So all right, So here here's the deal.
We're gonna talk Open Cup first and foremost, whether whether with our mogul and training coming up in a second. So we're gonna pull back the curtain and ask about how these things come together. Sometimes we're gonna bring in Michael Parker's and find out first and foremost, how was vacation.
Sir, Hey, John, Yeah, vacation great?
Yeah, we made it. Yeah, I will say it was, of course, not without its little complications, but we made it. You know, you have to adjust sometimes and that's the name of the game. But the time we spent in South Carolina was great. We had good weather. The team did well well enough in some of the games that my daughter, as a freshman, got to play a little bit here and there, so that was great. And yeah, and the rest of us enjoyed the beach here and there. Didn't get in the water. Its freezing.
But to take your good time, do you take your club.
I did not take the clubs. No room in the car for such things, John.
Not even on the luggage rack on the top and you sit there and you cover it with a tarp or something, and people sit there and go He's repairing a house.
Obviously, the wife wanted to take the tarp on top and I was like, no, we can stuff it all in the car. I don't want to dry with that thing on top. So we crammed it and we made it so. Yes, I had to sacrifice the clubs. I still have not yet swung a club in twenty twenty five. It's depressing.
Man.
We'll get there, all right.
So you mentioned adventures in travel, so go ahead, lay them all out, get him off your chest.
I don't know.
I don't want you to. I don't want you to just hold it within. I want you to. I want you to cleanse from the adventures of travel.
Yeah. Well, we missed an opportunity to stop by Wake Forest for a few hours. We planned on breaking up our trip and stopping at Wake for a while, but two out of the four of us had the stomach bug overnight into the morning of travel day, so we canceled all plans and drove straight home. And thankfully we had no episodes in the car. So that's that's, you know, a big positive there.
Yeah, See, episodes in the car would be bad because you know it literally and you don't know if it's a false alarm or not. It's like, you know, pull over, stop, stop, stop, you know I'm gonna do something.
We got a couple of those.
Oh, you had a couple of false starts.
We had a couple of false alarms. But I'd rather pull over and have a false alarm than not pull over and have a real alarm.
Yes, that is always good. So is uh? Was Deacon happy to see you when you got home? Oh?
Deacon made the trip, John? Oh, No, Deacon made the trip as terrified as she was in the car for all eleven hours of it.
Deacon's terrified of the car.
Yeah, it doesn't like it.
Oh wow.
Yeah, we didn't do well enough taking her out and about as a puppy apparently, so she doesn't She doesn't like the car, but she'd rather be with us in the car than not with us.
So, yes, that is absolutely true.
I can still she's still sleeping things off, John, Yay.
Oh wow, I just I just have this vision of Deacon being out past curfew when you're on the beach and it's like, yeah, the door opens at like one thirty in the morning, Deacon's trying to sneak in. You're you're looking out and Deacon's like, oh, I thought you were asleep. Well I was till you open the door exactly. I just I just had this vision of Deacon partying on the road with the family Parkers.
She was loving it. Came to all of our dinners. Thankfully. It's very dog friendly down there, beaches, restaurants and everything, so yeah, she got to experience everything.
Then she's still crashed out, as she should because the rowdy man is absolutely crashed out right down here on the table.
Oh.
He's like literally when the boss leaves and I'm getting ready for the show every morning, he'll come down. He'll be on whatever level he's on, and he wants to make sure that he is in his poofy bed right down here, and he's crashed out and he's making sure that he's guarding everything and even with his eyes closed.
Let's see.
So Greg was on his way to Pierson on a train and how did that conversation go?
Yo, dude, I don't think I'm gonna make it. Can you sub for me?
I saw the email and I texted him. I was like, dude, don't worry about it. I could jump on.
Okay, all right.
I didn't know if this was like a like a oh my god, we're gonna do a quick tagget kind of a.
Thing, I was like, no, no stress, no stress.
All right.
So then my first question has to do with detaching and taking it easy when it comes to your mentees and parents and such. Do they find it easy to unplug because they need the time to unplug or because they're so wired into wanting to be successful. You have all of these type a's that you kind of have to talk away from being on the field and being attached to the sport all the time.
Yeah, I think the higher level athletes and families definitely have a little bit more of a challenge sometimes unplugging the fear of getting behind or missing a practice or missing a game, or just not working out for a few days. I really can get to people. So I definitely see that, especially the higher the higher up you go. You know, there's some obviously that's you know, have no problem taking breaks and understand it and see it and everything.
But yeah, there's definitely some that we work with where we have to encourage things and let them know, hey, it's going to be all right. You know. I I played seasonally when I was growing up right. I mean I kicked the ball around the house constantly and all the time. But you know, as far as team structured stuff, yeah, seasonally, so you'll be just fine.
I have this I just have this vision of you kicking the ball around the house off season and uh, you know, smashing garage doors and going up against you know, like we have the hockey players that are always in the basement and they're always sitting there and shooting pucks and hitting posts and the steel the steel poles that are in the basement. How did you how did you deal with that indoors off season?
Yeah, well, we did play a fair share of indoor soccer, so you know, I guess there was more than just you know, one or two seasons. There was a lot of indoor soccer. But inside my own house, yeah, there is a step from the porch into the actual house. You know, the porch is covered, but a step into the actual house. And that step got to be used with a size three soccer ball. And thank you fully, my parents never gave me a hard time about hearing
a constant thud, thud thud. My aunt was a different story. Anytime she was over, it was like, can you stop kicking the ball, and you're like, no, yeah, what else am I supposed to do?
It's like, well, well, do you want me to come in there and hang out with you?
I have, Actually I've thought about it, John, And next time I'm home, I'm going to try and take like a picture and video of these two areas right up my house that I put in hours and hours and hours of kicking a soccer ball against. So that's it to give other people, you know, just a vision of what it is. And you know, kids these days think they need to have you know, this net, that net, this bounce back. You know, I have to be at practice. Oh there's every excuse in the book as to what
they need in order to get better. And I had a step and a concrete little wall under he's the siding of my house, and that was it. And it was just enough for.
Me back in my day exactly one of those kind of arguments. Back in my day, I walked uphill in the snow both ways to play ninety minutes of outdoor soccer in the middle of February.
I just have that.
Yeah, absolutely yeah, And I know you walked up hill both ways going to and from when you, and I still want to stick to the detachment idea and what it's like. So the higher the level, obviously there's always fomo and you're you know, sitting there going, oh my god,
oh my god, Hm, I god, I'm falling behind. But when you have the talk, the talk with those higher level aspiration or levels of success folks, after you say it's okay to detach, does it sink and or do you have to kind of sit there and poke at him a couple of times and go, no, it's okay, I've done it, and here are my examples. Why or do they sit there it is it a one and done with them? Or do you have to kind of
sit there and hammer at them a little bit? No, it's cool, you could it's okay to lay out.
Yeah, I think rarely messages are a one and done, and I think it helps, no doubt right to get a perspective of someone that's been in their shoes and had higher level success. But you know, I think that they always think, well, times are different now, and you know I have to be, you know, keeping up with the joneses or otherwise I'll fall behind, or they just don't. You just don't get it what my coach is like
or this and that that. You know, that may all be well and true, but yeah, I wish I could talk to some coaches out there as well and let them know, Hey, you know, if a kid's going to miss a game or this or that or a training session or whatnot, or you know, it's not the end of the world, like figure it out, you know.
So so then what would you tell What would you tell these coaches who are as high wired as everybody else. It's like, because they I think they are just as driven toward championships and success and things like that, and then that feeds to wanting more championships and more success, and that that ending hamster wheel that's there.
What would you tell coaches in these situations? Yeah?
I just remember with my son when he was how old was he eight? Maybe nine? Max playing in Atlanta and he was doing baseball and soccer, you know, soccer, you know, the academy level soccer and baseball, and both coaches were like, yeah, we're he encourage multiple sports and
it's okay, da da da. But both of them were basically like, you know, we encourage it, just don't miss my practice, don't miss my game essentially, right, Yeah, And so yeah, it's just such a challenge, you know, you tie and tell them like, yeah, we're going to do the best we can to manage both, but there's overlap here and we're going to miss some stuff here and there. And I get that from a coaching perspective, Hey, you can't have six players miss a game because you know,
then we can't play the game. You know. But there's got to be a better way where we can still allow children to play multiple sports, especially under the age of eleven or twelve. It's just it's just crazy, uh, And so I just let them know that, Hey, you know, it's it's not the end of the world. And you
know you want a happy, healthy, excited player, right. I don't care if this kid shows up to every training, If he shows up because he's forced to and doesn't want to be there, you know, what good is that doing anyone, including the player and the family. So yeah, it's I think they get a little bit too wrapped up in it and you know, too focused on results and winning and too much of it and for themselves, and like, hey, what's best for the athletes here? What's
most important? Because you know we're not winning the World Cup here at you know, nine you ten U, eleven U, right, but could we help develop a player that might help us win a World Cup in the future. Maybe, but not if they don't love the game.
So, you know, when you have these talks with adults, and you know, if you have those talks with those kinds of those kinds of adults, hopefully it would sync in and when you're trying to impress upon them that it's okay to miss a couple of things. Are you the Are you the parent slash mentor that is encouraging playing multiple sports or are you a a one person
you know sport mentor activist. How are you as a dad and how are you as a mentor when it comes to playing more than one sport and being seasonal about things.
I love it, don't get me wrong. I love it and I encourage it, but I also know it's so difficult. It's so so difficult, and it's challenging, and it's expensive and it's a lot on families. So I honestly don't know how realistic it is. And I hate even saying that, right, because yes, it's possible. You know, if you're only doing rec to do seasonally, right, But even with my own son, we had to move on from rec baseball, especially here
in Ohio. Rec baseball down the South is much different, yeah, but here it was you know, he was playing with kids who couldn't catch a ball, and you know, he's trying to really develop and get better and things, and so it was like, this isn't really helping him. He's not having fun going to practice doing this stuff. So we had to move on. And then when you get to a travel team, it's so difficult to play another sport. So as much as I encourage it, it's so unrealistic.
Unfortunately that's the way it is right now, and so you know, I don't want to you know, yeah, you should play multiple sports, and when it's so challenging. And there are some players in high school that play multiple sports, which is great, and I see that, I even see it here locally, which is fantastic, But for high level athletes who are trying to get better, it's just so challenging,
even from an age of like nine or ten. And so I feel for parents, and I feel for kids that wanted to play multiple sports but feel like they can't.
So yeah.
I mean, and is this an opinion that you've developed over time more as a father to understand, Okay, it probably needs to be just locked down into one sport or was this something that has become something that you've discovered over time. Was there a moment where you're like, yeah, it probably needs to be just one sport or was it something that you've kind of just figured out.
I think down in Atlanta when we were trying to do NASA soccer and what was it east side baseball from my son. You know, we were trying to have him played multiple sports. And the commitment just from the parents, right driving him to one practice, getting him, taking him straight to the other practice, like having dinner in the car in between. You know, like, that's a lot. It's a lot on us, it's a lot on him, and
you know, it's just challenging. As much as he loved playing both and I want him to play both, it was just a lot. And it only gets tougher as they get older. And so yes, I'm still a proponent, and I think it's great for athletes to play multiple sports. I really do believe that. Number one, it's you're less likely to get these injuries at a younger age from overuse. And number two, I really do believe that there's so many things from multiple sports that you can learn and
use in your main sport that it's so beneficial. But it's tough. It's tough, and maybe as the second sport, you can play it recreationally and that's the that's the way you can do it. But it's impossible to play two travel teams or two you know, higher level sports.
Is there a sport that you would recommend? Abby mentions that you know her son continued with dances as a sidebar to help out with soccer and skills and flexuly such.
And that's a wild card that I would have never pictured.
But it makes a whole lot of sense if there was a sport that you could pair with soccer, and like if soccer was your a number one, you know, it's like, okay, this is where my bread's buttered.
I'm going down this road.
What sport do you think would compliment soccer the most when it comes to what you want to carry with you, whether it's skill set, mental, all of those different aspects. If you want soccer to be your number one, what sport do you think would be a good compliment, at least recreationally to help things out, so you can still be number one in soccer, but still widen your skill set, be strong in other area those kinds of things.
Yeah, and it's a great question, John, and I think that, honestly, there's probably ten sports that could help out, right, because I played baseball growing up, and you think, like, oh, how could baseball help soccer? Right? But I truly believe because in baseball I learned before soccer, what are you going to do with the ball when it comes to you? Right? Every pitch, every pitch, guys on base different things. Right where am I on the field? What am I going
to do if the ball comes to me? What am I going to do if it's hit short, if it's hit to my left, it's hit to my right? Does that change what I'm going to do with the ball when I get it? Like all those little mental things that I'm thinking about, And then in soccer you start thinking about the same thing, Okay, thinking ahead, Right, what am I going to do with the ball if it
comes over to me? And so now I'm reading the field a little bit more and seeing things, and so this is just one small example, Right, swimming could be so great for cardio, right if you have to do a winter sport. Right, even even karate you know jiu jitsu right for discipline and dance for flexibility. There's so many different sports that can have a benefit on your soccer play on or off the field, that it's there
really is so many different ones. And I think that you can find something within every sport that can help you in another sport, including soccer.
And well then you know there's golf to help you out with you know, geometry and.
You know things like that. Well and no, this was no lie.
I had a conversation with Molly McCarty and she's the girls head coach at Jefferson High School, and it hit me she's a geometry teacher on campus.
And I'm thinking to myself, it it hit in my head.
I'm like, wait a minute, You've got a geometry teacher teaching soccer, and so you know, a soccer coach teaching geometry and it's triangles and angles and approaches and all the and I'm like, my head basically exploded during the high school show because you had a geometry teacher who's focused on Okay, well, if your angle is this and this and this, then you have one hundred and eighty
degrees and all this. And I'm like, oh my god, it didn't quite hit me that it doesn't matter what you think might not be there to help affect you on the field or off. You mentioned as many as ten different sports and talking about ten different ways to do things. You don't know what class is going to help you out, you know, mentally to figure things out. Whether it's geometry, it's like, oh, angles here and being
in triangles and passing drills and things like that. You never know where you're gonna get hit with something that you think is going to help you. And so having an open mind about all these things I think is just as important as figuring out what complimentary sport can help you.
In soccer totally, because I see the comments on the side and yeah, you think about basketball, Okay, how do I have success against a player that's a foot taller than me? If I'm twelve years old and this kid's way developed, then I'm not yet right, how do I have success on a basketball or same thing in soccer? Right?
Golf?
I would think what I would get the most out of golf is how to bounce back from mistakes. Right, that happened so much on the golf course, Right, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what had just happened. How am I going to hit my next shot? Same thing in soccer? Right, get over your mistakes quick. So it's just endless, absolutely endless.
Get you know. And that's another thing is just kind of the short term memory aspect of it all that since you open that door.
Short term memory is something that I know.
That we all would like to have, and it's probably one of the most difficult things to accomplish. How do you have short term memory but long term recall? If that makes any sense. It's like get rid of the mistake, but don't forget about the mistake. How difficult is it to accomplish both of those?
Yeah? Very very you know. I think that what we try to encourage is forget it momentarily, right and allow yourself afterwards to go back and say, what can I learn from that? Right? Why did this occur? And how can I get better from it? So you bank it and say I'll come back to it, but refocus right
now so that I don't make another mistake. And you know, things start to snowball here and your memory will go back to it for sure, right, especially whenever we make a mistake, right, it's it's ingrained real quick, so we can we can always go back to it after the game, right. You can always remember most of the mistakes you make, especially right after a game, and you can journal them at that point and learn from them and figure them out. Right.
But you know, in the moment, we try to help our athletes definitely have that short term memory, that goldfish memory.
Yeah.
Michael Parkhurst at MF Parkers from the two hundred and eighty character app and Beyond Goals Mentoring Beyond goalsmnoring dot Com atv G Mentoring on the two hundred eighty character app and the reason that and so since you've mentioned being a goldfish and being a young player out there fort Landy United last time out you had Pedro Amador I think it was ninety minutes before the match, is like, I can't go, and he was, you know, viewed I
can't go. And so what you what you end up doing is you end up tapping a seventeen year old in Dominic chong Qui who Ronnie Daila has a lot of faith in and he's grown, you know, incrementally and astronomically in just a handful of time that he's spent coming through the Academy, spent time with the Academy and the US and the two's and such. He's thrown into the pile and literally it is like, okay, Dom, you're starting.
And so you have a seventeen year old going up against NYC in front of forty two thousand people, and yes, he does make a mistake that leads to a goal. But one of the things that you noticed is that the older players, the veteran players, Brad being one of them, you know, first thing they do, you know, when mistake happened, you put your arm around him, and it's like you're not yelling Ranning Raving sitting there and going you.
Know what the bleepity bleep.
It is literally a situation where a seventeen year old has been thrown into the pile and you've got to make sure that that goldfish mentality is there. He banks things and he ends up putting up fifty seven minutes and Matt Edwards plays his third position at the back four that he's done so far this year. You had two younger players come and step in a situation like that. But the advice that you're getting from a guy like Brad in that situation, I think is just his key to help bank.
Everything, oh for sure. And that is such a challenging situation and such a learning opportunity for him because it's tough to find out you're going to start, you know, late like that in the first place. It's tough to come off a bench unexpectedly, and you learn real quick. Am I preprayed as as as much as I needed to be as if I was starting, And I'm not saying he was or he wasn't. Yeah, right, but I know from my experience and other guys, it's just different
when you're not starting, right. I even ate more at pregame meal when I wasn't starting, because otherwise I'm starving, sitting on the bench not playing, and get to halftime, I'm so hungry, so I just eat, would eat more, and maybe I wouldn't do as much film if I knew, like, okay, I'm not going to play, like I don't need to know everything right or you know, whatever, it might be right, and so are you as prepared right? And so you learn these lessons and what is my body need, you know,
to get ready real quick. I was talking to a mena the other day that came off the bench and had to play right away, and it's like, okay, when you've got two minutes to warm up, what does your body need? How do you get ready that quick? Right?
Only you can figure that out through experience. And so, you know, for for Dom, like the experience of that, Forget forget the mistake on the field, but just the experience of okay, going from not starting to starting to preparation, quick, preparation, get ready, body change, mentally, you know, lock in all these types of things, and then obviously the play on
the field. Right. This is invaluable for him and I'm glad that, you know, it wasn't a moment that we couldn't come back from, you know, but yeah, that's I think he's going to be stronger in the future because of a day like Saturday, as difficult as it probably was for him.
A handful of minutes left here And so you got a team in Atlanta United that had a seven goal thriller chaos that happened last time out in a home stand and where are you looking in the times that you get to catch up and see what's going on with Atlanta United, whether it's highlights or three sixty or whatever. Now that they've come out the other side on a seven goal thriller, you got to learn a lot of things. You got to learn how to come back when you
were down. You got to kind of figure things out a little bit on the fly on the field. What did your takeaways from Atlanty And I did?
Y uh, it was it was fun and exciting to watch. I watched the game and yeah, it was awesome. I think the Bens was rocking. It was loud, and you know, I think that coming back in a game like that can really pump a team up more than you know if you just go out there and beat them two zero, three zero, because you know, he just knowing that you can come back from a deficit is so important. We weren't.
We weren't very good at that when I was at Atlanta. Honestly, I don't you know, especially the first two years we just did. We didn't come back very often. You can look at the stats, the statistics, Yeah, that those things, but that's that's a really important thing for a group to have to have that mentality of knowing, Okay, we
can come back here, We'll be all right. And I think that's what the front four can give you, the front five, you know, I think I tweeted after the game that I and I thought this prior to the game. I was watching the game prior and I can't remember who we played, and I thought, Maggie is not as involved as he needs to be. He needs to play
centrally more. And I don't know what that does to the rest of the team or or whatever, but to get the best out of Meggie, and if he since he's your best player, I think he needs to play centrally. I get that playing him wide gets the most talent on the field, but you know, I think that we saw what having Meggie centrally can do.
And you've now got FCD coming to town. And oh, it was the two two draw with Cincy at TQL. That was the one before that, and then the.
Last home game, sorry I don't know the last home game that was.
That was Messi and Friends.
Oh yeah, that's right.
And so the two to one matchup against Messi and Friends and they go on the road to play at TQL and then they get the four to three crazy. Now they've got Luco Acosta coming to town this weekend for FCD. I'd like to ask a question to the Mogulan training. You now have your opponent in Open Cup and it is p Hop, the Portland Hearts a Pine. What is the what's the vibe with our I f C and p Hop next round of the Open Cup?
Sir? Yeah, it's exciting. Yeah, I think it's it's great to have another team in New England. We played them a couple times actually in preseason and they're a good team. I think we tied both games, but they absolutely could have beat us, and so there they're a strong squad and so I'm happy for Portland. I'm happy they've got a good team and they've got a team in general. So yeah, it'll be exciting, It'll be fun.
Okay, David with a question, did the Menace approach you to go with the All Star team?
They did not. I think that word has gotten out there enough to know that I don't partake in such things. Because I was approached by a few different TST teams and guys reaching out and I told them I appreciate it, guys, but no, thank you, So no such thing for me.
Okay, just checking, all right, what's the latest will beyond goals and beyond goals mentoring now that we're at spring break for some folks.
Yeah, we've also got high school playoffs coming up, so you know that's exciting. We've got a bunch of athletes that we're trying to help get ready for playoffs and yeah, some MLS next tournaments coming up and showcases, So a bunch of athletes coming up to some big moments here over the next few weeks. So just helping them get prepared.
Two hundred and fifty files of individual mentees that you and Greg are juggling and making sure that the world is a bunch better place. As always, my friend, it's great to see, great to catch up with what's going on at beyond goals and gets your vibes and your input about all the issues of the day when it comes to soccer and applying it to mentoring. Go enjoy your weekend and and make sure that you leave the room quietly so Deacon can continue to sleep right.
Yes, have a great weekend, John.
That's Michael Parkers.
Everybody