Uh.
I'm looking in the green room and it looks like somebody just got from a workout and he's trying to get properly hydrated. So we will we will find out what the workout was like here as we got into the Friday free kick and I get to ask the first question. U uh, sir, so did you just get from a workout?
That's funny, John, No, no, lookout.
This morning many.
We usually.
Yeah, usually I do wake up at six and get a quick workout and for thirty minutes Monday through Friday. But today, first day of summer for the kids, and so I didn't have to wake up at six.
So I said, a.
Boy, that that is? That is fantastic. How How did that extra hour of sleep feel?
Amazing?
It's amazing, especially since I'm dealing with a little congestion. It's frigging forty five degrees out on the first day of summer, like hextall.
So yeah, I mean, legitimately, I see that you're dressed for the first day of summer weather.
I mean that's just got to I mean, for me, it drives.
My sinuses crazy because of hot cold, hot cold hot cold hot cold. But no, I legitimately, you look like you've been through the ringer already this morning.
Uh No, it hasn't been too bad.
But there are a couple of things that I did want to to discuss this morning, obviously, when it comes to athlete frustrations and things like that involving at land United. Without specifically addressing at Landing United, you know you can if you wish, But.
When it comes to.
A run of bad form, and I'll just go with your with your career as the the reference point here.
What is it like?
What was it like for you professionally when you were with clubs that were in runs of bad form? Because I know that your clubs were never in bad form when when you were playing with them, everything was championships and lifting trophies and everything every single year. When you have runs of bad form, how do you snap out of that mentally and physically?
And how difficult is that? Quicksand to get out of.
It's very difficult, and it's very difficult if you don't get out of it quickly. And really the only I mean, I shouldn't say that because twenty seventeen we had a stretch of I don't know, it was middle of the season, there was probably it was probably eight ten games where we didn't win, So that was that was a tough stretch. And then one year in Columbus, after we made the MLS Cup, the next year we didn't even make the playoffs.
It was the only year I didn't make the playoffs with a team, and we just never got out of it. The whole season we kept thinking, you know, it'll turn, it'll turn, an elternal turn, and it never turned. And to this day, I don't really know why, because we had a good team and sometimes it.
Just doesn't happen.
And I don't know why for sure, but I do know that definitely the quicker you get out of it.
The better. And in news moments.
You have to go from okay, as long as we're still happy about the performance, we're still getting better too. I don't care about the performance. Get three points one zero on an own goal where we don't have a shot on net, it's fine, take it, because honestly, that changes things in the locker room, in the training ground.
I guarantee there's.
A lot of guys right now that are like go back to the training ground. Everybody's in a bad mood like then, it's like, you know, am I allowed to smile? Am I allowed to have a good time? Am I allowed to laugh at training? When we're going through a tough time, right, I don't want to look like I'm enjoying it and happy. But at the same time, if you're not, you're less likely to get out of it. So it's really really challenging dynamic. And yeah, they need to put a couple of wins.
And I mean, obviously doing it against tough competition that's ahead of you and the table would be ways to do it.
But you mentioned that.
Cycle of you know, you're playing the game that you love, you're having a tough time in it. But you would think that if you come at it with a positive attitude, or as positive an attitude as you can muster when you go on to the training ground, that that would be that first step in trying to turn things around. But then you don't want to You don't want to come across, you know, looking like a you know, looking like a Richard out there. It's like what what why
do you laughing at? You know, well, you know one of those kinds of things. You're not taking it seriously. So it seems like it's a bit of a double edged sword where if you're not enjoying it, then you know maybe you should, you know, go count numbers or something, you know in an accountancy firm. But you want to enjoy it so you can push past all the negative crap. I mean, it's it almost seems like a hillacious catch twenty two that you be in there having to deal with all this stuff.
Yeah, it's really tough, it is.
And you know, when you're winning, things get just you know, slid under and you don't focus on them and it doesn't mean anything. You know, winning hides all and but when you're losing, it doesn't, right. So yeah, if you do mess up in a passing drill, if you do take three touches in a two touch game, if you do, you know, little things that really can irk guys and irk the coach like all of a sudden, now it's a big, bigger deal and where's your focus and you know,
do you want to be here type stuff? And so yeah, it's it's tough, and I guarantee the environment's not great.
They're at the training ground and.
Because I've been in those been in those situations before, and it's not fun, and it's it's tough because you want to take it seriously and know that, hey, this is a dire situation as far as like, hey, are we going to have a decent season this year or not? And of course everybody wants to, but you can't let it get too out of hand.
When it comes to your mentees and being in a rut, do they talk to you about being stuck in a rut of just bad form, negative play?
Or did they talk to you about that kind of a topic.
Ever, Sometimes it's rare, honestly, you know, definitely, I've we've had.
Some mentees come and.
They've been through a little bit of a tough patch, or they've gotten out or they're back in it or something like that. But I don't know if I've spoke to a mente that's currently in a super long rough patch.
Other than somebody.
That's because the reason I ask is the generational differences when it comes to addressing bad form, because with adults, you're getting paid and you're being a professional athlete and you might be dealing with it one way. I didn't know that if the generational element of it, where you're in high school or what have you because you're not to that stage yet and because of peer pressure and those kinds of things. Is it administered different lead, do
they look at it differently? Is their approach different? That's why I was asking the question. I didn't know if the current generation of the younger student athlete had to or was looking at it differently than the than the professional athlete was, or if there's still if that pressure of the quicksand is still with them when you have those those conversations.
That's why.
Yeah, And I think that I think the pressure is stronger for the professionals at that stage because I think we talked about it last time, like the crowd is challenging sometimes, and you know, there's people watching, and there's stuff on social media, and there's articles and all this stuff. And obviously there will be a lot this weekend with it being the national televised game on Sunday, so they're
going to be front and center. So I think it's it's more challenging for the professionals in this regard.
Uh yeah, but it's it's still so.
And I mean I know that peer pressure is one thing with one age group, and I know that peer pressure is probably another. So then let me let me ask this, what is peer pressure like as an adult and a professional athlete?
What is that like for someone who doesn't know?
Does it exist in the way that we think, does it come across differently? What what does peer pressure translate into as adults?
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think that.
There's peer pressure off the field here and there of you know, going out or what you want to do as a group, or how you act and things.
But I don't know, I don't think it exists.
I'm trying to think of situations where it would exist within the locker ro.
I mean, if you're going through if you're going through a bad patch or you're you know, it's like, you know, if you're the one going through a bad patch, or at least you feel subconsciously that you are and everyone else is succeeding, then you feel like you might have to dance a little faster to try to get out of a rut to join everybody else.
It's like feeling like you're a step.
Behind, you know, and you know, fomo that kind of the I'm trying to figure I'm trying to figure out how it would picture itself in a professional locker room when it comes.
Yeah, well you never want to be the one that's the cause of it right where, you know, especially in this run, and that's where it gets challenging because you're like, Okay, teams playing terrible, we can't win, Let me at least play well, let me at least show well, let me at least not make the mistake that costs us the game. And on one hand, yes, you need to focus on your individual battle and if eleven guys win, their individual battles are more.
Likely to win the game.
But if you have eleven guys out there that I just don't make the mistake that costs us the game, just don't be the guy that you know, then that's that's no buoyno either, because then we're not playing free and taking risks and things like that, and you play a little tighter. And that's definitely what we see. There's no doubt about it. I mean I see it, you know when I watch the games, and it's not singular
to Atlanta and not it. It's any team that you know, you go watch teams that are fighting relegation, right, It's it's tough, right, you don't want to be the cause of it, and so yeah, there's peer pressure there as far as like, hey, I need to do my job
better so I'm not costing the team. Right, There's nothing worse than you know, guys working their butts off for ninety minutes, putting, extending all this energy all the lead up to the whole week, and then you're the guy that makes a mistake in the ninetieth minute and you lose.
That's yeah, I mean that's right.
You look at the team like lag right now and they're finding ways to lose, and you know, the game it's Sporting Kansas City. You know, with the conversation we've already been having this morning, it's like no shots on target for Sporting Kansas City ends up going off of Yamane's back and goes into the net, and the black cloud continues, and you know, schlepp Rock seems to be playing the six or whatever.
You know. I mean, it's it.
Just seems like there are times where it gets so bad you can't get out of your own way, and short of like the Bull Durham meeting on the mound where you feel like you've got to sacrifice a lie chicken, you don't know how to get out of that quick scene, and that to me would that to me, it would be I can't even fathom that kind of pressure, both on yourself and then on a team when you have things going that wrong that consistently.
Yeah, I agree.
And when we went through it with Columbus, I think, you know, Greg Burholter was the coach at the time, and I think that you know, we went through like periods where it was like, okay, you know, train a little bit harder, Okay, train less, Okay, do more off the field things together as a group, and we were pretty close as a group.
Just none of it seemed to work. And to this day, I don't know why.
So, you know, there's not one specific thing Atlanta can do or La can do, and it's tough. I mean, shoot, we think things are bad for us in Atlanta. Yeah, you bring up the Galaxy, it's even worse, you know. I guess you can say they're there without the best player. Maybe if he comes back, they can change things and it brings a different vibe. And maybe that's what Atlanta needs to do at the windows, change things up, mix
things up. I don't know, but it's not it's not good when you know, your starting striker gets pulled in the away game. When I noticed that the first time wasn't in Philly. I think Philly scored. We went down and they subbed them out, and I'm like.
Ooh, I mean and then he didn't start the next game.
I mean, you try to figure out scheduled compression monitoring minutes, you know, Okay, so if I need him here, then how do I navigate this and all these things?
I mean, it's there.
There are a lot of things that I do not envy front offices and coaching staffs when you're trying to monitor these kinds of things, especially when scrutiny is as increased as it is, whether it's Montreal or Kansas City or Saint Louis or Los Angeles or Atlanta. I mean, you're you're put in an unenviable position of trying to figure out what's wrong, and if there are multiple things that are wrong, Okay, how do we mitigate the thing that we can fix first and then work on all
the other things. It turns into this, It turns into the shopping list from hell and trying to figure out, okay, how do we stop a Okay, now that we've stopped A.
Can we stop A and B? Then we've stopped A and B. Can we stop A, B and C.
It's like it's it can be maddening if if you if you let it become maddening.
And I think that that's it.
I think that's where we are with some players in a lot of these different cities right now.
Mm hmmm, Yeah, no doubt about it.
Yeah, it's tough.
It's tough to watch as a fan for sure, and it's it's tough for the players and stuff.
For the organization.
It's a lot of pressure and and you know, Dell says that there's not the pressure of pro rail right where you've got that and I've lived that before, and it's it's tough because at.
That point you're thinking.
It affects not not only myself and how I play next year and what level, but it literally affects jobs of people in the club who might lose their job because you know, we're gonna go down to lead and we're not gonna be able to afford to have the same staff. Right That's that's a different type of pressure for sure, and these guys don't have that, so yeah, one day that would be.
Cool and so then too to Dell's previous point discussing what's going on at RIFC. Early on in the franchise history, it was draw draw, draw, draw, draw, And it was just one of those things where I think that patience was exhibited by the front office when it came to what Kano wanted to do and understanding the context of the situation. How hard is it to understand and be patient when you know that It's like, you know you
can do better. You're looking from the outside, I mean you're looking at it from the Rhode Island perspective as part of the ownership group, and the advisory folks from the Atlanta United perspective. It's being a former player that has ties to the organization that you still love and.
Have ties to.
It's like, I just have this vision of you watching USL Championship games and responding one way, and at Landy United games and responding. It's like the level of patience you must have and not wanting to do certain things. I give you full credit, man, because I figure that there are times when you're sitting there driving yourself crazy that you need to do the whiplash thing, but you restrain and it ends up being better for it exhibiting that kind of patience that's got to be hard.
Sometimes, yeah, for sure.
But you know, I think in general I'm pretty patient and take the long term view on a lot of things.
And for a Rhode Island it was easier. It was our first season.
You kind of have a it's your first season, expectations aren't super high, right, we want to make the playoffs.
But you know, I've gone.
Through it, and I know how difficult it is, you know, to start a new team and start off on the right foot and do everything.
It's difficult.
So you know, I think the patience was definitely easier with Rhode ISLANDFC.
Being at year one. For Atlanta it's tough.
I mean it's it's been a long time since they've been like really good, and you know, we've had some moments here and there and which has been great, but you know, I think the bar was just that's so high, and you know, the club does spend the finances needed to have success, so in the fans and it's just
a different atmosphere. You know, when you've got thirty forty thousand people in the Benz, you know you expect something different, and so, you know, especially with the moves they made in the off season, so the patients wears thinner when it's Atlanta just because you've been around, and maybe that will be the case with Rhode Island as well.
In the future.
But yeah, try and have patients because I also know, like what it is like on the other side. You know, guys, You know, when I watch Atlanta and out of plays, I don't see guys that are giving up and they're not working hard. So it's not that which makes it, you know, more challenging because you can't just say, oh, the work hard or oh this guy doesn't care to be here.
I don't think that's well.
Yeah, I blame the grass surface in Nashville more than many, more than anything else. When it comes to your mentees, how many of them do you in the conversations that you have with them, how many of them do they admit to pressing in times of trouble. Do they sit there and sit there like, yeah, I think I'm doing I think I'm pushing too hard, or do they just sit there and understand that I feel like I need to do this regardless of the level that I'm pushing
myself at whether it's detrimental or not. Do they push themselves too hard at times?
Some do? Yes, Yeah, for sure.
It's just too many extra sessions and individual sessions and extra trainings, and it's just too much sometimes, yeah, it is.
And sometimes you need to back off.
And you know, we talk about everybody's different and you have to find out for your body when you need to back off. And sometimes that's physical and sometimes it's mental. And either way, taking time off is not going to set you back that much, right, taking a weekend off, taking a week off, taking two weeks off, is not going to make or break you as far as when you get back into it, especially you know, fitness wise,
as long as you're staying up with that. Right, Sometimes we have to take a step back in order to take the next two steps forward.
Do they understand that, though at first blush because I would imagine as driven as a lot of them are and wanting to get to whatever the next level is, I would anticipate that a lot of the time they're like, you know, I've.
Got to do it. I've got to do it. I've got to do it.
I've got to keep up with the joneses I've got to keep up with my buddy down the street who's doing better things. They do they understand the value of dialing it back? Or do you have to sit there? Do you and Greg have to sit there and go no, you don't understand you might be doing more harm to yourself than good if you don't how much hammering at that point?
Do you have to do.
A little bit?
And then that's that's why I think it's valuable that they hear it from us to let them know, you know, whether the parent is advocating for it or not, at least you know, if they can hear it from us and let them know that, hey, it's it's okay to take this.
It's okay to take this time for yourself. You need the rest.
Rest is important, even professionals take rest.
You know.
We hope that that, you know, makes a difference.
But there are some I think that understandab but there's there's a good amount that that don't. And they think, hey, if I'm not keeping up with the Joneses and if I'm not out practicing everybody else right, And you've got that kind of you know, Kobe mentality, which is a great mentality, but you know that's not for everybody. Not everybody can work as hard as Kobe did.
So there's a.
Balance for sure. And like with everything, I say that word a lot and we always talk.
So Katie Weaver in the discussions this morning, she has a lot of different things and that's the first half of it. Because she's a tennis player. She says, will to see in a team dynamic, You know, mentality drops if you have a couple of misses, an entire Atlanta team seemingly playing without confidence. You can't pretend to feel confident. Do you just have to focus on little individual moments. What mental gymnastics do you teach men tees to build confidence?
Yeah, that's great and you're so right.
I think that one player or two players can really change the whole dynamic of a group. Right If the group can go out there and score two or three goals, or an individual can really take it to the next level and bring a lot of people up with them, right, it can start to change things quickly because it just
gives confidence in the group. Right now, the team has no confidence that one that can get a shutout and okay, all we need to do is get a out and at least tie zero zero, and they have no confidence that they can if they give up a goal, they can outscore the other team. And so if you have confidence in neither of those sides, like then you're just
waiting for something bad to happen. But if you go out and you score two or three on Cincinnati in the first half, and Miguel or Latte or somebody has an amazing half, then all of a sudden, the team can get the belief and little guy and guys aren't afraid of every little pass and every little mistake. Right, it's like, Okay, we've got this cushion because you know somebody, somebody had that amazing half, and so yeah, it can change quickly with one or two guys really taking it
upon themselves. But it's difficult, right for those couple of guys, especially when the whole group is playing without.
A lot At MF Parker still on the Twitter, is at beg menoring on the two hundred and eighty character at Michael Parker's joining us after getting an extra hour of sleep, because it's that, because it's that a year to get the extra hour of sleep and sit there and go, you know what, I don't have to set my alarm to six thirty.
It can be seven thirty.
And I mean, I did not anticipate or intend for this visit this week to be as deep as it is getting when it comes to comes to topics.
But yeah, it's yeah.
But you know, to Amelia's comment, though, you know, at some point you do start to wonder, right of like that, and that's the difference. You know, Dell said something earlier and we could see, I could see with a Rhode Island that the players never lost the confidence in Kanna the coach, and if that happens now.
You've got a real problem.
And so obviously I'm not around the team at all, so I have no no clue how the dynamic is. But if you start to see that the players don't have belief in the system, they don't have belief in the coach and all that stuff, then that's that's a recipe for not turning things around.
How difficult is it to focus in a situation when you know you're being watched? And I mean that in the sense of you know, nobody's job is safe, whatever cliche you want to use. How difficult is it when you know you're being evaluated. You're being evaluated, probably more than you would otherwise, and that everyone above you is wanting to have things change on the field, and you try not to have it get to you, but you know that it's a part of the day to day
because of where the situation currently is. That's another part of the difficult balance. I guess that we're staring at here trying not to let the people looking over your shoulder get to you as they're looking over your shoulder.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, for sure, you know, and you know as athletes, we know that we're always being evaluated, right You can always get traded or you know, release at the end of the season or whatever, get a new contractor always fighting for new things and bigger things and stuff.
So you know you're always being evaluated.
But it's different when they come out and say that you're being evaluated, for sure. So that's that's when I think you need to look inward and say, Okay, maybe it's a terrible atmosphere training. I don't know if it is, but I'm going to bring what I can bring. I'm going to control what I can control, and I don't care about everybody else right now. I'm going to hold myself to my standard.
Other guys can do as they please, and you know, I'm.
Going to do what I need to do in order to play well. And you hope that everybody else is having that same attitude, or if they don't, then at least they're seeing you do it, then they'll.
Do it as well.
But younger players, they just need to look in themselves and say, hey, go out there. You know, somebody said it earlier, right, focus on your individual confidence and your individual game, you know, because that's all they can do.
Don't wants to know what you're reading.
I actually I'm actually not reading anything right now, and I need to get a new book.
It's been a little bit. I don't know if anybody has any suggestions.
That probably means that I should probably just write another one so I can send it.
Have you?
Have you and Greg thought about writing a book on mentoring as a part of the Beyond Goals umbrella and three dimensional approach.
We thought It's been mentioned.
It's also been mentioned like how could we tie it into a Landy and I at our time at Atlanti and I? But then that's going back a long way, and I'm like, I don't know if I can even remember everything all the details. And I mean, I'm just assuming it's a lot of work.
You would know better than I would.
Well, I mean, there are times when the when the project flows and it doesn't feel like it's a lot of work.
But it is like putting a jigsaw puzzle together.
I don't know how you are, but putting like the five hundred piece jigsaw puzzle together that has like the the Dutch bridge and the and the you know, the cottages and everything on the side of the Danube or whatever.
How are you at jigsaw puzzles? Okay, so then you probably would have fun putting a piece in a book together, because it is a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, just saying, just just add to everything else that since you have zero time to begin with, considering that you're mentoring, you're a mogul, you're a dad, you're trying to play golf, you're sleeping that extra hour, uh, trying to juggle all of these different things. But it is a it is a jigsaw puzzle. What's the latest with beyond goals?
We finally are getting our third mentors up and running, so we will assume what is a her. Okay it is, yeah, and she's a current professional and uh so, yeah, excited to get her on board. So we've been just trying to get her out to speed, bring her on some sessions with us too, you know, show the ropes and trying to teach her some of the things that we've learned throughout our journey.
And so yeah, that's that's been the main focus for us last.
So then what you're saying is say the next time that you are on after this, or maybe you could break some news and introduce this new mentor on one of your Friday segments, Eh, like some news.
We could possibly, we could possibly she wouldn't be on because she's gonna have training.
She could she can do two things at once if she If she can, if she can be a mentor, you're trying to break news beyond goals.
She can.
She can have the selfie stick out, she could say, you have training is sit there and do all all of that.
We're gonna have to talk to you.
When's the next round of golf?
Not this weekend?
Headed to Indiana later today for a baseball tournament.
Okay, I wish you, I wish you speed and good luck.
Sir with the baseball turn as as always, my friend, great to see you. Thanks for putting up with all of our deep dives and conversations and topics and things like that. Uh, go lay down with lay down with deacon, because I'm sure the deacon hasn't moved in two.
Weeks because the kids are home, she's not here.
Yeah, it's like, where's my treat? Basically, that's how this works. I know how this is all right, Well, my friend will see you soon