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Welcome to “opening day” here for Season 3 of Sideline Sessions! I’m thrilled to start the season with a great guest, Damon Lembi.
Damon is a two-time bestselling author, the host of The Learn-It-All Podcast, and CEO of Learnit – a live learning platform that has upskilled over 2 million people. He also was a Division-I college baseball player who was drafted to play professionally and draws from this experience to bring an athlete’s perspective to leadership.
Damon is passionate about helping young athletes develop a learn-it-all mindset and moving away from pressuring kids to specialize in one sport. Today, we talk about:
- Damon’s baseball career and the lessons he learned from coaches
- Applying an athlete’s perspective to leadership
- The downsides of specialization and the year-round emphasis on only one sport
- The learn-it-all mindset for youth development
- Building confidence in young athletes
- Navigating pressure and expectations in youth sports
Connect with Damon and learn more about his work:
- www.learnit.com
- www.thelearnitallleader.com
- Instagram: @damonlembi, @Learnittraining
About the host
Ross Romano is co-founder of the Be Podcast Network and also hosts The Authority Podcast. He began his career in the pro sports industry before becoming a leading communications, marketing, and management expert working with education companies. He is founder and CEO of September Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm that helps organizations and high-performing leaders in the K-12 education industry communicate their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success.
Creators & Guests
What is Sideline Sessions?
Designed for coaches, parents and other stakeholders in the world of youth, scholastic, and amateur sports, this show brings you interviews with leaders at the highest levels of their respective sports.
Hear from coaches and performance experts with experience in the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Olympics, and NCAA Division-I, plus those who run elite youth programs, successful high school teams, and more. Hear about their motivations, philosophies, and strategies for success, and take away actionable insights to support the athletes in your life.
Damon Lembi
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Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in, everybody. You are listening to the season three premiere of Sideline Sessions here on the Be Podcast Network. If you haven't yet had a chance to check out our previous seasons, we've talked to [00:01:00] coaches, performance experts, sports psychologists, experts on the recruiting landscape, parent advocates, a whole variety of great perspectives on sports from team sports, football, basketball, baseball, and more to Olympic sports to golf, tennis.
So there's a lot there to dig into when you have a chance, but listen to this one first and then you can go back. But we're also looking forward to bringing you a variety of great conversations here this season. And we are starting it off with my guest today, Damon Lembi. Damon is a two-time best selling author.
He's the host of the Learn It All podcast and CEO of a company called Learn It, which is a live learning platform that is up skilled over 2 million people. And Damon began his career in the baseball world. He brings that athlete's perspective to leadership. And we're going to talk about that today as it applies to youth sports.
Helping young athletes develop a learn it all mindset, moving away from pressuring kids to specialize in one sport, [00:02:00] and more things that are valuable to you if you're a coach, if you're a parent, if you're involved with student athletes in any of these roles. What are the things that are valuable and relevant to you?
What are some things you might want to think about and try? Damon, it's a pleasure to have you here.
Damon Lembi: Ross, well I'm excited to be here talking about one of my favorite subjects kids and sports. I feel a little pressure now that I know that I'm kicking off season three, I think it is you said, so but I'll give it my best and I know we'll have a great conversation.
Ross Romano: Yeah, excellent. So the timing for this is a great when this is publishing. We're going to be kicking off the Major League Baseball postseason here. Tell us about your baseball career, your background, your journey through the sport, the different roles you filled there. Give us that context. And then, you know, you can talk about how you apply those lessons still to the work you do today, whether it's inside or outside of sports. (ad here)
Damon Lembi: Great. So again, I'm Damon Lembe. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay [00:03:00] Area in a town called Burlingame, and growing up, it was all about sports for me. You know, I was really lucky. All my buddies were athletes. They had good families who supported it. And, you know, it was really baseball, basketball, soccer, and football.
And, you know, big Niners fan, Warriors fan, Giants fans. I'm Damon Lembe. So we played all the sports and our parents were the coaches a lot of times my dad would coach our soccer teams I had so many great memories of that and but I would say around high school my sophomore year was when I realized that if I was gonna take sports to the next level if I was gonna play in college or if I Was gonna play professionally Baseball was really my ticket.
So I went all in on baseball. I did play varsity baseball and basketball all four years, even as a freshman and in both sports. But I knew by my sophomore year that baseball was where I would play in college or [00:04:00] professionally. So went all in, worked really hard. I was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 13th round out of high school.
I was a high school American in baseball. And my parents were really cool. They said, Hey, you know, this is your choice. Do you want to go professional and go the minor league route, or do you want to go to college? And I really thought it over. It was a tough decision. I remember the scout Bill Serena was at my house and, you know, he put the paper in front of me and my parents were like, it's up to you.
And I thought about it, but I ended up going the college route to Pepperdine on a full ride. And I did so because I really believed in my coach's Andy Lopez's, his goal. He had a moonshot goal to win the College World Series. And he said, you're going to be a big part of this, Damon. We want you on board.
And you know Ross, I mean Pepperdine's a small school. There's 2, 500 people, we'd be going up against LSU, Arizona State, and again, this is, I'm dating myself a little bit, this is back in 1990, and [00:05:00] so, I went to Pepperdine, and I'd love to tell you everything went great, but when I got there, for the first time in my life, Everybody was as good as me, you know, everybody was like the best of the best, and I dealt with imposter syndrome for the first time, I really struggled, and I remember sitting down with Coach Lopez for our first get together, and he sat me down and he said, Hey, Damon.
When we brought you on board, we did so because we believed that you had Division I talent, you'd be a great hitter for the middle of our lineup, and you'd have a big impact. Then he sat back and he shook his head and he said, Unfortunately, we just don't think you have the ability to play D1 sports.
So you can imagine how I felt, right? I was like, Oh my gosh, I got to get out of here. This is, you know, I want to, where's my parents? I was homesick. But before I could even finish what I had to say, he leaned forward, looked at me, pointed at me and said, That's not what [00:06:00] we think, Damon. The problem is, that's what you think about yourself.
We think you have the talent. We think you have the ability, but you got to get out of these self limiting beliefs and the self doubt. And it was really an eye opener for me. And I'd love to tell you that everything just worked out perfectly after that. Unfortunately, I got hurt in a random preseason accident in baseball, and I ended up transferring.
They didn't have the transfer portal like they do now. So I went to junior college, and I played for a Hall of Fame coach named John Noci. Andy Lopez, by the way, is a Hall of Fame baseball coach. And by the way, Pepperdine won the College World Series the year I left. So he set this moonshot goal and hit it.
I played for John Nochi and I was fortunate enough to get looked at by Arizona State. Arizona State offered me a full ride and a lot of my friends and also not my family, [00:07:00] but other people out there told me. Don't go to Arizona State, there are going to be 17 guys trying out for first base, that's where I got recruited.
And go to a small school, go someplace you could play, go get your degree and move on with life. And I said, you know what, this is my last shot in baseball, so I'm gonna go for it. And I did. I went to Arizona State I left it all on the field, you know, so to speak, I was the first one there, I was the last one to leave, I worked really hard on the areas that I was struggling on, and it was a tremendous experience for me, I made the team, I was a starting first baseman, I think I finished second in the league in hitting, and I ended up hitting a home run in the College World Series, and I always thought, You know, when you succeed at one level, you're automatically guaranteed opportunities to go to the next level.
Unfortunately, I'm sitting there in Omaha the day after I hit a home run in the College World Series, my best friend, Jacob Cruz, who I got to get on your show, I'll ask him. [00:08:00] He got his his call early in the morning. He was a first round pick for the Giants. He had a big 10, 12 year career in the big leagues.
Now he's a hitting director for the Giants. And getting back to my story, I didn't get, I didn't get drafted. So, 10 or 12 people on the team got drafted. My baseball career was essentially over with. And it was really difficult for me. I mean, I only identified as a baseball player my whole life. And here I was.
22 years old, and I wasn't sure if any of my skills were transferable in any way. And so, I don't know, I went through a pretty depressed and struggled with what to do next, which is also very common for athletes whose career comes to an end. (ad here)
Ross Romano: Yeah. I think a lot of what you Described there speaks to a lot of the challenges of athletics and the things that coaches need [00:09:00] to be attuned to and figure out how to navigate with their athletes as well. Like one thing that I've talked about on this show to a few of our guests is the role of, for example, a high school coach in helping a student athlete. Navigate the college recruiting process, and how do you find the balance of using your expertise to their benefit? You have an athlete on your team who thinks they want to play Division I, your expertise tells you that they should be targeting Division III. And so you want to be able to help them and give them good information and support them at the same time.
You need to build up their confidence for, you know, how they're participating in your program. And so it's trying to figure out, okay, how [00:10:00] do I and you know, for athletes, every athlete, no matter who gets to that point where they can no longer compete at whatever level they are, whether it's, you keep moving up the levels and eventually you get to the level where, as you say, everybody's as good as me whether that's high school, college, professional, right?
Or even if you're an elite professional athlete, eventually you get to the age or you have injuries or whatever, where you no longer can compete the way you're used to. And in order to even get to the highest possible level, you have to have an unreasonable of self confidence and perspective, right?
To believe that you can be better than anybody you're going against, when you know that everybody there is better than you. the best of the best at what they do, you really do have to have an unreasonable [00:11:00] level of belief to say, I can still be better than them, right? No matter how good you are. But then eventually you're going to get to the point where, okay I now am not any longer as good as or better than the people I'm competing against.
And what does that mean about me? And how do I define my You know, my self perception, my sense of self worth, et cetera with these conflicting things going on and and I think, you know, that speaks to, of course, one of the challenges of becoming the best, but also certainly one of the challenges of how coaches can work through that and how they're, you know, if it's a team sport, how they're navigating the different egos and beliefs of different, you know, athletes and trying to get them into the place where they can make the best contributions to that organization in a way that still demonstrates confidence in them and [00:12:00] helps them build their confidence.
What I guess coaches throughout your journey, you've, you know, mentioned a couple examples, but there's lessons, of course, that you still use, whether it was explicit, whether things that coaches specifically taught you and spoke to you about, whether it was just things you absorbed and picked up from being around some coaches, positive or negative, right?
But the things that have stuck with you and that have given you a perspective as you've gone on, now that you have a perspective, looking at youth sports as a coach and a parent, and then other things you're doing in life sports are often spoken about, right, as character building. And sometimes, I think there's not a lot of explicit focus on that or it's almost like an excuse for some coaches to be hard on their players and they'll say, well, it's going to build their character.
But of [00:13:00] course, you know, there's others who have a real plan around that and that's part of what they are cultivating is those life skills and those social emotional skills, et cetera, that help you perform in athletics and other, but anyway, that's a long way of saying You know what are some of those things that you picked up and that still stick with you that you're still able to apply and whether or not they, you know, they were something that a coach told you directly, or it was just things that you saw happening and then, you know, maybe you needed the benefit of time even to kind of figure out what the lesson was.
Damon Lembi: Almost all my lessons I learned from sports, you know, and from my father and my mom my dad was a coach. But it goes all the way back to, I mean, one of the first ones that stands with me, sticks with me, is I had a coach, John DeVos, in high school. And so when I was eighth [00:14:00] grader, he'd come out and watch us play.
And then over the summer before high school, he really took me under his wing. and brought me into the mix, you know, for baseball. And there's so many great lessons and so many great stories. And I just, you know, for you parents and for you youth coaches out there, you probably know this, but if you don't you have an opportunity to make an incredible impact positively and negatively on kids life.
You know what I mean? You know, they're so formable at these ages. And before I get to my John DeVos story something that just popped up in my mind. When I was five years old, and my parents wanted me to go skiing, they gave me ski lessons, and I had this they put me in with this ski instructor, and he was so mean, and told me I was soft, and basically made me cry.
And guess what? I hated skiing, and that was a huge negative impact at five years old. So be mindful of that. [00:15:00] And but getting back to my John DeVos story, he, one of the things that I remember the most is when I was at the beginning of my senior year in high school, I had a great junior year. I struggled coming in three or four games into the season.
I wasn't doing well. I had all this pressure on me. Baseball scouts were coming to the games, you know, everybody was expecting me to carry everything. And I, you know, I started doubting myself, you know, and, This was 1990, we sat down for breakfast, and he handed across to me a manila envelope, not envelope, but a folder, and with all these press clippings, you know, from the last couple of years that he saved of me, and he's like, I just want you to read this for five minutes while I drink my coffee, and then I looked at him, you know, it's like, Damon hit two home runs, you know, they won the game, pitched this and that, basketball stuff, then he said, son, You're great.
You're probably the best that I've ever coached, and your team is counting on you, but we're all supportive of you. Just go [00:16:00] out there and have fun, okay? Don't, you don't need to prove it to your father, you don't need to prove it to me, because as great as my dad was, I could always hear him in the background going, Take that shot!
Take that shot! You know, why didn't you swing at that pitch? And it was hard, so parents, you know, Don't get too involved in that way. It causes unnecessary pressure. But I walked away from that breakfast with Coach DeVos, feeling so great about myself. I went out two days later against Carlmont, and I think I hit three home runs that day.
And I ended up having a great season, but there are just so many Ross, so many stories over through over the years of coaches helping you really see the talent that you have or pointing out the accomplishments that you've done. And it's had an incredible impact on me over the years and on other people.
And I want to say I'm not opposed to, you know, coaches giving tough constructive feedback. I think that we are even a little too soft with trophies for everybody, you know, so I think it's [00:17:00] good to have direct constructive feedback, just not in a way that, you know, is demeaning. So like that guy was to me at Incline Village.
You know, when I was five years old, so what have I learned over the years? I mean, there's so many things. I like to call it the athletic education, which I don't think is replaceable, and even if your kid only makes it through high school or even before high school, playing sports, especially team sports, you learn how to collaborate.
You learn how to deal with adversity. You learn how to overcome failures. You get, it's, there's so much around discipline and work ethic, and I just want to say, I just want to advocate for Get your kids involved in sports. They don't need to be the best on the team, but they just need to go out there and hopefully enjoy it, play different sports, learn what they can, get away from the video games, get away from the social media, and there's so many life lessons and career lessons you can learn from playing sports.[00:18:00]
Individual sports and team sports.
Ross Romano: So, following along those lines, you know, one of the topics of interest is around specialization, right? And the, you know, the pressures that a lot of Kids, parents feel around that due to one, I think just the increased competition for opportunities, whether that's around scholarships or professional opportunities and, specializing earlier and earlier.
And then also the way some coaches treat it, but what's your perspective on specialization?
Damon Lembi: A couple of minutes ago, you were talking about, you know, high school coaches helping navigate kids in the college recruiting process and everything. It actually starts a lot sooner than that. It, you know, some kids are in like sixth grade when this starts. And so parents, one of the things that [00:19:00] I want you to be, to watch out for, and if you're coaches who are like this, I hope you're listening as well.
I'm not a huge fan of these coaches who are charging, you know, 80 to 120 an hour for hitting or fielding or whatever it is. And they're out there telling these kids that they have D1 potential. Keep working with me because you have D1 potential and you're going to, you know, And I see it all the time because these parents are coming to me saying, Hey, you know, I want my kid to be a D1 athlete like you.
The coach is telling me, Hey, you know, do your hitting lessons three days a week and your kid will get there. And I've seen the kid play and I'm like, this kid's not going to sniff the high school team. You know what I mean? So I'm not saying, you know, to stomp on somebody's dreams, but I just don't think it's right.
or fear to be unrealistic but sometimes these coaches have never played a game in their life, so they don't know any better, but that's even worse. So I just think it's important that you want to get the kids to enjoy sports, and to [00:20:00] answer your question about specialization, I think it's terrible.
I think that there's too much of that. I'm a big fan of a book called Range by David Epstein, and he talks about the importance of being a generalist over a specialist, and he talks about Federer versus Tiger Woods. But in my opinion, and the people I grew up with, we were all multiple sports athletes you know, and stars in sports, you know, basketball, soccer, whatever it was.
And we didn't really hone down until high school sometime, like in my story. But, you know, I had lunch with a guy the other day and he was telling me his kid is nine years old and he's on the travel baseball team. and that if he misses practices to play on the basketball team, he may lose his spot. I mean, to me, that's ridiculous.
And I think it's absolutely ridiculous because I think kids need, first of all, you need a different set of kids. [00:21:00] So you're learning to communicate and play with different people because it's not going to be the same group all the time. But playing multiple sports, you're using different muscles. You're using, you're just doing different things And I've seen it, I've seen it far too often that you get a dad who's all excited and wants to push his kid into baseball or soccer or whatever and by 15 that kid's burnt out and doesn't want to do it at all, right?
So I think it's, as a parent, it's our responsibility to put our kids out there, let them try different things, you know, and not just sports, learn to play instruments and do different things, but I think you're going to do your kid a disservice if you're honing in on baseball and that's all you're doing at such an early age, I asked you backstage, I'm like, I said, do you ever have conversations with these coaches who tell you to specialize?
And Ross, for me, it's really important because I got a six year old daughter and a three year old son. So I'm kind of just getting into the game of [00:22:00] this, trying to understand this because I don't really, most of the people I interact with are these ex major league baseball players or just friends who played D one.
And that's how we grew up, playing multiple sports, but apparently, at least where I live, there's a lot of specialization, and I'm just not a big fan on it, but maybe I need to be more open minded and hear what these coaches have to say because I just think that you should get your kid involved as in many different things as possible, let them have fun, and let them make the decision in what direction they want to go.
Ross Romano: Yeah. I mean, I would be certainly interested in hearing more. About the case for specialization. And I as I mentioned I definitely hear more of it in with respect to individual sports because of the way those sports work, right? I mean, there's, you know, particularly tennis some Olympic sports, right?
I mean, you go [00:23:00] professional as a. teenager, possibly as a 14, 15 year old. So of course there's certain time pressures on that to get pretty quickly to your elite performance level. And that's kind of the way those words work. I have had. Many team sports coaches, especially U. S. based coaches, tell me I, it is not a priority for specialization.
I either recommend kids play a bunch of sports or it doesn't make a difference to me. When they're on my team playing my sport, I care about what we're doing at that time. Outside of that, I'm not telling them they shouldn't do other things. And most of the time it's beneficial. I think specifically, you know.
Sometimes we get, we can get into the weeds here. We're talking about baseball. I think youth specialization to me, you know, I would have to, I have a very strong feeling that it is [00:24:00] probably the leading cause of pitching injuries. And, you know, we look at pitching injuries in professionals and they say, well, these teams are doing all these things and they're monitoring pitch counts and they're really conservative with the minor leaguers and all of those things.
And it still isn't making a difference because they're getting hurt more and it must be because they're throwing so hard. And yeah, I'm sure that's part of it, right? The human body throwing a pitch 102 miles an hour is different from 88, but I think 90 percent of it. is already, the damage is done by the time that kid goes pro, because if they're pitching year round as a teenager, and then they go to these college programs that really abuse those arms and go way beyond the recommended pitch count, right?
By the time they're there, they already, that wear and tear is already there. And at that point, it's just a matter of time before [00:25:00] that injury happens. So. That's a case. I mean, you know, there's one and the other there as well. At least they got there, right? And if they got to the point where they were able to cash in with at least one contract, then, Maybe it paid off, but there's the other case to say, some of, you know, even with how medicine has advanced at this point, right, where most of these things are repairable and they eventually can come back you know, there's a lot of downside to having that and what was, you know, what necessarily was the upside?
How much better did it make you? You know, I would probably speculate that specialization may increase the chances of a more marginal talent. being able to succeed beyond maybe their natural talent level by putting in the extra work and being able to [00:26:00] perform a little better but I don't think it would make a humongous difference for somebody with a higher talent level.
It's hard to say, but I also look at, I think, many of the most Successful athletes historically famously played multiple sports, right? One, you know, one person that I think a lot of people would immediately come to mind when they think about, intensity and training and preparation and everything would be somebody like Michael Jordan.
Well, he famously was a baseball player, also somebody who played a lot of golf, right? And I don't know what else he did in his lifetime, but somebody who, yes, he had that will to win, to become great at basketball, but he also had an interest in a lot of other things. And I think that's true of a lot of athletes who grew up.
playing soccer, right? Even if you don't play beyond the middle school [00:27:00] level the footwork you develop and learning how to use your lower body in that way, how that translates to footwork on a basketball court or a baseball field or football or anything else. So, you know, there, there seems to be an abundance of evidence from what I've seen that supports being involved in multiple things, picking up different skills, and not When a young developing body overworking and overusing certain muscles and ligaments by straining them year round versus doing different things and developing different aspects of yourself.
Damon Lembi: Well, a couple things I want to point out for you parents out there is that not everybody knows that Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. So, if you have a kid who really loves basketball or soccer and things don't work out, they don't make the traveling team or they don't make the Frosthoff basketball team, that doesn't mean that they have to give up [00:28:00] the sport.
If they love it, they should keep practicing and doing their best. I mean, that is Unbelievable that Michael Jordan was able to be able to do that. And Ross, I was just thinking, you know, if you come across some of these specialization experts we should have a little panel discussion sometime. Get somebody like me who's the anti and a couple of specialization experts and we can kind of talk it out.
I, like I said, I'd just be curious about it because I don't see as many pros as I do cons. I just think overall though I think sports is so important. For children, and I think that the coaches and the parents, it's really it's so important for you as well to get them going early on and building their confidence.
I think sports builds so much confidence for the kids.
Ross Romano: So for young athletes as they're developing, as they're getting exposure to sports, learning their game is the learn it all mindset? How does that apply? How is that something that kids can develop to [00:29:00] help them succeed in sports?
Damon Lembi: It's funny so I wrote a book called The Learn It All Leader, Mindset, Tools, and Traits. And my sister in law, Kalina Quibel I was up at her house yesterday in Granite Bay, and she's like, you should take your book and distill it down for kids, you know, the learn it all mentality. And really what I mean by that and the learn it all mentality is having growth having a growth mindset, you know, grit and perseverance.
And how that really can relate to sports and to youth sports is that. In sports, especially something like baseball, you're gonna have a lot of failure, you know, in baseball, in the big league level, if you succeed and get a hit 3 times, you're a multi millionaire. Yeah, it's a little different in youth sports.
You might hit 400, 500, but that's still 50 percent failure. And I don't see a lot of kids dealing with that well. You know, I see a lot of kids complaining or having a victim mentality, or even worse, having their parents with a victim mentality saying things [00:30:00] like, Oh, my kid's not in the starting lineup because the coach likes this kid better.
And then the kid hearing that, right, I mean, that is just terrible. The learn it all mentality is, Hey, you know what? Things didn't work out, so I'm going to learn. I'm going to get feedback, I'm going to practice hard, I'm going to work, and I'm going to try better next time. And a lot of times it should be less about the actual outcome, and more about the process.
My six year old daughter earlier in the year, was going to get in a little tricycle race or something and she's like, Daddy, I don't know if I want to compete. I don't know if I want to be, what if I don't win? And I embarrassed myself. I'm like, honey, I don't care if you win. I just want you to have fun and give it your best shot.
And sure enough, she did. And she finished. And I think she came in fourth or fifth place. And I got this photo of her, you know, like with her arms up celebrating her fourth place victory, which I think is hilarious. But it's all about The Learn It Mentality is about trying, not being afraid to fail, learning from those [00:31:00] failures, getting out of your comfort zone, and just being persistent.
And if you could start the kids and communicating. And if you could start the kids at this early age, and getting them into communication and teamwork and discipline, that will carry over throughout your career. So that's really what I mean about the Tweaking the Learn It All Mentality for young adults and children.
Ross Romano: Yeah. How can that port of There's pressure and expectation. There's a lot of pressure that kids put on themselves, a lot of pressure we put on ourselves as adults, right? And, but there's also other people who are either applying appropriate or inappropriate pressure and certainly challenging an athlete to improve their performance to, you know, reach beyond their previous best, et cetera, requires some [00:32:00] application of at least some form of expectations or some motivation to do so that sometimes needs to be applied by a coach or a parent or someone else.
But also things that are appropriate for our kids versus what's appropriate for a professional. There's ways of doing so that turn a young athlete off from the sport or from wanting to participate. There's other things that help them. And I'm sure, you know, kind of development of the right mentality can go a long way.
But also there's. I guess, finding the right approach as the adult to introduce the idea, ideas around competition, right? And around practice and hard work and improvement, but also keeping in mind the goals around [00:33:00] fun and enjoyment and exercise and, you know, sociability, right? Being with your team and then all of those things that are important.
equally valuable and for the vast majority of athletes would probably be the primary goals because most, you know, most kids should be playing sports. Exclusively for fun. And then if they find something that they happen to be really good at, then they can think about other goals. But you know, I don't think we should really be thinking about getting our preschoolers and our elementary students involved in sports because we think they're going to become professionals.
Damon Lembi: Yeah, I mean, I would say at some point it's a fine line, and I got a good story in a minute, but I look at it, a lot of it again comes back to the coaches and the parents. I think the coaches and the parents are the ones who are typically putting a lot more pressure on the kids than need be so I think that's an issue.
The story, but on the flip side, [00:34:00] I went and had breakfast with a buddy the other day, and his daughter goes to a private school here in Marin County. And his daughter's soccer team was getting crushed, you know, probably 12 0. And on the sideline, the girls were screwing around, they weren't paying attention, they were laughing and joking, and the coach didn't really care, you know, he wasn't paying much attention.
Really, and the father I was with, he's like, look, I'm not saying that we should go out and reprimand the kids for this, right? But on the other hand, I want my kids to learn competition and see and, you know, not want to get embarrassed 12 0, right? They should at least take this a little bit more serious.
And he's like, I might even just pull my daughter out of the school if this is the way that competition is approached. Now that's taking it to an extreme, but essentially what he's saying is, hey, look, you know what? I don't think you should have a heavy hand on the kids, but the kids should at least be taking [00:35:00] pride is, I guess, is what I'm trying to say, Ross, in what they're doing.
Take pride in what you're doing and put out a good effort where in this case the kids were getting stomped and nobody cared. So I think take pride in what you do, but on the other hand, let's not make it so that, I was at my daughter's seven year old soccer game the other day, and on the other field, Some dad was like yelling and screaming at the refs.
I mean a kid that kid they're probably playing in a ten year old league I mean, but come on man. I mean, let's let the kids have fun. The refs getting paid nothing probably and so I think there's a fine balance between taking pride in what you're doing and Learning to be competitive and just going too far And seeing the parents and the coaches out there who make it not fun for kids.
I've had coaches like that through my life. And as much as I love my dad and he was my idol, like I mentioned earlier, there were times I felt unwarranted pressure from him in high school. [00:36:00] And even some of my coaches, like Coach DeVos, I told my dad, turn it down a notch, you know, just don't give Damon such a hard time.
And, but I don't know, maybe some of that's what made me a better competitor than some of the other kids. So maybe there just has to be a fine balance where you have to be self aware enough to make sure that you're not putting too much undue pressure on the kids, but at the same time making sure that they're taking pride in whatever they do and putting in the work ethic.
Hopefully that makes sense.
Ross Romano: Yeah, I mean, my experience across all areas of life is that the pursuit of growth and aspirational effort is more motivating and more fulfilling than loss aversion, right? And again, you'll hear many of the elite athletes who talk about that. They're just, so afraid to lose. That's what [00:37:00] drives them to work so hard because they don't want to have that feeling of losing.
And while that's happening, they're miserable, right? Now, you know, when you're a professional and you're paid that kind of money, like that's why you do it. But that's not really how we would want kids and then that, and that's not going to sustain. And as you were referencing, right? There's a way to, I think, introduce. the concepts of winning and losing to kids and have them have awareness around the results of competition and want to win without just feeling like it's all worthless if they don't end up winning that day. Or they're on a team that doesn't have a successful season, that it doesn't mean there aren't other benefits that come from it, but you know, to understand, I mean, that's, that would be part of understanding what it means to participate in that sport [00:38:00] is how does the scoring work and how are the results tallied and all those things.
And you know, if kids are three years old, that doesn't matter. But once they, you know, they get to be six, seven, eight, right, it's scaffolded to the point where we don't want kids that are that young to be consumed with. wins and losses, but to still understand that, you know, that's the goal for the team.
It's also, I think, a good way to learn about teamwork and collaboration and what it means to to be accountable to your teammates, to perform for them, right? And that's something for coaches. I mean, I've certainly heard, you know, countless, you know, tales of coaches of youth sports who take that stuff too seriously and are maybe too hard on the players. I've also heard from, you know, friends who [00:39:00] say, I wish my kids coach would That a little more seriously, like, you know, my kids coach doesn't care about winning, losing at all, and I feel like there's something that kids aren't learning from that you know, just as much, I've probably heard the most horror stories about how parents behave, right.
And how nobody wants to coach you sports because of the way parents act. So, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of things at play here. But. You know, that's part of learning about what it means to participate in sports, is having an understanding of how that all works but also understanding that.
You can get a little better tomorrow or just cause you know, today didn't go well. Does it mean the next game won't or you know, practice is important too. And practice is what prepares you for the game and and all those kinds of things and just understanding and navigating and hopefully using sound judgment around what are the appropriate things to prioritize and how [00:40:00] to prioritize them at different stages.
Damon Lembi: Yeah. I mean, I want to look, I love to win. I want to win. And quite honestly, I don't think I would have gotten to where I did if I didn't have a passion for winning. But it just needs to be put into perspective as well. When I was coaching a high school frost off baseball team 10 years ago, my old school, I would play the kids Ross who showed up to practice on time.
And who worked hard, regardless of their talent level, but I wanted to win, and, you know, I took a lot of heat from some of the parents, whose kids were maybe better, and they're saying, my kids should be playing, blah, blah, blah, this and that, and all I was trying to do, I was trying to teach them life lessons, show up on time, take pride in what you're doing, and let's be competitive, and yeah, so, I, Hopefully parents are self aware enough too that at home they're teaching those skills to their kids so their kids are running out ground balls or at least showing up on time.
But it was just kind [00:41:00] of frustrating for me to see parents get so involved and you know, calling me and telling, trying to get, tell me, What to do when I was just trying to teach their kids on Way to behave because well, you just said a moment is so true winning or losing you learn about teamwork You learn about persistence you learn about dealing with failure You learn all these wonderful things that are gonna be so important for you later on in life and the parents need to be You know understand that as well.
So, it's tough. I think it's tough. And that is another thing what you said. That's why a lot of times people don't want to coach youth sports, because of dealing with that nonsense. And People, you see it too often. So I think for you parents out there who aren't coaching your kids teams, maybe you should or maybe you should give a little grace to your coaches out there who maybe are putting in an honest effort and want to make your kids better.
That, as much as I want to win, I want to [00:42:00] also make sure that I would rather lose than win. And put in kids who are less talented, but are going to give it 100 percent at that early stage. Now, this is different if I was a varsity baseball coach or a college coach, but kids aren't going to go from Frosthoff baseball and play in college if they don't have that innate ability to be competitive, to show up on time, to, to learn from failure, to collaborate.
You need those skills if you're going to play at even a varsity level of a decent team, definitely when it comes to college or the pro level. It's a different level. (ad here)
Ross Romano: Yeah, and I mean, and as the coach, you're responsible to all the kids obviously parents. are focused on their child but hopefully most understand and have enough perspective to understand their kid's not the only kid. And that effort should be rewarded. If you show up to practice and you work hard, that you deserve an opportunity [00:43:00] to play in the game.
And it doesn't mean we're not trying to win, but we're, you know, we're trying to win within a structure that allows to be a part of that. And that what a lot of. young athletes and parents, et cetera, might not realize is that in the long run, being a good teammate is a lot more important than you might think, right?
Even when you get to the upper levels of the sport being somebody that people want to be around, that coaches like to have around, that teammates respond to, means a lot more to your ability to achieve your potential, to get opportunities, than you may assume if you think it's exclusively about talent and productivity.
But You know, these sports, when you get to those levels of college and professional, you're around these people all the time, right? And nobody wants to [00:44:00] spend that amount of time around somebody they can't stand, or somebody who doesn't care about the team as a whole, or their individual teammates and, There's opportunities you miss out on when you don't prioritize that.
So it's good to learn that at a young age. So David, as we're getting closer to the end of our conversation you know, one more piece that I'd love to use to, to wrap this all up. And I guess it's around, You know, life skills learned through sports and how coaches can make them explicit priority, right?
There's emotional intelligence. There's the fact of, you know, how you are still applying lessons from sports to leadership in the business world, right? A lot of these things, again, that often get talked about as, you know, you know, kind of results of participation in sports and, but are not universally [00:45:00] taught with intention in those environments where they could be or at the very least, you know, the understanding of the benefits of being a part of sports and participating and the benefits that go beyond what eventually becomes of one's athletic career and how we can.
You know, make sure that these are really positive environments for all kids to participate in, right, and to take a lot of value from what they do in sport.
Damon Lembi: Well, if I had to distill it down into three things that I would love to see youth coaches do, I would start off with number one is Youth coaches, help these children build confidence, highlight what they're really good at, and the achievements that they've had, and even if it's just having you know, I had a guy, a buddy of mine who coaches a a cross country team, and this kid came in second place.
This is a recent story. And the [00:46:00] kid ran and jumped into the coach's arms after the practice, after the run for finishing in second place because the coach made him feel so great about his effort and the work he put into it. And this is a kid who I don't think gets enough attention at home. So, what a tremendous impact that this this coach is having on this kid's life, right?
So, number one is find ways to give kids confidence to make them feel good about themselves. Number two is do your best to help them learn work ethic, right? Work ethic, having a strong work ethic is going to get you a long way in life. It's going to help you get through a lot of failures and mistakes, you know, it's just working through things.
And so if we at an early age can teach kids work ethic, that's amazing. Number three, kind of similar, but it's discipline. If you're a youth coach and the kids aren't showing up on time, don't play them. If they are showing up on time, put them in, you know, and that also has to [00:47:00] deal with the discipline of being a team player, right?
Learning to collaborate, like you said, you know, having your teammates backs. Don't be a ball hog and shooting all the time. Learn to pass, you know, have discipline. So, I would say confidence, work ethic, discipline. And a very close number four, again, is the collaboration teamwork part. So I would just leave it at that.
Those are the four main things that I think three or four main things that I think that youth coaches at all levels from kids at six years old to 16 should be focusing on.
Ross Romano: Yeah, excellent. Well, Damon, this has been a great conversation. Listeners, hopefully there's a lot of things here worth reflecting on and thinking about, you know, if you have kids that are, I mean. Certainly participating in baseball, but other sports as well, and what the youth sporting landscape looks like, what you might be looking to accomplish if you're coaching, or what you might be focused on as a parent.
It's kind [00:48:00] of an ever evolving landscape, but the good thing is that there's opportunities for everyone and that there are reasons to not feel so pressured by what might seem to be some of the trends or forces at play, right? To participate in a way that works for you, that your child enjoys, that you feel like you're learning and getting benefits from it and learning as you go and figuring out what you enjoy the most, what you feel like you're succeeding in and what opportunities you want works for that.
There's a lot of different ways to go about it. So, Damon, thanks so much for being here.
Damon Lembi: Ross, thanks for having me, man.
Ross Romano: Excellent. Well, listeners hope you enjoyed the episode. Please subscribe to Sideline Sessions if you haven't already. We have more episodes coming out the rest of this fall and winter for season three here of the show. If you haven't heard our previous episodes, you can go back and check those out too, [00:49:00] or head over to bpodcast.
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