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Transcript
Scott Ellis: Welcome to the Frisco Podcast. I’m your host, Scott Ellis, and this week we have an episode for soccer parents. So if you have a child that plays soccer at any level, this episode is for you. We’re going to be joined by Skye Bruce and former FC Dallas goalkeeper, Kevin Hartman, to talk about the upcoming Soccer Parenting Summit, and the importance of parents in their children’s soccer lives. Skye, welcome to the Frisco Podcast. Good to have you here today.
Skye Bruce: Thanks, Scott. I’m excited to be here.
Scott Ellis: Well, as you and I have discussed, Frisco is a pretty soccer-crazy town. So I’m excited to bring to our audience what it is you have going on. To begin with, we’re going to talk about the Summit in a minute, but to start with, your main business is soccerparenting.com. So tell us a little bit about, one, how did you get into that, and why is soccer parenting as a topic so important to people that are into soccer?
Skye Bruce: Sure. The mission of Soccer Parenting is to enhance every child’s youth soccer experience by engaging, and educating, and supporting, and even advocating for parents. I think that obviously we all – I’m a soccer parent myself – we all want our children to thrive, and to have the most incredible experience through sports that can help them become high-performing, engaging, happy adults.
And I think that the reason I started Soccer Parenting is that I just noticed, across the board, in a variety of different areas around the country, nothing in particular, but we just have a real need to elevate the game, and to make it better. And oftentimes, the experience for children isn’t good enough. And parents need to know that they can then seek a better environment for their children.
Scott Ellis: Okay. So to begin with, what is your role in soccer? So I know you’re clearly a soccer parent, but are you also a coach, or do you do other things related to the sport?
Skye Bruce: Sure. Well, I grew up in the game. I grew up playing in northern Virginia, which in the 70s, like Dallas was, was a huge hotbed for – Dallas still is, as well – a huge hotbed for girls’ soccer. So I grew up playing, went on to play in college at the University of Massachusetts. I transferred, I played my last season at George Mason, and then went on and played professionally in Italy.
Throughout all of that time, I was always a coach. Even in college where I got my first coaching license, and worked, I was a goalkeeper myself. So worked at a number of different goalkeeper camps, and always had a passion for coaching. And continued coaching.
I moved here to Richmond, Virginia, where I am right now, to be the assistant coach at the University of Richmond. And stopped collegiality when I had kids, and then as my kids grew up in the game, just really saw the need to create an avenue to educate parents, so that they could seek the best experience for their children possible.
Scott Ellis: So interesting. I’m curious as to what kinds of things you saw that made you realize that for the kids to have the best possible experience, it really begins with the parents. What led to that, which ultimately became soccerparenting.com?
Skye Bruce: Sure. Well, it really was my own children’s experience. We are apart, here in Richmond, Virginia, of a club that has a long history of soccer. And I’m happy to say now, it’s doing a phenomenal job educating, and engaging, and giving children a wonderful experience within the game. But when I first got involved with my children, sadly, I really was disappointed.
When my daughter first started playing travel soccer, and at the age of nine or ten, went out to the fields, and had her first professional, so to speak, coach, I stood on the sidelines watching, and was really disappointed. I was disappointed with the lack of quality of the coach, their not understanding how to work with kids at this age, just to the lack of quality soccer environment.
And so, I looked around, and I was ready for all the parents to join in with me, and go and talk to the directors of coaching, and get things to be better. And I looked around, and it struck me that the majority of the parents there were really happy. They were fine with this experience, not because they didn’t want what was best for their children, but because they really just didn’t know that this wasn’t a good enough experience.
And they figured because it was a club with a long-standing history, and all the coaches were standing there in really nice Nike gear, that it was going to be a fantastic and positive environment. And it struck me then, in that moment, that wow, what’s going to really change this game, and make this a better experience for children, is when we start educating and empowering the parents to understand what the environment really should look like.
Scott Ellis: Okay. So this is starting to become a little bit more clear to me, as to how this evolved. Let’s talk a little bit about some of the kinds of things parents can or should be doing. I think you had a unique perspective because you were a player and a coach. A lot of parents don’t necessarily have that experience.
I’m not a soccer parent, but if I were, I can imagine there would be a lot of things that I wouldn’t necessarily know, or even … You don’t know what you don’t know, right? I wouldn’t even know what to look for in a situation like the one you just described. So what are some of the types of the things people are going to learn through Soccer Parenting? Parents, specifically.
Skye Bruce: Sure. Couple things that are certain themes that we keep coming back to, in terms of the specific soccer environment that a parent should be seeking for their young children. I would say two things come to mind right away. One is that the club that your child is involved with, they really should have a curriculum. They should have a player development pathway, of taking the kids, if it’s a large club, that goes from recreation all the way into travel.
There should be a documented process for expectations of coaches, for expectations of players, and skill development, and expectations of the different levels within the club. A parent should be able to find that. You would never send your child to a school that didn’t have a curriculum. Where there wasn’t a plan in place to get your child from kindergarten, to graduate from elementary school, into middle school, to then graduate. Yet, parents are putting their children in these environments time and time again, where there isn’t a process in place.
So that would be definitely something that a parent needs to look out for. The second thing that is just a real big theme that’s happening in youth soccer, and we’re finally sort of catching on about how we need to better develop players, is that we need to not expect things to be very static. We need to be willing, as parents, to have practice look very, what I refer to, as ugly.
If your kids are standing on cones, passing ten yards away to somebody else who’s standing on a cone, as the coach is trying to teach passing and receiving, that is not the best way for your child to learn. And coaches that are educated, and are ahead of the game, and are being thoughtful with how they educate young soccer players, are understanding the importance of learning through play.
I think that would be a good sort of litmus test for parents. If you’re going out there, and everyone’s standing in lines, and hearing long lectures, then it’s probably not the best environment for your child. And then, parents need to step up. They need to ask for a better environment.
Scott Ellis: Okay. Is it reasonable to assume that this applies to both kids that are … I don’t want to say trying to go pro, necessarily, but that are taking their soccer experience very seriously versus those that maybe it’s a more casual … It’s an opportunity to get out, to get active, but it’s not necessarily something that they’re going to pursue as aggressively as others. Are these lessons applicable in both situations, or are they a little bit different depending on the path that your child is interested in?
Skye Bruce: That’s a great question. I spent this morning interviewing Sam Snow, who is the Director of Coaching Education for U.S. Youth Soccer. In fact, their headquarters are right in Dallas, right next to the FC Dallas facility. And one of the things that we were talking about in our conversation was the recreation level coach.
Like what should our expectations be for what is 95% of the time a volunteer parent coaching in the recreation, sort of beginning level, which probably 60% or 70% of the time is a parent that has no soccer background whatsoever? What really can be the expectations for those parents?
And I would say that our game, the game of soccer, will really improve, and will be elevated, when those recreation level coaches start finding the appropriate information to teach kids, to teach young players, in the proper way. That will be the most effective way for them to learn, to grow, and to develop in the game.
Because the bottom line – I think my son is a perfect example – because he’s 13 years old, he’s a very average player, he’s a recreational level player, which is wonderful. I celebrate his averageness. I wrote an article about that for Soccer Parenting not too long ago. But my son doesn’t want to stand on a cone and kick a ball. He will be bored, and he will therefore eventually quit. Because he’s not very athletic, and that’s actually kind of hard for him to do.
He would much rather be playing, and be learning through the playing environment. In addition to all the great benefits that kids have, they learn better through playing. Aside from that, my son and most kids will enjoy it and have more fun. Because at the end of the day, that’s what we want for our kids. We want them to stay active, to be healthy, to not drop out of sports when they’re 13, like 75% of kids do.
We want our children to be active, and healthy, and to continue to participate in sports. So I would say the expectation for the environment, regardless if it’s sort of a beginning level, or regardless if it’s a travel level, really needs to be on the kids having fun, and that will happen even more through play than it will through that static teaching.
Scott Ellis: Okay. Very good. That actually clarifies a lot of things for me. Thank you very much. So, let’s move forward and talk about the Summit. You have put together an event. So you have soccerparenting.com, which is an ongoing site that people can come to, and subscribe, and learn more about the types of things that we’ve been talking about so far. But you have managed to pull together a Summit. An online, virtual Summit with a number of people who are impressive, to say the least, and I think have a lot of valuable lessons to teach anybody who is in that soccer world. So tell us a little bit about the event, and what people can expect, and where they should go to find out more about that.
Skye Bruce: So the Soccer Parenting Summit, as you mention, is an online event. The actual weekend that it’s taking place is December 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. Parents are able to get a free pass to access all the content, all the amazing interviews that are happening. If they are not able to watch it live, or watch it that weekend, they’re able to purchase a Sideline Pass, so they can have lifetime access to all the content.
When I came up with the idea for this Summit, Scott, I put together my ideal list of who would be the top people, across the world, that I want to interview, who have something to say that can really impact the game, and can help parents help their children thrive. And I reached out to these people, and every single one of them said yes. These are authentic, well-intentioned experts who believe that educating and engaging parents really is an essential step in elevating the game.
And so, the event is sort of like a conference schedule. We’ll start Friday evening with a kickoff talk by Christian Lavers, who’s the Vice-President of U.S. Club Soccer, who’s the President of the ECNL, and is a technical director at a club in Wisconsin. And then Saturday morning’s pretty much hourly, or definitely hourly, from nine o’clock until six o’clock. And on Sunday, the same. We’ll have different, amazing speakers coming in to give parents some guidance, and education, and support in helping their children thrive.
Scott Ellis: Yeah. I’m looking at the website right now. It’s soccerparentingsummit.com. And this is a really impressive lineup. You got a lot of good people here, and some very interesting topics that touch on some of the things we’ve already talked about. For example, it looks like John O’Sullivan is going to be talking about how parents of all players, recreational to travel, can hold coaches and clubs accountable, and how that’s going to be impacting the game, and things of that nature. So you’ve got some good topics, and a lot of good speakers. Are you going to be doing any sessions yourself?
Skye Bruce: I will do a lot of the introductions, and will sort of kick things off. I’m interviewing these people. So I think people will see plenty of me over the course of the weekend. But I just want to give a voice to these incredible people. Like you mentioned John O’Sullivan. He’s the founder of the Changing the Game Project. He was really excited to get involved. And I interviewed him, because all of these are pre-recorded interviews, I interviewed him earlier this week. And it was just a phenomenal interview, where he really got down to some of the real core issues that we face in youth sports, and what we can do to keep our children involved, and how parents can be the difference makers there.
Dan Abrahams, Dan is a sport psychologist from the U.K. He’s written a number of books, Soccer Tough, Soccer Tough II, Soccer Brain, provided some really thoughtful insight to parents on common mistakes parents make in the youth sports, youth soccer arena, and what they can do to change.
And then what I love about the Summit is that I have people from every major organization in the United States that deals with soccer, except U.S. Soccer, I will say, is not going to get involved. But I have that NSCAA, which is the National Soccer Coaches Association of America. I have United States Youth Soccer, which is where Sam Snow, that I mentioned previously, from the Dallas area. I have U.S. Club Soccer, AYSO. These are all the large organizations, and they’re really seeing the benefit of collaborating together to support parents and to elevate the game through bringing parents a little bit more in the fold, and helping them realize the impact they can have on making sure their children’s environment is exceptional.
So I couldn’t be happier with the speakers that are here. There’s two Olympians, former Men’s National Team player, Eric Imler. Lori Lindsey, a former Women’s National Team player. Tony DiCicco, the most winning coach in U.S. soccer history, is joining us. He’s actually going to give the last talk of the Summit. I love his pre-game talks that he gives. So he’s going to motivate all of us parents in getting out there, and really going forward, and making an impact. So, yeah, I’m thrilled with the lineup of speakers, and the people that wanted to get involved. It’s going to be a great weekend.
Scott Ellis: It really is. You’re going to have a great event here. And just to recap, for anybody that’s interested in doing this, you heard her right. This is free if you watch it that weekend live. Right? Just go out, get the free pass, set up your account, login, and you can watch all of these things for free.
Skye Bruce: Yep. It’s simple to do. Soccerparentingsummit.com/pass will give a free pass to the Summit.
Scott Ellis: Perfect. So we’re going to make sure we link that up in the show notes, and everybody can find that very easily. But then if you can’t be there that weekend, if you’re busy, and you’ve got other things going on, and just can’t make it, but you’re interested in this, there is the Sideline Pass. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that gets you lifetime access to all of these interviews so that they can watch them whenever they want to, and whenever it’s convenient, right?
Skye Bruce: Yeah. There will also be the ability in the Sideline Pass to download an .mp3, so an audio of the different talks. So therefore, at the gym, in the car, it’ll be a little bit more convenient to listen to. And then, also, the parents who do go ahead and purchase the Sideline Pass have access to a lot of bonuses. Changing the Game Project is giving a free eBook, giving free 30 day membership to soccerparenting.com.
Lori Lindsey’s giving half off of her month of sport specialization training that she does for kids. It’s an awesome online program. Tony DiCicco’s stepping on up, and giving a discount to Soccer Plus Camps. Todd Beane, from Barcelona, who I didn’t mention as a speaker, but is just a true expert in his field of player development, is giving a discount for kids that are coming to his Barcelona Training Program. So there’s a lot of good bonuses as well for parents.
Scott Ellis: Awesome. Now, are those a part of the Sideline Pass?
Skye Bruce: Yes.
Scott Ellis: Okay. So-
Skye Bruce: So if you purchase a Sideline Pass, then you have access to all the bonuses, you can download everything on an .mp3 format. And I know soccer parents are busy. Our time is limited, so the thought of being able to sit in front of your computer the whole weekend might not work. But you might be able to get online, you’ll see the schedule posted, you’ll say, “Okay, at ten o’clock, I really want to make sure I hit that one.”
And then, if you love it so much, you want them for lifetime, you can have them. But otherwise, I really want to make sure that this information is out, and free, and available to parents all over the country – really, all over the world – that will be tuning in, and listening, and trying to understand how they can impact their children’s life a little bit more.
Scott Ellis: Awesome. For everyone’s edification, it is if you get the Sideline Pass, and you want the Lifetime Access, and all the bonuses, and all that stuff, it’s only $49.00. Not a lot of money for everything that you’re getting for this.
Skye Bruce: Yeah.
Scott Ellis: So, that’s well done. Well done. Well, Skye, I’m excited to get this out in front of everybody. I know with all of the fever around the FC Dallas here in Frisco, we have endless soccer fields around town. This is something that should be of interest, I think, to a lot of parents here in Frisco. So thank you very much for coming on and talking to us about this. And we’re going to get the word out there. I hope you get just a ton of people coming out to this thing.
Skye Bruce: Great. Thanks, Scott. Yeah, Dallas has always been a phenomenal hotbed for youth soccer, so I’m thrilled to be able to reach out to people, and let them know about this, and give them some more information. So really, thanks for having me here. I appreciate it.
Scott Ellis: You bet. Well, if anything else comes up, be sure to let us know, and we will be make sure we get it into the show notes. We will have a transcript as a part of this show. So for all of you who are listening, if you just happen to be catching this while you’re on your commute to work, or something like that, just come on out to lifestylefrisco.com/podcast, and check out this episode. All the passes, the sites, everything will be linked up. And that’s it. We’re going to be better soccer parents for it.
Skye Bruce: That sounds good to me.
Scott Ellis: Thanks, Skye. I appreciate it. All right, up next we have a bonus for you. We’re going to chat with Kevin Hartman, the former FC Dallas goalkeeper. Kevin is a big fan of Skye’s. He’s a big fan of what she’s doing through the Soccer Parenting Summit. But he also is currently coaching and teaching at an academy in Florida, and brings a unique perspective to the importance parents play in their children’s soccer careers. So let’s hear from Kevin. You guys may remember Kevin as a goalkeeper for the FC Dallas here in Frisco. I believe that was the 2010 to 2012 seasons, is that correct, Kevin?
Kevin Hartman: I was there for three full years. Yes.
Scott Ellis: Three full years. Well, it’s good to be talking with you. What part of the world are you in, and what are you up to now?
Kevin Hartman: I’m living down here on Anna Maria Island in Florida, just north of Sarasota, just outside of Bradenton. I had the wonderful opportunity to be the technical director and the director of goalkeeping at IMG Academy, where I work with 13 teams in a full-time capacity, where I have access to the kids, and we get to share a lot of the lessons that many pro players would get with some younger student athletes. So it’s a wonderful opportunity to work with them.
Scott Ellis: I’m glad to hear you’re doing well, and still having fun with soccer. You and I got connected through Skye, who has the Soccer Parenting Summit coming up soon. And as you and I were chatting earlier, it sounds like there’s a pretty good fraternity, camaraderie, between goalkeepers in the soccer world. I’m sorry, I’m a basketball guy, so … Yeah, I don’t know that I really realized that that existed amongst that group of players.
Kevin Hartman: Yeah. So it’s a fairly unique position. And you go through quite a bit of perseverance if you’re going to have success within it. A lot of the times, when you give up a goal, you go back to pull the ball out of the goal, and you turn around, and everybody’s walking back towards mid-field, and everybody has their back kind of towards you. So, it’s almost a support structure.
We’ve gone through a lot of the same suffering together. But there is a real niche out there that us goalkeepers have really kind of taken to. We call it the Goalkeepers’ Union. And like you said, there’s a real bit of camaraderie amongst us. And I know, for myself, I had a lot of respect for Skye as a player, and now I have a lot of respect for what she’s decided to devote the rest of her career to.
Scott Ellis: Very good. She’s got the Soccer Parenting website, but the Summit that’s coming up is really an interesting idea that came about pretty quickly for her. And I know it’s something that a lot of people in the soccer world have jumped onboard, and gotten behind very quickly. What attracted you to the Summit, and give us your thoughts, kind of from an outside perspective of what she’s got going on there, and why it’s important for parents. I think that’s the real key.
Kevin Hartman: When U.S. Soccer decided that they were going to dedicate an additional age group at the U-12 and U-13 level this year, I called Skye almost immediately because I knew that the information, and where she’s really kind of been spending her time, would be very relevant to me. Dealing with parents and young players that were coming over from a club atmosphere, and into more of a professional and more laid-out environment, and more competitive at the same time.
And so, when you talk about development, and the Development Academy, sometimes things get a little bit misconstrued, and we are trying to offer those opportunities to really the top-level players. And so, there’s just a massive number of conversations that need to go on. Certainly, the parents need to be well-informed. And for me, she was somebody that I really used as a sounding board just for some of the things that I wanted to relate to the parents.
And it gets awkward, a little bit. With the 12s, we have two groups of 13, and those can change on a weekly basis. So it becomes a pool of players rather than just a team. And some of that movement is difficult. The conversations become a little bit awkward. Sometimes we want to have fairly even teams, sometimes we want to put all of the players on the same team. All of our top players on the same team. And then that gives some of the players at the bottom of that to lead within their group.
Having those conversations, I’ve really kind of relied on her a little bit, and [inaudible 00:25:42] some of her experiences within the youth game. Coming out of the professional game myself that I haven’t always necessarily needed to be able to relate things in quite the same manner. But Skye’s been brilliant. She’s somebody that … If she doesn’t know the answer, she’s willing to reach out to her list of contacts. And for me, taking a look at the list of experts that she has pulled together for the Soccer Parenting Summit, I think that probably you will not only see soccer parents that are going to want to be a part of this, but you’ll see other professionals want to hop on, and taking advantage of this wonderful list of staff that she has involved.
Scott Ellis: Yeah. Clearly, from the people she has lined up for this, she has some very deep contacts, and people do think quite highly of her. So that’s good to hear. When we talk about Soccer Parenting, one of the things that struck me early on was that it was interesting that there was this site, and everything she’s doing that’s really dedicated to the parents of players. So as somebody that works in youth soccer now, what would you say are some of the common challenges that you might face with parents, or the things that are important for parents to understand if they have kids that are advancing in their soccer careers, if you will? That hopefully they’ll get some of that out of her Summit?
Kevin Hartman: I think for me, one of the most important things, as someone that works in the youth game, is making sure that we have players that are able to make it through the 14 – 15 age bracket. It really becomes a time where we have quite a few players drop out for a number of reasons. But at the younger ages, really, you’re just trying to create a passion for the sport. And not to put too much pressure on the players. If there is that pressure, you’d like it to be inherently just a part of the game, and the decision making within the group.
I think sometimes, parents add additional pressures to the young players, and I don’t necessarily feel that it’s healthy, or really beneficially to the long-term development of the player. I think they need to trust the staff that they’ve decided to go with. Certainly, there is the ability to move players at certain parts of the year, but once parents make that commitment, then it’s up to the staff to reinforce their beliefs. But there is a level of trust that goes into it.
For me, beyond creating that passion for the sport, we have to make sure that we recognize that there’s going to be certain differences in players’ development. And we have to make sure that we have the long-term outlook for each individual player in mind as we go about doing that. For me, the 12 and 13s that I’ve been working with, some are obviously a lot more physically developed than others. But then you have young, technical players that you can’t leave by the wayside. So there has to be a plan for each player.
Everybody has to be patient with the process. And where your player is at the age of 12 isn’t necessarily where they’re going to be at the age of 13. So really, it’s about creating certain habits that will really, I think, go a long way in terms of the players becoming more and more vested in their own development and enjoying the game. So I think that’s one of the things that I’m most intrigued with. Hearing other experts takes on the different zones, whether it’s zone one at the younger ages, zone two in that 14 through 16 age group, or up into zone three, into the older kids, and into the professionals. I’m interested and intrigued to hear their takes on different parts of the game.
Scott Ellis: Yeah. It should be very informative. I think the Summit’s going to be interesting in a lot of respects. I liked your characterization of the growth of the kids as they’re coming up through … As they’re getting older, and moving from 12, to 13, to 14, to 15.
One of the things I guess I hadn’t thought about as much – and I don’t have children, so it’s probably not as intuitive to me as it might be to some others – is at that age, kids are changing so much that it’s probably a struggle at times for a parent to keep up with all of that, with respect to their athletic career, and understanding the different phases of what they’re going through.
And I think there’s a lot that parents can learn from folks like you and Skye, about how to help their kids along through that path. Now especially because you guys see it repeatedly, whereas most parents might see it once or twice.
Kevin Hartman: Yeah. I’m always intrigued because Skye has put her daughter through the entire process, and her son. My daughter’s about nine right now. She’s played some youth soccer, but has really more of a creative mind, and has been doing quite a bit of art, and just creativity. Which is more from my wife’s side of the family, I think.
But the way that I see Skye, her well-informed and thought-out opinions on how best to deal with generation. And a lot of it does – and it’s become her passion – a lot of it does come from them just not necessarily understanding. And I think that her willingness to reach out, to try to help inform, to show the parents exactly what the coaches are thinking in certain scenarios, I think goes a long way in helping to belay some of those fears that the parents are having.
And so, for me, the more informed the parents are, the easier it is, the more that I think they can just let the players get on with what they need to do, and allow the coaches to coach. But certainly, there’s going to be goods and bad parts of training sessions, and everybody’s constantly evolving. But I think part of it is just having that open conversation, and making sure that you’re willing to talk to the parents. And too often, I think sometimes our coaches are really trying to separate themselves, and not have those dynamic conversations. And unfortunately, that’s a major part of what you’re doing at that age group.
Not only are you trying to shape the technical and the tactical side of the young players, but you’re also trying to make sure that you have parents that are settled in a good place so that you can create the type of environment that you’re looking to create. And if you can create that professional environment, an environment that’s top-quality, then the parents are going to trust you even more.
Scott Ellis: Yeah. It sounds like there’s a lot more to the child’s success than just how good they are at soccer, right? There’s the coaches, obviously, but then there’s also the parents, and all of those things that are happening behind the scenes to make sure that the young people not only are developing their skills, and particularly for those that may go on to play at higher levels, but for all of them. Just to make sure that they’re having fun, that they’re enjoying it, that they’re getting good exercise. We’re all of a part of that support process for making sure that happens probably, and I think for parents, there’s some important training that can happen there, too. To make sure that that is the case.
Kevin Hartman: Yeah. From top to bottom, I think that we do a fairly good job here within the United States of giving players different opportunities in which they can have success. I mentioned the Development Academy, which is currently the top-level, top league for soccer here within the boys’ game. They will be launching a girls’ program here in August of 2017. It’s super competitive, and that would be the league in which you would find most of our major league soccer clubs participating. But then it goes all the way down to youth and recreational.
What we want to do is we want to make sure that all players have the opportunity to take lessons away from the game. Whether it’s about teamwork, whether it’s about being a good teammate, whether it’s about respect. There’s just so many things that I’ve learned from within the game. I’ve always felt that, as one of those players that was the first generation within major league soccer to go back and really dedicate my time to really hoping to instill those same characteristics in the next generation, and not have people bail out early before they have the opportunity to take away these life-changing characteristics.
Scott Ellis: Well, Kevin, that makes a lot of sense. And I want to be respectful of your time. I know you and I had a heck of a time getting together to chat this morning. I just want to say thank you very much for jumping on to talk to us a little bit about what you’re doing now, about the program that Skye has put together. And for people that are interested in maybe catching up with where you are and what you’ve got going on now, where should we send them? Is there a website or someplace that we can point them to?
Kevin Hartman: Yeah. The head of our leadership development team, James Leath, will be a part of the Summit. You can find our information at imgacademy.com. We’re a full-time boarding school based around different sports. And so, wonderful opportunity during the school year to send your kids to us, and then we have the opportunity to really make some of those huge growth steps that they may be looking to take within their sport.
Like you said, I appreciate you having me on. Obviously, the Soccer Parenting Summit is something I can’t say enough good things about. Looking at the lineup, it should be a wonderful weekend, and if you can’t do it all at one time, then certainly, you can get it into snippets. I think that you will really relish the material that you’re getting.
Scott Ellis: Yeah. I think she’s got it setup to where people can watch it that weekend, but if they can’t tune in all weekend, then there are options for catching up later, and watching all of the interviews and things like that. Kevin, I’m going to follow back up with you. I want to hear more about the Academy, and we have so many young and talented athletes here in Frisco, I think that’s something that would also be of interest to a lot of families here. So we’ll follow up again soon, and maybe we’ll talk a little bit more about that if we can find the time.
Kevin Hartman: That sounds perfect. I look forward to it.
Scott Ellis: Look forward to that as well. So thank you very much again for joining us, and we’ll talk to you soon.
Kevin Hartman: All right. Thanks, Scott.
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