SIMONE JOYE – AUTHOR OF THE BOOK “THE PARENT’S SECTION: OUTSIDE THE LOCKER ROOM” – EPISODE 771

Website – https://www.simonejoye.com/theparentssection

Email – ceo@simonejoye.com

Twitter – @simonejoye

Simone Joye is the author of the new book, “The Parent’s Section: Outside the Locker Room”, With captivating commentary from parents, players, and coaches, The Parent’s Section is a data-driven resource based on Simone’s seven-year journey with her son—from travel teams and high school gyms to college arenas.  Simone’s book serves as a road map for parents to ensure their student-athlete has a fair shot at finding the right coaches, teams, and schools.”

As the CEO of S Joye & Associates Simone is a writer, award-winning nonprofit leader, and charity fundraiser. 

If you’re looking to improve your coaching please consider joining the Hoop Heads Mentorship Program.  We believe that having a mentor is the best way to maximize your potential and become a transformational coach. By matching you up with one of our experienced mentors you’ll develop a one on one relationship that will help your coaching, your team, your program, and your mindset.  The Hoop Heads Mentorship Program delivers mentoring services to basketball coaches at all levels through our team of experienced Head Coaches. Find out more at hoopheadspod.com or shoot me an email directly mike@hoopheadspod.com

Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram @hoopheadspod for the latest updates on episodes, guests, and events from the Hoop Heads Pod.

If you’re looking to improve your coaching please consider joining the Hoop Heads Mentorship Program.  We believe that having a mentor is the best way to maximize your potential and become a transformational coach. By matching you up with one of our experienced mentors you’ll develop a one on one relationship that will help your coaching, your team, your program, and your mindset.  The Hoop Heads Mentorship Program delivers mentoring services to basketball coaches at all levels through our team of experienced Head Coaches. Find out more at hoopheadspod.com or shoot me an email directly mike@hoopheadspod.com

Follow us on social media @hoopheadspod on Twitter and Instagram.

Grab pen and paper before you listen to this episode with Simone Joye, author of the book, “The Parent’s Section: Outside the Locker Room”

What We Discuss with Simone Joye

• Her background in the non-profit sector
• The conversation she had with Shaq’s Mom that inspired her to write “The Parent’s Section”
• The year round time commitment of raising a college basketball player
• The challenge of playing on an out of state team
• Having to work the scoreboard at tournaments you paid to get into
• “I’ve seen some parents that said, Hey, we paid $40,000. for my kid while he was in high school and that wasn’t even including like tuition fees, it was just for basketball and I think that’s crazy.”
• The lack of prejudice and racial problems in the basketball world
• “We have to understand as parents that what we say to our children stays with them their entire life.”
• “We are here to support our kids, not to yell at coaches, not to yell at referees, not to get physically violent.”
• “Parents have to understand that I don’t know any coach that says, okay, okay parent next game he’ll start cause you came in.”
• The benefits of attending a Prep School
• Navigating the travel logistics of AAU Basketball
• “Trust nothing unless it’s in writing”
• The pressure on student-athletes during the recruiting process and how parents can help
• “When your kid actually gets a written scholarship offer is probably the happiest day of their lives playing basketball.”
• Why parents and players should get caught up in worrying about player rankings

Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!

Become a Patron!

We’re excited to partner with Dr. Dish, the world’s best shooting machine! Mention the Hoop Heads Podcast when you place your order and get $300 off a brand new state of the art Dr. Dish Shooting Machine!

Prepare like the pros with the all new FastDraw and FastScout. FastDraw has been the number one play diagramming software for coaches for years, and now with it’s integrated web platform, coaches have the ability to add video to plays and share them directly to their players Android and iPhones via their mobile app. Coaches can also create customized scouting reports,  upload and send game and practice film straight to the mobile app. Your players and staff have never been as prepared for games as they will after using FastDraw & FastScout. You’ll see quickly why FastModel Sports has the most compelling and intuitive basketball software out there! In addition to a great product, they also provide basketball coaching content and resources through their blog and playbank, which features over 8,000 free plays and drills from their online coaching community. For access to these plays and more information, visit fastmodelsports.com or follow them on Twitter @FastModel.  Use Promo code HHP15 to save 15%

Your first impression is everything when applying for a new coaching job.  A professional coaching portfolio is the tool that highlights your coaching achievements and philosophies and, most of all, helps separate you and your abilities from the other applicants.

The key to landing a new coaching job is to demonstrate to the hiring committee your attention to detail, level of preparedness, and your professionalism.  Not only does a coaching portfolio allow you to exhibit these qualities, it also allows you to present your personal philosophies on coaching, leadership, and program development in an organized manner.

The Coaching Portfolio Guide is an instructional, membership-based website that helps you develop a personalized portfolio.  Each section of the portfolio guide provides detailed instructions on how to organize your portfolio in a professional manner.  The guide also provides sample documents for each section of your portfolio that you can copy, modify, and add to your personal portfolio.

The first Training Camp – Elite Skill Development and Performance Combine will be held on the campus of Western Reserve Academy, just outside of Cleveland, OH powered by Unleashed Potential & the Hoop Heads Podcast. The camp is designed for boys rising to grades 6-9 and will take place June 29 – July 1, 2023. An emphasis on improving your individual skills in the context of a team environment will be the hallmark of the Training Camp. 

Mike Klinzing from Head Start Basketball/The Hoop Heads Podcast & Joe Stasyszyn from Unleashed Potential will serve as the Camp Directors of this inaugural Training Camp.

Campers can expect 3 days of hard work, intense skills instruction, and learning how to be a great teammate on and off the court at the Training Camp.  Players will participate in 10 Elite Skill Development Sessions led by some of the best coaches from across the country.  Visit headstartbasketball.com to get registered.

THANKS, SIMONE JOYE

If you enjoyed this episode with Simone Joye let her know by clicking on the link below and sending him a quick shoutout on Twitter:

Click here to thank Simone Joye on Twitter

Click here to let Mike & Jason know about your number one takeaway from this episode!

And if you want us to answer your questions on one of our upcoming weekly NBA episodes, drop us a line at mike@hoopheadspod.com.

TRANSCRIPT FOR SIMONE JOYE – AUTHOR OF THE BOOK “THE PARENT’S SECTION: OUTSIDE THE LOCKER ROOM” – EPISODE 771

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight, and we are extremely pleased to be joined tonight by Simone Joye, the author of the book, “The Parent’s Section: Outside the Locker Room.” Simone, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:17] Simone Joye: Thank you. Thank you for having me.  I’m excited.

[00:00:18] Mike Klinzing: We are very excited to have you on. As I told you before, we got on the call, I finished your book this morning. Really well done. It is a book about how to navigate the basketball world as the parent of a basketball player, and we’re going to get into a whole bunch of topics, a lot of which we’ve talked about with other people on the podcast, and definitely looking forward to getting Simone’s perspective.

Want to start by just giving you a chance, Simone, to tell people a little bit about your background, both as a parent and what you do in your professional life and kind of where the idea for the book came from.

[00:00:55] Simone Joye: Sure. Good evening. My professional background is in the nonprofit sector. I have been in the nonprofit sector for about almost 30 years now.

As a fundraiser. I’m a past CEO of a Boys and Girls Club, and primarily the area that I specialize in is youth development. So I’ve worked in various states doing youth development work for about eight years or so. I actually ran an emergency shelter for homeless youth down in Atlanta. And most recently I’ve worked in the Maryland area helping young adults and veterans get it training and jobs within technology as a fundraiser.

The inspiration from the book, obviously I’ve been a plus one for my own son. School excuse me, currently attend and plays for St. Bonaventure University after spending two years at Morgan State University. And for the past seven years, I have been a basketball mom. I was thrust into being a basketball mom.

It was not a chosen career that I had chosen for my son . But I got dropped into it. And really the inspiration for the book came from a, a very fortunate evening that my son and I got to spend with miss Lucille O’Neal, Shaq’s mom at a draft one year. And obviously I was excited to meet her, but I had questions from a parental lens on like, how did you do this?

You know? It’s so hard, it’s so tough and she kind of told me a little bit about her background. She had written a book and I got her book and I said, you know what? I need to write a book for other parents who are coming behind us to help them in this journey because it is tough. There’s a whole world outside of the locker room that many people don’t know about.

And so I tried to put together a guide to really help other parents and their student athletes.

[00:03:15] Mike Klinzing: As I said, off the top, the book is really well done. Anybody who is. A basketball parent will certainly recognize themselves, will recognize people that they’ve come across in the basketball landscape.

You will recognize those characters and those stories in the book. I think one of the first things that struck me, which I know is a hundred percent true, is you made the point that your time is not your own. That youth basketball is all consuming and it takes up a ton, not just of the players’ time, but also the parents’ time.

Talk a little bit about just how much time you’ve spent, you’ve seen people spend and why people have to understand what the time commitment is when you get into this youth basketball space.

[00:04:13] Simone Joye: So I think the main thing that sticks out is that. Although basketball seemingly is a seasonal venture, it’s actually year round.

So that’s one thing. You have the high school season, then you are jumping right into AAU season. Once AAU season is over, you may have a short break. But on these off seasons, you have to take your son to training, to the doctor , I mean it’s 12 months a year. Everything is basketball or no weekends are free.

And you’re up Saturday, Sunday mornings. You could be on the road at 7:00 AM You’re not getting back home until four or five o’clock in the evening. There are practices after school and I mean, it is just nonstop. It’s just nonstop. I think the only time that you actually have a break from basketball is the first week in August, which I’m thinking for some reason coaches actually want to go on vacation somewhere.

So usually at that time, that’s when I try to make like medical appointments or family vacations. And it’s right after AAU season. So yeah, you’re going to be on the road, you’re going to be at a practice, someone even has a T-shirt that says, I can’t come because my son has a game or practice, sorry, , like people made T-shirts, you know?  And it’s real.

[00:05:53] Mike Klinzing: It is definitely real. You’re a hundred percent right, that August is the one time where you can kind of maybe sort of sneak away. At least here in the state of Ohio, that’s a dead period for high schools. . . And then most of the AAU stuff typically wraps up in July, and then by the time the kids go back to school, they’re into their.

Open gyms and workouts and all their things to prep for their high school season. Again, it depends on what state you are in and what rules may be in place, but there are very, very few moments of downtime. So just as an example, in my own life, so this week we started AAU basketball with my two kids, and my daughter has her first tournament coming up this weekend and our team, we practiced Monday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday night.

Usually we’d only have three practices a week, but this week, because we were trying to ramp up and it was a new group of girls that hadn’t played together before. So we practiced three nights a week. We’re driving to those game or driving to those practices about 25, 30 minutes away, hour and a half practice.

And you know, you’re still talking about these are school nights and homework. And there’s all these things that I think sometimes you. Forget about that as a parent, that yeah, okay, we’re going to go to basketball practice, but then kids also have homework and they have to eat dinner and they have to do all these other things. And I, that’s something that I think people really truly forget about is it’s not just the travel, it’s not just the, it’s the day-to-day like, Hey, we’re at practice. And if you, if you’re driving, and I know you talked about sometimes some of the teams that your son played on at various points that you were having to travel probably greater distances to what I’m talking about where it’s 25 or 30 minutes.  You were traveling a lot further than that, correct?

[00:07:40] Simone Joye: Yes. He had, he, he’s been on teams in other states. So when we were in New York City, living in Brooklyn, his high school was in Brooklyn. His AAU team was in Central New Jersey. Then when he left that team, the next AAU team was in Boston.

[00:07:56] Mike Klinzing: Alright. So how do you manage that? I’m curious how you make that work, because we have some people around here that. There’s a few people that are doing it for basketball that I know, but I actually know a lot of people that are doing it for soccer, where their kids are going and they’re playing travel soccer, and we’re here in Cleveland, Ohio.

So they’re playing travel soccer and practicing in Columbus. I’m like, how do you make that work? So how did you make that happen?

[00:08:19] Simone Joye: So a lot of support from the coaches. They usually were the ones that would take care of transportation, logistics. So for example, there were two players one lived near us in Brooklyn and we lived in Brooklyn, and they would actually send Ubers for them for practice and they would uber them back home. But we’re talking about like a 45, 50 minute ride each way. So they’re not the guys weren’t getting home till like 9, 10, 11 o’clock at night on school night. The weekends I would drive. I would just get on the road just get on the road.

And there’s something in the book that I have about what to keep in your car. I had like a whole mom box of so many different things, And then when he was playing in Boston the coaches either they would put him up in a hotel with other team members who from, who were from out of state, or he would actually stay at the homes of coaches.

And then again I would hit the road when it was game time or jump on Amtrak and get a hotel room and you just make it happen. And, and I think what’s so interesting is, You don’t plan for it, right? Like there’s no way to plan for it. One day your kid comes home and is like, look, I’m being recruited by X team in central New Jersey.

I’m going to the tryout mom. Oh, okay. We’re going out to Central Jersey. All right then. And then he goes to Central Jersey. He makes the team and the coach said, we got him and we’re going to make this work. And it just happens.

[00:10:09] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. Next thing you know, you’re on the road driving to who knows where for a tournament.

And then a lot of times those tournaments, those schedules don’t come out till a couple days before the tournament’s going to take place. So you have no idea necessarily where, where you’re going to be and who you’re going to play exactly. And what time you’re going to be there and all that kind of thing. And so it’s definitely, I think for somebody who hasn’t been involved in it before, for a parent who, of a young kid who’s just kind of getting into it for the first time, I think that’s always one of the things that’s surprising to them is just the fact that we don’t find out.

The schedule until we play on Friday night, we don’t find out the schedule until Wednesday. Yeah, you don’t find out the schedule until Wednesday. Yes. And people are trying to figure it out. And then as you said, as you get a little bit older and you play and you’re traveling more, then it’s not only just, Hey, I’m driving to the game, but now I’m driving to another city, another state to be able to watch my kid play.

And then now you got hotel costs and all that kind of thing. And I know that. Yes. You talked a little bit about some of the financial costs to expect, and it’s kind of funny, I’ve had this conversation, I’m sure you’ve had it too, with. Parents where you kind of look at, you say, okay, there’s all this money that we’ve spent.

And a lot of times I think depending upon how realistic the parent is, there may or may not be a scholarship for your basketball player at the end of the road, more than likely there won’t be. And so you look at all the money that you spent, I’ve had people say, ah, we just should’ve put that money in their college fund and it would’ve worked better.

But however, obviously you’re giving them the experience too. It’s not just about what that pot of gold is at the end of the rainbow. There’s also trying to make the experience a good one for them, but it costs to be able to give them that kind of experience. So maybe just go through for people, what are some of the costs that you’ve experienced?

And then as you’re talking, I’ll kind of jump in with some of the things that I’ve experienced or had some people share with me that they’ve experienced.

[00:12:08] Simone Joye: Sure. So what jumps out. At me as entrance speeds to games, , let’s start there. Absolutely. Absolutely. So the first time I think,  I went to a high school game and when I got to the door, I had to pay, I was taken aback.

I think it was only like five bucks though, five or $10. But I was like, but my kids on the team, like, I have to pay to come in. I never knew that. So there’s like, yeah, you have to pay and, okay, so I did that and then that adds up, right? You have like, I don’t know, a lot of games and so parents need to be aware of that.

And what I also find really strange is that, I’ve paid to actually get into tournaments and then I had to go work the scoreboard as a volunteer parent.

[00:12:57] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. And that’s one of, that might be one of my biggest pet peeves. Simone. There’s, there’s nothing worse than paying to get in and then them telling you, you have to go work the scoreboard or work the scoresheet. Yeah. That’s not fun.

[00:13:11] Simone Joye: Like, I need a refund. Ok, like, so that’s one. Travel expenses, obviously your gas, your tolls, your parking, Flights. The train. Even you even sometimes you go to some tournaments you have to pay for parking. I think that that’s not fair. Food and beverage obviously.

What else? Camp registration fees, right. So if you want your kid to get exposure, extra help, extra exposures someone tells you, oh, we’re going to have like 50. College coaches here, you want to try to get your kid in that camp. The camp could cost a hundred bucks, it could cost $200. You know, just expenses that just come up that you really don’t budget for.

Another is private tuition and school fees. Right? Because you have a lot of basketball players who are now going the prep school route. And although the prep school will probably give you, like, it’s not really called a scholarship, it’s like financial assistance. Parents still have to come out of pocket thousands of dollars to pay for that.

And then you have personal trainers even down to the doctor copays. I mean, it was and it just adds up. I’ve seen some parents that said, Hey, we paid $40,000. for my kid while he was in high school and that wasn’t even including like tuition fees, it was just for basketball and I think that’s crazy.

I think that’s crazy. And we have to remember too that it’s a 19 billion industry for youth athletics and I, and no one keeps track of it, but I’m sure that parents are making up a large portion of that money.

[00:14:59] Mike Klinzing: There is no question about that. So I think what struck me and what’s interesting is that when, for a while I was partners with a guy who had an AAU club and he and I would sit down and you’d look at the economics of running an AAU club and a lot of the money that gets made by businesses that.

AAU basketball clubs, there’s a lot of money in running the tournaments, and the money comes from primarily the gate. It’s not the money that a team pays to enter the tournament. It, the money comes from mom and dad and grandma and brother and sister and whoever else comes to watch the games. And that’s really where the profit is.

It’s not in the entry fees for the teams. It’s in the gate. And so it’s just interesting, again, when you look at how, how do we align the intentions of what we’re trying to do in terms of who’s getting the benefit from what and where. And so the economics of AAU basketball dictate the money comes from the paying customer at the gate, and so I think that’s why you’re going to continue to see. I always ask myself, and I don’t know the answer to this question, Simone, but I would always ask myself, at what point does the entry fee get high enough that people start to walk or complain?

Like I’m amazed by the number of people that there’s been times where at various points, I’ve worked at the front desk collecting money as people are entering into a tournament. And I’m always amazed at the number of people that they just, we’ve got them so well trained that they don’t really even bat an eye if it’s 10 bucks to get in or 15 bucks, or it’s 50 bucks for the weekend, or whatever it might be.  People don’t even make a sarcastic comment or say, Hey, this is, this is a lot of money, they just kind of walk up and they pay their money and they go. And so it’s kind of amazing the way that this a u basketball machine has kind of got itself going and, and working. And again, there’s, we’ll talk about in a second some of the things that are positive about it.

Because there certainly are positives. But I think the gate fee is one that I don’t think  anybody’s happy about that one, let’s put it that way.

[00:17:22] Simone Joye: Well look at this. So you’re there now, right? So you don’t know the fee before you arrive. Correct. You may have traveled X amount of miles. What am I going to do?

I’m going to pay to get in. I don’t really have a choice. My kid is playing inside or my niece or my nephew. I’m here and I don’t really have a choice if you think about it.

[00:17:48] Mike Klinzing: It’s so true. My son went to Florida with his high school team this year. . , and we were playing at a resort. And so I stayed off the resort cause I booked my ticket in my hotel room at the last minute.

So I wasn’t staying in the same complex where the team was. So I had to drive. So the first day I get there to the venue and I pull up and they tell me, oh, it’s going to be $32 to park. . . So I have to go in there three days. Now, luckily I found a way to circumvent the parking the second two days.

 $32 to park and then the entry fee for the weekend for that tournament. And again, my son was going to play three games. It was 150 bucks. So basically I’m paying 50 bucks a game. Now granted I had courtside seats because there wasn’t very many people there. And it was in a hotel ballroom type atmosphere. But, 50 bucks a game to come in and watch your own kid play.

I mean, at a certain point to what you said, I was already there. I was a captive audience. It wasn’t like I was going to be, Hey, I traveled all the way down to Florida from Ohio and now, right. I’m not going to pay that $150 entry fee to get into the tournament and watch him play. But yeah, it’s those entry fees.

I, I just wonder where, where’s the point where people at least start rebelling and saying, Hey, we’re not going to do this anymore.

All right. So let’s talk a little bit about some of the things that I know one of your sections that you have in the book talks about some things that parents can be thankful for in terms of basketball.

And there was one that stood out for me that I really related to a lot, and then there was a second one that I never really thought of that was kind of interesting that I thought you brought up. So let me talk a little bit about both of those. So the first one that really struck a chord with me that made a lot of sense was you talked about how.

The basketball world is a melting pot. Right? And you have people Yes, from all different places. You have all different types of demo demographics. You have all different races, and you have all these different people. And I always felt like as a kid growing up, that that was one of the best parts of basketball for me was it opened my eyes to a different group of people than what I probably would’ve been able to interact with had I just been a normal kid, not a basketball player, just going to school and being a student.

And so I always felt like that was super valuable. So talk a little bit about that and then I’ll get to the one that maybe was a little bit more surprising for me. Talk a little about your perspective of the melting pot.

[00:20:22] Simone Joye: So, yeah, all of this is learned behavior from my son. I have to say his name is Chad Venning, you have to say Chad’s name.

He has so many different experiences and it came about really me noticing it. When we discuss race relations, and he comes from a totally different and I don’t know if it was because he was younger and maybe he was sheltered, but he’s like, listen, I have friends from all over the world.

Like I’ve played with guys from Serbia to Canada. He was like, what are you talking about? Like, we all get along. I have great coaches, black, white, like we don’t have race problems within basketball. And I was like, wow. You know, like he’s in a totally different world, like a bubble. As well as my nieces, my niece, my nephews that play they really let’s put it like this.

I really don’t think Chad really understood racism or the dynamic of racism until George Floyd died. And he was like, wow, he was sheltered from that because of basketball. So I thought that was interesting to note. And I’m thankful for that, right? That my kid, he has no prejudices.

He loves humanity and, and I find that in a lot of basketball players that they’re just great people overall.

[00:22:04] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, that’s powerfully said, and I think it’s true. I think it rings true for me. I certainly can relate to what you just said because again, I was able to grow up in a time where, I was getting a chance as a, as a white suburban kid, I would go and play in lots of different places with, again, people, all different races, all different ages at the time, which is different from the way kids grow up today where they’re playing more with kids their own age.

And there’s usually a coach and a parent and all that kind of thing. But I grew up more just going to this park or this gym, and you kind of played with whoever was there. And sometimes it was high school kids and sometimes there were 30 year old men there when you were 16. And you’re trying to have to figure that out and navigate it.

And I definitely feel like it made me a person that had a far more open mind maybe than what somebody who didn’t have my experiences with basketball. And I, and I’m thankful for. every single day that basketball has given me that. I think this is sort of an aside to you, but also to our listeners. We recently, Simone had a guy on, he’s a professor at NYU, Dave Hollander, and he just put out a book called How Basketball Can Save the World.

. And he has 13 principles from basketball, basically, that he kind of equates it to some of the problems that we have in the world and how basketball can solve them. And what you and I are talking about right here in terms of a melting pot, that basketball is very, very inclusive. And I think it’s a book that if you get a chance to read it, and if anybody out there who didn’t listen to Dave’s episode, I, I’ve been recommending the book to almost everybody that I have a conversation with.

Okay. Because I think it’s really good. So the book is How Basketball Can Save The World by Dave Hollander, but it talks about these exact points that you’re making and it’s, again, I think basketball does it just a tremendous job, as you said, with your son of when you can get somebody to the point where, They’re confused by someone, what they see out there in terms of re race relations and saying, well, that doesn’t even make sense because that’s not the world that I live in.

. through basketball. That, that’s powerful. And I think if we can take advantage of that and give more kids the opportunity to do that, the world, the world would be a better place. And it sounds silly that basketball can do that, but, but I believe it’s true. . . I agree. All right. The, the one that surprised me in this, that I don’t know if it was surprising, as soon as I read your rationale behind it, it made a lot of sense to me.

But you talked a little bit about fashion and how fashion kind of plays into the basketball space, and it’s something that I never really necessarily thought about from a parent perspective and how that might impact me as a parent or how it impacted the kids who are playing. But just talk a little bit about your experience with fashion and with your son and kind of what you wrote about in the book.

[00:24:56] Simone Joye: Are you referring to the part where I said that all they wear all the time?

[00:25:01] Mike Klinzing: Exactly, exactly.

[00:25:03] Simone Joye: Yeah. So it, it’s true though. I mean, so I have a cousin, this is where I got the idea from. So I have a cousin who just recently passed away and he was a coach for almost 40 years. The book is dedicated to him, and I have never seen him outside of like basketball gear, sweatpants and a baseball hat, and just every Nike sneaker you could imagine.

And, and then we had to get dressed for a social event with the family and he just had a fit. He was like, yes, I could put on a suit, you know? Cause I remember back in the days when I used to coach, we used to wear suits. Now we don’t have to wear suits anymore. And so I started looking. I said, you know what?

My kid doesn’t really have dress clothes. Like he doesn’t mind wearing them, but they’re for special occasions. That’s when basketball players, and we’re talking about the framework of the book is youth basketball players. Right. And they’re always ready for a game, like, no matter where we’re going, but son, it’s always dressed like he could just pull up to any court and I’m ready to play.

And, and obviously he doesn’t have the basketball sneakers on the court. Sneakers rather. But then I started thinking about, okay, these dudes in the nba, why is it always a fashion show? Like when they’re coming through the tunnel, like who cares? Like why do we have that in basketball? And I was like, oh my God.

It’s because they never got to dress when they were kids.

[00:26:33] Mike Klinzing: Right, exactly. Always sweats on.

[00:26:37] Simone Joye: Yeah. Right. So now you got all these NBA players coming out with all these designer clothes and it’s a big fashion statement. And I’m like, oh my God, they’re so late to the party. So that, that, that was that part right there, which as a parent, it saved me a lot of money, if you think about it.

[00:26:56] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, no question. Right. Hey, I got my favorite pair of sweatpants and I’m ready to go.

[00:27:01] Simone Joye: Yes. And even in prep school, like Chad went to a Catholic school and a and prep schools, they had to wear they had uniforms, so to speak. So I said, wow, I saved a lot of money and, and clothing. So the downfall to it is that my son, now that he’s in college, like he likes expensive clothes,

That’s the downfall. And I’m like, okay, buddy.

[00:27:27] Mike Klinzing: It’s funny how fashion works and so just a story to relate to what you were talking about in terms of your cousin and just always being in sweatpants.

[00:27:42] Jason Sunkle: Mike’s the height of fashion, just so you know. He’s the height of Absolutely.

[00:27:49] Mike Klinzing: I’m going to tell my fashion story. So see, you got, we got Jason to jump in.

[00:27:53] Jason Sunkle: I will say this, He won’t take any credit. He’s always wearing some nice kicks. He always got good kicks on.

[00:27:59] Mike Klinzing: Of course. I’m a shoe guy.

I’m a shoe guy. So this is all going to, Jason, I’m going to tie all this in. This is all going to tie in here on this little story I’m about to tell Simone. So for the first 19 years of my. Regular career. I was a teacher in the classroom, so I taught third grade for a couple years and then I taught mostly fifth grade in the classroom.

Of course, as a classroom teacher, I had dress clothes. And in the early in my career I wear a tie and slowly that kind of went away, but I was always dressed up when I was, when I was teaching in the classroom. And then about 10 years ago, I had a chance to move from the classroom into the gym and become a phys ed teacher.

. . And so as a phys ed teacher, obviously I’m going to work every day in. T-shirts, shorts, sweatpants, sweatshirt, all those kinds of things. And so my wardrobe and my fashion budget, whatever that was, went from, I’m buying dress clothes to, I’m buying t-shirts and shorts and to Jason’s point sneakers.

And so I kind of reverted back to what I was like when I was 13, 14, 15 years old when I loved shoes. And I always wanted to have different t-shirts to wear and shorts and all, again, all the basketball fashion stuff that was around back at the time. And so we had a family friend who had, their parents lived on our street.

And so they were older. The, the parents were older and the, the, the couple and their children would come and visit their parents in the summertime and they’d be around for a, a while. And so I would always just be in my shorts and t-shirt and whatever. And so I had known this couple probably for, I don’t know, three or four years and.

At that point we had gotten to know them pretty well and we invited them to a family birthday party, and at that family birthday party I had on like a pair of khaki pants and a polo shirt, the wife and of the couple came up to me and said, oh my God, I almost didn’t recognize you.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen you anything besides shorts, sweatpants, and a t-shirt. And I’m like, yeah, you’re probably right. You probably never have. And that means I’m living a pretty good life if I can always be in shorts and a t-shirt. So yeah. I, I completely like, when I read that, it, it completely struck a chord with me for that, just for, because of that very story.

So that was what, that was. Well done, Simone. Thank you. It’s true. It’s so true. It really, it really is. One of the things that you also talk about in this section of the book is just some of the tips that you have for parents in terms. Them being a positive influence both on their own child, but also kind of on the environment around them with other parents and just in the stands and those kinds of things.

So talk a little bit about, maybe just hit on one or two things that you think are really important in terms of how you can help make the experience for your kid a more positive one.

[00:30:54] Simone Joye: So let me start by saying too that my son told me that was his favorite part of the book. And so that struck me coming from a young person that the parent influences major on our children.

And there are a couple of things I think that we need to do as parents of basketball players. One is to always encourage them you know, and, and I know that many of them just love hearing when a parent says, I love watching you play. That’s it. You know, we have parents that can be aggressive. We have to understand as parents that what we say to our children stays with them their entire life.

And so I think that it’s important that you know that we’re on the sidelines and our kids are in the game. It’s not us. I’m very dismayed at the way in which parents are interrupting youth basketball. And it’s hurting the kids, right? The, the fighting, the violence that’s taking place. We are here to support them, not to yell at coaches, not to yell at referees, not to get physically violent.

Cause what we don’t realize is that not only embarrasses our children, But it kind of moves them out of the game. And the game is something they want to play. Like basketball is supposed to be fun for our kids. It’s not supposed to be a reflection of our parenting. If my son has a bad game or if my son can’t play it doesn’t mean I’m bad.

Parents are for some reason, they’re missing what’s really important. And that is for your child to have something fun and productive to do. And then the other part is team parenting. That was a strange, phenomenon for me, like when Chad was younger, it was really like a family.

You know, we would do carpooling together. Parents would talk about bringing snacks for the kids. We would get invited to other parents’ homes, but as he. Elevated up in basketball and, and got on different levels, higher levels, rather. Parents kind of get cliquish, they go to their own corner. It’s a competition.

It’s if your son is having a great game or he’s the star of the game or the team I have, I have many friends, but if my son sucks, so he had a bad game. It’s like nobody would even say hello to the next game. I just thought it was just like weird, phenomenal that the higher your kid in basketball, the less cohesive parents are.  And I think that’s strange and it’s hard.

[00:34:04] Mike Klinzing: I think one of the things that is a challenge there sometimes is when you talk. Playing on multiple different teams at different times, and so those parents don’t get to know each other. Maybe as well as like when you think about a high school environment, maybe you have kids that have been together depending on if you’re in a public school or private school, you may have kids that have been together since second grade and those parents may know each other, or at least through the high school experience. . . And then on the AAU side, you might have a kid who plays with one AAU club this year and then a different one the next year.

Or maybe even in between seasons you’re playing on multiple teams. And so I think sometimes it’s harder for parents to get to know each other. And at the same time, I think you make a really great point. And I know it’s one that I think all parents to some degree and like I know sort of the pitfalls of what it means to be a supportive parent and a not supportive parent or a parent that’s positive or not positive.

And yet I find myself feeling some of those same feelings that. That you felt where if there’s times where maybe my son doesn’t play as much as I thought he should have, or maybe he doesn’t play as well as I hoped he would, that I kind of get a little bit moody and I’m a little bit upset and just you know, I’m kind of taking it harder than I probably should.

And I always try to bounce back from that when I talk to him and when I share things with him. But I know it’s a challenge and I know what I should be doing. . and even for me. So I can’t imagine what it’s like for somebody who’s trying to navigate this for the first time, who’s maybe somebody who’s not a basketball person in their own past going through it, how challenging it has to be to kind of watch your kid and try to manage and regulate your emotions and make sure that you are doing the things that are going to be supportive, as you said, of your child, rather than something that they’re going to remember for the rest of their life.

That’s a negative. Environment. I think it’s cool that your son thought this was the most impactful and most important section of the book, the one that he enjoyed the most. Because I, I can totally see why from a kid perspective, you can either make your kid miserable. Yes. Or you can make it a positive experience.

And I know you’ve seen, and I’ve certainly seen parents who’ve made their kids experience miserable by, as soon as they step off the court, mom or dad is commenting on their game and critiquing everything that they do and criticizing them and saying, telling them they could have done more. And I think that when you do that, you can see those kids just hang their heads as they walk away with their parents.

Yes. And that’s the situation I think that you want to avoid. And it sounds like you were able to kind of figure that out and, and be able to manage that with, with your son.

[00:36:47] Simone Joye: Yeah. You know, in the beginning I was emotional. He didn’t get a lot of playing time. But I will tell you this, I never ever went to his coach about it.

I never would do that. That’s like suicide.

[00:37:02] Mike Klinzing: Talk about why. That’s a point that you hit on really hard in the book and talk about, tell me why you feel that strongly. Where did that feeling come from for you? Cause I think that when you talked to, and we obviously talk to a lot of coaches and both Jason and I have coached a lot and I think that when you start talking about playing time and parents coming in to talk to coaches, that’s one of those things that I think.

Sometimes people think about it in different ways, but as a coach, I think what we always want is we want to hear from the player. And I think a lot of times the players have a greater understanding of what’s happening than the parent does. Cause the players at practice and they know what the coach is saying to them and telling them. And a lot of times the parent just makes these assumptions. But just tell me a little bit about your experience and why you felt like that was such an important point to make in the book. Because it came through loud and clear. I was reading how much you felt it was important for parents to stay out of the coach’s office and let their child kind of handle those types of conversations.

[00:38:08] Simone Joye: Sure. So obviously it depends upon the age, right? Like if you have a sixth grader, a fifth grader, obviously that kid is not going to be able to go to their coach and speak for themselves. But what I’ve learned is that, and it’s two sides to that, right? Because. If my kid is in the ninth grade or 10th grade and, and maybe I feel he came home to me and he said, Hey Mom, listen, I feel like I should’ve got a B on this exam, but my teacher gave me a C.

And maybe after the second time I would say, Hey, you know what? Well, let’s see if we can go talk to the teacher together. Right? It’s kind of like the same way with a coach, that a coach should be available to speak with a parent, but it’s not your first step, right? Your kid comes home, or even if your kid doesn’t come home and tell you you’re watching your kid not play, or you’re complaining about the coaching style, or you feel the coach should be doing something different, it’s how you present it to the coach.

Like I think a lot of parents feel entitled to say, well, my kid is playing on your team. I can come talk to you anytime you want. And I think that parents tend to forget that that should not be the way you should handle this. It should be like how you would handle a teacher if your kid was in school, right?

Or you go talk to the assistant principal or the principal, but there’s steps that you take. It’s not automatic. You run up to a coach after a game and say, listen, I need to talk to you because I didn’t like the way you did you. You can’t do that. And as a result of that, I found personally, and I’ve watched many kids who were good, who probably would’ve had great opportunities where the coaches either put them off the team or you know, the coaches speak in circles or the kid couldn’t get on a team.

And the bottom line was because of the parents. They loved the kid wanted to work with the kid, but couldn’t deal with the parents. And then, and so they said no. So your kid suffers, right? And the higher you go up and basketball, and I mean in terms of like. Grade level higher or elite status higher or like you are hurting like your kid, you’re not going to make a coach put your kid in a game.

Like parents have to understand that. I don’t know any coach that says, okay, okay parent next game he’ll start cause you came in. No, that’s not going to happen.

[00:40:47] Mike Klinzing:  Exactly. It does not, it does not work for any parents out there. It does not work that way.

[00:40:52] Simone Joye: Your kid is going to get punished and I think I put something in the book like, oh yeah, next practice you’re running for an extra 20 minutes just because your mother came with all the mouths.

You know? And then what’s interesting is like, because I’m up to college level now, right? Anytime a coach from college come talk to a parent, it is not a good thing. Like, you don’t want the coach, you don’t want to go the coach, you don’t want the coach coming to you. You know, I had a situation a couple of weeks ago at one of my kids game out of town and, and I was in the hotel lobby with some other parents eating sitting at the bar and, and the head coach called me over and he was telling me things about Chad and when he comes home and just filling me in or whatever.

But when I went back to the bar the other parent said, wow, the head coach talks to you. He’s never said anything to us. I said, girl, trust me, I got a mouthful. Okay. So you are lucky that the coaches never talk to you. So in college there’s none of that. So you have to prepare yourself. If you know the goal is for a parent to get their kid into college with a college scholarship, you don’t want that college coach speaking to youth coaches.

Saying, well, how, what’s the parents like? Oh, the parent always bother me, or whatever. And then you, you’re going to blow a scholarship. You know, like it’s a small coaching world that I’ve learned that I have learned. And it’s a process to it respectfully.

[00:42:23] Mike Klinzing: I feel like there’s a lot of good points that you make in there.

And I think that parental behavior is definitely something that, when you talk about recruiting to the college level, it’s something that college coaches definitely talk about. Yeah. And that’s something that they definitely look at. What’s the behavior like of the parent in the stands at an AAU tournament or at a high school game?

They’re looking for those things. There’s no question. And as you said, the coaching fraternity, it’s a small world and those coaches talk. And certainly if you have a parent that has a bad reputation, that’s something that. , the coaches are going to know about, they’re going to find out about, and it’s going to influence whether or not your child gets an opportunity to be able to play.

Now, it may not eliminate every opportunity because you can, right, find somewhere to go, but you’re certainly limiting your child’s opportunities when your behavior as a parent is something that’s negative. And then I think the other thing that struck me as you were talking is the difference between the contact that high school coaches have with parents versus college coaches.

And I know that in my own experience as a player a long, long time ago, that was certainly true in my experience as an assistant high school coach. I think that was certainly true. And then through being able to talk to lots of coaches at lots of different levels through the podcast, it’s definitely true.

And we’ll have coaches on here that’ll tell us. One of the reasons why I got out of high school coaching was because I didn’t want to deal with parents. That’s why I wanted to go and coach at the college level. And I think universally, one of the things that coaches say at the high school level, one of the things that they dislike the most is the parenting involvement.

. . And like, I love the kids, I love my players, but man, these parents are just driving me crazy. And so I think, yes, the lesson there is if you’re a parent, don’t be one of those parents that coaches are sitting in the coach’s office after practice or after a game talking about you as the crazy parent.

Be the parent that is supportive of your player. Be supportive of your team. And as I’ve said a couple times, I know that’s not always easy to do when things aren’t going exactly the way that you want them to go. But if you want complain, you want to argue, you want to do things, say it in the confines of your own house, talk to your spouse or your significant other and complain all you want, but don’t let that get out in front of other people where it can impact.

Your child and your child’s team and college coaches just don’t deal with that at all. It’s just, it’s much more of a, the kids are growing up and they’re becoming young men or young women, and they’re expected to, if there’s something that you have to deal with, the player deals with it, not the parent.

Yes. All right. Tell me a little bit about, when you’re talking about working with coaches and going through the recruiting process with Chad, I know that he went to prep school and you had a quote from a friend of the podcast here, Corey Heights, who we’ve had on, and Corey’s an expert kind of in the prep, in the prep school world.

So tell us a little bit about sort of just the decision of why Chad went to prep school, what that was like, and, and just your decision making as you went through that, trying to put him in the best spot to succeed academically and athletically.

[00:45:48] Simone Joye: So, I can’t take the credit for that because it was all Chad.

Chad was playing at a Catholic high school. He was doing okay. And he came home one day and said, listen I want to go a prep school. And I said, oh, well, he was a junior at Bishop. And I was like, absolutely not. You’re going to stay in this one high school and you’re going to graduate from Bishop.

Cause I’ve always been on the education side of this, where Chad and his dad and others, they’ve always been basketball, but I’ve always been the education one. So I’m like, who switches high schools? Like, what? What do you mean? Like, I didn’t even know about the prep or anything. And he says, no, Mom listen to me.

Listen. You know, and he explained it to me. And I said, okay, well how do we find prep schools? And then I just got on the horn, started emailing coaches at prep schools. And then we let every coach that we knew that Chad was interested in this prep school route and we started taking visits.

A coach from another school took him on a, a visit and made introductions for us, but it was a lot of work. It was not something you know, it wasn’t just looking for another team, it was looking for a team and a school and, and financial support and, but it like I said, it was something that he directed me and then I learned about it.

But it was hard, it was tough.

[00:47:20] Mike Klinzing: What were the benefits after having gone through it for somebody else who was considering going to a prep school and putting that into what their plan is? How do you think that benefited Chad? What were some of the things that really worked out in his favor as a result of going the prep school route?  Definitely.

[00:47:40] Simone Joye: Well, basketball is changed now, right? So, Most, I would say most college recruitment is coming after the transfer portal. Now to prep schools or basketball academies. They’re not like public school and parochial schools are low on the list. Most of these kids that are now getting these scholarships are from prep school.

So that’s one way it worked out where it’s like he was looped in with college coaches early, some of them were even alumni of his prep school. Another thing that worked out was an opportunity for him to live away from home before college. And I thought that was a great benefit in a nice serene environment.

It helped me as a parent where I didn’t have to worry about him getting into any trouble. Cause he was on a campus somewhere. I think it, it elevated his basketball iq tremendously getting out of the city because all he had was books and basketball and I think it really was a great college preparatory program for him getting into college,

[00:49:01] Mike Klinzing: Just the ability to have an impact, not only athletically, but academically. I think that’s where the benefit lies. And I think as I’m hearing you talk, and a lot of times I do think that there’s a split when you talk about parents where one parent may focus more on the athletic side, one parent focuses more on the academic side and not necessarily that either those parents think that one or the other is more important, but just kind of sometimes I think the roles just kind of evolve that way, but certainly .

any parent who’s out there. Who’s a basketball parent or otherwise you want your kid to be able to succeed. And when basketball is as important to them as obviously it is to your son, and obviously as it is to lots of players out there, then parents want that success on the basketball floor. But they also want their child to succeed I academically, because clearly at some point the ball’s going to stop bouncing and yes, you have to have an education to be able to fall back on.

So I think going the prep school route can afford lots of kids the opportunity that maybe they wouldn’t have had to be able to get into a four year college of their choice. And I know that Chad’s eventually found his way to St. Va Bonaventure where he’s having a good career and it sounds like it’s a positive environment for them.

And I think when you’re able to do that and get to the place, You’re a good fit. That’s really when you have success, when it’s socially, academically, and athletically the right fit, then you know you’ve made it to the right place. And I think that, again, being thoughtful along the way and the decisions that you make, which I know from reading the book and just talking to you, that you guys were very thoughtful about how you approach this whole thing, and that’s how you’re going to end up with a good outcome.

[00:50:45] Simone Joye: Thanks

[00:50:46] Mike Klinzing: I want to share a couple things that you put in the book about just suggestions for coaches, things that can make the relationship with parents better, because I think a lot of these things are things that coaches sometimes overlook and they don’t necessarily think about it from the parent perspective.

They’re thinking about it from the coaching perspective. I’ll give you a great example. So when I started coaching, this is back, my first year of teaching was 95-96, and we had. Our head coach at the time, this is at the high school level. Our head coach was probably, he was probably 28, maybe 29. I was I think 25 when I started, and then we had another assistant coach who was like 23.

And so we would practice literally Simone for like three and a half hours and parents would’ve no idea. Like looking back on it now, there’d be some days where we’d end practice after an hour and a half. There’d be other days where we’d go like three and a half hours. There was never really a communication that we put out.

It was just kind of like, okay, practice is over, we’re done. And I think about it now as a parent myself, like how infuriating it had to be for parents that they had. None of this information. I just think, boy, we got away with a lot of stuff back then when we were younger. The communication that’s required is, is so much more important.

But just a couple things that really struck out, or you know, stuck out to me that you, you talked about is one, making sure that coaches have a parent meeting to explain expectations. I think that’s a, that’s a big one. And then the other thing that you mentioned is just, again, providing the information about, hey, where are we going?

Like if it’s a travel tournament, the hotel and transportation, and just how important it’s to know exactly what is going on at all times. So just talk about how over the years, maybe you’ve had coaches who have been good at that and maybe not so good at those things.

[00:52:41] Simone Joye: One thing that I just want to make really clear is that these kids are minors, right?

Right. And so you’re going to be taking my kids somewhere, even if it’s across town. I need to know where they’re going. I need to know the address. I need to know the time. It’s a courtesy as a parent, right? Like I get you’re the coach, but where’s my kid going to be? So that is so important to me.

However we too have jobs. And if you know that you’re be in Dallas from April 4th to April 7th, why are you just telling me on April 1st or April 2^nd and you knew this since February, even if you don’t want to speak directly to parents, you can put it on your website. You can do a parent newsletter, you can have a parent liaison volunteer.

We need the information, not because we want to bother you, but because these are minors and we need to know where our kid is and it’s that simple. And when you don’t give us that information, I am the parent that will keep calling you . Like other parents will just give up. No, I need to know where my son is going, when he’s going to get there, when he’s leaving.

I’m not asking you about like where you guys are having lunch chat or where you have breakfast, but I need to know the son real on the other end when coaches do it. Well, I, I’m not even going to lie and say I even know of any coach that has ever given me information.

Maybe high school, but aau is totally different to AAU is just Chad would come home and he’d be like, Mom Thursday we’re going to Florida. Okay. Do you have your flight information? How are you guys getting there? I don’t know. Coach will tell us on Thursday. Oh, okay. So I just think that frustrates parents and I want to emphasize again, not only are they minors.

They are minors, but there’s a lot of abuse in sports, in youth sports. So many parents may not know that. Many coaches may not know that, but there is, and so I know a lot of parents that just say, oh no, he is going with the coach. It’s okay. No, I disagree with that. every communications just communicates, even if you put it on your website, like I said, or a parent portal, sometimes they had to get information.  The team has group chats. And you know, my son was always very open with me in terms of, Hey ma, we’re getting on the bus. Hey ma, we’re getting on the plane. You know? So I didn’t worry as much, but it would be nice to have that information.

[00:55:55] Mike Klinzing: Well, you want to get that information too, from the adult, because as responsible as any of our kids might be, there’s still some things that get lost in translation when you’re getting that information from a 14, 15, 16, 17 year old kid as opposed to getting it from an adult.

And I think the lesson for me for coaches, and we’ve talked about this a lot with coaches on the podcast, is when you can be proactive in your communication. Yes. And get information to people beforehand as opposed to trying to explain your way out of it afterward or. Trying to have a difficult conversation with somebody.

It always makes sense to me to be able to build rapport with people while times are good, so that if there ever is a case where something goes sideways and doesn’t turn out the way people thought, or there’s some type of issue, if that’s the first time that you as a coach are talking to that parent, right, it’s probably not going to be perceived as well as it might have been if you had already established a prior relationship and had good communication where those parents already felt good about you as a coach because you had communicated with them, as opposed to, it’s some guy that we don’t even know who now is reaching out to us with whatever that problem or issue might potentially be.

To me, that proactive communication is really important. Yes. Tell me a little bit about the recruiting process and what you learned about that. By going through it with Chad.

[00:57:31] Simone Joye: Recruitment for college? Yes  Okay. Oh boy. What I learned about that is trust nothing unless it’s in writing. Verbal offer are great but even those aren’t 100% accurate or you can rely on them 100%.

Chad had I think four verbal offers and then at the, like, I don’t know, the spring of his postgraduate year, another college recruited him heavily and everything was looking good and all set for him to move in. And we had a move in date and social media post that he was committing there and at the last minute, one week before school started, the admissions office didn’t accept him for whatever reason. And it was devastating because it almost cost him his freshman college year. Right? So what I’ve learned, like when I started speaking about this, is trust nothing unless it’s in writing.

The recruitment process was fun. It was definitely fun for my kid to receive verbal offers, but it took him a long time to get it. So that’s one thing I do emphasize in the book that ninth grade, no offense, 10th grade, no offense, 11th grade, no offense. And my son was a crazy ballistic because he didn’t have any offers he was rethinking his, his self his game playing. You know, I think Curry was the same way. I have his story in the book about he just wasn’t getting recruited out of high school. And then it hurt them mentally. Right? The mental wellness over the recruitment process, I think is something parents have to look at closer, you know?

Cause it, it was different than when I got out of high school and I was waiting for these acceptance letters to colleges and you’re anticipating you’re going to get in somewhere, right? Like, more than likely, if you are a regular high school student, you apply to college, you’re going to get in somewhere.

But for basketball players Oh, it is, it’s such a heavy, heavy load on them. So my son was going insane because he was like, where are my offers every day? He was online. Looking reaching out to coaches I had to tell him to calm down and, and coaches would say it, it’s going to calm, eventually it’s going to come.

And so that’s why I have a chapter in there about no scholarship offer is not over because I actually was looking into playing beads just in case he didn’t get a scholarship. What were we going to do to get him on a court in college? But on the positive it’s a wonderful, wonderful experience.

When your kid actually gets a written scholarship offer is probably the happiest day of their lives playing basketball. We celebrate, we pray we say thanks. We give gratitude and then they get right back to work. You know, there’s no big party or anything like that. Cause now the real work as an adult starts.

[01:01:02] Mike Klinzing: One of the things that I find to be super, I think, challenging for kids today, and tell me if Chad experienced this, is that when they’re sitting there and they’re scrolling through on their phone, right? And they can see every single kid from every single nook and cranny of the country and the offers that they’re getting, and this kid’s posting this and this kid’s posting that.

I can only imagine as a player and as a player’s family, if you’re in that situation, how frustrating that can be when you’re like, oh, I played against that kid. I think I’m a lot better than him. Or, we beat that player’s team and now I see that that player’s getting offers, which is something that, again, prior to social media that didn’t exist. Like you might know a couple kids in your local area if they get scholarship offers, but you weren’t seeing things from. Half a state away or across the country. Certainly. And I have to believe that that sort of adds to kids’ frustrations today. Did you see that with Chad at all?

[01:02:04] Simone Joye: no. Interesting. Chad is a different kind of kid, he doesn’t like look at other kids. I’m the one that do that though, I’ll be honest with you, I’m the one that says, oh, you can take him, you beat him. And like Chad doesn’t think like that. He’s a different kind of kid. He is not going to like say, oh, well how come this kid got it?

And I didn’t. And I know I play better than him. His rationale is that’s his time. You know, like good luck for him. Like Chad is the type of player, like once he played in high school and he actually, a guy like drove down the lane and broke his arm. And you know, like everyone cheered. It was a huge game.

Carmelo Anthony was there. His coaches was like, oh yeah, we’re going to dub him. Hashtag no layup. Yes. Keep doing that Chad. And the whole ride home, Chad was in the saying, oh my God, I messed up career. I don’t feel happy about what I did. So his framework is a little different, but I will say that, and I don’t think really other kids feel like that cause of social media.

I feel like the way they’re taught basketball now, it’s a you thing when it comes to, well, if you’re not getting offers, what are you not doing right? Or what could you be doing better? You know what I’m saying? Like I think Chad looked at it more as, am I doing my best that I can get an offer? What do I need to do better as opposed to him seeing like another kid get an offer.

[01:03:43] Mike Klinzing: That’s a really healthy attitude. And I’m glad to hear that there are kids out there that kind of can resist that temptation to always be looking. Cause I think a lot of kids do fall prey to that, that they look and they see, well, this kid’s getting this and this kid’s getting this, and why isn’t my opportunity coming my way?

And I think that that can lead to some frustration. And I know we talked a little bit about mental health and depression and all the things that can kind of go along with that, and I feel like I’m glad that there are kids out that are kind of able to resist that. I know there’s another thing that you talk about in the book that I think is something that if you’ve gone to an AAU tournament or you’ve sat in the stands with people, you’ll hear all types of parents quoting and talking about ratings and rankings and I can tell you a whole bunch of times that in my role as a parent, as a coach, where I’ve had people that have walked up to me while I’m coaching a game or right after a game, or I’m sitting in the bleachers and say, Hey, this kid, or my kid is the number four ranked fourth grader in the state of Ohio.

I’m almost speechless when people say that to me and I probably should just burst their bubble, but most of the time I just kind of nod my head and then move on. But talk about what you learned about the rating and ranking system when it comes to how much college coaches care about it, and then be why parents should just completely ignore all of that stuff.

[01:05:20] Simone Joye: Yeah. I wish I would’ve learned what I know now when Chad was in the ninth grade.

Oh my ratings and rankings. In a nutshell, it’s for journalists and social media pundits. It is not for college coaches. Maybe it’s for parental egos. I have no idea. Maybe it helps the ego of players when they’re young, but at the end of the day, unless your kid is like top 100, espn, top 100, and, and, and you have to understand they’re over, what, 500,000 high school men’s basketball players, right?

So unless you’re that 100 top, it doesn’t matter what your kid is ranked at, and even I feel like your kid you brought up a fourth grader, it’s like, wow, your kid could be the second in the fourth grade, and by the time they get to the seventh grade, they’re like, number 2000. You know? So, Oh, the emphasis, my kid was going crazy over his ranking in the star rating.

Oh my God. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t eat. He was online every single day Googling his name, looking at 24/7 who else are the other people? All the ratings places. And he just, oh my God. It killed him. And then one day I had to sit him down and say, listen, you are giving me high blood pressure over this.

Okay, listen, whether you are look at these other players that have made it. And they weren’t rated, they weren’t ranked. And that kind of gave him some relief, you know? Cause I had to like, give him like data to say it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter whether you’re right or right. You keep doing what you’re doing.

But the parents who use that as some type of. You know, my kid is better than all these other kids. Like, you don’t want to do that. And, and one thing I I will say about my family, we’re very humble because at any time, God forbid, your kid could get hurt and basketball is done and all of that rating, ranking, oh my kid’s the star all of that is over, even as a professional, you know?

And so you, you have to have some humility about this. And if your kid is really the number two in the fourth grade class, just give thanks, you know what I’m saying? And, and try to get some other kids help. You know, ttell your fourth grader to help some other fourth graders.

[01:08:00] Mike Klinzing: That’s how I look at, tell them to talk to the other 475 fourth graders who are the number four ranked fourth grader in the country by whatever scouting service.

One of the things that we learned for sure, and. I intuitively already knew this, but it’s been refreshing to hear coaches say that this is, A lot of times when coaches are recruiting, it comes down to their own personal taste when it comes to a player, right? It’s kind of like selling your house. To sell your house, you have to find one buyer that likes the house. To get yourself an opportunity to play college basketball. You have to find one coach that likes you enough to bring you into their program. And coaches have told me over and over again that they try to trust their own eyes. They might solicit opinions from other people and they might get recommendations from other people, but really ultimately it comes down to the eye test and they look and they get a feel for that.

On the floor, but then they also get a feel for that player if they bring them on campus or they have a meeting and they have conversations and all those kinds of things. And so many coaches have said to me it’s, it’s not about where, how many other offers this kid has or what other schools are recruiting them.

If we like the player, then we’re going to go ahead and we’re going to bring them in. Whether that’s offering them a scholarship or whether that’s bringing them in on the division three level, whatever it may be. . . And I think that’s important for both parents and kids to keep in mind that yeah, the rankings are fun and as you said, for social media and for getting it out there in front of people.

Yeah. That’s all fun. And it’s interesting, but ultimately when you’re talking about how it impacts your basketball career, if you want to go and play in college, I think there’s, there’s very little influence that it has ultimately on whether or not your child gets an opportunity at the college level. Yes.

All right. Before we wrap up, Simone, I want to give you a chance to share how people can find out more about you, where they can get the book, share your website, where your social media, whatever you feel comfortable with. And then after you do that, I’m going to jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:10:06] Simone Joye: Okay? Sure. So the book is available for sale on Amazon and my website is actually my name, simonejoye.com.

I have my bio up there. You can also purchase a signed copy of the book from my website and on Twitter. My Twitter is @SimoneJoye. And also too, I would like to mention I started a Facebook group for parents which is entitled Basketball, The Parent’s Section Outside the Locker Room. So I just started that last week and I’m trying to get more parents to join. I think I have about 10 members right now. Oh, cool. And yeah, and, and I think that we need a space online to speak with one another. So we’ll see how that goes.

[01:10:54] Mike Klinzing: That’s cool. That’s a very interesting idea. We’ll try to get that word out to you so hopefully people that are listening will be able to find that.

And we’ll put that in the show notes as well so that people can find it. So again, the book for our audience is called The Parent’s Section Outside the Locker Room. If you’re a parent, I highly recommend going out and picking up a copy. If you’re a coach, I think you’d benefit from reading it. And sort of hearing what the experience is like from a parent’s point of view, maybe you recommend it to parents of players on your team.

As I told Simone, and as I’ll tell everybody out there in the audience, I think the book is very well done. There are a lot of stories and different things that as I was reading it and going through that rang true for me. And then there were a lot of things that I learned that Simone shared that I think are tremendously valuable for any parent out there.

So Simone, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule to jump on with us. Truly appreciate it. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.