[00:00:03] Welcome to the Freshmen Foundation podcast. Helping you make the jump from high school athletics to the collegiate level and beyond with your host, Michael.
[00:00:20] Hey, everyone, I'm Mike Huber, founder and CEO of the Freshmen Foundation. Welcome to the Freshmen Foundation podcast, a podcast specifically about the transition from high school to college athletics. If you've been listening to the podcast for the last 11 or 12 episodes, you know that the format is typically interview format. But here in Episode 13, it's just going to be me. I'm going to do it solo. I don't have a guest. And the purpose of the episode really is for me to reflect on the first 12 episodes of of the podcast. I am a huge consumer of podcasts, but I never really thought that I'd have the opportunity to host one. So I have to say that this has been one of the best decisions I've ever made, frankly, in my life. But certainly in business, I think it's just a tremendous format that allows you, allows me to get into the things that I love to talk about the transitions within life, but also within athletics, and do that in a conversational format which are really, you know, I just find to be much more interesting and valuable than, you know, doing a solo podcast like I'm doing today. So if you've listen to Episode zero, you might have a little sense of where this started from. But the freshman foundation is an idea that was born out of work that I was doing with high school athletes a couple of years ago.
[00:01:46] And I still do. I still work with high school athletes primarily. That's my primary mental performance coaching clientele. But a couple of years ago, I was working with a few high school athletes in a school that I was on staff at, and they were preparing to make the jump from high school to college baseball. And when covid happened and the baseball season got canceled in twenty twenty, you know, we spent a lot of time working on the mental side of their game as they were getting ready to graduate and move on to to college. And in that transition, I just I learned a lot about the types of things that a senior who's getting ready to go into college is concerned about and what they want to be good at and how they want to prepare themselves mentally to walk in the door, you know, or step on campus and be ready to compete with athletes who are bigger, stronger, smarter, faster, older, all those things. And so that was sort of the start of this journey. And in general, I'm super interested in life transitions. Right. You know, this is about sport mainly, but ultimately life transitions, you know, come in all forms. And personally, I've been through so many life transitions myself, whether it's transitioning from single life to marriage and marriage to fatherhood, fatherhood to divorce, from business to the industry that I'm in now, I've just been through so many changes in my life and I know how hard it can be, especially if we don't plan for those changes ahead and they just sort of are thrust upon us.
[00:03:19] And I want to understand what the athlete goes through and how we can help them in that process and coach them through. Certainly, I had coaches in my life that helped me through those transitions, and I want to provide that information to families, both parents and athletes, as to how they can best prepare themselves for that, that jump from high school to college athletics. Like I said, I never thought that I would be doing a podcast. And it was presented to me out of the blue. I got a cold email from through LinkedIn from a marketing firm that pitched the idea of me doing a podcast. At first I really thought it was self-indulgent, like kind of frivolous, like I'm going to do a podcast, you know, why am I going to spend my time? Why am I going to want to spend my money? Who is going to want to listen to what I have to say? What's it going to do for my business? What's it going to do for me? But ultimately, when I talked through it, I thought, hey, this is a risk worth taking because I thought it would be fun based on how much I love podcasts.
[00:04:22] I thought it would be a learning experience for me based upon how much I love to talk to people and pick their brains about what they've done and what they know. And so I figured, well, what the hell, let's try it. And if it doesn't work, we can always stop it. You know, it ends up being a sunk cost, but the content never truly goes away. And so at a minimum, I would always have that content, you know, with me. And I was going to get a chance to meet a bunch of really cool people, you know, whether it's friends that I had that I got to know better or whether it's people I didn't really know and got to interview and find out where they're coming from and what makes them tick. And so for me, it was just a Win-Win all around. And, you know, this episode is a transition point because, you know, I'm going to continue on. I might do some solo episodes here coming up, but I'm looking forward to another round of interviews that I'll drop around September of this year, 2021. I'm just really excited about it, so. I think the purpose of this Episode 13 is to reflect on my journey and specifically to reflect on the conversations that we've had. Right. So we've had some great guests. We've had coaches like high school and college coaches from places like Fordham and St.
[00:05:35] Joseph in New Jersey, which is a baseball powerhouse, a basketball powerhouse, mental performance experts from IMG (Academy), the University of Louisville and athletes, you know, just people from all walks of life, but they're all kind of in it together, helping young people get through these transitions at some level through coaching and learning. So I'm just so grateful to the people who decided to come on. They they didn't have to come on. I didn't have any followership. I didn't have any eyeballs or ears to guarantee them. They just did it out of the goodness of their heart because they wanted to help educate people and they wanted to help me. And so I'm just super grateful for that in planning and preparing for the interviews that I that I did in the first 12 episodes, I really wanted the guests personal and professional experiences to come out. So most of my guests were all athletes, mostly at a high level. Right. I think every single one of my athletes played at a professional or college level for the most part other than my high school athletes who are going on to playing college. So I really wanted to leverage those personal experiences. But I also wanted to talk about their personal experiences in the industry of helping athletes get to where they want to go, of dealing at the college and pro level and really bring that varied perspective.
[00:06:52] And I think that, you know, I did a really good job of that in my interviews, trying to bring those things out. And everybody just really stepped up their game coming in and talking. So, you know, I wanted to reflect on some of the things, the themes that that we learned during the first 12 episodes. And, you know, I think there are a few things skill wise or attribute wise that, you know, we're really very clear to me. When I when I went back and listened to the material and looked at the transcripts, you know, I would say there were three things specifically. One, you know, one of the themes is communication. Right. Many of the guests talk about communication and how important communication is in the process of recruiting and how important communication is in the process of competing and being coached, being in a coaching relationship. And so, you know, in Episode four, boss had baseball coach at Michigan State, you know, talks about how important recruiting communication is sorry, in the recruiting process and that the recruits that he meets and works with are super. He's really paying attention to their, you know, their mannerisms. Are they shaking his hand or they're looking him in the eye? Do they appear confident? Are they, you know, invested in the process? And so for the athletes and the parents out there who are listening, trying to learn more, you know, that's something that's really important.
[00:08:16] And if it's something that you're not good at or your child is not good at, it's something that they need to practice and work on. Right. Putting themselves in situations with, you know, coaches and adults and really taking risks and being vulnerable and forcing themselves to look that person in the eye and stand up straight and have a firm handshake. And, you know, those are things you can practice. It seems really, really trivial, but it's not, you know, when a Division One coach is telling you that that's really important. I think it's something to heed just the same. Right. Ava Nielsen in Episode Five, who's going on to play soccer for the University of Louisville women's team, talked about her recruiting process and how important follow up and persistence was. The phone calls, the emails, you know, she felt like maybe they forgot about her. And then she picks up the phone and calls the follow up and they offer her on the spot because there was a relentless pursuit of what she wanted. And that is ultimately a function of the communication, right. Being able to reach out and ask questions and figure out where you stand so that you can get an answer sooner rather than later. And I think a lot of people, young people, certainly, but also adults are not willing to follow up for fear of being rejected or for fear of having somebody think that their pain or a nuisance.
[00:09:36] And so I think Ava's story is huge for high school athletes who want something really badly but maybe aren't willing to put in the effort or communicate with those coaches in the recruiting process. So I just thought that was huge. And then Sam Sharf from College Sports Advisors, a college player representation service that places high school athletes in college programs athletically. You know, he talks about being honest with his players in terms of evaluating their abilities and the potential about where they're going to go. You know, a player might want to think they might think they want to go to D1, a Division One school, and they don't have the capability to do that. You know, and you know, Sam, talk about being honest and not misleading those athletes and saying, hey, you may be your best shots at Division three, and here's what it sets you up for in the future and be honest with coaches, right? Having integrity and saying to a college coach like, hey, these players that I represent, they're great kids and they're really trying hard and they're working hard. But, you know, there may be deficiencies in the game that doesn't allow them to be recruited today. That honest communication is only going to help both sides because there's no there's no gap, there's no misinformation.
[00:10:46] And it's just such a big thing that I think a lot of times we take for granted. And in an Episode 12, Vanessa Shannon from Director of Mental Performance for the University of Louisville talks about the willingness to ask for help. And that, again, is communication. Are we willing to open our mouths and say, hey, I need help and there's more to it than that? Right. You know, asking for help is more than just the mechanical. I need to open my mouth because there's so much under the surface when we're asking for help, especially when we're afraid that someone's going to think we're weak or not capable. But part of it is being able to communicate a need. And so, I mean, all those people talked about communication in their episodes. And I just think that that's one of the key skills that high school athletes need to work on. You know, it doesn't just come naturally. It's not something that is you have it or you don't. You have to learn to get better at it. And so I thought that came through loud and clear, probably is the most prevalent theme that I got in all my conversations. Another theme that came out was resourcefulness. I mean, Lindsey Hamilton from IMG Academy in Episode Two talked about that. She talked about it very, very specifically. You know, the idea that we need to understand where we can find resources and we have to go get them and use them.
[00:11:58] And her comment to me was in that conversation was that the most successful athletes transitioning from high school to college are the ones that take advantage of the resources and know where to look for them and know the questions to ask. And again, that's a skill that can be practiced. Right. We may not be resourceful today, but if we ask for help, if we do our research, if we really work at it, we can become more resourceful and then ultimately put ourselves in a better position to succeed. You know, an example of that is Adam Boucher, you know, a freshman now finishing up his freshman year at Duke University as a pitcher on the baseball team. He talks about how he has access to individual mental performance coaching at Duke. And that's a resource that a lot of athletes either don't know about or if they know about it, they're afraid to use it because they don't know what it's going to entail or it's extra time or they don't want to be perceived as weak. So they don't they don't access it. But, you know, with resources like that at your disposal, that you don't have to pay out of your pocket at a major university, you know, you got to take advantage of it.
[00:13:01] It's just something that's really, really important. And it's going to give you a young athlete an edge, especially when they're transitioning into this brand new world of college. You know, and it's only athletics, but it's academics, it's social. It's all those things that are really going to impact the ability to be not only successful on the field, but to be happy and content, you know, in your life. And so Adam, I thought was a great example of that. And then BJ Merriam, who is the owner of Win the Mental Game Athletes’ Edge Journal and his product is about, that is about trying to understand what you need to do every day to get to get better as an athlete. And where do those resources lie? And in his role as a compliance director at a Big Ten school, he talks about doing your due diligence on a college program and a coaching staff and, you know, recruiting the school as much as they're recruiting you. And that that requires some level of resourcefulness. You need to know who to talk to, how to talk to them. You need to know the questions to ask you as to what that program is going to look like so that you don't leave it into somebody else's hands to just wait for them to come to you and say, hey, we want to offer you a scholarship, and you accepted it sight unseen and you don't even know what you're walking into.
[00:14:18] So I think that there's a resourcefulness, not really doing due diligence and asking those questions and trying to understand what's what's at stake and and what you're getting into. And then finally, the last thing that I'll talk about in the last team is is really being able to regulate our emotions through difficult times. And the transitions are, you know, they're they're ripe, you know, for, you know, emotional struggles because there's failure, there's adversity, there's loss of confidence. And there's all sorts of things that we feel when we're going through an uncomfortable situation and we need to be able to to keep that in check. And again, that's a skill we don't we don't just say, hey, you know, my emotions are going to get the best of me. There's nothing I could do about it. I mean, we can think that. But that's not true. You know, we can practice mindfulness, we can practice mindful breathing, and we can practice self talk strategies. We could practice all sorts of mental skills to help us regulate our emotions. And not get overheated or not get anxious and really be able to stay in the moment and say, hey, this is what I need to do to get better, and that came through in a number of the episodes, you know, particularly Mark Potter in Episode three from EPIC Risk Management and Gambling Awareness and Education Company based out of the U.K..
[00:15:36] You know, Mark, as a professional rugby player in his teens and 20s, and he came up against a really challenging gambling problem after he was injured and he was upset about his fate. Serious, serious shoulder and neck injuries, serious injuries, upset about his fate. And he had free time on his hands. And so he used gambling as a crutch, as a way to escape from reality of the situation. And the truth of the matter is, if you're a college athlete coming into a new environment and you're not playing as well as you want, maybe you're struggling, maybe you get injured, maybe you're redshirted. Maybe you just don't fit in things like not only gambling, but alcohol, drugs, all these kind of risky behaviors which may be used in moderation. You know, a lot of times can spiral spiral out of control. And, you know, I think, you know, having positive and adaptive emotional regulation strategies that help us rather than doing things that make us feel better, but ultimately end up adding to our stress and anxiety, it's not going to it's not going to work. Right. And so, you know, Mike Murray, head baseball coach at St. Joe's Metuchen, New Jersey, former San Francisco Giants farmhand, former Wake Forest captain and former all-state baseball player in New Jersey talks about how his freshman year of college baseball was the hardest year of his career and that he went from being a 500 hitter, 200 hitter overnight.
[00:17:01] And he talks about, you know, not being able to deal with failure because he never had before and having a loss of identity because baseball was such a big part of his life. And he was, you know, the big man on campus in high school. And now he's just like everybody else coming into college, you know. You know, there's emotional regulation that's needed to be able to work through those situations and be able to cope and manage in those days, in those hours and moments where, you know, you're just not in the right frame of mind. And same for Elliot Glyn. In Episode Seven from assistant baseball coach at Fordham, Elliott talks about being prepared to fail and learning how to address failure and deal with uncertainty. And that's similar to Mike. They were both Division One baseball players. They were both minor league baseball players drafted and, you know, they both ultimately found their way out of the sport into coaching. And you got to find a way to cope and and going to a new place with a new culture and new friends and new coaches and more pressure and more expectation is something we could prepare for in advance. How do we learn how to manage our emotions before we get to college so that when we step on campus and we're ready for something new, we can deal with it? At the end of the day, that's the freshman foundation is all about right.
[00:18:15] It's learning about those things, those skills that we can take and build so that when we get to college, we're ready or as ready as we can be, you know. We're never going to truly be ready for everything that gets thrown at us, but we're more prepared than maybe we would have been or maybe more prepared than our competition, which is our contemporaries, you know, the kids were coming in with and our teammates. And it's just being ready for life and having these tools that we could take with us beyond college. So I just think there's so much more to what what we've talked about in the first 12 episodes. And I would urge you to listen, because every guest brought a unique perspective. But I just have to say, like for me, having these 12 discussions and hopefully there'll be many, many more with other people that bring the same perspectives or bring the same energy and the same information. All of these interviews were just amazing learning experience for me. I just I wouldn't call myself an expert at this. I call myself a curious you know, I'm interested I'm curious about these transitions and I understand them. But I didn't go through some of these things that these people went through.
[00:19:21] And I wanted to hear from them firsthand, like what they've learned and what they see and what they expect so that we could pass it on to all of you who are listening. So, again, I can't thank them enough for joining me. Hopefully some of them will come back, you know, down the road for a second go round as as the podcast progresses. I'm super excited to push forward and bring new guests in this season's going to be really, really cool. I'm going to start recording here in the next month or two, try to get more interviews under under our belt. And like I said earlier, the in this episode really starts to drop stuff when school starts back in September, you know, to coincide with people coming back in school and looking forward to the college experience, you know. So in the meantime, I'm going to drop some solo episodes like this one, and I'm going to dig into some of these themes even deeper. I probably have an episode on communication and emotional regulation, have an episode on resourcefulness and all these different things that I think are important in the transition to high school and college and maybe get into the weeds a little bit. Talk about some of the skills, talk about what we can do, make it a little bit more, you know, nitty gritty, technical.
[00:20:28] And I think that, you know, it's a good balance to dive into some of the stuff and talk about what you can actually do and some of the skills that you can do in practice to get there. Maybe we'll do some videos and do some workshop type stuff. I'm just excited about the possibilities. So I guess ultimately I just hope you continue to listen on, follow along, become a part of the community. Check us out on social media if you like the show. I would love for you to share it with just one person who you think you could benefit, who could benefit from it. If you know someone who might be a good fit as a guest, whether it's an athlete, a coach, what have you, or you really just like something from the season that resonated with you, where you want to learn something more about this process. But we haven't touched on it. Email me at michael@freshmanfoundation.com or reach out to me on Instagram at TheFreshmanFoundation. And certainly if you're on podcasting platform, I would love it if you subscribed, rated the show, reviewed it good or bad. Obviously good reviews are better, but you any feedback is welcome. And I just want to say again, thank you so much for listening and hopefully continue on. And we continue to build this community and build the base of knowledge for everybody of this. And so thanks again. Take care, everybody.
[00:21:43] Mike Huber is the founder and owner of Follow the Ball Coaching, located in Fair Haven, New Jersey. He is a mental performance coach and business adviser dedicated to serving athletes just like you reach their full potential on and off the court. The Freshman Foundation is all about helping youth get to the next level. For more information, follow along on Instagram at TheFreshmenFoundation. Please subscribe. Give us the light on iTunes. Spotify, we have a review. Tell a friend, most importantly, come back in two weeks, ready to get better.