Nine ish nine thirty or so, and we get to talk to our mogul and training and we get to find out what's going on as he's looking at multiple divisions and looking at multiple teams getting ready for the starts of their season. So what this means is we bring in the man himself, Michael Parkers Parky, what is happening John, You, sir, being a mogul in training as you are for season two of being a mogul in training?
You get to and I mentioned it before you popped in, it's like you're looking at it from your your team perspective with Atlanta United, but then also the ownership perspective and overseer perspective at Rhode Island DEFC. What's it like handling all of these different personalities of yours heading into a season for.
A chain.
No different than last year?
You know?
I think that.
What no, no, no comment about well, xbectations are higher on both sides considering what happened. Come on, where's my expectations or higher SoundBite?
I mean, naturally, expectations are higher year two than year one. That doesn't mean that we're going to go further. I mean we could only win one more game at the end of.
The season at least.
But yeah, to be honest, John, all this d one talk is confusing to me. I don't USL is in a good place right now. MLS is a behemoth compared to USL, and I'm not privy.
To all the information.
I'm not on all these Board of Governor's calls with USL and owners calls, so I'm not sure what the thinking is, but I just don't think it makes sense to try and go up against ms. MLS is buying and selling players intra league now for ten plus million dollars, and you know our budget for players is like point five million, So yeah, it's we're on different levels. So
you know, for me, it just doesn't make sense. That being said, if things do go, do do progress, Rhode Island will be in the top bracket of USL for sure.
Okay, since you since you mentioned everything going on with Lanty United and getting ready for multiple seasons in multiple places as a player, how much did you look forward to the preseason in and of itself or did you just want to get out there and start knocking guys around and have things going for real? What was your what was your thought about preseason and getting ready for the regular season.
As a player, I.
Enjoyed preseason for the most part.
I think that.
There's obviously aspects of preseason that you don't look forward to, mostly the fitness, but I enjoyed it just because it was a time to get to know each other and set the foundation for the season. There was no you know, pressure yet as far as you know, games and seedings and all that stuff, so it was like, Okay, you know, this is a good time to just train. And I liked the process of training. I liked you know, the daily routine of its. So yeah, for me, I really
enjoyed it. But yeah, I think that there comes a time in preseason, even though you're enjoying it, where you're ready to start the season.
And I'm sure they've hit that point.
When it comes to your mentees these days, and this might even play into how you were when you were their age. There you go get ready. Literally, it's the flipping of the switch. Like it wasn't over the top with stallone. You got the hat on backwards, You're ready to go. When you were of a young and impressionable age starting out in the game.
So basically last Tuesday. What did you.
Think about all of the conditioning and the preseason and all of these things and getting acquainted with new teammates and everything. You know, do you find that your mentees understand the importance of a build up, any preseason and staying as ready as possible or do you have to explain to them, Yeah, I know, you got you've got games. Those are important, but at the same time, you have to maintain the self going into those games. Do you have to have those kinds of conversations at all.
Yeah, a little bit, And for sure it changes throughout time, right, I mean, as younger players, the preseason is more important.
These these minutes that you get with the first team in these games are super valuable and super important because you don't know how many opportunities you'll get sometimes right where for me as a veteran later in my career, it was like health is the most important thing, Like, Okay, you know, I want to get going and I want to you know, get sharp and stuff, but like this preseason game, I don't really care about as long as I you know, feel good and stay fit and get
healthy coming out of it all, like that was the most important. But I do remember being younger, it was like, hey, you know, every time you're out there, it's like I got something to prove, I got something to earn. So you know that that is definitely a different situation for younger guys versus some veteran players. And yeah, I think that it's important for the younger players to understand that.
And it's it's different now where players come into camp ready to go, and it's so much different than when I first started. So in that regard, these younger players are in a much better place than I was probably
when I was younger. But I think that they also sometimes put too much emphasis on one game, one play, where it's like, hey, that's the beauty of preseason, that's why we got six weeks together, right, especially if you're training with the first team the whole time, like you know, you can you can go out there and it's okay to have a stinker or have a bad training session. It's more important the response to it and getting back on the saddle.
Well, and you you mentioned that it's okay to have a stinker. I would think that, I mean, is pressure that much different these days? Where because I remember packing by a day, you know, when I actually had more hair. You had that pressure from the generations inside your home that you know, like the scene in Breakfast Club at the end when they're having and Emilio Ostevez, you know,
he has the big speech. I'm sure that we either had parents like that, we had family members like that, or we knew folks that were like that, and you know, pressure was there. Andrew, your attitude is for ish and I'm sure we experienced a lot of that growing up. How different is parental influence and family influence on players today and on your mentees than it was maybe when we were growing up. How different is it? Is it
different much? I know I'm asking like a four part question here, but I guess it has to do with parental influence and pressure that's put on from the family.
How different is it from your observation.
Yeah, I think it's I feel like back in the day, it was more pressure of winning and just playing well, and now it's a different type of pressure where it's like pressure to play your best, be the best, make sure that you're in a good spot to get a scholarship, or you know, played on your high school team, played in college, get a scholarship, you know, it's that type of pressure is much more where back when we were growing up, it wasn't like I didn't have pressure to
go play in college or anything. That was just like yeah, parents just freaking out trying to win each game, right, So I think it was just more short term pressure like game to game, where now I think it's like a sometimes it's an overarching pressure of like getting to a certain level or a certain place by a certain time, just because of year round the money that the parents are putting into sports, all the extra training, So the
pressure is still there for sure. And I'm sure it was like this back in the day, Like not all parents are like that, but you do have some.
And honestly, I've been pleasantly surprised.
And maybe it's because that the families that come and work with Greg and I obviously have a an open mind frame of how we can help their athlete.
But most of the.
Families that we work with, the parents are hands off.
They put the they set up the.
Kid, and it's just us, the and the kid working together, which is awesome. And every now and then we'll have the helicopter parent that's answering the questions and sitting right there and everything.
But I'm honestly been. I was pleasantly surprised in that.
Regard well, and I know that we've talked about it in the past, about the helicopter.
Parent, and.
I'm thankful for you to you and for you for what you and Gregor are doing to where those instances seem to be few and far between, where the parents, even though they seem to be wanting to play this long game, however long it is about getting their their athlete to the next level and next levels whatever those are, that they seem to be laying off because I mean, once again, going back in my day days of black and white television, you had the family members yelling at umps,
you had him yelling at kids through dugouts, you had all these kinds of things. And you know, I'm I'm glad that it seems, at least through your prism that for the most part, they're laying off. And I think that that speaks a lot to I guess what the parents are looking for and what they hope to see out of their out of their kids.
Yeah, for sure, I do think it's good.
And don't get me wrong, Hey, you go to any Saturday soccer youth tournament and go on a sideline You'll be like, yeah, you know, holy smokes, what is going on in society.
Don't get me wrong, But it was like that back in the day too, and I so I do think that there's a lot of parents that have realized, and you know, I think social media can help in this regard where it's like you get called out a little bit and there's more information out there about like, hey, this is not good for our athletes and there's so many benefits from losing, so stop freaking out on the
sideline after every game or during every game. So yeah, there's always going to be some that don't get the message, and you know, are living through their kids and it means more to them than their kids. But honestly, I think for the most part, it's getting a little bit better.
Michael Parkhurst than the Friday free kick, hanging out with it, answering all the questions about being an owner, being a player,
getting ready for the season, being a mentor. But that is that's where our focus traditionally is here with what they're doing at beyond goals, mentoring at BG, mentoring on the twitters, at beyond goals mentoring dot com when it comes to social media, Since you mentioned social media and how it can be a good influence, it can be a good it can be I was gonna say, when
is the reinforcement ever bad? It can be a reinforcement to activity and behaviors, or it can be an absolute negative, And if you pay too much attention to the negative, then it could take everything and make it all haywire. Do you have conversations with your mentees about social media and how it can be that that double edged sword sometimes? Do you have those kinds of conversations with them about the power social media?
Yeah, for sure, especially the players that are trying to play in college, because if I was an assistant coach, I would absolutely be checked out their social media to see what type of content are they putting out there, Who are they as a person, what are the people they hang with, what do they do off the field, like all that stuff.
It's super important.
So yeah, you want it to make sure that your social media is a good representative of who you are and know that nothing ever gets deleted and it can cost you if you're not smart with it. It can cost you a place at a university. It can cost you a job in the future, right, And yes, people will give you a pass if you post something silly when you're fifteen or sixteen to a certain degree, but that doesn't mean it won't hurt.
You at some point along the road. So yeah, we absolutely talk about.
That and it can be a great tool as well. I've got a couple of kids that post all their highlights there, which is great. Right If a college coach is all of a sudden looking at their social media and see some of these highlights like fantastic, that's a great way to use it. And obviously you can make money off it if you get to a certain level, right. So yeah, of course social media is important. You know, nil deals in college and all that stuff. A lot
of it is social media based. So yeah, there's such benefits to it, for sure.
If it's used the right way.
But yeah, we definitely talk about what the negatives could be as well.
Is it eye opening to a mentee when you talk about the negatives because they may just sit there and say, well, it's social media and I'm just putting things out there and I'm trying to be social. Do you and Greg ever sit there and have, you know, call a time out when you see something on a social media platform that's attached to a mentee and sit there and go, okay, this you need to learn from that. You need to either take this down or learn from it, or say something.
Do you do you have those warning conversations with mentees at all?
We haven't had to yet, we have. I've never come across.
A mentee who's posted something where I thought, you know, that's crossing a line, or you gotta be careful here, or things, and so no I haven't, which is great.
Yes, will it happen, probably yes, but not yet.
That's always a good thing. But the thing is, but you acknowledge though you and Greg both acknowledge it hasn't happened, it's probably gonna happen. So at least there's that preparation level of Okay, at some point, this is coming, and we've got to be ready for it. We have to,
meaning you and Greg have to be. BGM has to be, and you have to be prepared to say the right things to a mentee in a situation like that and sit there and go, Okay, you know, saw something the other day and whatever it was is, whatever it was, but this is the kind of stuff that will come back and hurt you, and explain why it could come back and hurt you from that perspective of I'm not trying to jam on you, but I'm trying to give you advice as to why this can hurt you long term.
Mhmm. Yeah, no doubt about it.
It's absolutely part of the journey. It's part of the pathway, and mistakes will be made. I mean, shoot, we've all made mistakes, so you know. It's it's more about the knowledge and growing from it and understanding it. Because I think that there's a false sense that you know, I'll just delete something, I'll just get rid of it.
Yeah. No, there's no such thing as fully deleted.
If you were to tell a mentee how to set up a social media account. Because there are times on in other sports when I when I look at recruits and things like that, or high school student athletes trying to get to the next level, they will lay out all the information in their their bioblast like on the two hundred and eighty character app. It is literally like name, positions, year, GPA, email, contact.
Info, all of these things.
Is there such a thing as putting too much information, you know, at the front of some kind of identification for a coach or something like that. Or is this where we are right now? You think where I got to put all this information out there and make it just as easy for the next level to get in touch with me. Or do you still hold some information back just because of how social media can be these days.
It's a good question.
I definitely when we talk to mentees about creating videos to send to college coaches, we always say, either in.
The email or the front picture.
Before your video starts, have some of this information because yes, GPA is super important. Right A coach says sees that you've got a one point something, he's probably not even gonna watch the video. No, right, it's not waste my time. No, So you know that that is important. I don't think it needs to be front and center, like in your face all the time. So that's that can be a little bit information overload, because that's you don't want to do that either, right, I think we all OI all
can be like, oh, shoot, they get bogged down. That's how I feel at the grocery store sometimes, especially coming back from Europe, where I was like I was in the Cereal Aisle, and you know, just after being in Europe for five years, it was like I came back and was like, oh my gosh, there's seven hundred cereals to choose from.
I'm overloaded.
That's also how I.
Feel when I go to, uh, golly, what's the name of the restaurant. It's got a whole menu.
It's like a book.
I mean that I can't remember that.
It's a huge chain.
But if there's a restaurant that's got like seven hundred things and their menus like an inch and a half thick, you kind of get lost.
It's like, that's what I'm saying, you get too much choices, too much information shut down. So that's that's what I'm saying too about information about you know, on the front right it's cheesecake factory, Thanks Ricky. Yet too much information right in your face right away can also be a shutdown.
I think. So, yeah, there's a balance there, but I do think, you know, you do need.
To provide some information right of like, yeah, GPA and contact info is probably about it.
Though, when it comes to mentees trying to get in touch with coaches or whomever at the next level. Have you had the chance to help them navigate those kinds of things? It's like, okay, initial conversation, it's like it's like what they see in a relationship or a business relationship. Don't call on Monday, don't call on Friday. Best business is always done on Tuesday. Have you gone through those steps in trying to help your your mentees and the
families navigate Okay? If you're going to reach out, reach out in this way to this person at this time to do these things, or is it just kind of like, all right, we'll just put the information out there and then let the contacted individual come back to me. It's like I want the coach to talk to me. Here's my first piece of info. I'm going to leave it alone. Or do you encourage mentees after that first contact? Hey did you get my tape? How long do you wait
before did you get my tape? Those kinds of things Navigating the next level, I guess is where I'm trying to get at.
Yeah, we're actually putting together in the very early process, John putting together a whole playbook for such things.
I interviewed the size of the cheesecake factory, a menu.
I hope not.
I hope we can dissect it a little bit and get down to what's most important.
But I interviewed a.
D one assistant coach yesterday actually, and so it's part of the process of like helping out with what information is important, when to contact, who to contact, and you know, how to get in touch with some coaches with the benefit of going to id camps. You know, this type of information that I think a lot.
Of people are looking for and could use.
So that is definitely one of our goals probably for the first half of this year, is to try and get more of that information out there. I mean, yes, we do it right now on a one on one basis, but to have this information available for those that you know, we're not mentoring full time or something like that, I think is valuable.
The BGAM Handbook for contacting I get it, and and I mean that's a valuable piece of information that folks can have. You know, It's like, okay, not all coaches like to be contacted by email. They like to you know, they like carrier pigeon, they like to have things in a PDF, they like to have things mailed, and literally you're having to navigate individuals who have complete and totally
different character traits about contact. And it's got to be something that you know, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year old athletes, they've got to know and it has to be a case by case basis, because you can't just blanket assume that everybody wants to be contacted the same way at the same time. Because you get you get a coach
at the wrong day, at the wrong time. He might have been interested in you as a talent, but because you took that misstep, that might be something that pulls them back from any kind of further contact or interest.
Yeah, for sure, absolutely, And there's still so many college coaches that have been around for a really long time that they see things differently than possibly a college coach who's in his thirties or forties, right, So, yeah, it's dealing with these different coaches.
It's not all it's not all the same.
No, before we get you out of here, it is the last week of the preseason, and I know that folks just want to get out there and then have games for real.
They want it.
It's like, look, man, they can see they can see this first finish line. They're like can we go ahead and just get games to play in whatever tournament you're talking about? Are multiple things when you're getting close to that finish line and you're getting ready for games for real, what was the anticipation level like for you?
Uh yeah, really excited, but also like, hey, a little bit more serious and a little bit more okay.
This is crunch time.
This is real, Like these points are just as valuable as points in September. So you want to start off well and be prepared. And you know, so much of the focus the whole preseason was just US US US US, and and now all of a sudden, you know, leading soon leading up to Week one, you have a little bit of focus on the other team and how are we going to play against this specific team rather than
just us working on our own thing. So it changes a little bit, but I think it's it's it's awesome that change and change into the routine of like, okay, now we're prepping for a game, a real game that matters, is really cool.
I know that before the next time that we talked to you, there will have been a home opener down here in a Jersey that you previewed a while back. The anticipation for an opening night and a crowd that you know that is as ravenous as the seventeens are looking forward to a season in general, regardless of what you were talking about, But what was it like for
you on an opening day and an opening night? Knowing that the anticipation is there, Knowing that the what the fans are looking for is they're knowing.
What the players are looking for.
What is opening night like for someone who's never experienced it.
Yeah, you're nervous, you get the goosebumps to you know, tough to sleep the night before, Like all that stuff is normal no matter what age you are. I think that you really look forward to that first one just because it's that unknown, right, the anticipation of like, you know, is it going to be a full house?
Is it going to be so loud? You know, are we prepared?
Are we ready to go?
You know, there's just so much unknown, and so I think that brings a little bit of extra nerves. I think that just those that have played in front of the crowd before know what it's going to be like, could be, like, will be like. So they want to feel that energy, right, That's one of the best parts of being a professional is playing in front of that environment and having the people cheer for you, and it's just amazing. So I think that everybody will be really
looking forward to that. The nerves will be a little bit high, but that'll be a fun night for sure for all.
Are you the kind of guy that you know once the whistle goes, you're locked in or is it that first tackle that you that.
You create a moment going the other way? What kind of a.
Player were you when it came to Day one and whistles and getting into that zone?
Yeah?
No, whistle, whistle blow, because.
For me, I think that was important because you don't know that first touch, the first tackle, the first moment that you're.
Involved could be super important. So they have to wait for that moment to then get into the zone. It could be too late.
Uh So you know, for me, it was the whistle and it was like, you know, you hear the noise, and you hear the the horn and then you know you got the whistle and then it's like, Okay, I don't hear anything anymore. I just hear like I just hear noise or just background noise.
So yeah, opening whistle.
I was gonna ask.
It's like once that whistle goes, do you know, like Costner said, and for love of the game, you know it was it released the mechanism and then you just heard yourself and then everything else was in the background. Was so that was It was that way for you, literally whistle and then like white noise and focusing on the game.
Yeah for sure, Okay, yes.
I didn't know how certain athletes go certain ways, but for you it's just whistle goes, white noise, locked into everything. Are you coming down in eight days or are you gonna stay up there?
What's your plans?
I'm not getting down for the opener, but I definitely will be down to catch a couple of.
Games because I know you gotta go to the games in Rhode Island also in early March, and I know you got to sit there and balance.
I know, I know how this goes.
Uh well, Rhode Island doesn't even have a how many home games until May.
So because of like weather and things.
It's because of the stadium and they stay.
Oh that's right, Oh that's right, Tidewater landing, Yes, yes, yes, yeah, okay, so you're on the road and then okay, so you're stockpiling all of the home games, so when Tidewater Landing is open and so you're on the road for correct.
Okay, So all right, so now that's got.
A couple of buys in the first eight weeks or six weeks or something, and then yeah, six six away games like two buys and then we're home.
Okay.
So so basically what you're seeing is we need to road trip up there for like the home opener or something and the unveiling of the stadium.
Probably should Okay, just check.
Be well, my friend.
As always, it's great to catch up with you on what you and Gregor are doing and applying it to uh the every day and helping spread the messages across the board. As always, my friend, have a great weekend. When's your next golf game?
May God, I haven't swung a club since before Thanksgiving. It's been way too long.
John, right there with you, brother, all right, So just be safe, have a great weekend, stay warm. Okay, there it goes parking and it's always fun. He puts up with my crap like nobody's business. Everybody on the show puts up with my crap like nobody's business. So at BG Menoring, at MF Parkerson, the two hundred and eighty character app, and all of the all the things that
they're doing. They've started at Beyond Goals Mentoring TV. They're doing video stuff now, so Beyond Goalsmenoring dot com and at BG Mentoring on the twitters and you can sit there and find out what Greg and Parky are doing on a daily basis, helping out the next generation of athletes and getting them on the path to success whatever that whatever that word entails next level, next levels and next level of play, next level of activity, being more
secure in themselves when it comes to their everyday life and how it can apply to their everyday lives going forward. So great stuff from Greg and Cap and they put up with my questions like you know what, so