JASON SACKS – CEO OF POSITIVE COACHING ALLIANCE – EPISODE 1205

Website – https://positivecoach.org/

Email – jason_sacks@positivecoach.org

Twitter/X – @jrsacks22

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Jason Sacks is the CEO of Positive Coaching Alliance. He joined the organization in April 2006 and has since served in a variety of capacities, including President, Chief Development Officer, EVP for Business Development & Philanthropy, Director of Partnership Development, and as Executive Director of PCA’s Chicago, IL chapter. Jason began his career at PCA as the Partner Development Associate for the New Jersey/Philadelphia region. Under his leadership, PCA has successfully expanded its reach and impact through partnerships and attracting leading philanthropic organizations to support PCA’s commitment to ensuring youth sports are done right in all communities across the country.

Prior to joining PCA, Jason worked in sports television production at International Management Group (IMG) and in the Basketball Operations Department for the New York Knicks. Jason holds an undergraduate degree in Broadcast Journalism from Syracuse University and a Master’s degree in Sports Management from New York University. He has also served as an assistant coach for the Men’s Basketball Team at NYU and for Egg Harbor Township High School (NJ) and Perspectives Charter High School (Chicago). Jason is an adjunct instructor in Northwestern University’s Masters of Sports Administration program and volunteers as a youth sports coach.

On this episode Mike and Jason discuss the significant barriers that impede children’s access to sports. Jason talks about the critical role that well-trained coaches play in providing a positive youth sports experience and the urgent need for equitable opportunities across diverse communities. With a focus on initiatives such as local youth sports access coalitions, PCA aims to dismantle these barriers and promote inclusivity in sports. The conversation highlights PCA’s partnership with ESPN on the “Take Back Sports” initiative, which seeks to restore joy and fun to youth sports while ensuring that children can engage in a variety of athletic endeavors. Join us as we examine how community collaboration and dedicated efforts can foster a more equitable and enriching sporting environment for all kids.

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You’ll want to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Jason Sacks, CEO of Positive Coaching Alliance.

What We Discuss with Jason Sacks

• The importance of providing equal access to youth sports for children from under-resourced communities, which is essential for their development
• The significant barriers that hinder children’s participation in sports, such as cost, transportation, and availability of local leagues
• The innovative initiatives launched by Positive Coaching Alliance, aimed at enhancing youth sports experiences and ensuring inclusivity
• The essential role of well-trained coaches in delivering a positive youth sports experience and the need for standardized coach education programs
• The value of fun and joy in youth sports, advocating for a balanced approach that prioritizes enjoyment alongside competition
• The impact of parental involvement in youth sports, and the need for better communication between parents and children to align their sports goals and expectations
• Why access to youth sports is often hindered by financial constraints and lack of local opportunities
• ESPN’s partnership with PCA aims to promote the values of youth sports, emphasizing fun and community connection
• Youth sports have the potential to unite communities and foster meaningful connections among participants
• Encouraging participation in multiple sports

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THANKS, JASON SACKS

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TRANSCRIPT FOR JASON SACKS – CEO OF POSITIVE COACHING ALLIANCE – EPISODE 1205

[00:00:00] Narrator: The Hoop Heads podcast is brought to you by Headstart basketball.

[00:00:15] Jason Sacks: Sports brings communities together if it’s done the right way. And so that’s something that we’re looking at. What are the barriers that kids have to access sports? Sometimes it could be there isn’t a coach there, so can we help recruit a coach, place a coach, train that coach. Sometimes it is, it costs too much, or there’s not transportation, or there isn’t a local rec league, right?

It’s all this travel where it could be too expensive, it could be too much of a time commitment. People are getting left behind. The playing field isn’t level, so we want to try to work alongside local partners to remove any of those barriers.

[00:00:56] Mike Klinzing: Jason Sacks is the CEO of Positive Coaching Alliance. He joined the organization in April, 2006 and has since served in a variety of capacities, including president, chief development Officer, executive vice President for business development and philanthropy, director of Partnership Development, and as executive director of PC a’s Chicago, Illinois Chapter.

Jason began his career at PCA as the partner development associate for the New Jersey Philadelphia region. Under his leadership, PCA has successfully expanded its reach and impact through partnerships and attracting, leading philanthropic organizations to support PCA’s commitment to ensuring youth sports are done right in all communities across the country.

Prior to joining PCA, Jason worked in sports television production at International Management Group and in the basketball operations department for the New York Knicks. Jason holds an undergraduate degree in broadcast journalism from Syracuse University. A Master’s degree in Sports Management from New York University.

He has also served as an assistant coach for the men’s basketball team at NYU and for Egg Harbor Township High School in New Jersey and Perspectives Charter High School in Chicago. Jason is an adjunct instructor in Northwestern University’s Masters of Sports Administration Program and volunteers as a youth sports coach.

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[00:02:55] Aisha Foy: What’s up, y’all? This is Aisha Floyd, NIL, coach and author. Success is my major and you’re listening to the Hoop Heads podcast.

[00:03:05] Mike Klinzing: Coaches, you’ve got a game plan for your team, but do you have one for your money? That’s where Wealth4Coaches comes in. Each week, we’ll deliver simple, no fluff financial tips made just for coaches. Whether you’re getting paid for camps, training sessions, or a full season, Wealth4Coaches helps you track it, save it, and grow it.

It’s time to stop guessing and start building. Subscribe now at Wealth4Coaches.beehive.com/subscribe and follow us on Twitter at Wealth4Coaches for daily money wins. Your money needs a coach. Start with Wealth4Coaches. You’ll want to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Jason Sachs, CEO of Positive Coaching Alliance.

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason sunk this afternoon. But I am pleased to be joined by Jason Sachs, CEO of the Positive Coaching Alliance. Jason, welcome to the Hoop Pets Pod.

[00:04:06] Jason Sacks: Thanks so much for having me. Excited for the conversation.

[00:04:09] Mike Klinzing: Thrilled to have you on. Looking forward to diving into your background, but also all of the great things that PCA stands for and is doing out there in the youth sports environment that we have today. Let’s start by going back in time to when you were a kid. Tell me a little bit about growing up, how sports influenced you, and just what was your first exposure to it?

[00:04:30] Jason Sacks: Yeah, it, so I grew up I grew up in Southern New Jersey close to the beach down by like Atlantic City and Ocean City, and I’m the youngest of three. So I have an older sister and older brother. And my parents were, were heavily involved both working parents but also made time to volunteer as, as coaches and be on local boards and things like that of, of youth sports organizations.

And so, as a third child, I was getting dragged to gyms fields practices games all the time. But you know what, like, I loved it. It was, it was amazing. I grew up. Watching. I was always like the youngest around, but I was still just sort of like trying to mix it up. And so we were a family that grew up at the sports fields, right?

And so that’s where I met so many of my friends. I got to participate in a lot of different great programs. I played growing up pretty much played everything from baseball, basketball, soccer, street hockey was big where I grew up. And then as I got older into the, the middle school and high school became a runner really to just to try to get in shape for basketball because that was my main sport.

But then really enjoyed running. So ran cross country and track and high school and then played basketball and so it was a, it was a great experience. I grew up in a, in an area that was pretty diverse and it got to bring together a lot of people from different backgrounds and even just the.

The opportunity running cross country, playing basketball. Those were two totally separate groups. So even having a network of different people in, in those two sports was a really, a really cool experience and a great great way to, to learn a lot of things that holding with me still today.

[00:06:10] Mike Klinzing: Where did your parents love of sports come from?

[00:06:13] Jason Sacks:  my parents grew up right outside of New York City up in, up in North Jersey. And my dad would tell stories about him taking the path over to New York City and going to Yankee games and Nick’s games and ranger games and telling stories of like, oh yeah, it cost a nickel to get into a game.

And then we would we’d go to a. A, a Rangers game during the day, and then they put the floor on top and we’d watch the Knicks later that night. And it was like a different world, right? So we grew up always watching sports. That was something that was always something that  he would tell stories about playing stickball in the streets of Hoboken those types of things.

My dad my mom’s father  unfortunately passed away at a young age, but he was the local high school’s athletic director, right? And so as you start to like peel back, my mom was a teacher, my dad’s a lawyer, was a lawyer. But as you start to peel back all these layers and think about like, what I’m doing today and been with PCA for over 20 years now, you start to see it’s like, oh, this makes sense.

Like it, it’s in the, it’s in the gene. There’s a lot of a lot of similarities here. So it, it was great to, to grow up. We also got to participate in this basketball exchange program when I was growing up. My brother and I wear. It was almost like a, a team from South Jersey, so a lot of different schools and and communities.

And we would actually go down to Puerto Rico and we would play against a basketball team down in Puerto Rico. We’d stay with families. We’d for 10 days we’d play a couple games. We’d take in the culture of Puerto Rico and then at, at a different point in the year, they would come up to New Jersey and we’d go up to Philadelphia, do some of the sightseeing up there, play a couple games, have somebody live with us for, for 10 days.

And I think at that early age, the first time we were participating in that my brother was probably in sixth grade, so I was in second grade. And  from second grade, that idea that. Basketball was this platform for so much else. Right. And so the fact that we both had the opportunity to go and live with a family that might not even speak English, but that basketball was that thread and basketball was the catalyst for learning about different cultures, meeting people from different backgrounds.

So again, looking at that experience from a very young age, I think that immediately instilled something in me about sports could be much bigger than what happened between the lines.

[00:08:31] Mike Klinzing: Very cool. That program, does it still exist today in any way, shape, or form

[00:08:37] Jason Sacks: it and unfortunately it doesn’t. It was, it was it existed a long time before I got to participate in it and then it, it carried on for, for some time after.

But one of the, one of the cool things about it too was it was, it was basketball players in fifth and sixth grade, seventh, eighth grade from all over south Jersey. So I was playing with kids that for the next six years or seven years, we were competing against each other in high school.

Right. And then we went off to college and then we’d come home over college breaks and we would see each other out and it was like, oh yeah, we were on that team together in fifth and sixth grade. And  so many of them are going on and have done great things and we get to stay in touch. And so it really is that it’s, it built that community and really feel blessed that I was able to, to be a part of that and have that experience, especially at such a young age to really show what sports can really be.

[00:09:27] Mike Klinzing: It’s one of those positives that when I think about a a u basketball and how that’s brought mm-hmm. The connection between kids from different communities. When I look at the positives of a A U, that certainly is one of them. I think about my son or my daughter’s experience playing and they get to know and play with or against kids that they might ordinarily play in high school.

They might play two games against, and it’s just your rival now. They’re still your rival. Right. You know them and there’s a relationship and you’ll see them talking before games and you play on teams with kids. And I think that when I look at the youth basketball environment today, there’s obviously some challenges, but I think that that connection between players from different schools and different areas that then as you said, keeps them connected as high school players, if any of them go on to play in college, I know like my son keeps tabs on guys that he played with and against in AAU and how their college careers are going, which is fun and then again, just the ability to see where you end up with these people that you otherwise never would’ve had a chance to be able to interact with.

And it sounds like that’s kind of what happened for you in, in a different environment, but still in the same way, building those connections.

[00:10:36] Jason Sacks: For sure. I mean, It was, it would, it would be a running joke some of my high school teammates we’d go and play somebody and they’re like, all right, like, who does Sacks know now?

Like, how, and then how do you know these guy? Right. But it was that, it was built in that, on those teams, in that local community. And when I was growing up, like a, a u was starting to take off a little bit. So I played on a couple different teams, but it was those things where and I know this isn’t a basketball podcast.

I mean, I know we’re not just going to talk about basketball on this podcast, right, right. But like, there is something, there’s something special about the sport of basketball and sort of like that connection in regards to playing pickup ball, like all those types of things, right? Like you need to depend on these four other people on the court, and that connection is created really quickly.

Right? And so I think that on what you’re saying about building that connection. I think there’s something about basketball that  you don’t need a, a huge field, you don’t need 20 players.  you need, you need three, you need four or five on a team, and you could start to create some of those connections.

And so that’s what that’s just one example of one sport. But I think that’s the through line through a lot of sports of how you can create those connections that’ll live on for a long time.

[00:11:47] Mike Klinzing: It’s funny, in basketball, and I say this all the time, and you could probably relate to this when you’re playing pickup basketball, which doesn’t exist in the same way, certainly that it did when I was a kid, but you could get out onto the court, right?

And there would be guys that. You could play with him for five minutes and immediately know like, I want this dude on my team. He’s fun to play with. Yeah. He moves the ball, he def, he defends, he does little. Yeah. And then there’s other guys that you could walk out on the court and five minutes later you’re like, I never want to play with this guy ever again because he just is going to shoot it every time he gets it.

Dribble between his legs 17 times before he shoots it. And anybody that I share that little anecdote with has the same reaction as you. They’re just laughing because they know, like already in your head, you’re picturing, I know the guy over here that does it this way, and I know the guy over here that does it that way.

And we all have those people in our past. If you’re a basketball guy, it makes complete sense when you start talking about who you’d want to play with and who you wouldn’t want to play with. So yeah, I think that’s one of the joys of basketball is that it is a smaller group. It’s so intimate and again. If you want to win the secret, the secret is out there, man.

Just share the ball and compete. Yeah. And if you do those two things I think about on any level of basketball, you can be pretty successful. And yet it’s amazing to me the number of players that play the game that don’t understand that that’s that that’s the secret and it’s just the way it is. So, alright, going back to your upbringing and all the different sports that you got a chance to play, and obviously that exposes you to a lot of coaches.

As you said, you’re running on and cross country on one side, you got basketball on the other different styles of coaching, I’m sure different coaches, when you think back to being a youth athlete, gimme a coach or two that stood out for you and why, and sort of the way that they impacted you and the way you thought about what it meant to be a coach.

[00:13:35] Jason Sacks: Yeah, I had a, it, it’s a great question. I love, I love talking about this in our, our PCA workshops too. Like if you asked the question to someone like, who was the most impactful coach or mentor that you had? Immediately somebody pops into their mind, and it could have been from 50 years ago, but they still have that connection to that individual.

And so I would say there’s a couple different people.  I think the, my cross country coach in high school is somebody that I would say where I came in as a freshman, as a, I’d say mediocre and a poor runner to where I ended up  as the senior we ended up, we ended up winning a a state championship.

And  I developed into a really good runner. He was somebody that got me to a place that I didn’t think I could get to, and he’s also somebody that believed in me early. It, it was, I remember sophomore year. Showing up for practice and like, at the beginning of the year, and he came over to me and he was like, you’re going to be our captain this year.

And I was like, hold on. Like, I’m not the best runner and I’m a sophomore, right? And we have upperclassmen. And he was like, no, like I know you, like you’re going to do this. And I think he was one of the first people that like, put that idea in my mind of like, okay, I can be this leader. And I also like that that put something inside of me that like, all right, like I need to show up for, for my teammate, for him, he believes in me.

So he was somebody that was just like was, was demanding, but like, was not demeaning in any way. He was going to like get the best out of you and he was going to be the one that put his arm around you. Like if you didn’t have it that day. He totally understood. And there were, there were different instances where I can remember certain races where like, I didn’t have it that day and he was doing everything he could to try to get me there.

And afterwards being able to just like have that conversation is like. Yeah, you know what? Like you didn’t have it. And guess what? Like, we’re going to come back tomorrow and we’re going to get right back after it and it’s going to be great. So he was one, one coach that always stands out. My basketball coach in high school was really young when he got the job.

He ended up coaching my brother for a year, and then I came in as a freshman. So it was, he was getting his feet under him. And we joke, because I got to coach alongside of him for a couple years after I graduated, when I came back home and started working for PCA. And we would joke like, oh, coach, like you’ve gotten so much softer, like, than you were when, when you had us.

And I think he would even admit it, like he went overboard on, on some of the ways that he was interacting with us. But I’ll say something that for him, he cared so much about. The players, he got more kids into colleges that didn’t think they were going to be able to play, to get them on a path to figure out what was next.

And  I think there were a lot of kids, whether it was like, oh, I’m not, I don’t have any plans. And it was like, great, let’s find a, a small school, a community college. Like, let’s get you continuing on. He, he, he lived and breathed the game of basketball. Like I still think about my, my kids are, are 10 years old right now.

We’re going to start start coaching them a little bit. I was like, I know all the plays that we ran. Like I can’t wait to run those again. Like just his basketball mind shows. Something that really like helped develop the love of the game. And then I would say like the third person was my dad. My dad coached  playing basketball a lot growing up in those youth travel teams.

And he was somebody that was a lawyer, worked a lot of hours, but he showed up for us and  really did it the right way and really focused on those fundamentals and  bringing the team together and really focusing on that development side of things. And I think even then, like the win at all cost culture wasn’t as prevalent, but still it was like, how do we use this as an opportunity to get kids better and teach them the fundamentals and then that’s going to give them the foundation that they can continue to grow on.

And so it was somebody that. It was great to build that relationship through the game with my dad that way. And then when I went on to play high school, he, he was at every game. My parents were always at every game. And he was one of those calm, cool and collected parents on in the stands was never, never again on it.

Like there were a couple things I’d look up at him in the stands and it was like that, like, okay, like shoot the ball a little higher or like, calm down, or like, you’re good. And it was, that was it, right? Yeah. And so it was those things where we had this sort of like, unspoken language and I knew that that support was there.

And my mom and I always joke about this, the story  and it got me in trouble once because they ran it in a newspaper and I was like, that’s not exactly what I meant, but I was he was somebody that. After the game, he would want to talk to the game talk about the game on, on like that car ride home or whatever.

And so I would joke, I was like, if I played really well, like I’m going home with that, you know? But if I didn’t have the best game, like I might need, I need, I might need mob. She’s not going to talk about the game, but we joke about it. He was he was great. And both my, I feel so blessed and I think that’s why I’m so passionate about PCA is because I grew up in a, in an unbelievable environment for playing sports, both at, at home and a lot of the coaches that I had and I definitely had some bad coaches and I quit soccer because I didn’t because of a bad coaching experience.

But seeing that I was privileged in that manner and knowing that, hey, if it is done right, look at this amazing opportunity. So that’s why been so excited about the work that we’re doing to make sure that all kids have access to that.

[00:18:54] Mike Klinzing: You talked about your high school basketball coach helping kids to find a path, right?

So when you graduate from high school, what’s your thought process in terms of your path? I know you went to Syracuse. What were you thinking about as you graduated from high school? Where’d you think you’re end up? Your mom’s a teacher, your dad’s a lawyer. Where, where’s your head at head at, head at as you’re heading to, as you’re heading to college?

[00:19:15] Jason Sacks: Yeah, so I actually interesting story, like when I was in fourth grade, I think was, was a basketball junkie. Watching, watching games on tv. And I think for some reason fell in love with Syracuse basketball team at, at a young age. I had, I had friends of my parents that went to Syracuse and I wanted to be, when I was young, I was like, I want to be a sports announcer.

And they were like, oh, well Syracuse has one of the best communication schools. And I was like, great, then I’m going to go to Syracuse. Like, I got my mind made up in fourth grade, right? And so I always wanted to go to Syracuse. My sister and brother ended up going to Syracuse first, and I was like, but I wanted to go first, but you guys were just older.

So like, I get the credit for, for Syracuse in the family. So what happened was, in, in going into my senior year, junior and senior years of, of, of high school basketball had conversations with my coach, it was like, Hey, like do you want to go and play in college? Do you want to probably could go play D three, maybe try to walk on somewhere at a higher level.

And I was like, listen, like I’m applying to Syracuse, it’s my dream school. I’m going to apply early decision and we’ll see what happens. Like if for some reason I don’t get in. Let’s have a conversation. But I still remember second game of the season, senior year we were playing at one of our, like one of the games, it’s like an hour away in our conference and come out after the game.

We, we lost, it was a, it was a tough, tough loss. And my dad was at the game with my brother who was home from school and we’re walking out to the car and my dad like, opens the car and he had to be like a big envelope. And it was my acceptance letter from Syracuse. So that was the second, second game of the season.

So I’m like, all right, like I know what I’m doing. Like, yeah, almost like pressure’s off. I don’t have to think about what is this season going to be? What do I have to do this season to play at the next level. So that was a lot of fun looking back on it. When I went to Syracuse, I ended up.

 considered maybe being a manager for a little bit for the basketball team. Ended up going a different route and worked for the student radio station and had an unbelievable experience as a broadcast journalism major. My senior year was 2003 when they won the national championship, so I was sitting court side doing stuff on the radio when Syracuse and Carmelo Anthony Nice.

When they won the national championship. So like an unbelievable experience for that where sure. Did I miss like not getting the chance to continue playing and do that for, I definitely, right. Like those are things, but love the experience that I had ended up. To New York and working in tv sports production.

And after a year I went back to college. I went back to get my master’s at NYU and ended up coaching basketball there because that was a piece that I felt like I was missing. Like I miss being around the team. I, I was volunteering at my high school, was helping out there, but then got the opportunity to, to live the, the D three experience a little bit.

Coaching at NYU.

[00:22:05] Mike Klinzing: What’d you like about coaching when you were doing it at that level?

[00:22:08] Jason Sacks:  I learned a lot. It was interesting. It was it was an interesting experience for a couple reasons. One I was so young, so I was maybe a year and a half older than the players on the team. So there was this like interesting dynamic there of like, how do I, how do I show up?

How do I build a credibility? How do I keep this not like a.  experience, like, like what is, what is the, the relationship? So I learned a lot about that of just sort of like, how sh how do I show up in this environment to try to not only build connection, but also try and help and not feel like I had to know everything because I was still learning at that age, obviously.

And  had never played college basketball. So it was just sort of like learning some of the, the ins and outs and the style of that coach who had been there for a long time. I think the other great learning experience was the, the D three experience and NYUI think is an elevated experience playing in the UAA and every other week we’re, we’re getting on planes and we’re flying to, to Atlanta and then to Cleveland and Boston and all the, and so it was, I mean, we, we were a joke.

I ended up doing my c my, my graduate thesis on like should NYU try to go D one and LOD one and talking to some of the athletic directors. And it was sort of like. You’ve experienced this unbelievable experience. If you’re low D one, you might be taking like bus trips throughout seven hour bus trips to get to games and  all this.

So there’s a little bit of a, a difference and just saying that you’re D one might not necessarily be, it’s what it’s all cracked up to be. And obviously that was 20 plus years ago. So we, we we’re going to need a whole couple other podcasts to talk about the changing landscape of college sports.

But it was I’m glad I got to experience that. It was again some of the people that I coached with 20 years ago or even coached on that team, I’m still in touch with. And it’s great to see some of them are working in the sports space now. So we’ve been able to collaborate on some different things.

So it was a, it was a really cool experience. I learned a ton and also learned that, you know what, I don’t think I want to necessarily be a full-time. College basketball coach. So I think those, those experiences are really important too. When you find out what you might not want to do.

[00:24:28] Mike Klinzing: That is true. I think finding out what you don’t want to do oftentimes is equally, if not more important than finding out what you do want to do.

It’s amazing the number of conversations that I’ve had, Jason with guys on the pod who some of them are like, I got that job and two days later I knew a hundred percent that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Yeah. And obviously we know that there are people, a lot of them are ones that I’m not talking to because most of the time I’m talking to guys who are in the coaching profession.

But there are lots of guys, I think like you that get an experience and they enjoy it. They like it, but they look at it and they say, I don’t know if this lifestyle and just everything that goes along with it is the right one for me. And so they look for. Other alternatives, especially for guys who want to stay in basketball or sports in general.

They try to find something, a path where they can still sort of feed that fix that they need for, for sports, but just do it in a different way. And so talk a little bit about how you come to find PCA, what that looked like for you, and then again, why it was so attractive to you back then. And then we’ll sort of work our way through your time at PCA and all, all the, all the impact that you’ve been able to have while you’re there.

[00:25:34] Jason Sacks: Yeah, it was, it was interesting and there was one step that, to piggyback on your point, there was one step in between NYU. So I, while I’m in grad school, I start working for the, the Knicks in basketball operations because I thought, hey, maybe this is the next step. Maybe it’s not coaching, but it’s more of like.

The video coordinator scout side of things where I grew up in camps that I went to when I was younger, one of the coaches at those camps was Frank Vogel, and he had this path where he came up as a played D three and then transferred and went to Kentucky and was their video coordinator.

And then worked his way up in, in the NBA video coordinator, scout assistant coach, and then has won an NBA championship. So he was somebody that I was sort of like, okay, there’s a, there’s a path. There’ve been some other coaches that have done it. So I ended up working for the Knicks for a season and it was one of those things where Larry Brown was the head coach, Isaiah was the gm.

It was a really tumultuous time within the organization, and it was one of those things where I thought, you know what? Maybe this isn’t what I’m ready to go all in on. I also saw that the video coordinator, the assistant video coordinator, they’d been there for 10, 15 years and they were sort of just like in that same role and it was like, all right, like is there an opportunity to, to do more?

So I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know if I was quite ready to move on. So I graduate from from NYU. I move back home. I’m substitute teaching. I’m coaching high school basketball and I’m interviewing with a lot of NBA teams for like after the season, start joining them at Summer League and maybe go from there.

Then randomly see PCA on a job website. And I remember pulling up the website and I was like, I don’t know what a nonprofit organization, I don’t really know what that means, but the mission like this resonates. This is how I. I’ve coached, this is how I experienced youth sports and it was like this small organization out of California.

I’m in, I’m in New Jersey, but they’re looking to hire somebody on the east coast in New Jersey to start to like, build things up. The organization at that point was about six or seven years old. And I remember I went through the interview process. They flew me out to California. It was the first time I’d ever been to California.

At that point like their offices, they were founded. We were founded at Stanford University offices right off of campus. Like, I’m on seeing the camp. I’m like, this is beautiful, this is great. And so I get the job and it’s it’s a, it’s a great start. Now I’m, I’m, I’m what, 25 years old?

I’m living back at home and this is, this is basically a remote position. Before remote positions were like a thing of, of the everyday life, right? And I get into it and I start doing it for like a month, two months, and. Our team calls are on just like conference calls. Like, I don’t know anybody I’m working with.

 I’ve met two or three people at the organization, but  I’m just like trying to do it all, all, and I’m like, I, you know what, like, I don’t know if this is going to be for me, you know? And I ended up going to, there was a D three school close to where we grew up. I ended up going to an information session.

I’m like, you know what? I’m going to go back. I’m going to get my teaching certificate, and I’m just going to be a high school athletic director. Not just like, I’m going to go and be a high school athletic director and coach and teach, and like, that’s going to be great.  because you know that, that I, that’s like the dream, right?

Like, that’d be awesome. Right? A a lot of fun. And so a month later after that, we end up having more of a team meeting where we bring it where PCA brought everybody out to California. A lot of our workshop trainers were there. And after those three or four days, getting to be in person with other people that were doing my job and seeing how they did it, I started to pick things up and I was like, all right, I understand it now.

I can do this. This is something bigger. I’m going to stick with it. And from there, like took off. And within within a year or so, I got promoted and then two years later took on a bigger role and ended up moving out to Chicago and coming up on 20 years now at PCA. And it’s just been  last year when I moved into the, the CEO role, I remember my mom saying like, if there was a job that I could have created for Jason, like this is the one that was it.

Like, it’s just been that perfect fit, the perfect organization. It’s everything that sort of like my life has been about. And it’s been fun because PCA has continued to grow. We’ve been through mergers, we’ve reinvented ourselves, the youth sports and the philanthropy world has evolved around us.

We have all these. Great partnerships. I get to we get to work with so many different professional sports leagues and corporate brands. So I always thought my dream job was going to be working for the NBA and now we get to do so much with the NBA. And it’s like, I get to I’m on the other side, but I also, we also get to do that with Major League Baseball and the NFL and all these other entities.

So we feel so lucky that a I found PCAB that I’ve been able to grow as the organization’s been able to grow and and see that the opportunities are continue to be out there, right? Because of what’s happening in the youth support space. And we’re trying to show up in the best way possible to make sure that those in the youth sports space we can deliver what they need at, at any certain time.

[00:30:43] Mike Klinzing: All right. Let’s talk about your role as CEO and Exactly, yeah. What that entails day-to-day, what are the things that you’re doing, and then as you kind of talk about what you’re doing, then we can dive into the bigger sports landscape and how PCA is trying to impact that. But just start with your role day-to-day, what you’re doing as the CEO.

[00:31:03] Jason Sacks: Yeah. So I’ll, I’ll, I’ll break it down two ways, right? One is the external side, one’s the internal side. So the last 10 years, maybe even 15 years of my time at PCA, I’ve been very external, overseeing a lot of our national partnerships with professional sports leagues, national governing bodies, corporate partners out doing a lot of speaking engagements, showing up and representing PCA.

Also have done a ton of fundraising. So whether that be with individuals, with board members, with institutional funders like foundations overseeing a lot of the revenue generation, which allows us to do the work that we do. So. A lot of that is still a lot of my day-to-day work, right?

Where it’s either out, you know representing PCA as a thought leader in the space and getting some of the work that we’re doing out there. It’s traveling to see donors and potential funders to hope continue, that they’ll continue to support PCA. And then it’s also just when you think about some of the big brands that we work with, the Gatorades, the ESPNs, the Under Armours, like figuring out, hey, like how do we continue to build that brand relationship?

How do we continue to deepen the impact that we have with these organizations? So luckily I’m surrounded by a great, great team and have been able to hand some of those key things off to to other teammates to be able to continue to elevate their work. So still have a hand in a lot of those things.

And then from an internal standpoint, we are an organization where 65 people full-time. Plus another a hundred part-time workshop. Presenters. Trainers, we call them. So one of the goals is try to figure out how do we maximize our impact with what we have, right? And so those are things like any other business or company like you’re looking at how are you, how are you doing things?

How are you maximizing everybody’s time? How are you making things more efficient? How are you making sure you’re, you’re balancing budgets and those types of things. So, you know. Personally, I love being external and, and doing some of those things, but internally, what really is important, the other thing that I really love about the job is I want PCA to be a great place to work.

And so how can I focus on the culture of the organization? How do we make sure that people feel like this is a, a good environment to them, for them to work where they see there’s opportunities to grow and they also feel really good about the work that we’re doing. So it’s a combination of those external things out representing PCA, bringing new funding to the table, and also making sure that we have a great organizational culture and that we are are performing at a high level and an efficient manner because people that are donated to PCA want to make sure that their dollars are going and being used the best way possible.

So it’s making sure that we’re balancing those two things.

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How over the course of your career and. You just listed off a myriad of skills that you have to have to be in that position to be able to deal with people who are, you’re asking them for money, then you’re then the steward of their money and making sure that that money is being utilized efficiently to meet the mission that you guys have.

So, over the course of the time that you’ve been with PCA, how have you developed your skills beyond just the experience, right, of being on the job and you get better at it as you get exposed to it. But what have you done, just on a personal level, to continue to expand your skillset, to allow you to have success in the role that you’re in now, which obviously you weren’t when you started 20 years ago?

[00:35:16] Jason Sacks: Yeah, it’s a good, good question. I think like any I think like any individual that is hopefully a continual learner, you even as a coach, like I’ve also been an adjunct professor, where I always go back to there’s, there’s two things. One is like. The way I was coached or the way I taught, like what were the things that stood out that I really liked, that I felt really did that got the job done.

It was like, oh, this is a great way to do this. Like, those are the things I take mental notes and try to figure out whether that, whether it was a coach, whether it was a, a, a previous manager or boss or whomever, or through through the day-to-day work, getting to meet and interact with a lot of company CEOs or people that are running their own business, whatever it might be, and learning from them or so that, that’s on one side.

The other side is just as like in coaching, if you’re watching TV and you, you see a play, you’re like, hold on, I’m going to pause that. I’m going to write that down. Like, I’m going to do that. It’s it’s listening to coaches, it’s hearing their interviews. It’s organizational leaders, it’s general managers, presidents of talking about their culture creation, what they’re doing, how they’re connecting with individuals, you know.

We’re lucky enough to have enough Steve Kerr as one of our national advisory board members, and been lucky enough to be able to do a couple different, like chalk talks with him and ask him some questions. And the fact that his coaching philosophy is around joy, mindfulness, competition, and compassion, like those types of things when you think about how joy shows up in your life every day and what type of person you are and how certain things drive you.

So I think it’s pulling from those types of things. I love trying to listen to podcasts, try to read books of other leaders and see how they’re doing things and how they’re working through different things and what, what they’ve been through to get to where they are. So I think it’s important, just like for any coach, just as  we, we actually took a.

We took our kids to our local high school their basketball game last week. And it was sort of, I was texting with somebody, it was like, man, I’m like back in a high school gym. And I’m like, almost like getting the itch, right? Like you’re watching the game, you start breaking it down. You’re like, how come we’re not doing this right?

Because, but then you also see things and I’m like, oh, that’s a, that’s a nice play right there. Like, let me see, let me, let, let me bank that. And so I think it’s the same in the day-to-day work is if, if we see another organization doing something really well, like, oh, let’s see how we could potentially do that here.

So I think that’s, it’s, it’s staying curious. I think it’s making sure that you’re a continual learner and seeing how one of my, one of the things I love about the job is like the different people that I get to interact with and, and learn from. And I think getting PCA in front of people and then figuring out how they best could show up and support PCA is one of my favorite things.

And I think it goes back to like, I was a broadcast journalism major. I was always. That, that, that entails doing a lot of research. It entails storytelling, it entails like making new connections and networking and those things show up every day in my day-to-day work.

[00:38:25] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I mean, you can just from the conversation that we’ve had now for the first 30 minutes, communication and relationships is a thread that’s gone through right from the very beginning.

That everything that you’ve done has somehow touched on the communication piece and the relationship piece that you’ve had in all these different places that you’ve been. And it’s enabled you to kind of find your path and figure out where you want to go. So let’s talk a little bit about the youth sports landscape today, and let’s start from your perspective with the positives.

What are the things that you see out there on a day-to-day basis in your role that you think are going in the right direction or things that you feel like, wow, we’ve really started to get this piece of it down in the youth sports? Let’s start positive.

[00:39:12] Jason Sacks: Yeah, I mean, I think the, the one, I think one of the positives is that, and it’s, it’s something we believe so strongly in is that like, we believe sports done right can change lives, right?

So the fact that there are so many kids participating in youth sports and I’ll, I’ll say that with a caveat, not everybody is, and that’s going to be one of the, the next question that you’re going to ask of like, what are, what are the things that we can get better? But there, there is, there are so many people that are playing youth sports, which is great.

It is where communities gather right now in our country, maybe it’s like the last place where we can bring people to together from different backgrounds and they can together play something fun and, and show up as a community. And it’s something that has, it has the potential to do that.

So but we need to be deliberate with it. Like it need, we need to make sure that it’s done right. So I think the fact that A, so many people are playing, b, the fact that it, people are starting to recognize. Youth sports as a viable platform for positive youth development. It’s not just about great, it’s just sports.

It’s this different thing. No, it is something that can actually teach a lot of life skills for kids that they’re going to stay and keep long after they’re playing days are over. I think the fact that more and more people are recognizing the importance of a well-trained coach and how important the coach is in providing that great experience for kids and recognizing that, hey, we don’t have many standards right now for coaches, right?

And so more and more people have come into the space, more funders, more people that are bringing attention to the fact that, hey it’s really important somebody that’s well trained, that’s equipped with tools that is going to provide this great experience for, for kids as they’re playing sports. So I think the, a lot of the positives are the fact that.

People are recognizing what this opportunity is. And it’s not just this, oh, sports is a, is a, is a thing on the side that kids do and it’s good for physical fitness. Yes, it’s great for physical fitness, it’s great for kids’ wellbeing. So I think there are, like the foundation, there are a lot of good things that we can, we can do.

And as I said before, we need to be deliberate in making sure that it’s, it’s done the right way.

[00:41:27] Mike Klinzing: I think your piece about coach education, Jason is something that is super important and I think another thing that goes along with that in terms of the education piece is parent education. And I’m sure we can touch a little bit on that just in terms of Yeah, figuring out what.

What’s important, why it’s important, the impact that youth sports can have. And when you were talking, one of the things that came into my head is I’ll often get people that will ask me questions about a a u basketball or travel basketball and say, Hey, my kid is such and such, where should they play? Or, what do you think about this organization?

Or, or is, is this where I should be? And my answer to them is always there’s a lot of organizations out there, some are good, some are not so good. Ultimately, you can be with a great organization and unfortunately get the worst coach in that organization and you’re going to have a subpar experience.

And conversely, you can be with an organization that’s, eh, it’s alright. But you have a coach that just for whatever reason, is a fantastic coach and you’re going to have a great experience. So it’s hard for me to recognize for, it’s hard sometimes to recommend a program without knowing. Who the coach is going to be in that particular, in that particular organization.

That’s the point that I always try to get across to people is like, it really comes down to, and especially when you’re talking about basketball, where it’s such a small group where you have maybe eight or 10 kids on a team, and that coach has an outsize impact on what that experience is going to be like.

Not only from a basketball standpoint of what you learn about being a basketball player and a basketball team, but as you said, so much of what we do, especially at the younger levels, is you just, you’ve have to infuse, I see the word joy behind you, like you have to infuse the joy into the experience and you have to be able to teach more than just how to shoot a layup.

You also have to teach what it means to be a great teammate at what it means to be resilient at what it means to. To work together as a group and all the things that we all know are, are, are so important in sports, but that sometimes, unfortunately we lose our way, especially as parents, right? We lose our way as to what is important and why we have our kids playing.

And I think that it’s something, even for me, and you’ll probably, if you haven’t already, you’ll probably experience it to some point where you have your kids and they’re playing a sport and there’s a part of you that you want to push just a little bit more. Or like, I have access to gyms and spaces that I never had as a kid.

And so when my kids were younger, they’re a little bit older now, but when they were younger and I’d go to do some basketball workouts or whatever and I would say, Hey, you want to come to the gym with me? And sometimes they’d say yes, and sometimes they’d say no. And when they’d say no, I’d kind of walk out under.

 grumbling under my breath as I’m walking out to the car. Like, what do you mean?  why why don’t they want to come and you forget that we’re all, everybody’s wired differently. And like, I know better. You know what I mean? Like, I’ve been in this space just like you. I like, I understand it and yet I felt in my own mind, I felt compelled to want to ask myself should I push them more, even though I know better.

And I can only imagine for somebody who doesn’t have those experiences that how difficult it is for them not to kind of get over the top. And now that I’ve been, I’ve got a son in college, my oldest daughter stopped playing sports and, well, she played tennis through 11th grade. And then my youngest is, is a sophomore in high school.

And what I found is, is that as you get them through the process of it all, you start to realize that what you ultimately want for them is, yeah, you want them to be successful in whatever. The sport is you want them to play as well as they can and meet their potential and work hard and all that stuff.

But ultimately, like you want sports to be a positive experience so that when they look back on it, they’re, they’re actually taking the lessons that they learned and not saying, oh, that was it was terrible to be on that team or man, but my dad was such a pain in the neck. I don’t even want to even revisit any of that stuff.

You want them to look back on it and be able to take all the positive. And so it’s, it’s a process of going through that. And I think that’s where, when I think about how we impact youth sports, it’s, it’s almost the conversation of you have to take a deep breath and understand and get back to why do we play kids play?

because it’s fun. They play because they want to be with their friends. They play because it’s an enjoyable experience. They don’t play when they’re eight because they’re thinking about a scholarship they can get or now NIL money that they can get or whatever it is. And sometimes we just have to go back to basics.

And I know that that’s a big part of what PCA is trying to preach.

[00:46:13] Jason Sacks: Yeah, I mean you, there’s so much great stuff in there and like there’s so much you can unpack on that, especially like there’s first, I think one of the important things you said is, we’ll start with like the coach education piece of it, right?

That I’ve seen firsthand. Same program, one coach versus another coach. Great experience, awful experience. How do we equip organizations with some sort of baseline, standard, baseline expectations for coaches? How can we get that in front of them? Because listen, there are plenty of parents that show up to volunteer and think that them just showing up, just showing is like the greatest thing ever, right?

Like, you need to volunteer. I’m here and Right. I’ve never played the game. I’ve never coached the game. But guess what? Like I watch a ton of sports on tv, so that’s how I’m going to coach our first grade basketball team, right? And we’re like, no, that is not what we need. Right? And so I think. Sort of baseline of, of consistency is really important.

I think the other thing, when you got into the, the, the parent conversation and what they want for their, for their child, I think depending on your child, depending on how old they are. Like, things are going to evolve, right? And at one point they might be ready for something, at another point they might not be ready for it.

And so those consistent check-ins as a parent with your child of what they want. And we have an exercise that we use with our, in our workshops and as, it’s one of our most popular resources, we call it the a hundred point exercise for parents. And it’s basically we ask parents, what are your goals for your child in youth sports?

And there’s 10 or 15 things on a page and you have a hundred points to divide it up. And you want to put like, have fun, make friends, get, get, get exercise, earn a college scholarship, like whatever it might be, and divvy up those points. And then we ask them two things. One, when you show up to their game, the things that you’re cheering for on the sidelines, do they line up with where you put you are?

The most amount of points. So it’s like, if you don’t have anything on like the results side of it and that, but that’s all you’re cheering for, then like, how are we, how are we holding you accountable as a parent for how you show up? The second thing we ask them to do is make a copy of it. Have it blank.

Have your child fill it out. Where do you align and where are you misaligned? Because I think it’s a great conversation starter. You might be pushing your child who is on a travel team and you’re traveling all over the country now playing a sport, and they’re at a point in their life where they say, you know what?

I would rather just be playing this sport with my friends in a less competitive mindset. And I’d rather focus more on that. Well, if you don’t know that and that hasn’t come up in a, in a conversation, then you’re going to continue pushing because you think that’s what they want. Right? And that’s where then there becomes more, you know.

More challenges and more tension between a parent and a child, and we want to try to, try to take that away. So I think those are, are some ideas that, that you can think about as a parent. I also think the other thing for a parent is like, starting with the end in mind when you get started is like, what do I in, in five years, all this time and money we’re going to invest into baseball.

Like, where do I want to end this, this to end up? Like, am I saying I want to make sure that they got a college scholarship? Okay. If that’s the case, like are they on board with it? Is it like, are you going all in on this? Or at some point are you going to say, Hey, I just want them to have fun. And then make sure that you’re like winding up the two things.

Right. I’ve as our kids are getting older, they’re 10 years old, similar to what you said, like I feel blessed that like this is the space I work in, but also I can feel the pressure right. Of. I keep trying to keep up with other people. And you think about social media, you think about all these things like, oh, our kids are going here, they’re going there.

Look at these jerseys. Look at, oh, your kid’s only playing rec. Like, there’s so much tied up into that and it becomes a status thing that at the end of the day, it’s like, well, no, we just want to make sure that the child’s having a good experience. And if they’re pushing and they’re showing up and they’re, they get home from school and they go right outside and they’re practicing.

Like it all depends on where your child is at a certain point. But I’ve had conversations with parents that have kids that are in sixth and seventh grade, and they’re like, we have played 60 baseball games already in June by June. And they’re like, what is this all for? Like, what’s the end goal?

And we live in a, in a district where a lot of towns feed into the, the high school, it’s a massive high school. Plenty of kids are not making teams at the high school level. Like, so if that is. That’s the only thing which, which I think is a problem. And there are some high schools now that are like running in rural leagues, which I think is amazing, right?

Like the more we can do that where, where has, where has rec sports done, but like how can we continue that opportunity for kids to play even if they’re not making teams, because there is a little limited amount of space for, for some of these sports. So it’s just trying to figure out how we can make sure that as a parent we’re aligned with what our child wants and also know at certain points like when, when we can push them a little bit and when we need to show up in a different manner as well.

[00:51:37] Mike Klinzing: I love that idea of intermurals, right? Because that’s one thing that the the not highly competitive atmosphere that I think used to exist where kids could play in their local community, whatever sport you’re talking about. And those opportunities are becoming fewer and fewer. And there’s also becoming a, I dunno if stigma is the right word, but as you said, like yeah, you’re only playing, you’re only playing rec soccer, or you’re only playing, like why aren’t you?

But at a certain point it becomes, you have, you have seven levels of travel soccer or travel basketball or whatever. At some point, level seven is, I mean, it’s you, you might be paying travel soccer prices, but you’re essentially playing, right.  you’re essentially playing recreation, soccer. And so much of it is again, the competition amongst parents of saying, I did this or my kid’s here.

Or again, you mentioned the fear of missing out on, oh no, they’re my kid’s. Getting ahead of somebody else is getting ahead of my kid, and all those things. And  it, it’s interesting Jason, because  when I think back upon my time as an athlete and I look at. What was important to me in the moment, right?

And what was always important to me when I was playing was the result of the game. Mm-hmm. How well I played and did I impact my team? Winning or losing, like when I think about me. Yeah. As a college athlete, 98% of my energy and thought process was focused on my performance and the performance of my team.

Now, as a 55-year-old man, looking back at that, I played in what, a hundred and some Col 120 college games. Maybe there’s maybe eight that I remember almost anything about like I think of like conference games, like we played against Ohio University. 10 times in my career and somebody will say, Hey, do you remember that OU game when you were a junior?

 I’m like, no. Like I have no, like, I have no recollection of any of that. Like that’s what was so important to me in the moment. And yet now I don’t even remember that stuff. But what I do remember is the experience that I had, good, bad, whatever it was. Any team that I played on high school, college, even going back to rec basketball or I played a year of CYO when I was in seventh grade.

Like I remember like that was a good experience or, Hmm. That wasn’t a great experience. And so much of what we put an emphasis on in the moment ultimately is like, it’s not nearly as important as the experience that we get out of it. Like there’s times like my daughter who’s a sophomore in high school.

Again, as any father, right. You just, you you see and you’re like, I want her to do this, or I want her to play a little bit better. Yeah. And then I see her on the bench at certain times and a teammate scores, and she’s standing up and she’s clapping. She’s got a giant smile on her face. The other night at a game, we had a girl who doesn’t, plays a lot, but doesn’t shoot many threes, and at the end of this game she made two threes and the, the bench was just going crazy for this girl who made these two shots.

And like that, like that’s what it, like, that’s what it’s all about. And I think so many people, again, I don’t know about your experience, but I feel like, and maybe I’m wrong, but this is just what I see, like at the, the, almost like the younger you go, the more intense people are. because everybody still has the dream.

By the time you get to high school, people have started to kind of realize, not always, but, but somewhat realize where their, where their kid slots. And so again, I don’t know, I don’t know if, if you see that as well.

[00:55:27] Jason Sacks: Yeah, no, I mean I think it, I think it is this thing where. Oftentimes it’s, it’s parents want to make sure that they’re doing everything possible for their child to like Yeah.

Give them the opportunity to succeed. Mm-hmm. Like, just in case, like, I want to make sure, right. I’ve done everything we can. If they this they want, they want to do it. Right. And  to your point about like what you remember and  how at that point is the most important thing. And I think, I’ve been talking to a lot of parents and other folks in this space and I don’t think it’s I’m always cautious I don’t want to to sound like the guy is like, back in my day, this is what and because it’s good to, it’s good to have that as a, a point, like a, a data point and also recognize that like times have changed, we’re in a new experience and that that’s, that’s totally fine.

Right. When we look at what’s happening in the youth sports space, like we’re not going to go back to the way it was when we grew up. But I think there is, I think the pendulums. Could swing back a little bit because I feel like I’m hearing more and more parents questioning why they’re doing everything that they’re doing.

Right. And it could be the example of, Hey, we’re playing baseball. All right? We made this like all-star team. Now we’re we we made a run at a tournament. We keep playing, we’re putting off summer plans. Next thing  it’s the end of July. We have two weeks before school starts and we didn’t really feel like we had a summer vacation, right?

Or we get on a plane, we go to this big tournament, five states away, we end up playing a team from a town two towns over, right? And it’s just sort of like, what are we doing? And so the question then becomes like go and compete. Like do all that, like create that environment, but also recognize that there’s more, there’s more out there and how do we make sure that we’re not losing out on those experiences?

And I will like raise my hand of saying. Like, we’re all guilty of this, right?  our kids were playing flag football in the fall. They were having so much fun. It, it’s great. Like, it’s obviously like a finite number of games because you play once a week. And there were some different opportunities where it’s like, Hey, it’s a long weekend, should we go somewhere?

I was like, but then they’re going to miss a game. And like, I know how, how important it is. And in that sense, like they loved it. Like they were all in. So they were sort of driving that of like, I don’t want to miss this. But it, it becomes hard, like, believe me, and going back to the earlier point of what is best for your child and your family at a certain point.

So if, if your, if your child and you are all in on certain things like playing travel, travel, like, great, that’s going to be good for your family. But I think the important thing is like, is everybody aligned on it and making sure that you know what the, the end goal is here. And make sure that you’re not just getting caught up because you feel like you have to like, take a step back.

Is this right for us right now? It is. Great. Let’s do it. So.

[00:58:22] Mike Klinzing: Makes sense. I mean, I think you go back to it being kid driven. Right? Kid driven is almost always going to get you to a pretty good space for your family. Yeah. If your kid wants more of it, if your kid enjoys it, if your kid is expressing that and you’re having conversations with them about it and Right, yep.

Then you’re going to end up, then you’re going to end up in the right place. It’s when you, when you don’t talk about it and then you’re wanting something that your kid doesn’t want and you have that disconnect, that’s when everybody gets unhappy. because the kid’s unhappy. Maybe they don’t want to disappoint mom or dad.

Mom and dad are unhappy because maybe the kid isn’t working as hard or just doesn’t look like they’re having fun and then everybody’s at each other and it just, it, it doesn’t go that way. So. Alright. PCA a, talk to me a little bit about some of the solutions that you guys are putting in place to try to improve.

The youth landscape for everyone, for coaches, for kids, yeah, for parents. Just go through some of the initiatives that you guys have going right now that are, that are trying to make an impact.

[00:59:24] Jason Sacks: Yeah, yeah. In addition to our day-to-day we have 1600 schools and youth sports organizations, community organization, parks and rec that we partner with, where we’re primarily doing coach training, parent education, things for student athletes.

So that’s really like our day-to-day 3000 live workshops a year. I want to focus on two, two other areas of the organization where we’re really trying to make an impact. One is this gap in access to participation. So many we talked about 35 million kids playing youth sports, which is great, but there are many kids from under-resourced communities that are not, that don’t have the ability to play youth sports.

And there’s a lot of different reasons either like the, it, it costs too much. There isn’t a league that’s close to them. They don’t have the transportation to get there.  they’re getting priced out of things, whatever it might be. So one of the things that we look to do is in, in local communities, figuring out what are the barriers for access for kids to get a, a positive youth sports experience.

And one of the examples that we have is we set up these local youth sports access coalitions in different cities. So we have them in Oakland and San Francisco and San Diego. We’re doing some work in Buffalo. We’re looking at doing some work in Baltimore where the, the example from Oakland, which I love, is that through our work alongside key partners in that community, we learned that kids couldn’t play youth sports for free until they got to middle school.

So there were different pay to play options or, or through different entities where you could show up, but there was still a cost. And so what we were able to do is come together with the school district, parks and Rec, other community organizations. And a couple years ago we helped start a elementary school sports league, which created 3000 new youth sports opportunities for kids in Oakland.

So now they have the access, the opportunity to, to play and try a new sport. We’re there helping recruit coaches, train coaches, providing that wraparound experience for the child so that when they show up, it doesn’t cost them anything. It’s at a, it’s at a field that they can access and it’s a, and it’s a positive experience.

And one of the great things that came out of that is we did some impact study and what we were hearing from parents is the parent felt like their family now was closer, felt closer to the community and to the school district because of this sports league. So going back to some of the first things I said were.

Sports brings communities together if it’s done the right way. And so that’s something that we’re looking at. What are the barriers that kids have to access sports? Sometimes it could be there isn’t a coach there, so can we help recruit a coach, place a coach, train that coach? Sometimes it is it costs too much or there’s not transportation, or there isn’t a local rec league, right?

It’s all this travel where it could be too expensive, it could be too much of a time commitment so people are getting left behind the, the, the playing field isn’t level, so we want to try to work alongside local partners to remove any of those barriers. So that’s one idea. The second is our, our new, new partnership with ESPN around take back sports.

And that initiative is really. How do we get sports back and bring back some of the really important things of playing those local rec leagues and, and building up the infrastructure so that there are more opportunities to play. Making sure that coaches are well trained, making sure kids are sports sampling and playing multiple sports, and not just playing one sport year round because there’s so many benefits to playing multiple sports.

And the fourth thing is, how do we keep fun and joy in the youth sports experience? Right? Are we pushing kids too fast, too young? And it’s getting the fact that we’ve lost our way a little bit in regards to like, hey, at the end of the game, this is, at the end of the day, this is a game. It’s supposed to be fun.

Let’s make sure that is at the forefront. Guess what? You can have fun and still win. You can still have fun and improve every day. So how do we keep that at, at the center? And  ESPN has been a great partner. They’ve been able to bring. Athlete ambassadors, people like Peyton and Eli Manning, and Stephan Curry and Asia Wilson.

And so we’ll have different PSAs on their platforms, which are driving folks to take back sports.org, which is on PCA’s website. You have a lot of great resources there for parents.  one, one of my favorite things is we have, are you that sports parent assessment. So we ask a couple questions.

Are you that sports parent that is doing this on the sideline? And we don’t, we don’t take any information at that part of the website so you can more of a self-reflection. But then we do have a parent pledge that will then sign you up to get more parent resources. And so when you are able to partner with somebody like an ESPN that has the platform and the exposure to try and bring more people into what youth sports should be about.

That’s just a massive opportunity. And in the last couple weeks they’ve started putting some of those PSAs on the Hulu platform. And so if you’re watching a show on Hulu and you see a commercial, you’ll see one of the Takeback sports commercials, you’ll see PCA’s logo. We’ve seen a huge spike in people signing up.

We’ve had people, athletic directors, coaches reach out to us and say, Hey, I saw the Commer commercial. We even had a state legislator reach out to us, said, I’m a sports parent as well. Like, are there things I can be doing in my role as a assembly person that can help with some of this?

And it’s like, yes, A lot of this comes down to policy, both little P and big P policy of like, how do we make sure that fields are accessible for everybody? How do we make sure we’re setting expectations and holding coaches accountability? So that’s, that’s been great. And it’s, we really believe that parents say play such an important part in a positive youth sports experience.

So partnering with ESPN on that has been great.

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I think people want the experience that you and I are talking about. I really do. There are very few people who say, I want to spend as much money as humanly possible, travel as far away from home as I can. I want to be in the stands yelling and screaming about officials or at the other team. Like there really aren’t that many people who want that.

And yet at the same time, Jason, what you find is that it’s really difficult. And this goes to, I think, the mission of PCA and what you guys are trying to do and on, on a, on a really big scale, right? You talked about policy, right? And yeah, it’s almost like you get to a point where you have to go into the system.

If you want your kid to have an opportunity to play a given sport, and I’ll give you two examples. So my kids right now are 21, 20 and 16. And I remember before they were of the age where they were going to start, and I’m going to just going to use basketball as the lens here, but before they were going to start playing basketball, I remember saying to people I think there’s a different path for my kids to play basketball.

They don’t have to go through this whole travel basketball. And I just don’t know if kids want to practice two or three times a week for two hours and then go play in these games. I’m like, why can’t they play and do what I did when I was a kid? I’m on my driveway. I used to ride my bike up to the park when I’m 12 or 13 years old and I’m playing with high school kids.

And it kind and then as I got to the point where my kids got to that age, you start to look around and you’re like, well pick up. Basketball doesn’t exist. In the same way kids don’t play in the neighborhood the way I did. And so you start saying, well, if they’re going to play basketball, they kind of have to play and go through this system.

And so you kind of, that’s where I ended up. And then I’ll give you another one from recently. So family, friends of ours, their daughters in fifth grade, and she’s played like CYO volleyball for a couple years. Yeah. And from my conversations with them, she likes volleyball, but is not like a 24 1 out of a thousand kids or one out of whatever number you want to throw out there is the kid who never puts the ball down and is a maniacal practice.

Right? Yeah. But most kids, again, are not that. And so I don’t think this  their daughter is that way. And they were talking about Jo volleyball and that she had played CYO and now they were going to join this JO volleyball team. And so my wife and her friend are talking and she’s like, well, how much does this how much is this going to cost?

And they’re like, oh, it’s this year. It’s this year. It’s $3,500. And my wife turns to me and she’s like, how much do we pay for AAU basketball? I’m like, well, I know you and I talked about it. We thought it was a lot. And it was like 850 or something. We thought that was crazy. And I’m like, you have no idea.

You get into the JO volleyball thing and then they’re like, yeah. And that’s this year it’s kind of a trial. And then next year, if she’s still on a team, then next year it’s like 5,500. And to your point, right, like that to me just seems like 850 in a lot of ways to me seems crazy. $5,000 for my fifth grader to play volleyball seems certifiably insane.

But yet, if she wants to play volleyball. In any way, shape or form. It’s not like she can just go play some pickup volleyball with girls down at the recreation center. Those avenues just don’t exist. And so when I hear you talking about the initiative that you guys have there in Oakland, right? You’re trying to break down the idea that there’s only one pathway.

And I think there’s a lot of parents who want an alternative pathway, but it’s really hard Sure. To figure out what it is and find it. And so if we as a sports community could figure out how to provide. Multiple paths eventually, and I know you’ll agree with this eventually, right? The kids who end up getting a scholarship or being college athletes, those kids don’t do it because mom and dad dragged them to the gym or to the field.

They end up getting there because they love it enough to practice and do the things that are required on their own. They’re going above and beyond and doing the extra, not because mom told them to, but because eventually they decide this is what I want to do, not what my parents want to do. And I think you could get to that same point in a lot of different paths and in a lot of sports today we only have one path.

[01:10:55] Jason Sacks: Yeah, no I do. It’s a great point. I think there the two great examples there and you often feel like you need to get on the path really early and that involves investing a lot of time and money at an early age, which unfortunately then can potentially lead to burnout. And then the child is done by sixth, seventh, eighth grade, whereas like, oh no, if we would’ve put them on that path at like fifth grade instead of first grade, then they then it, then they’re, as they’re developing, they’re getting bigger, they’re getting stronger.

Like they’re, they’re hitting it. They’re catching the wave at the right time where I feel like we’ve, we’ve started a little too early. Right? And that’s where I think sometimes we miss out on a ton, right? Because kids are already done before we actually know their, their true potential. And so that’s why man, if we could just have more opportunities where people didn’t feel like they had to go all in at an early age, and I think that would solve a lot.

And I think it would be bring a lot more like sanity to, to everyone’s lives of just feeling like what they had to, what, what they have to keep up with versus how they can make decisions that are best for their entire family. Right.  it’s. 40% of vacations are taken around youth sports events now.

Right. And it’s sort of like, well, how is that driving it and why what are some other things that we can be doing as well

[01:12:19] Mike Klinzing: that’s not really a vacation if you do that, I can guarantee I can, I can GI can guarantee that it doesn’t feel like, it doesn’t feel like a vacation when you’re on a, a youth sports trip that is that is for certain you can carve out some time, but you’re still very much involved in your sport and it’s, there’s challenges and there’s no doubt that what you guys are doing is critically important in terms of just being able to get the message out.

And as you mentioned, just talking about the day-to-day and training and the work, the trainers and the workshops and getting out in front of schools and recreation departments and people. And then the coach education piece is so part, is so powerful when you have a good coach in front of a, a group of kids.

What a difference that makes in, in someone’s life. I think about the stories that you’ve told. Today, just in terms of the things that coaches did for you and how that’s impacted you, and you’re still looking back on those today and know that they had an influence on you. And I know that same thing for me with my coaches, that there’s things that I always say, there’s stuff that you say as a coach that you never, ever remember saying it.

And some kid out there is carrying that around with them and it’s having a huge impact on them day to day. I have five or six things that coaches said to me over the course of time. Some of them, most of them, positive, one or two of them negative, that I still carry with me today that I think about that impact me when I think about what I’m doing in my life or what decision I’m going to make.

And I just remember them saying, Hey, you’re this, or Hey, you can do that. And that’s powerful. And when you have the right person in front of a group of kids that has the right training, it makes such a, it makes such a difference and such an impact. So as you guys look ahead and look forward. Let’s say you could spin this thing out five years from now.

What are some things that you would hope to have accomplished through what you guys are doing with the initiatives that you talked about today and maybe something new that you’re kind of thinking about or might be in the embryonic planning stages?

[01:14:18] Jason Sacks: Yeah, I think, I think one, one big piece of it is, is scale and just making sure that a lot of the things that we’re doing now, how we get that to more people.

 when I started at PCA way back in the day and I was going out to local youth sports organizations, right? And I would ask them, I’m like, are you doing background checks right on your coaches? And at that point it was like, I don’t know, hit or miss. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. And now it’s like, of like, yes, of course we’re doing background checks.

And now we’ve seen many organizations like, yes, of course we’re doing SafeSport. We want PCA to be the yes, of course we’re doing this. Like why would we even consider not doing it right? Like we know the importance of creating this positive environment for kids to play sports. That is number one.

Because 50 years from now, 20 years from now, they’re not going to remember the the, the win-loss record, the jersey, all those types of things. They’re going to remember the experience, they’re going to remember the individuals, what the coaches were saying what that, what, how they made them feel.

So why don’t we invest more in that? So I think part of this is, is the scale piece of it. I think the other so it’s a lot of the things that we’ve talked about, like how do we bring more opportunities to, to play for families and  whether that be in under, in.

At a certain age, there aren’t as many opportunities anymore. Like how do we try to keep kids active for as long as possible?  like when you hear people talk about lifelong sports, like tennis or swimming or like, why can’t some of these others, not even, I don’t even want to be lifelong, like, why can’t they be through high school that kids still have the opportunity to play?

So how do we get creative with these different spaces and opportunities and working together with other key community organizing, whether it be park and rec departments, school districts, like there are spaces, there are venues. How do we make sure that they’re being used in the best possible way?

 just as we talked about like, what do I think about at PCA on a day-to-day basis? How are we maximizing it? How are we being efficient? Like, how are we providing more opportunities in local communities for kids to play sports? So I think a lot of what we’re trying to do is bring. Bring these opportunities to more communities and make sure that it’s a positive youth sports experience.

There are a lot of barriers that are keeping kids away from a positive youth sports experience. Some are focused on access, some are focused on experience. I think our goal is to continue to chip away at those because we know when we get kids to a positive youth sports experience, so many great lifelong impacts were going to come along the way as well.

[01:17:01] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, there’s no question about that. All right. Before we wrap up, Jason, I want to give you a chance, share how people can connect with you with PCA, whether they want to get involved from being a trainer, to being a donor, to just finding out more about what you guys are doing as an organization. Just give us everything how people can connect, and then I’ll jump back in after you do that and wrap things up.

[01:17:24] Jason Sacks: Awesome. Yeah, no, I appreciate that opportunity. So, easiest way is positivecoach.org. That’s our website. You’ll see there’s a resource center there. Talks about a lot of different r how to partner with PCA, how to donate to PCA, so positive coach.org. You can also visit take back sports.org. That’s our partnership with espn.

A lot of great resources there for parents. You’ll see some great videos from  a ton of well-known athletes that you and your kids will recognize talking about some really important topics in you sports. And then follow us on social platforms positive coach us on, on Instagram, on, on Facebook, on Twitter and X.

So follow us. We pump out a lot of great content. So we know that coaches and parents are often they’re not going to get all their information from a online course or a live workshop. So we have a lot of bite-sized content that they can access in those different areas as well.

[01:18:19] Mike Klinzing: Perfect. Jason cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to join us. Really appreciate it and to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we’ll catch you on our next episode. Thanks.

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[01:19:24] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast presented by Head Start Basketball.