The winning Difference knows that true winning does not have to be dictated by the scoreboard. Winning is engaging kids in character, building, building confidence, and creating successful habits using sports.
That's our goal. That's what we need to be doing. That's where we're lost.
This is the Reform Sports Project, a podcast about restoring healthy balance and perspective in all areas of sports through education and advocacy. Hi, this is Nick Bonacor from the Reform Sports Podcast. My guest today is Libby Mascaro, a decorated athlete, soccer coach, and mental health advocate. A standout soccer player when she attended Mount Lebanon High School, she went on to compete at the NCAA Division One level
for Penn State University. She is a fierce advocate for mental health awareness and works closely with the Upper Saint Clear Wellness Committee, which she co founded in twenty seventeen, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. She was recently awarded Citizen of the Year for her mental health focused work in the Upper Saint Clair community. Libby and I discuss her passion for
mental health advocacy. The commodification of young athletes and sports, particularly in youth soccer, and the importance of prioritizing well being of young athletes as they navigate the complex dynamics of sports and adolescents.
I've been very much looking forward to having this guest on We Connected, you know, through Reformed Sports project. Through social media, I kind of became a big fan of hers and the work that she does, and you know, I've gotten to know her a little bit, you know, just through posting and of course doing some due diligence reading about her and such, and she's paving the way for some really special things and a big advocate for youth sports and a coach, former athlete, and mom and
all these great things. Coach Libby mescarroll, coach, thanks so much for hopping on.
Hey, Nick, First, thank you so much for having me to super big.
Honor and I'm super grateful, so thank you so much for taking the time.
Oh my god, no, no, worse, thank you. You have a very I mean.
You're a deck rated athlete, your coach, club coach, you're a mental health advocate. I mean, can you kind of give me your backstory, Like, who the hell is Libby Matt Carroll.
Okay, well that's a loaded question, But I would say, first of all, I'm a super huge fan of yours. Like you said, we connected on social media a couple of years ago.
I noticed a post of yours.
And it just kind of resonated and clicked with me and your huge inspiration for me and how I lead my teams, our team, and so I just wanted to point that out and thank you for the insanely awesome work you're doing. And you're talking about stuff that needs to be talked about and a lot of people aren't, so thank you for that. So I am, yes, first and foremost a mom. I have two daughters, who wants
a sophomore in high school, one's a freshman. Both play high level soccer club soccer for the club that I also coach for here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It's called Bealing Soccer Club. We play in the Girls Academy League. But I most importantly my role as a mom. But yes, of course, like I said, I'm a coach, and I got into coaching many years ago. Actually I was in high school and I did a volunteer coach for our
local travel team. And fast forward when my kids were old enough to kick a ball around, I started coaching them and then just kind of have continued in this coaching role. I've coached to the high school level, but most recently with club soccer here in Pittsburgh. But you talked about my work with mental health advocacy and awareness. Unfortunately, ten years ago, my mother who suffered pretty much most of her life, but certainly the last ten to fifteen
years of her life were the worst. She had a very serious mental illness. She unfortunately died by suicide on June first of twenty thirteen, And at that point myself and my brother kind of catapulted into just throwing ourselves into the droves of how we can help people with mental illnesses and disorders. So fast forward to today, it's actually transform not only how I.
Help others, but how I coach specifically young female.
Athletes, which that is what I coach with two other coaches who are amazing. We have a roster of sixteen players that are just wonderful, amazing young female athletes. But there's a certain way, in my opinion, to lead young female athletes.
First of all, I'm sorry you know that you get your mom passed and that's okay's and all of that, But I love how you're kind of spearheaded, You're kind of using that your platform as a way, And I guess I want to ask, like, why do you see because I've read some articles and you were recently awarded, like you have to give me the exactly what it was, but you had a big award like Female person of the Year, whatever the heck it was, But like, what
about the correlation and youth sports and mental health? Why do you see a correlation there and why do you think that that platform is a good place to you know, kind of spearhead your mission.
So the award was given by a local judge who give away an award every year or too.
That the award is called Citizen of the Year.
So I was awarded that for a couple of reasons, which I am insanely humbled. And it's mostly based on sort of the community outreach stuff that I've been doing the last ten years, mainly with mental health advocacy and awareness. I work with a couple of local organizations here, but then I do a lot of work in our school district specifically for kind of you know, taking care of our students here. We have four thousand students in our
school district. A few years ago, myself and another amazing human being started something called the Wellness Committee, where we our mission is to make sure the students in our district are taken care of, both physically but certainly mentally. So I would have to say having two teenage daughters and then coaching the exact same age of my daughters. For the past I've had this team with a couple other coaches our team for I think this is our.
Fifth season together. So I've seen these girls come up from.
You ten basically to where we are right now at you fifteen.
But I also live with two teenage daughters.
So the concept of being this coach but also a female but also who happens to be a mom is this dynamic that sometimes is hard because you're seeing every aspect of the game, the coaching, the leadership, the players. I'm seeing it everywhere. I'm seeing the whole circle of where we are with this age. So my biggest concern is making sure that these players are taking care of as a person, a human being, a young female athlete
before anything else. We need to focus on the person, the child the female before they are that player coming onto the pitch.
It's vital.
So is that a shift, like you know, I would assume I have. You know, we just talked about it. I have a few more kids than you, but we got to be somewhere in the ballpark of around the same.
You know, I'm probably a few years older than you, maybe.
But I don't recall when I was growing up there being any It was almost like a stigma, like, dude, you don't talk about now I'm a guy. Now, maybe that's just a gender stereotype and guys are supposed to, you know, stick their chest out and make preten everything's okay and yad YadA, YadA. I feel like you have a lot of you know, high level athletes that are that are really turning that and kind of that that Scarlett letter is kind of going by the wayside, which is a blessing.
But why, in particular.
From an overall just youth standpoint, do you feel like there's been such a shift from the time that you and I may have been coming up and now the emphasis on mental mental health.
I know one thing for sure is as leadership, I think the idea of leadership, whether that means a coaching role, a parent role, a.
Director of a club role.
I just think that we have gotten to a point where a couple of things are leading away money ego and then this person, this this amazing, wonderful, incredibly talented thing in front of you.
Your player is being kind of tossed to the side. It's win it all costs.
It's transactional versus transformational leadership. We just we've gotten to a point where we really, when it comes down to it, do we really.
Care about the player the person? Do we?
Yes, we care about the player and the athlete winning for us, scoring goals, making baskets, whatever it is.
But how did we get to that point?
We have to get back to the point of taking care and loving the person before what they're doing for us on the court, on the pitch.
I've heard it said that almost like you know, kids
are becoming commodities, you know, to a certain degree. So I'm listening to you and I'm going, is that kind of it, like we're almost using and I say we, I'm saying in general our generation, like the transformation, like is it a matter of rather than looking at young people as let's help mold and shape these human beings into becoming the best versions of the cellphone and using sports as a as a mechanism to do so, versus you think it's kind of become I need to use
these kids to help elevate my status as a coach or as an adult.
Do you think that's kind of yes, gotten out of balance?
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes yes. And it's not just club soccer.
It's not just the realm that I'm in that I live in every day. It's not just club soccer. It's all sports. It's all youth sports. We have early specialization. We have kids being told that they can't play multiple sports at ten years old because you know, their soccer season is a year long and their parents are paying four thousand dollars.
It's just we've.
Gotten to this point where we and I say we again as a general term, the goal is not the person and the player.
The goal is the coach. What the coach can get out of it, what.
The coach can make, what the coach can do, what the club has done. It's all about what we're doing for that ego. I think it's a huge issue.
And there's this quote and one of my biggest.
Inspirations besides you and several other people. Is the winning difference. So it's a guy that I started following on Twitter. I'm sure you know you've probably followed him to, Yeah, this is an awesome quote and you just touched on it. The winning difference knows that true winning does not have to be dictated by the scoreboard. Winning is engaging kids in character, building, building confidence, and creating successful habits using sports.
That's our goal.
That's what we need to be doing. That's where we're lost. That is not what we're doing.
So I got to ask you, how do you, as a club coach juggle the balance of and I don't know any fees or what about, but how do you juggle the performance demands of say a paying customer, write a parent versus you know, I guess being able to navigate what you believe your core values are your wise to coaching. Do you convey that? Do parents come to your club knowing like, hey, it's more than sports, O Libby coach Mets Carroll like we're doing it for this reason?
And how do you convey that and navigate? Because I mean, let's face it, if you're not winning, you might lose all your players and then you have no more kids to coach, right, So there's an element of that.
How do you juggle so a.
Couple of things.
The number one job of a coach, in my opinion, the only thing that you should be focusing on, of course, other things than you know skills. The number one job of myself and the other coaches is to build an intentional, established culture.
And I will be totally honest.
When I first started coaching, I knew nothing about culture.
I didn't even know what the word meant. I didn't know anything. I didn't know anybody who talked about culture.
I probably if I look back, I might be I made so many mistakes. The self reflection from my beginning days of coaching are enormous, and from what I've learned until this point, the number one job is to build that culture. So myself up top, looking down with my other two coaches to our players, right, we're the ones that build this culture.
You teach them. Does it happen overnight? No way. It's an arduous process. It takes time, it takes.
Commitment, it takes learning, It takes reading, researching, meeting people nick like yourself.
Right, have I learned this.
Am I doing stuff that I've learned from other people. Of course, I have so many people, John Gordon, Kate Levell, Lanceloya, Brett Ledbetter Yourself, Great Burge, I mean, greatest coaches of all time, Nick Saban, Pat summon Ands Durance Right, all of them have created this idea that I lead by, so I give them full credit. However, it has taken me a lot of time to get where we are today. The biggest thing also is teaching your players, your team,
how to be good teammates. The expert on that is a guide, in my opinion, named Lanceloya.
He's local, He's at a do Boys Pennsylvania. He's insane. He wrote a book called The Wee Gear.
The concept is how your success as a player is determined directly by the success of your teammates, meaning you will not succeed if your teammates do not succeed. You have to teach your players to want their teammates to succeed. You cannot want them to fail. You will not be successful. Is it a concept that we all think, Wow, that's a pretty easy concept to understand, But it's not.
We have to lead them and teach them.
I'd also have to say that it's putting everybody's egos aside, coaches, players, directors, owners. The other thing is teaching them about servant leadership. Leadership is about serving others, period and once you kind of develop this established culture, we always have a team meeting before our season starts.
We sit down.
It's a player led also huge thing. Player led teams win. We sit down, the girls are broken up into small groups. We talk about what our team goals are, We talk about personal goals. We create a team mantra for the entire year, but it's player led. The groups come back, they present what they decided on.
And then the team votes. Do I vote? Do our other coaches vote? No, it's player led.
They come up with the culture of the Pillars, what they want, their expectations of each other, and.
That is what we live, breathe by the entire season.
When we return, Libby and I dive deeper into building a strong team culture and mental health awareness in youth sports. Before we go to break, I wanted to share some exciting news from Team Snap as they have acquired Mojo, a leading youth sports technology and media platform. In addition to the best in class sports management solutions used by two million plus daily active users and more than nineteen
thousand sports organizations. Mojo brings in award winning library of games, drills, and session by session support for youth coaches, as well as robust interactive multimedia tools including live streaming for families
and fans to engage on and off the field. The combination of the two industry leading consumer tech platforms also creates the most comprehensive suite of B to B tools available for youth sports organizations, including powerful content distribution capabilities to drive adoption of coaching and training programs, registration tools, payment processing, organization management tools, and much more. Head to teamsnap dot com slash Mojo today to learn all about it.
Where we left off, Libby and I were about to discuss the importance of culture and accountability in a team's success, and her belief that clubs should provide mental health education for coaches to better support their players' mental well being.
You mentioned that word culture, but that takes time, right you believe in it?
How often do you you as a coach revisit your why?
Like?
Does that something you have to go back to? Because I know, even me, if I'm not intentional. I can get lost in results, like I can get lost in the weeds of things that I know in the long term out hey start focusing on short term right what's in front of you. So at times I got to revisit, like, hold on, let's keep this perspective. Is that something that you try to practice and also do you try to teach you know your kids?
That So part of the working hard on it and learning and taking the time is staying committed to it and being consistent to the culture that the girls have established and.
Holding them accountable. And when the question is every single day, I.
Mean every single training session, every single huddle, right before we you know, we say the starting lineup, and we're in our huddle.
Hugged up really close.
I say to the girls, who are you playing for? They all say each other, and then they go off onto the pitch. It's every single training session we talk about it.
It's something that's at the forefront.
We spend a lot of time with x's and o's. Of course, we have insanely talented coaches on this staff tactically, but I'm sorry, it's a smaller portion in my opinion, to what really drives our team's success. And I'll tell you Nick, we have had incredible success. This team, the wea coach is very successful. We don't have a whole lot of superstars.
We have a lot of kids who love each other, who play for each other. That's why we win. Are they talented skills wise? Of course they are. They're incredibly talented, hardworking, but they love each other.
They would run through a brick wall for each other when they are on that shield.
So these girls know each other really well. Right, you're building that culture where they love each other. They're building that relationship. I know that as a teammate, you hold each other accountable, but you also are reluctant at times to you know, perhaps convey to a coach if something's going on with your teammate. Right, kids keep each other's
secrets at times you kind of build that bond. How do you, as someone who has experience it's with mental health, mental illness, how do you handle if you see something Because a lot of parents out there, listen, I have teenage kids, and sometimes you see something it's just a teenage kid being a teenage kid. But when do you know that, hey, I maybe need to pay attention to this, and I guess, how do you handle that? Because I feel like it's something that all of us parents need
education on it. Some have no experience, I have none, and somewhere in the weeds confused.
That's a really good question.
And I think sometimes coaches, leaders, directors, owners, they're not experts on mental illness and disorders and necessarily advocacy and awareness. But we're in this leadership role, so we're kind of expected to be educated in that, and I think we're trying our best, and I think every coach has their way of dealing with it. But for me, it's mostly making sure that our players are confident and we have open relationships with each other, meaning the communication they're not
afraid to to me, to our other two coaches. We have this very very strong bond and the relationship.
That we have with each other and that they have with each.
Other, they're confident enough to have those tough conversations or even come to us and say, hey, this.
Is what's going on. I need help.
So I also think that clubs, maybe in every sport, youth sport, there should be maybe some sort of education that happens. You know, we get CPR certified, we get AED certified. Why are we not having some sort of you know course, like kind of like safe sport where you go in you have to take something and get a certification, you know, a coaching course.
We have to do certain things to be a coach in order to coach at certain levels.
Right, So this mental health part of sports is so enormous.
I think it would be wonderful if we had coaches being you.
Know, responsible for taking some sort of know, baseline course for mental health, just so you know the signs and the symptoms and the questions to ask or how you can help them. And certainly since COVID, you know, we're dealing with unfortunately a very large and serious epidemic with mental health crisis.
We are in a mental health crisis for our young kids. We are.
The data shows it, the research shows it. So I think maybe one of those things that we can do going forward is educate our leaders maybe a little bit more on mental health.
So do you feel like it's a conversation that parents should be having because you struggle in a game?
Right?
My kids wrestle someone you know, has a bad match one of their teammates, and then they get pissed right.
Kids are kids.
They get upset, right, There's a difference between these are disappointed in your results and maybe something else going. Is it as simple as just pay check on your teammate? Is there any type of like things that you could put in your kids head or me as a parent,
can pay attention to some red flags? I know you mentioned confidence, but is it like, is it just the obvious things like staying in the room, not talking, But then you do research sometimes and it's like, you know, sometimes a sixteen year old will just shut down, you know, So how do you know it?
Is it probing questions?
Is it just keeping the dialogueal because I struggle with it as a parent of you know, three teenagers right now at times.
Yeah, I'm living with two teenage girls. It's like a mystery. It's like I saw something on Twitter.
It was funny. It was a meme.
It said something like having a teenage kid in your house is like having, you know, like something that wants something to do with you. And you text them, hey, honey, I love you so much. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'm so proud of you, and they reply back, Okay, it's like, oh geez, like they like literally they said nothing to you back.
I think right.
Now, the biggest thing is to especially when you know they lost a match, they lost a game, or maybe we won and they think they didn't play well. You know, it's all over the internet. It's talked about a million times. When they get into the car, and I did not do this in the beginning. I will tell you this is something I learned. When they get in the car, I always let them speak first. I say nothing about the game. I don't And I think for me, I'm forty six, we grew up different, right, we grew up
with a parent. You know, it was like this hardcore you know, leadership and feedback. And I think sometimes that's okay, But I think that we need to stop talking to our kids when they don't want to talk.
Number one.
So maybe maybe realizing that and just reading the room. But I think the biggest thing is just being being just a sounding board.
Just be a mom, just be a dad. They just want you to be with them.
They just want you to sit there. They just want you to listen. That's all they want. They don't want to hear anything about how they played, how they didn't play the other thing. That's the worst possible thing they can do. That I think is a big sign is if they start comparing themselves to others. Comparison is the thief of joy, and it's the thief of in my opinion, confidence and true talent or true potential.
I think compare is huge.
Or saying things like you know, I'm not good enough or oh my gosh, so and.
So is so much better than me. I think that's a big red flag. But it's tough. It's tough. I'll tell you.
I gotta say it happened not too long ago.
My my son is a senior in high school who's really even keeled and is he loves competing and all that as a wrestler. But he had a match and he lost, and he lost in like the last like seven seconds, and he was so pissed.
He just got turned at the rock and he just gassed out. Anyway, but he's so mad.
And it was like five minutes after the match, and I was going to go down and say, man, proud of you.
A good try. And I can tell I could tell immediately I didn't you said. I think you said read the room, and I could tell because I said, I said, Tyler. He didn't respond, and that's not normal for him.
Usually he's like, hey, you know, because he knows I'm not gonna like criticize him or anything.
I don't.
I don't do, I don't, I don't really care. But he was hot, like what I mean by high. He was pissed, and I said, Tyler. Then I went and pull my armor. His dad, just leave me alone right now. And I initially I wanted to like, go, oh, dude. I wanted to like visualize him as like a seven
year old, like dude, I'm your dad. But I walked away, and I was like, man, he handled that probably one hundred times better than I did when I was sixteen years old and my dad was annoying me for a second, like cause I was like spoiled brat at times, and I'd be like, Dad, leave me the hell of Like I was obnoxious at times. I didn't want to hear from anybody, particularly my dad if I like struck out.
In a baseball game. But then like I gave him space.
I walked away, and I'm like, man, I messed up right there, Like I could tell he was just he needed a look, you need a little bit of time. He was still breathing heavy, and even though my intentions were good, it was like, I think that's such a great point, a little bit of common sense. At times it's like, how would I feel? Do I want to hear from anybody?
Really?
And if my coach says something to me, that's my coach. But it's like sometimes you need a breather and reading the room kind of understanding, like, hey, let's give it a little bit of time. Even I fall short in that, and I think it's I think it's such a great simple piece of advice is let them come to you, you know.
I think that that's a good thing, Like we.
Don't have to initiate every conversation, particularly you know, after they have a bad event or or something doesn't go their way.
Well, I think it's teenagers in general. I mean, like we have two daughters. My husband gets so upset and takes it so personally. If my sixteen year old comes down the stairs in the morning grumpy and doesn't want to talk to anybody, I read the room and I'm like, I'm getting out of the way of her.
Oh boy, what do you want for breakfast? Nothing? Okay, do you need water?
No, And then my husband he bops into the kitchen like, hey, everybody, good morning.
I mean, he's trying to be positive.
He's amazing and very loving and kind, and they look at him like they want to stab him, and he gets very upset. We've had some conversations about your husband a little, I know, I know. So we've had many conversations about like, honey, just read the room.
It's six forty.
Five in the morning. They probably don't. It's just just teenage girls. And he said, oh, but you know they're so mean to me. I'm like, honey, they're not being mean.
It's just it's just teenage girls. Got to get some thick skin, you know. But then I think back, like I like that to my mom and my dad, like, oh gosh, I guess I was. I mean, I don't think that has changed. It's just we just I think we're.
Just more aware of how we can be dealing with them in these situations, just being present, just reading the room, you.
Know, being empathetic. They already have enough pressure on them anyway.
If a kid makes a mistake in a game, don't you think they already feel terrible? I mean they do. They already feel terrible. There's no reason for us to revisit that. The moment has come and gone.
There's nothing anybody can do about it. It's over. Why. That's one of the biggest things.
I don't understand with coaches and with parents. I had a girl this spring miss a PK. She's one of our best PK hitters, never missed one that we practiced all year. She missed it. Okay, it was a very important game. She missed the penalty kick. Her body language immediately changed. I've known this kid for years. I know how head works. She's dedicated, she's loyal, she works hard on and off the field. I mean, best best kid you could have on your team in every sense of the word.
Great kid, great player, great teammate. She was devastated.
She comes off the field halftime and just completely falls into my arms. I mean, the kid was sobbing. What am I going to say to her? Nothing I'm gonna say to her is going to help, whether it's bad or good.
So you just sit there, You let her cry, you let her fall.
Into your arms, You let her sob get it out. You know, we made the decision not to start in the second half because we knew she wasn't ready, and you know what happened. There was no reason for anybody to say anything to her other than just we love you. Her teammates responded like that, we just loved on her, which she's still upset after the day went on, of course she was.
Did it take her a couple of days to come around, Yes, but nobody intervened. We just loved on her.
Sometimes it's just that freaking easy.
I love that, man, And it's amazing the power of your teammates just and your coaches just hey, it's all right, and it kind of makes you realize it's way it's way more about you know, and as time time a lot of oftentimes heals all wounds and you.
Just you know, have perspective. Coach obviously you know your passion, your enthusiasm. We're very like mind. I can talk to you all day long, but we don't have all day. Where can people find you?
Where can I know if they google you, there's all different articles and blah, like what where can they find your content?
And how can they get in touch with you?
So I would say.
The most the most engaged for me with the coaching and the culture and.
The leading with love stuff is probably on Twitter. So I'm on Twitter. I mean, I'm on Instagram. You know.
Again, my main role is a mom, but of course the coaching part of it is my second passion and mental health. But I mean the biggest thing is just, you know, lead with love. Whether you're a teacher, you know, a coach, a player, a director, a leader in any sense of the word, in any level of life, organizationally, business wise, you lead with love. You love your people. They will do anything for you. And guess what the
winning comes like, It just comes. You lead with love, you love your people, It trickles.
Down and you win. I promise.
Libby mes garrow freaking awesome. I love it.
Cannot thank you enough for coming on sharing your Perspective've definitely run this back again. I wish you nothing but success. Let's keep in touch and thanks so much for sharing.
Thank you for having me, Nick, I really appreciate it.
That's Libby Mescaro, a decorated athlete, soccer coach, and mental health advocate. Thanks for listening to the Reform Sports podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, we would appreciate it. If you took a moment to rate and review our podcast. As we work to grow our community of supporters and advocates for more reform sports content, please subscribe to our newsletter and blog at Reformsports Project dot com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.