A Playbook for Rebuilding Youth Sports (feat. Scott Heinze)

Youth sports can shape a kid for life, or convince them they’re “not good enough” by age 12. I talk with Scott Heinze, Founder of Whole Child Athletics about why the current system pushes so many kids out, and what it looks like to rebuild youth sports around belonging, confidence, and lifelong physical activity instead of nonstop wins, losses, and highlight culture. Scott shares his 30-year journey through policing, K-12 education policy, and school board leadership, and how those experiences led to a simple but radical idea: Every kid is an athlete if they move their body regularly.

We dig into what families and kids actually ask for: affordable programs, fun with friends, and coaches who know how to communicate without judgment. Scott explains Whole Child Athletics as an “operating system” for youth sports with coach training, common language, and tools to measure outcomes beyond performance metrics. We also get into player development that keeps kids engaged, like 3v3 formats that create more decision-making reps, more touches, and more learning.

Then the conversation widens to public health and mental health. Scott connects sport to community in a time of isolation, and shares the “three warm welcomes” approach that helped shift Tacoma’s graduation rate from 55% to nearly 92%, plus how that same culture-building can show up at practice. If you care about positive coaching, social emotional learning, and real access through recreation, intramurals, and ethical public-private partnerships, this one will stay with you. 

Subscribe, share with a coach or parent or athlete, and leave a review so more people can help change the youth sports experience.

https://wholechildathletics.com/

Transcript

Welcome And Scott’s Origin Story

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back to another episode of Project 3P. I'm your host, Sherrod Ints. Uh, on today's episode, we have a special guest, Scott Hines of Whole Child Athletics. Scott, how are you today?

SPEAKER_01 0:11

I'm doing great, Sherad. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Yes, sir. Thank you for joining the podcast. Um, Scott, can you give a little bit of uh background to the listeners on Whole Child Athletics and who you are?

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yeah, absolutely. So it's just a 30-year origin story that's led me to found Whole Child Athletics. Um, a long time ago, I was a police officer. My undergraduate degree is in criminal justice. And uh I just for me, I'm a pragmatist, uh, a social scientist, I'm a humanist. And taking 14-year-old kids to juvenile detention didn't seem to be solving the problem. Um, and more importantly, I wondered what is going on in this young person's life that this is the best thing they've got going. I wanted to get upstream. I wanted to try to make a difference and make an impact and help kids have a different life trajectory. Uh, and for the last 30 years, I've been blessed to do that in a variety of ways. Uh, worked for a member of Congress, handled K-12 education policy, so took a deep dive into our public education system uh right after No Child Left Behind was implemented. A lot of great life lessons in there. Uh, spent some time uh working in a master's and uh uh doctorate in leadership studies through Gonzaga University. That really informed my thinking. Um, and then also spent about a decade uh on the Tacoma School Board. So really got to roll up my sleeves in an uh urban school district at a time of low performance. Um really all of those kind of life lessons and experiences have led me to realize that I think now's the perfect time for us to create whole child athletics. And so we did.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

That's awesome. Um, very inspiring. And uh it's very important that you know youth, um not just athletes, but youth in general, have uh someone and other people who are advocating for them. Um, especially in those times of need. Uh you mentioned, you know, different troubles that they came into at uh juvenile detention centers. Um, you know, it's very important, like you said, uh, that you know, they have an outlet, and you know, now whole child athletics is something that can be looked at as an outlet. Um can you tell me what you would define as a success for whole child athletics?

Redefining Who Counts As An Athlete

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Yeah, really just trying to uh help reimagine who and what an athlete is, right? I think that in the kind of the societal definition, it's typically the biggest, the fastest, the strongest, the most skilled. Um and a a lot of kids just don't see themselves as athletes. And so for us, we tell every kid that you're an athlete because our definition of an athlete is anybody that moves their body on a regular basis. And there's a whole lot of ways to move your body on a regular basis. So we want kids to feel um accepted for who they are and where they are. We want to give them a variety of experiences. Um, and most importantly, I just think of youth sports as maybe one of the greatest development tools that we have. And I think youth sports has kind of lost its way. And we built Whole Child Athletics to be a North Star to guide people back in a direction to use youth sports to positively influence kids and to give them a lifetime of physical movement and activity.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

That's awesome. I'm a big advocate for uh positive influence and for uh positive reinforcements. Uh reinforcement. That's my like personal coaching style. So when I coach kids, uh traditionally in sports and in New York, uh you see a lot of uh, I want to say demonstrative um coaching, um, you know, screaming at kids and in sports in general, like you know, you think Javi Knight and you know, a lot of old school stuff that you know used to be um acceptable back in the day. Um and I don't know what uh you know kind of inspired me to kind of take a different approach, but you know, you think about how people want to be talked to and how you know you can bring the best out of people. Um I attended like a basketball camp. I don't know if you've heard of um PGC, Point Guard College. Um they're big on like positive reinforcement. Um it's one of those camps that I think like speak definitely uh to you know my character and you know how you can impact the youth.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

But um Absolutely. I mean, I think the coach to me is the single most influential person in the whole youth sport ecosystem. And we just take for granted who's showing up for our kids every day. And you know, we've got a lot of really well-intended people that want to come and share their love of sport, their desire to make kids better at that sport. Uh they just want to connect with them. But as a system, we haven't ever really taught them how to do that in a developmental way that's age appropriate. And that's where I think this, you know, for me, the the power of whole child athletics, we're a system. We're not another program. There's plenty of programs and teams and leagues that are out there. This becomes about alignment and how do we start to calibrate the experience so there's some consistency and how do coaches feel that they're supported? You know, I'd be curious from from your perspective, because you know, you're in the game in a lot of different ways. Like, what do you see that coaches need that they're not currently getting?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Uh I would definitely say consistency. Uh, I think a lot of training and just a lot of time with the athletes. I think uh a lot of time is spent, you know, really on the competition and in the practice, but not a lot of time is spent, you know, building and reshaping the athlete. Um and you know, when it is, I feel like a lot of people do it for the wrong reasons. Um and it should just be, you know, to help the kid and be a vehicle to help the kid get to where they need to be um in life.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

So I definitely I mean I'm in complete agreement with you on that. And I do think that we get coaches that get in there. Uh I mean, I'll tell you in Tacoma, Pierce County, where I am, uh a few years ago, we invited the Aspen Institute's uh sports and society program to come in and they conducted a formal state-of-play report for us. Uh and when we asked kids why do you quit, they told us it's too competitive, it's too expensive, uh, and I don't like the way my coach interacts with me. I feel judged. They yell at me, they don't know how to communicate with me. Uh, and when we asked them what do you want, they said, we want to play for fun with our friends on our timeline. Uh and I will say to the coach's credit, when we surveyed them through this state of play report, they acknowledged that they needed to get better, that they tended to be too focused on X's and O's. They didn't really understand how to be better at that developmental piece, but they wanted to be. So I think that's encouraging. You know, if we're going to make some transformation in this youth sports ecosystem, that they that a lot of coaches out there are like, hey, help us. We don't, we want to be better, help us be better. That's a great sign. Like we should all be aspiring to try to just evolve and improve in all aspects of our lives.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Absolutely. And I feel like the more uh coaches you help, you know, the more athletes you'll be able to reach ultimately. So I think that system um definitely will help a lot of people um in a lot of different ways. So I think that's great. Um, how do you think uh that system that you're building or have built over the last 30 years uh helps um those that are benefiting from it view sports differently?

Coaches And The System Kids Need

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Yeah, so we just I think it's important in the way you talk about sport and the purpose of sport. And so we collectively need to begin redefining the purpose of sport. And I think it's gotten so competitive. And I think, you know, in some ways it's the American way of uh wins and losses is what really count. How many points did you get yours? Did you win the game? Did you win the championship? Um, and we've just, you know, we're in this state now where kids and families are um there's a skewed perspective on the purpose of sport. And I think we need to be adamant that the purpose of sport, especially for kids, is about belonging and confidence, like things beyond the scoreboard. That's why we created this beyond the scoreboard index. Did you have fun? Did you feel better connected to your teammates? Did you have an opportunity to lead? And oh, by the way, being a leader isn't I'm in charge and I get to tell everybody what to do. It's you're responsible for the well-being of the people that you lead. Your sole purpose is to make them better, to help them grow, to make certain they're cared for, right? Those are the sorts of things that we could derive from the youth sports ecosystem if we started to expect it. And I think it's easy to get caught up in wins and losses. Um, but it just that's that that's such a small element. I'm not anti-competition. I love competition. Um, my wife will tell you sometimes I'm too competitive, right? Uh, but but competition without purpose, I think is irresponsible. And when we get those early experiences to be rooted in fun, and when we build a system that trains coaches, like at Whole Child Athletics, we have a curriculum. We are an operating system. It's about alignment. We're not out there making programs, school districts, youth-serving sports organizations choose between us or another entity. We come in and standardize the experience so that there's common language. We believe you need to measure your performance. I think parents should start to expect that the entity that they often give hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to is producing outcomes for their kids that extend beyond wins and losses and scholarships and selling the dream. You know, are you making my child that I entrust with you a better human being? Like that should be, and these organizations need a way to demonstrate that. And we provide within our operating system coaching curriculum, assessment tools, training, right? Professional development. It's a whole package that creates that universe where people can now start to treat their athletes differently because we're moving towards an outcome that's beyond the scoreboard. And I think when we start to adopt that more, when you see that become the common frame, I think you're gonna see youth sports participation increase. And I think families are gonna have better experiences as a result. And those kids are gonna continue to be um active for the entirety of their lives, right? They're not gonna age out, get cut, whatever, and be done. They're gonna they're gonna understand that I get community through sport. I feel better when I'm moving my body, you know. That's why I talk about uh the public health aspects of this, not super jocked pipeline. Are we building kids that are mentally and physically healthy?

SPEAKER_00 11:29

That's amazing. Um, a lot of things that you said, there's a lot to unpack there. Um, a lot of different things called to me, and you know, I love every single thing that you said. Um Yeah. So little by little, like I'm I'm unpacking it. But uh I think that's it. Break it down.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

I gave you a lot. I came at you through the fire hose. Let's let's turn it into a trickle.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Absolutely. But I appreciate it, and you know, I'm sure when people go back and they listen to it piece by piece, they'll also appreciate it and kind of pluck from you know each individual thing that speaks to them. Um, I think that's the importance of community, the importance of an ecosystem, the importance of a pipeline that helps coaches, uh, help kids, and you know, like different things that uh speak to different athletes. Like I think one of the biggest things, like getting lost in the competition, um, and you know, losing yourself to X's and O's and not just about you know the betterment of the kid and what the kid needs.

Teaching The Game With 3v3

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Um, you know, I think that's important. Like one of my biggest, I think, uh inspirations is like feed of basketball. So like I'm in the US and I love basketball in the US, but if you look at how basketball is taught from a young age overseas, you know, it's all fundamentals and 3v3 and a lot of things that helps, you know, not only build the confidence of the athlete, but also, you know, helps them read the game, you know, a little faster and make decisions and things that I think we're you know learning from the opposite way. So I think we focus on a lot of athleticism and skills and this and that, but we don't focus on, you know, the things that matter, like making decisions and building relationships and, you know, the little things that, you know, really speak to what the athletes need. Um, you know, them being nurtured. Uh it's almost like it's all transactional, you know?

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we've got more kids that first want to have that wicked crossover that gives them the viral social media moment uh before they understand a pick and roll, right? And a pick and roll, I mean, uh Almazag, John Stockton, and Carl Malone demonstrated the pick and roll uh can can win a lot of games, right? Like it can be it's not flashy, but it's effective. And so I think to your point, like that skill building, that basic understanding of game. And then, you know, in the work that we do, not only are we providing the operating system, we do some design work, some program design work to create those outcomes that you're talking about. So, what I love when I hear you say three on three, I'm a huge proponent of three on three. Um, I played baseball into college, but I probably loved playing basketball more. And uh, and in that three-on-three, when we start to break the game down for kids, it's a better experience because instead of a 5E5 where I'm running up and down the court, and at some levels, you know, I'm sure you've seen this. Hey, the big runs all the way down underneath the hoop. Uh, a guard gets about to half court, dribbles the ball off his leg, right? So here we go. Now the big comes back the other way, and and you don't get a lot of gameplay often, depending upon skill level. But when we get in a 3v3 environment, and now, hey, I've removed running up and down the court, which could be a physical limitation for some of our emerging athletes, and I can get coaches like you to really teach up on, hey, what is the pick and roll? What's the give and go? Where do I need to be defensively? Oh, hey, you got to be on the basket side, you can't be on your man side, or we're just gonna lob the ball over, right? Like you can, and now that those it's you have actual gameplay to try that out, right? I don't just hope that in this 5v5 full court, um, right? So it's it's all of it in the ecosystem. It's it's not a one size fits all, but I think the more we can borrow from what's working, like that FIFA model, where hey, developmentally, those players are pretty good, right? We see them come at the highest levels in play and they're pretty skilled. We wonder why you know Wemby has the handle of a guard because he learned that skill at a very early age. We didn't just say you're the tallest kid in the class, go stand underneath the basket, you're the post, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Absolutely. Uh the game has changed so much, and I think it changes you know almost every 10 years or so. Um, you know, you had a point guards game, you know, who's running the pick and roll. Uh, you know, you have a shooting guards game who's you know exclusively scoring, and just going like error by error, like you know, Stockton and Malone, you've got Jordan, you've got Kobe, you've got you know, a bunch of guys. LeBron, he's the prototypical, you know, 6'8, 6'8 small forward, if not taller. Um you know, every team tried to replicate that formula. Um, and you know, same thing with what's what's happening with Wemby now, uh, where you have somebody who's all over like seven feet five, um, you know, that changes the game. And how they also play changes the game. They're not like Shaq, they're not a traditional back to the basket big or you know, not like Tim Duncan, they can face up and shoot, like they can really do it all. And I think it's important the new era. Yeah, absolutely. It's important not to limit, you know, athletes um when it comes to and it's fun to watch.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah.

Sport As Community And Public Health

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Right? I mean, that's the you know, the the other thing, when we start to get kids feeling like they are an athlete and we expose them to the game, you know, not only just the physically go out and play it, but there's a lot of great emerging resource, uh uh research talking about the social aspect of rooting for your team. Right. And when we're in this epidemic of isolation and loneliness, especially for young men, uh, that that bond that you can have through kind of that social cultural relevance of sport, where maybe I I can't I can't hoop like some of you, but I understand the game. I enjoy watching the game, right? I mean, that's what I think is the most magical part of girls' flag. Sport to me is the variable, right? There is no, oh, if only you implement this sport. That that sport may be the draw, right? And right now we're seeing so many girls that are interested in playing flag. But the beautiful thing about when we connect them to flag, I'm a fierce girl dad, and my baby and I uh sit down and watch games at her asking, hey dad, can we sit down and sure? And we get those shoulder-to-shoulder conversations, right? We're watching the game, but I get to hear about all sorts of stuff that's going on in their life. And so when we give kids exposure to sport and we make them feel like there's a place in sport for them, regardless of their current physical ability, we're opening up all of these other sorts of social aspects. And again, back to the public health piece of it, right? We we need our our kids, that state of play report told us that our kids in Tacoma Parrish County, a lot of them on most days aren't all right. They told us they're anxious, they're depressed, some are suicidal, some are homicidal. And so for us, how do we as a society start to address that? And that's where I think the power shroud and the way that you and I could think about sport, not as the who won or who lost, but as the vehicle, the convener, the tool to build relationships, to humanize the experience, right? That's the power. And I argue we just haven't done it to scale or to the scale that we could in this country, because we just almost immediately from the youngest ages get fixated on wins and losses and championships, and we just over time lose all of these kids. And so when I talk about the loss to society, that's what I'm getting at, right? We've lost this way, this tether to this young person. And when they tell us statistically, you know, girls around age 11 quit organized sports, boys about 12, it doesn't mean they stop playing all overall. But but I think if we have a system where these kids are connected to a coach like you that understands the value of sport to make you a better human being, when we lose that at 11 and 12, we lose a lifetime of potential development. And so that to me is why it's so critical to redefine the purpose of sport at a young age to get these kids active and involved, because it has all of these exponential societal benefits when they

Building Better Entry Points For Kids

SPEAKER_01 20:10

do.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

That's amazing, Scott. Um the first thing, not first thing, but one of the first things that made my ears ring. Um, you mentioned that you are a dad with a daughter who's involved with sport. I'm also a girl dad. Um my daughter's only two. Um nothing like it. Yeah. So, you know, what can you speak about uh what you know the early experience was like for you introducing sport to her and how whole child athletics helped kind of shape her experience in sport early?

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Yeah, definitely. So I uh she's the baby. I have two older sons. Um and I I coached. And uh, you know, I like I said earlier, I uh I can be competitive. I was competitive in my playing days. I coached high school varsity baseball for a while. I was competitive in that space as well, um, and really didn't think that I would ever coach youth sports. And then um, and then my oldest turned five and had a really negative first experience with T ball of all things, because he had a coach that was a yeller, right? And it's like you can't yell at kids that are five. You probably shouldn't yell at kids for most of their career because it doesn't elicit the response you're hoping for. It's probably just going to push them away, right? But that's another conversation. Uh, but what I started to see early was a discrepancy between opportunities that were available for my boys and opportunities that were available for my daughter. And, you know, to me, it became uh a little personal in that I think it's the the experience and the perception to that young athlete of the experience. So she was interested in playing volleyball, but she didn't want to be on a club team. She was interested in playing softball. She didn't want to have to play five days a week. And for us, I think, you know, part of whole child athletics is really this new lexicon, this new language, right? Do we have a common way of talking about things? And I see so much potential around kind of redefining recreation and redefining intramural, because I think both of those terms have been defined and people just instantly have an expectation of what that experience means. And so when we say recreation, it's largely kind of loosely organized. You don't know the certainty of the experience. It may be great. There may be some skill building, there may be some relationship building, some personal development. But if we really start to create intentionally those recreational experiences, I'm redefining as community-based. So it can be it's your YMCA, your boys and girls club, your youth-serving sports organization. There's alignment around outcomes that we're trying to drive. And so the Charlotte Heinzes of the world have an opportunity to get into that system early in a recreational, right? But now it's a more structured, not cutthroat competition, not you have to come and play. Like structure doesn't equate to more, it equates to better in my mind. We are improving the experience for the kid and the family. And so that really has driven my thinking around what are the entry points for these young athletes that have almost a binary decision from the get-go. Do I play community recreation or do I play club? And there's not a lot of middle ground. And then I think similarly, when kids get into school, especially at the middle school, high school level, the power of what I call school-based, intramural, right? And again, you can put some structure around it to ensure continuity of experience, consistency of experience. It can be producing outcomes that we choose to measure, but it's school-based. We meet kids where they are. We remove barriers like transportation and cost and those sorts of uh impediments, right? And now those kids that don't make a varsity or JV team or don't want to make a varsity or JV team still have a pathway, right? And so that kind of thinking about hey, if I could design the system that would nurture and steward my daughter and get her interested. No, we just did it, right? Because that's how I'm wired. Like we found opportunities, right, for our kids to play. And when you've got two older brothers, you kind of just you're in the mix, right? I used to laugh that growing up, um, she would put a dress on and hit you uh with an elbow or like she was tough as nails. Like she was this beautiful combination of all of it. And I think so. For me, that's what I'm always designing in mind is that that young person that needs a path, and that we need to dignify the path. That they're not settling to be less competitive or less committed. That just meets where they are and who they want to be and how they want to experience the world. And maybe we light a spark and they get passionate and they want to go be great at something. Fantastic. We already have systems in place for kids that are interested in that. We don't have a lot of systems for those kids that just want to get involved and stay involved, but never compete at the elite levels. And so that's my baby girl, has been my inspiration for a lot of that.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

That's amazing. Um, and I think you nailed it. Um, you know, having a an entry point uh for everyone is like one of the most important things. Um, you know, that's something that Asphalt Green is, you know, adamant about. Um whether you are partaking in some classes, or uh, you know, you want to just be with your friends in the rec league, or if you want to play competitively and you know, join an AAU program, um or an AAU team rather, you know, in our AAU program. Um, you know, you have an entry.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

All of it. Yeah. Right? All of it. We don't pick winners and losers. We don't kids get some say, right? We empower these young people to have a choice, and then we train up those people that are responsible to coach them,

Demanding Outcomes Beyond Skill Metrics

SPEAKER_01 26:15

right? I mean, that's the other thing that I think we have to, you know, at the highest level of the youth sports ecosystem, as consumers, we need to start to demand that programs demonstrate to us not just how my kid's vertical leap has improved, or his three has gotten better, or his exit below, or whatever the sport is, right? Don't just show me the metrics tied to sport. Show me how, by virtue of my child being with you, in some instances, several hours a day, many days a week, is getting better as a human being. Because the data tends to indicate the longer those kids are in that environment, most of them uh leave because it's not nurturing, it's not human development. And you get a handful of kids that stay, and you know, the statistic I see, oft-quoted, one to five percent of kids play a high school varsity sport, one to five percent of those kids play in college, a handful of those students win the lottery and play professionally, and now you're 22 years old. What do you do for the rest of your life if you got funneled out? And what's this experience instilling in you? You know, when I do talks and I ask people, hey, did you ever get cut from a sport? Hands go up. It's visceral. It might have been 20 years ago, and they remember being judged, being told they weren't good enough. And and then we wonder why kids leave. Well, they get cut and there's no alternative pathway. We tell them they're not good enough and they believe us. And so I think for families to start to demand that these programs show outcome, proof, right? Show me that you are developing my young person that I entrust you with. And these coaches, like to your point, it makes me think I love uh I love Coach Saban, I love Coach Caliperi, I love Coach Petino. They're old school, right? Um, and there was a viral video. I mean, you're with Petino, right, in your neck of the woods last season or a couple of seasons ago, where um, to put it politely, he questioned his team's manhood in the locker room. Yeah, right. Their resiliency, their tenacity, their ability to fight back in very specific, you know, not safe for work terms. And so for coaches that are like, hey, that's great, yeah, but you can't talk to an eight-year-old like that. Yeah, right. You can have that intent, you can want to motivate, but you know what motivates most of these kids is to know you care about them.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Right?

SPEAKER_00 28:48

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

And those athletes are some of the best in the world, so you can talk to them a little bit differently at that level. But if that's the only model that a lot of coaches have in their lives, and I think most of these coaches are trying to do right by the kids they're entrusted with, but we've only said to them what matters is wins and losses, and so they're gonna put the best five on the court to maximize their wins so they can tout how successful the program is. And when you start to lean in and ask them questions beyond the scoreboard, what's the integrity of these kids? What's their character? What's their resiliency? Do they feel more confident or less confident after they interact with you in the program? Right? Well, I haven't ever thought about that. Well, great, then let's invite them into a conversation to start to think about that, right? That's the whole child athletics in action, is trying to systematize those experiences and then measure it. And we don't always get it right, but that's learning, right? That's the value of sport. You fail in life. And if we think failure is uh is a negative, you know, it's a character flaw, as opposed to no, no, no, when it doesn't go exactly as you had anticipated, that's growth. Lean into that, learn from that. And do we have people in these kids' lives that are messaging that to them? That this this win or loss or whatever is not a character flaw, it's an opportunity to understand what went wrong. And then, oh, by the way, can you think of other areas in your life where you could apply this sort of thinking when things don't go your way, right? Just connecting sport to real life.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

Amazing, Scott. Um, and you just keep dropping gem after gem after gem. Um, I think there's gonna be so many different people who are gravitating toward this um, you know, interview in this episode um just because of all the different things that you're sharing and that apply to a lot of different athletes and individuals surrounding the sport. Um, you know, can you share a story of a young athlete whose life um was transformed because of a positive sports experience that you impacted directly?

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Yeah, you know what I think about um kind of to extrapolate that beyond a single athlete, what I see is um these young athletes being given an option, an opt-in, not a settle for, but an opt-in to a program uh like Whole Child Athletics that is uh a great experience. And and you just watch them, just the body language, the nonverbals, when you put these kids and adolescents and young adults in an environment where they are being empowered and nurtured, and then you ask them did this experience help you feel better about yourself and the confidence. I mean, we just see it like time and time again.

Three Warm Welcomes That Change Culture

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Um, and that's where I think you know, that like to scale, there's so much power in this because you know what I built whole child athletics um foundationally on lessons learned from almost a decade on the Tacoma School Board, where we were early adopters and pioneers of social emotional learning that turned into the Tacoma Whole Child Initiative. And so I have seen this in the classroom for years now that when we trained up, not just teachers and paras and people in the classroom, but everybody in the system, bus drivers, custodians, nutrition service workers, we've got the receipts that show when you communicate with kids, when we recalibrate how adults interact with kids, kids with kids, kids with adults, adults with adults, you change a culture, right? And and so I the the to me, um one of the greatest lessons learned now that we've got longitudinal data out of the Tacoma Whole Child Initiative, three warm welcomes. And think about like with all of your experience in the youth sports space, how often you see this. So, causation, not just correlation, things that make kids' attendance better, behavior better, grades better, self-esteem better, mental health better, three warm welcomes. What we did is we trained up everybody in the universe that comes in contact with that young person to acknowledge that young person. So you get up in the morning to go to Tacoma Public Schools, you can come out of your house to get on the bus, and the bus driver high fives you and says, Sherrod, great to see you, let's go, gonna be a great day. And you get to campus and you go right to the cafeteria, and the nutrition service worker says, Sherad, I got pancakes going. How many do you want? And you walk down the hall and the custodian says, Sherrod, great to see you, gives you a high five. You get to your classroom door, teacher says, Sherad, I got a hands-on science lab today, you're gonna love it. Take a seat, let's go. And that young person settles into their desk. We've just taken care of a lot of their Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Full belly, they feel safe and secure, they feel better connected to their classmates, they feel better connected to these adults in their lives. Now we're in a place to learn, right? Now there's a receptivity to learn. So, what I ask you is, do we see that consistently in the youth sports space? Are we given three warm welcomes? Are we starting practice by checking in with kids and asking them, how are you doing today? And when they tell us they're not doing so great, do we as coaches, are we trained to react to that? Or do we just get into, hey, I got an hour with you in this gym space, I want to make you the best hooper you possibly can. And we just get going with the experience. Three warm welcomes. So that kind of when we talk about lessons learned from Tacoma Whole Child Initiative, and by the way, anecdotally, our graduation rate in 2011, the year before we started this work, was 55% for a school district of 30,000 people. One in two kids was dropping out of Tacoma Public Schools, unconscionable. And this year our graduation rate was almost 92%.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

It works. It's a methodology, it's behavioral science, it's pedagogy. Let's apply it to athletics. Let's take whole child academic and use it for whole child athletics. That's that's the vision, and it's already being so well received because the market and the community is telling us that's the experience that most kids and families want to have.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

That's amazing. I appreciate that message so much, Scott. And like I said, and like I keep saying, um, I know the listeners will also appreciate that. Um our final question uh of the interview today and of the podcast episode. Um, if you want, if there was one thing that listeners could remember, um, just one message from today's conversation, uh, what would you hope that would be?

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Yeah, I uh that's a great question. I think that it is um again that youth sports is one of the most powerful development development systems that we have. Have we built the system to consistently deliver it? And as part of that system, do we have training for coaches? Do we have assessment of what the outcomes are? Are we hitting the mark? Are we missing the mark? Like that becomes the new standard for the experience, right? That we want these young people to use sport as the vehicle, hoops, flag, baseball, whatever it may be, as the engagement tool to put a trained up, caring adult in front of them who can consistently help them grow, right? Not mastery of skill, growth uh as a human being. And sports skill may be part of it, uh, but really just getting people to think differently about their expectation of sport for themselves and their family.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Amazing. Thank you so much, Scott. Um, before we end the episode, no, of course. Um, can you please share uh where everyone who's listening uh can either contact you, find information about whole child athletics, um, or you know, just shoot any questions that they may have your way if they're interested in um applying some of the things that you said, you know, to their organizations or programs, or even

How To Reach Whole Child Athletics

SPEAKER_00 37:11

themselves.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So uh wholechildathics.com, so www.holchildhletics.com. Uh and on the website is all of the uh kind of backstory on who we are and what we do to include contact. So there's uh phone numbered, email, there's also a forum you can get right on the website and say, hey, I'd love to have further conversation, um, and we'll get notified and we'll set that up. Um and and I just think you know, the the more people learn about the program um and the more questions they have, like let's push and pull. You know, I appreciate you giving me this forum. I'm trying to do this as much as I can because I hear a lot about people being dissatisfied with the current state of youth sports. And I'm like, I agree with you. Are you ready to do something about it? Right. Right? Can we help to be your North Star at Whole Child Athletics to create different experiences and families? So, people that are listening, if there are things that resonate and you want to learn more about, reach out. Um, if you think uh what we're trying to do is fundamentally flawed, reach out. I want to have the conversation, right? I want us to have uh uh this productive tension where we truly challenge existing ways of doing things uh because I believe we can do better for kids and families. Um but I want to be engaged with people. So I hope this resonates with your audience. I hope we get some reach out because of it. I hope you and I get a chance to talk again. I think that we've got a lot of great things we can do together. I think we have we're the Venn diagram, right? We've got that overlap where we align, and then you've got some things you're really great at. I've got some things that I've got some experience at. Uh, and that's the value proposition, right? We're not in competition. We're trying to be in better alignment with one another.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

That's right. It takes a village. Um, and you know, absolutely, 100%. Very early on uh in the episode, you mentioned the Asken Institute. Asphalt Green is like working alongside the Askin Institute right now on some things. Um, so you know, from that alone, I knew that a lot of things that were coming in the episode and a lot of things that you said aligned with um, you know, the conversation that we had today. Um and I 100% believe that we will have more conversations um and you know hope that it reaches everybody that it needs to reach the first time, the second time, the third time, as many times as we need to have the conversation until a change is made, you know, that we want to see. You know?

SPEAKER_01 39:40

Yeah, absolutely. And I do think we're gonna, this isn't a one-off, right? We're gonna have to keep having the conversation over and over. Um, it's a different way of thinking about it. Uh people are busy in their lives, it can feel overwhelming. Uh, but Aspen Institute, Sports and Society program, they're doing some really great work. They've got some um, you know, really important research that they've done now for the better part of a decade. Um, and that's what it takes, right? We need think tanks to come in and help us make assessment. We need uh programmers, practitioners to be involved. Um, and I just I think we're on to something. I'm I am I've been excited about the initial response to what we're proposing because it is different. And I do get, I did a podcast last week, and somebody was, you know, the question of participation trophies came up, right? Well, what do you feel about participation trophies? And I'm like, well, let me push back. What what age group are we talking about? What's the program? Do I think eight-year-olds should get a trophy? I do. I want an eight-year-old to have something that reinforces the positive experience. And should there be high school state championships? Yeah, there should. Right? And then we've got plenty of uh space in between those two eight-year-old purely recreational high school state championships. Right? It's not it's not binary, it's not either or. It's not uh, oh, we're making kids soft if we give them a trophy at bait. No, we may be projecting them to see a lifetime of being physically active, right? And so that's what I anticipate. Like as we have these conversations where we talk about the importance of whole child and human development through sport, and people lose sight of uh the value in that because they just want to give back to that cutthroat competition. I mean, that's that's the that's the to me, that's the fun in this. Like, let's have the conversation. And so, you know, as we evolve um and as this movement, and I do think it's a movement, I do feel like people are ready for change, and they've got, you know, folks that have some ideas about what that readiness for change looks like and what the implementation could be.

Funding Access And Participation Trophy Debate

SPEAKER_01 41:47

We help them build the system. You have to do it by yourself. It's alignment with a lot of great programs out there. I think there's a pretty straightforward path. Um, and then just the last thing I would plug before we go, um, and this might be another episode. I just think we have to get over this resistance in a lot of municipalities and government agencies about true public-private partnership, because government is never going to have enough resources and enough time to meet all of the need, and nor should they. And I think there's some tension between government tends to move on a circular timeline, right? I'm in a biennial budget, you caught me in an off-budget year, it's a supplemental year, there's no new money, right? I've got a new mayor, a new city manager, a new council. I can't make any radical change, like all of it. And yet it's that 11-year-old girl that may not ever play organized again that we're, you know, is the expense of us being able to get our acts together as human beings. And so I think there's a lot of private sector uh funding that if uh if if put together in an authentic way, an ethical way, can drive experience and opportunity for kids and families. We just have to do it. We have to stop reaching in families' pockets to find the money for the experience. And we need to be better at public-private partnerships to create opportunity for more kids and families.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

That's huge. And you know, it relates to a lot of things that you know you see in different organizations because uh, you know, a lot of people see what's at face value, they don't see what goes on behind the curtain. Um, and you know, speaking of the conversations that you know you're bringing up about different um finances that are available and not available, that makes a difference, you know. Um, you know, it allows someone to participate or does not allow someone to participate.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

And I think the difference in that kid's life. I mean, without being hyperbolic, that could be the difference. And this notion that everything that has benefit to kids and families has to be philanthropic, right? Like the only way to get there, like I'm a I love philanthropy, but I also think there's great opportunity for private sector involvement. Um, I'm a little apprehensive about what private equity may do, uh, because private equity to me is different. It's nuanced, but it's different than a private company getting involved with marketing dollars because they see benefit. You know, to me, what I've been trying to push on is we need more companies that provide funding that create the opportunity. And then you need the whole child athletics of the world, you need the asphalt greens of the world that make certain that experience is great. Right? That there's this symbiotic when you have a funder, a private sector company like that to me is a great investment of private funds because they may be looking for, you know, target marketing these kids and families. If we set it up right, I think you can do it ethically. What they're not looking for is a return on investment, right? They're they don't have margins that they're trying to hit at the expense of kids and families. Program be damned, right? If I need to trim some budget so that my PE investors can can get the return they're looking for to the to the detriment of the experience, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about let's get the those partners that see value in providing the opportunity so that providers like Gasphalt Green and Whole Child and Boys and Girls Clubs and a whole slew of people that are out there doing great work can standardize uh a positive experience for kids and families.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Final Thanks And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Um, thank you so much for your time, Scott.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

Uh thanks for having me. I appreciated the conversation. I hope we get to have more.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Yes, we definitely will. Um that wraps up today's episode of Project 3P. I'm your host, Sherrod Ints. Uh, my guest, Scott Hines. Thank you for your time again, and we'll see you soon.