Editor’s note: This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering leadership, personal development and success through the lens of sports. Follow Peak here.

While growing up in New Jersey, Greg Olsen used to watch his father coach football at Wayne Hills High School before eventually joining the team himself. Years later, he wanted to transfer the lessons he gained from that experience to his kids. However, one day he asked himself a question:

What if the way that worked for me isn’t the way that will work for my kids? 

As Olsen began noting different ways other parents were coaching and raising their kids, he surveyed everyone from experts to professional coaches to famous athletes and medical experts.

Olsen, now 40, has always lived a life consumed by sports. A former first-round pick, Olsen played 14 seasons in the NFL, mostly with the Carolina Panthers. After retiring, he became a respected NFL broadcaster for Fox and launched Youth Inc., his company tailored to young athletes, their coaches and parents. He also coaches the middle school football teams for both of his sons.

I saw something you said in an interview you did with Cal Ripken Jr. You two were talking about when the right time is to specialize your kid in just one sport. You mentioned that you didn’t think parents wanted to do that at an earlier age. Now, you think they’re almost forced to do that, and it’s a big issue. Can you explain why?

It’s probably the single greatest issue facing the world of youth sports right now.

I think kids feel, and families feel, an extreme amount of pressure that if they don’t choose a sport early, it’s hard to keep up. What the kids feel is that it’s very hard to walk into every season to a new sport and compete against kids who have only been doing that sport for the last 12 months.

That’s causing people to go, “All right, forget it. I’m only going to worry about basketball because I’m so fearful of falling behind the other kids.” When I grew up playing, when it was basketball season, and when we transitioned to baseball season, pretty much all of my friends walked out of the gym together and walked onto the baseball field. So there was no fear of what the other kids were doing while you were gone.

Because they were right alongside you. In a lot of ways, those days are over at the high school level.

What do you think playing multiple sports does for kids?

Every sport offers such a different culture, physical skill set, mental skill set. There are so many different elements that each unique sport provides that I think these kids are missing by only being in one environment for 12 months a year.

I encourage our kids to play multiple sports and challenge themselves in multiple sports. Even if you’re not the best kid at one particular sport, our plan is long-term — come high school, come when you’re older, that long-term physical and mental development we think will pay off in the long run. Even if you’re not the best 12-year-old at the moment.

So you think different sports contain different lessons? 

For example, my older son goes right from football at school to basketball at school to baseball at school, and now we’re back into summer football/travel baseball. My younger son plays baseball, and now he’s going out for football. I have a daughter who does basketball, and then she runs track and field. Each one of those unique sports offers such a different environment for them to learn, for them to fail, for them to have success.

The skills you learn playing baseball: mental toughness, dealing with failure, it’s a little bit of a slower game so a little bit more focus. Versus basketball, which is very fast-paced, you’re up and down the court, you’re competing, guys are up in your face, challenging you. Can you compete in that fast environment?

And then football, it’s all summer long. It’s hot. You’re in pads, it’s training camp. You’re getting hit. You wake up sore, you don’t feel good. Can you still go to practice the next day?

I think it’s good to be exposed to different lessons, different coaching styles, different players, different teammates, as often as you can, especially at the middle school or younger level.

There’s also just more money, more time and more equipment than ever in youth sports. This can make the purpose of why everyone is there in the first place a little foggy. What do you think parents and coaches can do? 

I think there are two elements, two realities to all of this.

I think the first question parents have to ask themselves is: If your goal is only immediate, short-term results, sure, the best thing to get your kid good at one particular sport at this given moment right now is to just play one sport. It is the easiest path. If you commit all of your time and energy and resources to being good at one thing, you will be good at 12, 13, 14 years old. You will be good quicker.

I think what happens to everyone is they see their kid maybe not having the same amount of success as everybody else at a lower age, and they want to rush the process. And as a result, you say, “I’m going all-in on basketball or baseball.” And you feel good because in the moment, you see your kid’s standing amongst his peers is better because he’s just spending more time on it. But the question is, is his ceiling at 17 going to be as high as a singular-sport kid than it would have been if he exposed himself to other sports along the way?

Then the second element is for coaches. There is a selfish element to coaches, to pressure families to not play other sports. If I’m a basketball coach, it is in my best interest that all summer, those kids are not at football workouts. That is in my best interest as the coach. I would argue, it is not in the kids’ best interest, and I always tell parents, “The second you have a coach tell you, you can’t play another sport, you should really think twice about whether you play for that coach.”

You’ve mentioned that you’ve pulled things from your experiences. Were there any surprising takeaways you had when you started coaching?

When I was growing up, there were no conversations about who you played for. When it was basketball season, you played for your town’s basketball team. And then when the spring came, you tried out for the baseball team. They picked the best 12 kids.

There were no decisions. Now, everything’s a decision.

What team do I play for? Who’s my batting coach? What high school? Do I go public? Do I go private? 
These schools are paying; kids are transferring. Some kids are going to four high schools in four years. It’s just everything has turned into a decision around youth sports, and I think it’s unfortunate.

I don’t think we’re preparing kids who are prepared to go to college and fail and have to learn to be the backup. We don’t ever let anybody work through any processes anymore. And I think we’re seeing that now play out at the older level, and we’re dealing with the consequences of it.

When you talked to these experts and the people who specialize in it, what did they say? 

Yeah, I think the simplest advice from the people that I’ve talked to that parents can do is: “Expose your kids to as many different sports and activities as humanly possible for as long as possible.”

That would be general rule number one.

And then continue to keep the balance of learning how to compete and learning the value of winning and learning the value of failure. All of those values are really good.

Learning to win is a skill. Learning to lose is a skill. You need to be able to handle both of them and learn what comes good and bad from both of those elements, but you need to be exposed to that at a young age. I think there are some kids who have never experienced failure. They’ve never been on a bad team. They’ve never lost. They’ve never been anything but the three-hole hitter. They’ve never been anything but the quarterback. 
They’ve never experienced the other side of the coin, and I think it’s important for them to learn that.

What is the ultimate objective? Are we raising 12-year-olds to be professional baseball players? Or are we raising 12-year-olds to be professional people?

I liked what you said about failure.

Well, it’s all a balance, like anything. I don’t think we want to teach kids that losing is OK. I don’t think we want to create a loser mentality where I just show up and whatever I do, it doesn’t really matter. Wins or losses, I’m just happy. I don’t believe in that. 

Now, when they are 5 or 6 years old and learning T-ball, I’m not talking about those kids. I’m talking about middle school, 12-, 13-, 14-year-old kids. They are old enough, in my opinion, to start learning about what competing looks like, what wins and losses are and connecting the hard work to wins. Connecting the easy way out and missing practices to going 0-3 this week. You didn’t work hard, so what makes you expect success? 

I always say that I want my kids to start experiencing failure when they still come home to mom and dad. I don’t want failure to hit them in the face for the first time when they’re 20. I’m not even talking about sports, I’m just talking about life. Adversity in general. We want them to come home and be embarrassed and struggle and have their weakest moments at a younger age because we can develop skill sets for dealing with those emotions.

So you don’t want anyone to want to lose. And you don’t want someone to show up and not care to win. That’s not a winning approach. But I also don’t want people who never experience losing or failure or being the last kid on the bench, because at some point in your life, you are going to be the last kid on the bench in some aspect.

What are you going to do about it?

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Jacob Kupferman / Getty Images)

With each game getting televised on the ESPN family of networks, combined with its sheer name brand recognition, the Little League World Series has upheld its reputation as the biggest platform in youth sports for decades.

Held annually in Williamsport, Pa., teams from around the world compete for the opportunity to merely appear in the tournament.

Since 2018, the state of Hawai‘i has become a mainstay in the tournament. Teams from the Islands have won six of the last seven West Regionals, including Honolulu Little League in 2025.

The 2025 Little League World Series will mark Honolulu Little League manager Gerald Oda’s third trip to Williamsport. Oda led HLL to 2018 and 2022 to LLWS championships, going a combined 11-0 in those tournaments.

Although the 2025 LLWS tournament began on Wednesday, Honolulu will not begin until Friday due to the tournament’s bracket draw. Honolulu will take on Connecticut’s Fairfield National Little League on Friday at 1 p.m. HST in a game that will be televised live on ESPN.

Aloha State Daily recently caught up with Oda via Zoom for a Q&A prior to a team dinner in one of the team’s first days in Williamsport.

Aloha State Daily: Congratulations on making it to Williamsport once again. So many people look at it as a once in a lifetime experience, but for you, it’s your third time.

Oda: “I just really feel thankful for these bunch of kids that we have. It’s all due to their hard work and their effort and just very grateful. I don’t take this for granted one bit. Like you said, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. But to make it this third time, I deeply appreciate this opportunity to represent again our great state of Hawai‘i to be on this journey with these 12 kids.”

ASD: The first two teams you took to Williamsport pretty much dominated the competition. This year’s team has had some tight games in states and regionals but still won them all thus far. Is the ability to pull out the close ones part of the identity of your team this year?

Oda: “[The 2025 team] is totally different. It’s human nature. You’re gonna want to compare. No different from our 2022 team, the first thing people say is, ‘How does it compare it to the 2018 team?’ They’re all different. You know, 2018 team, bunch of hammahs. Thirteen out of the 14 players went on to play college baseball. The 2022 team, they dominated right when they came to Williamsport, which we’re very grateful and appreciative of.

“[The 2025] team is different. It’s like making a puzzle. The 2018 team was a totally different puzzle to put together and picture compared to 2022 and no different to this team. We don’t have to be like how 2018 was or how 2022 was. We just have to make our own beautiful picture together.”

ASD: You guys are the last team to take the field in the entire 20-team tournament this year. Do you enjoy the strategy part of that, or are the boys eager to get out there?

Oda: “They’re definitely eager to play. But for us, I think it’s a benefit being the last team to play. It could work both ways. We played the first day in 2022, which was great. We could get into that rhythm early, and it helped us out tremendously. So vice versa. I’m just hoping that us being the last team in this tournament is going to help us in a sense that it gives the kids a chance to soak it in more so off the field, so that when we step on the field, they’re going to be really hungry to play.”

ASD: It’s been 20 years since the kids from ‘Ewa Beach went to the World Series and became the first Hawai‘i team to win it all. Kids on the teams that followed said they were inspired by that run. Any time there’s a team in Williamsport from Hawai‘i, regardless of Island, they gain the entire state’s support. You’ve experienced it a couple of times. What’s that support like?

Oda: “A-may-zing [laughs]. That Layton Aliviado team back in 2005 when they went, of course, tremendous. Respect for those guys, because they were the first team to make it here and win it all. And no different from 2008, when Timo Donahue coached the team and they won it all. And even in 2010 when Brian Yoshii took his team and they won the U.S. championship that year. So of course, they laid on the groundwork for us in here in Honolulu Little League, and I deeply appreciate and respect those guys. Since back then, it’s always been that same way. I was explaining it to the Mainland reporters that you don’t know how Hawai‘i is, that Hawai‘i is a very special place in the sense that of course, you’re very competitive with one another trying to represent and get out of the state tournament. But once a team leaves Hawai‘i, it’s like, that’s our team.

“We explained to the boys that we are no longer Honolulu. We’re Team Hawai‘i. We’re representing the entire state of Hawai‘i, and it’s our responsibility now to make sure that when we step on the field, whatever we do, that we show the world how great our state is by their behavior, not necessarily just how we play, but by our behavior. And the support and love that we get from everybody back home is tremendous. After winning the regional tournament, almost got 200 text messages like, holy moly. My phone just blew up, which I was very appreciative. I could be saying the same thing about all the parents . … It could be just a simple text message, a phone call, but just knowing that there’s so many people back home wanting us to do well, praying for us to do well, it means a lot.”

ASD: What kind of ballplayer were you back in the day?

Oda: “Horrible [laughs]. I was not a good baseball player. I wasn’t good. You know, I thought I was good. I was cocky as hell. I wasn’t really good, but I do have a lot of great experiences from my Little League baseball coaches. Guys that not only did they teach us baseball, but they were just good coaches that really cared for myself and my brothers. … They taught us the Xs and Os on the ball field. But they taught me, they showed it by how much they cared for myself, along with my brothers. That’s who I wish to be. I was not a very good baseball player, but I really had great coaches, though.”

ASD: How did you get into coaching? Were you always winning a lot of games?

Oda: “My older brother, Donovan, he was a former baseball player at the University of Hawai‘i. After he graduated one of the parents saw him one day and asked him if he was interested in coaching. My brother said yes, and my other brother [and current Honolulu Little League assistant coach], Keith, was coaching with me. We all decided, hey, let’s give back. I started the journey some 33 years ago. How I coached when I first started coaching with my brothers, now it’s totally different. When I was young, I already thought I knew it all, but I still don’t know it all. That’s the great thing about coaching. If you stay humble and you always stay hungry to learn, there’s so much I can improve on, even to this day. But it’s something that’s very gratifying for myself along with my brother Keith and (Honolulu Little League assistant coach) Willis Kato, too.”

ASD: Pretty much every adult involved in Little League baseball is a volunteer. What’s your day job like?

Oda: “I’m an investigator for GEICO Insurance. I work in their special investigations. I’m very fortunate. It gives me a lot of flexibility. Without that kind of flexibility with my job, there’s no way I could coach baseball. Of course, I’m very fortunate and appreciative to have that kind of occupation, being an investigator with a great company at GEICO.”

ASD: One difference in you I noticed from the last time you were on ESPN in 2022 to now is the tattoo on your left arm. Can you explain the significance of it?

Oda: “It’s actually a new tattoo. There’s actually Kanji on it in Japanese, it means never give up. It’s my way of reminding myself that no matter what, never give up. And I explained that to the kids, that even as coaches, as an adult, there’s times that I feel like, wow, can we really do it? But, looking at this tattoo on my arm always reminds me to never give up. Nothing we can’t accomplish as long as we don’t give up.”

ASD: Thanks for sharing that. When exactly did you get it? Do you have any other tattoos?

Oda: “I got it in 2023, so about two years ago. I have one on my back, but you can’t see it, it’s a smaller one on my back, my shoulder. Me and my best friend actually got it together. It was actually his daughter that gave me the design, that did the ink on my arm. So I very much appreciated that, that she did it for me. … She went on, and it was painful as hell, but again, it has deep significance. For me, I wanted something that really meant something. I practice Buddhism.

“There’s a carp. There’s a waterfall, and so my tattoo is about a carp trying to get up this waterfall. If the carp gets up to this waterfall, it promises that if you can make it to the top, you become this dragon. They call it the dragon game. It’s actually a dried up carp trying to make it up to this waterfall. It goes all the way to here, and it turns into a dragon.

“But it symbolizes that whole never give up thing that even though it seems insurmountable, if you want to achieve greatness, then you cannot give up. … I will never give up, it all ties into that, and that’s the significance of that tattoo. And it reminds me every day that, hey, if you ever want to achieve something great, you got to make great effort, and you cannot give up.”

ASD: Mahalo for your time and insight, coach. Is there anything you’d like to add?

Oda: “I just want to say thank you to everybody back home for all their tremendous support and prayers. There’s a lot of Cal Ripken teams out there. There’s a Mānoa team coached by Matt Apana. There’s a Fear 808 team coached by Chris Hino, there’s an LA team coached by Dane Sardinha. They’re all at the 12U World Series for Cal Ripken in Branson, Mo. And then you have a 10-and-under Hawai‘i Kai team coached by Shane Butcher, they’re in Vincennes, Ind. Just wishing all those guys the best. All of us are all in the same boat. We’re just trying to represent Hawai‘i in the best way possible, and deeply, deeply sending prayers to those guys.”

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.

Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.

Niagara athletes performed admirably at the Legion National Youth Track and Field Championships held last week in Calgary at the Foothills Athletic Park.

The region was represented by 35 athletes and the contingent recorded its biggest medal haul yet on the national stage.

Multiple winners included: Thorold Elite Track Club’s Amairah Gayle, representing Team Ontario, who won double gold in the U18 girls high jump and long jump; Alan Tirop, representing Team Ontario, who won gold in the U16 boys 300 metres and silver in the 200 metres, won gold as part of Team Ontario’s U16 boys sprint medley relay and bronze with Team Ontario’s U18 boys 4×400-metre relay team; Thorold Elite’s Luis Corredor Reyes who won gold in the U16 boys 200 metres and bronze in the 100 metres, gold with Thorold Elite’s U16 boys 4×100-metre relay team and bronze with Thorold Elite’s U16 boys sprint medley relay team; Thorold Elite’s Tyrique Woodside who won gold in the U16 boys 100 metres and silver in the long jump, gold with Thorold Elite’s U16 boys 4×100-metre relay team and bronze with Thorold Elite’s U16 boys sprint medley relay team; Thorold Elite’s Nixson Scarlett whp won silver in the U16 boys 200-metre hurdles and gold with Thorold Elite’s U16 boys 4×100-metre relay team; Kyjiah Slowley of the Flying Angels Track and Field Academy who won silver in U18 girls triple jump and bronze in long jump; Thorold Elite’s Deagen Hallett, representing Team Ontario, who won bronze in the U16 boys 800 metres and gold as part of Team Ontario’s U16 boys sprint medley relay; and, Muscab Mohamed who won gold as part of Thorold Elite’s U16 boys 4×100-metre relay team and bronze with the club’s U16 boys sprint medley relay team.

Individual medal winners included: Athletics Niagara’s Adam Freure who won gold in the U18 boys decathlon; Thorold Elite’s Mico Penich who won silver in the U18 boys triple jump; Thorold Elite’s Ayla Laing who won silver in the U18 girls 3,000-metre racewalk; Thorold Elite’s Maeva Scipio who won bronze in the U18 girls 400-metre hurdles; and, and Colby Craig who won bronze as part of Thorold Elite’s U16 boys sprint medley relay team.

Almost 1,500 under-16 and under-18 athletes from across Canada took part in the national meet. This year’s event was the 47th organized by the Legion. The competition’s roots come from the Legion’s support and promotion of youth sports as a healthy activity to help children who had parents serving overseas with the Canadian Armed Forces. Eventually, the Legion created local, provincial, and national youth athletic programs culminating in the Legion nationals.

Youth need to join the march

As a Vietnam veteran, I remember in the 1960s and early ’70s when protest rallies were breaking out throughout the country, most of them on college campuses, expressing rage about the Vietnam War and other issues. The youth of the country was alive and vibrant. Today, while our democracy, institutions, and form of government are being eradicated, they, who have the most to lose, do not seem to want to get involved.

I have attended most of the protest rallies taking place in our area, and, I am sad to say, witness mostly seniors attending. This brings to mind two songs from the ’60s and ’70s. One is by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young — “Ohio” — about the four students who were shot and killed by National Guardsmen during a protest on the Kent State University campus. The other is by Pink Floyd and seems to be a good description of today’s youth, “Comfortably Numb!”

Steve Nash, Centennial

A barrage of bad news followed by some good recipes

Another beautiful day in Colorado was marred by reading the first section of The Denver Post. “ICE to open 2nd state facility” was the top headline of the front page. The news didn’t get any better as I proceeded through the pages:

• Sending the National Guard to Washington, D.C. for law enforcement in the city with a declining crime rate;

• a budget shortfall in Medicaid for Colorado due to the “One Big Beautiful Bill” signed by President Trump;

• research projects at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (in Boulder) canceled and employees laid off;

• order by the White House for a review of Smithsonian exhibits to be sure the exhibits align with Trump’s interpretation of American history;

• Trump’s selection of an underqualified person to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics;

• fires on the Western Slope;

• the meeting of Trump with Vladimir Putin to discuss Ukraine, among other topics, without Zelenskyy present;

• Israel discussing resettling Palestinians;

• climate changes bringing droughts that have long-term ramifications, including groundwater depletion; and,

• the interesting thoughts of a Jackson, Wyo. resident checking out the cost of living in Aspen vs. Jackson Hole.

Important news for all of us to consider as we look forward to how these events will impact our lives and think through what our responsibility is in relation to these stories.  Any suggestions?  Anyone interested in joining a discussion group to explore solutions?

P.S. Thanks for the delicious recipes in the third section!

Andrea M. West, Centennial

Too hot for school

This time of year, just like every year, people will be complaining that the school classrooms are too hot for the students. When I was young, we started in September. Now they start in the middle of August. All the educated people who are running the school still don’t have enough sense to start it two to three weeks later.

Leroy M. Martinez, Denver

How about a round on the house?

Rockies owners Dick and Charlie Monfort are missing a golden opportunity to increase attendance at their sandlot-league games. There wouldn’t be an empty seat if every time the visiting team scored seven or more runs, we got a free beer.

Jeffrey Stroh, Denver

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Originally Published: August 14, 2025 at 3:13 PM MDT

MIAMI (United States) – A new edition of the FIBA Youth Development Program (YDP) and The Grind Session (TGS) is set to take place in Florida, USA. The camp will bring together the very best young basketball talents from the Americas and Africa and it will be held from September 4th to the 7th at DME Academy, located in Daytona Beach, Florida. DME academy is one of the top high school basketball academies in the US and DME is part of the TGS circuit. TGS is the first-ever winter circuit for elite high school basketball players. FIBA and the TGS have been working together in the past three years to promote and develop youth basketball globally.

This FIBA & TGS elite camp will host thirty top youth athletes from both continents, showcasing their talents while ensuring higher exposure and visibility for these athletes. The camp is a developmental initiative that pairs both the Americas and the African regions to create an environment of high-level basketball competition, life instruction, and a sample size of college basketball experience.

“The Youth Development Program is one of the most important strategic priorities for us, at FIBA. We are so excited with this camp and the opportunities that it can open to our top youth athletes across the Americas and Africa zone. We will continue to focus on youth development going forward so we can provide our elite young boys and girls a platform to excel,” said Carlos Alves Executive Director of FIBA in the Americas.

The camp will be led by Coach Donald Showalter (USA Basketball) and will also feature coaches Walter Rose (former NBA Academy) and Sharman White (USA Basketball). The event will be streamed live through FIBA YouTube channel & The Grind Session social platforms.

FIBA