006 - Kurt Mathews - How To Get Recruited

All right, today I'm super excited to have Curt Matthews, the father of Mitch and Marcus Matthews, on my podcast today. He is a guru with all things football, all things recruiting, and I'm really excited to talk to him. So welcome, Curt.

Thank you, thank you for the invitation.

I am, I'm very excited. Mitch had a lot of good things to say about you, obviously him being your son, but he said that— I, I asked him, I said, is there anyone who you think would be a great fit for this podcast? And the first person that came to his head was you. So I think that's really nice. Yeah, he—

and it's, it's funny, he says guru. I don't really know about that, but I do know this is that, um, um, and I'll talk more to this, but I have such a passion for this kind of thing, and it's not my profession, But it's something that I did when, when my kids were really young and when they grew up, and I, I, I figured it out and I've talked to dozens of people and I love to do it. So this is really cool that you invited me.

Well, I'm really excited to learn from you and hopefully, um, all the athletes listening can get some knowledge from you as well, because sometimes it can be a confusing thing trying to get recruited out there.

So, and I'm sure— oh my man, my boys, my, my oldest boy graduated in 2007 and Mitch graduated in 2009. And I'm looking at the calendar now, that's, that, that's a while ago. And I'm sure a lot of things have changed, and you would probably know better than me. And what I'd like to speak to today, Kelsey Higginson, is what worked for me and what I did, you know, in going through this and thinking about it for the last week since you've invited me. It was— oh man, I've got to keep to the topic because I have so much to say about this. But I think the reason that you asked me to come on was what did I do specifically? And the principles really are the same. The, the way I look at it, the principles of getting recruited, it boils down to just a few things. And the formula that I used for my boys was just that one formula, and it worked for us and it worked for them. And, uh, I can't say it would work for everybody else. And, but I can give you some kind of core principles that I hope help.

Oh yeah. I, we will take anything that you want to give us and don't worry about staying on the topic. If you have something come to your head, take us there. It's just a conversation and we can always get back on track after we go off on a little tangent. That's what this is all about. So first question I have for you though, is tell me, tell me the approach you mentioned, what worked for you guys. Tell me the approach you specifically used for Mitch and Marcus and. Why it worked.

So first things— first thing is that I know everybody would start this process, and we're talking about the recruiting process to go on to play football in college, right? I know there's— and I hope there's many parents of athletes, and then maybe I should use the word athlete, but I have to stick to the fact that what worked for me and my boys was getting them recruited to play college football. So at a very early age, I would highly suggest getting your kids exposed to all sports every season, right? Don't pick one too early. Don't pick your favorite. Pick the one that they end up migrating to. And I exposed my kids to T-ball, to, um, track and field, to, um, soccer, you know, and then of course into baseball, basketball, football, flag, all of these things. You just expose your kids to all sorts of sports season to season. And really what ends up happening at 5 or at 10, even they're not going to know and they won't have this passion like they would later, maybe when they're 12, 13. That's when you really start to see what their, their passion is and they lose interest in other sports. And that's to be expected, right? They don't like it. They're bored with it, but there will be a sport that they'll, that they'll gravitate to, right? And that's when that happened. Now, I'm a little biased. I played college foot— I played small college football, so sure, I knew a little bit more about the game at that level. And, you know, maybe there was a little bit of pressure and a push from behind from Dad to go that direction, but whatever, I'll admit that. So it was around 8 8th to 9th grade that I really ramped things up. Because at about age, I'd say about 12, we were all— we were doing a— then what is that, junior high school, I guess, 6th or 7th grade or something. And that was about, about after that time, 8th and 9th grade is when I really ramped up things for the recruitment and really started dialing into what all of this was going to take. Because One thing that I realized, and it's going to be even more true now, 15 years, 10 or 15 years later, there's so many more athletes out there now. There were a lot when my kids did it, but you, you, for the rare exceptions, and I'll talk about this whenever you need me to, but for the rare exceptions, and we know who they are, you need to get your kid out there. They will not come to you.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. They will— they won't. It's too many kids, too many programs, too many clubs. It's impossible when you got a coaching staff of 9 individuals and a recruiting coordinator. There's, there's just too many kids out there, too many good kids for them to ever expect them to come to you. So when I say ramped it up, that's about the time that I thought I started taking this really serious and talking to my kids about it. You know what? So yeah. Um, so for, for example, um, when I say around 8th and 9th grade, that's another time when we started— I've got this philosophy is that you can never be strong enough and you can never be fast enough. And that goes for all athletes.

I would agree.

Tell me your kid's too strong. Yep. Okay. And so what we would do, and I, my kids grew, we, we grew up in a suburb of Portland, uh, right near the Nike headquarters. And I'll bring that in just because there's real cutting-edge training and facilities up in that area. We were just fortunate enough or blessed enough to live in that area.

Yeah.

So there was a lot of things and people and coaches and facilities that we could go to. But if you've heard of SPARC training, that was a new concept back when my kids were that young. The speed, agility, quickness, reaction, explosion, and all those things. And on top of the sport itself, Spark training was critical. My kids loved it. And so my wife Lisa, she was also a Spark or SAQ at the time, certified trainer. So sometimes it's better to let your kids listen to and be yelled at by other people. So I got them involved in that as much as I could. And even my wife on weekends would take the neighborhood and train them on Spark. You want to help all the kids, not just our own. But so anyway, and local camps and clinics, I just kept eyes and ears open to everything. College football camps would be in the month of June, so June was extremely busy. We didn't do anything but camps and clinics and get them around to universities and road trip it. So, you know, so there you go.

Yeah, yeah, I, I remember you talking about that a little, the last conversation that we had about the camps and clinics. Can you expound a little bit more on that? Were, were the camps that you going to, were they already recruiting your sons, or did you just pick the schools? How How did you go about with the camps and clinics? Because I think a lot of people kind of get overwhelmed and don't really know what that looks like.

Yeah, it's overwhelming. It is. It's, it's crazy. And, I'd say get a big calendar. I mean, I, I could barely keep track of it and, and it was difficult. But so the camps and clinics are different. Clinics are skill development, right? Okay. And I say keep my eyes and ears open. There's, there's a lot of camps. No, I'm sorry, I gotta quit saying camps. There's a lot of clinics that are open in local areas. Utah, I mean, Man, they— these guys around here do a really super good job with that. So clinics that you can get your kids into for a 2-day over-the-weekend thing, or even an evening, or if you can get those type of things. So clinics for skill development are huge, right? You take them to wide receiver, quarterback. You know, I used to go to quarterback camps— clinics, sorry— and I'd ask the instructors, can my kids go because they need somebody to throw to? Oh, bring them on over, right? And whether they had us pay or not, my kids were there at a quarterback clinic learning the skills, and they would go catch pass at thousands of balls over the, the spring and summer, right? And any wide receiver, um, clinics that we could get them into. So, but I think you were asking more, Kelsey, about the camps. So yeah, um, With all of that now, in 8th and 9th grade, they're not really getting recruited. I know they can be now. They, they really are. Kids are getting offers in the 8th grade, but that's that rare exception, right? You've heard about that. Yeah. Ridiculous things are going on in 5th and 6th grade, kids getting offers. That's happened again. There's some prodigies out there, one in a million type.

Yeah, we're, we're speaking to the most of the people who are wanting to get recruited, not necessarily they're the prodigies, right?

Sorry to interrupt, but no, you're okay. There's those— there are that one half of 1% of those kids that their parents never have to lift a finger. That's that kid that everybody knows about, that's 6'6" and 300 pounds as a senior and runs a 4.940. That's that lineman that's on Alabama's radar and Utah's radar and everybody's radar, and he doesn't have to do a thing except show up. Right? And he's going to get multiple offers by the time he's a sophomore. We're not talking about that kid. I think my kids were pretty talented, but the difference was, Kelsey, is that their passion for football was unbelievable. I could, you know, they'd be waiting at the door for me with their pads and their football to go, and they never whined and complained and bellyached about going to practice and games. So when I recognized all of that stuff, I was like, okay, this is what we're going to do, and I'm going to do my part to help them get that exposure. So we would sit down, what camps would you like to go to? Now the old man would pretty much decide where we were going to go to, right? You know, of course they're going to want to go to Ohio State. Yeah, Florida State, right? Where it sounds like a lot of fun, and those are the guys that are on TV. If that's realistic for your kid to be recruited there, well then do it. Right. But we chose the Pacific Northwest and BYU because we remember the church, or our— and so that just anything that lined up and made sense. So that's what we would do. And it was going into the 9th grade year with my older son Marcus, and I learned some stuff with him that I applied to Mitch because we were winging it with, with Marcus. But he grew physically. He was a big kid as a soft— as a, like a 9th grader. He was probably around 6'2" and 175 pounds as a 9th grader. And he impressed, you know, and he was impressive. And they started talking to me then about Marcus. Okay, little brother shows up, not quite as well developed, but the same kind of passion to go out and perform. So BYU was really, really high on the radar for a lot of reasons. And then we would take them to other camps. Um, we took Mitch to Boise State, and they were recruiting him. We took Mitch to UNLV and they were recruiting him. Marcus, we took to, to Oregon State and to Washington. And those camps that the, the, the colleges sponsored in the offseason, which is June— June was a big camp month, like I said. And yeah, we would have some attention from them, or at least letters coming in. Letters don't mean anything. You— anybody can get on a mailing list, and most parents who have athletes know that. So we didn't take too much stock in the letters. We took a lot of stock in what was being said and what they were saying to our high school coach and, um, any feedback that I got directly from the coaches, which happened from time to time. So yeah, I could go on and on about that, but that's how we selected those camps to go to, right? And when they were early, when they're 8th and 9th grade, we would let them go to the whole camp and stay at the dorms and have all that experience, get to know kids from different parts of the country, and all that was fun. Fun for them eating at the— I mean, how, how often do they ever get to go eat in a cafeteria with a bunch of ballplayers, right? Where mom and dad aren't catering to them every, every minute. And that was cool. We wanted them to do that and not be able to call me every 5 minutes and have to tough it out a little bit. And so by doing that, but then when things got serious, what we would do is I'd set up a camp in advance. Well, it was the camp that the that the university sponsored. And again, this was where they were like sophomores going into their sophomore year. I guess that's more— it's between their 9th and 10th grade year.

So they were getting a little bit of looks at this point.

They're what?

They were getting a little bit of looks at this point, a little bit of attention.

Okay, they were getting some attention. Mitch got some attention from BYU because they had already committed Marcus. So when that happened, I set it up. There was there were 3 schools that had shown the most interest in Mitch. I'll just speak to his situation because it's fairly unique. It was Boise State, UNLV, and BYU. None of them had offered, but we set up one day. So they had a 4-day camp. There was no way I was going to send them when they were at that recruiting age to a week-long camp. And the reason that was, was I would set it up with the position coach in advance, and I'm gonna say, I'm gonna bring him there one day. I'm going to bring him there on Tuesday. He'll be there from morning to afternoon. And the coaches would have it set up that he got an individual workout almost where they expected him. Where when you come to a college, you know, when you come to the university, they can talk to you. Now, they couldn't call him on the phone. They couldn't pay for the visit because I paid for us to get there. But, and I paid for the camp fee. But then he got like basically an individual workout for one day. We'd leave and go to the next place the next day. Bing, bing, bing. Boise State, BYU, UNLV. Not even really in that order, but that was our week or our two weeks. And they'd be there just for one day. They weren't there for the introductions. They weren't there for the handing out of the trophies. None of that stuff. They were just there to be showcased in my book. That's how I would phrase it. Yeah. And they walked away. They— Mark and Mitch walked away from offers from all three schools because guess what? He had developed a pretty solid reputation. As a good player and they wanted to eyeball him, you know, in a 6-foot-6 kid that's over 200 pounds at that age walking into your campus. Whoa, we haven't— we didn't even know about this kid. Thanks for bringing him to our attention. But that's just what I did. And that approach worked really well.

Yeah, I obviously it worked well and they were very successful. Um, they're— Marcus and Mitch both, you can tell that they were workhorses. They definitely earned the spots that they got. So if you, if you had a son who was a wide receiver, quarterback, something, and they weren't getting looks but they had the potential to go at least D2, um, Division 2, D2 school, what would— would have you done something differently? What would be your approach with the recruiting process if they're a sophomore, junior, and they still haven't gotten looks? Would you bring them to the camp? Would you bring them to clinics? What would be your approach?

Yeah, that's, that's such a good question because I know as a parent that parents in general are the most unrealistic people for their own kids' abilities. We are very biased towards our own kid.

Yeah.

And anybody listening will say the same thing, whether they would admit it or not, I don't know. But internally they would say the same thing because you, you just, you have to be, you have to be realistic and you have to look at growth potential speed, size, their passion and commitment to all this. Now we can improve. That's the thing. You can help them and help them improve to get looks later. But you have to be realistic. Is my kid— is he Alabama material? Is he Oklahoma material? Is he Washington? Maybe not, right? Maybe D2 is an unbelievable place and a spot for that kid. And then I say, go to their camps. Right? And that's all I, that's all I can say that I learned, because I had a backup plan with, with my kids, right? Like I said, Mitch didn't have that full development like he got, like, on his mission and so forth. Or, I mean, he was 6'5" and 185 pounds as a senior in high school, which is still, still pretty darn good, but, you know, filling out and so forth. But I had a backup plan for him because the offers weren't coming fast and furious for him in the 9th grade or the 10th grade. But when he got to those camps and had a chance, they have things called Junior Days. We attended those as well, which are all in, in essence, before your junior year. Those are opportunities for you to showcase yourself one additional time on top of that camp. But the, the, but the, the NAIA, the Division III, the Division II schools, the 1AA— I think they call it something different now, like the football bowl or championship subdivision teams, let's say Weber or Southern Utah, they have camps, and that might be a more realistic expectation for your son. And there's nothing wrong with that, nothing at all. In fact, it's great because if it's an opportunity to get all or part of their scholarship paid and get them that, that exposure— because the kid who's maybe undersized or underdeveloped at that time, you send him to a big-time camp, he just might not you as the dad, you know, dad, you're going, what are they not seeing? I don't get this. My kid's a stud. He's, he's a player. Just give him a chance. Yeah, I, I get it. So my backup plan with Mitch is we took him to University of Idaho for some, for a camp, and we took him there twice because they were showing a lot of interest in him. And I thought, well, maybe if these big-time schools don't pan out, he's got a place to play. right? And so nothing wrong with, with Idaho, but they were down a level in a different division. And, and, uh, we— I just wanted to help him with those, keep those options open. But I was given enough feedback and enough knowledge myself of watching him play, watching him perform, watching both of my kids play varsity at a high level as youngsters, as sophomores and stuff, and in multiple sports. I had a pretty good idea they could maybe be Division I players. So I put that— I gambled on that. But by all means, be realistic and just ask yourself, and then you got to ask your kid, the demands of Division I football are huge. Are you ready? Are you ready to do what it takes to be successful at that level? Because it's a job. It's a huge commitment. Okay. And, yeah, I know I'm rambling a little bit, but it's just all of those things that. But it starts, it starts with the parents. And, and, um, I know sometimes you might feel like I don't have anybody to talk to, but start with their head coach or their club coach, right?

Yeah, I, I liked what you said about being realistic because I do think that— I know that all parents think that their kid is the best.

How else would we have it, right?

Exactly. It's, it's hard not to think that. You're with them, you see how hard they work. But what's, what's difficult is like, yes, like, you see how hard they work. They're going to the gym every day. They're, they're putting the work in. But so is someone else down the road, or so is someone else in another state. Like, I, I think that sometimes we are so myopic and we think, like, my kid deserves this. And though that may be true, they've put all the work in, in the world, other kids deserve it too. And so we do have to be realistic of, like, just because your kid is putting the time in doesn't mean that they're guaranteed a spot at a big level school. And but at the same time is I think that a lot of people think it's failing if you don't make it to a big level school.

That's unfortunate.

Yeah, I remember we were— oh, keep going. You're good.

No, no, no. You're on a roll. That's great.

Oh, yeah. I, I played at a Division II school, Colorado Mesa University. At the beginning, when I first committed there, I was really bummed because obviously every kid dreams of going to— I mean, in my opinion, in my mind, it was either BYU, Utah, even Weber, UVU, like all these Utah schools, I was like, yes, that's where I want to go. And then when I didn't get there, it was like, oh, it's D1 or bust, it's D1 or I failed. And I had, I had a wrong mindset approaching that just because, I mean, to have an opportunity to play next level, if you really love the sport, you'll love it. Like, you'll, you'll go, you'll get great— in my case, it was basketball— you'll get great competition, you'll get to play basketball, the sport you love, and maybe from there you can have an opportunity to go up even to the next level if you go from a JUCO to Division I. But I guess my— more— yeah, how— I guess what would be your advice for parents who have kids who think that it's Division I or else I fail?

Hmm. Well, I guess that my thought is, is that if I were you, you know, that's a— it's a great success. Congratulations to you for getting this scholarship opportunity to Mesa, right? I'm very familiar with the, the program because I played at Southern Utah State College even before they went to university, and we played Mesa and they were dominant. And it's, it's funny, Kelsey, because this might sound really goofy, but I'm going to tell you something, is that Mesa was how we measured success. If ever beat Mesa. Big deal at Southern Utah State College. Yeah, think about that for a second. You are such a, you know, a great athlete that you're thinking, wow, I didn't achieve Division I, crap. But the mindset of somebody else is that Mesa is the, the be-all end-all. And okay, right? And that phrase, I, I, uh, a phrase that I like to use that I found to be so true because I played junior college at Ricks Junior College. I'm only gonna give you a little snippet of that is that I too was not recruited to any decent schools that were 4-year schools. When I say decent, I wasn't recruited by BYU, Utah. I thought I should be and so did my parents, but I ended up at Ricks College with the, one of the best junior colleges in the country and had a second chance to be recruited after 2 years. But when I got to Ricks College, I looked around at those 110 kids they had in the bleachers And I go, man, I'm just one of many. And I thought I was a hotshot in high school, but oh boy, I'm gonna have to work.

Yeah.

But when I was at Ricks, the same year BYU— none of you guys were even born yet— but the, the same year that BYU won the national championship in 1984, we were playing for the national championship in junior college. We got beat. They won. They beat Michigan, their 13-0 record. They were voted in national champions. We got beat 17 to 16 in our bowl game. Had we won, we would have been junior college national championships, national champions. That stung. It stung today. It stings, stung, stings today when I think about we lost on a fluke play at the end of the game. And, um, that meant so much to me. Now we lost, didn't win, but where I was at was big time. That's all I cared about. And my little championship at Rick's junior college, I guarantee, meant as much to me as they did to those BYU guys. Not as many people cared about it though, but to me as an athlete— are you telling me a D2 championship at, at Mesa State College wouldn't have been as big to you as South Carolina women winning the women's this year in D1? Yeah, it'd have been just as big, I promise you. And then big time is where you're at. That's my little thing. Don't get so hung up on it's D1 or bust, because if that's your— if that's the— if that's where you're at, that's okay.

Yeah.

And you— and if you don't want to go D2 or NAIA or JUCO, and if D1 is it, well then you maybe have another year or two to work on some skills to walk on. There's a lot of options that you have, but there's a lot of schools that want and need good athletes.

I would agree. I, I've been kind of reflecting on this a little bit, and I think a lot of it is that kids love the idea, the attention, the popularity that comes with Division I sports more than they actually love the sport at that level. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it, it does. Because maybe a buddy or maybe a guy across town is getting recruited. And I heard this stud so-and-so is, is getting a lot of looks at, uh, at Utah. Utah's a top 10 program. And, uh, I mean, I, I— that's what I want for myself. And yeah, if I, if I, if I don't achieve that, that really does, does show motivation as well. I mean, do you want to play football or any other sport at the next level? No matter where it is and wherever I fit, or is it D1? And if I don't get D1, well, I'm just going to say I gave it my best and then go on and be a regular person the rest of your life. And all of those choices are okay. Yeah, very much okay, right? But I think kids have this, um, well, and I know, and again, maybe I was, um, or maybe I could be lumped into this, and I'm not going to blame parents, but sometimes parent wants— parents want it more than the kids do. Well, my, my kids got this, my kids did that, my kids, you know. But the kid doesn't want to. He doesn't want— they don't want to make that commitment to go on. They, they're tired all the time and they work out all the time. I just want to go to school and meet friends and do social, social stuff. And we have to like and, and respect that, right? And, um, but I think that that before you start the recruiting process with your kid, you make darn sure that that's what they want to do, right? And you better be sure of it. Now, we all want our kids to surpass what we did and be better than us, but make sure it's what they want. And they'll show you. They'll show you over the years. They'll not— they won't stop talking about it. Mitch and Marcus would not shut up about wanting to work out and get better because they were always— I wouldn't say underdogs at all, but they were like, man, this so-and-so doesn't think I'm good enough. They were always— especially Mitch was always out to prove himself. I love that. I did. I, I love that about him. And with, with Marcus as well, that you, you have people in the community that doubt that you're— that kids can do stuff. And man, and sometimes doubters are the most, the best motivators for kids, but But you'll know really fast if your, your son or daughter is really committed to going on to play.

I mean, if, if they hate working out in high school, if they don't like showing up to practices, if they don't like kind of giving their 100%, it's guaranteed that they're not going to want to do that at the next level. They can't do that at the next level.

They can't. Yeah, it's full time, as you know. It's a full-time commitment. And, uh, your, your schooling revolves around your practices, not the other way around. Yeah. You know, and all of those things. Um, but yeah.

So that's— oh, sorry to cut you off.

No, no, you're, you're good. I, I think I was going to repeat myself. I don't want to do that.

So in my podcast with Mitch, I, I don't know if you've listened to it yet, but he talked about the concept of leapfrogging. He said how you and your wife, you were well, well, your parents were good athletes in high school, never really made it to the next level, but then you and your wife were able to play collegiate sports at, um, someone's— it's a smaller school, not quite a big Division I school. And then how he said, so you were able to leapfrog over your parents, and then how he was able to leapfrog over you guys because of the knowledge you have. And Mitch talked about, he said, if my daughters would want to go to play professional sports, I would know how to get them there. Like, I have that knowledge because we've leapfrogged several times over people. So if I were a parent with no elite athletic background, where do I start learning about this to give my child the best chance at recruitment?

You know, there, there really is no, Kelsey Higginson, no perfect formula. And the situation is different, um, for, for everybody in every circumstance. That's, that's why it's tough for me to stay on target with this, this discussion that we're having because I have so many ideas. Yeah. It's funny, when you were talking, I thought of Mitch, right? And, and, uh, although I would not change a thing, not one single thing would I change about what happened with my boys ending up where they did. It was almost like a tailor-made thing, right? But the way that athletes do it now, and I will get to your question, I promise. But Mitch, Mitch says to me, that's something you should think about. You know, maybe we shouldn't have committed so early. Like, what are you talking about? I go, BYU is one of our first 3 schools. I sat down with his high school coach, excellent high school football coach that both of my boys played for up in Southridge High School in Oregon. And he and I sat down and, you know, they were getting attention. And he had an athlete. My coach, Mastert, had an athlete or a son who was an athlete that played in the NFL, big-time player, his own son. So he says, hey, make your top 10 list, and if one of your top 3 offers, take it and don't look back. It's exactly what we did. Okay. BYU offers, take it. Okay, Boise State and UNLV offered Mitch, but they weren't in his top 10. So we kept going. But when BYU offered— when I say we took it, we took it. It was like, you sit down with Coach Mendenhall as fast as you can, accept that offer, and we're not doing another thing.

Wow.

Exactly what happened. So, you know, that was just our circumstance and it worked for us. That's not going to work for everybody. And some of the things I'm saying might not sit well with certain people. It's just the way I chose and the way Lisa and I chose to do it. And so we, you know, I was motivated because I wanted them to succeed over what I had done. Lisa and I both played at Southern Utah. She played volleyball, I played football. And at the time we were in the NAIA. And Mitch, getting back to what Mitch had told me about this recruitment, you know, Dad, maybe we shouldn't have committed so early because the thing now, Kelsey, that you're probably hearing from everybody is you go out and you get as many offers as you can pile up. The elite athletes are getting 10, 12, some of them 25 college offers, right? It's a name. It's a game with people nowadays. I hate that. But that wasn't the way it was with Marcus and Mitch. You heard my philosophy and that's what we did. So I wasn't out to get multiple offers for my boys, but Mitch thought that's what I should have done. I said, well, then you wouldn't maybe not have ended up at BYU then, would you? So I kind of really made sure he stopped looking outside and we just stayed right with the plan. I guess that's the way it is. But, you know, and the thing is, I kind of said this at the first. So my mom and dad were farm people, athletes in high school, farmers, no chance to go anywhere to play. But then they put me in a good environment as a kid, didn't know anything about recruiting, and I got myself recruited to a junior college. Just by, you know, them asking my coach and, and, and that kind of thing. But one thing I would really make sure that, uh, we do, and that's kind of the purpose of your podcast, is this: if you think, no matter how good of an athlete you think your kid is, don't sit around and wait for people to come to you because they won't, you know. And we all realize in your circumstance, for example, as a, as a girl playing basketball, you probably had to or needed to play club basketball, which is unfortunately becoming more important in the high school season because of the exposure. So you've got to do these things to get that exposure, because unless you're one of those one-half of 1% athletes that nobody has to do any recruiting for them, that everybody comes for them, the rest of the world that we live in, you need to get them out there. And it doesn't have to be expensive, and— but it is. I would say parents, early on, budget budget for what's hitting you later with the camps, clinics, travel. But it's all worth it. It's so worth it, even for the time that you get to spend with your kid in the car. You know how many thousands of miles we drove to get them to places? And that was just me and those two, or me and one of my boys together, or with Lisa. Of course, she contributed as much as I did, if not more, to a lot of this. And wow, what a great— if nothing worked out for them, I got to know my boys a lot better. In the, in the times when it's difficult to get to know your kids when they're that old. Yeah, but, um, yeah, um, and I guess the, the last thing I would say with that is, gosh, like I said, my kids played in an excellent high school program in Oregon. Big school, like a 6A school, right, with, with a lot of athletes. And their head coach cared, and he would talk to the coaches that they would come in. He would help me send things out. I sent out between my two boys, I'm saying hundreds. It was definitely triple digits in the amount of DVDs and actually VHS tapes. And Marcus was being recruited— VHS tapes that you kids don't use anymore, but we did. And they were unsolicited, just showing up in coaches' boxes. Some people can't afford to do that, don't know to do that, but I have a professional do the, uh, the, um, the videotape, and the high school coach would have some in his office, and we would just hand those things out almost like business cards. Take a look at this kid. Um, but, but you have to do something. Now I think they have more affordable options. You can upload your digital highlights onto Hudl, and those are accessible. Maybe there's a fee, I don't know, but that was before our time, or after our time. But, you know, um, these things are investments. They're investments in a potential future, a potential scholarship offer, and it's well worth the time, energy, and money to, to do these things. But, uh, yeah, isn't it funny what you said? Like, for my, my folks not having the fur— you know, the furthest clue, they didn't have the slightest clue about what to do to get me recruited. It was all about just yeah, Kurt's an okay athlete, he might get a chance someday, or don't go to college because they didn't go to college. But I was motivated enough to do it on my own. And then what happened with my boys, and now Mitch is talking about, you know, professional sports for his daughters. And my— I have another granddaughter that I'm extremely proud of and another grandson who's playing football, and she's running track. It's like, man, we've got all— we got Olympic aspirations for these kids. It's awesome, you know. It's that leapfrogging thing is so true. And then you just learn a little bit more. I'd be, I'd be just getting out of Mitch's way if it become to his daughter to get her recruited. Yeah, I think he started already. Wow. So what does it hurt?

Um, and, uh, yeah, I think for the parents who, as I think about it, my parents didn't my parents did so much for me. They, they got me on team. They did everything within their power. And I think that that's all— that's all parents can do. Um, you collaborate with your high school coach. If your high school coach doesn't want to help, and that's unfortunate, but go find someone who will help. Like, I think sometimes, like you said, we think that if our kid's good enough, or we think in our head, okay, our— my kid is, is elite like people will see him. Like, I played at a 3A school in Idaho. No one's going to come looking at a small 3A school in Idaho.

And so we have to do something. Except for a next-level athlete. Except for that person that everybody in Southeast Idaho was talking about.

Exactly. And there are some people, but someone like me, it, it wasn't— I can't— I couldn't expect someone to come find me in little Snake River. And I wish I would have learned that sooner. But I think for parents wondering what to— what they can do for their kids is just like you said, get them seen by as many eyes as possible. Like, get their— get their film out, get their, um, names out. And, and that doesn't take that much money. It doesn't take having to even bring— yes, bring them to camps, but like, if you need to start somewhere, start there, you know. I I'm grateful to my parents for the support they gave me. But yeah, it's, it's tough getting recruited. And I, and as I think about it, as I've learned more, and so if my little boy who grows up one day like wants to go play, I'll be able to help him a little bit more through the things that you're talking about. But I definitely, I think if there's one takeaway for parents and players is don't sit around waiting for someone to come save you. Or recruit you because it's not going to happen. It's— it needs to be proactive.

Absolutely. Couldn't agree with that more. And some— so the foundational principles, right? Maybe it's time to talk about those. And I've kind of touched on them a little bit. And these aren't, I guess, in any order, but, um, I'll tell you, these are real. And I hope everybody believe— if you take anything away, take away this. Is that be on your kid from the earliest age possible to not— to be a good kid, to be a good citizen, right? The worst thing you can have in a community in Snake River and Blackfoot, Idaho, or, or Beaverton, Utah, right, is to have the reputation of an— as being an idiot, okay? A screw-off. Or so it's, it's that family Yeah, we like that family where this kid is, and I heard he's a good kid. He's polite, he works hard, he's a good citizen, he makes good grades. Because let me tell you what, the college coaches, when they come into the high school, or the recruiters, when they come into the high school to ask about— they may not ask so much about Mitch Matthews or Marcus Matthews. They'll say, hey, who are the best players in this area? Okay, now that high school coach is going to name off all the stud players in the, the region or the district or whatever their league is that they're playing in. And that's who those guys go out and find because they're getting good recommendations for people have nothing to gain by talking about them, right? And so, or they'll go to, for an example, at, at Southridge, there could be a bitter rivalry and they'll go over to the Beaverton High School and say, well, what do you think about those Matthews kids? And if it's, you know, they're, they're, they're show-offs They're in your face. They're, they're vulgar. You know, to stay away from that kid. Well, then that recruiter has to listen. Well, we hope we didn't raise that type. All of us hope we didn't raise that kind of a kid, that he's not an idiot, that he's respectful, and he's just known for working hard. May not be the greatest player on the planet, but we have good things to say about him. So that was really important, man. If there's ever— it's why I just rode herd on my kids all the time to make sure that they towed the line. And luckily they did. Good kids, okay, really good kids and respectful. And then, then the older— then the adults in the community notice that, and then it just spreads, okay? That's so important. Now, another time— well, dozens of times I was asked to help, um, parents, because oftentimes the dad would work and he'd be working an 80-hour-a-week job and he didn't care that much about football. And the mom would say, hey, What did you do? So we'd have talks like this. What did you do? Tell me what you did. And their, their kid would just finish their senior year of football. I hated to say, well, it's too late now. How are we going to get him recruited? Because if he was really good, he'd have been found. And now the best chance you might have is a lower level school, a JC or a walk-on situation. Again, not a, not a, a bad option, but we got to start this early. And then the kid, this one I'm thinking about, He failed all his classes in 9th grade and his GPA was horrible. He decided to pick it up a little bit as he got older, but they start paying attention to your 9th grade year. In Utah, that's junior high. People think, well, nobody cares about their junior high grades. Yeah, they do, because that transcript has to show a certain GPA in the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade, and you have to score on the ACT or SATs, whatever it is, really well. So don't let your kids Coast, you know, make sure that their grades are manageable up above a 3.0 and they're taking maybe some AP classes or, or whatever, and they're prepping for those college, you know, tests. Because I can't tell you how just bitterly disappointed parents are when they realized, I let my kid screw off all of his freshman year or 9th grade year. I didn't think it was gonna be that important. And it comes back to bite them. And then the recruiters will never come around. They, they can't. They can't mess with a kid that decided to, um, to screw off early. And then, you know, and it's like, oh crap, that's too late, because as a junior and senior, he really stepped up and he really is a good player. But you're not going to be able to go D1 if that's the case. Now, there's other options, we've talked about that, but that's so important. I mean, we all want that as parents. We're not out trying to raise idiots, but we're, we're all doing that. But man, you know, if this is the direction you as a family want to go, just know that Everybody's watching. Every other parent's watching what your kid is doing. Sometimes they're happy for them, sometimes they're not because their kids play in the same position. So many things out there that try to derail you from success for your kids. But man, just, just lock in and make sure that, that, that, you know, other coaches are impressed with them. The speed, agility, and quickness coach that they went to has good things to say, and it gets back to the colleges. Right. I could go on all day, Kelsey, promise.

I've never really thought of it that way though, the ripple effect that your actions have. I mean, we talk about that just in life in general, like you reap what you sow. Um, if you sow good seeds, you're gonna get a good harvest from it, right? I never thought about that as far as higher-level sports go. I mean, the way you treat people, the type of person you are unless you're just like this astounding— like we've talked about, just the prodigies— you'll probably get recruited either way. But if it doesn't count with those guys— yeah, yeah, we're talking— like I've said, we're talking to the, the kids who are kind of at that on-the-fence line of you could get recruited or you could not get recruited. I think what we have to realize is like, you have to be elite— an elite person, an elite athlete, an elite academic. Like, if there's another athlete that's just as good as you out there, but is there another athlete that's as kind as you, as respectful as you, as coachable as you? Like, there's a lot of things that you might not be able to see on the field skill-wise that recruiters take into play. And I, I've never really realized the ripple effect that I can have.

Oh, I saw it. It's not something I just made up that sounded good. I saw it by exposing my kids to other coaches who were well connected, like the speed coaches, to the guys that ran the clinics. Because I, I coached my kids from the time that they were little, but like I said earlier, they needed somebody else to yell at them who they might listen to better, who knew a little bit more or a lot more about what I did on a specialty type of a thing.. And those people are instrumental when it comes to getting recruited because the good recruiters and good college coaches will reach out to those people who are well known in the community. What do you think about these Matthews boys? Boy, that could make or break your— because I've got a kid just like him that's a good kid across town, you know, and I saw that. And luckily my boys had pretty darn good reviews from other people. And man, nobody works harder than those kids. You know, and all that, you know, having good film. But what if you play for an, you know, what if you play for an option football team who runs the ball 95% of the time, and the coach isn't going to change his philosophy because he has a good wide receiver there? But you better do a lot of other things. You better block well, you better be fast and strong and do other things because your high school just doesn't do things to make you shine as a football player. And, uh, Another thing, Kelsey, we're talking about Oregon and we're talking about Utah because that's what we're familiar with, or Idaho in your case. These states are not Texas. I mean, Texas high school football is like junior college football talent-wise, and they have recruiting coordinators on their staff. In the high schools that we have, they have a lot of volunteers and they're good, well-intentioned, amazing coaches. And it all depends. Some coaches don't give a crap about getting your kid recruited. They could care less. They want to be with their own family, and they're not going to be making up highlight tapes for him or her. They, they're good coaches, but they're only coaching in the season and maybe a little bit in the offseason, but they don't care. They care about their high school program being successful, you know. They won't send out tapes and they won't call coaches on your behalf in college. They're just not that helpful. And then in fact, they're probably anti in some ways. And you get everybody from A to Z. Other coaches, it's a source of pride if somebody leaves their program and gets a scholarship to whatever level, right? I always thought this was funny, that it was a basketball example, that there's a basketball program in the Southeast. I want to say Virginia or someplace. And 8 seniors have full-ride scholarships next year. 8. How many players play at once? 5. Now that's showing a lot of great people, uh, kids. I get that. But only 5 can play at once. How could there be so many good kids that 8 of them have scholarships? Well, there's a way. You know, they're seen. They're probably clump clumped together in some private school that's known for basketball. But I just thought that was interesting. Schools in Texas, high school Texas sports— I mean, it might be, you might get one D1 athlete for every program in Utah. Not every program, for a few of the programs in Utah. And but 8 or 10 is common in Texas and Florida and California. So it's all— and, and it just depends on, on the, the, um, interest level of the high school coach or who you have to go to bat for you. And, and, you know, you, you asked me a question earlier. It's like, yeah, it comes back to the parents. It's not the high school coach's fault if your kid doesn't get recruited. I'm sorry, it's not their job. Some of them just take more of an interest than others. So it's your problem— not problem, it's not a problem ever. It's the kid and the, and the parents, right, that, that lead this and have to do it the right way.

Yeah. One of, one of the last questions— I have a couple more for you, but one of the last ones is not every athlete is fortunate enough to have parents who maybe believe that they can get to college. They— some athletes just don't have the parental support or the coaches' support or even the financial support. If I were an athlete in that position, what would I do? What should I do?

Well, I mean, and you think about this stuff that I've put out there, and I know people are saying, man, that's really unrealistic for me. Not, not me, but for, for them.

Yeah.

And that's such a common thing. And the kids— see, here's, here's this kid, don't have— doesn't have to be a football player, but that athlete doesn't have the financial means or the support from a coach or parent. But one thing that they can control is work ethic, attitude, and showing up on game day, right? And getting talked about in a very positive way. So I don't think my kids would have gotten recruited anywhere had they not had good game film, had they not shown up and been state championship level competitors. Right. Mitch's team won the state championship in the big school division his senior year. Marcus's team lost in the state championship in his senior year. So he got a lot of exposure just by playing on Friday nights, right? Or whatever night you're playing your, your sport. So control the things that you can. Right? And dang it, you're, you're walking your graduation and you don't know where the heck you're going. You know, your senior year, hopefully you can make a plan well before that. It's like, well, nobody was smart enough to offer me a scholarship or even a partial scholarship or even a preferred walk-on, but I love this game and I know I can play at the next level. And then, then you're, you're left to writing letters and making phone calls to try to just get a spot, to get a uniform, to come and be on the practice team. I know that sounds hard right now because that's a— that's the long road and that's the steep road to getting where you want to go. But you tell me how many undrafted free agents made it to the NFL and are now in the Hall of Fame. How many kids that were not recruited at all from Blackfoot, Idaho, or any name your other small town that, you know, made it to the biggest and highest level of that sport. It happens. And you got to believe that it can happen. And I've seen it happen, but that, that's tough to be put in that predicament. But I would say for the most part, Kelsey, I would say most kids are in that predicament. They don't have this overzealous dad that's riding them the whole time like my kids had me, right? And, you know, good for them. I guess it was just something I loved and I wanted that for my boys and they wanted it twice as bad. So that not everybody can have that. And I feel very fortunate and blessed that ours turned out that way. You have no idea how fortunate things turned out the way that they did, but that's not the norm. You know, it's just not. And that's why so many parents would come to me, like, or the kid even, you know, we just don't know anything about this. And that advice I just mentioned about, if you're that passionate, walk on. Show them that they made a big mistake by not recruiting you, right? You know, make sure that, uh, yeah.

One thing that I, I think that any person or athlete needs to do to take control of their lives is take 100%, 100% responsibility. You can justify, blame, shame. You can blame it it's the coach's fault, it's my parents' fault, it's the high school's fault that I went to. Like, we can, we can blame and justify our way through life. Or like you said, we, we might not have been dealt the best hand, but we can do— we can control what we can control, and we can, we can take 100% responsibility for our actions, for the things we can control. For if you show up to practice for the attitude you have, for how you treat the teammates you have and the opponents and the refs. And I just think a lot of athletes, it's either a— it's a very victim mindset of, man, it just wasn't in the cards for me. I guess I can't do this. It's someone else's fault. Or like you said, you can kind of take the long road, get a little bit down and dirty and in the mud and get there. You know, it's possible.

It sounds like you know a lot about this too. That's, that's great stuff. You must be talking to a lot of people. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's so true. It's, it's kind of funny. I, I feel, I feel bad about giving advice like that, and because you want to ask yourself, would I have done that if I was in that kid's position? I, meaning me as an athlete back at 17, I have done that. Did it mean that much to me? I would like to think so. Because I, I went on a scholarship, a partial scholarship to a junior college, right, where I was— I got there and I was no better, no worse than anybody there when I thought I was this hotshot, and I wasn't. But did, you know, but then again, my parents didn't have to pay for my college because I went to another small college at Southern Utah, and it was just enough to stay in the game and stay motivated. And that was my motivation, was to get that paid for so I didn't saddle my parents with a bunch of debt. That or myself.

And, um, yeah, there's a will, there's always a way, even though it can be a little bit harder of the way. But last question I have for you, Kurt, is, is there anything you would have done different if Mitch— and if you could go back to when Mitch and Marcus were 12 years old, 14 years old, what would have you done different?

I know it's funny, I, I kind of prefaced that at the first. I wouldn't do anything different. In my circumstance? Yeah, nothing. Now, that's not— I'm trying— I'm not trying to get out of answering your question.

No, that's okay.

Not Mitch. Like I was telling you, he was saying, Dad, you should have helped me get more offers, because that meant a lot as he was going through college. Didn't mean anything to us at the time. And just saying you had more offers doesn't doesn't translate to anything. And you ended up at BYU for a specific reason. And, um, you know, and then the church was that, that strong pull, I'll admit it. And all the, the good, good things that have come from, from doing the things the way that we did. Gosh, you know, I, I, I look back and I've asked myself, Kelsey Higginson, that same question. Like, man, I, I watch I watched the big time. Wouldn't that have been cool for my son to play with Trevor Lawrence at Clemson? Boy, that would have been cool, right? Maybe I should have taken him to a camp at Clemson or Ohio State. And man, look at those guys. They're in the NFL making, you know, multimillion-dollar contracts. Mitch had a chance. He played in the NFL for 2 years, but it was a really, really rough grind. Marcus didn't have that opportunity, plus he had children, so he has just ended up— but the, the funneling it right back down to how BYU worked for us and how all those chips— is that right— fell into place. I can't think of anything I would have done. Now, I may not have taken Mitch to Idaho, but you know what I mean? How did I know that at the time?

Of course.

Yeah, but that's not what you're asking. And yeah, and that's, that's the, I guess the message for this is that the way I did it might work for one in a million. I don't know, you know, what, what, you know, um, Marcus kind of set the stage for this and he now motivated his little brother because they're best friends. And Mitch was always that little brother that was smaller than the rest of the kids, smaller than his big brother who grew up fast. And he always wanted to play with the big kids. Yeah. And he and Marcus were really close, and all he wanted to do was go where his brother was, right? And BYU, you sense that, don't you? If, if, uh, if, uh, if, if I would have played at BYU— well, that's probably not a good example— but you see them signing sons of former players, you see them signing siblings, right? You see examples of that. And I just thought that just, you know, Marcus setting the stage like that was like, okay, This is good. This plan is effective. It's going well. And because of Marcus, they noticed his little brother. So sorry, that's probably not the answer you're looking for.

No, I love it. I love that. Obviously you did something right. And like you said, it might not work for everyone. Some people are gonna be in completely different situations, and that's okay. That's why we have this podcast, cuz there's gonna be plenty of people with different situations and different expertises, but It's been amazing learning and listening to you. And there's things I never even thought about to help kids get recruited that you've shared with us.

And so that's good. I'm glad. Thank you for saying that. I mean, if somebody were to ask me, and here's my situation, they come to me and say, here's my situation, I've got two pretty good options. What would you do? That might put me on the spot, but I probably have a pretty good idea what they should do. You know what I mean? That's where I could probably help certain people. Do the work and then I'll help you. But, you know, um, just, just know there's no promises and nobody's promising you anything. I hope those core principles of things I scattered throughout are something that everybody takes to heart, that those will never go wrong no matter where your kid ends up. Those basics of getting them started early teaching them right from wrong and not allowing them to get out of hand. And I know all kids are different, and geez, no matter the best efforts of every parent in the world, they can still have a kid that isn't the best kid. You know, we all know that. And then that kid straightens out and they're, they're great, but maybe it's too late to play college sports. But anyway, there's too many examples for me to even go through. That's why I tried really hard for the most part here, was saying this is what I did We did amazing. This is what Lisa and I did. Luckily, she bought into all this nonsense. It was crazy.

Sounds like you got a pretty good mom to your boys.

That's awesome. Yeah. Where are you? What are you doing this week? Okay. It's like my boys were so important to her and she to them that it was like, okay, if this is a good thing for my boys, I'm on board. As crazy as it sounds. And I won't even look at the bank account. And I did— I'm being facetious, but it's like, you're taking them where? You're doing what? And, you know, like I said, just, just pile in the car and go. It was a lot of fun. I miss it. I miss that a lot. Um, but yeah, if this helps, I hope it helps somebody.

Oh, it's— I'm sure it will. I'm 100% sure it will. Well, Kurt, Before, before we end this conversation, is there anything else that you'd like to tell the players or parents listening to this podcast?

Let me see. I made so many notes. Oh yeah, this is a good sign-off. Perfect. I saw a stat. Okay. Lots of stats about the percentages of kids that make it to the next level, and they're very, very low. That's not the stat I'm going to talk about. Is this— this recruiting journey with my boys was so incredibly important. And this stat I'm going to give you, I bet everybody will believe it, that by the time your kids are 12, you as a parent have now spent 75% of your time with them that you ever will. Your time with them is almost done when they're 12. You kidding me?

That makes me want to cry. And my baby's 8 months old.

Oh gosh. Yeah, so, um, of course, you know, they're with you 24/7 now. But okay, so pile in the car, drive together. They're stuck with you in the car, right? You talk, you strategize, you goof off, right? All that bonding stuff is worth it. Sure, the goals stay the same. You know, we're together as all 4 of us as a family. Lisa took them to Idaho, or took Mitch and a friend to the Idaho camp with another mom. I had to work at Boise State when they went in and visited with Coach Pederson and got their offer. It was Lisa in there with them, not me. But you have— when you have that, then I was appreciative of the fact that she could go and bond with her boys and then running them around to places before they could even drive. Was so important because then that stat hits home, you know. And, um, yeah. And so whatever, whatever happens, just trust me, the process is worth it for the bonds that you'll secure with your boys in helping them achieve dreams.

So I love it. Well, Kurt, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for the wealth of knowledge that you've shared with us. And like I said, I'm 100% sure that this is going to help somebody out there and be an answer to prayer. So I appreciate that.

Fantastic. Thank you. This is— this is an honor to be on. Thank you, Kelsey Higginson.

Thank you.