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