Sports Dad Hub – Interview with Kevin Duy

– Hey, folks, welcome back to an edition of Baseball Dads Podcast, and today, we have a very special guest, Kevin Duy, from sportsdadhub.com, and he’s gonna share with us some of the tips and advice that he has to create balance, which is a huge problem now in baseball, is creating that balance between how much do you push your kids, how much they practice, how much they play versus having a home life, having family time, and making sure we create that symmetry in both environments. Kevin, welcome, thanks for coming on. – Oh, man, thanks so much, Paul. An honor to be here, big fan of your recent book and I’m honored to be here, so thanks. – Cool, so give us the snapshot. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to create the website. – Yeah, so really I’m a sports dad of three boys and we’ve got a little girl now, too, who’s gonna be turning three this fall. Back five years ago or so, when my boys were getting into youth sports and stuff and kinda coming to the point where my oldest was starting to grow out of the rec league stuff and he was looking for something a little bit more competitive, but at the same time, I didn’t wanna get into anything crazy with him and stuff, and so I was really kinda looking online for some guidance, some more outlet out there where other dads had experienced the same thing and kinda feel what’s the pickup and how they evaluated different programs around their town and just different things like that, ’cause unfortunately with sports, it’s not like going and applying for a job where you can go interview different clubs and organizations and coaches and stuff. You just pick one and sign up and you’re stuck with them for the season. So I was just kind of looking for some guidance. I didn’t wanna fight it out there. I was like, you know what, I’m sure I’m not alone in this. I enjoyed writing and stuff, so I’m just like, I’m just gonna start it, start talking myself and see where it goes, just trying to be a resource for other dads who were looking for the same thing, just kinda share my experiences and different things like that. So that’s kinda how it started. – And I love that, when you create the plate that you need, then others that you want, you wanna have. I think for a baseball dad, there’s a lot of confusion on am I missing out? what if I’m home, right? You’re missing out? Am I pushing too hard? Am I not pushing enough? Is my kid gonna turn 16, and “Dad, why didn’t you push me harder?” Or is he gonna turn to you at 16, “Dad, thank you so much for not pushing me too hard.” What advice do you have for dads that might be listening who might be in that situation now, where they don’t know what to do? – That’s the biggest struggle we all face, really and so the philosophy that I use is I see myself as being the person who provides the fuel. My kids are the drivers basically of their youth sports experience. What is mean by that is instead of just going and signing up one of my kids for spring and summer hockey just because more than half of the other kids on the team are doing it, I’m kinda gauging what he’s doing. Basically, whenever he’s home and has free time, is he putting in the work himself, like pulling the net out in the street and shooting pucks and playing pickup hockey all the time, or baseball, it can be any sport really. Just kinda look for the signs that your kid is wanting more. Then just talk to them about it and ask them if they are wanting to do certain things. But then also as parents, also, you’ve got to use your own judgment, too, because you can’t expect your nine and ten year old to know what’s best for them. So I really believe in giving kids off seasons. It’s so easy now to play any sport all year round and that’s exactly what the clubs are made to do. You feel so much pressure doing it, because like you said, the fear of missing out, the fear of my kid’s one of the top three kids on the team right now, if he doesn’t do the off season stuff, is he gonna be like middle of the pack next year? There’s all that fear, and I really think that one of the ways you can provide fuel for your kids and make them love their sport is make them miss it. Whenever they get away from the sport and they’re just like, “I can’t wait to get back.” My kids, I make them take spring and summer off as far as hockey goes, and with baseball, we don’t play fall baseball, we don’t play winter baseball. So by the time their seasons are coming back around again, they can’t wait to get back out there. And with the kids that have been out there all year round, the start of the season is just another day. It’s just another day on the ice or just another day on the ball field or in the cages or whatever, and it can really rob them of the excitement of playing the sport. – Believe this town, I talk all day long to dad coaches for the bulk of my life, and with this problem that we have now in travel ball, I’ve never heard anyone say that. Make your kid miss it, and the immediate thing that came back to me was being a kid, my dad was really involved in Little League, he used to cut the lawn, mow the lawn, and take care of the field, and I can remember them getting the field ready and waiting for opening day. I remember counting down the days to opening day. I just never thought about that. But you bringing it back, I remember it being February and March, and I don’t remember, I think opening day was the first week of April, or whatever it was, I just remember that excitement of I can’t wait to play baseball. I guess we don’t have that now. – And really as far as baseball goes, if you ask me, there’s nothing that will kill the love of baseball more than being inside in the winter in a cage like that. That’s like the worst form of baseball ever, if you ask me, and I’m a baseball guy. That was my sport, in my youth sport. But I just hated the inside. Once we got outside, I could be out there all day. But inside in the cage, oh, man, that gets old really quick. If you’re 10 or 11 years old, and you’ve got your buddies wanting you to come over and play and stuff, and, “No, I gotta go to baseball. “It’s December 15th and I gotta go to baseball inside,” that would drag on a kid. – What do you think dads should look for, as warning signs that maybe this is getting to be too much or maybe he’s doing it just because we want him to, or he doesn’t want to be a bad kid and not be included? What do you think are some of the signs you should look for? – I think, is your kid playing the sport whenever he has free time around the house? Is he playing catch with his friends, shooting hoops, or whatever his sport is, like I said, pulling the net out and shooting pucks, is he doing that kind of stuff? Or whenever he’s home from practice and games, he doesn’t want anything to do with the sport. I think that’s a big sign, ’cause then you know he’s not really having fun maybe in it anymore. Because when you’re a kid and you find something that’s fun, you wanna do it all the time. So if they’re not doing it in their free time, then that would be a big sign. And then, obviously, if he’s not wanting to go to practice or kind of upset when he has to go to practice, like, “Awe, man,” just kinda down when he has to go to practice. And, obviously, you just need to keep that communication open, when you take him home from practice, ask him if he had fun and ask him what he liked about his practice, and if he’s kinda showing signs that he’s not really enthusiastic about what is going on, then just talk about it and see. If you’re in the middle of the season, then you’re kinda stuck ’cause I believe in seeing through your commitments, but obviously not do anything once the season comes to an end. Let him take maybe a longer break than normal or something like that. – What do you think kids should do by age? We have all kinds of dads listening to this podcast. So I guess the question I’m looking for is like, and I don’t know if this may be a defined answer, but I’d love to hear your opinion on it, from start of sports to what age do you think we should be experimenting and then, younger kids kinda go what their parents sign them up to. When do you think you maybe have to start listening to your kids. I feel like some, how do I explain it? I feel like some kids may be like they go along for it or they say, “No, I don’t wanna do it,” and you say, “No, you’re doing it for a couple hours a week.” It’s not a big deal at this point in age. Where do you see that breakdown coming in? – I think this is one of those where it’s different for every kid. I think probably when kids are really young, talking like four or five, six years old, and it’s like their first year playing a sport, and maybe they’re not all that enthusiastic about it, that’s when you take them for the soccer games and stuff, just to let them see if they like stuff or not. And give it a season, and at the end of the season, if they absolutely hate it, then obviously don’t sign them up for that next year. Look for something else for them to do. But, really, beyond the first year of playing a sport, after they’ve already tried playing a sport, if they don’t wanna go, like what is the point? What are doing at that point, you know? Find something, I’m just big in finding something that your kid could be passionate about and have fun doing it and activities that they love to do where they’re active and pouring their focus and mindset into something, whether it’s music. Maybe it’s not sports, let’s face it, not every kid is gonna like sports, so if it’s music, follow the music, or if it’s scouting, follow his love of outdoors, and fishing and that kind of stuff. Just make sure you help your kid find something that is their thing. If you grew up being a hardcore baseball guy, me, for example, my oldest son, my firstborn, his name is Gehrig, after Lou Gehrig. Everything was trending perfectly, Paul. He’s a natural lefty, he was pitcher, he liked to play first base, and I’m serious. He was a good little pitcher, you wouldn’t believe all the comments I got about Gehrig. Look at him, he’s a lefty, he’s throwing that hard. It was awesome. And then all of a sudden, around, gosh, he was probably 11 years old, he was just like, “You know what? I don’t really wanna play baseball anymore.” And I was fine with it because it’s his sport. He wanted to just keep playing hockey and didn’t really wanna play baseball anymore. And I kinda saw the signs, like we were talking about before, that he wasn’t all that enthusiastic about going to practice, just seemed like he wasn’t having all that much fun with it, and fortunately he was comfortable enough to just tell me, “Hey, I don’t really wanna play this anymore.” And like I said, I was fine with it. – A problem that we deal with all the time is that baseball is often the connector. We see that from the dads’ side. From the kids side, “I don’t wanna play anymore. “I wanna go do something else.” But now from the dads’ side, it’s almost like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. “I thought we were in this together.” And believe it or not, it’s obviously we’re all grown men, but there is a little bit of, wow, I’m kinda missing out on something that was fun for me, too, and there was something that was connecting us to our kids. I know you’re a big believer in striking that balance. I try and help dads never get to that point. Let’s talk about balance. What are some of the things that you feel like in your family or the people that you coached and mentored, what are some of the things you do to help create balance? – I think the biggest thing is just trying to help them not have their self-identity revolve around sports, and not have their self-worth revolve around sports. They could have an injury tomorrow and that could prevent them from playing sports anymore, or they could just fall out of love with playing a sport and not like it anymore, and then it’s like then what do they do? If their whole identity and their self-worth is wrapped up into a sport or playing sports, and then when it’s gone, that’s gonna be a huge void for them in their life. Just use sports as a tool to help build your kids into great adults. Use sports as a way to teach them leadership and commitment and hard work and hustle and teamwork and humility, empathy, all those great things that you can learn from sports. Use sports as a vehicle to teach your kids about all that stuff, instead of using sports as the end game, and the end goal of what you have. Does that make sense? – Yeah, absolutely. – I don’t know if that answers your question about balance or not, but I think if you just have perspective about things, balance I think will naturally kind of happen. So if you’re not having your kids revolve their world around sports, you can have other activities and do other things with them, and take other interests, and make sure they have other interests in different things, too, Help them find other things that they like, even if it may not be the thing that you love, suck it up, man, you’re an adult. Get involved in it and take an interest because it’s what they like. You can have a connection with anything if you try hard enough as the parent. – You mentioned a couple of times different activities. What’s your view on balancing that out as well? Do you feel like it’s important for a kid to have a non-sports activity? I guess karate would be under a sport, but I feel like that’s maybe a different category, ’cause it’s a little, you know what I mean, right? – Yeah, I know what you mean. – Yeah, ’cause a lot of other elements with it. But karate, or I spoke with a dad the other day whose son is on a coding team. And that’s for computer coding against other schools. I didn’t know they had those, but they do. Do you feel like there should be a little bit of that? – Yeah, I do, but it’s gonna obviously rely on your kid and what interest your kid has, too. The best way I can speak to it is just from experience, and so my middle son is really getting involved, not involved, but he loves fishing. What’s bad is that my dad never took me fishing when I was a kid, so I’m like terrible helping him fish. But I’m trying to learn it with him. But the thing that stinks is that we’re so darn busy with his hockey and his younger brother’s hockey and soccer and stuff, ’cause my middle son plays Triple A hockey, and my younger son, his younger brother is a year younger and he plays Double A hockey, and so we’re on the go constantly with hockey, big commitment, time commitment and stuff. Like this weekend, we’re leaving Thursday and gonna be up in Detroit for four days. So a lot of times on the weekends, whenever teams come in town that they’re playing three games on the weekend and stuff, so it’s like the time to pour into fishing and stuff and let him do that stuff, it stinks because it’s not always available. If we’re home for a couple hours, he’s thinking, “Hey, we got a couple hours. “Dad, let’s go fishing real quick.” So we got a park up by our house with a lake. But it’s like if I’m home for two hours, there’s something for me to do. I need to be cutting the grass or doing something around the house. So that’s the biggest challenge, I think, as sports parents of multiple kids, just speaking from my experience, is finding the time to allow them to have those other outside interests. That’s the biggest challenge for me. I try to encourage him and his brothers, “You guys are old enough, you can go to the park by yourself and fish and stuff.” But I do encourage them to follow those other outlet activities and get away from their sport, because I think their sports can feel like a job sometimes if that’s like all they’re doing. School, sports, sleep, eat, that’s it. – What I come across a lot is that because all the time is booked, where would something new even go? If they were to have an interest in something, doesn’t that kind of get stifled a little bit by that schedule that we always have to maintain? What would you say, I always like to ask dads this question. I think we all have those magic moments around sports. I’ve asked this to a lot of dads, and I’ve never had any dad say, “It was when he hit that home run, first home run.” It’s always something around it. Is there like a magic moment that you had with your son or with your family that you can point to? – Well, yeah, but the thing that’s mainly coming to mind isn’t even a moment like where he did anything or my kid did anything. It was a team thing. The biggest moment that comes up is last year, one of my boys, his team was looking to go undefeated in their hockey season in their league play, and in the last game of the season, they were down four goals with like five minutes left in the game. And they ended up scoring four goals in the last few minutes of the game to tie the game to remain undefeated. It was such an emotional ride. As parents, third period, you’re down four goals, we had already expected the fact that, okay, we were already joking like where are we gonna go for the team dinner or whatever. We had all kind of accepted the fact that they were gonna lose and they weren’t gonna be able to accomplish their goal that they were all talking about and stuff over the weekend. And then when they did it, it was just awesome. I got chills right now just thinking about the reaction and just seeing their reaction, and just seeing kids just have that kind of pure joy. They were just beside themselves when the game was over and just going nuts. You couldn’t get the smile off their faces. It was awesome. That was probably the biggest one for me. – Yeah, awesome, awesome. So, Kevin, you have this great website. You’ve got a podcast planned. – Yeah, it’s coming out soon. – Yeah, let’s get everyone how they can contact you and subscribe to you and follow you and tweet and whatever else we’re doing these days now. Where do we find out about you? – Obviously, the central hub, pun not intended, is just to go to sportsdadhub.com, and if you wanna subscribe, there’s a subscribe button on the right-hand column, or you can just go to sportsdadhub.com/subscribe, and that way you’ll be the first to know when I launch the podcast and then, obviously, you’ll get a heads up on any kind of promotions and special offers we do, and whenever there’s a new blog out, you can go there. I’m also really active on Facebook, so it’s just Facebook.com/sportsdadhub, or you can obviously just go to sportsdadhub.com and click on the Facebook link there. I enjoy creating different graphics and memes and stuff around being a sports parent and I try to focus on helping parents having the right mindset and right perspective on things. So some of the things I post will be a little sarcastic, poking fun at parents that are overly intense, among other things, and like I just said, mindset reminders, kinda take a step back and go, “Okay, I need to check myself here a little bit.” So those are the best places to go to stay in contact with me. – Awesome, every person who’s been listening, go there and subscribe and follow and like. This is why none of know how to do this, and I feel like we’re the sum of all of our teachers, and if we can get even just the littlest thing sometimes, like a quote or like a post that I have found that sometimes things show up and I don’t remember liking a page or subscribing or whatever, but then all of a sudden, this email pops through or this post comes up, and I’m like, wow, that is exactly what I needed at this point. I’d encourage all of you guys to go to sportsdadhub.com/subscribe, and this is Kevin’s world. He’s doing some great work and in this journey of guiding our kids through this, we need all the help we can get. So, Kevin, thank you so much, I appreciate your time, and we’ll definitely be having you down again. – Awesome, thanks so much, Paul. I really appreciate your time. And I’m on the journey with everybody else. I in no way claim to be an expert. I’m just gonna share my opinion and my mistakes and stumbles and lessons I learned along the way. That’s a great point, we can all learn from each other. So, thanks, man, I appreciate it.