Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
The Elite Clubs National League was founded in 2009 and continues to lead by daring to do things differently, embedded with grit, collaboration and tenacity – all things learned from the beautiful game. The ECNL protects and propels the integrity of the game and everyone it impacts by facilitating the perfect symmetry of excellence and humility, exclusivity and accessibility, freedom and community. We believe that challenging everyone to rise to their best creates game-changers that live well, long after cleats are unlaced. Born out of the belief in a better way. Continued in the ever-evolving pursuit of excellence.
Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
A Proven Pathway: The ECNL Pyramid and Why Competition is Vital in Youth Soccer | Ep. 116
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The ECNL's leadership team emerges from the incredibly hectic spring for the latest episode of Breaking the Line, where ECNL Regional League Commissioner Chris Leahey joins ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken to discuss all of the major changes within the ECNL platform and what it means for players, parents, coaches and clubs.
Building off of Breaking the Line Episode 114, the ECNL has let the dust settle from the club chaos, promoting 24 teams into ECNL and welcoming more than 190 teams into the ECNL Regional League across both boys and girls. The team discusses how clubs may move from the ECNL Regional League into ECNL, and also the mindset of what clubs can join the ECNL Regional League from other platforms.
They also converse about the overall youth soccer structure, about what clubs need from their leagues, how club-based league structures have evolved since the beginning of the Development Academy days, and more.
As always, if you have any questions or podcast topic suggestions for the Breaking the Line podcast, send them to us at https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions. And please, follow the ECNL on all social channels, subscribe to Breaking the Line, and don't miss all the exciting content being published on the ECNL's YouTube page!
This is the April 16 edition of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, featuring ECNL President and CEO, christian Lavers, and ECNL Vice President and Chief of Staff, doug Bracken. On this week's show, christian and Doug are joined by the ECNL Regional Commissioner, chris Leahy, making his debut on the show. The ECNL podcast is all about you and for you, so if you have questions, please submit them to info at theecnlcom. With assistance from our podcast production lead, jacob Bourne, and our videographer, reed Sellers, who brings the podcast to YouTube I'm Dean Linke, the podcast editor, and Colin Thrash puts the final touches on the production.
Speaker 1:Today, christian Doug and Chris talk about the recent announcements of promotion for many teams within the ECNL, especially several from the Regional League, where Chris Leahy serves as the perfect guest. In the discussion today, we will learn that, one, you should be honest to parents, players and clubs. Two, you should do what's best for you. And three, at the end of the day, competition and choice is important. There is no doubt about that. Chris Reed, jacob, christian and Doug all answer this edition of Bracken's Brain Buster and, with the table set, I now turn it over to the ECNL president and CEO, christian Labors.
Speaker 2:All right. Thank you very much, Dean. Thanks for everybody on the podcast. This week we have a newbie, Doug, which I'm surprised that we have a newbie. It's taken a long time for Chris Leahy to make his rookie appearance.
Speaker 3:We keep him in the background and we don't let him come out that often, and so we thought why not let the guy spread his wings, see what kind of talent he has for this in question? So no pressure, chris. I know that you've been under a lot of pressure lately and this is just going to add to it, but welcome to the podcast, chris Leahy, do you have anything to say?
Speaker 4:Thanks for having me on. Yes, I do feel the pressure First time being on a podcast in general, let alone one of the stature of this ECNL breaking the line. So appreciate you guys finally having me and hopefully not too many hard questions to answer.
Speaker 2:Wow, you see, he said finally having me. You see, put in a little dagger already.
Speaker 3:That's all right.
Speaker 2:I didn't know it was first of any podcast, leahy. I mean, we're honored here, bright lights.
Speaker 3:Podcasting is the new, is the new way around. They say that this is where people are primarily going to get their information in the next few years. So I'm just saying that's what I heard on another podcast.
Speaker 2:I heard something in church the other day that somebody said there's no such thing as dumb questions, but there are dumb answers, which I actually thought was a pretty smart statement. So, Chris, no pressure on that either.
Speaker 3:Well, Chris, since it's your first time on, you're a work in the background kind of guy. Why don't you tell us what you do here at the ECNL and how you got here and what your kind of background is?
Speaker 4:So I'm the ECNL Regional League Commissioner for both boys and girls Initially came in 21 months ago now as an Associate Commissioner, working associate commissioner, working directly underneath Ralph and Jason as EC&L boys and girls commissioners.
Speaker 4:Previous to the last 21 months, for 20 years I was running an organization in New Jersey MatchFit. I played for it in my U18 year, coached in it immediately following when I was in college, and then got to a point where I was the executive director and overseeing all the operations and administration and came to a point in my career shift that I wanted something different, a new challenge, a new experience. Most notably, also wanted to get myself off the field and in random conversation with Jason Cutney one day, you know, presented a potential opportunity and then everything aligned and here we are. So I'm humbled to be part of this organization because I was always an advocate of it as a club leader, Always felt it was the best at affording us the opportunity of at MatchFit to deliver what we felt was best for our teams and players and and in our own own minds. So you know, I'm just I'm glad to be here and, you know, super excited to continue to push the league forward.
Speaker 2:There's something that jumps out to me, maybe for a different podcast there, because you know he said Chris, you said looking to get off the field. I think that's a topic for another day, that we could probably dive deeper into the American coaching experience, another day that we could probably dive deeper into the American coaching experience, because that is a very frequent topic for coaches as they get older. I don't know that it's the same in the classroom for teachers. I don't hear of kindergarten teachers saying I can't wait to get out of the classroom. I wonder if there's something there to talk about that. Just hit me, because we all are coaching less. All three of us are coaching less than we used to at some point for a variety of different reasons. I guess that just jumped out to me. Let's put that down as a topic for the future, doug.
Speaker 3:I agree with that. That would be a good one to tackle. Certainly, the three of us are coaching less than we were before, so good shout. Well, what are we going to talk about today, christian, than we were before.
Speaker 2:So good shout. Well, what are we going to talk about today, christian? Well, we teased it a couple weeks ago when we talked about some big announcements sort of summarizing the I hope to say, end although you can almost never say end of this crazy season. It's like tryouts it just keeps going on and on, you know, and dribbling into drips and drops that just never stop, but the end of the vast majority of league announcements. We put two press releases out last week that sort of summarized all of the stuff that's been going on basically since January as clubs go through that annual process of what league to be in and what changes are going to happen. And there was a lot of noise in the market, a lot of chatter, more than normal, even A lot more than normal Because, again, as we've talked in a few episodes, a changing market, changing industry to a large degree. But we were generally pretty quiet through that, but it wasn't that we weren't doing a lot of work. And so we did have some announcements over the last couple of months, again in drips and drops as we made decisions. But putting it all together in these two big releases shows, I think, something really incredible, which is the league is super strong, very healthy and, with all the chatter in the market, the league continues to get stronger and bigger, and so we'll talk about these in two steps and we're not going to go read the press release to you because you can do that online and that's not interesting, but we'll give you some of the highlights, maybe a glimpse behind it, the first one being promotions into the ECNL.
Speaker 2:For the 25-26 season, we promoted 24 clubs from boys and girls into the cnl, almost every single one of them from the regional league. Chris, obviously, is the regional commissioner. Maybe you want to give us a little bit of insight into some of the more interesting stories or the more interesting pieces of that, some of the, the average maybe. What does a club look like that's been promoted? In terms of what is it? What does the club do on the field or off the field? To get into that consideration? We think this is a good place to start and it's an important thing because we really do believe in the pathway and in competition and rewarding performance, and we have very different to many of the organizations we compete with. We directly control the pathway in terms of operation for the vast majority, not every single step of it, and that's a side note, but generally the regional league to the ECNL. If we're not directly controlling and operating it, we have intimate insight into what's going on within it. So, chris, go ahead.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think I mean in terms of the promotions, each club has their own you know relative story, uh, but generally speaking, you know all of them were successful over at least an 18 month period, both in league play and, most notably, through the playoffs.
Speaker 4:You know the there's a robust nature to the ecnl regional league playoffs and advancing into an initial stage at a regional event we host four of them and then the top two out of each of those advanced into the final eight playing on, you know, primetime stage alongside the ECNL national finals as well.
Speaker 4:So I think the success is not just in their direct league play but at the playoffs is the key factor for most of the clubs that were promoted. On the girls side, you know we had a couple of national champions in Missouri, rush and GTFC. On the boys' side, predominantly every club that was promoted had a team in that, the New England and North Atlantic, strengthening already strong existing ECNL conferences and expanding their competition structure going into next year with some more games and we'll also see some previous traditional matchups of some New Jersey clubs that probably haven't played each other in a competitive format in years and now we're on the biggest stage in the country. So I think, generally speaking, the playoff performance is a key indicator on who the top performing regional league clubs are, and those are the ones that generally get put forth for consideration for promotional opportunities.
Speaker 2:So of the 24 this year I believe, we have nine national championship teams, 24 clubs, nine maybe. Maybe a club or two has two national championships, so that's rare. So probably almost a third of the clubs had a team win an RL national championship, almost every one of them with multiple playoff berths. There is a general profile of success. To your point. It's usually over the course of more than one year. That's not a requirement, but generally we want to see consistency over time and and I'll back up and and again to justify and show the our the strength of our belief in this going back to the 21, 22 season, we've got 58 clubs, boys and girls, that have been promoted 23 on the girls' side, 35 on the boys' side. This is not the. So you're telling me there's a chance Jim Carrey promotion. This is real, and one of the things we've said from day one in the regional league is if we're going to do this and this being operate a new level of competition, then we need to respect the results within it, which I think we're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, by that number, which is pretty impressive to give people some insight, because the regional league is quite a bit bigger than the ECNL, the top part. What would you say your hardest challenge or biggest challenges in that process?
Speaker 4:In the promotional process or just in general.
Speaker 3:Yeah both.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, I think the promotional process is, I think you know, naturally, you know it's a market by market evaluation on what makes sense, right, you know? I mean generally speaking, again, we highlighted what the general parameters are for club consideration. But there's other factors that weigh into the decision making. So, I think, identifying what those are and what those challenges in each market are and to try to avoid, you know, avoid them in the decision-making, and then, just generally speaking, I think, the scope of the league, you know spanning, you know, two genders, I think we'll be upwards of near 700 clubs, going into 25, 26.
Speaker 4:And again, each market has its own challenges and factors of consideration when you're overseeing and when you're making decisions and when you're, you know, help guiding the clubs in each market and I think it's a positive because of the more clubs and more players playing in our platform, just, you know, continues to give it that robust feeling, especially when we get to the playoffs, as I alluded to.
Speaker 4:But I just think that you know, continues to give it that that robust feeling, especially when we get to the playoffs, as I alluded to. But I just think that you know the general understanding of the, the national feel of a league, and what works in Texas doesn't work in New Jersey, and what works in California doesn't work in Idaho. So you just have to have a vast knowledge of each market. As a league, we're gaining more and more knowledge each year in terms of what makes each market tick and what factors are important and what's important to our clubs, because ultimately, we're here to serve the clubs, both on and off the field, and understanding what their needs and aspirations are key to that process.
Speaker 3:Christian. We talked in the open about growing and obviously Chris just outlined some of that. I know there's this probably idea out there. There's always some nostalgia attached to things, remember when it was like this or that you know in your mind, like when we talk about the size and scope of the league and growing and all that. Why is that important?
Speaker 2:Good question. I'll use that to pivot to the second release that we did last week, which was the overall growth of the regional league that Chris just hinted on a little bit. And that release is very long because it goes through all the different regional leagues that had clubs added to them or that were new leagues that were created. I think we're close to 50 regional leagues if you consider each gender and each league separate. And over again a time period where there was so much noise in the market, we added over 190 new clubs into the regional league. And if we take Chris's number of and let's just use it as an approximation of 700 or so clubs now within the platform, now you're talking about impacting a significant number of the for lack of better word the higher end of the youth player pool that are within our platform, competing in our platform, training and developing within the clubs in our platform.
Speaker 2:And I think to your point, doug, directly, we always go back and forth talking about the very, very best, so the top top kids and top top teams, and what is it they need? And then what is it that is necessary for a broader chunk? Right? Because if you look in any league, any league in the world, professional, amateur there's a difference between the very best and then even the rest in the top division. So you look at England and there's usually four or five clubs that can compete for the Premier League title. There's 20 in the in the Premier League, but 20 aren't competing for a title. That's why the Leicester story a few years ago was such a, you know, powerful, incredible thing, because it was like lightning in a bottle. And so you know, I'm not trying to compare youth soccer to pro soccer, I'm just using it as an example of this difference between the really top players and then the next chunk. And so we try and balance both of them and we think most of what the top, let's use it, let's use the stereotypical 1% and 99%. Most of what is good for the 1% is also good for the 99 and vice versa.
Speaker 2:But there are some things that are different and really, if we're talking about ECNL and RL combined, we're not in the 99% of the youth player pool. We're probably in the top 10% of the youth player pool collectively between the ECNL and the RL, because there's a lot of players, clubs and teams that are younger or that are not at that competition level, and so one I think and anyone who's ever worked in any sport knows that you need competition to improve. You can do a great job coaching, you can have highly motivated players and teams, but there's nothing quite like the spur of competition to make people work a little harder, pay a little bit more attention, do a little bit more, invest a little bit more time. And so I think, on the one end, having a robust competition that makes everybody better at each level and then in the pathways up and down, is really important.
Speaker 2:And the second piece is that we are a national league. We believe it's important to have a national footprint and provide opportunity for players in as many different markets, cities, regions as possible, because that's the other way that you improve the player pool and improve the level of play in this country is you bring up the base. The base together, competing and pushing and challenging and learning from each other is going to raise the average player within the RL and the ECNL, and then that's going to push the top players at the ECNL and RL. And that's just the soccer side of it. I don't know if you guys would add any other soccer arguments into that.
Speaker 3:Well, you're still talking about, to your point, the top 10%. So when you talk about the base, I think sometimes people will go away thinking, oh, is is the bottom, you know which is, you know I think, in in this case, probably not accurate, I think, in so many ways, you know I, I think we can always go back to our own club experience, because we all had it and have had it. What our experience in this league has done is it has raised what we had to do as a club to compete and do well, whether that means coaching, improve, you know coaches. Whether that means having a more coherent you know methodology to what we're, what we're doing, just more organization, you know more. Everything to your point, because it was, it is so competitive.
Speaker 2:And Doug, that made me think. You know, and I think all of us would would identify with this. You can watch let's just take a team in your club that you feel has done a good job and then let's say that maybe they're struggling in the ECNL or the RL in terms of competitive results, and then you take them and you put them at a lower level so a local tournament, or they play in another competition as for part of the year, and all of a sudden those players in that team looks very different. All of a sudden those players in that team looks very different. They're capable of doing things that they cannot do at an ECNL and RL level of competition in terms of extended possession, in terms of confidence on the ball, in terms of ideas that are shown because they have a little bit more time or they're more effective in creating time. And when you see that the same players in this level of competition look phenomenal and in this level of competition, look much less accomplished and look much less coached and look much less skillful, and some people may look at that and say, oh, this is a good day and this is a bad day, and you know, something like that can always happen. But the reality is no. This is just the difference in the level, and if you put somebody in competition at a higher level, they are forced to get better and sometimes it's hard to see that until then. You look and compare them to the level they used to be at or the lower level and you see the difference.
Speaker 2:But part of our expansion is bringing some of these clubs into a space where, hey, maybe you've succeeded and and and done very well at this level Now. Now everything's going to be different the challenges of time, space, load management. Tactically, everything is going to be bigger, faster, more frequent, whatever it may be. Does that, does that resonate?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it gets gets to the root of our job, which is to put players, teams, our club in that environment so that you can push that level higher and higher. That's our job and so, in a lot of ways, what the structure provides kind of forces you to face that reality. I always have these conversations when clubs are coming in to the league for the first time. It's always interesting to see how they learn to adapt and how much different or more challenging it is. I'm a little bit more uh, I guess not PC about it when I said, do you think you're ready? And they say yeah, we're ready, and I say no, you're not ready. You know you got it. You, you will have to learn, you know how to, and it's just that, that raising that level. So, chris, have you noticed that, like you know as you interact with, you know clubs who were promoting and everything like that, or even clubs that have won. You know national championships at the RL level? You know wherever that are coming into the RL. Have you had those?
Speaker 4:interactions with people. Yeah, I think you know in some of the conversations obviously a lot of excitement, you know, when you do get the nod for promotion. You've worked hard as an organization and felt you've done what you need to do for that opportunity.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, chris, I think just to clarify, we talk about promotion from the RL to the ECNL. But the way we look at it as well, it's promotion to come into the RL from a lot of different competition platforms and you know, I don't know that we've counted them, but we've had clubs come in from five, six different competition platforms into the RL which we look at as a promotion, not because it's our league, but because the level in the RL is better than the level of those other six competition platforms.
Speaker 3:Well, and I would just add to this, before you say what you're going to say, chris is I think we also root back to this is a club, this is a club. Uh, this is a club competition, and we, we think that a club structure is really important in this whole thing. Um, and so you know, you're not just bringing in your best team into it, you're bringing your whole club with you, and that's, that's a different.
Speaker 4:You know calculus as you, as you come into it yeah, and that's exactly what I was going to touch on, is the reality of 680 troops competing on a consistent level each week is a tough ask. It's one where excuse me, even if they were coming into the regional league as Christians alluding to other platforms and having successes. It's that week-in and week, you know, always having a competitive slate of matches across six age groups, and I think it's a it's a daunting, daunting feat. I mean, I know, initially our market here in the Northeast didn't have the RL for the boys and in the first year coming into it, you know, moving our teams from a platform that was available in the marketplace into the regional league, it was tough, it was, it was, it was a big jump in level for those kids and it was noticeable to the point where, you know, players and families were were of the understanding that this, this was more than we had thought in terms of just general competition, especially when you go to some of those national events and you're playing clubs from Texas and California, south SoCal and the like in Florida and things of that nature.
Speaker 4:So yeah, I think everybody goes in with the mindset that, whether it's coming into the RL via your promotion or being promoted from the RL into the ECNL with a positive outlook. But the realities are as you alluded to, doug, it's tough. It's hard and you've got to be consistent, you've got to be organized, quality coaches, dedicated people, and there's a lot that you're going to endure in that first year. I suffice to say, maybe that's a metric to look at too, in just terms of that, that first year, and what does that look like for clubs? Cause it is a challenge.
Speaker 2:Well, and you just added another thing, I think, which is a benefit to the growth of the RL overall, is that people don't know what they don't know. And so if you, if to go back to my example of doing really well at this level and then you struggle at the next level up, same kids, same ideas, same capabilities, they just look totally different and we've all had that right. I mean, we've seen that in the transition from our clubs, from not, you know, being outside the ECNL, to being in the ECNL go back a long time. We've seen that when the RL grew and we brought more teams into that. But you don't know what you don't know. And so so the more people families, kids, parents that come into this and make this a stronger and more robust platform, the more percentage of the American soccer population starts to see the reality of the competition tiers, because it's really easy to be on the outside playing in a smaller or a lower level and have marketing BS right, because you're competing at a different level, and so people don't know that it's that way.
Speaker 2:And it's not like everybody walks around ready to self-criticize themselves saying, well, we looked really good, but we're not playing at the highest level. That's not the reality of human nature, unfortunately. But when you put more of them into the RL it does open eyes, you know. It does raise eyebrows and people say, oh, I get it now, I see what the level is and that's got a great. I got to think and hope that that's got a great positive long-term, as more people become aware of the various levels because it's sort of the old you learn a lot more through failure than you do through success in general. And so when people come in and they're faced with new challenges, higher levels of expectation and there is some failure attached to that, that's when you seem, I think, you see the biggest jumps in growth.
Speaker 3:Sometimes yeah, and I think the other thing to look at when you talk about the size and the scope, is how do you accommodate all the needs of the internal levels right? No matter where you are and what you know, or you know whether it's your team, you're going to have a varying degree of levels within whatever it is, and so you know how do you accommodate those levels right. So you know. So for us, when we talk about the top and the ECNL and the very, very best of the best, you know when you qualify for the playoffs, because you're the best team in your conference, you're going to go to the playoffs and you're going to qualify in a to a tier where you're going to play the other best teams from all the other conferences. You know you're going to go to our national events and when you go to our events you're going to be pitted against teams that are finished where you finish. So more you know tough games and so you set up your structure to accommodate that.
Speaker 3:You know, and that's what we do all the way down. You know, to the to. You know whatever you want to say, the bottom of the top 10% or whatever. So I think that's you know. It's not a necessarily a one size fits all kind of model. It's where you're accommodating the different levels. And then I would say the other part that that we think about on this, that I always think is important to note is, you know the majority of the clubs out there, it will be very, very, very hard to ever win an ecno national championship or even or an rl championship so.
Speaker 2:So again we've, or to some degree even a conference championship A hundred percent, a hundred percent.
Speaker 3:So you know we try to put in some different levels without like totally breaking it down of where you qualify into the playoffs. You know, at the RL level, you have an opportunity to win your conference. We also have some league cups out there on the girls' side. You have an opportunity to win your conference. We also have some league cups out there on the girls' side. You have an opportunity to compete in a league cup. You have an opportunity to qualify for your region's playoff event. So you have that opportunity. And then obviously move on to the nationals. So there's some tiers in there that allow you to do that. And then on the ECNL side it's similar. When you go to the playoffs we have different tiers.
Speaker 3:I've said this before. You know we had a team that won the North American Cup, which is essentially the second level of the ECNL playoffs unbelievable experience, and they probably were never going to win an ECNL national championship but to have that experience. So I think that's really important to think about is how do you accommodate? If you're going to have a size and a scope like we do, how do you accommodate every? You know as many or everyone in that. You know in that what you're talking about, so that they, one, have a great experience, two, get tested at the very highest level, and whatever their level is, which is why I think we try to do what we do.
Speaker 2:Well, and to your point, I think 10% is probably I'm probably shooting too high on that.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you look at people throughout, the number of three to three and a half million youth soccer players in the country we're talking in the ecno and rl next year, probably 130 000, maybe 150 000, maybe, it's probably not that high players.
Speaker 2:So if you just do the math on that, you're you're really looking at probably four percent, the top four percent of the youth soccer player, uh, currently at 13 and above, or you, 13 and above is playing in the ecnl or rl or about that level.
Speaker 2:And even if you look at some of these other uh leagues that are out there that in theory, are competing with us, um, they're, they are, uh, smaller than we are. So even if you add them into that and say, ok, collectively, this is the universe of the better youth soccer players you're still going to be at five, six percent of the total number of registered youth soccer players by most people's estimates, which which tells you how difficult that is. And so providing a pathway into that for people who perform to then get tested and be better at that level and then to move up within, that is one thing and then I think ultimately we'd love it if there's more and more clubs and players that are capable of some success in that, in that level right. That's growth of the game more broadly yeah, and then it's.
Speaker 3:It is. I agree with that. And that goes back to all the way to the beginning of that conversation of you know, when you continue to push the base up, you know it raises the level of the game in this country at the youth level, you know, which in theory helps the next level be better, be better and the level above that and all that, all that kind of stuff. So it's an interesting, you know, and challenging puzzle to to put it together, figure out who's in it and where they're at and you know what they're playing in. But it's been fun, chris, have you seen? I mean, obviously 21 months. You said like what's different as in in that regard, than when you kind of started 21 months ago? Obviously you probably learned a lot in the last 21 months.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I definitely learned a lot. You know like you come into it thinking you have a good knowledgeable base of the landscape right, which you know you do to a certain extent relative to your market. But when you get into the variety of the country and the nuances of each market and what again, you know what works in one place doesn't necessarily work in the other. And you start to analyze and evaluate and have those conversations, I think you get a better understanding of just the general challenges in this country for youth soccer, because they're they're not all pointed and and and broad right. They're, they're they're market driven.
Speaker 4:And I think you know the, the general understanding of. You know clubs are working hard, club directors are working hard and ultimately they all want a platform that they can utilize in the best interest of their players, teams, families, et cetera. And then the more of those conversations you have, you realize you know that they have that here and they're all striving to be the best they can be, not just in their markets but nationally. But you know, obviously, as you alluded to there, even within our ecosystem there's a, there's a level for specific teams and players and you know it's not always about, you know, ecnl national championships. There's other avenues as well for these players and teams.
Speaker 1:When we return. Doug Bracken asked Christian and Chris about competition and choice. We do that after this message from Continental Tire. Score big with Continental Tire. Continental Tire has your back, with tires designed for top-notch traction, handling and durability. Drive with confidence and ensure your family's comfort on every journey. Find your dealer at continentaltirecom.
Speaker 3:Continental Tire the smart choice in tires as promised when we took a break, doug Bracken will pose the question to Christian and Chris about competition and choice. I mean, obviously there is in really every form of life probably there's lots of choice and lots of competition. Every form of life probably there's lots of choice and lots of competition. And youth soccer is no different, whether it be clubs, teams, leagues, tournaments, whatever, like what, in your view, is like. I mean, talk to me about that. What's important about it? What, how you look at it, how you know having, I think, the unique experience of looking at it from the club perspective, as you did and we have, and now you know doing what you do with, with this league. You know, talk, talk a little bit about it.
Speaker 2:Let's try, let's try and not be too philosophical on this, okay.
Speaker 3:But it's a podcast. You know, we can stretch our legs whatever.
Speaker 2:Long form. Yeah, so you know, I think and I say that because you know we've talked about this in the past about the importance of competition, and you know, ultimately it's one of our core values. I'll just read the core value Competition drives performance and should be embedded in all ages, programs and membership. The ECNL must have clear pathways for players, teams and clubs to reward performance and demand constant improvement. So we believe in that. It's one of our six core values. We'll probably touch on the others over the course of this podcast or another one, because ultimately, as we said earlier, competition is what forces change.
Speaker 2:Now, if you go on the other end of the continuum because there's people here who say you know what American soccer is crazy, there's too much competition between leagues and between clubs and stifle innovation. And so if you look at just what's happened in the market over the last 15 years, from the monopoly and the sort of well-ordered and regulated monopoly of USYS to where I think we've talked about this in the past we're kind of at max. Well, I shouldn't say max, I think we're at max. We're certainly the most we've ever been. Oh, there you go. Competition now in terms of where can clubs go, how many different league platforms are there out there. What is it that makes you go from one to another as a club or as a player in the club? And I think the positive to that is that the market is speaking loudly and that market being coaches, directors, parents and saying what do I want? And is my existing platform giving it to me? In theory, over time that's going to make a better and better platform, because you have to be more responsive to the people who are making those decisions. Within that and we've given credit to the Development Academy being sort of the first thing that broke the monopoly, it broke the status quo.
Speaker 2:And then I think people in business school would say it's always better to be second than to be first, because the first person learns a lot of hard lessons and then the second person comes in and takes advantage of those and grows. And we were the second one and we've been very successful. And now there's several of them. And I think, if anything, you know, I love this quote. I've been waiting to get this quote in here because everybody knows imitation is the greatest form of flattery and everybody hears that quote and moves on. But that's not actually the full quote. And the full quote Oscar Wilde is imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that the mediocre pays to the great. And I say that we're on our own podcast, so we can be a little self-serving on that. We've got a lot of imitators.
Speaker 2:We've got a lot of imitators. We got a lot of people looking at what we're doing and trying to do the same thing, and that is competition for us and we can look at that and you know, we will at times kind of have a sardonic laugh about the fact that, whatever we do, we see other organizations imitate very, very quickly, quicker than ever before, in terms of what we have. But it also makes us look and say, well, what are we doing to make sure that our growth and our innovation and our improvement is just getting faster and faster, so that what we're providing is better and better to the people within our, our platform? And so I look at that and I think you know, having choice is is a good thing. There's no scenario or no, you know, very limited anyway, I think where people can argue that lack of choice is a positive outcome for people and clubs at this point. Parents at this point have tons of choices about which clubs they want to be in, which leagues they want to be in, and if you do think that this is a little bit too chaotic at this point, I think it will be reducing in the future years to come.
Speaker 2:I mean right now, if we just spoke honestly, there's two pyramids, probably in youth soccer right. There's the ECNL US club pyramid that has the various levels of competition as people within that pyramid and that's hundreds of thousands of players are within that pyramid. And then there's another pyramid that I for lack of a better word I would probably say is an MLSGA pyramid, and you know people can put them side by side. They're not necessarily that side by side Because I think the level of competition, even if you compare, you know boys and boys to boys and girls to girls, it's different, probably within in the pyramid to some degree, but you're in one or the other right now and it's all. It's kind of important to know that. Because if you don't know what the top level is in the competition pyramid you're in, then it's really difficult going back to our other conversation, to evaluate your progress, evaluate your performance, evaluate your improvement.
Speaker 2:If, when I play, you know let's just say the three of us, doug, chris and I if we don't have an agreed upon top level of where we put our best players and what competition we prioritize the most when we play each other, we never know what level, team or player or priority is being put onto that match, and that means we don't really have a good sense of what is the standard. Because I might think that you know if I prioritize this league, but, chris, you prioritize that league and I put a different level team into your league, I might have a warped view of how I'm doing and how my players compare to your players. And that's not that I don't say that because you know who's better is most important. That's not it. What's important is knowing what is the standard, what? What does it mean to be a highly performing, successful team and player at this age? And so some clarity within that is important. So, while there may be tons of competition of which league? And that you need to know where you are in the pyramid Do you think people hide from that?
Speaker 2:I do, I think some people do, and you know, as I was thinking about this the other day, it's important to know where you fit, and so, yes, there's choice here, there's different pyramids here. Some people would like to see that go away. It's not going to happen anytime soon and, again, you don't want choice to go away too much, but within your pyramid, you want to know what the top level is so you can shoot for that and you can shoot for the improvement within that. And if you're not clear about that, then I wonder if there's something being pulled over your eyes, right, because you need to know. I mean, if you go to school, you take tests, you figure out reading proficiency or math proficiency or your knowledge of a subject matter, and in theory anyway, that's supposed to be pretty objective. You know it or you don't know it.
Speaker 2:To this, to this level of competency, a similar thing in in sports. You know, I don't. I'm not a big believer in technical testing in soccer, so I'm going to leave that for another topic. You can look and say, hey, people are, look, competent or not with technical action. But, as we've talked, as every coach, educator in the world talk about, skill is technique plus decision and that is marked most or measured most effectively in competition, where you look and say, ok, how does that player perform? And then there's various metrics you can take with that. You know more than just the score within that, but you need to be able to say, hey, this, I know, this is your best versus my best. Therefore, we figure out where is the top level and if we don't know that, it becomes very complicated. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think it absolutely does, Chris. How do you? You do you have anything on that?
Speaker 4:No, I think Christian nailed it. To be fair, I think you know, ultimately, the value that I see again, even before you know being an employee of the league, is the clear pathways, right, and the ecosystem and understanding what the levels are and what there is to achieve and what there isn't there to achieve. And I think it kind of gets muddied in in other, in other platforms and ecosystems. On what, to Christian's point, who's who's the best? What is the best, are the best playing the best? And you can get a little bit confused and I think, most importantly, the consumer, which is predominantly, you know, families, players and parents are the ones that you know get the misinformation or just don't understand the clarity of the situation and, um, yeah, it's kind of rampant at times yeah, and you can.
Speaker 2:I mean listen, you can, let's, you can make an argument that at a certain age, tiering is not necessary or maybe appropriate. Okay, because they're too young and and I think there's probably more nuance than that, even than people would like, because, again, competition and performance gaps can exist. Very young, how much do you recognize that or not is a philosophical argument that we might be in different areas. But if you don't, clearly, I mean, just put yourself as a young aspiring player in a family and you say, hey, my kid wants to play college soccer, or my kid has big dreams, or my kid just wants to be the best they can be. Let's make it very generic Be the. Be the best you can. Be the old. The old isn't the old army recruiting, recruiting model. Be all you can be.
Speaker 2:Be all you can be, okay, so we'll take all the politics out of it. Be all you can be. Well, then don't you want to know where you are compared to the other people? So if I go and let's look at this at a club level, if I go to the club and they have the red, blue, yellow, green and purple team all in the same age group, usually that's some way of trying to be polite about saying, well, we don't want to say first, second, third, fourth and fifth, you guys are chartreuse, so you know, just feel good, we randomly picked that.
Speaker 2:And what's the first question of everybody? What level of team is this Right? Why is that important? Because it tells you where you are in your performance level. And again, there's young ages that you don't want to do this. But at some point you have to do this because that factual statement of right now, you, chris Leahy, are on my third team in my age group because you are not performing at a level of the 36 players above you.
Speaker 2:Well, if you want to be all you can be, you know you might need to know that and then ask yourself are you doing everything right now to maximize your talent or do you need a little bit of a push or a wake-up call or whatever you want to call it. So that's the club piece, but it's the same thing in a league, all right, so the club to the team is the same as the league to the club, because at the end of the day, we need to know what is the top level of competition that club aspires for, what's the second and the third? Now, the same thing can happen, because a club may not be super clear on that, because you might be in the XYZ league and abc league and jkl league and the club knows that the best players go into the xyz league, the next best players go into the abc league and the next best player is going to the jkl league. Right, but they don't want to present that to you because they want you to feel good, right, and and so that's you know. And listen every, everybody, any, anyone who says my club doesn't do that, you know.
Speaker 2:I'd say eh.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that's true. It probably does to some degree or another, but it is important, at least from our perspective. We need to know hey, you come in in our league, your best kids are in these, you know, or your best kids are in the Rnl, or your best kids are in the rl, you know. Now, after that we don't really go. You know much farther because we're not concerned with that. We'll go back to the top five percent, but within a club. That is a real concern, right, and that becomes you know where. Soccer also becomes a business. But I think that, to your point, competition is helpful when it clarifies. When other, when things get involved that make it cloudy, then competition is less effective.
Speaker 3:So I'm going to ask you a big question here and I know that you and I specifically and it'll be interesting to hear what Chris says about this, because he has kind of, in this vein, an outsider's view he's now inside but on the outside, but you and I over the years we've had, I think, spirited conversations about what we add and and how we build the pyramid. Do we build a pyramid or not build a pyramid, and what that that entails, and I don't mean that in a negative way. I think it's been great, obviously, competition. So tell me, like in your mind, what you think is really important to consider when building a pyramid. Like we have Silence.
Speaker 3:I've brought it, brought it, brought it yeah, you can take that in a variety of levels, but well, let's, I mean, think about who we're talking to here, all the many, many thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of people that tune into this podcast many, many many thousands growing by the minute, by the minute, by the minute.
Speaker 2:This is where somebody says subscribe.
Speaker 3:They watch us on YouTube. You can subscribe on YouTube there, you go. Yeah, all that, all the things All right. You have gender, you have level, you have lots of different things.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll say, okay, I'll start with this thing. Well, we're in the middle of this, right. So, or you know, maybe a little bit past the middle, but we are doing this right now, building it in real time. So we're not looking back at, hey, look at what we did 20 years ago and now let's evaluate it with the benefit of hindsight and time. We're saying, hey, this is what we're doing now. We started doing this five, six years ago.
Speaker 2:We're still very much expanding it and and and operating and executing it and evolving it, and I think this is another, this is another reason why scale is important, because to have a pyramid, you need scale, because the bottom of the pyramid needs to be bigger than the top of the pyramid, otherwise it's not a pyramid. I guess it's a box, right? So you need more people competing At the lower, the level you go, by age, by level, whatever, the more you need so that it becomes more selective as you go up. So there is a certain scale part that is necessary and I think now, in the last two years really maybe three, but for sure the last two years I think we have real powerful, valuable scale within the ECNL, regionally and within the ECNL, so that it actually is a pyramid. It is the sort of the competing to see who is the best to see where the cream rises. Because there's enough competition such that the cream rises If there's. If you don't have enough competition, it's not. It's not really competition, you know. I mean in terms of a pyramid. Yeah, so I think you know that that we, we have a lot of our, our expansion and growth has been driven on that.
Speaker 2:That then then you start to look like I think it's some of the things we talked about at the beginning of this what does it look like to be promoted? What type of performance metric do we look at to say this is proof or evidence that a club has outperformed a level or is ready for a challenge at a higher level? Similarly, you could, you could look and say what about the opposite? When should a club be moved down because they are not capable of competing or succeeding? And then you have the question of you know, the age old question is the bottom of the top, you know, still better than the top of the next level? You know, and I think again, it's easy to use pro, pro soccer as an example. I think Ipswich was at Ipswich and Southampton. Both got promoted this year and are both getting relegated already.
Speaker 3:All it looks like all three teams that got promoted to the Premier League will go down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean tells you that, hey, they were the best of the of the championship. Uh, they came up, they had a cup of tea and they're going to go back down now that, actually, if you, if you zoom out that, my gut reaction is that's not a great thing, right? Because what that's starting to tell me is that you're going to have more and more resources or strength contained in fewer and fewer organizations, which, in theory, over time, reduces competition. You'd like to see some of those clubs come up and stay and stick.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they usually and they usually do.
Speaker 2:Right, but this year didn't happen, so I didn't realize it was all three. But so you have those kind of metrics and comparisons and then when you take that down to the youth level, when you're talking about a pyramid, you have to say, okay, what is? What is the appropriate metric? Because wins and performance is always going to have to be part of it, because there's nothing, you know, there's nothing more clearly obvious and objective than that. But it is still you soccer. You have to look at some other things too. This is why you go back to our earlier podcast talking about, you know, sort of the weird incentives in the old US wise model of you win by doing things that are not pro long-term player development. So I think one of the challenges we're going to have just speakingarently, is how do we continue to put more and more metrics and data into this, not to become overly scientific, because I do think there's a.
Speaker 2:The eye test is actually, you know, to an experienced observer, the eye test is still the best. You know, to an experienced observer, the eye test is still the best. And then you use some metrics to make sure that your eye is seeing things accurately. But I think that that is. That is something we're going to want to understand better because, again to go back to the English Premier League scenario it's not great to move up and then just move right back down again. There's tremendous cost to that in terms of change and inefficiency. You want, when somebody is promoted, for them to be successful, not for them to get smacked and go back down and then have to figure it all out over, all over again.
Speaker 3:Chris, you looked at it mostly from the outside in.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and then being behind the curtain. Now I think and I think you both have alluded to this on previous podcasts that I've listened to in that the importance of the pyramid is, to Christian's point, the eye test right, being able to see the functionality of clubs, um, that warrant opportunities, right. When we, when we go through the application process and review of clubs, you know it's, it's a, it's it's paper, it's looking at standings on websites, presentations that clubs present us day-to-day on and off the field, gives you that, that better understanding of what their true operations are and how successful they would or would not be if there was an opportunity to move.
Speaker 2:So I think, well, Chris, like that made me, cause we, we talk, and I don't know. Soccer seems to be like one of the rare sports that is constantly criticizing itself over style. I mean I don't hear that in hockey or football or baseball, you know of like, well, they won, but they didn't pass it enough, you know. Or this is this was their, you know, this is their percentage. I mean, I know football's got time of possession, whatever, but you know, I also look out there at some of these things that I see. I also look out there at some of these things that I see, you know, and I think we've given the DA philosophically a lot of credit for disrupting the status quo and provoking much needed change. One of the things that's also now being more mainstream discussed, though, is that there was a lot of things about it that were anti-competition. You know, whether it was mandated styles of play or systems, which was a fact, even though some people try and say it wasn't. Um, the de-emphasis of results, which, to some degree, is probably good at younger ages, but at others, it just robs people of the most objective, especially when you're starting to get into the senior youth ages. Right, it is the most objective demonstration of competence, and now I see things more and more of like rating style of play.
Speaker 2:You know, and I just man, that is a slippery slope, because I can see a lot of people saying well, you know, it is true, we were two and 12 this year, but look at how many passes we had and look at our possession and field dominance and you know the passes are, you know, center back, right back, center back, center back, left back, center back, right back, center back, goalkeeper, and that's a great seven pass string or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:That doesn't do anything and nobody ever wants to watch that. But in the goalkeeper, and that's a great seven pass string or whatever it is. That doesn't do anything and nobody ever wants to watch that. But in the style of play ratings, you know, it gets you an a, even though you, you gave up three goals. You know the other two times you tried to pass sideways and backwards. That much. So I, I do, man, I I don't. I'm not a huge fan of this sort of let's just take away results and performance and just talk about these very, you know, ambiguous or they're trying, you know AI is trying to quantify these things, but they're still driven by somebody's personal preference.
Speaker 1:This edition of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, is not over, as we hear from a couple more corporate partners before we put a bow on it and then eventually get to Bracken's Brain Buster.
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Speaker 1:To conclude this edition of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, we turn it back over to Doug Bracken.
Speaker 3:It's been a good discussion. What do you think, christian? Anything to wrap?
Speaker 2:put a bow on all this before we get into Chris Leahy's maiden voyage on Bracken Brain Buster behind the scenes, in our leadership meetings and our discussions, all of us together or individually, with the various club directors. I mean, most of us spend a long part of each day on the phone with club directors all over the country talking about what is right quote, unquote for for this platform and what is right for the clubs and the players in it, what is right in terms of what we need to do more of or what do we need to change, and all these things go into it and it's really easy to find these little soundbites. You know it's like anything else. You know whether it's the, the algorithms on social media or a clickbait or whatever people put out these you know exaggerated statements of. You know winnings over, over prioritized in youth sports, and that's terrible. You know winnings over, over prioritized in youth sports, and that's terrible, you know.
Speaker 2:And then the next one is oh, the style of play must be. You know this, and everybody wants to play. It used to be Barcelona, I don't know what it is now. I mean it's not. You know, it's not quite as ubiquitous anymore, but you know we talk about this and I think a lot of it goes back to and this, this I'll go back to again. We've talked about our values and you know our first value, our most you know prominent value, is youth soccer should be led by experts in youth soccer who understand its unique culture, ecosystem challenges and needs.
Speaker 2:And I say that because I think creating and operating and involving the best platform is a lot about the eye test. It's about the eye test of experienced people multiple experienced people with contrasting opinions, sometimes having the debate and discussion and argument over what is right based on what they see and feel, and using data where they can or where it's helpful to try and just keep making it better. And that's what we're doing. And if I had to say why do I think we're, why are we the best of it? Because we have really really good people doing this that are engaged in this platform and in this level of youth American soccer for decades that are constantly looking at the eye test, taking the eye test, discussing it, comparing it and looking back and saying, okay, that worked, that didn't. And now we look forward and we're not going to rest on what we do, which is why I think the future is bright.
Speaker 4:Lighty, what do you got Again with all these podcasts and I do listen to them.
Speaker 4:I think it's always top of mind discussions but, like Christian alluded to, it's conversations that are not only going on in our meetings and our discussions, it's going on in households, it's going on amongst coaches, on the field. I think you know, ultimately everybody is is hoping for a day where things are a bit more generally streamlined and clearer across the board, not just in in in our, in our leagues and what we have have to offer. So I think I think we're slowly getting there. I think, you know, with everything I've learned in this industry, every two to three years there's a wrench that's thrown in the mix that shakes everything up and creates some chaos. So I think we just experienced that, you know, over these past couple months. But you know, I can honestly say in it's a short tenure, comparative, obviously, to what you guys have built and done here, but it's clear to me the vision and the values that this organization has to push forward. So again, just happy to be part of it and happy to talk about it today. Appreciate the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I guess my close on that is, as things grow and get bigger and there's different competition or whatever, I think all these things get harder, like decision-wise, and you know there are so many different facets to every decision. Almost none of them are crystal clear like maybe they were when it. You know when we started this when it, you know when we started this. So that's, that's always. An interesting challenge in all this is you know, how do you keep staying on the edge and innovating and pushing it forward and making all these decisions which are really, really hard, and we all, you know everybody will say you know, oh, it's, it's youth soccer. You know how can it be that hard? I mean, it's the world we live in, right, and you can only relate it to the world you live in. We're not curing cancer or anything like that, but it is important to a lot of people what we do and the decisions that we make.
Speaker 2:Well, isn't that true, doug? That regardless of the field, however simple it seems to the outside, the people that are excellent at it have layers and layers and layers of knowledge, experience and probably care for detail that is just ignored by the outside because the outside is not the expert.
Speaker 3:I only would add that the people that are good at what they do, that is true.
Speaker 1:I think it's not everybody right, people who are good at good at what they do. Okay, we're going to take one more break, hear from a couple more sponsors and then end the show with bracken's brain buster want the same expert advice from the pros at a discount tire store while shopping online.
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Speaker 1:Welcome back to Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, where it's Bracken Brain Buster time.
Speaker 3:All right, bracken, brain, buster man, I got a lot of ideas about a question. Normally at this point, if I say something like I got a really good question today or tough question, christian started shaking his head and giving his face that he doesn't want to hear it. But then then he has to. He has to answer it. So I threw around a couple questions. I'm going to go a couple questions that didn't make the cut this week, where one is give me one prediction for soccer in the future. That would have been an interesting question. I'll put that on the hopper. Maybe I'll come back to that. The main reason I put it in the trash can is because I didn't have a good answer for it and it feels like built-in, built-in advantage here I do feel like I should have an answer.
Speaker 3:The other one is I think one time we did the Mount Rushmore of soccer coaches and S regardless of sport another tough one tough one, but the one I came to because I think this is really relates and it's a little bit kind of like we talked the last Bracken brain buster we did, but this is a little spinoff of it and the question is one lesson you've learned from playing or coaching sports, one less of lesson you've learned from playing or coaching sports? One lesson you've learned from playing or coaching sports that you think our tens and hundreds of thousands of listeners to this podcast would be interested in hearing?
Speaker 4:Chris, since you are it's your first time I'm going to give you the first crack at this For me if I just look for like a general adjective, I'd say you know, resiliency, you know, I think sport teaches life skills in many facets, right. But you know, through my own journey, my career was cut short abruptly because of health conditions in college. I was devastated, you know. I knew nothing about it going into my freshman year and found out I had a, an irregular heartbeat and heart condition, so I couldn't play. But I stuck with the game. I immediately got involved in coaching in any capacity I could.
Speaker 4:I helped with the, with the college team, as a. You know, I basically took on like what a grad assistant role would be, um, because the game, just I felt it meant so much to me in terms of who, who, how I developed as a, as a human and as a young adult, um, and I just didn't want to step away from it because I thought it brought so many good values and brought so much character out of me. So I just think that general resilience, I could have easily just tossed it aside and I wouldn't be sitting here talking about soccer on this podcast today. I'd probably be sitting in a cubicle somewhere and, you know, hammering away at the hamster wheel. But, um, you know, I think just the I mean broadly life skills, but that that resilience that you need in in sport, um, and and the tough times, and you know, through failure and bad days and you know reviving yourself and pushing forward, learning from it all for sure, but you know finding ways to push forward.
Speaker 3:Lucky you because you got to be on this podcast, so you're welcome and good job doing that. Let's go to. Let's go to Christian. He did not make a funny face for you, no no, that was a good one.
Speaker 2:I'll say two things. So, one is.
Speaker 1:I know, I know.
Speaker 2:I believe I've learned that you know I speak specifically to soccer, but probably all sports that the sport is generally very fair in the long term and can be very unfair in the short term. Generally you kind of people get where they're supposed to get or where they deserve to get, to a large degree, much more likely in the long term than the short term. So a longer time horizon, some patience. And then the other thing I would say on that is never, never write somebody off, never, never underestimate what a motivated, talented person is capable of doing. Or even a motivated, hardworking person, took take talent out of it. Because as a player, you've seen people that are just achieve unbelievable things that you would never would have expected. And as a coach, you've certainly seen players that achieve things that you probably, if we're being honest, that player is not going to be able to do, that, they're not going to be able to get to that level.
Speaker 3:And so never, never write anything, never underestimate somebody in the power of their will so the guy who told me the other day, hey, I could have played in college, but I just I didn't, probably, probably, couldn't have, probably I think there's a lot of a lot of people who could have should have.
Speaker 2:We could probably come up with our own. Could have should has I. I mean, I could have been in the NBA if I really was taller, if the coach would have put you in that one game.
Speaker 3:I know If I was taller and better. Okay, let's go to Jacob from St Louis. Jacob, we won't hold that against you.
Speaker 5:I don't think you should If you know, you know, but you don't know.
Speaker 7:Okay, so tell me, think you should, if you know you know, but you don't know, Okay, so tell me what you got. I'm going to echo what Chris said. I think sports teaches you a lot about life and just kind of puts it into a confined area, and so I think for me, it's take pride in what you do. In sport, you want to make sure that you have the effort, you want to practice like you're going to play. You want to play like it's a big game, even if it's friendly or whatever, and I think that if you take pride in what you do, you're going to showcase your talents the best, and then you're going to translate that into other areas of your life. I learned that growing up playing all different kinds of sports, and so I think that's the one thing that's really stuck with me throughout my time playing. So that's my biggest advice is take pride in what you do.
Speaker 2:That little Jacob Kobe Bryant right there.
Speaker 3:I know I got a tear Reid MMA fighter. You probably learned a lot through that.
Speaker 6:Oh, absolutely Talk to us. Reid, you will have good days and bad days and you will make mistakes, especially when it comes to more individual sports, when you can't just pass the ball and someone can help you out. But regardless, it's like things will work out in the long run, assuming that you put the work and effort into it. But the game isn't over until it's over. So you just got to keep going, and just mainly having a positive attitude and mindset is probably what makes the biggest difference, more than anything okay, I like that.
Speaker 3:Reid, I am gonna go from coaching. I mean, I would say this to anybody I talk to it's sports is everything, has been everything. So I I for me. So I credit my whole existence to sports and my experience in sports. But I'm going to go from a coaching perspective and it's kind of what Christian said. But I think it's really important for us to look at players for what they can be, not what they are, and remember what we're doing here, which is, you know, we're trying to help players be the best version of themselves. Having that belief and that thought that you know, what could this player be when their time with me is over, I think should be the forefront, always in our minds when we're coaching and dealing with youth players. That is my lesson that I have learned in coaching. So that's it. That's what I got today. I think I got to find a funny question for next time. We're getting a little too serious.
Speaker 2:You're getting deep Doug. We're ending on philosophical high notes here.
Speaker 3:Christian said we shouldn't get too philosophical on this podcast, so I want to make sure we don't get too philosophical. Chris, thanks for coming today. Appreciate you guys having me. It's fun. That was great. Christian, thank you again for all your philosophical knowledge.
Speaker 2:Always a pleasure to share the screen with such luminaries.
Speaker 3:All right, guys, that's it. You can follow us on YouTube. Those subscribers keep going up every single week, which is great. You can send us questions. We want to hear from you. If there's topics or questions that you have, we want to hear from you. You can send those to info at bcnlcom and, as always, thanks to Jacob and Reed. They're the brains behind this operation. Christian is the philosopher and the order, and I'm the You're the pretty, the pretty face dog.
Speaker 2:I just try to keep it.
Speaker 3:I just try to keep it going down the tracks. So all right until next time, guys, thanks for joining us so much.
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 ec ECNL podcast, email us at info at the ECNL dot com.