Building Resilient Kids: The Real Game of Youth Sports

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What do you think makes the perfect snack?

Hmm.

It's got to be when I'm really craving it and it's convenient.

Could you be more specific?

When it's cravenient.

Okay.

Like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter, available right now in the street at AM PM, or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at AM PM.

I'm seeing a pattern here.

Well, yeah, we're talking about what I crave.

Which is anything from AM PM?

What more could you want?

Stop by AM P.M.

where the snacks and drinks are perfectly cravable and convenient.

That's cravenience.

A.M.

P.M., too much good stuff.

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show.

We have a tremendous conversation for you today with Steve Dagostino.

He is the founder of Dags Basketball, of Maximize Basketball.

Steve is a high-performance basketball coach and trainer.

He works with kids all the way as young as kindergarten up to NBA players and everyone in between.

He is a big part of the renaissance that has happened in my local community.

This is the best part about this podcast.

Steve lives here in Albany, New York.

His business is based here in Albany, New York, and he has been a major part of the sports renaissance that is happening in our area.

We are consistently sending high-level basketball players to Division I schools like North Carolina, Syracuse.

We currently have four local kids in the NBA, and so much of that has to do with Steve and his training and I wanted to bring him in because

he has a particular mindset methodology thought process that I find to be

it's it's refreshing it is a refreshing way of approaching this I'm a former high school basketball referee I did some college basketball as well I played sports in college

you know I've seen the the the brilliance of youth sports as well as some of the nightmares that can come with youth sports.

And currently, I coach my kids in both baseball and basketball as well.

And what I wanted to get into with Steve was

how, as parents or as coaches of youth athletes, do we align our mindset so that we can help them become what they want to be.

And it's an important framing.

And so much of of this comes out of Steve's mindset.

I love this episode.

Whether you have kids in youth sports or not, you are going to enjoy this because of concepts that Steve talks about, like creating chaotic drills and the importance of training yourself for chaotic moments.

Now, you can have kids or not have kids.

You can have kids in sports or not have kids in sports.

And the idea of inserting yourself into chaotic situations, preparing yourself for chaotic situations so that when they happen out of the blue, you are ready for them and can perform inside of them is wonderful and powerful so with all that preamble let's get on to steve d'agostino

in a crude laboratory in the basement of his home

steve appreciate you making the time today my man yeah thanks for having me i'm excited to be here You know, it's not very often that I get to interview someone from my hometown.

You know what I mean?

We're both Capital Region

And, you know, it's pretty cool that we're not sitting too far apart and getting to have this conversation.

And one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on the show is, and I've brought this up on the show before so the audience has heard me talk about it, but I coach my own kids in sports.

And I was a

basketball referee at a fairly high level, both at the high school and the college levels for 12 years.

And I've just seen,

it feels to me like every year the relationship between the adults and the kids becomes more toxic.

And you've accumulated an incredible following, not just in our local community with your coaching program, but nationally as well.

And you're working with incredibly high-level players.

And what that tells me is the way you are talking about the relationship between coaches and kids, the way that you're addressing that relationship, how you're speaking to these young athletes is really resonating.

So So I'd love to start with, you know, where did your core philosophies come from?

Like, we can get into exactly what they are, but

what were the inputs into your life, into your career that helped you develop those and to be such a positive influence on kids?

Yeah, 100%.

So I've been lucky.

So my dad was a high school coach.

forever before I was even born.

And then he coached youth.

He coached my brother all the way up and then was an assistant on our high school teams.

And then, once we graduated high school, he went back to being a varsity head coach.

And so I've always had a good perspective from him on the youth basketball landscape, the high school basketball landscape.

And then my brother went on to be a college coach locally at U Albany, Hudson Valley, and then down in Florida at an NAIA school.

So I got the insight right for like the college stuff through him.

And then just in my own career,

having played elite AAU on the Nike Circuit and then Division II basketball and then overseas for six years, I went through all that as a player.

And when I transitioned to being a trainer and a player development coach, typically what happens is these development coaches are in one level, right?

You'll see their college MBA or their youth high school.

And I have two businesses, one, Daggs Basketball, who has, we do kindergarten all the way up through 12th grade.

And then my national brand, Maximize Basketball, that's where we focus on our MBA clients, all of our national camps and clinics.

And so I literally get every single level that I get to work with.

And so I'm able to see, you know, obviously, like you're saying, with the adults and all the craziness of youth basketball, the high school recruiting, college landscape, and then the professional aspect as well, too.

And so there's so many different variables that go in it.

And I'm sure we'll get into a lot of them.

But I've been lucky enough that I have experience in all the different levels.

Yeah.

Why, you know, one of the things that got me out of reffing basketball, and I can, I'll actually explain to you, you'll maybe even find this funny because you'll know the teams.

But

I was 12 years in reffing.

I've been to college camps.

I'd done Division III.

I'd done clinics at Division II level.

I'd gone all the way to Glens Falls and done

semifinals for state championship games for high school.

Loved it.

Loved every second of it.

And the last two or three years that I was refing,

I noticed, and this was probably 2010 to 2013, I noticed a severe shift in the overall attitude that people had.

It went from,

you know, winning, but in this like

kind of the way that I was raised up and through it, there was, there's always the competitive nature.

There's always kind of that, you know, you have your rivals in your local communities, etc.

But it became much more combative, much more individualistic, much more the parents yelling from the stands.

And I had an experience, I was at Rensler High School for a freshman basketball game.

Now, most of you listening to this will not know Rensler High School, but it is a Class C school in our

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Area, which means it's fairly small, and it's a freshman basketball game.

It's like a four o'clock game.

This is one of those pickup games you get as a ref and whatever.

And it ends up being a 30-point loss for Rensseler High School.

No big deal.

This stuff all happens.

It's all part of the game.

I'm walking off the court after the game, and a parent walking through the crowd catches me with their shoulder and spins me around.

And I turn and I look at this guy.

Now, one, I'm six foot four, 200 pounds, and this dude makes me look like a Smurf.

And he's looking at me like, if you take one step towards me I'm gonna I'm gonna take you out and then he says this is your fault 30 point game in a freshman in on a freshman towards the end of the season right and it was like at that moment I lost all love for reffing basketball it just killed it for me because it had an accumulation of events and my my question for you is

Where did that transition start to happen?

I'd like to kind of talk about some of these root issues that we're seeing and some of the negatives, and then we can kind of layer in where we feel the solutions are and working with our kids and and finding performance in our lives like What have you seen that that maybe started to make that transition because it it happened I mean it this is not like oh the previous generation blah blah blah kind of crap there is absolutely a different attitude in the way parents and and not so much coaches but especially parents interact with this game Yeah, 100%.

I think at the youth level, it's different now.

And I'm a player development coach, so I do a lot of like the training.

And so I can see that parents are a lot more invested in their kids' youth sports now than maybe they were 20, 30 years ago.

And I'm not saying like emotionally invested as far as like, hey, you want your kid to play sports and be well, but like the time and money that goes into it and those both lead into stress, right?

So like, hey, I'm investing this time.

I'm investing this money.

And then also now everything is on social media.

So like you'll have, you you know, if you're a parent, you go on social media and just take AAU season, you know, your kids on one team, and then you go on social media, and all these other teams are posting their championship.

I'll put it in quotes, right?

Like, t-shirts and pictures, and now you're like, Man, I wish my kid was on that team, and this.

So, there's all this like fear of missing out and trying to keep up with the Joneses, and it really takes away.

What do you think makes the perfect snack?

Hmm, it's gotta be when I'm really craving it, and it's convenient.

Could you be more specific?

When it's convenient, okay, like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter, available right now in the street at AM P.M., or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at AM P.M.

I'm seeing a pattern here.

Well, yeah, we're talking about what I crave.

Which is anything from AMPM?

What more could you want?

Stop by AMPM, where the snacks and drinks are perfectly cravable and convenient.

That's cravenience.

AMPM, too much good stuff.

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Hey, with like the best thing about USports is that it teaches kids how to be accountable, how to handle adversity, how to be part of a team, how to sacrifice.

And like you were saying, we've lost a lot of that for like this manipulation of like trying to win games or having to be on the best team.

And it leads to a ton of stress.

And that stress is mostly there because of the adults.

And then it gets taken out on whether it's a coach taking it out on the players, whether it's a parent taking it out on a coach, whether it's the parent or the coach taking it out on the refs.

It's just, it manifests in all this chaos.

And it's like, yo, just let the kids play.

Yeah.

I um

there's a there's a local you probably even know him Danny Barbero who's a local

baseball trainer and performance coach and my kids play baseball as well and one of the parents of our team asked a question with no with no

honest question about

performance at the age of 11.

And he's a particular guy, but he looks at her and he goes, he's fucking 11 yeah and it was like it it like took her and and and this is nothing against her because her question was honest and it was not meant to be persuaded but it like it literally you could see that hit her like

oh yeah they're just 11 like and so i guess my question is at what point at what point should

as a parent, if you have a kid who is dedicated to a sport and has and has made a commitment to being good, when do you think that ages that you shift into fifth gear with them?

And when, you know, when does that moment happen?

Yeah, so I think when they're younger, so I would say like, right, just take basketball, for instance, like typically these kids will be on teams starting in like third grade, right?

And then

like from third grade to seventh grade, I think it's very much like the parent kind of like leading the way a little bit.

Like, hey, you're going to be on this team and you're going to go to this and this might help, this camp might help you.

And you're leading the way.

But when they get into like eighth, ninth, tenth grade, dude, the kids are going to tell you by their action.

I can't tell you the amount of kids that come into our gym locally, and you could tell they don't want to be there.

And so, you know, like, and it's extra work.

So, so I get it, but but you know, at some point, the kid is going to lead the way, and you're going to be spending all this time and money, and the kid's not even going to want to be there.

My thought is, uh, and there was actually a study, I was listening to Malcolm Gladwell podcast, and there was a study, they studied like elite runners in the UK when they were, I think, like 15, and what they did by the time they got up to 22 and like the smallest smallest percentage of those elite runners at 15 ended up being elite at 22 and we sit here and there's all these like elite middle school teams and they're traveling all over the country and it's like dude you can you can literally pick out the one or two kids like Andre Jackson's in the NBA for the Milwaukee Bucks he was in fifth grade you're like whoa that guy moves different you know what I mean Kevin Herder when he was in seventh grade like yo that kid's got a chance you know and and so what we do is is, it's the intention behind it.

It's, okay, I'm going to invest all this because I want my kid to be great and they want to play college sports and they're going to go play college basketball or college baseball.

Dude, that shouldn't be the intention because all of that is just a byproduct of how productive the kid is when they're on varsity, right?

And so if the intention was, I'm going to invest in my kid, just say basketball training, because they're going to learn how to be dedicated to something, be disciplined, wake up early, go hard in training sessions, fight through adversity, adversity, struggle, learn how to come out on top.

And then, whatever they end up doing in high school, college, and beyond, this is going to help them there.

That's how my philosophy has always been when we're training people.

So, like, when they come in eighth, ninth, grade, and they're talking about college, like, you know, we lose all the crazies because we're not on the same page.

That's not what we're looking to do.

Yeah.

I know one of the things that I preach to my kids constantly is like,

it's attitude and effort.

That's what we're learning.

At fourth grade, baseball, at fifth grade, basketball, you know, I'm like, it's attitude and effort.

Like, we're learning skills.

We're learning how to show up.

We're learning how to be proud of our performance.

Like, I literally don't give a shit if you miss all 10 shots you take today.

Like, it's meaningless.

I mean, honestly,

and I've been accused of this.

I want to win, but I literally don't care if we win or not.

Like,

in my brain, walking away from the field.

And what's been interesting is the feedback that I've gotten from parents is like, you don't push them to win enough.

And I'm like, you don't want that.

Like, if I push them to win, you wouldn't like that side of what this looks like because in fifth grade, these kids, half of them just learned to tie their shoes.

You know, it's like when the kid, when you got to run out in the field and tie a kid's shoe,

we should not be concerned about winning.

Yeah.

Yo, so there's like, so I coach my daughter's fifth grade team.

I also coached third grade.

The third grade is like, you know, they're just learning whatever.

But like fifth grade, I've had them now for a couple years.

And so I am the same way as you.

Like, we're going to compete to win, but I don't care whether we win or lose.

I actually prefer, like, we lose, man, over two years, we probably lost seven games by like one possession.

And part of the problem with our team is we're not focused.

Like, we come and practice and it's not like we're on them, but they have a hard time.

And you're not going to win close games if you're not focused.

And so I actually like it because they're learning now, like, hey, you don't like losing by one point, two points, three points.

We missed 10 foul shots.

We didn't run this play and execute.

And so it's helping us, right, like fight through adversity, lose, and now come back and practice and work on those things, right?

And so I'm the same way as you.

Like,

I do this for a living.

So I could be as crazy as you need me to be.

But in fifth grade, the biggest thing is not that we win games.

It's not that we run a million plays.

We have one play that we run.

It's that your kid, by the time they're in eighth or ninth grade, if they want to do basketball, that then they're ready to be in the gym all the time and compete.

Yeah, yeah.

And I do think,

unfortunately, for a lot of these kids, it's so much luck of the draw.

You know, you call it dad ball, right?

Like we call it in baseball, we call it dad ball a lot.

And you can see, literally, you see the teams that, you know, hit the jackpot because there's a dad who actually gets it, maybe played at a high level, understands, you know, has the perspective of like what we're doing here at this level, at this like fourth, fifth, sixth grade level.

And then you got these dads that maybe never played on their varsity team or

were you know, whatever, didn't get to where they thought they should be, and now they're taking it out on the kids.

And that experience is very difficult.

You know, I guess just kind of wrapping up maybe the youth side of this:

if you're a parent and your kid is on a team, you know, maybe you have good perspective, you understand, let's say it's a

rational parent, but you're on a team where

that head coach, that dad, whatever, who, God bless him, putting his time in, but just doesn't get it, right?

Is the win-at-all cost, you know, over-indexing on these five kids that in fifth grade just are a little more athletic right now kind of thing.

Like,

do you recommend them looking for other teams?

How do you address that?

Because I do think this team hopping so young that happens in all these sports is not necessarily a positive.

It seems to happen way too much.

So

how would you approach that as a parent if you were coming in and you just knew this coach just doesn't get it?

He just he's too aggressive he's yelling it's the win-it-all cost kind of stuff yeah i you know obviously that's like never a good thing you don't want to like rail on volunteers because they are given their time right and i've always said like yo if you're going to complain about the volunteer coach then you go coach yeah go do it you know what i mean and so that that stinks but you know kids are gonna if they're gonna play sports and it's gonna be competitive they're gonna have to deal with all different types of coaches and so you know you get a coach that maybe is not your style for a year It's a good thing for your kid.

It's a good thing.

And so how can you support your kid?

And like, maybe they don't get, they don't like getting yelled at and that coach is a yeller.

Then how do you support them to get through it?

And then once they get through it, they'll be able to deal with people like that, you know?

And so, and then as far as like finding another team, like, you know, the team hopping is crazy, especially in basketball.

I'm sure it's similar in baseball.

Yeah, the not having the continuity of players and coaches and all that is not a good thing for development.

But if you are lucky enough to have like options, then you've got to balance it.

What happens now is parents want the perfect situation.

They want the best coach.

They want their kid to play a ton.

They want their kid to be the best player on the team.

And that's not the case.

You're never going to have, you're almost never going to have that, right?

And so you have to sacrifice in some areas.

So if you're going to prioritize the coaching over everything, then you can't all of a sudden come back and be like, well, my kid's playing half the game.

Yeah, but he could have played on this team where the coaching might not have been as good and they would have played the whole game.

But you prioritize coaching.

And so there's no perfect scenario.

And so the parents have to really, hey, what do I

prioritize?

And if they're not in a great situation, maybe their kid's not playing a ton, great, support him through it.

You know, and then he should be stronger, she should be stronger because of that.

And they got through it.

I love that response

because I think one of the things I've seen, particularly with

this generation or the past couple generations They couldn't survive the way we were coached.

I mean I had a football coach pick me up by my face mask and shoulder press me into a fence because I got a personal foul right and this is the crazy part this is what I tell my kids I'm flying through the air literally slamming into a fence.

I step up and I'm like I deserved that Like that was my mentality was not even that he was wrong for doing today.

He'd be in jail and be a national news story, right?

I mean this was just a Tuesday, you know, afternoon game or whatever.

And, you know, my point in saying that is the, the, I'm so, I love that answer because I feel like we don't, we don't take as parents, the,

we don't take the ownership of, I'm going to help my kid work through this tough situation.

Instead, it's, I'm going to bitch to the league, I'm going to bitch to the coach, and then if none of that works, I'm going to take my kid out of this program and stick them in another program and expect that to be better.

And what the kid learns is, if I don't like what's going on, mom and dad will come in and solve all my problems for me.

And, you know, so I guess operating with high, you know, we'll call them high performers at the levels that they're at or kids striving for high performance at the levels that they're at and seeing that full spectrum.

Can you start to pull out maybe a few of the core,

I'd love to stay on mindset, right?

Like the core mindsets that these types of kids tend to have versus those who fall away over time.

Yep.

So

we can get into the talent levels later because obviously the more talented you are,

the more opportunities you're going to have.

But I would say this, and this is kind of like what I've come to realize with this generation.

And this is if everybody had this mindset of this is what you're trying to build in your kids, right?

With youth sports.

If you can get your kid to be competitive and resilient, you've done your job.

Doesn't matter how many games you've won, what sport you're playing.

You know this, when they get to college and beyond for life, if they're competitive and they're resilient, they're going to have a good chance to succeed.

Right.

And so, like, for our development and our training, how do we put them in situations where they have to be competitive, wins, losses, right?

Go as hard as you can.

And then put them in adversity so they learn that failing is a good thing and they're going to build up that resilience within themselves, then go let them play whatever sport you want.

Do a, you know, start a business.

You're competitive, you're resilient, you're going to figure it out.

That's really what the mindset should be for you, sports and beyond.

How do you manage the competitiveness without over-indexing on the winning, right?

Because I see some kids who are hyper-competitive, but they also do not understand how to handle a loss, right?

If they're crying on the basketball court on a Tuesday night in the middle of the season because you lost a game and they're in fifth grade.

And like, you love the competitiveness, you love the fact that they care, but they've so over-indexed on winning.

You know, how do you address that?

Yeah, clarity.

And fifth grade, sixth grade may be too young for them to completely understand it, but they'll get it.

Competitiveness is not the result.

It's the action.

Okay, what does that mean?

You're focused, you're engaged, you're giving 100% effort, you're being physical, you're trying to do everything that you need to do to win the game.

The result is separate from that, right?

You could be more talented and not be, not compete in a game and still win.

That's not a good thing, right?

So, them understanding that that result of winning is separate from the action of being competitive.

Yeah.

How do you train resilience into a kid or coach resilience into a kid?

I think you put them into challenging situations, right?

And so, like, you know, we'll do it it with,

you know, in our area, we've been lucky.

We've had a ton of really good like shooters come out of this area.

You know, Joe Gerrard was at Syracuse and Clemson, Kevin Herder's in the NBA, Joe Cremo was at Villanova.

And so what we do is we try to get them in a situation, let's say they come in and we're doing shooting stuff, where they're not going to win every drill.

I think, and you know this with coaching.

You want every drill a lot of times to be like clean and you want your kids to do it like really well.

And part of what I've started to embrace is like chaotic drills where, like, yo, you're going to lose, it's going to be messy, but you got to figure out a way to get through it.

And so, that inherently putting them through more adversity in everything that they do, then they tend to start figuring out, okay, you know, I haven't beaten this shooting drill, you know, seven days in a row.

And then on the eighth day, they get it, boom, you did it.

You know?

So, we put that into all of our development stuff.

I love that.

I love the idea of the chaotic drills.

You know, it's funny how, like, so

I played basketball in high school, but only because

I was like the punching bag for the guys that were actually good.

I was like the 12th man that just showed up with the jersey, and the starters just beat the shit out of me in practice, you know, and that was my role.

But in football,

you see this a lot in football.

I was more of a football and baseball player.

And

in football, this is like a given.

Like, you're going to get knocked down.

like, you're gonna be bleeding, you're gonna be bruised.

Like, it's and

but in a lot of the other sports, I've seen the contact side of the game that, that, that,

like you said, I would never, I hadn't framed it in my head as chaotic drills.

I love that.

I'm gonna put more thought into that idea.

I think that's a good life lesson.

I think handling chaos is a life skill, not just a sports skill.

And I really, I think that's wonderful.

So,

let's say you have a kid

who's never been exposed to this before, right?

They hit eighth, ninth grade, they have some talent, they may have some drive to be good, but they have been sheltered or they have been maybe kind of moved around to places where they could be successful without real challenges.

How do you introduce them to them?

Is it just throw it to the fire?

Do you have like a...

like a methodology that you take them through?

Like, how do you get them introduced to this chaotic nature?

Because to me, it feels fairly unique.

Yeah, I think

it depends on the kid, right?

And really how, you know, opposed to contact and all that they are, you know.

But we throw them right to the fire.

I mean, most of the time, there's no, especially when they're in eighth, ninth grade.

Younger kids, yeah, okay, you ease them into it.

But most of our drills are, you know, when we're doing, let's just say, like, finishing drills, which is like layups around the basket and stuff, we'll work on some like on-air, meaning it's just like reps one-on-zero, but most of them are live.

They're one-on-one.

It's a defender pushing you out.

It's a rebounding drill where, again, two guys or two girls are pushing against each other.

And so the more they're exposed to that contact, the more comfortable they get in it.

But

you can't talk your way through that.

You have to experience it.

That's my biggest thing, too, with like

with youth kids and high school kids and all that, right?

I always hear a coach like, well, I told them.

Yeah, but when you were a kid, you didn't listen to any adults.

You learned from experience, right?

And so, yeah, as coaches, we want to keep telling them and telling them.

And so they're hearing the same things over and over again.

So that once they do experience, they're like, oh, crap, that's what he was talking about.

They don't just learn by, hey, you got to be more physical.

No, throw them in a physical drill, be physical, get beat up for two, three, four, five days, and then you figure out how to be comfortable with it.

You know, so we throw them right to the fire.

It's the only way.

I want to transition to,

let's say, someone who really does have talent, right?

Like, I refed Kevin Herder, and it was obvious when he was playing in seventh grade, at seventh grade Capital District as a fifth grader.

He was playing on the seventh grade team, and he was the starting point guard and competing at a high level,

two ages above him.

I mean, it was obvious.

How do you make sure that kid doesn't flame out, fizzle out, ego doesn't get too big?

How do you keep

that hyper-talented individual?

How do you keep them focused on the task at hand and moving forward?

Because there's almost as many or more pitfalls that that player can fall into than the kid who's 12th on the bench that's trying to make the team that's just running as hard as they can.

People think it's like such a good thing for their kid to be the best player in middle school.

And I would almost argue that it's not.

You know, that you're better off having them like not be the best player and be chasing because that best player can be complacent and so like how do you fight complacency I think the kid has to constantly be challenged I think that they have to not only play in a space where okay they can go be the best player and kill because they are the best player but then go play against older kids too where they get beat up a little bit and they're not the best player

and so I it's it's hard I and again the kid's gonna lead the way and so a lot of these kids when they're in middle school and they're the best player you know you haven't in middle school you don't even know what hard work is you know?

And so you're just talented.

And so when you get to high school, some of these kids just, they're not that personality where they're going to put in the extra work, especially as others keep catching up to them.

And so what you're trying to develop, again, is that

competitiveness, the resilience, and then that work ethic, right?

And that comes from the people that you have around them and the perspective that they have.

And I think that's where.

I mean, there's in our area, Ryan, this is crazy.

I did it with my camera guy the other day.

There's at least 16 other trainers, player development coaches that do like workouts and stuff.

Dude, I'm all for it.

There's enough kids, dude, I don't care.

But a lot of times you're, yeah, you're going to work out with these people, but now you're listening to them too.

And so if you're not hearing the right things, then your mindset when you go back to your high school team is going to be off, right?

Your mindset on how the world actually works, the world of basketball, whatever sport, is going to be warped.

And I think that's what ends up happening is not only do the players have like, they don't really have clarity on how the, you know, basketball.

These kids, when they're freshmen, are like, well, offers, offers.

Dude, unless you're a top 100 player, you're not getting a scholarship offer in freshmen.

Colleges aren't recruiting freshmen and sophomores unless you're the best player in the country, right?

And so, but they're here in that, and that's what they're focused on.

Then the parent gets hyper-focused, and they get more stressed, and it's that whole snowball, you know?

And so I think it's, it's, like I said before, like, it's, it's not only the training, it's the perspective.

You have to have somebody that's giving you the right information.

Um, because if you don't have the right information, you're going down the wrong path.

You know, the other thing, too, is playing Division III sports is pretty fun.

Like, the fact that it, you know, so many.

Now, now we shouldn't shoot for as high as we can possibly go, right?

I'm not saying that, but, like, there's, like, this,

I've heard from parents and different stuff.

Like, like, I played Division III baseball.

I loved it.

I played against guys.

I played against a couple guys that ended up going and playing AAA, right?

Like,

it was good baseball.

I had a fun career.

I played a little baseball after college as well.

Like,

I don't think anything of, to me, it's not a miss.

Like, I came from,

you know, you might know where Nassau is, right?

It's a tiny town on 900.

Like, escaping that town was the best thing that ever happened to me.

So, like, my point in saying all that is, like,

we put these expectations on our kids that, like, if they don't go to a name-brand Division I school, that somehow their sports career has been less than it should have been.

And it's like, if your kid gets the opportunity to play college sports, they're the best of the best in the high school level.

Like, yeah, there's going to be best of the best of the best.

Yeah, they're playing at the Kentuckies and North Carolinas and all this kind of stuff.

And sure, that's great.

But how many players on those teams?

12?

15, if you count the practice players, maybe 20 with a practice team?

Like,

that's 20 guys for what, 150 schools that potentially have a chance of making the NCAA tournament.

So like, that's not that many kids out of all the kids that play the sports.

So I sometimes feel like we put so much pressure on these kids to reach these levels.

And it's like, there are so many avenues for them to take these skills that they're learning and make successful lives that are rewarding out of them.

I just, I, I,

you know,

I don't ever want to tell anybody that they shouldn't shoot as high as they should possibly go.

They absolutely should.

But I think there's, we've lost perspective a little bit on what a win actually looks like out of all this effort that we put in.

The expectation of the Division I college basketball is so blown out of proportion that people don't even know

what they want.

Meaning,

if you're good enough, where you play in college is a byproduct of how well you do in high school when you're a junior and a senior, whether it's high school or AU, right?

And so the focus now is, well, we got to do this to go to college and that.

No, you have to try and be, if you're into it, the best high school player that you can be.

And guess what?

There's not many players that should be playing in college that weren't good high school players.

Because when you're in high school, if you're the best player, it's going to show that you're the best player.

Right?

And so we have this expectation from that, from when they're younger, it's like Division I, Division II, Division III, college.

And you're sitting there and you're like, why not just try to be the best high school player you can be and develop all these life skills?

And then if your talent raises and you're productive, all that other stuff is going to come.

The second part would be,

so I'm a junior national team coach with USA basketball.

And so there's like 15 or 16 of us.

And during COVID, we had all these Zooms.

And one of them was with a Harvard professor.

And she was saying how they've been doing like a study on student athletes at the college level.

And there was,

I know the number was over 60%.

I want to say it was like 70%

of the student athletes had some form of anxiety and depression.

And for those people that have played college basketball or college sports, it's hard.

It's really hard.

And guess what?

You're not going to be happy.

You're not going to be happy most of the time unless you really, really love what you're doing and you can handle, like we've been saying, the adversity, those hard times.

Right.

And so I always say, when these people are chasing this, like, okay, would you rather your kid be a college basketball player?

Would you rather him be happy?

Like, happy.

Well, then wait.

You're pushing college over happy.

You don't even know if you want college basketball.

You don't even know if your kid wants college basketball.

But yet you're pushing this notion that, and to your point, I play Division II.

I don't care what level you go to.

I mean, obviously for all these organizations and businesses that have players, you want them to go to the highest level, right?

I'm the opposite.

We had a kid who's probably the best player in the area right now, and

he was choosing between Johns Hopkins, Tufts.

I think he's a Division I player.

Those are high academic Division III schools.

And we had a conversation.

I'm like, dude, you're going to go to Johns Hopkins,

and in 10 years, you're going to be looking back and be like, oh my God, I can't believe that I was going to go to, you know, name a low Division I school.

It doesn't matter.

This school, that, I don't even want to name any because I don't want to.

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Yeah.

I mean, I can tell you as a Division 3, so

I got a couple opportunities to play Division II as a baseball player,

and

I ended up going to the University of Rochester, and Johns Hopkins is one of the schools that we played against for baseball.

And, you know,

Division III sports are fun.

Guess what we did the night before games?

We went out and we chased women and drank beers, and then we showed up the next day and played a double header.

Like, I mean, I'm not saying to take away, we trained hard, we practiced every day.

It was a full-time thing.

We took it very seriously.

But, like, the point is, like, we had fun.

Like, after a double header, if we were sleeping over in that town, we would hang out with the other teams and go out to their bars and like have a good time.

Like, you can't do that shit at the Division I level.

Like, that's not top.

Like, there's

that level, you are playing at a level where, like you said, and I'm not saying you can't have fun in Division I.

I know, I got Prilly Buddies that did, and it's all good, and I'm not knocking that.

I'm just saying that

I think, to your point, like, Johns Hopkins is a meal ticket for a career, for having having a job the rest of your life, like a good job that you could, that's going to make you money, let you provide for your family, whatever you want.

Like, it's there.

And I guess I want people to push as hard as they can and be everything they can be with an understanding, to your point, I love that this is the way you're framing this, that of what you're actually going to get out the back end of making that decision.

And we phrase it not to cut you off, but the way that it's framed to these kids by the parents and the other, you know, AU coaches, trainers, decision makers is that the college level is like good, better, best.

It's not the case.

It's not the case because everybody's different.

So what?

So you get a Division I scholarship to a low Division I school.

That's better than going to a Tufts or a Williams or a Johns Hopkins.

Not in 20 years, it's not.

And so

again,

and this goes back to the right information.

Do you have somebody?

that can frame it in a way so that you and your the kid and the parent can still make the choice on what they think is better for them but they have all the right information you have all of it you know

let's transition to your actual business and one of the things that i've you know just watching you know living in the same community our kids go to the same school like watching watching your brand your business grow um you know and i was watching one of your instagram videos the other day and like i clicked on your profile just to just to i'm always interested i like i like the way you talk to the kids You know,

I follow you because I'm interested in it.

And I go, holy shit, this dude's got 120,000 people that follow him on Instagram.

And, like, numbers are numbers.

I don't want to make it, but like, dude,

you're a basketball train performance development coach from upstate New York.

And you have 120,000 people that find your kind, and the engagement's incredible.

And my point in framing all this for the audience is that you have been consistent.

You've obviously dialed in on a message,

and you're delivering a product that's that's valuable, incredibly valuable.

How does someone who

maybe is sitting there going to themselves, well, you know, I'm from a small town, Albany's not a big market.

For those listening, we're 154th largest market in the country.

Like, how does someone who has a message who could be coaching, let's say coaching for someone who's coaching today,

they played sports, they love kids, they want to do what you're doing, they're 15 years behind you.

How do they start delivering a message?

How do they start building their business so that they can have greater impact than just the kids that they're coaching?

And not that they shouldn't focus on the kids they're coaching, but obviously you're having an impact well outside of just the humans that are sharing air with you.

Yeah.

So I think a couple of things.

When I started Dags Basketball, which is the local business,

it was, I'm just reacting to what the market is, right?

And there wasn't a ton of honesty and value, right?

And so what I've always said is whatever we do, we're going to try to provide the most value and we're going to mess up.

We're going to have days where we're not great.

But for the most part, we're going to try to provide great value and then we're going to be honest.

We're going to be honest with the players.

We're going to be honest with the parents.

And I think that social media following

is there because of those two things.

People see like, whoa, there's value in this and it's honest.

It's not some unauthentic, like somebody trying to do it because I want to be famous.

If I could not do social media, I would not do social media.

But the fact of the matter is that the people who get more opportunities are the ones that have a great social media following.

So I have to do it.

And so all you're seeing on there is like actual conversations that I would have with our parents and players and during our training sessions, you know?

And so I think that helps.

I think the other thing is we're, you know, it's crazy.

I can't remember like our area having as many high-level players

as we have right now.

Andre Jackson with the Bucs, Kevin Herter with the Sacramento Kings, Boo Bowie just signed with the New York Knicks.

I know I'm missing a handful of players.

I mean, we had guys at Villanova, Syracuse, like I mentioned before, North Carolina.

And I think

what happened, you know, in like that small period of time in Albany, New York is I was able to work with all those players.

And it wasn't anything that I did, but they were all around each other and they all had a similar perspective, right?

And so, like, when you know, like Andrew Playtech played at North Carolina before he went there his freshman year, I remember being in the gym with Joe Cremo and Kevin Herder, who are both, you know, high major players.

And Playtech was saying how, you know, what he thought that North Carolina would be like.

And we were all sitting there, like, you're going to learn, buddy, what you think it's going to be like, and after your freshman year is going to be.

And so you have all these people that have real life experience.

It's not somebody spewing some crap so that their business makes more money, right?

And so I think,

you know, I always say this, especially it helps when you have NBA players.

If I was in New York City or Los Angeles or Miami, I'd have, you know, triple the amount of NBA players that I work with now.

But I'm home in Albany, New York.

So whoever comes in the gym, we're going to do the best job.

And it's been crazy to see the success of some of our players.

And, you know, it's on them because they're the ones who have to decide who they listen to.

and how they go about their business.

So it's been cool to be a part of it, that's for sure.

For the parents parents listening out there, how do, what's the filter or is there a filter that you can recommend for someone who's trying to bullshit them to sell a $300 program and the coach who's there to really help their kid get better?

Like, how do you, how would you filter that out for them?

It's so hard because, ready, I do this.

I've been doing this for a long time, right?

And so this is like not what we do, but I think I could make my revenue could double easy.

ready hey right duke and colton are one of the they're some of the best basketball players that i've seen like really if if they like locked in and really trained a couple times a week i think that they could end up being like some of the best players in the area what are you gonna do you're gonna say oh no this guy's bsing me i'm honestly i was reaching for my wallet right i was like reaching under here i'm like is he serious i got mad you know and so like it's so hard for the parents Like somebody wants to compliment your kid and say that they're doing really, really well.

You're going to be like, oh, man, I knew my kid was pretty good, you know?

And so it's just, it's that, your question of the BS filter, it's hard because that's all you have to do.

I think over time, though, you figure out, like a lot of the trainers, you know, I think there's two things.

One, a lot of them do it because they want themselves to be famous.

They want to be famous and they want more for themselves.

And then, you know, the other ones are, I think they're good-hearted,

but they might not have like the background and really the capabilities to really, really like help a kid.

So they think they're helping them, but they're maybe not as much as they think they are.

And so listen, at the end of the day, it's this.

If your kid's in middle school and they're putting in extra work, no matter what that work is, it's a good thing, dude.

It's a good thing, right?

And I think, so I've been doing a lot more consulting now.

And to me,

the number one thing that a person could do, if you're going to spend money on anything, is find somebody that's been through it and knows what they're talking about and invest the money and let them give you an honest opinion of

your kid.

Hey, here's an honest opinion.

Here's what the landscape is.

You know, we had a guy from Massachusetts who hopped on a

consultation the other day and his son's a really good baseball player, really good basketball player.

And he's like, hey, he doesn't know which one to choose.

What should he be doing?

He's in ninth grade.

And so we went through the whole landscape and he decided at the end, like, you know what?

We're going to stay with baseball.

We're going to train a little more.

for basketball in like our hometown, get in the gym with our high school coach and stuff.

And then when he gets to like 10th grade maybe 11th grade see how things shake out see how tall he ends up being you know he's six six foot guard you know does he go and start her on he started on varsity baseball in eighth grade you know like i don't think you got to choose right now but at least he's got better clarity on oh wait i don't have to go to every au tournament as a ninth grader because i'm not going to be seen dude nobody's looking for you in ninth grade you know that's the one thing that i would do as your kid gets up there um because then you're operating with again the right information steve I love the way you approach this.

For someone who's listening to this and they want to, guys, I'm going to have links to regardless if you have kids in youth sports or not, I highly recommend that you follow Steve's Instagram.

I'm going to have the links as well as links to his website in the show notes, whether you're watching or listening, guys.

Just to see the way he presents himself, the way he presents his product.

If you don't have kids, if you do have kids, the way he talks about the sport, I can attest to the honesty, the authenticity, and just the directness of how you approach certain topics, I think is phenomenal.

But if someone's listening and wants to work with you or wants to come and get a consultation because they have a kid that might be at an age and has a tough decision, like the one that you just described, like, how do they get a hold of you?

What's the best way to get into your ecosystem?

Yeah, so

if they're outside of the area, just MaximizeBasketball is the name of that company, maximizebasketball.com.

All the information for the consultations, online courses to come in if they want to come fly up here and work with us or need need us to come down there.

And then if they're local, just dagsbasketball.com.

And all that is on my Instagram.

So if they follow my Instagram, SteveDagsZero, they'll be able to get all that information.

Awesome, brother.

I appreciate you and I appreciate the time.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

It's fun.

Let's go.

Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy.

Thank you for listening to the Ryan Hanley show.

Be sure to subscribe and leave us a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts.

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