Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
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Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
Inside ECNL Tryouts: A Candid Look Inside Making Informed Choices Amidst The Pressure | Ep.94
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Unlock the secrets of navigating youth soccer tryouts with the expert guidance of ECNL’s Christian Lavers and Doug Bracken, not to mention the firsthand tales from our own Ashley Willis. From the ethics of recruitment to the emotional toll on everyone involved, get ready for a candid discussion on the pressures of tryout season, the sometimes overlooked importance of loyalty, and the strategies clubs use to minimize disruptions.
Welcome to Season 2 of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, featuring ECNL President and CEO, christian Lavers, and Vice President Doug Bracken. If you have a question you want answered on Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, email us at info at the ECNL dot com. I'm Dean Leakey and here's what you can expect on this week's show. The question for Christian Lavers, president and CEO of the ECNL, is simple what are you going to cover on the May 22nd edition of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast?
Speaker 2:The main topic we think very appropriate to the time of year, and that is tryouts.
Speaker 1:ECNL. Vice President Doug Bracken, does that work for you?
Speaker 3:Ironically, tonight is the last night of tryouts here for my club, so I will be leaving this podcast recording going directly to tryouts for the last night Awesome.
Speaker 1:And what about you, Ashley Willis, the ECNL Partnership Activation and Alumni Relations Manager.
Speaker 4:I just survived tryouts, so this is fun to talk about. I was just recovering from my PTSD. From this time.
Speaker 1:It's another lively, open and engaging conversation on this week's edition of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, featuring Christian Labors, doug Bracken and Ashley Willis, where they'll also answer questions from you, the members of the ECNL. And we get it rolling after this message.
Speaker 5:As the game continues to evolve. In the United States, the ECNL remains the standard of excellence in youth soccer. The elite club's National League has grown to include over 200 clubs and nearly 50,000 players across the country, with a robust competition platform for teams, educational resources for coaches and clubs and unparalleled identification and development opportunities for players. Alongside its member clubs, collaborating to create a better future, the ecnl continues to raise the game every day. The ecnl podcast once again, here's dean this is breaking the line.
Speaker 1:The new season, the new format, super exciting and guess what? It is working and we are listening.
Speaker 6:And to kick things off and welcome our guests, which are the same guests as two weeks ago, because this works. Christian lavers, the, the president and CEO of the ECNL.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Mr Linke, and we are here with Doug Bracken, vice president, chief of staff and doer of all things that.
Speaker 3:Whatever, whatever other titles you want to give me.
Speaker 2:That's fine. And Ashley Willis, who's off camera breaking Zoom protocol today, but is here to add her wisdom as well.
Speaker 4:Hey, when you're the talent around here, the brains of the operation, you can do what you want, wow.
Speaker 2:There's some truth to that. We could have a whole podcast on how society treats talented people different. I mean that might be an interesting discussion about the rights and wrongs of that.
Speaker 4:Blame Florida Wi-Fi. It's a whole Florida man Wi-Fi going on today.
Speaker 3:Third podcast of season two and Ashley's already getting out of line.
Speaker 4:We have to sort this out off the camera as well. You guys expect nothing less out of me.
Speaker 2:So today, first of all, last episode we talked about relative age effect birth year registration versus school year registration. Really cool part about that is that apparently we struck a chord. We've never gotten more comments, whether those are text messages, phone calls, emails, social media, dms We've not gotten more comments, I don't believe, on any podcast episode we've done, and almost all of them, if not all of them, were very positive about the discussion and that's not to pot us on the back, because you know we didn't make the topic up but about the perspective that this is not a good thing for the vast, vast majority of youth soccer and that the stated goals of this, in terms of how it was rolled out, are not being accomplished. So one that was really good to see.
Speaker 2:Two, we are actually going to bring on Dr Drew Watson at our next episode after this one to talk about relative age effect and this change specifically from the perspective of a pediatrician, because he has some data and some strong opinions on this as well. So we're not going to just touch on this topic and then walk away from it. We're going to continue to dive into it and we might even talk a little bit about the very, very much misunderstood biobanding concept, which is not that different from relative age effect in terms of dealing with different age players physically. But there's a lot of misunderstanding about that, especially in the way it was also, I think, incorrectly rolled out or discussed in this country a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3:I think sometimes what happens and I'm not trying to be controversial here is something comes down from above, if you will.
Speaker 2:We call that the ivory tower.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we all align to it In the process. Maybe we understand the consequences of it or we don't, but in this instance, as we've gone through it, as we talked about last week, I think we all recognize that this is not what's in the best interests of youth soccer, large parts of youth soccer, and it's something that's important to talk about. Ultimately, we want to get it right because the players deserve us to get it right, and also the clubs who have been obviously greatly affected.
Speaker 2:Well, I think something you just said there almost in passing that I think is really important is that when the people who make decisions are not responsible for the outcomes of those decisions or they don't have to live with the effects of those decisions, it they don't have to live with the effects of those decisions, it almost makes it more likely that you have bad decisions over time, because you don't understand what you're doing if you don't have to live with what you're doing.
Speaker 2:And so I think that's actually one of the nice things about the way we're set up is we got DOCs all over the place in terms of governance in our organization. So when we make decisions as a league, the people making those decisions have to go out and live with the effects of them, with their teams, clubs, players, families, whatever it may be. And when I say the ivory tower whether the ivory tower is a bunch of consultants or whether it's just a bunch of philosophers, people that make decisions and then don't have to actually see what happens when those decisions are executed I wouldn't set it up that way personally.
Speaker 3:This just goes back to one of our real core values, and that is that youth soccer should be run by youth soccer people. We obviously uniquely understand what's going on on the ground and how these things affect different things. Shame on us for not questioning it earlier, or maybe we all questioned it quietly. I'm glad that we talked about it. I'm glad that it struck a chord on a more public arena so that people will start talking about it, because it's something that it's worth the conversation.
Speaker 2:I was listening to something the other day and sort of the comment of in no time in history has the group on the side of censorship been on the right side, and I think to that point.
Speaker 2:Part of what we want to do in this podcast is talk about these things that maybe people haven't talked about in the past, or talk about things that have areas where reasonable people can disagree for good reasons. That's what we're going to try and do and I guess I'll take that as a segue. We did get a couple of questions and we're going to just touch on these real quick before we go into the main topic of today, because today we're going to talk about tryouts, player movement, some of the things that are happening when you get to this time of the year from the league perspective and how we look at it from clubs, from parents, from players, and trying to balance all of those things that happen when players look to move and as you transition from one year to the other. But before that, we can turn over to a couple of questions that were sent in from last episode. Ashley, do you have those questions in front of you?
Speaker 4:I do. So the first one that we have is from the Northeast, just wanting to touch on the public school system and the influence in the regional playoffs. So the question is in the Northeast most public school system and the influence in the regional playoffs. So the question is in the Northeast, most public school systems are in session through mid-June. The Regional League Eastern Conference playoff event is scheduled to be played midweek, at a time when most student athletes in Northeast public schools are taking final exams. What is the league doing to ensure student athletes have the opportunity to play for a championship they have worked very hard for, while also balancing a rigorous academic schedule?
Speaker 2:wolf well read there an answer to this, and I think this is not just applicable to the northeast. There might be some unique context there. When we go about putting together the postseason, a couple of things are difficult. First of all, the northeast, I do think, is later in terms of school year than almost anywhere in the country. Doug, is that how you understand it?
Speaker 2:I mean in our experience, just running this league and as it affects us and what we're doing, yes, that's the first issue is that the Northeast sort of creates this issue themselves with the calendar that is set up by the schools. I know that's not anybody's fault, but then when we look at trying to put in the postseason, we try and work backwards. August 1 is the start of the next season. We want to have some type of break and dead period between the end of this season and the start of next season for recovery, and that's not just for recovery or break of our staff and organization, but it's actually mostly about recovery of teams and players, so that there's a time that they're not training and competing and their bodies can just rest and they're not playing organized soccer. So that means we need to have our championships as early in July as we can so that there is a period of time and a break before the next season starts. Because if you have competition starting in late August or September, most teams start training in early August, so the windows get crunched. Then to get to the finals, when you have a country with the size and scope that we have, you need to have a first round playoff, which means you got to put that into June at some point and if we keep pushing later in June for the playoff. That means we have to push later in July for the finals, which means at some point you'd run out of any dead period. So we're kind of calendar constrained in that way.
Speaker 2:Last year in the regional league we did, I think, a three-game knockout in the playoffs. So there was a round of eight, semi and a championship and everybody was guaranteed two games. So you didn't play on the third game unless you were playing for the championship. And the feedback overwhelmingly was that people would prefer to have group play and then a championship, so that there's not a one and done. And that means four games instead of three games for the winners and that means a day off, because we don't play four games in a row, we play three games in a day off. And then the fourth game is the format.
Speaker 2:There would be soccer purists who would argue there should be a day off, even after game two potentially. But that's a cost value trade-off. That is difficult. But anyway you take that and you say this now is a four game event over five days, which pushes it earlier. So it's not going to be over any specific weekend. You're going to be over any specific weekend. You're going to be in either Wednesday, thursday or Monday. Tuesday and that's where we landed. We didn't try and conflict with school. But we are significantly constrained by the calendar itself because you also put July 4th in there and nobody's going to be playing soccer over July 4th. In terms of what we're doing in a playoff or a postseason, that's unplanned and uncertain as to whether you qualify. Nobody wants to have their July 4th holiday sort of held up, doug anything you want to add on.
Speaker 3:We are always having these discussions and thinking about where and when we put these things. This is certainly one of the things we talk about, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that we might look at this in a different way. I would add to what Christian said to say that the Northeast traditionally are the conferences that get done the latest in the spring of any of our other conferences, and that is because of the weather that they face in their season of club soccer, so that adds another little constraint. So there's a fairly small window to try to get these things in. But it is a discussion that we have had, that we're aware of and we'll always continue to try to evaluate to make sure that everybody gets to participate when they've earned the right to do so. The reality is we're trying to find that small slice of time where we can do these things.
Speaker 2:A little bit of context beyond that because, again, sometimes we make mistakes and we learn from them in scheduling. But other times I'll use an example. This year in Phoenix we had a girls event in March. It happened to fall at the same time as the final four, which was in Phoenix for the first time in I don't even know how many years.
Speaker 2:The men's basketball final Four, yeah, the men's Final Four. So the men's basketball Final Four is in Phoenix at the same time as our event. That has been in Phoenix at that time for several years. There was no ability to move the event. It created hotel constraints because everybody flies in to watch the Final Four and all the hoopla with that and there's just nothing we could do about it. No-transcript going on and you got tens of thousands of people and host cities around the country, some of them being the cities where we host events. We're going to have to figure out a solution to that. So real life gets in the way is, I guess, the short answer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, ash, what's the next one?
Speaker 4:Why did we go away from composite teams, especially when you have trap players, have a regular ECNL schedule, no required showcases in post-season. It's a little bit chopped up, but you get the gist of the question.
Speaker 3:I'll take this on first, christian, maybe start with explaining what the composite was, because I think there's a lot of people know that the composite was.
Speaker 3:We always ended up with this kind of because of the birth year registration, we ended up with this uh, bigger number of players who were in the oldest age group, which we would call 18, 19, and too many players to get to have on one roster, and so our solve for that was to create another team.
Speaker 3:So you actually had two 18, 19 teams or you could opt into two 18, 19 teams or a composite team. This kind of alleviated that well, we're not going to cut these kids who have been playing for us and so on and so forth and that was really prior to the growth of the regional league or the existence of the regional league. And once the regional league became a platform that could service that group of players, we pushed that into the regional league. So your second U18-19 team is your regional league team in theory. So that is really why we had no solution for it at the time, because there was no regional league and so that composite team that was kind of our solve for it. And with the growth of the regional league and the platform that it is. Now we feel like that's what we can do to provide that service for those players.
Speaker 2:We forgot to even talk about the composite as another consequence of this birth year registration change and it's a good indication of over time with the different ways we've tried to solve that problem. But I think I'll close out with I think there's a good chance that we look at a change, together with US Club Soccer and hopefully some other youth organizations, that we can potentially look at a change, together with US Club Soccer and hopefully some other youth organizations, that we can potentially look at a change to this registration issue, not for this coming fall let's make that clear, we're not talking about that at all but for fall of 2025, maybe we can get the momentum and the clarity so that we can get back to a school year registration for youth soccer at that point.
Speaker 3:We'd love to see that.
Speaker 1:That's segment one, the new season of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, the new format featuring Christian Lavers, Doug Bracken and a little sprinkle of Ashley Willis. We'll take a break and come back and take a deep dive into an all-important topic, especially right now, and that is tryouts that, after these messages from the corporate sponsors of the ECNL.
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Speaker 1:Welcome back to Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, the new format, the new season, featuring Christian Labors, doug Bracken and Ashley Willis. With that we turn it back to the president and CEO of the ECNL.
Speaker 2:Christian Labors.
Speaker 3:The main topic for today is we think very appropriate to the time of year, and that is tryouts. Ironically Christian, tonight is the last night of tryouts here for my club. I will be leaving this podcast recording going directly to tryouts for the last night Awesome.
Speaker 2:Tryouts might end, but the tryout process is going to drag on for another infinite amount of weeks of back and forth.
Speaker 3:It can do that. Yes, it can. The conversations seem to linger, yes.
Speaker 2:So we want to talk about this from the perspective of why and how our league's rules are set up to help facilitate the tryout process, because the reality is that youth soccer changes every year as people look to find the best fit for them and the coaches and the clubs that they feel are best for them, and so our default point on this is we believe that the youth soccer player who wants to move from one club to another should have the right generally to do that. These are kids, they're not professional athletes, and so kids should be able to play where they want to play as sort of a default starting point that is then sort of caveated with. If anyone can move to any team ever at any point, as many times as they want, you will have a completely unstable competition format that has very little competition integrity in terms of the games and the schedule, and you potentially have implosions of teams and clubs in the middle of the season that hurt everybody. So there's two different things when we talk about player movement One, which is the release process, and then two, the transfer from one club to another within, potentially, the ECNL. The first one for us it's governed by the sanctioning body US Club Soccer and the second one, the transfer, is within ECNL purview. From a release perspective, everybody, when you play youth soccer, you register with an association. So for us, like I said, it's US Club Soccer, for some people it's US Youth Soccer, for some people it's US SSA or the YSO. There's a couple of different registration bodies. That is how you register to play with the club and the league that you are desiring to play with.
Speaker 2:When a kid wants to or a parent wants to move clubs, the first thing you need to do is get a release of your registration from the club that you are with and, again to be clear, this is something that the ECNL does not have authority over. That is something you go to the registration body for and generally you will get that release because these are kids, they're under the age of 18, they're not professional players under contract. Sometimes it takes a week or two because there's a lot going on, but generally if a player wants to be released from one club and they want to go to another club, they will get that release as a matter of course, whether it's the club who says immediately, go ahead, off, you go. Or even if a club, for whatever reason, would object, which I have a hard time understanding that, to be honest. But even if a club objects, us club soccer will grant a release, and I think it's also probably important to note that the movement of players that happens all the time is not the vast majority of players in youth soccer.
Speaker 2:Right, there's a percentage that move. If you're moving clubs every year, there's probably a problem. If you go to four clubs in four years, my guess is the problem is not the club. Maybe you should look in the mirror a little. It's like the. I think you told me this once, doug if if you're talking to a team and one player gets the information wrong, it's probably because they're not paying attention.
Speaker 3:If three or four players don't understand, then it's probably your yeah, it's me, yeah, yeah, I want to differentiate between movement during a season and tryouts, because they're two different things, and I think what christian just talked about is movement during a season, because I don't want people to get confused and say, oh my god, it's trial time, do I have to get releases and all that kind of stuff, because I think that's a different thing.
Speaker 3:What christian was talking about about movement within the season between clubs, potentially in the ecno or outside, or whatever. Tryout time is the time period where you are free to go and see other clubs, other teams, whatever the may be, to consider what you might do in the future, whether you stay with your team or go to another club or whatever. Time isn't defined, but the what we call recruiting period. I don't love that. We call it that because I hate that word, because we're talking about kids and it's kind of weird. And then we tailor those dates to the different conferences and the realities within those conferences. Right? My example is my conference is May 1st and so I can't talk to any player outside of my club that plays in the ECNL or ECNL Regional League until May 1st every year.
Speaker 2:We should back up because it's a good clarification on your point. But just for people who don't understand, because we talk about these things sometimes really quickly, so the registration that I was referring to is an annual registration, right From August one to July 31, when a player signs there with that club unless they ask for a release during the season, and then tryouts is when do you recommit to that club and sign another registration or do you go somewhere else and again? Then, if you want to back in from, if your new club season starts on August 1, then there's got to be a tryout period before that where clubs assess and decide, especially competitive clubs, because the ECNL is not community-based soccer, it's not for everybody, it is a performance-oriented league and the regional league is the same. So then you get into a tryout period and the weird part about tryout periods again going back to the fact that there's a variety of different associations, the association can govern the tryout period only for the teams that are registered with them. So USYS, for example, will have a different tryout period, potentially, or almost guaranteed, than US Club or one state association to another state association.
Speaker 2:Some have tryout rules and defined timeframes and others don't. That say this is when clubs can have communication with players that are registered to other clubs in the ECNL or the regional league, because we try and set aside a large portion of the year where we don't allow what I think we call tampering, which is if, doug, if your team beats my team on Saturday, you can't call my players on Monday and say, hey, you should leave your team because that team's not as good as this one and you should get that. That would be chaos, so go ahead.
Speaker 3:But does that happen? Yes, it happens. That's kind of how I differentiate between movement within a season and tryouts. And tryouts happen different times of the year in different parts of the country and they're vastly different from one place to the other. Like you know, here you can offer your own players anytime you want, but you can't offer new players until this other certain time. The bottom line is it's honestly chaotic and really hard to navigate from the perspective of the club trying to do what you're trying to do. So I can't even imagine what the kids and players go through.
Speaker 3:And I have always said this and this might be a little controversial, and this obviously doesn't apply to every part of the country, because every part of the country has a different season.
Speaker 3:But in our part of the country our main club season is in the spring and if everybody really cared that the kids have a choice to make and they can make it freely, we would wait till the season is over and we would have tryouts and we would have a defined period of time where people could go try out and look at other clubs and no one could make offers until that time. And obviously that's an an opinion, but right now we are kind of in this thing where we still have games to play, we're still in our season, we're still trying to make it to the playoffs and all that. We're also having tryouts, which creates major disruption within your current team because you're not even you're thinking about this team for the team for the following year and then obviously still making offers and forming teams for the following year when you still have your current year to finish. It is really suboptimal.
Speaker 2:It's suboptimal, but it's that way again due to some reasons that are outside of that way again, due to some reasons that are outside of, to a large degree, everybody's control, because in an ideal world, as you say, you could push tryouts to the end of the season, so all games are done, the team is sort of over.
Speaker 2:It almost would be like, you know, the off season of professional sports, right, yeah, and the problem with that is if the season doesn't end until the end of June for a lot of teams, because they're playing in post-season, some teams going into July, you can't plan for your coming season that starts in August 1. If you can't plan until mid-July or early July and you won't know how many players do you have, how many teams do you have, who are the players, then it's really difficult, I would argue it's impossible almost to actually operate your club and hire the coaches you need and do the planning for all the facility rental, even silly things like uniform purchase and all that sort of stuff. So that pushes these tryout windows into times that overlap with the existing competition season, which nobody loves.
Speaker 3:Do you think that? I mean it's probably different place to place, but do you think that's what pushes the tryout windows?
Speaker 2:I think that's part of it. I think that's part of it.
Speaker 3:Or is there like an arms race, like everybody's like oh, you're going to go May 1st, I'm going to go April 30th, or you're?
Speaker 2:going to go.
Speaker 3:May 1st, I'm going to go April 30th, or you're going to go April 30th, I'm going to go April 1st.
Speaker 2:You're right, there's some of that.
Speaker 2:Again, I don't know how we fight that, because I'll raise this question and Ashley, you can weigh in on this if you want as well in Florida, because if everybody is trying out at the same time, let's say everybody can start tryouts on. Let's say everybody can start tryouts on. Let's pretend we're in utopia you can start tryouts on july 1st, so that every club in the area is running tryouts on july 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Well, in theory that means every player can sort of test the waters, but in reality what that means is that then you're just fighting to see every club is then calling and recruiting and scheduling all at the exact same time, so that these players will get absolutely bombarded and not able to attend all the clubs. Maybe they would want to attend because it's such a narrow time frame and everyone's doing it at once, whereas the alternative, if players can move and try out over a longer period of time, you sort of stretch out that chaos so that it's not all hitting at once. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Speaker 3:I do and you have totally valid points, I mean you know. So it's like how do you find the thing that's in the best interest of the players and obviously the clubs to your point where you have to plan and do all those things? I don't know that I have the answer. I mean, you know, maybe sometimes I focus just where I live and what might work best where I live. I understand that might be different everywhere. It's a tough. I mean having players out participating in your trainings, having tryouts and then still having. We have our last conference games this weekend and our last tryout night is tonight. So it's awkward and hard to navigate. I don't know if I have a great solution that gets- Ashley, how do you guys do tryouts down there?
Speaker 2:I mean, you probably are in this time period, right now, right?
Speaker 4:I just survived tryouts, so this is fun to talk about. I was just recovering from my PTSD from this time. Yeah, tryouts down here are similar to what it sounds like in Ohio with the May 1st, and then you have your offers and your internal players prior to that, and then, of course, you have your ID clinics ahead of that, which are not tryouts, but they're tryouts. Right, that certain clubs like to run and it just becomes an all out war at all times is what it feels like when we're talking about youth players.
Speaker 4:At the end of the day, I don't think anyone truly enjoys tryout time. From a player, it's stressful. From a parent, it's stressful because there's the parent grapevine that is just filled with chaos. Coaches are having to deal with player movement and the grapevine of talking people off of a ledge. Right Club DOCs are in a chaos of their own. It's just not a fun time at all. I don't think there's a solution to the definite problem that is tryouts, because I think right now it's as good as it has been in years, I think. But to your point, I don't know how you fix it.
Speaker 2:By the way, that made me think.
Speaker 2:I saw a club once advertise and you can't even make this up I saw a club advertise a practice tryout which they charge for so your kids would come to a fake tryout environment to practice being ready for tryouts.
Speaker 2:You can't even make up what some, some people do on this and I think actually what you just said is right. You're trying to give players and parents the ability to find the right place for them, which is going to be different, based on what people want out of the sport. The organizations have to be able to plan so that they can budget and so they can hire and staff and schedule, and all of that You're trying to do it at a time that has at least as little of an impact as possible on the existing schedule. And then you're also trying to reward performance right, because that's, in theory, what this whole thing is about is that kids develop at different rates. Some kids work harder than others and improve faster than others and at different times, and that is the time at which, generally, the team composition is changing. And if you're in competitive sport, you need to provide an ability where the people who work the hardest and perform the best get rewarded, no question about it.
Speaker 3:Really a practice tryout. Yeah, Practice tryout. I've never heard that one before. That's, that's creative. You got to give it. Got to give it to them. There's so many things that are really hard about it from a coaching perspective and I'm sure from a player's perspective as well. I don't know how deep we want to go down the rabbit hole with all the things that are tough and hard, but I'm fully in it right now. Fully in it.
Speaker 2:Well, let's pivot a little bit, because tryouts are the time when it is planned movement and planned transition. You know, earlier we were talking, and you rightly pointed out, the distinction between sort of a change in team or a club in the middle of the season versus at the end of the season. Let's pivot to that a little bit because I think that's interesting as well, because I think our default here is that we definitely feel that players and clubs need to make the decision that is right for them and move, and in general I would say that should happen whenever a kid or a family feels like they need to go the decision that is right for them and move. And in general I would say that should happen whenever a kid or a family feels like they need to go to a better situation for them, whether that is just a different personality or a different whatever. They should have the right to do so, but you can't let that go unchecked. So tryout period is the sort of time where you say let's try and take all the chaos and put it into at least somewhat of a controlled environment, where this is when we generally say this is the best time for people to move.
Speaker 2:Obviously, there are times during the year when somebody makes a decision and says, hey, this club is not the right place for me anymore and I want to go to club B. Again, if we take the default principle here that we think players should be able to play where they want to play, we want to recognize that. That is first the release, and a player then gets a release so that they can go to another club. But if you don't have some process to control that, you could end up with one player gets a release that triggers three more people to want to get a release. That means a team implodes in the middle of the season and nobody can finish out the season, which then affects all the other teams in the league and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2:So when you talk about something happening outside of the tryout period, then we get into the transfer process, which is you can be released and go from this club to another club, but that doesn't guarantee that you can play for two different clubs within the same league competition, at least as far as the ECNL goes. And we do that to try and limit some of the collateral effects of movement that happens during the season. There's obviously times when it has to happen and you can get a release and go play it in a different league or a different competition, but when it's within the same competition, with the collateral effects, we feel that there has to be some sort of control of that for the interests of the league, the interests of the team, the interests of the other players, so that we just don't have implosion happening, because you do see that sometimes at tryout time, right, if things don't go well and a couple of players, leave a club, then that can trigger four or five more and all of a sudden an entire team is imploded.
Speaker 3:There is the phenomenon of I'm not just unhappy with my situation, I'm going to make sure that everybody is unhappy and so I'm going to rally a group of people to do something.
Speaker 3:What I have always tried to say is like you need to focus on your situation and how that affects you and your child and then do what you have to do.
Speaker 3:You don't have to bring everybody else into the equation, and that's what seems to happen Like sometimes is one person's kind of dissatisfaction with the situation becomes everybody's dissatisfaction with the situation because all of a sudden we're rallying up the troops and then that creates and listen. As clubs, we have to take responsibility of making sure the environment is good, and good environment can mean a lot of different things. I think we know what it doesn't mean, so I think we get that. But this notion that we're just going to have implosions of teams and destabilize our competition and clubs within it and all that kind of stuff is crazy to me. We've all seen it happen a bunch of times, so we have to guard against that. Probably some common sense involved in that we don't want to see stuff like that happening, with the caveat that every organization, every club has to make sure that they're creating an environment that is positive, so that those kinds of things don't occur.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I tell you one of one of the things I really really dislike and I think you know, ashley, you and Doug will think you'll agree but I really dislike the sort of group think where you have the players that come as a group, right, and say, hey, it's the three of us are looking at coming over to your club and we're a package deal, right.
Speaker 2:I caution anybody against that and I guess I'm speaking predominantly to parents at this point anybody to think that way, because almost without exception, within the group there is a wide range of talent. So even if let's say it's a group of three players, there's a really good player, there's an average player and then there's a player who maybe is not as talented or not as high of a level. And when you make group decisions it's, at least my perspective, that generally the player with the least performance ability is the one dictating where the group goes and generally that's going to be. Let's not go anywhere else, because if we go anywhere else, I might not make it beyond the fact that I think you know, if you look at most decisions in life, they should be made based on what you want and what you feel is best, not based on the sort of average compromised position. It should be what do I want, not what are these five people all together want, regardless of whether it fits for me?
Speaker 3:It's comfort in numbers, I guess, or something. But oh dude, I've had 10 of these conversations in the last two weeks and I usually like tackle it head on when that kind of group shows up and I'm like, you know, is this you doing your thing or is this you doing y'all's thing? And if the answer is B, I'm usually like we're probably going to be good. You know these cause, we're going to try to make these individual decisions. So, just as you would say you want to your point, stop the group, think on the player side. You know, I think from a club perspective, we're going to look at each individual player and judge accordingly, make those decisions accordingly. But I've had a lot of those conversations recently.
Speaker 2:Ashley, do you have those conversations?
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, a lot this year as we tried to build some age groups more than we have in the past, and it was a lot of me and my five friends, which of course leads into a stud and a few not so studly players. But luckily this year there are a couple of age groups that like five studs came together where I was like let's go. That never happens. But on the flip side it's kind of interesting of when players are looking to leave or they they're happy, right, but it's tryout time. So I just kind of want to see what else is out there. But don't worry, I'm going to stay in there riling up everyone else on the team to maybe go try out somewhere else, and they're not really considering what that looks like from an optics perspective at that next club. Right, if you're trying to build your team at your club and you want to stay, you're happy at your club, you want to stay.
Speaker 4:But I'm just going to go see what else is out there. If somebody else is upset or on the fence of waffling and maybe wants to leave their club and they see this stud player out at their own club's tryout, why would they then want to go to that club's tryout and I don't think people think like that. I think they just kind of have this mentality of oh I want to see what else is out there, without realizing that tryout time is like everyone's watching everyone do everything. So, oh, I thought I wanted to go to to club a to go try it out. But I just saw their best player at my tryout so now I no longer want to go there when the player was thinking it was going to be harmless.
Speaker 2:But I don't think parents and players kind of think like that yeah, you know, and that reminds me I cause you always have have the player who tries out everywhere, right, and you almost think they try out everywhere just so they can get offers from everywhere. Just to me, you know, it's like I see this on, like you see this on the news right, this kid got accepted at 50 different colleges, right, and my thought is like, well, why on earth are you applying to 50 colleges, dude? Like I'm sure there's some you wanted to go to that more than others. It's like it's not an accomplishment to get accepted to 50 colleges and pick one. You know, the accomplishment is go to the school you want, and but I think there's also people out there that around this time and it's almost like the ego stroke of like I'm'm gonna go try out a bunch of places, just so I can feel. You know, I can vicariously live through my kid and say, look, my kid made it everywhere and we got to choose.
Speaker 3:You see that at some point and and I, if I just go back to the club and I put my club hat on as a club person, like I have to be confident enough in what I'm doing and the environment that I'm providing and and all the you know, the platforms and all those things Like I don't care. Like I, and again, I think it's easier to say when you've been coaching for 30 years than it is when you've been coaching for five years and two years and you're you have maybe a little bit more insecurity or whatever. But I tell I'm like, hey, if you think there's a better spot out there for you, knock yourself out. Like um, we're going to do what we do and we're going to try to do the best we can at it and I'm confident that that's going to be, that's going to meet the needs that you have, and so I don't think there has to be some of that in that belief in what you're doing. And if there are people that don't want to be a part of that, then no problem.
Speaker 4:Like I get it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there's comfort in the fact that I've been. You know we, maybe I've just been doing this for a long time and maybe I've come to that over the years.
Speaker 2:Related to that, like if you're happy and you feel like you're getting better and I think those are two different things, by the way, because you can be really happy and having fun and not really improving.
Speaker 2:And you can also be improving a lot but not enjoying it, right, but if you're happy and you feel like you're improving, you don't need to go just check, test the waters everywhere you know, because that's what you're looking for in you soccer, right? You're looking for an experience that you enjoy and where you get better so you can accomplish goals. Now, if one or two of those things aren't happening, then it's probably a good thing to go check out and see what else is out there. You're right, doug. I don't think at any time if you're trying to stop people from trying out somewhere else, that's a problem. That's probably indicative of maybe some concern about your own environment, but at the same time, nobody should feel like, well, it's, it's tryout time, I have to go check everything out. That's just not how you do anything in the rest of your life either, by the way.
Speaker 3:To your point. If you're good in your environment, you're happy and you're getting better and you're being challenged and you know all those things, then you're good, then you're good. I only went and shopped for a new house when the house that I was living in could no longer accommodate my six-person family, and then I went into another house and it was great. It accommodates us. I don't need another house.
Speaker 2:You mean, you're not on Zillow every day?
Speaker 3:That was an attempt at an analogy. Knowing how much you love an analogy, I thought it was a pretty good analogy. Thank you. Thank you Appreciate it. I was worried that I wasn't going to make the team.
Speaker 2:If you didn't like the analogy, no, no, no, that's a good analogy. I like that one. It's a difficult period of time. You get people who act crazy at this time parent, player, coach, director because they get caught up in it, and you know, I don't know that we have advice to anybody on this, because we all, we all live it and we all make our own mistakes to it. But in all these processes, whether it's tryouts and the formal time, whether it's release and transfer throughout the regular part of the season, it's about trying to allow people to get to the environment for everybody around them, because it happens at the wrong time or some of these other psychosocial forces kind of take over.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think my advice is do what's best for you personally and make the decisions that are best for you personally and to Christian, to your point, if you're in a good environment, stay there, enjoy it and keep, continue to grow in it and the grass doesn't always have to be greener, right. But if you feel like there's the other side of that coin, which is, hey, I need more, there's the other side of that coin which is, hey, I need more, I need more of a challenge, or I didn't even realize this other environment was out there, and keep it a personal decision. I think you know my biggest frustrations are when it's like you said, group think or we're going to rally everybody because we're, we have some issues. That would be my, my advice to people.
Speaker 2:If we zoom out a little bit, now is also when you get peak craziness of the PR, create your new acronym league, you know, which is just the old acronym league with the new acronym and a different color logo, but this one's going to be awesome and this is going to change everything. So you see, all these league promises of this new league and that new league, which is going to be the best ever new league, even though we've been in three different leagues over the last four years because none of them worked out. It's also like I know that the coaching was not great, but this is going to be better this year. We've got everything figured out in our club. Don't rely on your actual experience over the past 12 months. Just trust that everything is going to be different, because this is the time of year where all those promises get made.
Speaker 3:Best club for player development. Come here. I think we all can. You know, as club leaders we have. You know coaches that don't can't do it or don't do a good job or whatever. So you can change, you know those things and try to make it right. I think as you look, I mean, it's really probably not that hard to tell when you look at a club like hey, that that club's got it, got it together, they're doing a good job. And you know, if you're that club, you don't have to make a lot of promises like crazy promises and but you know, like you said, you might have an odd coach now and then that didn't didn't do a good job and so you're like we're going to make the change and make it better owing up to those mistakes.
Speaker 2:But I think if you're doing a good job overall as an organization, as a club you're, you don't really have to make a lot of promises like that Maybe we should do an episode on you know what would be, what would be our perspective on how you make the right decision for where to play you know of course it's going to be. You know, we know that. Right, we'll just put that out straight beyond that. How do you make? How do you make that decision, ashley? What do you think?
Speaker 4:I think Doug was just hitting home about something of like if it's the right club, they're probably not making a lot of promises, right? It's the clubs that are probably a little bit more sketchy and maybe not doing the right development and maybe not doing things the right way that are making these outlandish promises that the grass is greener here. Our grass is synthetic and beautiful and cut every day sort of grass and not like the club that's like hey, we develop players, we play in this league, here's what I can offer you. Make your own decision. That's probably the people you want to go with, right? Or the people who are not begging for 13, 14, 15, 15, 16 year old youth players at the end of the day, because they, they truly care about what's what they're doing and they know how good of a product they have. If they're just like hey, this is what I have for you, make your own decision.
Speaker 3:Not like look what I can do over here fireworks I don't want to open a can of worms because if I open, this christian might go on for a while about this.
Speaker 3:But that's it, that's the but but and dean kind of made this point over here in our chat, and he has a really good point. If you think about, though, what these kids families face from psychosocial perspective and a social media perspective and the environment that they live in, which can be sort of chaotic man, it could be hard to like, get yourself on the level to make a good decision about club soccer. I feel like these, probably these chai it's probably easy for me because my son's playing for us and he doesn't have a choice for obvious reasons, but you can imagine, like, all the stuff that's out there, there's a lot of noise. There's a lot of noise out there.
Speaker 2:I saw. I saw a phrase a couple of weeks ago that I love, that was so typical for this, which is the grass isn't always greener on the other side, especially when it's fertilized with bullshit. Ashley is a hundred percent right that if you're going somewhere and a dude is selling you a car about how many things are going to happen for you here, that is time to get out of the parking lot right now, Because I think you know, at the end of the day, quality shows over time and what actually happens. And we used to always say, man, soccer is full of people who can sell. There's no doubt about that. But over time, quality shows in terms of the environment and the improvement that happens within players.
Speaker 3:Are you saying coaching isn't sales? I didn't say sales is a bad skill to have.
Speaker 2:I think sales is a really important skill to have, but if you got sales and you got no execution, then we call that bullshit.
Speaker 3:Fertilizer bullshit fertilizer. Yeah, yeah, I like that. I'm going to use that, steal that.
Speaker 4:But yeah, I mean it's it is, it's.
Speaker 3:It is a tough.
Speaker 2:I don't want to let these kids all off the hook, but it's tough sledding out there personal and relationships and all that sort of stuff that go with it and that's really hard, you know, especially you know, to Ashley's earlier example when typically you have groups of kids because you know, that is the.
Speaker 2:It is the rare kid who does things purely individually. Right, it's usually groups, but within the groups there's always a diversity of level. But within the groups there's always a diversity of level and it is hard for a kid to leave their social peer group or their friends to go somewhere else, even if they know that somewhere else is better for them. Because you know, especially as you're getting into these 13, 14, 15, I used to call 13 and 14 like the sorting out ages where you're going from hey, at 11 and 12, in a lot of places kids just they're playing with wherever they're playing and they're having fun. At 13 and 14, they start to become more aware of performance differences between each other. They start to care more about the performances. Some of them become way more into it and committed to the sport.
Speaker 2:Other people find other sports that are more important to them and other things, and so you start to see this, this divide start to happen between the kids that are really good and really want to be good and the kids that are not so good, and maybe they're not that bothered by that or they're.
Speaker 2:They're balancing, you know, five different sports versus the kid who's really focusing in on soccer. When that happens, it's really hard for that kid to say I'm going to go to this other team where there are more people like me and leave the friends that I'm playing with for the last couple of years. That is a tough decision to make, but I do believe that is one of the things that players have to make if they're going to achieve the big goals that they say they have. And it's just one of those walls you got to climb over and say I got to do this for me and if I don't want to make that decision, that's okay. But you got to know that it has some impact on the likelihood of you reaching your potential if you're not surrounded by others who are similarly motivated, similarly committed.
Speaker 3:No question Again, nowadays, those decisions and the backlash is so much more public and we're starting to tread into waters outside of just tryouts, but the peer pressures and how, how much public, how how much more public they can be now with the existence of social media, which makes it harder, like you know. And again, when I was a kid I you know I made my decision about my team and some guy called me on my rotary phone and said why'd you leave our team?
Speaker 2:I don't you know what I mean? It's not, it's a little bit of a different environment now.
Speaker 3:So it's tough, but again, if you just get back to that. Ashley doesn't know what a rotary phone is. Yeah, it had a really really long cord, you know, so you could kind of go anywhere. But I guess the advice you go back to is you got to do what's in your best interest, and being around people that have like-minded interests as it relates to soccer is probably a good good idea.
Speaker 2:This makes me think about things that, like, I really dislike about, about tryouts, you know, and how things have changed. I remember early on I was at a club and this is 30 years ago where the club didn't think the coaches should be trusted to pick their own teams because you know they're going to be biased, so they would bring in outside people to watch like one or two days of trials. Yeah, that I mean serious. Similar to that which I just really I really can't stand is like you train these kids all year long and then there's some people who think, oh, at tryouts I'm going to be totally assessed based on my performance on these three days, even though I've been here all year. Like dude, I don't need to see you these three days. You've been here for 12 months. Man, like I don't care, like you have a great day or bad day. You are who you are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had this conversation with my son. It's so funny because he's injured right now and he can't participate tryouts and he's like dad if I don't, if I don't try out, I'm not going to make it. I'm like son, you've been trying out all year.
Speaker 2:But there are people who legitimately think that the last 12 months are irrelevant to the next 12 months. It's just these three days, good or bad.
Speaker 3:Totally.
Speaker 2:I mean totally. Quality always shows right the top. Kids, kids. You don't need three days of tryouts, you need like 10 minutes of tryouts. Some, some kids, you know, need any tryouts, you know right. And then there's the kids that are in the middle and it's really really hard in three days to get a sense. I prefer a tryout where the coach is actually interacting with the players and and almost taking it like a regular training. Yeah, so you can see like who who applies information, as opposed to the tryout where everybody just stands with a clipboard and watches everybody play four before or you know, I really hate the one where then you line them up and see who's fast, right, you seen that tryout like line up, see who's fastest. Oh, take all those kids and I'm like, do you realize the message you're sending in this sport when you're racing the 10 year olds to see who's the fastest? The ball doesn't matter. The ball doesn't matter. No, the ball doesn't matter. Nothing matters but straight line speed over long distances, which is statistically irrelevant to soccer.
Speaker 3:But okay, what? What if we sprint with the ball? Is that that better?
Speaker 2:Ashley, I don't know, what do you got on this Ash?
Speaker 4:I make my tryout kids do that. I'm not going to lie, I just like to watch how fast people can run. It's like the last 30 seconds of trial. It's like let's see who can fly, let's do it.
Speaker 3:So you're treating these kids like giraffes at the zoo.
Speaker 4:You're just doing this for your own entertainment.
Speaker 3:No, greyhounds, not giraffes, they're greyhounds. There we go, cheetahs, cheetahs.
Speaker 2:See, this is good because we have some disagreement on the but this is. You know, this is, this is soccer man.
Speaker 4:Everybody's got their opinion on stuff, but it it does nothing for my opinion on how good or bad they are.
Speaker 2:I just want to see how fast they are just saying you're also playing, uh, sharks and minnows and things like that, aren't you?
Speaker 4:uh, just on day two day one's like painting and things like that painting I like it. These kids need to be well rounded if they're going to make ashley's team hey, it's about the development as a human, not just as a player, you know oh, here's the other one.
Speaker 2:Here's the other one. I love like, hey, I'm only going to be at one night of tryouts. This is like from the person who's not part of your club. Right, I'm going to be a one night of tryouts because I got to try out at three other places. But I'm really, really interested in this.
Speaker 3:Is my first priority but, but you can also understand. You can understand that. What if they don't know that they're going to be able to make christian's? Because your team's probably amazing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. So they're like well, I'd like to be here, but I got to make sure I'm covered.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, you're right, these are all the, you know, trying to bring out all the different things that are going on that make this really, really difficult. Because, to that point, Doug the kid who's not sure they're going to make it, and maybe they're not sure, between these two clubs, they got to split it. This goes back to my other point. If everybody is trying out on exactly the same days, that becomes really difficult, and it's already really difficult unless you're on the extremes, right? The really good kid, it's obvious. And the really not good kid, it's obvious, right. But the majority is in the middle and you're saying I don't know is being here an extra hour?
Speaker 3:and a half going to help me decide. Or? Yeah, it is, it has to. Yeah, it has to Right. My last one for you is the-.
Speaker 2:That's like it's almost right. By splitting your time you might make it actually less likely.
Speaker 3:You make either place yeah, I think it's if you're in the middle it's important to be transparent with a kid about that.
Speaker 3:I, I would say my, my one is like what do you, how do you deal with your current players? Like, because I'll have this where, because I, I mean, I don't know who's coming to tryouts, I don't know if we're going to have 20 kids or 80 kids, and so I'm not going to go to my current players and be like hey, just to let you know, you're in the bottom third. I hate that. I hate that when people do that, you're in the bottom third. So you might want to take care of, think about that as we go into tryouts. I don't know who's coming to tryouts. Like, why am I going to alarm player number 15 when I don't even know what's going to happen? And so that's also like a super tricky thing to navigate from a coaching perspective. The way I just tackle it is I just tell everybody I'm like listen, this is competitive sports and we're not trying to change things for change sake. We're trying to get better, trying to make the most competitive environment a great environment. That's what we're doing. Period, tough one.
Speaker 2:Ashley, you got any contributions you want to add as we close this down.
Speaker 4:No, I don't envy tryout time at all. So, doug, good luck with that.
Speaker 2:Last night. And, by the way, man, it is hard on the coaches as well, because it's never fun, because even when kids have to move down a level, it's really, really hard, it's hard, it's hard, and I think everybody. Nobody wants to move a kid down, nobody wants to say, hey, we don't even have a spot in our club, in the same way that nobody wants to be cut or released Although we all get cut or released at some point in your career.
Speaker 2:No question, you get to some stage and you're at some point they tell you hey, man, you're not going to play anymore. I saw some name that said at some point every kid went out to play with their buddies for the last time and nobody knew it.
Speaker 2:You know, it's one of those things that hits you like oh man, and, to be honest, that's how soccer ends for most people. It's a small minority of people who know that this is the last game I'm going to play and let me live it up and really enjoy it. Most people find out the last game they're going to play after they've played their last game.
Speaker 1:Good point, great point and a great discussion. We are down to our final segment, where Doug Bracken challenges all of us with a surprise question. Might have to name it like Bracken's brain burner or something. Maybe the listeners out there can come up with a name. We'll be back with Doug's question after these messages.
Speaker 5:Nike is a proud sponsor of ECNL Girls. Nothing can stop what we can do together to bring positive change to our communities. You can't stop sport because hashtag. You can't stop our voices. Follow Nike on Instagram, facebook and Twitter.
Speaker 1:Follow Nike on Instagram, facebook and Twitter. The ECNL is pleased to announce Quick Goal as the official goal provider and partner for ECNL Girls and ECNL Boys, a new partnership created to support the growth and development of the country's top players, clubs and coaches At all national events, including national playoffs and national finals. The quick goal coaches corner will provide hospitality and social space for ECNL girls, ecnl boys and collegiate coaches. Quick goal will also be the presenting sponsor of the national championship winning ECNL girls and ECNL boys coaches of the year and the ECNL girls and ECNL Boys Goals of the Year. Quick Goal looks forward to helping the ECNL continue to elevate the standards of youth soccer and provide more opportunities to players on and off the field in the coming years.
Speaker 3:All right, are we Dean ready for my question of the day we? Are sir.
Speaker 3:Okay, I've thought long and hard about this. I also altered my questioning because Ashley doesn't have a lot of ECN. We are, sir. Okay, I thought long and hard about this. I also altered my questioning because Ashley doesn't have a lot of ECNL experience yet because she's new and Dean doesn't have a lot because he's doing some NSGs and stuff with us. So I tried to make it a more non-ECNL kind of question to make everybody feel happy. So my question today is if you could have dinner with one person only, who would that person be? Let's go to Dean first. My wife.
Speaker 3:Your wife.
Speaker 2:This is where we all say that would be all of our choices. We have to say you can't answer that way, so we all don't look like we're not.
Speaker 3:He's put us under tremendous pressure. Should have made him go ask someone who you wouldn't be able to have dinner with otherwise. Dean, come on, man fair enough that's not how you asked the first time. I apologize.
Speaker 2:I'm getting better at this I mean, by the way, this is why this is dean, that's just dean showing his quality right there, because that that answer just came really fast, by the way. So it's genuine, and it also put everybody else in a position where, like well, no, no, I can't answer the question. I did just come off that blissful Irish vacation too.
Speaker 3:Yes yes, yes. So I will start this over and say if you, dean, could have dinner with any person in history that you would not normally be able to have dinner with, who would it be?
Speaker 6:Yeah, this one's probably going to surprise some people because he it was not a perfect person, but I was always fascinated by the youngster, and it would be Woody Hayes, a pretty famous football coach for the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, Controversial figure. You could say All right, Christian, let's go to you. It's going to be something historical because you're a history guy.
Speaker 2:You're right, I mean, but my first answer is I think I would probably have a different answer to this question every day, based on where, like your current mood is and what's like, interesting to you.
Speaker 3:Yeah it's fair.
Speaker 2:You know, so I was just watching on I think it's Apple the show Franklin, benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 3:Yeah, michael Douglas. Yeah, yeah, Michael Douglas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't know how historically accurate all of it is because I haven't read about it, but it made me think about just the life of the people who led our country through the revolution and everything that went on. When you read their writings at that time, the level of discourse is so much higher and smarter than the average conversation that goes on in society today. So I'm going to go with today, I would say, benjamin Franklin, because I've been entertained by this show and that guy. You know you talk about somebody who was widely skilled in a ton of different areas and did a ton of different incredible things. Yeah, that's what I'm going to go with right now.
Speaker 3:All right, I like that, ashley what?
Speaker 4:do you got? I mean for the easy windup. I want to say Swift T Swifty just to piss off Christian, but I'm not going to.
Speaker 2:Don't be saying I don't like Taylor Swift and getting everybody mad at me. You guys talked about her for like 20 minutes.
Speaker 3:Can't wait to see the comments.
Speaker 4:We're trying to get viewership up. I'm just trying to get the Swifties in there, you know? No, probably Johan Cruyff.
Speaker 3:Okay, good one, good one. You guys could have a couple of cigarettes together.
Speaker 4:I mean, if you're going to have dinner, you might as well, you know if you're gonna have dinner, you might as well.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean note to the show, we're not advocating that that's a joke.
Speaker 3:no, we're not sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm all I want to go as a way that you know, I think I would say barack obama, and I just think he came from really not huge political background when he became the president, right, he didn't have, you know, many, many years of the you know establishment or whatever, and just all the things tied around him being president, becoming president and being first African American president, which I think would be super interesting to talk to him about what that experience was like and how he changed from the first day he walked into the Oval Office until he walked out. I just think that would be a super cool, interesting conversation. So there you go.
Speaker 2:Well, the three people we talked about are dead, so we can't do this. But there's a chance, Doug. I mean maybe he's going to listen to this podcast and you might get your wish if he's a listener, I'd be.
Speaker 3:I'm all for it. I'm all for it. I'd be here, love it. That's all I got all right.
Speaker 2:Well, we'll wrap it up here. First of all, obviously we'll take the uh questions and comments and whatever, but next podcast we're planning on talking to dr drew watson and maybe a few other people to continue the discussion on birth year, relative age effect, biobanding, some of these other issues that we think anyway need to be better understood before people are so adamant about some of their positions.
Speaker 3:Send your questions to info at theecnlcom.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to Breaking the Line the ECNL podcast and remember, if you have a question that you want answered on Breaking the Line the ECNL podcast, email us at info at theecnlcom.