In this episode, we sit down with Steve Dagostino, a nationally recognized basketball trainer and player development coach, to dive into the chaotic world of youth sports. Connect with Steve Dagostino: Dags Basketball: https://www.dagsbasketball.com/ Maximize Basketball: https://www.maximizebasketball.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevedags0/ Steve shares his journey from playing elite basketball to training athletes at every level—from kindergarteners to NBA players. Together, we unpack the growing tension between parents, coaches, and players and explore how the focus on winning has overshadowed the real purpose of youth sports. Steve provides invaluable insights into building resilience and competitiveness in kids, balancing competitiveness with emotional growth, and reframing success for both young athletes and their parents. Whether you’re a parent, coach, or someone passionate about sports, this episode delivers honest advice and actionable strategies for creating positive, impactful experiences in youth sports. What You’ll Learn in This Episode: The root causes of toxicity in youth sports today. Why focusing on effort and attitude trumps winning at an early age. The importance of resilience and competitiveness for long-term success. How to navigate team dynamics and challenging coaches as a parent. The truth about college recruitment and why Division I isn’t the only path to success. Sponsors: Get a FREE trial of unlimited access and an additional 20% discount on Shortform through my special link: https://shortform.com/ryanhanley Take your podcasting journey to new heights. Get booked on high-influence podcasts with That 1 Agency: https://bit.ly/that1podcasttour Episodes You Might Enjoy: From $2 Million Loss to World-Class Entrepreneur: https://lnk.to/delk From One Man Shop to $200M in Revenue: https://lnk.to/tommymello Is Psilocybin the Gateway to Self-Mastery? https://lnk.to/80upZ9 Get in Touch: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanley
Chapter 1: What is the background of Steve D'Agostino?
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. We have a tremendous conversation for you today with Steve D'Agostino. He is the founder of DAGS Basketball, of Maximize Basketball. Steve is a high-performance basketball coach and trainer. He works with kids all the way as young as kindergarten up to NBA players and everyone in between.
He is a big part of the renaissance that has happened in my local community. This is the best part about this podcast. Steve lives here in Albany, New York. His business is based here in Albany, New York. And he has been a major part of the sports renaissance that is happening in our area.
We are consistently sending high-level basketball players to Division I schools like North Carolina, Syracuse. We currently have four local kids in the NBA. And so much of that has to do with Steve and his training. And I wanted to bring him in because he has a particular mindset, methodology, thought process that I find to be, it's, It's refreshing. It is a refreshing way of approaching this.
I'm a former high school basketball referee. I did some college basketball as well. I played sports in college. I've seen the brilliance of youth sports as well as some of the nightmares that can come with youth sports. And currently I coach my kids in both baseball and basketball as well. And what I wanted to get into with Steve was
How, as parents or as coaches of youth athletes, do we align our mindset so that we can help them become what they want to be? And it's an important framing. And so much of this comes out of Steve's mindset. I love this episode. Whether you have kids in youth sports or not, you are going to enjoy this because of Concepts.
that Steve talks about like creating chaotic drills and the importance of training yourself for chaotic moments. Now you can have kids or not have kids. You can have kids in sports or not have kids in sports.
And the idea of inserting yourself into chaotic situations, preparing yourself for chaotic situations so that when they happen out of the blue, you are ready for them and can perform inside of them is wonderful. and powerful. So with all that preamble, let's get on to Steve D'Agostino.
In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.
Steve, appreciate you making the time today, my man.
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Chapter 2: How has youth sports changed in recent years?
Yeah, 100%. I think at the youth level, it's different now. And I'm a player development coach. So I do a lot of like the training. And so I can see that parents are a lot more invested in their kids' youth sports now than maybe they were 20, 30 years ago. And I'm not saying like emotionally invested as far as like, hey, you want your kid to play sports and
and be well, but like the time and money that goes into it and those both lead into stress, right? So like, hey, I'm investing this time, I'm investing this money. And then also now everything is on social media. So like you'll have, you know, if you're a parent, you go on social media and just take AAU season.
you know, your kids on one team and then you go on social media and all these other teams are posting their championship and I'll put it in quotes, right? Like t-shirts and pictures and now you're like, man, I wish my kid was on that team and this.
So there's all this like fear of missing out and trying to keep up with the Joneses and it really takes away with like the best thing about youth sports is that It teaches kids how to be accountable, how to handle adversity, how to be part of a team, how to sacrifice.
And like you were saying, we've lost a lot of that for like this manipulation of like trying to win games or having to be on the best team. And and it leads to a ton of stress and that stress.
is mostly there because of the adults, and then it gets taken out on, whether it's a coach taking it out on the players, whether it's a parent taking it out on a coach, whether it's the parent or the coach taking it out on the refs. It's just, it manifests in all this chaos, and it's like, yo, just let the kids play.
Yeah. There's a local, you probably even know him, Danny Barbaro, who's a local baseball trainer and performance coach. And my kids play baseball as well. And one of the parents of our team asked a question with no honest question about performance at the age of 11. And he's a particular guy, but he looks at her and he goes, he's fucking 11. Yeah.
And it was like – it took her – and this is nothing against her because her question was honest and it was not meant to be persuasive. But it literally – you could see that hit her like, oh, yeah, they're just 11. So I guess my question is at what point should –
As a parent, if you have a kid who is dedicated to a sport and has made a commitment to being good, when do you think that ages that you shift into fifth gear with them? And when does that moment happen?
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Chapter 3: What are the root causes of toxicity in youth sports?
And I'm like, you don't want that. Like, if I push them to win, you wouldn't like that side of what this looks like. Because in fifth grade, these kids, half of them just learn to tie their shoes. You know, it's like... When the kid, when you got to run out in the field and tie a kid's shoe, we should not be concerned about winning.
So there's like, so I coach my daughter's fifth grade team. I also coach third grade. The third grade is like, you know, they're just learning whatever. But like fifth grade, I've had them now for a couple years. And so I am the same way as you. Like we're going to compete to win, but I don't care whether we win or lose.
I actually prefer, like we lose, man, over two years, we probably lost seven games by like one possession. And part of the problem with our team is we're not focused. Like we come in practice and it's not like we're on them, but they have a hard time. And you're not going to win. close games if you're not focused.
And so I actually like it because they're learning now like, hey, you don't like losing by one point, two points, three points. We missed 10 foul shots. We didn't run this play and execute. And so it's helping us, right, like fight through adversity, lose, and now come back and practice and work on those things, right? And so I'm the same way as you, like, I do this for a living.
So I could be as crazy as you need me to be. But in fifth grade, the biggest thing is not that we win games. It's not that we run a million plays. We have one play that we run. It's that your kid, by the time they're in eighth or ninth grade, if they want to do basketball, that then they're ready to be in the gym all the time and compete.
Yeah. Yeah. And I do think. Unfortunately for a lot of these kids, it's so much luck of the draw. You know, you call it dad ball, right? Like we call it in baseball, we call it dad ball a lot.
And you can see, literally, you see the teams that, you know, hit the jackpot because there's a dad who actually gets it, maybe played at a high level, understands, you know, has the perspective of like what we're doing here at this level, at this like fourth, fifth, sixth grade level.
And then you got these dads that maybe never played on their varsity team or whatever, didn't get to where they thought they should be, and now they're taking it out on the kids. And that experience is very difficult.
I guess just kind of wrapping up maybe the youth side of this, if you're a parent and your kid is on a team, maybe you have good perspective, you understand, let's say it's a rational parent, but you're on a team where That head coach, that dad, whatever, who, God bless him putting his time in, but just doesn't get it, right?
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Chapter 4: How can parents support their children in youth sports?
How do you train resilience into a kid or coach resilience into a kid?
I think you put them into challenging situations, right? And so, like, you know, we'll do it with, you know, in our area, we've been lucky. We've had a ton of really good, like, shooters come out of this area. You know, Joe Girard was at Syracuse in Clemson. Kevin Herter was in the NBA. Joe Cremo was at Villanova.
And so what we what we do is we try to get them in a situation where let's say they come in and we're doing shooting stuff where they're not going to win every drill. I think and you know this with coaching, you want every drill a lot of times to be like clean and you want your kids to do it like really well. And part of what I've started to embrace is like chaotic drills.
We're like, yo, you're going to lose. It's going to be messy, but you've got to figure out a way to get through it. And so that inherently putting them through more adversity and everything that they do, then they tend to start figuring out, okay, you know, I haven't beaten this shooting drill, you know, seven days in a row. And then on the eighth day, they get it. Boom, you did it, you know?
So we put that into all of our development stuff.
I love that. I love the idea of, the chaotic drills, you know, it's, it's funny how, uh, like, so I was, I played, um, I played basketball in high school, but only because, uh, I w I was like the punching bag for the guys that were actually good. I was like the 12th man that just showed up with the Jersey and, The starters just beat the shit out of me in practice, you know, and that was my role.
But in football, you see this a lot in football. I was more of a football and baseball player. And in football, this is like a given. Like, you're going to get knocked down. Like, you're going to be bleeding. You're going to be bruised. Like, it's... And... But in a lot of the other sports, I've seen the contact side of the game that, like you said, I hadn't framed it in my head as chaotic drills.
I love that. I'm going to put more thought into that idea. I think that's a good life lesson. I think handling chaos is a life skill, not just a sports skill, and I really think that's wonderful. Let's say you have a kid who's never been exposed to this before, right? They hit eighth, ninth grade. They have some talent.
They may have some drive to be good, but they have been sheltered or they have been maybe kind of moved around to places where they can be successful without real challenges. how do you introduce them to them? Is just throw it to the fire? Do you have like a methodology that you take them through? Like, how do you get them introduced to this chaotic nature? Because to me, it feels fairly unique.
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Chapter 5: When should parents shift their approach in supporting young athletes?
You've got to go to Johns Hopkins. And so if the focus was just be the best you can in high school, if you're productive enough and good enough, somebody's going to want you. And then hopefully you choose that right situation that's going to benefit you the most for your future.
Yeah. I mean, I can tell you as a Division III. So I got a couple opportunities to play Division II as a baseball player. And I ended up going to the University of Rochester. And Johns Hopkins is one of the schools that we played against for baseball. And, you know, Division III sports are fun. Guess what we did the night before games? We went out and we chased women and drank beers.
And then we showed up the next day and played a doubleheader. Like, I mean, I'm not saying to take away. We trained hard. We practiced every day. It was a full-time thing. We took it very seriously. But, like, the point is, like... We had fun.
Like, after a doubleheader, if we were sleeping over in that town, we would hang out with the other teams and go out to their bars and, like, have a good time. Like, you can't do that shit at the Division I level.
Like, that's not... Like, there's... That level, you are playing at a level where, like you said, and I'm not saying you can't have fun in Division I. I got plenty of buddies that did, and it's all good, and I'm not knocking that. I'm just saying that...
I think to your point, Johns Hopkins is a meal ticket for having a job the rest of your life, a good job that's gonna make you money, let you provide for your family, whatever you want, it's there.
I guess I want people to push as hard as they can and be everything they can be with an understanding, to your point, I love that this is the way you're framing this, of what you're actually going to get out the back end of making that decision.
And we phrase it, not to cut you off, but the way that it's framed to these kids by the parents and the other AU coaches, trainers, decision makers, is that the college level is like good, better, best. It's not the case. It's not the case because everybody's different. So what?
So you get a Division I scholarship to a low Division I school that's better than going to a Tufts or a Williams or a Johns Hopkins? Not in 20 years it's not, you know? And so, again, and this goes back to the right information.
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Chapter 6: How to build resilience and competitiveness in young athletes?
What happened, you know, in like that small period of time in Albany, New York is I was able to work with all those players and it wasn't anything that I did, but they were all around each other and they all had a similar perspective. Right. And so like when you know, like Andrew Playtech played at North Carolina before he went there his freshman year.
I remember being in the gym with Joe Cremo and Kevin Herter or both, you know, high major players. And Playtech was saying how, you know, what he thought that North Carolina would be like. And we were all sitting there like, you're going to learn, buddy, what you think it's going to be like. And after your freshman year is going to be.
And so you have all these people that have real life experience. It's not somebody spewing some crap so that their business makes more money. Right. And so I think, I always say this, especially it helps when you have NBA players. If I was in New York City or Los Angeles or Miami, I'd have triple the amount of NBA players that I work with now. But I'm home in Albany, New York.
So whoever comes in the gym, we're going to do the best job. And it's been crazy to see the success of some of our players. And it's on them because they're the ones who have to decide who they listen to and how they go about their business. So it's been cool to be a part of it. That's for sure.
For the parents listening out there, what's the filter or is there a filter that you can recommend for someone who's trying to bullshit them to sell a $300 program and the coach who's there to really help their kid get better? How would you filter that out?
for them it's it's so hard because ready I do this I've been doing this for a long time right and so this is like not what we do but I think I can make my revenue could double easy ready hey right Duke and Colton are one of the they're some of the best basketball players that I've seen like really if they like locked in and really trained a couple times a week I think that they could end up being like some of the best players in the area
What are you going to do? You're going to say, oh no, this guy's BSing me.
I was reaching for my wallet, right? I was like reaching under here. I'm like, is he serious?
You know? And so like, it's so hard for the parents. Like somebody wants to compliment your kid and say that they're doing really, really well. You're going to be like, oh man, I knew my kid was pretty good, you know? And so it's just, it's that your question of the BS filter, it's hard because that's all you have to do. I think over time though, you figure out like a lot of the trainers, you
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Chapter 7: What is the importance of learning from losses?
Awesome, brother. I appreciate you and I appreciate the time.
Yeah, thanks for having me. It's fun.
Let's go. Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy. Thank you for listening to The Ryan Hanley Show. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts.
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