David Shapiro - Youth Sports, Mentorship, and Inclusive Communities

In this episode of the CoachCraft Podcast, host Alf Gracombe speaks with David Shapiro, President and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Boston. They discuss David's journey from youth sports to nonprofit leadership, emphasizing the importance of relationships over outcomes in coaching and mentorship. David shares insights on creating inclusive communities through sports, the dynamics of coaching diverse groups, and the significance of mentorship in youth development. The conversation also touches on the challenges of balancing competition with fun, the role of community in youth sports, and the lessons learned from coaching that translate into effective leadership.

Takeaways

• David Shapiro emphasizes the historical significance of the YMCA as a community hub.
• The YMCA has evolved to serve diverse community needs beyond its original mission.
• David's early exposure to sports was influenced by his family, particularly his older brother and father.
• Coaching for David began as a passion for teaching and mentoring young athletes.
• Balancing competition and fun is crucial in youth sports to foster a positive environment.
• Understanding the end game in youth sports helps guide coaching decisions.
• Diversity in youth sports presents unique challenges and opportunities for coaches.
• Winning is defined by teamwork and support among players, not just by scores.
• Mentorship is about building relationships and supporting individuals in their journeys.
• Shared power dynamics in mentorship create a more effective and supportive environment. Mentoring should start with understanding the mentee's interests.
• The relationship dynamics change as mentees grow older.
• Community is essential for youth sports and development.
• Inclusivity in sports programs is crucial for building community.
• Sports can serve as a vehicle for community engagement.
• Listening and learning are key components of effective leadership.
• Building trust takes time and is essential for mentoring.
• Youth sports should focus on the experience, not just winning.
• Collaboration among community organizations can enhance access to sports.
• Leave a positive impact on the community through sports.

For more information about CoachCraft, visit https://coachcraft.info.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Background of David Shapiro
• 5:23 The Role of the YMCA in Modern Society
• 8:04 David's Early Sports Journey
• 15:33 Transitioning to Coaching
• 20:02 Balancing Competition and Fun in Youth Sports
• 23:53 Understanding the End Game in Youth Sports
• 26:13 Diversity in Youth Sports
• 31:18 Defining Winning Beyond the Scoreboard
• 35:38 Mentorship and Its Importance
• 40:08 The Essence of Mentoring
• 42:02 Mentoring Across Ages
• 46:02 Building Community Through Sports
• 48:15 Creating Inclusive Sports Communities
• 52:07 The Role of Sports in Community Development
• 56:04 Leadership Lessons from Coaching
• 57:14 Collaboration in Community Sports
• 1:04:07 Lightning Round Insights
• 1:16:06 Takeaways

Transcript

Alf Gracombe 
David Shapiro. Welcome to the CoachCraft Podcast. Yeah, it's awesome to have you here, David. We've known each other for I think about 10 years or so now. And my introduction to you was as a coach, you coached my son in a baseball game. think our kids were about eight or nine maybe at the time. So it's a pleasure to get to sit down with you here and have you on the podcast.

David Shapiro 
Thank so much. Yeah, and I think actually the story of our children first meeting and our families first meeting, which doesn't even start with you and me, was, I think, our wives coming into contact with each other and comparing notes that they both had four year olds that maybe liked baseball more than anyone on earth. They just let them play together. These kids are obsessed.

Trevor came home talking about this kid named Jack that he just met playing baseball

David Shapiro

Same with Jack.

So awesome. here we are many years down the road. And I should also mention we are at the YMCA of Greater Boston where David is the CEO of the organization. I want to start, David, just a little bit of background about the organization. It's an old organization that started back in the 19th century. This building, I think, was built early 20th century. And here you are as the CEO in the 21st century. So a lot of history to cover, but I love

Just a little bit of background about the organization and how you came to be here.

David Shapiro 
Yeah, you're sitting in America's first Y. You know, the organization was started in London, but when it first came to America, it spent about 50 years with people meeting, sure mostly white men meeting, about what the YMCA would be in America. And now here on Huntington Ave, you're sitting in the first building ever built in America dedicated to a YMCA. It obviously, you know, has been a front porch to America for immigrants, but originally for white men.

to basically learn body, mind, spirit. So that's everything from job skills, language skills, working out and housing, and Christianity were the early roots of the organization. And overtime has morphed into everything from being the place that many people send their kids in the summer, to for swim lessons, to seniors doing balance classes, to people having a gym membership, to us doing hunger relief, job training, adult education,

and many other skills. So we're now the largest social service agency in the Commonwealth. And you're sitting in one of our 13 locations as well as our summer camp locations.

Amazing.

Alf Gracombe 
Fantastic. Well, thanks for the background and yeah, just an amazing organization. And just a little bit, maybe you can talk about how you see yourself as a leader here in this organization. Now we're in the 21st century. We're in the midst of obviously a lot of societal changes underway. The city of Boston has changed a great deal in the last hundred years, much less last 20 years even. But how do you see your role as CEO of this organization in the Y?

at this point in time.

Yeah, I I think one of the reasons I really wanted to join this organization and was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to have the job was there's something about power of place and power of access. think these are also very relevant in sports and coaching at this moment in American life that I think are a gateway that.

can diminish slash are diminishing depending on which stats you're looking at and that the why with these incredibly credible locations. So you don't have to prove to community you're community grounded when you've been somewhere for 100 years or 50 years or when your staff looks like people in the community. The why is a collective of members. There's no economic barrier if you can't afford it.

All ages come to the Y. It's open 72 hours a week on average. Like it's just a multi-use, multi-purpose, very accessible front porch. And we have had a greater sorting in America. Even coming out of COVID, we had less kids going to public school. We have less people participating in church and civic organizations. We knew that from Bob Putnam's work, Bowling Alone, you know, and other work on social capital. We had the former Surgeon General most recently declare a crisis, an epidemic of loneliness and isolation.

David Shapiro 
where are we bringing community together, who does community trust, and who thinks that their main purpose, assuming they could stay economically viable, because that's never off of the table, is to create full access, diverse community and opportunity. Who is that? Who's guiding light is that? I think the Y is one the places where that's very much alive and that's what we're thinking about.

Yeah, for sure. Well, yeah, thanks for that. And there's a lot we could talk about about just the why itself. But I want to go back to you and your origins and kind of this journey that you've been on as a person up to this point where you are in the work that you do today. And so I like to start this question. This is ultimately a podcast about coaching. And that is how I got to know you as a coach. But

Kind of early days, young David Shapiro. I know you're from the Baltimore area, but curious just about the sports landscape and just kind of your coming of age within a youth sports environment and what that looked like.

Yeah, I mean, there were two main prisms for my love of sport. One was I'm the youngest of four. My older brother is eight years older than me. He was the oldest and I was the youngest or he is the oldest and I'm the youngest. And so he was kind of with the eight year age spread, like part dad, part older brother. I he was he I idolized him. I still idolize him. And he played sports. I wanted to do whatever he was doing.

So.

David Shapiro 
Additionally, by the time I was coming of age and there was a sort of, you know, a journey that got my father here. But by the time I was coming of age, my father was working in professional sports. He was a baseball agent at the very advent of agents. In fact, when I used to go to school and say they would ask my dad for a living and I would ask him, he would say, tell them I'm a lawyer and I work on sports because he thought agent had such a negative connotation. In fact, one of the three kind of original sports agents, one of them was very famous.

here in Boston, Bob Wolf, who had a lot of the Celtics. But there just weren't that many baseball agents. The other guy was Mark McCormick, who created IMG and was Arnold Palmer's agent. But my dad came of age sort of right as free agency hit baseball. Kirk Flood went to the Supreme Court. He came of age in Baltimore, right as the Orioles were one of the best teams in baseball.

This is about early 80s.

Late 70s early 80s his first client was Brooks Robinson Wow, which was somewhat accidental towards the end of his career and so I both was around professional athletes in a very spoiling way that I didn't realize at the time and a team that was really good watching a lot of professional sports and especially baseball and Meeting players who felt like regular humans to me

You knew Eddie Murray?

David Shapiro 
I knew Eddie Murray. There was a ping pong tournament that I mean this is my one this would be my biggest brag in the whole conversation. There was a ping pong tournament that I would organize when my dad would have all the players over. Now again for people who don't realize what this time was like my father represented 60 percent of the team because players didn't move around yet until you could represent 60 percent of a team. So I would organize baseball with the complete brackets and everything for these guys. And if you don't know baseball players have elite hand-eye.

they're really good at ping pong. I you won't meet many athletes that are and Eddie and I, I'm sure because everyone else tanked, but Eddie and I would play in the finals almost every year and just have epic players. Well, I think they were being nice to an eight year old. But but but yeah, I loved Eddie. Eddie was also, I mean, like when you think about from like a.

Trauma informed standpoint and things like that, which I probably didn't realize at the time Eddie didn't trust adults because he'd been burned by media and adults He was phenomenal to kids and so as a kid I could never understand why adults would say all these negative things about Eddie But what I later came to realize and my father educated me around was like he'd been burned by a lot of adults and but he loved children He really did and there's a lot of guys like that

So I up in Northern Virginia. So this was back before cable television. And so the Orioles were not my team, but I remember that team. And Eddie Murray was the one player that I loved as a player. But I was a Red Sox fan, in part because we could get the Orioles on TV, but it was very grainy. it just wasn't.

Clear picture is everything.

Alf Gracombe 
The best I just went I'm going to the high resolution box scores in the Washington Post Yeah, whatever reason fell in love with Jim Rice Fred Lynn that era of the Red Sox But Eddie Murray definitely is an Oriole holds a special place in my heart cool cool guy and I just learned you played ping-pong with them Never top that

Yeah, those were the two things really for me, my older brother and my dad who introduced to love us.

So you were around baseball a lot. also played football. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so what were those leagues like that you played in? Like how did you learn to play these sports? Who were your coaches? Kind of what kind of community were you a part of?

And wrestled.

David Shapiro 
Yeah, I mean I played, you know, rolling park little league, regular little league. Football wasn't introduced until I was in sixth grade in my school. I'd never played pop Warner. And wrestling, I started in sixth grade too because my brother was wrestling in high school or had wrestled in high school. And.

Only in baseball do I ever remember doing like summer travel, although that was kind of like an oddity. was nothing like the way it's so mainstream now. Yeah. And school sports were everything. School sports were everything. And I went to an all boys school and our sports and our facilities.

and everything. was a very privileged place to go to school. It looks like college campus now that I realize what public school sports often look like. We had all of our facilities right at school. There were multiple fields and gyms and I mean there was a big emphasis put on.

Yeah, both of our kids are athletes here at Boston City Schools. This is decidedly not the situation.

Different experience. Different and in some ways I would say an experience in which the athlete has to work harder to concentrate on their sport in a way that probably really benefits them. You know if you want extra training if you want it's not convenient. For me everything was very convenient and I loved it so I just was a rat. was at school until eight o'clock every night doing it.

Alf Gracombe 
school we had?

Gilman School in Baltimore City. Yeah, lacrosse is actually what it's most famous for. And I didn't play lacrosse. Yeah.

I was that you didn't play lacrosse, know with that sport being as big as it

I didn't I just hope the girls would come over at halftime from lacrosse games to the baseball games. That was our highlight.

So talk a little bit about the coaching you were getting, because for the most part, up until at least the high school ages, you were playing grassroots, as we call it, sports. And so what were the coaches were mostly parents?

David Shapiro 
Yeah, up until school, up until sixth grade or so when I started playing middle school and eventually high school sports, my coaches, my little league coaches were dads. They were not my dad.

I don't think there were any moms thinking back on it, but they were dads. remember Mr. Hill. I remember Coach Winstead. mean, they were awesome coaches. And they were just like dads that cared a lot about changing out of their work clothes and then coaching their kids baseball. wasn't, it wasn't, I mean, we felt like it was hyper competitive, but the adults weren't crazy. Like it was, everything was pretty in check and.

You know, I just remember loving it. saw it. Yeah, we're loving it.

Yeah, no very similar to my experience growing up and you know, but we you know, the landscape's a little different now for our kids generation. You have coached a fair amount now. You've got two boys and when did you, what first drew you to coaching? Like do you remember thinking, oh yeah, I want to coach when you're a teenager in college or when did that happen exactly that you connected with coaching?

Yeah, well, mean, when I left college, when I graduated college after being a college athlete, the thing I thought I wanted to do was go teach and coach. That didn't happen because...

David Shapiro 
know, Teach for America was at its very beginnings and my biggest option was probably to go teach and coach in private school, which ironically, even though I went to one and a private college, I didn't want to do that. I wanted to do it in public school and there just weren't that many inroads. And so then I went off on this nonprofit sector track. But I always, so the answer to questions I always wanted to coach because I always thought sports were like.

the most diverse, most dynamic places that I found myself in. And they really offered like very tactile and immediate feedback around some of life's great experiences and lessons.

And that was just, you know, that was powerful to me. But mostly the diversity. It was where I really saw like really a lot different kinds of people coming together and doing something with one goal in mind. It wasn't until, so I spent about five years post college and then my wife and I get married and we moved to Boston and we moved to the South End and the neighborhood in the South End has great baseball for those that don't know Boston that well. And I didn't have a kid and I

really know that model because where I come from Baltimore as I said, they were dads. But in the South End they actually do have a there's a fair number of like young guys just volunteering to coach. So that wasn't like a foreign thing. And I went over there. Someone got me to someone and I said like can I can I coach. And it's pretty competitive and good baseball for little kids but it's still like neighborhood baseball. And I coached the nine year old Braves. I was assistant coach of the nine year old Braves. So I coached in Boston before I even had kids. And then

I was just counting the days until I had kids and hoping they would like a sport I could.

Alf Gracombe 
and they let you coach, So I don't think I realized that you'd coach before you kids. A lot of guys and folks like us, right, we start coaching when our kids start playing youth sports. So you were doing it before. And so when you started coaching, like you'd never really coached kids before, you'd played a lot of ball. So you knew the game, you knew what to do yourself. But this is really the first time you're like, I need to impart these skills to other little human beings. Did you?

before I had kids.

Alf Gracombe 
How did you kind of educate yourself? How did you gain that experience and learn those coaching skills?

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, at one thing, to one degree, I think, and you know, you know, one of the guys that that I really love, you know, coaching with. So it wasn't until.

later on that I thought about coaches as partnerships. And obviously that's a luckiness if you have another person. But I think very on more from a negative aspect. I was co-coaching or assistant coaching a guy who was young, also no kid on the team, incredibly competitive. Like this is the year the Braves are going to win it all. And like they're nine year olds. And these games were intense. The whole neighborhood was around. It was a whole different culture. Like this was not the neighborhood that we coach in. was, you know, people were fired up about their baseball.

I've seen it. I've seen it. They were

Fired up so

David Shapiro 
I a little bit had to decide like, who am I going to be here? Am I going to double down on this like fired up competitiveness or am I going to be like the quiet guy who just kind of like takes quiet moments with kids? And that's what I decided to be. Like I was like, I don't need to amp these kids up anymore. I can be the guy who coaches the kids who aren't as good. I can be the guy who helps us remember this is supposed to be a little bit fun. And so without like dishonoring what he was trying to do in any way, I just decided to be a counterbalance. And that was more

I think stuff I had learned from just kind of managing people and leadership and the role I play in other parts of my life

So, as a coach myself, I've done a lot of thinking about winning and losing in the context of youth sports. especially someone like yourself, you've played sports at the college level, so super competitive environment. And now you're placed in this environment of kids.

So you said to yourself, it's almost like you've made a conscious decision to be a certain way. Did you find yourself in moments of being like, you know, oh, we're so close to winning this game, right? I want to do the thing that's probably not the right thing to do, but we really want to win this game. How do you balance that? How did you?

Yeah, I I think I probably found myself more in that. You know, once I was a dad coaching, it was probably easier not to get over competitive because you're not going home with the player who's disappointed when they're not your kids. So it's easy. Ironically, at a younger age and less mature, it was easier to be high minded. I think. I think the thought I would always have, the thing that always kind of brings me back.

David Shapiro 
You know, which is a silly, weird question. It's not very romantic. But like, what is the end game here?

Yes, yeah.

Like when I was leaning on the boards watching my son, you know, skate in ice hockey when he was nine and all the dads began talking about how their kids were gonna stay in shape to skate in the off season. And I began to get agita about like, my kid's just gonna go play baseball. He's not gonna do anything. Is that bad? Like the switch that clicks in my head is like, what's the end game here? My kid skates all year? Like, what am I doing right now? But I find myself asking myself a lot, like, what's the end game here?

That just kind of helps me because once you start thinking about like, what are we trying to keep up with the Joneses about to get where?

So many forces now are forcing kids into one sport early. Yes. This idea of hockey even being a year-round game as an example. But it's the same across all of us.

David Shapiro 
Yeah, because somebody can make money year round like the end game here now 90 % of the time is somebody can make more money. I mean now it's actually pretty clear what the end game is and but it's hard like I tell the story all the time because again like I you know, I'm not

seem self-righteous or like I have some sort of perspective other people don't get my kid gets his first like congratulations you've been invited to the Gatorade showcase in Florida yeah like who am I to say like Brennan that's not cuz you're good man

Go read down. They're going to charge me $5,000 for you to play in the Gatorade show. That's a hard thing to tell 11 year old who thinks he just won like the baseball lottery. So it is hard. can understand all these things or tryouts and invite trouts and invites to like team E like, know, like it's, just, they're not dumb. Like they built this model on charging you money, but making you making it hard.

I totally agree with that and I think it's even yes and because there are also forces that the parents, every parent wants their kid to be successful. How you define success, that's up to the family, up to the parent, up to the child. And kids, right, to your point, Brennan's like, yeah.

I'm special, this is awesome. this is motivating me, right? There's an intrinsic motivation there to play at elite level, certainly for some kids who want that. So there's a lot of forces kind of taking us there, not in defense of the capitalist youth sports system, but yeah, there's just a lot of energy that can easily move you into these channels. I mean, I've had...

Alf Gracombe 
you know, conversations, because I think we all agree on the goal, right? We all love our kids. We all want the kids to do well. There's nothing better than seeing a child, yours or someone else's be successful on the sporting field. But it's also easy to lose track of, you know, what is what's the goal? That's the right question. That's great. And for some kids, a very, very small percentage of them like that end game is playing at a professional level. Right.

helps me.

Alf Gracombe 
And it's hard to, you know, don't want to break anybody's heart at age nine, 10 or 11. You're not going to play in the pros kiddo. But that is a reality. And I think as coaches, yeah, you've got to, that's a great observation. I keep, keep in mind, what is the end game? Keep asking yourself that question. What's the end game?

Yeah, I mean, I find even like my son who's playing division three college baseball, like summer baseball or internship.

What's the end game? Like if the end game is play as much baseball for as long as you can while your body will hold up, then play summer baseball. If the end game is like you really want to get on track to what you might do right after college, then go get an internship. But we make all these things like these zero sum games where you're choosing a path for the rest of your life. It's like the old choose your own adventure books. But you could go back and course correct. And most of us cheated and went back and chose the other base.

I always tell my kids, privilege equals course correction. There's a lot of people in America that have a lot less room to course correct for reasons of money, race, geography, all kinds of things, generational wealth. But if you have a certain level of privilege, and it doesn't have to be extreme privilege, if you have a certain level of privilege, you can typically course correct.

everything you've ever been sold in your life is because someone said offer running out, times running out, best offer now. that's how you, the idea that you can't course correct is how you get sold things. And so that's like, that's what you have to try to avoid, but it's really hard when you love this child and they love this game and all that.

Alf Gracombe 
Right, and as a coach, so you you have coached a lot in Boston and I think safe to say, you know, some pretty diverse group of kids and families and it's reflected in your work here at the Y as you said in your opening remarks. But what are some of the things you've observed as a coach and with

these different types of kids coming from different backgrounds, maybe parents that have different expectations or goals for their kids than you might or that another player might. Yeah, like how do you see kind of diversity playing out within the youth sports context and your role as a coach?

You know, you're serving the kids first and foremost. Those are your players. Those are the kids that you're coaching, but you're also kind of serving their families and the parents as well. So what kind of dynamics have you seen kind of develop around that and how do you think about that?

I mean, I think parents have really different relationships with the game and really different relationships with their kids. And it's not really hard to figure out what those are. And then I'm not going to change an adult. But so there are some parents who know nothing about the game. So they're watching their kid with wonderment playing a game. They like me watching hockey. I can't skate. It's amazing.

What's an example of that?

Alf Gracombe 
It's all great.

David Shapiro 
There is the parent who once played the game and thinks they know everything about it and thinks their kid is better than them or as good as they were or they were once great. There's the parent who remembers struggling and not being good at the game who's nervous their kid's going to be the same way. We're essentially like pretty narcissistic like creatures. So it usually has something to do with their relationship and experience with the game. Are they nervous because their kid feels bad about himself? Are they nervous because their kid

always feels great about himself. Like there it's usually some set of anxieties or expectations that they have based on the relationship to the activity and to their child and deconstructing that pretty quickly is pretty easy. Once you know what that is, I don't try to change them. I'm not going to change their relationship to the game or to their kid. That's what it is. I can neutralize it or compliment it. So if your dad is a yeller or your mom is a yeller,

Usually the dads, but yeah.

Yeah, you're not going to get a lot of volume from me. Like they're doing plenty up there. I mean, if it was disruptive or wrong, I would talk to the parents. But if it's just like they're way too into it.

Like you're not going to get a lot of volume from me. If your parents never come to your games because they might be working or they might. That's another like diverse element of diversity is the home life and work demands. There's some kids whose parents I mean I remember watching high school basketball for one of my sons like some kids parents never came to a single game. Their kids were stars. Yeah. But like that was just the way their life lined up like being able to chase games like I do and watch all your kids game is a gigantic privilege of time and everything else.

David Shapiro 
So for those kids, I would be like, Hey, you want me to text your dad and tell him what a great game you had just because like their parents didn't know anything about what was going on. Yeah. You know, I did a fair bit of texting with parents to say what happened. Like, you know, he got his first hit today or but again, not around the kids that were stars. Like I just I didn't feel the need to like

I just felt the need to be complimentary. if it was Star, there's, you know, I can remember a kid I had a long conversation with and I spent four years probably off and on in different times with him. All we ever talked about was being a great teammate.

He was a great player. So he would say like, did you see that catch I'd made? And I'd say, were you a good teammate today? And he'd look at me like I was nuts. He was like 10 years old. He didn't even know what I was talking about. By the time he got to be 14, he was like, I think I understand how to be a good teammate. And I would say like, you were a great teammate today. But like, you know, for other kids, it's like, dude, you gotta understand your swing is perfect. You know, it's gonna connect with the ball eventually. But like, I'm watching just your swing and there's nothing you should be doing differently, you know?

I mean, this, you know, watching you coach in the limited time that I have had watched, that was what struck me about your approach was that you were really getting to know these kids on an individual basis. And I think, I think a lesson or a message to anybody who's coaching kids is get to know those kids. And if you can get to know their family situation, obviously within the boundaries of, you know, respecting privacy and everything, but,

Yeah, it's just amazing to see how kids are showing up at the field coming from just different situations.

David Shapiro 
So different, right? And some are walking from forever away. Some need a ride. Some's all like parents and grandparents are at every game and none of it's a.

None of it's a judgment. You also don't want to make any kid feel strange about like, where are your parents? But these are the things you think like you want to say, like, where's your dad or who dropped you off? But like all kids are looking for at a certain age is like what makes me different or weird or other than everybody else. So the last thing you want to do as an adult, you know, it's like, oh, you don't have a clean jersey Like, here's a jersey man. Like, that's not the time to lecture a kid about like responsibility and having a clean jersey, maybe if they're 16. But like most kids at that age, like

they're a product of whatever the rhythms of their home life might be. And so you just try to, you know, fold into that, you know, as best you can.

So there's the obvious way of determining winning and losing by looking at the score at the end of a game or your record at the end of a season or whatever it might be. But what does it mean to have a winning team to you?

Yeah, I mean, I think that when I see kids that hurt for each other and are as excited for each other as they would be for themselves, or maybe more, in small moments,

David Shapiro 
Like a ball goes through the shortstop's legs and the third baseman's over there putting his arm around him. Or a kid just hit a home run and the kids are going freaking crazy for him. And he's just kind of mellow about it. Like those are, you know, or like we had a young woman, you know, she got her first hit of the season, like in the 15th game and the place is going crazy. Like that to me tells me you've got a successful team.

They may not be successful at scoring, but they're successful. They've developed as a team because they sort of care for one another and how things go. Yeah.

So it's interesting. You're sorry to cut you off, but your answer doesn't really touch on the sport. Right. Itself.

No, I just think the sports vehicle and I love baseball because there's tons of downtime. So all this like this nice thing you said about me knowing all the kids like only in baseball you get like.

I mean, you know, Brad and I still talk about a guy coach with like we were in the middle of the like most dramatic moment in the Mayors Cup, which in Boston is neighborhoods playing each other. I think eight or nine you and this one kid that we, you know, we both love so much. He's sort of a great competitive kid, but also a free spirit. We're near the airport and he points up to the Plain and goes to coach David. What kind of Plain do you think? I was like, dude, it's like three, two, two outs, bottom of the seventh.

David Shapiro 
But like, that's perfect. Yes, and for this kid, was perfect too. But yeah, like, I think that, you know.

perfect mindset for a ball play.

David Shapiro 
those are the moments you remember and baseball gives you the space to do that. think coaching in really intense free flowing sports like soccer, like football, like hoops. I'm sure it's harder not let the emotion get the best of it. It's also hard to carve out time to get to know your kids. You do most of that in baseball just because you're there a lot. know, it's love.

true.

Alf Gracombe 
Yeah, maybe that's why I'm not a baseball coach. I don't like to talk as much. But no, you're absolutely right. And I think baseball is unique in that way.

And I think that's a lot on the soccer side, what we talk about with kids is there's always this impulse, the game's going on, it's just free flowing action. you're a coach, like, I should be coaching on the side. But actually the kids you probably should be talking to are the ones that are on the sideline who are out of the game at that moment. That's where you can actually affect how they think about the game. Kids out there playing the game in the middle of it, forget it. They're going to hear you. Whatever you're saying is probably outdated information anyway.

and if they even hear it.

favorite things to see even in the most elite level and a big time especially I see it in Division one basketball very occasionally but when a guy who's you know walking back and they have seven assistant coaches so I don't know why these guys aren't doing it but when one of these big-time coaches that you know that's prowling the sideline turns around back to the court and the action and is talking to the kids on the bench about whatever just happened I'm like that guy's a good coach yeah as you said he knows the five on the floor are gonna do with the five on the floor and they're not

Your time to coach them is not.

David Shapiro 
over. But these guys are like your investment in the future, in the moment. You know, nobody knows when that moment will come.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, a little bit of a pivot if we can from coaching, could talk about this probably till tomorrow.

Yes, we've never ended a meeting or session on time. That might not be a great invitation to your listeners.

No, it's a great invitation. So let's talk about mentorship because this is frankly, I'd say kind of an adjacent space to coaching. And I don't have a lot of exposure myself to mentorship specifically, but you've worked professionally in this space and I think you've oriented a lot of your life around it and you certainly have a great base of knowledge around it and lot of experience. So maybe just start if you can with.

What do we mean when we say mentorship? does that mean exactly?

David Shapiro 
Yeah, mean, you know, it means a lot of things to a lot of different people. think there is a there is an evidence based and actual field of, you know, mentoring.

which is about structured mentoring. That's about like, if I introduce you to a stranger and you're the mentee and I'm the mentor and we have roles to play and expectations and a covenant, that's a structured mentoring program. Many think of Big Brothers Big Sisters And that's mentoring, we also sometimes say that's mentoring as a noun. You're a mentor and I'm the mentee. There's mentoring as a verb, which is just behavior.

And I would say that mentoring as a behavior is an investment in a relationship more than an outcome, less transactional. don't, even though people say this all the time, I don't as much believe like I mentor you to hit or be a good soccer player or I mentor you in algebra. To me, that's tutoring and coaching. It's helping someone build a skill.

Okay.

David Shapiro 
Mentoring says that I have some investment in getting to know you as a human and the relationship is first and the skill transferal is second. It doesn't mean they don't often happen. It just means the gateway or the priority is the relationship. I think it happens in reverse too, by the way. Skill, I'm a guy who might be in the STEM professions and you're a kid who loves robotics and my job is to help.

mentor you around building a robot, and then by the way, along the way we find out we know people in common and we become friends and I learn about your family and next thing you know I'm in a mortar. But at the end of the six weeks I might have just taught you to build a really kick ass robot and didn't get to know you, and I would have done fine in my job as a robotics coach. would not, mentoring would say that first I'm trying to get to know you and then I might transfer skills.

so you talked about with coaching, like what is the, what's the end game, right? What is the end game of mentoring? How do you think about it?

Yeah, I mean, to give to give them the mentee a sense that they have somebody who's unconditionally in their corner. I mean, because you're trying to break down levels of authority. So typically in mentoring relationships between

adults and kids and in the best mentoring relationships. They're not grounded in like I am the coach and you are the player. I am the teacher and you are the student. I am the dad and you are the kid. They're grounded in like we are two humans in relationship. Now I may be older and be able to open doors for you or have experiences that I want to share with you. But we are sharing power. We're meeting. I want to know what you want to accomplish in life. I want to be alongside your journey. I will stay consistent for you. But I think like the end game is

David Shapiro 
shared journey unconditionally in someone's corner and in their life. I mean, at its purest level, long-term mentoring relationships, that's what they are.

No, that's really interesting and I feel like there's obviously a lot of adjacent spaces, I'd say really overlapping spaces. Mentorship is certainly a part of coaching, but it is getting to know that person and being with that person. also, yeah, it's a little bit of a, you talk about the power dynamics of it. Maybe, can you talk a little bit more about that? was interesting how you started to frame it.

We talk a lot about sort of shared power and invested interest. So like if I

If I am trying to mentor you to do something, that's why I don't like that vocabulary, because that means the outcome is the one I want. If I am asking you, what are you interested in? Bowling, movies, becoming a great actor, riding on a postage truck, I don't know what you want to do, but if I am asking you what your interests are, and then trying to figure out how to support you in getting to those interests, I am.

performing a mentoring role for you. I am not mentoring you to do something. That's a different. That's an imposition. That's to me is the antithesis of mentoring.

Alf Gracombe 
So mentoring should really begin with a question to the mentee. What is your goal? But a mentor can help shape those.

Of course they can as long as they're not, you know, like putting their own goals and biases and aspirations onto a young person. But yeah, they can say, me more. I mean, I still remember like the first kid I ever mentored, said in a formal relationship, I said, we can do anything, man. What do you want to do? Eight year old boy.

And he said back to me, nobody's ever asked me that question, which was humbling in and of itself because he lived in a life with such kind of like distress and so few adults and so many kids that nobody ever asked him, what do you want?

I also think he doesn't really have the tools to even know how to maybe answer that question fully. Right. He can say, yeah, I want to.

So then it was options. So then it was like my kids like bowling. He'd go up on a hilltop in the Blue Hills and look at the city. could, you know, like we go out on a rowboat. No, I don't want do that. I'm not comfortable. know, but like it became giving options, but they were still options of what I thought kids like to do, not what I like to do or what I thought he should want to do. And so I just think there's something about centering the mentee in a mentor mentee relationship that is maybe different than some of the skill development coaching tutoring.

Alf Gracombe 
Okay.

David Shapiro 
type things in a purely mentoring relationship. You sometimes have to like coach and mentor and tutor people to do something. I just think it's less relevant when you want to have a pure mentoring relationship.

How do you look at it? You know you mentioned your first Experience as a mentor was with you said an eight-year-old is that yeah, okay, so eight years old. versus 16 years old. Yeah, what is that? What do you see as different as a child is getting?

Yeah, I mean what the research says, versus what I say, but I think it's probably right, is that with an eight year old, often the friendship model is, it works and it's worthy and it's sticky enough just to say like, hey Alf, I'm gonna keep showing up every Saturday morning at nine a.m. and we're gonna do cool stuff together and you just can count on me showing up as part of your life.

And I'm gonna do that for the next 12 months and eventually you have to have closure and help a kid understand if that relationship is ending why it's ending but With a 16 year old usually it has to be bound to resources and opportunities Because when I'm 16, I'm thinking like I don't need to freaking hang out with this guy every Saturday I don't need a friend you do we all need friends always but you don't think you need friends you think you need a job right and you think you need to make the basketball team and you think you need to meet a girl and you think you need

to buy cool shoes and like you just there's more like just resource transactions that are bearing down on you when you're older and so normally you need to be as a mentor a gateway to some of those transactional opportunities and that will make the relationship sticky too but it is more about like mentoring you to do something but again it is mentoring to do something that the mentee wants to do and those are usually more transactional. Yeah resource bro.

David Shapiro 
Brokering is what we call it. Okay. There's more resource brokering, opening doors, social capital, people call it. It's like not what you know, it's who you know, that starts to matter a lot more at 16 than at eight when you're just like this guy keeps taking me to do fun things.

Okay, there's a term for it.

Alf Gracombe 
Right. it sounds like listening to you talk about it and just in my own limited experience, it also feels a little higher stakes when it's a 16, 17 year old, right? That next stage of life is consequential. Yeah.

I think for them, they're feeling closer to consequence. think, you know.

The mentor at all of these stages has to figure out not to think of him or herself as a savior. So like, yeah, it's consequential, but like you aren't gonna open a door that's gonna forever change a child's life or you, everyone always asks me like, how do I talk to them about this? How do I have this conversation that's gonna?

the conversation gonna happen when it should. It's gonna happen based on trust and longevity like any relationship. It's gonna happen when you least expect it on the ninth hole of a mini golf course. Like it's not gonna happen because like someone, something tragic happened and he wants to pour his heart out to you. Like it doesn't happen on your terms. That's the whole point of mentoring. It happens on the kid's terms or the mentee's terms. But it will happen when it will happen and it's usually a slow burn. if you're willing to treat it

like you do other relationships that matter in your life, which means it's not one and done. That's what's always interesting to me. It's interesting to me about being in the nonprofit sector where you try to raise money. People are like, is that the thing that works? And I always say to people with privilege, like, that's how you raise your kids?

David Shapiro 
You were like, the violin take? And then when they were like, no, you were like, I'm done with you. That's a bad intervention. No, you started throwing every other thing. So like, if you're willing to throw lots of things at a kid, lots of opportunities, lots of consequential opportunities, and just be there, all the research on boys especially shows that like, the biggest differentiator in outcomes for boys is whether they have a man in their life who will show up no matter what. Like, that's pretty much it.

Yeah, across all ages.

Pretty much, and economics, mean, certainly there are odds and there are lots of structural disadvantages that people are up against, but one of the biggest differentiators for boys in their healthy development, all of the research shows, is just a man who will show up no matter what.

So switching, well not switching gears, but kind of moving into a little bit of a different area for a discussion. All right, we've talked about coaching, talked about mentorship. The thing that I've always admired about you, or one of the things, I admire a lot of things about you, David Is you are a person who very much orients around other people.

One is plenty.

Alf Gracombe 
Community is the word for it. how do you think about this? How do you think about coaching in the context of community? We talked a little bit about it, families and expectations and kids and diversity and people coming from different places. And what makes a community even? mean, edges around communities are not always firmly defined.

But just to bring it back a little bit to sports and youth sports specifically, but maybe not exclusively, but just let's just say youth sports. Community, right? Like how do we think about, we talk about Jamaica Plain Youth Soccer where I've done a lot of work as we're a community, right? Why is community so important to youth sports?

Yeah, mean, I think there's a, the only way you feel a part of a community is if someone invites you. There's access to it and you feel a sense of belonging.

And I would argue that just like sports, just like great school communities, great faith communities, see, none of these things are things unto themselves. Like just because there's a church doesn't mean there's community. Just because there's a sports team doesn't mean there's community, and just because there's a school doesn't mean there's community. But places that want to build community around the activity.

Sports is one of those things that is a great accelerator of community. It's going to draw people together. It's going to become a rite of passage. Like my wife is a second grade teacher in a neighboring neighborhood who's telling kids that love baseball about the little league that my kids played in. You know, like many years later, she says, I'm definitely going to coach when my kids are gone. But like it's a way to stay invested in community, to welcome new people into community, to create mini community.

Alf Gracombe 
Excel.

David Shapiro 
within community. Like it's just it's a huge accelerant I think.

And do you see as these communities emerge or they're being built or they happen, but they don't happen by accident. Right. Behind that is intention of the people that are showing up to make this activity happen. Right. So.

Yes.

Alf Gracombe 
What's the sign of a healthy, let's say again, let's say specifically within sports, but we can also talk about the Y here, but like what are the ingredients of healthy community where people feel they belong, people feel like themselves or their kids or whoever, you know, the community's oriented around that they are, you know, becoming better people, becoming better baseball players, whatever kind of the goals of that community. Like are the ingredients of healthy community?

Yeah, I I think the ability of the experience of people in that community.

who bring very different contributions and have very different experiences in the community to have a positive one. So like, you know, I'll hear people say, man, my kid loved playing in that, in that league. And I'm like, did they keep playing baseball? No, never again. They hated baseball. Like, did they keep playing baseball? yeah, my kid's playing college ball now. he, beginning of his love of baseball was in that little league. Like, if you get enough people say, did they, did, what, did they have language translation in that league? yeah, they did.

Did they market in the neighborhood a neighborhood over where everybody maybe looks different, but there isn't a little league. They did. Like it's just all about like how hard is that league working to be inclusive? How hard is that league working to send the signals that like this has nothing to do with your child's ability. Like it's our desire to make sure they have a great experience no matter what. There are other elite teams and especially in the pay to play world now where they're promising you for your money, your kid will get a lead instruction.

She may not, but they're promising you a lead instruction, a gateway to college. To me, that's not community. I mean, I'm not to say the kids don't say they have formative experience on those elite teams. Sure. Both my kids in AAU baseball had really formative experiences. But if you're trying to create community, then it can't have barriers in my mind. It's got to be inclusive. Yeah. And ability is something that does end up separating us in sports. So to me, truly, and this is why I love coaching little kids like they get to the age where don't want to coach any

David Shapiro 
anymore because ability is a limiting, it can be a limiting factor. Now, if I was coaching elite kids, my job would be to make the deal who feels the least of the elite kids like the most of the elite kids. But I think that's how you create inclusive community is everything.

kids.

Alf Gracombe 
So grassroots sports, obviously it's different than these elite, you every sport has them for kids now. But let's talk about grassroots sports for a moment because it's not everything that you've said, which I 100 % agree with. It's very little talking about the sport.

Right itself, right? And maybe that shouldn't be the most profound observation, but there is, but these kids are there to learn something, right? Yes. You know, kids take music lessons, you know, kids take art lessons. Sports in a sense is a lesson of learning the sport. But you said it earlier, I think it's really kind of the vehicle for community. Again, grassroots, we're talking. Yeah. programs. But you're also

an athlete, like, and you're also a very good coach of teaching kids, you know, the skills of the game. So how does that fit in for you? It's just a nice byproduct or how intentional did you find yourself as a coach around, okay, you know, the importance of fielding a ground ball correctly, getting your footwork right, kind of down to these specific details. How does that, how do you think about those things?

I mean, I think when you're developing a community, you're trying to talk about the intentionality of the different goals that people have that are there. And so I think the conversation I've definitely had with lots of my teams are when it comes to like trying to be better and play better is there's a lot of kids on this team who care deeply about us winning.

about us playing well, about us working hard, and if you're here...

David Shapiro 
Like I'm asking that you devote yourself to a similar thing. I don't say that to eight year olds, but I would say that to 13 year olds and no one saying you have to be here. Like I'm happy to talk to your parent about the fact that you don't like this anymore or whatever. Like if you need a way to get out of this. But like if we are here, we are dedicating ourselves to fully being here. It doesn't mean we can't have fun. It doesn't mean we won't fail. It also means that the guys who care a lot about winning and you know this from watching these things, it also means

that the kids who care a lot about winning, when another kid makes a mistake or they make a mistake, we're not going to beat ourselves up and beat up other kids about it. We know we're all trying hard. But I think you just have to, those are lifelike. We all want to succeed. And if you're on your phone in right field, we have to have a conversation. Not because I want to win this game, but because the kid at first base cares deeply about this game. And that's disrespectful. I can take you out.

other kids and play right field like let's just have a conversation if you don't want to be here.

Well, and you're orienting that conversation around actually community or obligation or responsibility you have to a team.

Right. And the least of those is me. Yeah. Because everyone will already place the adult or the authority figure in that role. like, don't I mean, I would say to my kids all the time may sound irreverent, like

David Shapiro 
I don't necessarily want to be here. I've worked a long day. I'm here because you guys need like an adult to coach this game. don't. This isn't going to make my life if we win or lose. To you guys. I've said it to my own children on the way home and they're crying about it. Like I don't I would much rather be your father than your coach. This could be my last game coaching if you want me want it to be like you have to remind them also to give them some perspective because they will see moments as you said earlier. I mean I'm a competitive guy. There are moments when I look like I really want

to win this game because I do. Yeah, but I need to remind them like this. I'm done my career. Yeah.

We've all been there.

Alf Gracombe 
Well, this is something that at a certain point, coaching my son, I started saying at the beginning of each season to the kids, hey guys, this is your team. This isn't the coaches team. We're here. We're committed to you guys. We're dedicated to being here. But at the end of the day, you all need to own this team and kind of understand what you're trying to do as a group.

win, lose, do it together, but it's you're the, you know, it's your, was also my way of saying if we lose, it's not. But I, I, in all seriousness, I think that's a really important, a great lesson for sports in particular is like ownership.

It's on you guys!

David Shapiro 
I love that. And I mean, I saw that you often ask like coaches, like, what is your favorite ritual? One of my favorite rituals is, and I can't remember whether it's before or after the games, but after I say what I have to say, I always leave them to each other. I've never known what happens in those conversations. But the point is like, I am temporal. Like I am here, but I am not at battle with you all. Like talk to each other about what needs to happen today or what just happened. And that's up to you guys.

It could be that you just want to complain about me. I don't care. But whatever is going to bond you, kids are always looking to adults. So it's like, this exists without me. This is your space.

This is great and well, let's you know, I've got a couple more things that I wanted to. So a little bit about leadership because you, know, a little bit of maybe a shift away from the youth sports arena. But, know, you've been operating over the last, let's just say, 20 years or so.

And I know we probably need to wrap up.

Alf Gracombe 
between your own career and development as a leader in the nonprofit space and mentoring here at the Y. And then you've done a lot of coaching at this point. what are some principles, I guess, from coaching that translate directly into your work leading an organization? And maybe the other direction as well. How do you think about leadership?

Learning. Lifelong learning from everyone everywhere all the time. Again, if it isn't clear, I like to sort of like think about what cuts towards the grain and then try to go against it only because I know that's my natural proclivity as a human. So. The archetype of leadership is that like you're supposed to think about the dictation, the speech.

There's something to be learned.

David Shapiro 
The commanding of where you're going to go, the vision. know, nonprofits are big on describe your vision, your strategy, where are going? Like my thing is like, yeah, I can do that if I need to do that. But like my vision is just a collection of everybody else's vision and all the listening I've done and all the things I've learned. And so there may be a moment when my job is to sum it up and give voice to it. But it's a collection of just trying to learn from everybody. And I feel that way about coaching. If you're actually listening to the kids,

If they're little kids, it may be in whining. It may not be in like some great eloquent articulation. But if your ear is to the ground for listening, you're gonna learn what people need, you know?

So I agree with that. Yeah, 100 percent. But I've also in my own leadership journey. Yeah. There's sometimes when a moment or maybe just a collection of some of the folks you have that are part of your organization. Maybe they want to hear a more clear statement on vision or a more clear next step or direction. So I've always looked at this as.

there's a bit of a balance to be struck and maybe some of that is just understanding who is in your, who works with you and for you and what's the culture of your organization and what's the expectation. But do you find yourself kind of balancing that sometimes? I mean, you have a lot of responsibility, right? Like you've got complicated issues before you and the broader organization.

Yeah.

David Shapiro 
Yeah, I think, look, I think one, just from a self-awareness standpoint, that's always harder for me is to try to dictate the action. And there's times when I've had staff members, especially when I've had long working relationships with people, just say like, come on, man, just tell us what to do here. know, and I can, if I have to do that.

That's not my comfort space either. I think we're probably similar.

needed to signal to people that you'll need to tell me if you need me to do something. But at the same time, I also am a problem solver, so I also have to tell people if you're coming to my office with a problem and you don't want me to try to start helping solve it, you need to tell me you don't want me to solve this, you just want me to listen. So I mean, knowing what your cues are, I think because I...

know that if I sense nervousness or a need for direction, I will give it because that's just kind of like my natural state. I'm trying to guard against that by knowing that like listening is probably a better strategy. But like most people are going to look to you when you have positional authority and say like, tell us what you think. Tell us thank you for your time. You're so busy. I always say to our team like, I am no more busy than you. We have the same amount of hours like nothing is different. have demands.

I have demands. People are already gonna kind of put you on a pedestal and to criticize you too, but I'm always trying to self-correct for what's gonna happen anyway. So I just think like...

David Shapiro 
Listening is harder. Learning is harder. Learning from anyone is harder. I'm going to learn from donors because I need their money. So I got to listen. So I'm going to learn from the board because they're my bosses. But am I learning from like 12 year olds that are sitting in the lobby looking bored? Like I should ask them what's up? know,

You seek out other leaders in a similar different organizations similar roles.

I do, I'm always talking. I mean, I think I probably take too many meetings that have no agenda, but I take a lot of meetings that have no agenda because normally, I started my day with one this morning. And, you know, I think that those...

The meetings you have that are non transactional are with other leaders, with even staff, like are usually the best. They're just really hard because once you get done all the transactional stuff, there's not a lot of energy left. Right. But I do really, really try. My brother, you know, just to come full circle from the beginning of the conversation, you know, my brother is the president of a professional sports team. He's still my one of my heroes and he's also wired incredibly the opposite of me. So I try to get a lot of like hearing how he's leading.

and he'll tell me, toughen up, or you need to dictate some action here, that's gotta be clearer.

Alf Gracombe 
Well, it's great to have that resource and to have it be in family as well.

Yeah, he's huge for me. And the other thing I would say is that like, you know.

People can tell, they really can tell, whether you truly want to be surrounded by people who agree with you. I don't know what that signal is or whether you really do welcome.

like a different perspective. And you know, I try to show, give off as many signals as I can that like, I'm really looking for a different perspective. Like, I hear my own voice, like I agree with myself. But like, like please bring something to this that I'm, where is the blind spot? What am I not?

And will you ask that question directly to people or is this?

David Shapiro (01:00:10.306)
I absolutely will. say like especially the more certain I am the more nervous I am. I'll say like it's really clear to me that we should do X like what am I missing?

interesting.

Alf Gracombe (01:00:20.354)
Yeah, I must be. Nothing's this straightforward. Yeah, I can't be.

Like the monopoly on the truth thing which the whole world thinks it has right now is like, you know, I'm trying to teach my kids that like What like that tweet was created because it does make sense in that few characters but like let's just deconstruct it for a second because People have become masters that the like false equivalency. Well, if they could do that for the Ukraine then they can't do that for Modern America. It's like they're not the same thing and that's not what we're doing for you you could but like people have mastered this

simplistic. Yeah. You lock people up for COVID. Why can't you lock them It's like they're not even like the same thing.

Yeah. Well, okay. So now we're onto social media. But no, a hundred percent. Yeah. No, this is, this is great. so I do want to ask you one more question before we get to, my lightning round, which I've been looking forward to, but, very specific question. How can coaches sports youth sports coaches better.

collaborate with other community organizations? think here at the Y, sports is certainly a part of it, activity, but there's a lot of grassroots sports programs in the city of Boston. And do you see opportunities for coaches in these grassroots organizations to intersect or collaborate with the Y?

David Shapiro (01:01:41.292)
Yeah, I mean, I think there are tons of opportunities, you know, to collaborate with the Y because one, like if your team wants to work out or they need an indoor space or there's something you want to do to keep your team kind of together.

We have great facilities for which to do that. And in this geography, they're mostly going to be convenient for a good number of kids.

Yeah, you are in a great location. Yeah

Just had a track coach from a Boston public school say, no money, volunteer coach, I wanna keep my kids together to work out, there's eight of them, can we come twice a week? And our people can figure those things out. So I think if you're wanting to keep your kids together and do different things, there's opportunities at the Y. I also think there's a lot of opportunities for them to work out if they don't have facilities at their school and things like that. And then I also think these are just meeting places.

So like if all the track coaches in the city want to get together like the Y is great. We've got space so like We're in collaboration. Yeah, so those would be I mean, I just think the real estate I call them palaces for the people. Yes, the palaces for the people are available for for Everyone and there's an open invitation and we will might not be easy for us to always figure out the logistics but we want to be asked and challenged to figure out the logistics of how to Yeah

Alf Gracombe (01:02:48.394)
Space for

Alf Gracombe (01:03:09.75)
And you've talked a lot about access as well. And I think that's one thing and I don't want to presume, but I would think that you all at the Y are pretty tuned into like where there is a lack of or shortage of access. And I know, you know, as an example, again, Jamaica Plain Youth Soccer do serve, you know, of course we're located in Jamaica Plain but we're also serving kids from Roslindale, Hyde park, Dorchester, Roxbury, et cetera. But we don't have great, I guess, data or we don't really know where the need are. We know it's there.

in kind of an abstract sense, but we don't always know how to make our programs available or think about broadening access outside of our more direct demographic.

And we can usually get the word out. I mean, I think that's why the city like turned us to be vaccine centers, because like it's a place you already trust. So maybe you would go. So if Roxbury parents hear about J.P. Soccer, like what they usually hear from the Y is about stuff that's good and low cost or free for their kids. So this is just another thing. So I think it is a way. The one thing I would say, which is true of everything, right, it's it's it's the key to like inclusive dynamic community is like because a certain set of people are not showing up at your

program. That's probably because they're not being invited in the right way. People will usually see that as a self. Well, some people don't care. They're like, we're our program is plenty full. Who cares about that neighborhood? Yeah, right. Matter. mean, we're.

Well, mean, up against resource constraints.

David Shapiro (01:04:35.68)
We don't need more kids like we're fine But other people will say like no one comes from that neighborhood or no one like soccer in that neighborhood or like those people are never gonna come over here and it's like I bet nine times out of ten There's some barrier that if you ask one question, yeah, they would come over play soccer So if you're saying that about your program and why people aren't coming from a certain place I would challenge yourself to think about how to provide invitation

That's such a good observation. So there's a good challenge for some of our community programs and sports programs in terms of expanding access. All right. Well, David, incredible. I really appreciate having this time with you, but you're not done yet. You're not done yet. I have lightning round. is a relatively new thing here on the podcast.

I did prepare you a little bit for it. I'm not going to have a lot of follow up, but I want to get quick, concise answers to this and we'll go from there. Okay. You ready? Yeah. Here we go. Who was one of your best coaches and why?

I'm ready.

David Shapiro (01:05:29.71)
Yes.

David Shapiro (01:05:34.968)
Coach Schloder and because he was tough but fair. High school football, defensive coordinator. Old guy from jersey.

Tough but fair. How old were you?

Okay, great, love it.

Alf Gracombe (01:05:47.458)
All right, so your favorite team tradition that you've created or been a part of, this could be as a coach or as a player.

I think that one we talked about earlier, which is just leaving the kids, the players to themselves without the coach for some period that's theirs.

Great, I love that. On to leadership a little bit. Something you do, a habit, a ritual that keeps you grounded as a leader.

Yeah, I think once I cross the threshold of my home, it's time to be home, which took me a very long time to learn. And it's something I'm still working on every minute I'm home. But I sort of take a deep breath, put my phone on the shelf when I walk in and and try to reset. And then I feel lucky to reset.

Yeah, yeah, so difficult to do though, right? I mean very hard these boundaries are so blurred and technology and you say leaving your own Side yeah good for you. That's that's great. That's All right last question for you And we've probably touched on it here and there throughout the conversation, but most valuable life lesson that sports has taught you

David Shapiro (01:06:46.925)
So.

David Shapiro (01:07:03.446)
I think that rather than there being a prescription for success, that there will be moments that call on you and everything you've done up to that point will either prepare you or maybe fail you in that moment. But you don't really know when those moments are going to come and you don't know exactly how to prepare for them. But just going about your process diligently.

will make you ready for your moment when it comes and that's what you're trying to do is just immerse yourself in the process.

I love that. Yeah, I've always

thought sports, what's so amazing about it is that it's unscripted. And these moments just happen as part of the game or the season or whatever. And it is a performance. Playing a sport is a performance. It's like a performance without a script, though. You're not up there doing a dance routine that you've practiced. I you've practiced a lot, but these specific things that happen in a game, you just can't be prepared for everything. And so I love that observation because

You do the preparation in order to be ready to handle kind of whatever is thrown at you. sometimes.

David Shapiro (01:08:14.104)
So we have, you know, I'm sure in your family or anybody listening, you have these stories, right? With old friends, the rituals, you tell the same stories about the same games from. And one of the stories that gets told in my house all the time is about a 11 year old little league game where a pop up felt like it was in the air for 100 years for a kid that probably hadn't caught a pop up all year who happened to catch it. And we won the, whatever. But it's not about either of my children doing anything or anyone who was even the

best player, anyone we even still know. It was mostly that like, when this kid found this opportunity in his moment, for whatever reason, he met the moment. was ready for that moment. And it was incredibly cool. We were all so happy for it. And I'm not even sure if he was more surprised or happy, but he was happy. both. Yeah. So, I mean, I just think it finds you in moments and that's, it's really fun to be a part of those unexpected

Awesome. Such a great observation. I love that. All right. All right, Dave. Last question for you is, what's a resource? Either something that serves as a touchstone for you or something that you've been using lately that you'd recommend.

Yeah, I'd say two things. I one of them is care of my older brother, which is like he is very into stoicism now and Marcus Aurelius and this whole, you know, there's a whole movement around and I've begun to just kind of read up on different parts of it. And there's a guy like Ryan Holiday who has a podcast, does a lot on stoicism and it's just, I like the philosophy behind it. I'm not a big subscriber to any one set of ideals, but

Yeah, so what do you understand stoicism?

David Shapiro (01:09:45.134)
Yeah, I mean, a lot of it does seem to be about like, you know, a lack of egoism and a long view and sort of like, you'll have your moment in the sun, but quickly it's somebody else's moment and sort of just around this kind of.

servant leadership, kind of control what you can control for the moments that you can control them, you know, and then pass on something better than you found it. You know, I used to buy big, you know, thing at the end of every baseball game, because if you ever looked at a literally kind of dug out after a baseball game, it looks like hell is leave it better than when we came here, you know, like, and I feel like stoicism is a lot about just like leaving it better than when you got here. know, and then I would say there is an organization called the Center for Healing

and justice through sport. I think it's chjs.org that I'm lucky enough to be on the board of. It's founded by a friend of mine, Megan Bartlett, but she's been a real leader in the country around trauma informed coaching, but also more broadly coaching because we all have trauma of some kind. And they do a ton of coach training and just like there's a lot of free resources. She's done a lot of work with people who have been very involved in kind of like trauma informed development for kids.

in brain science. And I just there's a lot about brain development that Megan knows you think she was like a neuroscientist when you talk to her that just like what you were like these kids are a pain in the ass is really like a lot just the way their brains work and the way the brain develops. And once you learn about the science of it, you're like, and you're a lot more tolerant of what's going

Yeah, well, think having that scientific grounding behind, yeah, what's going on in these kids' brains when they show up on the sporting field, really, really valuable. Yeah, I've looked into, know a little bit about the organization. You and I have talked about them a little bit. And I will definitely put this in the show notes so that folks can link to it. Because I think you got the URL. I got it.

David Shapiro (01:11:46.29)
Yeah, this has been such a joy I really appreciate you giving me all this time

Yeah, David, it's been great. And yeah, thank you for your time. And this has really been informative and I learned a lot really about the mentoring piece. I really appreciate that. We've talked a lot about coaching. That's kind of my comfort zone, but getting to learn a little bit more about mentoring and how that works in the context of coaching and just interaction and kind of working with kids and other humans. Just really appreciate what you shared today. So thanks so much, David.

Thank you. was a joy. It fly for people listening. All right. Thank you.

Thanks, man. Take care. Appreciate it. Thank you.