Speaker 1: We'll find out if our next guest that can go
Speaker 1: to an employment tribunal and try and grab fifty five
Speaker 1: million euro for any reason, because you know it's that
Speaker 1: time where it is nine thirty on a Friday. We'd
Speaker 1: find out about draws going to wins. We find out
Speaker 1: about the playoff mix, we find out about anything going
Speaker 1: on between the sticks, the proverbial sticks, the ears, the
Speaker 1: mind of a mogul, and training. It's time for a
Speaker 1: Friday free kick with our buddy Michael Parker's.
Speaker 2: Cap.
Speaker 1: Have you ever gone to an employment tribunal toward try
Speaker 1: and get fifty five million euro from your previous employers?
Speaker 3: I haven't, but I would welcome the opportunity.
Speaker 1: We were discussing Achillean and Bape and where he is
Speaker 1: now still apparently angry to the point to where I
Speaker 1: feel like I feel like he's doing something like this.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's like the Veruka salt bit, you
Speaker 1: know in Willy Wonka. It's just one of the East.
Speaker 1: You know, he's in the corner. He's kind of stomping
Speaker 1: up and down.
Speaker 2: I want my fifty five billion euro.
Speaker 1: First world problems, First world problems this morning. So how
Speaker 1: is the the Life of the Mogul and training. Let's
Speaker 1: start off with Rhode Island FC and what is going
Speaker 1: on in the street fight that is the Eastern Conference
Speaker 1: in USL Championship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not a great weekend for us. Last weekend. I
Speaker 3: drove over to Pittsburgh and we played probably our worst
Speaker 3: game of the season. I'm not going to correlate the
Speaker 3: two things, but yeah, it's a tough it's a tough
Speaker 3: place to play and a tough pitch to play on,
Speaker 3: and we didn't do a good enough job adapting there.
Speaker 3: So we we got what we deserved in that game.
Speaker 3: And so we're still in the thick of it and
Speaker 3: we're headed out to California to play Orange County this weekend.
Speaker 3: So all is fine.
Speaker 1: So are you catching the flight to a championship stadium
Speaker 1: in Irvine, California?
Speaker 3: I am not.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I mean, because you can you can stay at home
Speaker 1: and kick back and watch it and not have to
Speaker 1: deal with weather or flight DeLay's or anything like that.
Speaker 1: You can have you can have your own Rhode Island
Speaker 1: FC party at the Casa de Parkers totally.
Speaker 3: And John, we've had amazing weather up here.
Speaker 2: Until Yeah, it's been so nice until.
Speaker 3: And sitting there in Pittsburgh. I had pants and a
Speaker 3: sweatshirt on, and I was shivering so cold, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're you're right up against the river and
Speaker 1: you sit there and the trains go by, and you're
Speaker 1: sitting there going Man, if I had a soccer ball,
Speaker 1: I'd like to try and kick it into the river
Speaker 1: and over the train, or see if it could go
Speaker 1: into the train and the train just kind of takes
Speaker 1: it by. Maybe it would mask the yelling of Bob
Speaker 1: Lilly at any given moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but anyways, No, it's it's all good. We could
Speaker 3: have used some help from Tampa Bay midweek. They lost
Speaker 3: to Birmingham, so that didn't help us. But you know,
Speaker 3: such as life, you got to you gotta do it
Speaker 3: yourself sometimes.
Speaker 1: Okay, So that'll be my entry point this week when
Speaker 1: it comes to to mentoring and reminding mentees that yes,
Speaker 1: I'm here for you, your mentors and your uh you know,
Speaker 1: your guide posts are there for you. Sometimes you do
Speaker 1: have to do it yourself. Do you have to have
Speaker 1: those reminders in those conversations with men teas about sometimes
Speaker 1: I can only get you so far, You've got to
Speaker 1: take it that final step.
Speaker 3: Definitely, and some of it is even a bit of
Speaker 3: a step down as far as just maturity right as
Speaker 3: a human being. So different steps like, Okay, now you're
Speaker 3: in I don't know, middle school or high school, and
Speaker 3: so it's not mom and dad's job to get you
Speaker 3: ready to go to practice. You should be ready to
Speaker 3: go to practice and have all the things and have
Speaker 3: your water and get your snacks and do all these things.
Speaker 3: And that's on you now, right, You're you're old enough,
Speaker 3: and that's on you. Uh and so yeah, the same
Speaker 3: thing kind of when you go up the level, right,
Speaker 3: and now you talk about you know, confidence and dealing
Speaker 3: with things and and just looking out for yourself, that's
Speaker 3: on you, especially as you go off to college or
Speaker 3: you know, if you're if you're lucky enough to ever
Speaker 3: play professionally. Right, it's like you you need to look
Speaker 3: out for yourself and you need to make sure you're
Speaker 3: taking ownership of your journey because no one cares more
Speaker 3: about your journey or shouldn't care more about your journey
Speaker 3: than yourself other than maybe your mom. Yeah they probably care.
Speaker 1: Yeah more, yes, well, and then so then let me
Speaker 1: ask about generational divides and disconnects and things like that.
Speaker 1: Do you find that folks that are our age care
Speaker 1: about it and approach differently and taking things into our
Speaker 1: own hands versus the younger folks, the folks that you
Speaker 1: mantee and maybe folks that you see at Rhode Island
Speaker 1: or in college or anything like that. Do we handle
Speaker 1: things differently now when it comes to taking care of
Speaker 1: business ourselves.
Speaker 3: Yes, And I feel like some of it lands on
Speaker 3: my generation and how we're parenting and we're enabling, and
Speaker 3: you know, I think that maybe it's because we had
Speaker 3: to do a little bit more as we were younger
Speaker 3: that now, you know, we just want to put things
Speaker 3: on a platter for our kids and make it easy
Speaker 3: and help them out and all these things, and sometimes
Speaker 3: we're doing them a disservice by doing too much, and
Speaker 3: then they just become reliant on us, independent. And I
Speaker 3: see it in a lot of kids and just maturity wise,
Speaker 3: like they're capable of so much more and we're limited
Speaker 3: them sometimes. And you know, even out on the soccer field,
Speaker 3: it's the same thing sometimes. And I know there's a
Speaker 3: fine line between you know, encouragement and tough love, you know,
Speaker 3: so it kind of all goes hand in hand and
Speaker 3: everyone's different though, as we know well.
Speaker 1: And at the same time you mentioned that, and there's
Speaker 1: always that mindset from parents, grandparents, what have you, about
Speaker 1: making it better for our kids, making it easier for
Speaker 1: them than it was for ourselves. And then that runs
Speaker 1: into that issue that you're talking about where parents they
Speaker 1: want to make it easier, they want to make it better,
Speaker 1: they want to make it, you know, they want to
Speaker 1: make it a better place for their kids. But there's
Speaker 1: that line about, you know, they've got to want there's
Speaker 1: that want to.
Speaker 2: They've got to want to at least.
Speaker 1: Meet you halfway in that regard where okay, yeah, great,
Speaker 1: you want to do this as a parent, but the
Speaker 1: kid can't learn if everything's laid out for them, and
Speaker 1: it makes things, i would say difficult because they don't
Speaker 1: get that real world on the job training that they're
Speaker 1: supposed to get as they get older, to experience these
Speaker 1: things that they're supposed to tackle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And you know, of course we want to
Speaker 3: do and set our kids up as best as we can,
Speaker 3: no doubt about it. But yeah, I feel like, you know,
Speaker 3: sometimes we need to let them fail a little bit
Speaker 3: and figure things out. On their own. And I've gotten
Speaker 3: to that point now with my kids, and it's tough
Speaker 3: because you don't want to like see them fail or
Speaker 3: see them struggle. But one small example is every day
Speaker 3: when we come home from school, the kids need to
Speaker 3: take their water bottles and their lunches over to the
Speaker 3: sink and I'll wash it in the evening, no problem.
Speaker 3: My son can't even do that, and so now I'm done.
Speaker 3: If it doesn't get there by the time I'm washing
Speaker 3: the dishes, he washes it himself, and like, I don't
Speaker 3: feel bad and he needs to do that. And if
Speaker 3: in the morning he's rushing out of the house to
Speaker 3: run to the bus, and so be it. But I'm
Speaker 3: done with it. And you know, it's just so a
Speaker 3: small little thing. But there's just so much you know,
Speaker 3: the same thing with going to practice, like we will
Speaker 3: be late. I'd rather be a little late to the
Speaker 3: practice and him be upset about that than do his
Speaker 3: water for him or find his I don't know.
Speaker 1: You name it by the shin guards that are hanging
Speaker 1: around some point, Yeah, exactly. So you mentioned how difficult
Speaker 1: that is as a parent. I mean, does the does
Speaker 1: the mentor come out a little bit in that process,
Speaker 1: at least mentally for you. At the same time where Okay,
Speaker 1: I see what's happening here, you can almost kind of
Speaker 1: detach and look at it from a different perspective, like
Speaker 1: you get to look at it from up high or
Speaker 1: something like in All twenty two for football coverages. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I see what's happening here, I can detach, I
Speaker 1: understand what's going on. I can help I can help
Speaker 1: my kids as both a mentee and a parent by
Speaker 1: doing things and looking at it differently. Do you ever
Speaker 1: have those out of body moments where you get to
Speaker 1: analyze yourself.
Speaker 3: Here, Yes, I do, and I completely and it furthers
Speaker 3: my certainty of why kids need mentor because they don't
Speaker 3: listen to their parents. Right, there's obviously there's some and
Speaker 3: my kids listen to me, you know, and they're good
Speaker 3: kids and whatever. But when it comes to this, and
Speaker 3: I see it all the time with my own kids,
Speaker 3: where I'm like, oh my gosh, I speak to kids,
Speaker 3: their parents pay me to do this, I'm good at it.
Speaker 3: And yet here we are my own children, and they
Speaker 3: are stubborn as rocks, and I cannot talk to them
Speaker 3: about what I know and I know can help them. So, yes,
Speaker 3: it is out of body and it's out of mind
Speaker 3: as well. John just mind blowing that is.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: So then you know, when you see what's going on,
Speaker 1: do do you and the boss kind of sit there
Speaker 1: and it's like, okay, we see this happening, all right.
Speaker 1: You kind of brace yourself for it, knowing that that
Speaker 1: it's inside the Parkhurst four walls that this is happening,
Speaker 1: and you're getting to have the the mentor looking at
Speaker 1: the parent, looking at the mente kind of it. It's
Speaker 1: almost like this three step process. Do you kind of
Speaker 1: brace yourself for it and you're like, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: we know it's coming.
Speaker 3: Yep, No, totally. And my wife has done a really
Speaker 3: good job of like she can detach and just walk
Speaker 3: away and remove herself and everything. And but how hard
Speaker 3: is she. Oh she's learned it over the years though,
Speaker 3: because she was around the kids so much more when
Speaker 3: they were younger than I was. Obviously I was playing
Speaker 3: and traveling and busy a lot. And so for me,
Speaker 3: I'm going through that where I'm like, I'm getting better now,
Speaker 3: but so many times I would just get so mad
Speaker 3: and so frustrated, and you know, then we're just fighting
Speaker 3: and yelling at each other, and you know you're doing
Speaker 3: it because you want and you think you can help them,
Speaker 3: but again, you're not helping them if it's not going
Speaker 3: in their ears and you know, into their brain. And
Speaker 3: so it's just like, hey need step back, let them
Speaker 3: figure it out. And you know, hopefully that's that'll get
Speaker 3: to them, because I've gotten to that point even with
Speaker 3: my daughter with shoulder exercises. She's dislocated her shoulders, had
Speaker 3: some trouble, yet she loves softball, and I say, well,
Speaker 3: if you love softball, you'd love doing your shoulder exercises,
Speaker 3: because if you don't do your shoulder exercises, you might
Speaker 3: not be able to do softball, right, And that's the
Speaker 3: that's the ownership part, and she's got to own it
Speaker 3: if she wants to play softball. And it's it's the
Speaker 3: same thing with a lot of the kids that we
Speaker 3: talk about. Right, if you want to continue to play
Speaker 3: soccer at a higher level, then you have to learn
Speaker 3: to embrace some of these things that you don't want
Speaker 3: to do. I didn't want to go running in the
Speaker 3: off season when it's cold outside and get ready for preseason.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to do that, but I did it
Speaker 3: because I knew that it needed to be done. And
Speaker 3: that's why I don't miss.
Speaker 1: Playing, because I can either a sleep in or be
Speaker 1: go play golf and not have to worry about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's this seems like and I am not
Speaker 1: a parent. I have parents and pets. That is the
Speaker 1: extent of my parenting at the moment. It's a different
Speaker 1: kind of parenting. But it is not like you, and
Speaker 1: it is not like others. And I can sense that
Speaker 1: there are times of frustration. There are times where you
Speaker 1: get to see them learn, you get to see the
Speaker 1: light come on and all that kind of stuff. But
Speaker 1: you mentioned enabling, and I wanted to ask how much
Speaker 1: it is enabling happening more today than it has previously.
Speaker 1: I mean, because you know, with our parents and our grandparents,
Speaker 1: you know, it was like, you know, I walked in
Speaker 1: the snow uphill both ways in bare feet going to school,
Speaker 1: and they would always give you those lessons and you
Speaker 1: had to kind of sort it out yourself, and then
Speaker 1: when you didn't sort it out yourself, then they kind
Speaker 1: of came down on you a little bit, and then
Speaker 1: they came down on you until you got it right,
Speaker 1: and it was just a different kind of It was
Speaker 1: tough love that forced those kinds of lessons.
Speaker 2: Is there? Is it softer? How much softer is it now?
Speaker 1: Where we had the tough love of our parents and
Speaker 1: grandparents and then maybe a little softer than maybe a
Speaker 1: little softer. Is that the progression that you're seeing here?
Speaker 3: Is it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Am I off?
Speaker 1: I mean just because of my thought of my grandparents
Speaker 1: where I mean I had full disclosure. I had a
Speaker 1: grandfather who was Army Air Corps Battle of Britain, Invasion
Speaker 1: of North Africa. He was in the OSS, the predecessor
Speaker 1: to the CIA, and.
Speaker 2: You know, he would always tell the.
Speaker 1: Funny stories about what it was like to serve for
Speaker 1: his country in World War Two. He would he would
Speaker 1: never tell the really nasty ones. But for him, it
Speaker 1: literally was like the way of the ruler. And if
Speaker 1: you weren't getting anything done, if you weren't listening, the
Speaker 1: rulers coming out and it's like bang. You know, it's
Speaker 1: to try to get you into shape. And he knew
Speaker 1: that it was time to stop hitting me with a ruler.
Speaker 1: When I broke the ruler in half. You remember those
Speaker 1: old the old eighteen to twenty four inch rulers that
Speaker 1: had like the metal rod across the top that kept
Speaker 1: it in place. He popped me with it once when
Speaker 1: I was I think like twelve or thirteen, and I
Speaker 1: snapped the ruler in half, but you still had the
Speaker 1: metal bar for the full twenty four inches. And we
Speaker 1: looked at each other and we're like and he started laughing,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, yep, that's the last time that that's
Speaker 1: gonna happen. He finally had that moment where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I have to think of different ways to discipline. That
Speaker 1: was their way of doing it with our grandparents, at
Speaker 1: least with my grandparents, and then because of what you saw,
Speaker 1: it's almost like having a player's coach and a disciplinarian.
Speaker 1: It's like I had the disciplinarian, and then my parents
Speaker 1: became the player's coach, and then you're trying to figure
Speaker 1: out the third way to do it.
Speaker 2: And so I don't know.
Speaker 1: Where we are these days with this current generation of
Speaker 1: parents and stuff. Are we at the level of that
Speaker 1: third head coach where it's not the disciplinarian or the
Speaker 1: players coach and you've got to try to figure out
Speaker 1: how to navigate.
Speaker 2: It is that where we are?
Speaker 3: I think that's where a lot of us are trying
Speaker 3: to figure out where is where is that? And where
Speaker 3: do we live there in that area? And how do
Speaker 3: we get there? Because yeah, obviously times have changed, right,
Speaker 3: We're not getting hit at school anymore like my dad
Speaker 3: used to and.
Speaker 1: Take the kid behind the door and have the teacher
Speaker 1: sit there and you hear the noise and then the
Speaker 1: kid comes back out the class. Okay, yeah, exactly what
Speaker 1: happened in my school.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I believe it. And so you know, and obviously
Speaker 3: a lot of these changes are for the good and
Speaker 3: for the betterment, but yeah, how do we still like,
Speaker 3: how do we get Yeah, how do we progress? And
Speaker 3: Nick our kids like strong enough to and and by
Speaker 3: strong enough I mean Jake mentally strong enough to you know,
Speaker 3: get through tough times and get through adversity and figure
Speaker 3: things out and and mature. Right. I don't want my
Speaker 3: kids being the ones that go to college, go through
Speaker 3: four years and then are like I wonder what I
Speaker 3: want to do? Right, And it's like, you know, we
Speaker 3: need to, you know, take some responsibility here and figure
Speaker 3: things out and grow up a little bit, right, it's
Speaker 3: like that's where I think, like the maturity level. I
Speaker 3: think as time has gone or taking longer and longer
Speaker 3: to mature, you know, it seems like.
Speaker 1: You know, you gotta come. You almost have to drag
Speaker 1: them to you have to drag them forward. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: like it's okay, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that is hand in hand a
Speaker 3: little bit with the enabling and you know, trying to
Speaker 3: make it better for our kids than it was for us,
Speaker 3: and you know, which is great. And obviously a lot
Speaker 3: of us have more means than when we did when
Speaker 3: we were little, which is great. But yeah, just figuring out,
Speaker 3: you know, within that, how do we still help our
Speaker 3: kids be ready for the real life. Because if there's
Speaker 3: one thing I tell every single MENTI, it's life isn't fair.
Speaker 3: It is not, So how are you going to deal
Speaker 3: with it?
Speaker 1: What was the most recent example of how And obviously
Speaker 1: you don't have to say who the mente was, but
Speaker 1: what was the most recent example that you had to
Speaker 1: remind somebody that life wasn't fair? Could have been a MENTI,
Speaker 1: could have been somebody close, could have been a family friend.
Speaker 1: When was the last time that you had to mention
Speaker 1: that to somebody, you.
Speaker 3: Had a kid who is a freshman in high school
Speaker 3: and he got blamed for a goal that they gave
Speaker 3: up in a high school game. He's playing varsity, And
Speaker 3: I said, you know, hey, dude, this is how it's
Speaker 3: going to be right where right or wrong. Younger players
Speaker 3: are going to get blamed for things that's not on them, yep,
Speaker 3: And you need to be able to realize and figure out, Okay,
Speaker 3: what can I take from this that's helpful and what
Speaker 3: do I need to ignore and just know, like, hey,
Speaker 3: this is part of unfortunately, this is part of the process.
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm going to listen, and but I'm
Speaker 3: not going to necessarily let this affect me and take
Speaker 3: it in so much that I'm going to be placing
Speaker 3: all this blame on myself and letting it affect my play.
Speaker 3: So that was the like, hey, dude, yeah, life is
Speaker 3: not fair in this situation, right, Younger guys just take
Speaker 3: the brunt of it. I've seen it at high school,
Speaker 3: college and professionally from other players and from coaches, and
Speaker 3: so it just you need to have some thicker skin
Speaker 3: in those situations.
Speaker 1: That's going to say Ish rolls downhill always has and
Speaker 1: it's all going to be the the older players looking
Speaker 1: at the the older guys looking at the younger guys,
Speaker 1: the older player looking at the younger player. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: since you've been out here the least amount of time,
Speaker 1: it's obviously your fault. Then you'll go back and look
Speaker 1: at it on tape, and then you won't say anything
Speaker 1: about it. If you're the older player, if you're the
Speaker 1: one that was at fault, you said there, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it happened. Yeah, it's just it's over there. It's it's
Speaker 1: over in time.
Speaker 2: How I mean?
Speaker 1: And I don't want to use I don't want to
Speaker 1: use the word that I haven't in my in my
Speaker 1: head right now?
Speaker 2: How pointed are.
Speaker 1: The How pointed is the smack these days that from
Speaker 1: older players to younger players?
Speaker 2: I mean, how is it? Is it still the same where.
Speaker 1: When we were all growing up that that you mentioned
Speaker 1: how things roll downhill?
Speaker 2: Is it different? Is it the same?
Speaker 1: Is there more of it these days that you get
Speaker 1: to that you witness. How How is the trickle down
Speaker 1: effective blame that you see these days?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think it's different, and it's different in a
Speaker 3: better way. I think that there's less of that I
Speaker 3: remember when I was a rookie in MLS, like we
Speaker 3: had a veteran locker room, and yeah, there were times
Speaker 3: where they were hard on rookies, like just absolutely smashing
Speaker 3: balls at you in a passing drill, knowing that you're
Speaker 3: not going to take a good touch and then complaining
Speaker 3: when you don't take a good touch right And I
Speaker 3: think a lot of that is just kind of like, hey,
Speaker 3: let me, let me toughen you up and let me
Speaker 3: show you, like, hey, this happened to me, so you know, hey, few,
Speaker 3: I'm going to do it to you.
Speaker 2: And so it was a test. It was like an
Speaker 2: on the field test basically.
Speaker 3: I think so because they weren't bad people. They're not
Speaker 3: got bad guys off the field. It's more like I
Speaker 3: don't know, just I want to test you and see
Speaker 3: what the reaction is going to be, Like do you
Speaker 3: know your place in this team right now? I put
Speaker 3: in my time and so, hey, make sure you put
Speaker 3: in your time before you think you're too.
Speaker 1: Good, And can you handle all of the crap that's
Speaker 1: thrown at you, like a situation like this where if
Speaker 1: a touch is too heavy, you know, if somebody's out
Speaker 1: of position, how much can you handle, I guess is
Speaker 1: probably what's going through my brain in a situation like that.
Speaker 1: So can you handle me doing this to you? What
Speaker 1: can you?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Can can can you handle me poking you in the startup?
Speaker 1: Can you handle me pushing you in the shoulder, knocking
Speaker 1: you off your pins?
Speaker 2: That kind of thing?
Speaker 3: Yep? Totally?
Speaker 2: Uh did you do that? Did you? Did you carry
Speaker 2: on that as well?
Speaker 1: Or were you more analytical in your approaches since you
Speaker 1: were treated at X level by teammates when you started
Speaker 1: did you? I imagine it's still carried on when you
Speaker 1: were a pro and had pro years underneath you. But
Speaker 1: was it less and did you how deep did you
Speaker 1: go into that idea?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Far less? And that's what I'm saying. I think
Speaker 3: times have changed where there's far less players doing that nowadays.
Speaker 3: You know, I think that these still need to hold
Speaker 3: especially younger players accountable on and off the field with
Speaker 3: their actions, but I think there's less of that. You know, Hey,
Speaker 3: let me just test this guy and see how he's
Speaker 3: going to react and or just you know, I want
Speaker 3: to say, be a jerk, but you know, I don't know,
Speaker 3: just not have the same respect to younger players as
Speaker 3: you do fellow older players, And I get that. You know,
Speaker 3: you need to earn respect from players, and you do
Speaker 3: that over time, and so that's when that's why when
Speaker 3: an older player makes a mistake, he doesn't get as
Speaker 3: much grief as when a younger player does right, because
Speaker 3: he's earned that respect of Okay, yeah, I know that
Speaker 3: he made a mistake, but you know I've also seen
Speaker 3: his body at work over time, versus hey, this rookie
Speaker 3: just made a mistake. What the heck's going on?
Speaker 1: The emotional capital, I guess that is attached to being
Speaker 1: a veteran when you can you give them a bit
Speaker 1: of a wider berth when it comes to mistakes and
Speaker 1: addressing mistakes and figuring out how to address them in
Speaker 1: these kinds of situations. Another couple of minutes with cap
Speaker 1: here at MF. Parkhurst on the two hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: character app BG mentoring on the twitters as well, Look,
Speaker 1: I can't call it X because you know it's like,
Speaker 1: what do you you exend somebody out that just seems
Speaker 1: like it's a bad thing, you know, because you know, look,
Speaker 1: I've saved I have saved this drop on purpose knowing
Speaker 1: that there would be times when when it would be
Speaker 1: used and if I could find it then I would
Speaker 1: play it. But apparently I can't find it. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: here we go. Here it is, you know, a little
Speaker 1: zzy top. Never heard anybody, but I've got like nine
Speaker 1: thousand drops off to the right hand side, and it's.
Speaker 2: Like, where is it?
Speaker 1: It was one of the first ones you did, idiots,
Speaker 1: so it's up high, you know, so when it We've
Speaker 1: talked about the emotions and dealing with emotions and having
Speaker 1: folks grow in maturity and all these kinds of things.
Speaker 1: Greg raised a point about the national team last time
Speaker 1: and now that there's a new a new man in charge,
Speaker 1: Mercia po Chattino. Greg raised the point that sometimes the
Speaker 1: US is too nice. Can you be too nice as
Speaker 1: an athlete out there and still be successful in a
Speaker 1: team environment? Or do you have to have a little
Speaker 1: bit of sandpaper in you to succeed? Can you be
Speaker 1: nice one hundred percent of the time? Can you be
Speaker 1: a little less nice and still be as successful?
Speaker 3: It's tough, it's tough to be. I think you can,
Speaker 3: but I think it to a certain extent. You can't
Speaker 3: be one hundred percent nice. I don't think and it's definitely.
Speaker 3: It's funny you say that, John, because I'm watching a
Speaker 3: lot more and WSL and just women's soccer in general
Speaker 3: than I ever have. And it's one thing that's I
Speaker 3: noticed so quickly, the difference between men and women is
Speaker 3: their reactions to their teammates and their mistakes or when
Speaker 3: they don't receive a pass in front of goal, the
Speaker 3: celebrations together after a goal, like, there's so much more positive.
Speaker 3: There's so there's you know, if a striker shoots, he
Speaker 3: doesn't pass it to the winger, right, if he doesn't score,
Speaker 3: the winger's throwing his hands up or yet he's a
Speaker 3: ninety eight percent of the time. And I literally almost
Speaker 3: never see it in women's soccer.
Speaker 2: You always see you're seeing this, yeah.
Speaker 3: Or they just let it up. They just literally turn
Speaker 3: and start running back upfield. Yeah. And so I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's tough. I played mostly as a nice guy, but
Speaker 3: I do think that there were times when, and I
Speaker 3: get what Greg's saying, when you're with the national team
Speaker 3: and you're just in a different environment, like and you're
Speaker 3: down in Costa Rica and you're playing against Mexico and
Speaker 3: you're playing in these types of environments like you can't
Speaker 3: be nice, right because they do things and to get
Speaker 3: under your skin and fake things and like, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: just tough, and so no, you can't be you can't
Speaker 3: be so nice. And we've talked about it before. You
Speaker 3: can be a little bit different on the field than
Speaker 3: you are off the field, and so yeah, I think
Speaker 3: that sometimes you do need to get to that different
Speaker 3: place well.
Speaker 1: And I mean you can even be in that different
Speaker 1: place during a match where if things dictate an emotional
Speaker 1: change or an emotional sea change, where you've got to
Speaker 1: dial it up. You've got to bring the sandpaper, You've
Speaker 1: got to be that fourth line guy in soccer that
Speaker 1: I mean in hockey translated to soccer where you know,
Speaker 1: if you've got to drop the gloves a little bit
Speaker 1: and you got to kind of sit there and push folks.
Speaker 1: Did you did you ever have did you ever have
Speaker 1: that extra bit of nasty in you? And I mean
Speaker 1: like it could be in a playoff situation or a
Speaker 1: national team situation where you had to sit there and go, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got to be a little different today personality wise.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's there's definitely times where I felt like, Okay,
Speaker 3: you have to be a little different today. And usually
Speaker 3: it's in the bigger games, the tougher environments, the national
Speaker 3: team games, depending on who the opponent is as well.
Speaker 3: And and again for me, it was tough because it
Speaker 3: was like, I don't want to I was such a
Speaker 3: thinker out on the field, and you know, it's such
Speaker 3: a big part of my game where I don't want
Speaker 3: to lose that I want to go in the red
Speaker 3: so much. Where now I'm not thinking clearly and I'm
Speaker 3: not playing my own game right, but I do have
Speaker 3: to be aggressive in a way that maybe I'm not normally,
Speaker 3: or you know, just be aware of some different tactics
Speaker 3: and antics that are going to go out there on
Speaker 3: the field and and not care as much if about
Speaker 3: the other player on the other side of the field,
Speaker 3: and those little things that just change a little bit
Speaker 3: here and there.
Speaker 1: See, but you are thinking though, But because if you're
Speaker 1: thinking and you understand, okay, I've got to be a
Speaker 1: little different, there's that level of thought that's attached to
Speaker 1: it because you've got your baseline. But then you're it's like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, okay, I've got that that fore knowledge
Speaker 1: of Okay, I've got to be a little different. But
Speaker 1: and I would think that having that knowledge ahead of
Speaker 1: time adds that extra dimension to to who you are
Speaker 1: as a player, knowing when to turn it on and
Speaker 1: turn it off and be a little different than you
Speaker 1: traditionally are for sure.
Speaker 2: All Right.
Speaker 1: So so now that now that I've dialed you through
Speaker 1: all the emotions of the day, rivalry game with Atlanta
Speaker 1: United in Nashville coming up this weekend, what do you think?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's awesome. They're just gonna be a sellout, good crowd.
Speaker 3: I'm excited. I mean, yeah, that's that's a winnable game
Speaker 3: for me. You know, Nashville is they're a good team,
Speaker 3: but they're Yeah, they're beautiful for sure. So yeah, I'm expecting,
Speaker 3: especially with the big crowd, just a really good performance.
Speaker 3: I just hope it's high octane, high energy, and I
Speaker 3: hope they give the fans a real reason to come
Speaker 3: back the following week and the following after that and
Speaker 3: after that, because we've missed those sellouts in those big crowds.
Speaker 2: No doubt what's going on with beyond goals mentoring?
Speaker 1: I know that college seasons going, high schools getting ready
Speaker 1: to put names on lists and things what's going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, things are going really well. And I think the
Speaker 3: biggest topic right now is the change of college and
Speaker 3: what's going on there and the roster sizes and scholarships
Speaker 3: and how that's affecting kids. And so, you know, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of change out there. We're all living and learning,
Speaker 3: just trying to help players through.
Speaker 1: It as you do, as always. Thanks for coming by,
Speaker 1: as you always do. Good luck with Rhode Island. Where's
Speaker 1: Rhode Island this weekend?
Speaker 3: Orange County?
Speaker 2: Oh, that's right. If you're flying, you're not flying to Irvine.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: You're gonna watch. You're gonna stayuplate and watch the game
Speaker 1: and sit there and nibble your fingernails and throw things
Speaker 1: at TV's all right, be good, cap and we'll catch
Speaker 1: up with you next time.
Speaker 2: There we go.
Speaker 1: Michael Parkers, he puts up with all of my crap
Speaker 1: on a bi weekly basis. He and he and Greg
Speaker 1: they really do. They really do put up with me
Speaker 1: because traditionally, what I'll do is I'll have an idea
Speaker 1: about where to go in the door, and then they'll
Speaker 1: open a door and open a door, and open a
Speaker 1: door and open a door. So traditionally it's like I
Speaker 1: have an idea and then we'll just go down a
Speaker 1: road and they really do put up with me.
Speaker 2: But it's really cool.
Speaker 1: That they get to come on and hang out and
Speaker 1: talk about what's going on and beyond goals menoring and
Speaker 1: do that every time that they're available, when they're not
Speaker 1: traveling the planet and trying to help everybody out on
Speaker 1: the next level.
Speaker 2: All right,