HOUR 3: When do you know a child athlete is going to be elite?

0:00You're listening to the Dana and Parks podcast on KMBZ. What'd you say Sam this song needs a country remake? It does. It needs a deep twang deep voiced country remake. Give me a sample. What me? Yeah. It's your idea. I'm not a country singer. Okay, never mind. Do it. Do it. I'm not good on the spot. You know, every time I try to do an accent on the spot, it comes out the same way and it's the wrong one. Do it. No. Okay. It is the extra second heard round the world. The, the, the Mid American Conference has submitted official paperwork. Yep. To the end of the NCAA, NCAA, NCAA oversight committee. They want Western Michigan recognized as the actual winner of their game last weekend against Michigan. Didn't they storm the field and then have to unstorm it? I, I watched some of that game.

1:04We did not watch the very end of it, which was apparently very controversial. I don't understand how there were zero seconds on that clock and then they put back one. Apparently, they're arguing that the clock you see on TV or in the stadium is not the official game. It's not always an alignment with the official game clock. Okay. It almost never is. Right. Let me ask you this then. If that is the case and I don't deny that, why don't we see this sort of outcome all the time where there's a discrepancy that really changes the outcome again? Because usually a Hail Mary touchdown doesn't occur with just one second left. It's extremely rare. We saw it in one chiefs game last year and I think there was one other NFL game where everybody thought it was over. Nope. Just kidding. You get one more play. And people are mad about the outcome of that game. It's not like they were expected to win.

2:07Well, I know, but they almost did. You know, I mean, is it going to make or break their chance to get into the not invited tournament? Maybe there is no not invited tournament in college. If you were in a lump, Sam, or you were cheering for that team and David versus Goliath, you would be furious. I understand the anger. I just don't think they can overturn it. What are you going to do? Play the game again? No, they're Western Michigan. Well, Western Michigan, by the way, is not part of the appeal. It's the mid American conference. It's the conference doing this. Correct. Saying the initial clock should stand, which means they win. Correct. Saying they were out of time. The Hail Mary pass never should have occurred. Therefore, the touchdown should have never occurred. We should have, or sorry, Western Michigan should have won the game. We want you to give it to our member school. But the clock that we is displayed in stadium and the clock that is displayed on TV is just started by some random producer in a studio.

3:08Well, we're kicking off. Go ahead and hit the button. Or up in the press box. Press box. Yes, thank you. The hottest home upgrade in America right now might be a locked gate at the end of a driveway, a new study. I love this. Finds that half of American adults would pay above market price for a house in a neighborhood with a gated or controlled entrance. And nearly a third say that they would shell out at least 6% more for the privilege. The numbers come from a survey of a thousand American adults. By the way, the company behind it is a company that installs all automated driveway gates. Real estate data backs up at least part of the trend homes in gated communities. Here it goes. Already carry a roughly $30,000 premium over ungated properties. Well, makes a survey notable isn't just the price tag that buyers are willing to eat. It is the disconnect between how dangerous people think their neighborhood is and how safe they

4:12actually feel inside of it. Okay, listen to this. You can make statistics say whatever you want. Crime numbers show that in homes in gated communities, they have a roughly 33% lower burglary risk than homes in open neighborhoods. Okay. However, the physical gate may not even be the reason why is it a correlation or a causation like everything else, right? Well, crime may be lower. Is it because in a gated community, those houses are going to be a million dollars or higher, let's say in wealthier suburban areas where crime is already lower. They're also more likely to have a home alarm system or cameras ring doorbells that would catch the look of the thief or thieves as they're trying to get in.

5:15Criminologist warn that physical barriers often lead residents to neglect basic safety habits, like I don't know, locking your doors, shutting your garage because you tend to overestimate the protection provided by the quote gate. Let me read this to you. 69% of respondents, which we can interpret to be 69% of Americans say that they have a security camera or video doorbell. Yeah. Okay. And checking the footage has become something close to a nervous habit. A third of camera owners tell me if this is you say they check their feed multiple times a day. Nope. You do not check your feed. You know, when I check it when something funny happens, if someone slips and falls up the stairs that used to happen all the time and we'd get a text on the kids, you know, so and so fell down the stairs again. Or like I told you, there was some eight point buck in our yard the other day. I pulled it up to see if the cameras caught this gigantic, beautiful beast of an animal in our front yard, which it did not.

6:19So maybe Johnny wasn't telling the truth. Maybe he made that. Maybe it wasn't eight points. Maybe it was 26 points. Do the points have to be even, by the way? Can you have like five on one antler and six on the other? That would be an anomaly. Oh, okay. I don't have to be, but I only check mine to Dana's point when something happens, like despite the fact that I have two no soliciting signs on my front door. Some guy still decided to ring my doorbell at about 345. Get off my grass. Today. Yeah. I is it does the gate make you safer or does it just make you feel safer based on what you read. Crime is down in communities, but then you would expect it to be right. You would expect it to be only because of the correlation that if you have that gate, the homes inside it are probably very expensive, Lock Lloyd. And there's going to be lower crime out there anyway. Or the criminals can't get their car in to get to your house and anything they

7:20take out of it would have to be relatively small so they can jump the fence. They're not taking a TV out of a gady community home. You would have to be more creative. You'd have to be really creative. Let me ask you this. What about the ADT sign in your front yard? Do burglars even look for that anymore? Well, they sell fake ones. Oh, yeah. I don't know. Well, the sign is real. Yeah, but they think you say it's a fake sign. Home of Grim. I recognize that sign. That one's fake. If the ring doorbell camera was preventative in nature, there would be no more home burglaries period because almost everyone has one. Well, you would cover your face. Yeah, you would think the property crime numbers would have gone to almost zero since the really wide spread use of the ring doorbell camera. Instead, what we see is the somewhat grainy footage at night of someone

8:23coming up to the door and has it. Does anyone know who this is? You know, you see that on the neighborhood like Facebook websites or the woman that kept going around the loon that kept going around slashing tires in Waldo. You would think there would be no crime like that. Everybody knows everyone has a ring bell camera. Well, I think she might have had a screw loose, but yes, my best security measure is Lizzie. Oh, yeah. That dog would eat your face off if you came into the house. Telephone over here is 913-586-7798-586-7798. Dana Wright, same Steve as the third. My name is Scott Parks here on KMBC. I'm sorry, Sam. What were you saying off here just a moment ago? We're of course watching the US Open. Dana is now as big of a tennis fan as she is baseball fan and is obsessed with the US Open. So we've got it on all the TVs. And I just can't help but notice

9:25that every time they go to a break, you know, they just finished their third set. What did they like tread carefully with so much swagger? Like they throw the ball up, they smack it behind them with the racket and they walk like my don't stank. It's like, dude, you're carrying a racket. Do you know? Oh, you watch her mouth. Chill out. Do you know how athletic beast you have to be to some of those matches going for like seven hours? Yeah, we're dead after 20 minutes. I am not arguing they're not athletic. It's just the amount of swagger that they walk with. I think they should walk as much swagger as they would like. I play with a ballboy or girl, hands them four balls and they pick the two they want and they tap it back without even looking at the kid. Why not walk it over? Beacuse Scott. Here you go, young man. I'm not going to use these two. No, tell me you're playing an elitist sport without telling me you're playing an elitist. I swing a racket. No, I think you're wrong. I think you're

10:25146 miles. Yeah, they do. I ask you, then I go, do you think we could even return like anyone? No. Before I could even get towards out our tennis pro where we play pickleball goes, no. Do you think you could catch a Patrick Behoem's pass from how far? 30 yards. Yeah, sure. No, you couldn't. Like thrown really hard. It's like on the run. No, he hit you on target. He lost me at run. No. Okay, brisk walk. I think most of us could not compete in any level for any amount of time at that level. That is correct for any time. Correct. That level. Correct. Okay. I'm not dismissing their skill. It's just they just it's a level of pompous in there. Every step of the way. I don't think it's I think to be that good in your sport at that level. You have to know you're that good. Lean into it. In fact, I'm glad you brought this up, Sam.

11:28I asked last night. I'm being absolutely serious. Sorry, Scott. That's all right. Where is the tipping point for any of you listening that maybe had a D1 or D2 college athlete? Okay. Where is the tipping point in an athlete's young formative years where you have a five-year-old or a six-year-old who picks up a tennis racket and is hitting it over the net. Okay. Or you have a five or a six-year-old who's running around on the soccer field holding the coaches hand. We all do that at a heritage park, right? Yeah, day way to hell. At what age, Scott, do you think you might know that there might be something there because the world is full of children who can hit a tennis ball with a tennis racket. Where is the tipping point in football, in baseball? Yeah. Where you're like, okay, wait a minute. Because we live in an America where we tend to tell parents that all of our children are, quote, elite if you just pay extra money a month, right?

12:29And we all know it's a racket. Pun intended it's a racket. So as somebody who coached for youth sports for 20 years, it's all soccer, all girls. Only three players I ever coached went on to play at the collegiate level. Three. Earning a scholarship. Yes. Out of how many players? Well over a hundred, probably with all three teams, 150, 200. If you cap the ones that played for one season and they didn't like it and left or you know, went to another team or whatever. I knew on two of them when they were in middle school that they would probably get a college scholarship. Okay. The other one was a late bloomer. And I knew when she was, I think, a freshman in high school, this kid is one of the best players I've ever coached. Yes. And two of the- Do you think their parents knew at age six or eight or- Well, I don't know about at that age. I didn't coach him that young, but

13:33I know that the two, they were both goalies. I knew when they were in middle school that they had a unique talent. And I told their parents, because I only coach wreck. I didn't coach a lead. And so with one, her name was Gray, is Gray's. And she ended up getting a scholarship at Northwest Missouri State. And I told her parents when she was in middle school, I said, you need to put her in a lead. I've taken her as far as she can go. And- And good on you for recognizing that and saying that. Well, I wanted to keep her on the team. She was that good. I mean, she was fearless. But we only had one practice a week, one or two games on a weekend. Right. And that wasn't enough for her to become as good as she later became. Have you heard about this? They're- he was telling me last night, there's some Academy in Florida. And I know that they do this for golf. I did not know about the other sports. He heard there is some Academy in Florida where you send your kid away, high school age kid away. And it is an academy for all sports at the level where

14:36we think these players are going to go big. So you could be a football player. You could be, I don't know, swimmer or tennis. I just want to qualify. You can't just pay the money, right? I think you have to qualify. And so part of the day is, yeah, we're going to figure out how to get you your diploma or G-E-D-However, they do it. But the majority of your day is you are honing your skills in whatever sport. That seems crazy, right? Well, it- yes, it does. I think if we've learned anything from Johnny Manzell is that you can have any amount of skill. Yep. And if you don't have the discipline, you're not going to get to where you want to be. Now, he was a special case because he had so much skill that he messed around and found his way to the NFL. But it was a very storied situation with him that he clocked a total of, would you like to guess how many iPad minutes is what they called it? Because they looked at all of their plays on iPads. They did all of their- Right. They're, they're footage viewing on iPads. Anything that they did to hone in their

15:39game they did on iPads. Where is Johnny Paycheck now? As a pro player, Kierty Gess, how many minutes he clocked on the iPad? Do not tell me zero. Zero minutes on the iPad. He did not even unlock it one time. So he had the skill. Yes. He had the golden gates open for him. He had the arrogance. And then refused to participate. Not. And he didn't do it through college. He didn't do it through high school. In fact, he found in college and I've watched a bunch of documentaries on him because he is a wild individual. In college, he started caring for a couple of games and his play got worse. Okay. That's like the one guy that says if I had been wearing my seatbelt, you know- If I hadn't been wearing it. I'd beat, yeah, I'd be dead if I was, you know, there's always that one person. I'm so good. I drive better when I'm drunk. Like there's always the one person who says these ridiculous things and you're like, no, that's not how this works. Well, see your question of can you know it five years old? The answer is no. I mean, you can take a five

16:40year old with very little skill and enough discipline and turn them into an elite athlete. Well, but, but international soccer is a little different in that regard. Like Lionel Messi, I believe was being courted by international professional teams. Like, y'all, I think at the age of nine or 10, he was that much better than everybody else that he was playing. It happens every blue moon where some phenom comes along and international coaches are just like, wow, who is this kid? If you look up, this is what you Google, elite sports boarding schools. Yeah. They are grades nine through 12. It's exactly what it sounds like. And there's a ton of them in Florida. Parents send their kids off to military schools. You know, and nobody thinks anything of that. You know, good on them. They're going to go serve the country possibly someday. Why not send them to

17:41if you really think that your kid is that good and they're going to go off and make millions and millions of dollars. And once they're retired, never have to work a day in their life. Why not? Or are you robbing them of their teenage years? And I could see it both ways. One of the academies, it's called IMG Academy should be OMG because I'm sure the bill is something has 29 multiuse fields, 58 tennis courts and 18 whole golf course, double sided driving range, three weight rooms, a 5,000 seat stadium spread out over 478 acres. It is the most prominent and well established American sports academy in rolling, 1600 students. Fill in Overland Park. Hey, good afternoon. Scott, how are you, brother? We're doing well, my friend. Thank you. So my three oldest of my nine grandkids either are now playing at D1 level or have played.

18:49The oldest is a young lady. She played four years of D1 basketball. The two brothers, one's playing in a power four school right now and the other one's playing in another football championship conference. I'm just not going to identify the schools better. I can tell you that we knew with each of those kids at eighth grade now. So I touched them all of them because they all had size and they had coordination that was evident when we watched them play as kids. And there was no question where all of them were going to end up. And they just knew it. We did because you can see them. Now, I will tell you, one of the boys we thought was going to be a basketballer. He's a football player. The next brother is a football player. The oldest one was the young lady and she was a basketball player. Other grandkids are you seeing similar talent in them? The three of the six are playing at a pretty high level right now, but none of them are that far

19:54along because there's a five year gap. So the the oldest one of those is an eighth grader this year. And it remains to be seen. But it'll be fun to watch because there's at least the potential there. And we're hoping something could happen that would be just that much fun for those kids too. And I'm glad you said fun because the kids have to enjoy it. By the way, around 70% of graduating student athletes from this IMG in Florida, secure a roster spot to play their sport at the collegiate level. 70%. What about the other 30? They're just not good enough to go to college and play and you just wasted tens of thousands of dollars? I don't know, Scott. 913-586-779-8586-779-8 here on Dana in parks. So, are a Lionel Messi, I misspoke. He was discovered at the age of 13 by scouts from Barcelona,

20:58which is a major soccer franchise in Europe. He made his start for Barcelona when he was 17 years old. Okay. He had gone pro by 17. You want to guess how much it costs to send one of your kids to this academy in Florida if they will accept you. And a amount I don't have? $100,000 a year. They better go to the pros. One of the Google's, yeah, right? And then think about the stress that you're putting on the athlete. One of the questions I saw online was like, how do people afford to do this? And the response was massive personal and financial sacrifice and second mortgage was listed. So you're going to mortgage your house. You really better go pro. But how unfair is that to the kid? Well, look at somebody like Tiger Woods. I mean, he really enjoy your time there. Just a reminder, we're going to be homeless if this doesn't work out. He was a phenom. He was a child prodigy. There is no doubt that he was incredible at his sport. He had a gift at a very young age.

22:02Because his father forced it on. Toddler. Yeah. However, had he not gotten the militant training that he got from his dad and the militant discipline to continue that training, would he have been great into his 20s into his 30s, 40s, 50s? While he did, you know, have his problems, no matter what, no matter how bad the pain got, he was still in the gym two, three, four hours a day. He was on the tonight show when he was four. Three, I thought it was three. Three, okay. You have to look. Yeah. He was on the tonight show with Johnny Carson when he was three. Check us on that. He was very. I've seen the clip. He's very young. Well, you're doing that. Nate in Overland Park. Nate, hello. We already went tonight. Oh, so to Christy. Christy. Although I loved his story. Christy, hi, go ahead. Hi, Dana. It's funny that you were just saying that because Novak, Jokovic, they just came out with a documentary on, I think it's through prime called Wolf and Winter

23:03and his discovery story is basically watching a tennis court be built by his home and a coach that had been a coach of Monica Solis's saw him watching her due clinics and she just brought him into the court and very quickly noticed that he had a talent. And by the age of 12, she had told his family he could be number one in the world. She had taken him as far as she could and they sent him to a like an academy in Germany at 12 years old completely by himself. Yeah. Yeah. It paid off, but at what cost? Yeah. And you should really watch the documentary because the brothers talk about, you know, kind of being overshadowed because everything was being put into Novak and yes, it paid off, but I do think there's a level of discipline and commitment that you just see in certain kids. Yeah. And that's really where it comes from is when they on their own go out

24:07and practice and work hard and, you know, watch the game, not just being sent to practice like a lot of us do with our kids, and they come home and want to play video games. I mean, there's there's just a different drive for those athletes. Yeah. All right. Christy, thank you for the call. You want to hear the crazy information I just found? Yeah. He was never on the Johnny Carson show. What was it? It was the Mike Douglas show. No way. Look at that Mandela effect. Two years old. Two years old. Two years like Douglas show. And then he appeared again on a show called That's incredible in 1981. Yes. At the age of five. Okay. But I feel the same way, but I think you might be robbing them of their childhood. Just like when, you know, how do you know that somebody is a genius and at the age of 12 is going off to university, right? And are they not being robbed of their childhood? And I think the answer to that is yes. However, okay, go ahead and put them in

25:07class with kids are on age and their board stiff. Well, with the athletic academies, you're at least around other driven, you know, actually elite athlete. I don't feel like you would sacrifice all that you would need to sacrifice at that price. If your kid really wasn't a standout athlete, at least with those schools, they're surrounded by other kids sort of in the same boat away from home. But do they go to prom? Do they have a homecoming? I mean, I don't know. And that environment, by the way, drives them to be excellent as well. Oh, sure. The good teammates. Yes. NBC news, families interest in their kids education is falling. Families interest in their kids education is falling in many high income countries. The school system struggle with plunging test scores, according to newly released results, taken about 15 year olds around the world, 760,000 teenagers in dozens of countries. We're asked about their

26:12average scores and math, reading and science, all were at their lowest point in the history of this survey among highly developed countries. China, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea had the highest marks. Estonia, United Kingdom and New Zealand also did as well. The United States interest in your child's education is dropping. Okay, but as the Yalbot member of this program, I remember my mom and dad caring when report card time came. Like how are your grades? Okay. I don't know that they went to all of the parent teacher conferences. I didn't with my own kids. I remember saying like, there's four of them. If there's an issue, please call me. If they're getting great grades, I don't, we're good. I was the same way. Yeah. I remember very specifically, my parents just expected me to get my stuff done. There was no pouring over my homework and I think growing up in the late 70s or

27:13nearly 80s, we were just expected to get the stuff done. Yep. I'm not saying they didn't care, but there wasn't this. I don't know. I felt obligated to be directly involved with the homework. I think when my kids were younger, in a way that our parents never were involved. When did you stop at what age or grade did you stop going to teacher conferences? Oh, elementary school. Once they were, once their grades were fine in middle school, I remember saying, you know, you know where to find me if something is wrong. I will be the first person there if there's an issue. Shonda and I would go to every elementary school parent teacher conference. Yeah. And then I remember when Sarah went to middle school out in, I think it was in Alexa, the school. It was way far away from the house. But I remember going to one parent teacher conference and they set up in the gym and you just worked your way around and, you know,

28:14they each have their own. Right. They each have a table. You weren't going to the classroom anymore because they have multiple teachers and you would just go from table to table to table to table. And kind of like a fast dating. Right. Right. Speed. Thank you. And I remember every one of Sarah's teachers said she's great. She's doing fine. She's getting an A in my class. And by the six or seventh one, I just got up and walked out and I never went back. And I did you not feel guilty about that because I felt guilty about it. And now looking back, I'm like, we don't all have to be doing all of these things. I truly believe that. But to what benefit would I have received if I had gone, just you telling me my kids doing fine. I know that because I see the report card. And the girls knew when it came to math, you had to call Uncle Steve. When it came to writing something, you went to dad. And because I would prefer, but would prefer you figure it out. Sure. But, you know, like with Maya,

29:18there were she would come to me with a math question and I'm just like, go get my phone. We're why are we even going through this exercise? You know the answer. Call Uncle Steve. He's the math guy. I think our focus here is a bit misaligned. You guys did still care about your kids' education. How many times did you ask your kids what they learned in school that day? Tell me something you did today. That's specifically what this study is about. And they found that if parents asked one time during the week, they averaged 35 points higher on test scores. Parents who asked one time, that means according to this study, parents aren't asking at all. The trick is you can't say, how is your day today? Because they're all going to say the same thing. It's not fine. No. But to Sam's point, and this is not the first time that we've seen this statistic that all you have to do is ask your kid, what did you learn today? Not how was school born? Because you're right about that. What did you learn today? Give me one thing. And their scores go up 35%. That's all takes. Is that correlation or causation? I don't know the answer to that.

30:25So in 2022, 57% of parents talk to their kids about problems they might be having in school. That dropped to 46% in 2025. 58% of parents talked about the future of education in 22. That is down to 52%. It's basically just showing even mild interest. But you can't just ask them how is school. You have to say something to the effect. You have to be active about it. What did you learn today? Give me one thing. Give me two things. And then they know that you have a vested interest in what they're learning in school. And if you don't, what message are you sending to the kid? I always hated that question too. I'm not in school anymore. Quit asking. Tell me one good thing about your day. 913-586-779-8586-7798. Here on Dana and Parks. 913-586-779-8. Let's go to Denise in Overland Park.

31:29Hello. Hi. How are you? We're doing well. Thank you for asking. Well, just regarding the article you had read, I read something similar and it suggested asking what was the funniest thing that happened today. So I asked my six-year-old granddaughter, this is her first grade, what was the funniest thing. And she said, Kane wouldn't start farting all day. Well, that would be funny. It was. But you know what, even more important than poor Kane was the fact that I said, I'll do that in our breeding. Oh, we didn't have breeding today. We had such and such things I wouldn't even have known about otherwise. So anyway, that's my go-to question now. What happened to the funniest thing that happened today? Or is it who farted today? Yeah, you could just ask that. Just give me the name, Denise. Just give me the name. Denise, thank you. I appreciate you guys. You do the same. Take care. The TSA is actively considering allowing TSA pre-check passengers to bring water bottles through security checkpoints.

32:32At a select number of airports in the coming months, the potential change would be rolled out initially to airports equipped with newer CT screening technology that can distinguish water from other liquids, vodka, and identify potential threats. What do you mean? I'm assuming that the bottle would have to be unopened. It's my energy drink. There's ways to tell if it's vodka or not by taste. No, you shake it and one makes bubbles that stick around and one makes bubbles that don't stick around. I didn't know that. I learned that getting back on the cruise ship. Oh, look at you. Oh, really Sam. Now, this drives me nuts one because I've never heard of somebody making a bomb out of water and two because I have been escorted out of an airport because I forgot to empty out my water bottle. Was it in a pre-plastic water or did you have a yeti? I take a refillable water bottle everywhere I go and I had a swig, probably an ounce of water in the bottom of the bottle.

33:32It went through the little conveyor belt scanner thing and they were like, you got water in here and I was like, yeah, it's a water bottle. Oh, you're that jerk. Was it maybe your attitude that led to the outcome we're talking about here? I offered pouring it out. I offered drinking it because it's one drink. No, I got escorted out by three cops. Wow. Did you drink it or did you pour it out? Outside, they made me pour it out. They would not allow me to drink it. I do pour it out and then I walk back in and I said to the kind officers, now can I go back up front and they said, no, you got to get back in line. Always remind yourself that it isn't the worker who came up with the ridiculous rules by which we operate. Yes, Sam. It's a water bottle. Dana Wright, same as the third. My name is Scott. We got news coming up in two minutes. Thanks for listening to the Dana and parks podcast on KMVZ catches online anytime on KMVZ.com or get the podcasts wherever you get your podcast.