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Nuance is a podcast of The Collaborative helping Christians to faithfully live out their faith in their work. We recognize most of life is not lived in black and white but rather lived in the gray, lived in the nuance.
You can find more, including complementary spiritual exercises, at www.collaborativeorlando.com/nuance.
I have heard it described like the microwave society, right, where we all want it now. We want our team to win now. We want to get paid now. We wanna play now. Like, I wanna hit my numbers and I want my group to be successful now.
Speaker 1:Like, so it's a little bit of indicative of our larger society. Right?
Speaker 2:In the world of sports today, names, images, likeness have become assets for collegiate athletes. The transfer portal has rewritten loyalty. Marketing has become decisive as metrics, and young athletes are being asked to make adult decisions before they have adult formation. So the question is no longer whether sports shape culture. The question I think is what kind of people does it form in the process?
Speaker 2:So today, we're talking about faith, work and moral presence in the modern sports economy. How to lead with integrity, a system moving at full speed, and what it means to be faithful when the incentives at times point elsewhere. Well, welcome to Nuance where we seek to be faithful in the public square. I'm Case Thorpe and I am honored today to be joined by my friend, Ben Godwin. Ben, welcome.
Speaker 1:Case, good morning. It's great to be with you and a good time for the conversation with the College Football National Championship just wrapping up
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:On the night.
Speaker 2:Well, we're recording this a bit before you actually hear it but yes, that was this week and I was rooting for Indiana and they did it. It's so much
Speaker 1:They did it. What a what a team. What a game and what a team.
Speaker 2:Well, Cinderella series are always wonderful. How's that new baby?
Speaker 1:We got about five hours consecutive last night, so I'm perked up and ready to go. Yeah. She's eight weeks old today. Wow. So we we have chaos at home, but it's a blessing and wonderful.
Speaker 2:Well, friends, the Godwin's have five children under eight. Five children. Good night, dude. You people need a TV. Well, listeners and viewers, let me tell you a bit about Ben.
Speaker 2:He works at the intersection of sports performance, marketing, and institutional leadership. Through his work with a company called Catapult, he's had a front row seat to some of the most significant changes in the sports world, including NIL, the transfer portal, athlete branding, and the increasing professionalization of college athletes. He attended the University of Alabama for his undergraduate degree in accounting and earned an MBA there. So as I said, his wonderful wife and he have five children. Let me encourage you, share this episode on your social media, leave us a comment, it really helps us to reach even further with this content.
Speaker 2:So Ben, let's start with a little bit about your company, Catapult. It's based out of Australia, correct?
Speaker 1:Correct. Our our home office financially is Melbourne, Australia.
Speaker 2:That's
Speaker 1:where the company was founded about twenty years ago. But through growth, acquisition, we're publicly listed on the AUX, the Australian Stock Exchange. Okay. But just through growth and acquisition of other companies, and the growth in sports. It's grown across the And and now our our leadership headquarters is here in America, and in North America, in Boston.
Speaker 1:And then we have an office in Orlando.
Speaker 2:What all does Catapult do and then what are your particular responsibilities?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Catapult globally focuses on sports data, sports technology, bringing in data points off off coaching points off wearables that players wear, heart rates, motion detectors
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Footage that comes in, imagery that comes in, aggregating and then using that content to help coaches, help strength coaches, trainers, athletes evolve, media develop, distribute content. So basically aggregating data, imagery, video, creating insights, creating value from that both live and then post live after games or meets happen. And we have about 5,000 customers around the globe, all sports, soccer, hockey, American football. So yeah, we're living and breathing it twelve months a year.
Speaker 2:Now you mentioned the wearables. Do y'all do the design and the production of the equipment?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yep. It's the But yes. But the the secret sauce is the software that pulls the data off of the wearable devices and then it could be up to 800 data points a second that you're pulling.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:But coaches need that boiled down to, alright, tell me the five things. This player, he's tired. He's not back from his injury. Hey, you know, after five plays, he needs a break. You hear the word load management a lot k.
Speaker 1:In sports today, helping players get the right amount of rest and balance. Well, that's not just a coach judging that. It's data telling data scientists and they're telling the coaches, hey, here's how we need to manage to to optimally perform.
Speaker 2:Unreal. So y'all do both professional sports, collegiate. Are you into high school yet?
Speaker 1:A little bit. Yeah. There there are high schools doing this and signing up every day and it's really driven by high school football. Sure. Pretend that there's 15,000 high school football teams in the country and eventually it will become with player health and safety and the focus on taking care of the young athletes, especially in the game of American football.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Don't I understand that you also at your company stand at that intersection between the athlete NIL and perhaps contracts with Nike and others?
Speaker 1:Yeah. We do. So we have three divisions. Right? I mentioned bringing in footage and data and imagery from the venue, from the stadium.
Speaker 1:So part of that is used to help coaches. How do we make better game plans? You know, the NFL team's preparing for the playoffs and their coaching staffs. It's it's for trainers and strength coaches. How do we prepare in the off season?
Speaker 1:How do we better Mhmm. Train our athletes? And then the third division is driven by media. Okay. So we have all this content.
Speaker 1:How do we help schools, athletes, teams create value beyond just the live game that you just watched? What about all that content that we've captured? Now how do we go create greater distribution or monetization with with the content?
Speaker 2:And so your particular role and then what drew you to this?
Speaker 1:Well, I I started out as you mentioned in heading on a track for to be an accountant and I needed something a little more broad that was a little too a little while it was a little too specific for me. Right. So I While I was at Alabama, was fortunate to work in their athletic department in their football office and I got was around this helping their coaches with video and data
Speaker 2:You were not alignment. As I guess. You were not alignment.
Speaker 1:That's right. I So I had to find another role. And after that, I I kinda launched into a track of some sports business. I took an internship at the SEC, the Southeastern Conference
Speaker 2:Oh, good.
Speaker 1:In Birmingham and stayed on their staff for a few years. Went from there to Major League Baseball and began to get into media there. I worked in their television group. Okay. And then this company recruited me from there and we really So to your point, I work in our division.
Speaker 1:Our division here in Orlando really focuses on the media and specifically here in The US in the NCAA space. We Our focus is content from the major conferences and the major schools and the major media members that broadcast NCAA sports and create content here in The US.
Speaker 2:And you run the is it the Florida office or The US? Do y'all cover
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's it's our licensing and media division here and it's based in Orlando.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, I am glad for that. Not only do Ben and I share the same church, but we share the same woman that cuts our hair.
Speaker 1:That's
Speaker 2:Yeah. We'll have to do a whole episode on Becky. Becky's a character. I love Becky.
Speaker 1:She could be a character.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:That's right. Every every two weeks, I check to see if the case has been there before me.
Speaker 2:Well, I should go I should do a whole episode on Becky. She would really give us a a new look on life. Well
Speaker 1:k. She would have a lot to say about my crew. We have to take a 04:00 appointment on Saturdays because I normally come in with three or four
Speaker 2:children in
Speaker 1:tow to get there. So we have to make sure there's no crowd and like Yes. It's kinda cleared out.
Speaker 2:Well and I love Becky, she's not cheap so you're spending a house payment on those haircuts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. I gotta sell a lot of content.
Speaker 2:What do you love about working for Catapult?
Speaker 1:I, you know, I grew up in a sports family. My father was a coach, my sister's a college coach, my brother's a college coach. And so I I've grown up around it but I didn't play in college so but I wanted to be around sports and I always was drawn to business. So it's the mix of you're touching sports, you're touching competition and and the games that you see. Rake, one of our major clients is the cause for a playoff like I mentioned that that finished as prior to us taping this.
Speaker 1:There's our clients and we're helping and Mhmm. But it's a competitive part of our culture here in The US.
Speaker 2:Were you in Miami?
Speaker 1:I did not but we sent some we sent some customers down. Oh, man. We were able to help out some customers. Unfortunately, they were all Miami fans.
Speaker 2:I should've called you.
Speaker 1:They were happy to be there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, Josh Hammonds who leads worship at our church, he's a hardcore Indiana fan. And he actually went to the Peach Bowl in Atlanta with his son. And we were talking about, hey, let's figure out how we get in the the game in Miami and take the train down there. But he looked and like the nosebleed seats were something like $2,000 which is
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:Beyond the budget.
Speaker 1:I saw somewhere where they said, this game is beating Taylor Swift concert and price per ticket.
Speaker 2:So Good night.
Speaker 1:That's saying something.
Speaker 2:Wow. Wow. Well, next time there's a big tournament, I'll know who to call.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So clearly, collegiate sports has radically changed in a very short period of time. Before we get into how it's impacted things, just explain to folks that may not fully understand. What is NIL and and what is the portal?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, there's always been name image likeness. Right? And it's a player's image as it's shown in an image, a photo or footage or an association of their name on a jersey or a t shirt or merchandise. What changed was about five years ago, the NCAA overnight due to litigation and an onslaught of lawsuits and pressure, pressure from the first state, California and Gavin Newsom was the first governor to begin to put in state legislation and then several states, Florida followed pressure from states on the NCAA, they did a complete one eighty.
Speaker 1:For years and years and years for the history of NCAA, former student athletes could their images could be used, but while they was considered while they were a current student, they could not commercialize their image and likeness. Okay. But that all changed one summer five years ago in July when overnight it became completely legal. Wow. Without a lot of guardrails, without a lot of guidance, without a grace period, it kinda became wide open.
Speaker 1:And all of a sudden one day athletes were promoting tennis shoes, sweet tea, car dealerships, and it kinda opened Pandora's box. And then to your second question, in parallel the NCAA also because of pressure on creating a more favorable landscape for athletes opened up the transfer portal. It used to be athletes could transfer one time or athletes could transfer and they had to sit out a year before they could be eligible at their next school. But when the portal came in to play, it basically became free agency overnight. You can transfer as many times as you want, basically.
Speaker 1:If you meet certain criteria, you can go in the portal and it's basically like a free market of players and you could could shop around. And so that just for this period, that just closed last Friday for for this year. So for the football season, football players that just played, the portal was just open for two weeks. And so you saw from American College Football division one, almost 4,000 students went into the portal this time that just closed. So it's it's very active and you're seeing teams like we mentioned Indiana who just rebuilt their roster very quickly Yeah.
Speaker 1:Using the portal.
Speaker 2:Well, and my mind's blanking on the Miami quarterback.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Beck.
Speaker 2:Yes. I mean, he's wasn't he at FSU and Georgia?
Speaker 1:He was Georgia and
Speaker 2:In Miami.
Speaker 1:Miami. And then in Mendoza, Indiana was Cal and then California, Berkeley and then Indiana.
Speaker 2:What from your seat in all of this do you think most outsiders misunderstand or don't get?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think it's overall, it's a positive for athletes. Athletes. Right? You look back on the eighties and the nineties when they would be selling jerseys in a bookstore and it would have the quarterback's number and the school and the bookstore and others are monetizing, but they're insinuating, hey, this is this player's jersey, but the athlete's not getting any of that money.
Speaker 1:Right. I I think But because of how it was implemented, it also without proper guidelines and a proper overarching structure, does create some of a feeding frenzy. It kinda promotes some greed amongst boosters and teams and there's a negative side to it. Think the net positive is athletes should have some of these opportunities. They should have some more freedom to move around if their coach leaves or if they get a better opportunity, right?
Speaker 1:That's capitalism in America. Yeah. It just normally other leagues, other business ventures, there's guardrails or there's structures where it's not as wide open as it currently is today. And it will get fixed over time. It's just the public is witnessing and fan bases are witnessing the growing pains and especially in American college sports, how it's evolving year over year.
Speaker 2:And as I understand it, it can get abused when alumni will say, hey, here's a big chunk of change to throw in an NIL account and use that as leverage to attract that athlete.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And there's a lot of gray area there. Fortunately for my group, we kinda touch mainstream NIL. We don't get involved in some of those backhaul deals that's but that clearly seems to be happening and I think leads to bad taste with a lot of fan bases and schools and it just brings out some of the ugly side. Thankfully, our group is normally because we're working with content, a player's video highlight, a player's photograph, a player's
Speaker 2:Really?
Speaker 1:Data it may be. We're It's actually true NIL. So the parts where we touch NIL is a portion of our business but the parts that we touch are always actually very legitimate and what it should be. So you asked, my opinion overall is favorable because we're normally touching positive sides of it and not involved in the some of the back haul stuff. We're normally operating on Main Street with it.
Speaker 2:Does it get as granular as at the national football competition? Everybody on that field got a little bit of the TV money because they're jerseying It their
Speaker 1:is set up now. That's a new part of the I mentioned it's continuing to evolve. Right? Like there used to be multiple transfer windows. Now there's just one.
Speaker 1:There used to be the schools could not share money. Now they can share a portion of their money with the athletes. That's new this year. And so to your point, every athlete that played in the college ball playoff is getting a portion of that school's TV money. Wow.
Speaker 1:And so it is evolving for the better. To your point, some of the there are some negative sides. Like one of the negative sides, right, when you think about the college model versus the NFL, the NFL there's 32 teams and there's 53 men on the team. So it's pretty limited the rosters in the total universe. Well, in FBS alone, there's over a 130 teams with a 100 and plus players on each.
Speaker 1:So it's a And not all those schools and teams are equal. So it's a wider variance of volume and variance of the haves and the have nots.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:And then also in the NFL, you have to be a certified agent to represent a player. You have to go through certification, you have to be approved by the NFL. In college, case you could put it on your Instagram that you're an agent and you could start representing players this afternoon. Wow. And that creates a little bit of, you know, are are all the players getting proper advice?
Speaker 1:Are they getting sound advice? Are they getting sound financial structure? Mhmm. I don't know. We don't get too deep in that, but it is a difference between the NCAA landscape and some of the factors they're dealing with today versus maybe the professional leaks.
Speaker 2:Well, Ben, you've hit on some of the the good and the bad and the ugly, the the positive ways, the negative ways. I'm interested in how your particular Christian faith, how has it been a filter of sorts for how you interpret this and how you lead in in your particular company?
Speaker 1:Yeah. As it relates to these NIL deals and the commercialization that we've been talking about, we've tried to build a reputation of, hey, this group if they call, they're doing things the right way. This is a legitimate opportunity. Your our athlete is gonna be treated fairly. They're gonna be paid the exact amount.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be paid on time. This is a net positive for the team and the brand and the athlete. We were just involved in some marketing clearances around the national championship and the playoff. And some of the players we mentioned earlier, we just did deals with those guys on behalf of some brands and activating. And we want those agents to know, hey, when Catapult calls
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They're they're doing things the right way. And it's honest and it's above board and and we're gonna be a solid light and all the the chaos and the noise.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Mhmm. That you are are you lead with truth and appropriate transparency. You I would imagine you bring order to what could be a very tumultuous confusing environment, especially for an athlete that doesn't understand how it works.
Speaker 1:Yeah. In case you see that with I mentioned the two quarterbacks from Monday night. Clearly, they have solid representation. Right? They're going on to bigger careers in the NFL and those guys are good.
Speaker 1:Where you see it sometimes is some of the lower level players that maybe they're the second team cornerback or they're the backup or the lower school. Like you may have an NIL opportunity with them but they don't have representation. They don't have maybe the financial structures, they don't have an LLC set up. Like they're hoping you're not pulling their leg. They're hoping you're being on it.
Speaker 1:Like they are somewhat leaning on you and trusting you. So a lot of times my staff and when we're involved in an IL deal, it's like you have to help kids. Hey look, here's here's what we're gonna do. Here's what we need you to do to help us like
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Take care of you. Like and so you have to You see some kids that hey these kids are in the wild right now. This is no longer your 19, 20 year old just at school worried about is their lunchroom car or is their you know cafeteria car gonna work? Like they're trying to like, it's a little bit Mhmm. Big boy football or big boy basketball now where hey, we're doing business and it's not necessarily millions of dollars but like hey, this is a transaction and we're a corporation and Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know.
Speaker 2:Can you tell us a story of a specific example where it got hard or difficult and resolved?
Speaker 1:It's I tell you what, it's always hard with it's hard with international students, right? Because their their rights are different based on how are they here and what does their visa allow them to be paid for. So we always have to do a lot of hand holding there and we're not really experts in all the different countries they come from. So that's a challenge that we get to know. You know, there's times where athletes, they're afraid of being like taken advantage of.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Right? And you have to get on and actually talk to them and say hey, no this is legitimate and we're not looking to take advantage of you. So you have to kind of build some trust and talk to them. Yeah.
Speaker 1:For a minute, we thankfully we haven't had a lot of negative experiences related to an IL with an or a brand. Now in case one thing we're constantly working under is brands when they're activating commercially. They normally don't give you a lot of time. They don't budget enough time for the athlete interactions and the clearances and the checks and balances that you have to run. So there's a lot of processes in place where have to notify the school if you're talking to one of their athletes.
Speaker 1:Obviously, you wanna get all the right paperwork with the athlete and their payment's structured and everything set up. A lot of time brands want it done like by tomorrow. Yeah. And so that's always a challenge is like managing major brands or their agencies and their expectations that hey, no you can't run this tomorrow in the football games. You just gave us a green light to do this project today.
Speaker 1:So that's a constant challenge.
Speaker 2:Well, we're big into formation here at The Collaborative and particularly emphasize spiritual formation, the way in which our prayer lives and practices help to shape us. But all things form us and shape us. And I could imagine, I mean, if you're a young athlete, you're especially vulnerable or open for leaning your behavior in a certain way, getting informed towards what is rewarded, what's quietly tolerated. How do you think about formation in the collegiate athletic environment?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think you're right. Right? Like I think this is an inflection point for American collegiate sports that hey, we want to take advantage of opportunities and movement opportunities from the portal. But like how do the leadership and the schools and the teams not and the boosters not drive it to the worst of our culture where this is just gonna become greed on top of greed?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We're not super involved in that aspect of it but it is an inflection point in this in this environment. Me personally, it's more control what you can control and like I try to do that with my office here in Orlando. Right? I have 25 team members here who are heavily involved in different touch points of like I said, media and schools. And right, I just try to set the example and consistently lead with here's how we're gonna operate, with honesty and clear communication and we're gonna try to care for each other and have a good unique environment here in Orlando, in our office and let that show outwardly.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like hey, they have something special, that group and how they operate. And then whether it's player agents or media members or big companies buying content from us, show it with how how we consistently act and carry ourselves in the market.
Speaker 2:Well, I could imagine that's a comforting thing for an athlete but it's wonderful that they are presented with a process that is on the up and up and intentional structured and that hopefully forms them to do the same in their own behavior as well as in future life. I know that some of the values that I feel have been sacrificed with some of these changes, like a commitment to a team. When you can hop in the portal and jump around too much, like, where's the loyalty? I think that's what bugged me about Beck because I'm a Georgia Bulldog at heart and sure, hate to lose him, but I don't know. It it just feels like you're running to the next opportunity in order to win that championship and get bigger and larger and is it always for the best reasons?
Speaker 1:Yeah. The That's true. There's Unfortunately, there's thousands of these data points happening. Like I said, right now, right, almost 4,000 football players just went into the portal. And what you're not hearing about is I think when the portal closed, there were still 2,000 kids in the portal.
Speaker 1:So where are those kids gonna land? Uh-huh. They're not always landing at a better spot. Some of them, their days playing college football are over. They're not gonna find a home or they're gonna go backwards from the place where they left as far as like culture, program, quality, etcetera.
Speaker 1:So there's those negative stories of the portal you're not reading about and they're not always out there. Clearly there's instances where a coach changes or a family matter or even a better financial opportunity. Okay it's good for the kid to have the opportunity to leave but there's negative stories out there and negative circumstances that you're not really hearing a lot about. Hey, what about the kids that lost their opportunity? Right.
Speaker 1:Or went backwards?
Speaker 2:Well I would imagine a coach knows, doesn't he, when you put yourself in the portal?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. There's a lot of times coaches are encouraging. Right? Like it sometimes can be a tool for a coach that, hey, we would like you to go in the portal cause we wanna free up your spot.
Speaker 2:So Okay.
Speaker 1:It's working both ways that coaches can use it to turn across turn their rosters faster. You're you're not seeing the, oh, this is gonna be a three or four year rebuild. Not necessarily anymore. Right? There's coaches going in and some high profile coaches.
Speaker 1:Hey, we need you to kinda Maybe it's best if you jump in the portal. We need your spot.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking of this question from two directions. If a coach puts you in or encourages you to go into the portal, like that value of of mentoring and a coach being more concerned about character than the win, a lot of that seems sacrificed. Even on your end, you're so focused understandably on numbers and metrics and colleagues. Where where's the emphasis on humanity in all this? The the care for the person more so than just the prize.
Speaker 1:Case right, like it's I've heard it described like the microwave society, right, where we all want it now. We want our team to win now. We want to get paid now. We wanna play now. Like I wanna hit my numbers and I want my group to be successful now.
Speaker 1:Like so it's a little bit of indicative of our larger society, right? You think about media and consumption and our young people today sitting down and watching a full three and a half hour game. No. They're watching the highlights on YouTube the next morning.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And they're consuming the entire game in five and a half minutes.
Speaker 2:Well, noticed on YouTube TV when you go to a game, you can hit a button of get all the highlights up to this moment. I'm like, wow.
Speaker 1:Well and there's algorithms, right? Learning that hey, you watch those Florida Gator highlights. Well tomorrow morning, guess what? I'm gonna be feeding you Yeah. A string out video after video.
Speaker 1:And it's just, I think it's indicative. Like college sports is or the environment where we work I think is indicative of our society that fans, consumers want it now, they don't wanna wait, right? You want your paper towels and orange juice delivered in the next hour, not hey, where are we gonna be patient and go wait in line and go to grocery store and go get it, right?
Speaker 2:Come on Amazon.
Speaker 1:That's right. It's the same thing happening in the sports world and the consumption of media, the demands of athletes, demands of coaches, right? Mhmm. To your point though, are we subtract Is there some value lost there in the being patient, overcoming obstacles? I would think you would have some great leaders and coaches out there saying, yeah, that could be lost in what's going on right now.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Mhmm. Dear dear friend of the family, I would say even practically cousins, just finished a career at UNC on the football team. And captain of the team did great in school, I believe in All American. And I have watched his journey and have talked to his parents a great deal about the pressures on him, but also the ways in which he could shine.
Speaker 2:He never left UNC through the days and in this last year, I got to taste Bill Belichick.
Speaker 1:Yeah. He had a unique senior year.
Speaker 2:Well, for sure. And I'm just so grateful that he was such a strong young man of faith going in to college football that I felt it it guided him. It was an anchor of sorts as he grew as an athlete, as he grew as a a team leader for sure. What are some ways that you try to bring even more so a Christian perspective or those common good values? Do you ever have a have to have a talk with an athlete of, okay, let's reset our priorities and and see that this is a win win?
Speaker 1:Less to athletes. It's more on again managing my team here. Mhmm. Typically by the case, I've had a lot of young people like because we're in sports, because we're in sports media, I lose a lot of team members to Major League Baseball. I've got two or three folks that have gone on to work for NFL teams.
Speaker 1:I lost one this in the fall to NBC Sports in New York. I want them to leave with a good foundational experience when they were here with us, right? That as you go out to these teams, as you your entry point into the marketplace formed you and shaped you for how to work with honesty, how to work with integrity, how to care for others, how to not be impatient with the noise and the issues and the struggles that happen around you. Like that's gonna be every place. Like, I've worked multiple sports organizations and in this space, it's competitive, it's highly visible at times when when you have mistakes or or issues or your team loses, right?
Speaker 1:Like, it's very public and it can be at times if you work at a team level. Let's be above that, right, with our perspective here today, with the challenges that are gonna happen or the failures today in dealing with teams or athletes or media companies, it's highly competitive. Let's work hard, be honest, care about your team members, have a human element of we're gonna care about people. So it's more so inside inside in my organization or my office than it is dealing with athletes or
Speaker 2:I could imagine given the money on the line or the opportunities, there's at time tension between the student athlete and the parents or the coaches and the the pressure they might get into. How have you seen that play out?
Speaker 1:It's interesting that that they're they are There's a lot more variables today. Right? Like I mentioned we did some creative for the Coswell playoff. Well, you're dealing with maybe the head coach and the quarterback but their agents and their representatives and their families while they're together and they're working together on the field, off the field they're not, right? They're different, it's different incentives.
Speaker 1:And for example, like the quarterback for Indiana, his younger brother was his backup. Well, the morning after the national championship, he went in the portal. And now he's gonna be at Georgia Tech and be their quarterback next year. My point is there's In sports today, there's always a lot more going on behind the scenes than like, yes you're playing the games, yes you're focused on your team, but you're also kinda thinking about your next chapter and your next move and your business move over here. So again, my group as we play in that space or as we operate with the companies, we're just trying to be a trusted source that hey, they're honest, they're legitimate, what they're doing is legitimate, And they're a net positive when we engage Mhmm.
Speaker 1:With catapult.
Speaker 2:So if there's an athlete listening now, perhaps looking at this whole world, maybe coming into it, what sort of advice would you have for how they cultivate their own development and their career in this?
Speaker 1:I'm gonna have to get my siblings on, college coaches to talk to you about that that one. Ours would just be from a business standpoint, find people that you around you, right, to give you sound advice, to give you You know, you think about some of these times where hey, I could transfer from school a to school b. What are the conditions there? What are the playing conditions? What is the best path to playing?
Speaker 1:What's the net on the money that I will make, right? After taxes, after agent commissions, like are you actually even netting out better by making this move? You need somebody who has your best interest at heart and is looking holistically at also, hey, what happened to going to school? Like what degree are you working on? Right?
Speaker 1:Because throughout the whole discussion here, transfer portal, NIL, the percentages are still the same. It's micro fractions of the division one football players that will go on to actually make a lot of money and play Right? In the And the money that you're making here in the NCAA is not necessarily life changing for a lot of Sure. It may make your next six months better or your next couple years but so who's advising you on like taking advantage of the four years, five years that you're in school to maximize your opportunity to play, to earn some NIL money, to have opportunities, and still get a degree.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Get to surround yourself with people you trust.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And not that I'm in this line of work clearly, but it kind of relates to the trust thing. Who are you putting yourself under in terms of authority? Like, these coaches.
Speaker 2:And I I just appreciate those coaches I hear about who recognize the game is secondary to the formation of a future leader.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of pressure. Right? Those leaders, those family members, those coaches who can stand up to the pressure from fans, pressure the from TV and the money and the salaries and the opportunities that There's still a bigger picture right here. Only so many teams are gonna win the championship. Only so many folks are gonna play quarterback and make the big NIL money or whatever it may be that who who can maintain a proper mature perspective to your point of like what's really important, what's really guiding our lives and day to day.
Speaker 2:Being from Georgia myself and having lots of friends and family there, I hear that Kirby Smart at UGA is one of those coaches that really cares about your growth and development. Now he's been wonderfully successful, and I think the two can go hand in hand. And that makes me proud. I would hope more would lead in that direction. In our closing time here, let's set collegiate athletics aside.
Speaker 2:Tell me as as a husband and as a dad of many, how does your faith help shape how you commit yourself to your work and to them and other responsibilities in life?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Case. I I think one thing I try to pray with children every night is help us to have courage, help us to have trust each day. Like the Lord is guiding our path. I don't do a whole lot these days because of just my schedule of working at home of thinking about the long term future. It's not, oh, where's my next career move gonna be?
Speaker 1:Or how am gonna jockey from this position to another? It is, hey, Lord, my cup is full. I'm blessed. I have a good job. I have a great home life.
Speaker 1:But my cup is full, I'm pretty busy most of the hours of the day. I'm gonna walk in faith, Lord, that you're guiding our path, our family is where you want it to be, our home, my career. And I wanna just teach that to my children that like, we're gonna walk in faith. If you're Yeah. Nervous walking into school today, like let's just walk in faith.
Speaker 1:And let's One thing we're working on in 2026 is what I'm calling like micro prayers. Okay. Well, let's pray about it real quick. It's not gonna be real clean. It's not gonna be real formal and it's gonna be probably less than ten seconds.
Speaker 1:But like, let's just stop and pray about it right now. And then we've been doing that. Like, we prayed at 04:00 in the morning when my son was scared the other night and came down. We prayed in the carpool last week when my daughter was having fears of going back to school after the holiday. So trying to just say, Lord, we turn it over to you, and we're not gonna try to figure everything out, guide our path today.
Speaker 1:Help us to walk that path with your Holy Spirit around us.
Speaker 2:I remember when I would take my kids in the morning to school and I'm still taking Brooks. He's in eighth grade, but when I had all three at once, we would recite Philippians four six or is it four nine? Philippians four nine, whatever is good, whatever is pure, whatever is true, dwell on these things. And it surprised me when a few months ago, Charles, my now sophomore at FSU, just rattled that verse out. Said,
Speaker 1:yeah That's great.
Speaker 2:Don't you remember us doing that together? And I had forgotten and it just warmed my heart to hear that it had it had worked. Right? He had stored it up.
Speaker 1:You know, in case we had one over the holidays, we took the children to see the movie David. And
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. The new animated feature on King David.
Speaker 1:That's right. So we've been saying, hey, David, when he was in that field and Goliath was standing across the field, he was talking to God to give him courage. And we can do the same thing. Right? Whether it's I'm nervous about going back to school or I'm nervous in the middle of the night, hey, remember David and how he talked to God and God gave him courage and calmed him down.
Speaker 1:And and so that's part of our Christmas break that we're trying to relate David and and how he talked to God and saying to God to get courage and how we can have that same courage ourselves.
Speaker 2:Well, if you're listening and or watching and you think, wow, I want to be a better parent in discipling my children. There's a thousand ways to do that and there are tons of resources online even here at First Pres Orlando. Brad and Cam Allen, he's our minister of family life and she's our former director of children's ministry. But you don't have to do it all imperfectly but something and intentional and it's amazing how it shapes those little hearts. Well, Ben, thank you.
Speaker 2:I appreciate your time, your thoughtfulness, your candor. For those listening, there is the Catapult website, www.catapult.com, to learn more about their work and we'll have that link available in our show notes. Ben, thank you.
Speaker 1:Chase, thank you so much. Have a I great
Speaker 2:wanna thank the rest of you for inviting us into your day. Perhaps this episode might resonate with a friend of yours who's super into collegiate sports. Send it to him, and it'll shape them perhaps in a faith perspective on such work. Like us, give us a review. It will really help.
Speaker 2:If you go to our website, wecolabor.com, drop your email. I'll send you a copy of Zeitgeist, our journal on faith, work, and culture. Many thanks to the Stein Foundation for making today's episode possible. I'm Case Thorpe, and God's blessings on you.