The theme of this podcast episode centers on the vital role that sports play in shaping the character and resilience of students in Cobb County. We delve into the multifaceted benefits of athletic participation, emphasizing that the lessons learned in sports extend far beyond mere victories and defeats. Our esteemed guest, Don Baker, Cobb's Director of Athletics, explains how engagement in sports cultivates essential life skills such as teamwork, time management, and the ability to navigate adversity. Furthermore, we explore the innovative initiatives, such as the Cobb Cup, which prioritize character development and academic success alongside athletic achievement. Through this discourse, we aim to show how involvement in sports can profoundly impact a student’s academic journey and personal growth, ultimately preparing them for future endeavors.

Guest:

Don Baker, Director of Athletics

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• Hangin With The AD Podcast

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Takeaways:

1. The significance of sports in Cobb extends beyond mere victories, deeply enriching students' lives.
2. Involvement in athletics fosters invaluable life skills such as resilience, teamwork, and time management.
3. The Cobb Cup initiative emphasizes character development and academic achievement in student athletes.
4. Esports and bass fishing have been introduced as modern sports, diversifying student engagement opportunities.
5. Athletics serve as a critical dropout prevention mechanism, encouraging academic success through participation.
6. Parental involvement and encouragement are essential in fostering a supportive sports culture for students.

More than just wins and losses, shaping students through Cobb sports is in this edition of the Inside Scoop. Hello and welcome back to the Inside Scoop. I'm your host, David Owen. If today's episode gives you some insights, please give us a like and subscribe.

It's really helpful for getting the word out. As parents, we strive to do the best for our students, making sure they're in the best school possible for their academic success.

But trying to make the most of academic life without also addressing physical well being is usually detrimental for the child. Here to tell us more about the impact of sports on developing young minds is Cobb's director of athletics, Don Baker. Don, welcome to the podcast.

Absolutely. Pleasure to be here.

So I said physical well being, but we're also talking about mental wellbeing. Right. Okay.

So when you step back and take a look at K12 athletics here in Cobb, what do you believe sports uniquely teaches the students or the, I guess, teammates that they wouldn't otherwise get in the classroom?

Yeah.

I think that when you look at the lessons that are learned through athletics, there are character lessons, there are lessons on resiliency, there are lessons on dealing with adversity in real time, which I think is a real life skill.

Oh, yeah.

And the idea of being part of a larger group and what that means and how your role in that group fits. Right.

And so your actions, how they affect others, all of those things are not just things that go past the classroom, but at the same time, they're real life skills that stay with our student athletes long after they've left us.

That's very well put. Now, in chatting before we start recording here, I asked you what sports there are and you astounded me with this list of things. I had no clue.

And I know they're probably not at every school.

Right.

They differ by school. But can you just give us kind of an off the top here?

I'm sorry to throw you a curve ball, but off the top of your head, what some of the more obscure sports are? Sports programs?

Yeah. I think probably the first one we added esports a few years ago, and I think that is a fast moving sport around the globe.

That's video games, right?

That is correct, yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

And so it's been a great addition for us pulling in some students that probably were not part of the traditional athletic department, but it has really placed a spotlight on them in an industry that is vastly growing, not just in this country, but globally. You're starting to see student athletes get college scholarship money based off esports.

And so that has been a really, really great addition for us also. Bass fishing, if you can.

Bass fishing, if you can believe that.

Yes.

Like a high school sport.

It is. It is. It's a sport offered through the Georgia High School Association. Yes.

Okay. Things have changed since I was in school.

I mean, that's great because, you know, back in the day, some people would say they're gonna skip to go fishing, but this is actually a.

We actually endorse it. Yes, we do. Not the skipping.

Right, right.

Yeah. But actually, bass fishing is one of our newer sport offerings. And then our rifle teams that we've had for a long time.

Rifle teams. Okay, now that may cause some parents a little pause. What do you mean? Is that like rifle. Rifle.

It's like air rifles. Air rifles, yeah. You'll see.

I know we've got the Winter Olympics coming up, and there's an event that involves an air rifle competition where they ski and then shoot. It's very similar to that, minus the skiing, obviously, but where they shoot at targets in a range. And we've done that for many, many years.

A lot of our ROTC programs take the lead on that, but not exclusively. But that's another sport that I think that may not get the attention, but we've got several student athletes in each building that compete in that.

Now, there are parents out there that are 100% focused on the academic side. Right. And that's a good thing.

You want your parental involvement in school to be all pushing students and their children to the point that they don't even know they're capable of achieving. But it's a big time commitment to do academically what they want to achieve. What about the sports angle?

Is that commitment, time wise, detrimental for that goal?

Well, I think that, first of all, that's a fair question. I think that that's a question that a lot of families have to address when they get their kids involved in things.

I know me and my wife have spent a lot of time in the car and in the rain and in the cold and in the heat and, you know, away from home as we watched our kids compete. But at the same time, they're learning skills that have made them better students. They're learning things like time management. Right.

I only have so much time. I've got practice from this time to this time. I've got to eat, I've got to do homework. I've got to get my rest in. I've got to do all of the things.

Right. So I have to go ahead and plan to do that. And so I feel like that is one of the biggest things.

The idea of increasing time management skills, responsibility, knowing how to bloom where you're planted. I think that that is a big one. The idea of when I'm at practice, I'm all in. When I'm at home and I'm studying, I'm all in.

When I'm in the building as a student, during the day, I'm all in. I think all of those things are part of the student athlete experience.

So in your year, how many years have you been AD for Cobb schools?

This is seven. Seven or eight.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right. So in that amount of time and before that, you were in high school.

Coaching or coach and taught at Kennesaw Mountain High School, was the athletic director there for almost about the same amount of time. About 8. About 8 years there prior to getting in this position.

So you have seen a lot of students come through. Right? And some of them probably, you know, drove to school when they were in seventh grade.

I mean, these are kids who grew up faster than others and, you know, some who lagged. So how do you. What advice would you give to parents who are trying to nurture their child's potential? But there's also that.

That question of, you know, are they able to. What would you say to them?

I think that. Focus on the joy. Right. Of athletics. When you look at.

When student athletes are polled across this country, the overwhelming reason why they participate in athletics is because it's fun. Okay, Lean into that. Right. Secondly, I think the idea of focusing on things that don't take talent, attitude, effort.

That's my lane, in case you're wondering.

That was attitude, effort, progress, you know, growth. All of those things, I think are just. They're natural. And so I think lean into that and again, focus on the fun.

Both of my own children, they are involved in athletics, and when they got involved, it was because they enjoyed it. It was fun for them. And so I think that it's extremely important to lean into that because burnout is a real thing.

And so we don't want to go down that road of it becomes everything, because then it will become nothing. And so we want to make sure that we focus on the joy that that sports can bring.

Yeah, unfortunately, it's. And we've all seen it, right? We've seen the parent whose hopes and dreams are actually put on the child. You're going to be a scholarship to Vandy.

I've stepped on somebody's toes there, I'm sure. But, yeah, we can't do that to them. We need to give them some space.

So, again, because you've seen so many students come through the teams that you've been a part of and the schools, do you have any success story or any stories, period, that might help parents understand the potential impact of participating in sports?

Well, first of all, I think that interscholastic athletics is the best dropout prevention program that we offer. Student athletes have to maintain a certain level of academic success in the classroom in order to participate.

And so I can't tell you how many times there has been a student athlete who probably was not very strong in the classroom, or, let's be honest, may even didn't really like school. But they came to school because they knew that they were going to be able to play if they handled their business in the classroom.

And as a result, they have become successful.

A young man in this community who is a businessman who I coached and football saved him, and he will tell you that he is not who he is without that experience. And as a result, now he owns multiple businesses. He is a father, a husband, a very successful businessman in the community.

And he takes all of that back to his experiences on the field.

Was he the quarterback?

He was not, no, no. He was a defensive player, role player. But it was the lessons that he learned on the field that he then translated to real life and put into action.

Okay, so you don't have to be the star of the team to get something out.

Not at all. I would argue. You got to keep in mind, the majority of high school student athletes, they're hanging it up when they graduate.

A very small percentage go on to play their sport at the next level. And even fewer than that, by some metrics, it's less than a single person percentage that make it to the professional ranks.

So not everybody's going to do that. The majority of people, the overwhelming majority of our student athletes, when they hang it up at the end of their high school career, that's it.

And so your hope is that the lessons that we have poured into them take them on to that next chapter in life and that they come back to us and say that they were ready.

Okay. Wow. Okay. So potential, what do you see as the role of sports? I'm throwing another curveball at you. Sorry.

Sure.

The role of sports in revealing to the student their own potential. I mean, I'm thinking about a minute ago, you just mentioned the term burnout. Right. Okay.

So by the time kids get to high school, that's a real thing in academics. I've been in cinder block wall classroom all these years. I'm really starting to get tired of it.

Sports plays a big role in both showing potential outside of a classroom as well as just fresh air. Right.

Totally agree. Yeah. I think that additional. With the additional benefits, a lot of our. A lot of the lessons that we learn are lifetime lessons.

But even some of the sports that we offer, say tennis, swimming, those are lifetime sports.

That's true.

That people can do forever. You know, once. Once they leave us, cross country, you know, all of their.

There's several sports that, when you look at it, they are lifetime sports that if a student athlete gets that itch early, that can carry them on throughout their whole life.

They focus on their diet a little bit more, they focus on exercise, they focus on movement a little bit more, and as a result, they're more productive as an adult.

So one of the things that. And you said this earlier, character development through sports.

What is Cobb doing in the broader sense to help nurture that aspect of the sporting programs?

So glad you asked this question. So a few years ago, we introduced what we call the Cobb Cup.

So the Georgia Athletic Directors association has something called the Directors cup, and it is focused strictly on wins and losses on the field. So you get points for winning, you get points for advancing in the playoffs, period, which is great.

And we have schools that have won the Directors cup, and we have schools that are very successful in that by that metric. But that is not the majority of schools. And it, quite frankly, not really. Our job as coaches and athletic directors is to focus solely on wins.

We need to focus on the totality of the student athlete. So what we did is we developed the Cob cup. And what it is, the smallest point value is for wins and losses.

The largest point values are for things like gpa, character education programs, community service, supporting other teams. So the basketball team goes together and they watch the softball team. Right.

All of those things that encompass the student athlete experience outside of the lines, that is the focus of the Cobb cup, and it allows any school in our district to be able to win it. Right. And so we focus on all aspects of character development and sportsmanship.

Everything outside of the pool, outside of the court, outside of that field of play.

Yeah. Okay. So you just rang a bell. A memory for me. And that was, you know, every year the marching bands have their annual exhibition.

Depending on when you're watching this, it's either at maybe. I don't know, Lassiter. Whereas usually it's at McEachern for various reasons.

But I remember that Kell High School's football team showed up in the stands to support Kell's marching band. I thought that was incredible, and a lot of people feel that way, too.

And you bring up a good point to take it outside of athletics, just all extracurricular activities. Right. Regardless what they are.

I used to tell, when I was coaching football, I would tell our football players, as the band was practicing in the heat, just like we were, I would tell them, you can't do what they're doing just as much as maybe they can't do what we're doing. All right? So you need to respect what they're doing. I think what Kel does with that is an absolute home run.

It is exactly what we want to see through the COP cup.

Well, that's fantastic.

So earlier we talked about some of the students who might not have all the physicality capabilities that other students who go on to be stars on the football team or whatever. And it's not just football. It's like you said, it's baseball, it's tennis, it's cross country.

So what are one or two practical things that parents can take from listening to this podcast when they are considering whether or not to try to get their student enrolled or interested in pursuing sports at a school?

Yeah, I'm probably going to sound like a broken record here, but I just feel like by getting your kid involved, number one, it expands their sphere of influence and the fact that other people can have influence on them, hopefully in a positive way, way, it will teach them things like teamwork, like being resilient, what it means to be part of a group. Right. What it means to be part of something bigger than themselves, which I think is kind of a dying art.

Absolutely.

At the same time, I think that not everybody, let's be clear, not everybody's going to be a varsity starter. Not everybody is going to have their name in lights and all that kind of stuff. That's not what it's about. That's a byproduct.

The idea of teaching work ethic in an alternative environment is, I think, invaluable.

Yeah.

And when you were talking about the gentleman who had gone through football and took all of those life lessons and parlayed them into a bigger, successful business life, that's exactly what you're addressing, right?

100%.

Okay. Well, Don, thank you so much. Is there anything else you wanted to add?

I just think that we need to make sure that we are encouraging our student athletes and our students in general, regardless what their passion is to help them get into something. Kids that are involved in anything are better off than when they're not. And we want them involved. We want them to be a part of what we're doing.

And I want to encourage parents also to partner with their coaches, partner with with their administrations and make this an us thing, because that's what it is.

Yeah. Thank you, Don.

If you think sports is something your child needs to try for greater enjoyment in life and or improve their academic success, we've got some links for you in the description and the show notes. In fact, Don has his own podcast and even though it's targeted at other athletic directors, called what is the name of your podcast? Again?

It's the Hanging with Ad podcast.

Hanging with the Ad. I love that title.

If you're interested in hearing a little more in depth on all of this, you're welcome to click on that link in the show notes and description. And we have our own Cobb Sports podcast that focuses on, guess what? Cobb Sports.

So if you're interested in going more in depth on specific sports within Cobb county, that's where you can get more information. And it's a great podcast as well. So thank you for listening to this edition of the Inside Scoop, a podcast produced by the Cobb County.