't have to travel to kc every single week yeah and you know you travel to kc and you're playing and you play against another topeka team, right, you know?

or same thing my daughter, when she's doing travel volleyball, she's playing all these different places. There's no big place for us to play volleyball here so it'd be cool if we had some sort of sports complex, and I love sport zone.

It's just way smaller, right yeah right, we had something where we could host big tournaments and do things like that yeah just if you look at and you know we're from the shawnee heights area but, like out at the lake, we have incredible baseball and softball out there and you can see like in our school incredible baseball, softball and seaman has good baseball.

Everyone plays at the lake yeah we're not having to go to kc ever so it's no, it's amazing facility, there's incredible yeah, so I would love to see something like that, but I don't know that it financially makes a lot of sense for this, for the city or even private investors to do that. When it's like man, can we actually outdo kc in soccer?

so maybe we should well, I don't know if we need to outdo. Yeah, I mean, we just need something that's like workable. Yeah, you know, I mean because I think the lake is a good point, like that's working and that's benefiting the city, so why wouldn't something in this other sports be similar? Yeah, yeah, okay, I think maybe it's the last one. Yeah, favorite date night. Like, what are you doing with your wife? Where are you guys going?

All right, this is this. So I date night like what are you doing with your wife? Where are you? Guys going all right, this is this. So I would say uh we're probably going to eat somewhere and I'm gonna ask lori she's gonna say wherever you want, right, and then so I'm gonna have to make the decision on that. So where we're gonna go out to eat, but mcdonald's no you said wherever I'm going so I'm probably gonna go mexican or someplace downtown uh-huh, which mexican place you're going to go?

Mexican or someplace downtown? Which Mexican place are you going to, man? So I can't even think, and you might even know, cause it's over close. I, justin's parents, live, like right across the street from me, so, um, it used to be. It's right over by the old white lakes mall, I don't know what it's called now, though. It was a different. Mexican restaurant.

I think it's el ranchito, el ranchito.

Okay, I really it's funny because, like, when I'm thinking about places I got to eat, I'm typically thinking what's on the west side, what's downtown right? I kind of forget about a place that's literally like yeah two miles from my house.

Yeah, yeah every time I eat there. I love that place, so that's a good I. It's awesome inside there, so that's a great date night place so we would probably do that. I'm not a big fan of like going to the movies or anything, so you don't actually get to set and talk. For us having four children, having the opportunity for just us to to say talk, is a great thing.

So, that's probably what we're going to do now. This is funny, but there have been times where like our day and this is not a true date night, but you know this, when you have a lot of kids or you're just super busy Sometimes it's like we're just going to go to the grocery store and shop.

Right, I'm just going to walk and talk and shop and it's like, it's almost, like it almost ends up being a date night Now.

I am also a homebody person, so I would love to just sit with my wife and just watch a movie and have a snack and just hang out.

Yeah, that's awesome. Man Love it.

Chad. Thanks for being with us today. This is gosh. We could have talked for two hours.

You guys ask great questions, so thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

It was an honor man it was great, excited about what you're doing in our city and we part two someday yeah Cool, thank you, yeah, you bet. Where can people find you on social media? So?

I try to make everything simple. So coach Chad parks. So if you're on Facebook, all of us old people it's just Chad parks, but on Instagram it's coaches at coach Chad parks. I'm not a Twitter guy. I have one for our wrestling program, but not a Twitter guy your.

Tik TO your TikTok account.

I actually do have a TikTok account. I hadn't been on there in like four years, so during COVID this is like a little side thing, like I'm a pretty good dancer.

Yeah, that's right, I was about to make a joke about dance videos. Yeah, I can break a little bit.

I knew that. Yeah, so my daughter's got me to do a dance video with them and then they're like dad, like you should do some more of these videos. Oh, heck yeah. And then I actually literally took my tick tock off and I redownloaded it like a month ago, just because they kept sending me videos and I couldn't open them.

Yeah, so I redownloaded it to watch some of the funny videos they were sending me my girls.

That's awesome. Yeah, so and then yeah, so I just tried to keep everything. A website which was the old podcast, cool cool, cool alright man thank you so much thank you.