Rick:

Hello, and welcome to Northwest Philly Neighbors.

I'm Rick Mohr, and my guest is Dr. Joel Fish.

He's been a sport psychologist for decades, and tells how he helps people from kids to pros work through challenges on and off the field.

You'll hear about the pro soccer player who can't shake off a mistake, the little sister of a star figure skater who gets all her family's attention, the talented baseball player in the first hitting slump of his life, and lots more.

Enjoy!

Though sport psychology is not a common field, could you say a little about how you got into it?

Joel Fish:

I always loved sports.

Like many youngsters, if you put ten play objects out there, a ball, a pencil, climb a tree, I just was always attracted to the ball.

And when I grew up in Overbrook Park, we had a very strong street scene.

Late 50s through the 60s, there was a lot of families with young kids on it, and we would play, you know, all day in the streets and play ball.

And it was really an important part of my social world and was an important part of my identity.

I had enough natural ability and skill that it was a way for me to meet people, and I was competent enough that I would get some good feedback from it.

So I was always interested in sports.

My dad grew up as a social worker.

My family is more social worky, teacher, rabbi-oriented, people-oriented.

And a lot of decisions aren't that easy for me to make, but when I went to college, Clark University in Worcester, Mass., it was very clear to me I was going to be a psych major.

Went to graduate school here in Temple in community psychology, which is also very much a core interest of mine.

And then I went to Wisconsin for graduate school, and they had an emphasis in sport psychology.

And to be honest with you, my thought process was, I like sport, I like psychology, why not?

And so I did my internships with the athletic department there.

And then as I started to develop my practice, it really became a niche.

And sport psychology really has two parts to it.

The sport part of sport psychology is what we call mental skills training.

Positive self-talk, relaxation, focus, concentration, mental preparation, visualization.

I've asked thousands of athletes, because I speak through the NCAA, what percentage of performance is mental?

Confidence, composure, concentration, communication, teamwork.

And no matter what the sport, no matter what the performance activity, it could be music, it could be theater, athletes, performers are always saying that performance is largely mental.

So the sport part of sport psychology teaches mental skills to help with that part of the game.

The psychology part of sport psychology is anything in a person's personal life that can be impacting on their ability to perform, anxiety, stress, relationships.

So that's really how it's wedded both of my interests, both on the sport end and the psychology end, and it's really led me to just specialize in that area and to take off from there.

Rick:

Yeah.

Could you maybe think of a story or two of a person that you worked with that you were really able to help to give us a feel for how the work sometimes goes?

Joel Fish:

One of the things in reflecting back on my career now, which goes about 30 years in this field, is that there's a great deal of similarity sometimes in my work with a high school student athlete and a professional athlete, that the stage may be different.

Obviously, when you're a pro athlete, and I work with all the major professional teams in Philadelphia, in most of the colleges and some of the high schools in Philadelphia, and when you boil down a lot of the issues that come to me, be it a high school all the way through the Olympic and professional ranks, a lot of times it boils down to confidence, or how do I relax in pressure situations, or so many times someone will come to me with a performance issue, all levels.

I'm in a slump.

I'm 0 for 10 in baseball.

And in 5 minutes, you're talking about your mother, father, sister, brother, really becomes a psychology issue.

So, my first response to your question is, it's amazing to me how even though one is played on such a bigger stage, when you peel away the layers, a lot of the issues I have to deal with, both on the sports side, mental skills training, psychology side, personal issues, are very similar.

The one area that sometimes is different, and I remember I was dealing AAA baseball, that's the level right before the Major Leagues.

There was a fellow who was 0-4-18 at that time, he didn't get a hit in 18 at-bats.

And he came to me because he was having anxiety attacks and was having trouble sleeping, and had never been in this kind of situation before.

And as someone who played baseball through high school and several years in college, it's easy for me to relate to baseball players in some ways.

And I'm thinking to myself, well, you know, I had gone 0 for 10, I had gone 0 for 8, 15 in middle school.

Like, I had to learn some of the coping skills necessary to deal with a slump at that age.

And one of the differences between the elite athletes I've dealt with, and maybe some of the high school, and let's call them recreational athletes, is that sometimes the elite athletes are so blessed with physical talent, they haven't had to develop some of the mental skills that many of us have to develop to cope with performance or life, middle school, high school.

And so, I ended up kind of working with him as a way I might work with a middle school student.

What signals does your body give you that you're feeling stressed?

Let's come up with a routine to help you in certain situations when you're feeling stressed.

Take a deep breath.

Rick:

Do you remember what he said?

Joel Fish:

Slow down, like I'm doing with you right now.

Well, he was very open to that, you know.

And I think it was helpful for him because he was learning some new skills.

A lot of people feel more comfortable with sport psychology because the entree is sport, and it's a skill-building approach, oftentimes.

The art of sport psychology is what percentage is sport?

What percentage is psychology?

We really need to talk about mother, father, sister, brother first before we can get to that.

But I think he was very open to that.

As opposed to another AAA baseball player at that level, he was the number one draft pick, not in the Philadelphia Phillies organization.

Number one draft pick means he was one of the top 30 in the whole country coming out of high school.

And he said, Joel, he said, there can be 9,999 people cheering for me.

If there's one person who's booing me, I just can't get it out of my mind.

I can't get rid of it.

Well, he had been so good that he had never been really booed before.

But at this level, there's a learning curve.

There's some growing pains.

You're going to make mistakes.

And he was a fellow that never made it out of AAA because I do think when it comes to mental skills, sometimes, because of the way we're wired, there's a ceiling to it, just like there's a ceiling to how much we can grow, do what we can do physically.

I can't dunk a basketball at five, seven.

I could visualize it.

I just can't.

There's a limit to that.

Some of us, I think, have a limit to what kind of mental skills we can learn.

And that kind of pressure situation was just a little bit too much for him.

And so that was a case in point where I went through some of the same process I might with another athlete.

If we define success as being able to progress and learn how to deal with that pressure situation, I don't think he was able to learn to deal with those skills.

Did he learn a lot about himself?

Did he make the choice to leave baseball for the right reason?

I would say he learned a lot about himself through our work together.

Rick:

So you worked with some high-profile teams.

Do you remember your first gig in the big leagues?

Joel Fish:

I do, I do.

There are a couple of early memories, because like in every other field, you need a break or two.

Going back into the mid-90s, I had this idea of, which at that point was really ahead of the curve, mental skills training, psychology.

Back with the Phillies, there was a fella named Dell Unser who was ahead of their minor league organization.

And just to get an appointment with him was, you know, the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

And I had knocked on a lot of doors like anybody else who was trying to develop.

So this might have been my 20th phone call, probably more than that.

And he said, yeah, come on in.

And not only did he listen to me, but he was actually interested in giving me a chance.

And so that's how I entered baseball.

And then I'm smiling because my first major leaguer with the Phillies years ago, nobody who's in baseball now.

And I'll never forget that my wife Debbie was pregnant with Eli at the time.

And Eli's due date was January 6th.

And this professional player had an emergency on January 5th.

And Debbie was already in the hospital.

And I remember saying to the doctor, look, I work like 10 blocks away from here.

This is a big opportunity for me.

What are the odds Debbie's going to give birth?

I got to be there, of course.

He said, I can't guarantee anything, Joel, but I think the odds are in your favor.

So I just remember going up from 5th Street up to 17th Street, seeing this first major league player, which was an entree to see some other major league players, made it back, and Eli had the patience to hold on till I got back and I was there.

But that was my entree into baseball.

And then I was teaching sport psychology at St.

Joseph's University in Philadelphia, and that's where the 76ers used to practice.

So I had a chance to go to some of their practices, and they were interested in somebody doing some personality assessments for athletes they were considering for the NBA draft.

Right place, right time, sure, I can do that.

It's a project I've been doing really for the last 23 years, these personality assessments for the NBA draft.

And when I first began, if somebody was really talented, they would be chosen over someone who may have been talented, but had a good track record off the court, off the field.

If you were talented, even though in your personal life, you could have all kinds of problems, chances are that was weighted most highly.

Now, and this would be all sports, the importance of personality, and by that I mean maturity, patience, love of the game, competitiveness, people skills, team orientation, coachability as we call it.

Those are factored more into the selection process.

So people like myself are being used more and more in sport to try to assess personality as part of the selection process.

But also if a team takes a player, we have a better idea of who we're getting.

So we can develop what they call a player development program to help that person.

So if maturity is an issue, let's provide the structure.

Let's teach him or her the skills.

If that person's had an anger issue, let's provide him with some resources to help him or her learn how to manage that anger a little bit better.

So people like myself now are more involved in the assessment process and in the player development process than before.

So like anybody else who's tried to develop something, had a couple breaks, a couple people who said yes, where most people were saying no.

In the sport world in Philly, it's a small world.

So once you meet people, because it's a world where you really have to trust who you have working with you, it's helped me to develop some other things, but it really goes back to those first two examples.

Rick:

And can you remember a time with an elite athlete where you feel like you were really able to make a difference?

You really saw that you helped them out significantly.

Joel Fish:

I do.

There was a very, very high level baseball player who was a very thoughtful introspective type.

And one of the things I've learned at pro sports is that you have the same range of personalities at the pro level that you do in the general population.

You have as many sensitive people.

You have as many anxious people.

They just happen to be blessed with some talent that most of us aren't physically.

And then my role oftentimes is help them to learn how to manage the emotions that come along with that.

But this was a relationship that lasted over a 10-year period of time, from when he first got to the major leagues to when his career started to blossom, all the expectations that came along with that.

Then it was sustaining it.

Then it was dealing with injury.

Then it was the twilight of his career.

So emotionally, there were issues that he had to deal with at each stage of the career.

And it was a very meaningful relationship because I was able to be there from beginning, middle, and end.

And fortunately, he was able to be more in control of his career.

A lot of the athletes I've dealt with, there's just a lot that isn't in their control.

They get hurt.

They get traded.

They get all kinds of things.

But that was a very meaningful relationship because of who he was, but also having a chance to go through beginning, middle, and end.

But like everything else, it was a package deal.

I was thinking of another professional situation where they used to have the training room where there was a window that everybody could see while everybody, the rest of the team, was working out on bikes and weight equipment.

And this guy came in and we were just chatting.

A lot of my work is informally just talking with people so they get to know me.

So in these professional situations, you become part of the team.

We provide all the resources.

You have strength and conditioning, nutrition, sport psychology.

Well, I was just chatting with this guy, and two days later, he gets traded.

And I had one of the other players on the team say, you know, did you talk to management?

Because, like, you're talking to this guy, and two days he gets traded.

Well, my whole work is built on trust, obviously.

And I had to go to every player on that team and say, do you have any questions about what happened?

And I could look them in the eye because it was 100% true.

That conversation was just a chat.

And I'll look you right in the eye and say, I have not crossed that line and talked about anything that was ever said in confidence to management.

I have never crossed that line.

But in the world of sport psychology, it's different, because it's not as if you make an appointment with someone, come to see me Wednesday, 10 o'clock in the morning.

A lot of the work is done in the locker room informally.

And so to maintain those boundaries of trust, confidentiality, are very challenging, and that example comes to my mind, because I had to work really, really, really hard after what was that just sort of coincidental series of events to proactively go out and maintain that trust.

Rick:

Is it a higher pressure situation for you when you walk into a big team?

Joel Fish:

It's higher pressure in the sense when I first do it, because I'm a fan too.

So to all of a sudden be talking to someone that you may have heard about or know about, it's like whatever percentage of me is responding as the fan, wow, I can express some of that, great to meet you, know you.

But I really have to be mindful of the percentage of my interaction coming primarily from a professional place.

And most of my time is spent with these pro athletes, celebrities if you will, not talking about the sport.

I won't call them by their nicknames, I'll call them by their first names.

Tell me about, you know, friend, daughter, how was your weekend?

And it's so natural to just want to talk to them about sport, but what I've learned is that 95% of the world sees them as an athlete, not as someone who plays a sport.

And if I can make a connection with them as a person who plays a sport and develop a connection with them as a person and not as just the athlete, that's good for me professionally because that gives me the entree if they want to over time to talk about things in their personal life.

But I think the athletes tend to appreciate that more because I'm dealing with them as a person and not as an icon or as a fan.

And I've worked with these teams now, many of them, for a span of over 25 years, and there may be an athlete that I just talk to just casually for the first three, four years, but maybe in year six, because I've developed a relationship with them.

Something's going on in their life.

Hey, can we talk about mother, father, sister, brother?

But that's built on a foundation of just relating to them as a person.

And even to this day, though, I have to be aware of that part of me that's a fan that wants to go, wow!

Because most of these times, these men and women are big and strong physically, but they may be 18 to 23 emotionally, and that's where I have to tap into.

Rick:

Can you think of an example of a person like that, where you helped them with an outside issue that made a difference in their game?

Joel Fish:

Many of the pro athletes and elite athletes, Olympic professional, that I've had a chance to deal with, just have to deal with life circumstances that are very different than most of us do.

So, for example, I was dealing with a men's professional athlete who was making lots of money, more money than we'll ever make in our whole life.

And he had an uncle who he really, really admired and was an important person for him growing up, who all of a sudden was starting to ask him for money on a regular basis.

And how many of us have to deal with saying no to an aunt or an uncle around something sensitive like money?

Oh, you've changed, you know, don't you remember what your roots are?

Uncle said back to him.

That would be hurtful for most of us to deal with.

But family, someone who you really care about, someone who's going to be there, you can't just say, I'm not going to deal with you anymore.

I've had a number of those sort of family dynamic tricky issues that athletes oftentimes have to deal with.

25 years old, you know, that most of us don't have to deal with.

We're now, what's changed over the years since I've been doing this work is with social media, you can be pleasant to 99 out of 100 fans.

Can I have your autograph?

Someone asks you for an autograph in a restaurant, you say, not now.

And then that could be sent all over the world.

And what I've learned is having been around in situations, a lot of these people who ask for offerings don't say thank you.

They may not always be so gracious on their end.

But the pressures of almost having to 100% of the time be gracious, say the right thing.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't have wanted to hold myself to that standard when I was 25 years old.

That's the standard with social media that many of these athletes have to deal with.

And that's a pressure that has consequences to it in terms of reputation, in terms of things being tweeted.

And I'm always interested in the unique pressures that elite athletes have to deal with and hopefully being a helpful resource to help them manage it.

I'd never say to them, don't feel frustrated, don't feel angry, don't say no, but let's understand what situations create that so that you can either nip that feeling in the bud, think before you act, and that's really challenging.

It's really challenging.

Rick:

So you also lead a group of sport psychologists.

What qualities make a good sport psychologist?

Joel Fish:

Well, I run the Center for sport psychology in Philly.

I deal with athletes of all ages and skill levels.

And I would say the number one quality would be the same quality that's true with anyone in a counseling or psychology or helping field relationship is listening.

Anyone that says that listening is less than 51% of someone who can make a difference in the helping field, I don't think is accurate.

So, you can know about positive self-talk and relaxation skills and visualization.

But if you're not a good listener, to really understand what's the real issue here, the art of sport psychology, what percentage is mental skills?

That's the sport part.

What percentage is psychology?

Because if I teach you relaxation techniques, but the underlying issue, as I said earlier, was really a core issue about identity, or mom, dad, sister, brother, then it would be a band-aid for me just to give you the relaxation.

It might help you short-term, but longer-term, one needs to address that.

So I think a good sport psychologist needs to be able to listen, needs to be able to assess what percentage is sport, what percentage is psychology, and then be able to know what the skills are and how to teach some of those skills that we call mental skills training.

Positive self-talk, relaxation, focusing, mental preparation, visualization.

Be skilled in understanding some of the psychology of competition.

Mom, dad, are you aware that when you're pacing on the sideline, the impact that has?

And people ask me, well, do I need to have played a sport myself?

I don't think that's necessary.

But for someone to really be very understanding of their own experiences when it comes to achievement and competition, and be up to date on what some of those dynamics are, competition is different.

In 2019, it was 10, 20, 30 years ago.

In the same way, there's other specialties where to have an understanding of what's the most recent research in knowledge base, I think it's really important to have that, if one wants to go into that area of sport psychology also, which is a growing field, by the way.

Rick:

It's so interesting that you distinguish sport from psychology, and I just so expected you to say, sport, that's the physical, psychology, that's the mental.

No, you say sport, that's the mental, like you didn't even really mention the physical.

It's all about what's going on in your head for the sport part.

Joel Fish:

Well, that's a helpful observation for me.

It does get rooted, though.

There is a connection between the mind and the body.

And that's what really interests me, what we feel, what we think, and how that impacts on performance.

Rick:

So what's one technique on the mental side that you apply over and over that really resonates with people that they really can pick up on?

Joel Fish:

It depends on the personality of the person.

So let me just start with that.

So for some people, positive self-talk, for those people that are really really self-critical, perfectionistic, driven, but are still learning a check and balance to that, the messages we say to ourselves are really important for how we feel, for how we think.

So I might have somebody come up with a mantra or a key word, key phrase, with the goal of, in competition, giving them an anchor for their thoughts.

So I was dealing with a professional soccer player recently, who could make nine great plays if he made one bad play.

Had a hard time shaking it off.

Frustration, key element in sport, that we have an opportunity to learn how to deal with better in sport, in life.

So had him just come up with a key word, key phrase, he came up with it, not me.

So once or twice before the competition would begin, deep breath, close his eyes, he would say to himself, just give me the courage to do the best I can.

Give me the courage to do the best I can do.

When they would play the national anthem, and in his team, they would like, lock arms.

It's not like he would shout it out loud, but he'd say to himself two or three times the word, courage, courage.

Now, courage, courage with the friendly voice, not the critical voice.

He told me over time that really helped him.

Why?

Because it gave him an anchor for his thoughts.

I can't believe I made that mistake.

Courage.

How could the official?

Courage.

Now, courage, friendly voice.

And sometimes for those of us that can think too much, be highly critical, if we have a key word, key phrase, that in a heat of the moment, we can redirect our thoughts to.

I would never say to you or anybody else, don't get frustrated, don't get angry, but if you do, let's redirect your thoughts to that.

And in performance, it's interesting.

This is at any level, let alone the elite level.

If we can improve our ability to deal with frustration, 3% or 5%, that's what we call the mental edge.

It's not, no matter what our personalities are.

So, I think positive self-talk can be helpful for people.

I think really, as basic as it is, learning in a moment of tension, anxiety could be public speaking, to slow down, to pause like I'm doing for you right now.

Because when you slow down, heartbeat slows down, blood pressure slows down, blood rate slows down.

But a lot of us, especially competitors, when things aren't going our way, we have a mindset where we don't slow down, because we have these measures, exactly.

Have to bear down, try harder, try harder.

Professionals, 10-year-olds, slow down.

And then the other technique that just works a lot, I think, is what we call visualization, that if you, in your mind, as I watch yourself perform in a certain way, today's my day, I feel like a champion, my body's like a well-oiled machine, I'm moving swiftly, I'm thinking clearly, communicating crisply.

When you're in that situation, it doesn't cause it to happen, but when you visualize how you want to look, how you want to feel, when you're in that competitive situation, you can feel like you've been there before.

And if you feel like you've been there before, you can feel more confident.

You feel more confident, you're going to feel more relaxed.

You feel more relaxed, your natural talent's going to flow.

So depending on the personality, positive self-talk, relaxation, visualization, are the kind of techniques that I think can really help someone in a performance situation.

No magic to it.

It doesn't substitute for the hard work of practice, preparation, repetition.

But in that moment where emotions, minds connected to the body, can make a difference, if you can help someone say, I'm in this situation, this is what I'm feeling, this is what I'm thinking, let me implement my plan that I've practiced, I think it can make a difference in terms of performance.

That's been my experience.

And I've come to also learn, I've had a chance to deal with some elite performers and elite personalities, if you will, and there's fear of failure on the one hand, I would suggest, but there's fear of success too, standing out.

One has to deal with jealousy sometimes, expectation.

I was dealing with a situation recently where the younger sibling was very much more talented than the older sibling, even though they played the same sport and the younger one had potential to be, people are saying, an NBA player.

And so the family dynamics that come along with sport and fitness and recreation is something that I get involved with a lot.

Having talent is a wonderful thing, but it's a package deal.

There's a lot that comes along with it.

Rick:

Well, and you wrote a whole book about being a terrific sports parent.

What motivated that idea?

Joel Fish:

Well, I have three children who I love dearly, and I was living it at that point.

Competition in 2019 is very different than 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago.

So often people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s will say, why can't they be like we were?

When we were that age, we would go out and play all day, all night long.

We picked sides, and we worked out our arguments.

And so I was just interested in how much of that is true and how much of it is just nostalgia.

Rick:

Yeah.

Joel Fish:

To make a long story short, sports is a wonderful way to learn life skills.

It's a terrific way to learn life skills.

Goal setting, working with other people, learning as kids to deal with frustration, a very challenging emotion for many of us to deal with, being part of a team, sacrificing for the common good, listening to authority figures coaches.

But it just became clear to me that just because you put a uniform on a child or sign them up for a team doesn't guarantee he or she is going to get positive experiences.

There's a lot of memories that many of us have that aren't so positive.

One of the first questions I'll typically ask in front of a group is, can you think of your earliest competitive memory?

And literally almost everybody has one, most of them between the age of 10 and 15.

But what was interesting to me is, how many of you have positive memories?

Half of them will have positive memories, but half of them will have either mixed or not very positive memories, last one picked, kind of thing.

So I was interested in just sort of assessing what's myth and what's fact, and it is a fact that spontaneous play, going out on the street and just playing, is way down.

Organized play is significantly up.

So you do have kids now on teams from 6, 7, 8 years old.

The good news is, is there more kids involved in sport than ever before?

40 million nationwide.

The bad news is, there's a higher percentage of kids who are dropping out of sport between 10 and 14 than ever before.

Not fun.

There's more girls involved in sport.

Great trend.

The bad news is, there's more girls and boys dropping out between 10 and 14.

And number one reason is, it's not fun.

There's more specialization in sport.

When I was raised, many of us were raised to play different sports at different times of the year.

You might play soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, or baseball in the spring.

And now, it's a fact, kids are being funneled towards one sport at a younger age.

I had an 11-year-old say to me a couple weeks ago, who's playing soccer all year round, this feels like a job to me.

I'm thinking to myself, well, I have a job.

This should be fun.

So, there's sports ESPN, 24 hours a day, pumping out images of what it means to be successful, winning.

And whether Vincent Barty really said, winning isn't everything, it's the only thing, it's certainly become part of our culture, as opposed to when I was raised, there was a little more of a better balance.

Fact, not myth.

It didn't matter if you went on to losses, how you played the game.

So, when I wrote the book, I was really interested in finding out myths and facts, and also learning as a sport parent for my own three children, what are some things that might be helpful for me, what are some things that I really need to be careful of.

So, A Hundred and One Ways of a Beatific Sports Parent was just my way of trying to address a lot of issues that parents oftentimes ask about how to raise their kid in competition in the 2000s.

Rick:

Yeah.

Well, and one thing that struck me was you wrote, the critical factor in whether kids love their sports experience is the behavior and attitude of their parents.

Could you talk about that a little bit?

Joel Fish:

Coming from a psychology point of view, step one is usually self-awareness, like what am I feeling?

What am I thinking?

The first third of the book, I'd say, is really related to helping parents better understand their own attitudes about winning, losing, success, failure, competition.

And that's sort of step one towards learning how to, okay, this is what I'm feeling.

Now, I need to be mindful of that.

I'm feeling frustrated with my child, who's better in practice and in a game situation.

But knowing that gives me the ability then to choose how to talk to my child, when to talk to my child.

And I just think there's something about sport and fitness and recreation that just triggers a lot of feelings among parents.

And I talk about this stuff all day, and I've learned hard.

I remember my Eli on Durham Street.

We had one of those little baskets in our basement at that point, one of those three-feet baskets or whatever.

And Eli hit a shot one day.

He was just playing around, one in a million, one in a million.

Great athlete, buddy.

It was just pure luck.

And I pick him up, and I start prancing him around.

Hooray for Eli, hooray for Eli.

And my wife Debbie was a good balance for me in a lot of ways.

She said, are you aware when Eli came home from school that day and showed you something that he had written in school, you looked up from the paper and you said, oh, that's nice, Eli, went back to reading the paper.

Banged at a little something on the piano.

Oh, that's nice, Eli, went back to reading the paper.

As someone who talks about this all day, all night long, there's something about sport that just triggers that kind of outburst of emotion.

And I just think that's true with a lot of parents.

And I've said things on the sideline.

I remember all of a sudden Ari was pitching for the first time in Chestnut Hill in the league up there.

First time as a 10, 11-year-old, they're kind of nervous.

Of course, who wouldn't be?

And the umpire, in my mind at that moment, was umping the game like it was the seventh game of the World Series.

Like, come on, get the kid a little bit of a break.

It's an inch outside.

Give him a break, will you?

So, you know, Ari walks the first batter.

Okay, be the dad.

Just stay cool, give him a smile, heads up.

Walks the beckon batter, starting to get a little nervous here.

I get up, start pacing a little bit.

Third batter, he walks.

Take a deep breath, Joel.

Then there's bases loaded, and there was a 3-2 count.

I remember, this was 20 years ago.

And it must have been outside by an inch.

Walks in a batter.

The guy calls a boy.

I said, get some glasses.

I just couldn't help myself at that point.

And I shouted it in a way.

There's something about sport as a parent, I would suggest.

It triggers a lot of emotion.

And I've dealt with a lot of parents who have said to me, I can't believe I said that last night or did that.

That's just really out of character, Joel.

I've dealt with some really extreme cases where somebody's been abusive to an umpire, pushed them, cursed at referees, been evicted.

And most times that behavior is out of character.

But there's something about sport and fitness that triggers just some deep emotions among parents when you see your kid out there.

And so the first good third of the book is about understanding as a parent one's own attitudes about winning, losing, success.

Where did that come from?

Why?

What situation is you most vulnerable to just crossing a line?

What checks and balances can we put into that system so that you can nip it in the bud?

Or maybe you need somebody else to say, just chill, Joel.

And so I'd like to feel the book makes a contribution towards that self-awareness piece, but also gives some very practical guidelines to parents of how to handle certain situations with their sons and daughters.

Rick:

And what made you say that that was the biggest factor for a kid is their parents' attitude and behavior?

Joel Fish:

Because I think that if we don't practice what we preach, literally almost every parent I've ever dealt with is, I just want Johnny to have fun.

I just want Janie to have fun.

And they basically do.

But then Janie or Johnny will bring up examples of how their behavior doesn't match those words.

I was dealing with a very high-level swimmer recently, and this 12-year-old boy mustered up all the energy he could.

Great relationship with his parents.

And he mustered up all his energy, and he said, Mom, Dad, are you aware when I swim well, and you drive home, you look at me, and we're chatting all the way home, when I don't swim well, you're looking straight ahead, you don't say anything to me.

Rick:

Observant.

Yes.

Joel Fish:

Parents weren't aware of that.

You know what, Johnny, Janie, we'll try to do better, and they have done better with that.

So kids, because their antennae are up, not just about sport, fitness, and recreation, about what we do, what we say, will pick up the actions and behaviors as much as the words.

The foundation, I firmly believe, of youth sport is about rewarding its parents' effort, participation, skill development.

Effort, participation, skill development.

And I've never had, literally, a parent who wouldn't nod their head, but how do we practice that?

What does that mean if your child starts to have a temper tantrum, you know, in a game situation?

What does it mean if you don't think the coach is treating your son or daughter the same way as someone else?

What does that mean if your child doesn't want to go to practice anymore?

He or she wants to quit.

I mean, there's some very real situations that parents have to deal with, and unless they're really clear and rooted to their values, they're really hard to respond to.

And the book is really meant to help give some practical guidelines to challenging parent situations when it comes to sport, fitness, and recreation.

And why I really love this field so much is that when it comes to sports parenting or even the work I do with athletes, the same skills to navigate sports and fitness and competition, the same skills that can help our youth or other people deal with school, with relationships, dealing with frustration, learning how to relax in pressure situations, learning how to communicate with a teammate, somebody else.

So sports in my mind becomes an arena to teach life skills.

That's where my real interest in this area is.

Rick:

Yeah.

Are there times when a kid comes to you and you see that the real problem is with a parent or a coach rather than the kid themselves?

Joel Fish:

Very much so.

Rick:

How do you handle a situation like that?

Joel Fish:

I think my assumption is that everybody is well-intentioned.

I think there's a thought process among many people.

Oh, that parent is just living out his or her dreams through the kid.

And sometimes that's true, you know, maybe 10% of times in my experience.

I think parents are trying to more often times to not give their son or daughter all the resources to be the best he or she can be.

And it's just not easy to know how to do that.

You know, at the elite level I deal with oftentimes, for example, there was an ice skating athlete I was dealing with recently, 14 years old, terrific, skilled athlete.

But in ice skating, oftentimes people have to move if you really want to go into it at the elite level.

The parents were very aware that in their terms, there's shark-filled waters ice skating.

There's a lot of competition.

There's a lot of politics, if you will.

Yet they wanted to give their daughter all the resources to be the best she could be.

And so it was really challenging for them what that meant.

And the tipping point for them was they had a younger daughter, who was maybe two or three years younger, who was starting to show some behavioral problems.

And at one point again, this 10-year-old, and when I say this, sometimes you see these kids, they just have to muster up all the courage they can to say to their parents, like, how do you expect me to have friends and be happy when you're dragging me around to these tournaments all the time with older daughter, and you want to move her, and like, what about me?

So a lot of times, there's a family dynamic here, and it's not about someone being the problem, but it's the parents really understanding what's going on within them to help them make the best decision for their son or daughter.

And the other thing that comes up, especially in youth sport, there's so many, if I put the psychology cap on, there's so many developmental changes that go on from a boy or girl between 10 and 16.

So I'm always encouraging parents every year to re-evaluate.

It doesn't make sense for your child to be spending his or her time three, four hours a day or travel.

I mean, a lot of families, youth sport travel teams, and they organize their holidays around travel.

They organize their free time.

It costs a lot of money, too, sometimes.

Does it make sense?

Because maturity changes between 10 and 16.

Coordination changes, body images change.

And so it may be the center of a boy or girl's universe when they're 10, 11, or 12, but by 15 or 16, they might want to do something else.

And so helping parents navigate that is really interesting to me.

I was just dealing with a college situation recently.

It was a girl softball player, terrific athlete.

And the coach said to me, she was a senior now, as a freshman, she would have ran through a wall for me.

Now I think she's showing up to games physically, but mentally she's someplace else.

I bring the softball player in, well, what's going on?

She said, well, Joel, let me explain it to you this way.

My freshman year, if you would have asked me, what's my identity?

Who am I?

I would have said, I'm Jane, the softball player.

Now I've been in school three, four years, and I've learned a lot of things.

There's a lot of things I've developed as interests.

Now if you ask me, what's my identity?

I would say, I'm Jane.

Who likes to play softball?

Do you hear the difference?

I said, yeah.

I went back to coach.

I said, here's the issue.

Jane is changing.

We have to find out a way to work with Jane, make it interesting, creative, meaningful for her.

And that's the issue I deal with a lot with athletes and coaches.

Someone says, change is good.

I said to the coach, we want them to change.

We don't want them to be the same people.

Well, sometimes it's the same thing with parents.

Parents have to understand, and my hope is that I help them understand, here's some changes emotionally, physically, psychologically.

Does this sport and the time that it takes now make sense?

Let's think that through, because oftentimes, I've dealt with kids who just don't want to disappoint their parents.

Their parents have put in so much time and effort.

I had a parent say to their kid, in a way that they thought was motivational recently, a hockey player, I've put so much time and energy and money into this.

You better play like Gretzky.

Wayne Gretzky was one of the greatest hockey players of all time, and this kid didn't want to let his parents down, but he didn't really want to play hockey anymore.

He wanted to do some other things.

Those are the kinds of things that I think, if I can help families deal with, let's just put it out on the table.

Let's really try to understand it and talk about it and make decisions that are in everybody's best interest.

That's where I try to be a helpful resource, as opposed to families who sometimes either avoid those issues or feel like there's something wrong.

Rick:

Right, so if you provide an environment where the real motivations and feelings can come out, and then when people really internalize that, then they can make good decisions and go for it.

Joel Fish:

Right, and sometimes give them some facts, too, if you will, in the sense, for example, there's more specialization, as I had mentioned earlier, in sport than ever before.

Kids are playing soccer one time, all year round, as opposed to.

And the facts are that if a child takes a season off, let's say they skip soccer either because they're hurt, which is a whole other issue, sometimes kids are rushed back in quickly.

There's no evidence to say that they're going to fall irrevocably behind somebody else who's playing all year round.

If you take a look at professional athletes and all the sports, most of them were raised in an environment where they played multiple sports.

So there's not evidence that specialization necessarily gives you a better chance to get a college scholarship or play professionally.

So parents are unclear about that.

So there may be some pressure for them.

They want to provide their child with all the resources.

My child's interested.

I want to help him or her play at a college level, pro level.

But I'd like to feel that by providing them with some information on that sometimes, hear the facts, that it takes some of the pressure off.

I love what I do.

I wouldn't change it.

I wouldn't change the path that I've gone on.

I still love sport.

I still love psychology.

What makes a person tick really interests me.

That 10-year-old who used to like to pick up a ball still likes to watch games.

But to try to understand what to make somebody tick, and most importantly, to use sport as an arena to teach life skills, that's really exciting to me.

And I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you about it.

Rick:

Well, Joel, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us.

Joel Fish:

Thank you for having me.

Rick:

For more about Joel Fish, see the show notes or go to our website, nwphillypodcast.net.

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I'm Rick Mohr.

Thanks for listening.

See you next time for more stories from Northwest Philly Neighbors.