THE GREATEST CHARITY IN THE WORLD

Amy Bryant 0:00

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for agreeing to do this. 

Kirk Wagner  0:003

Yeah, super. Thanks. Let me tell you, I love the fact that you are not only putting yourself out there, but it’s like anything else, since it’s a passion project, that’s that’s a key component, right? That’s the fuel that keeps you going. But I know all the coaches, even though podcasts I’ve caught up on that you’ve done already, you can, you can just hear the the joy that people have with telling their stories and you sharing. And indirectly, I know, as you know, we have some people that we share in our community, and they just think what you’re doing is great. You’ve added real value. You’ve had real value. Yeah, just so you know that we always need feedback like that, and so just keep going, man, it’s it’s awesome. I love it.

Amy Bryant 00:43

 Thank you so much. It’s so validating. I think for a long time I lost that, not passion, but just feeling the value for what I was doing, coaching, when you you get into this cyclical job, you know, it’s you just forget that you have passions. You forget that that there’s other reasons for doing what you’re doing, and you tend to ignore all of these other important impacts that you can make on the community, because you’re focused on, in my case, winning. You know, it was all about winning and getting to the national championship, everything that we did. And once, I first started blogging, and that really helped to get some of these thoughts out of my head, and that made me feel, you know, a lot better, and provided some more value to what I was doing. And then, and then, obviously, as you know, I left Emory after 23 years, and started my business where I coach student athletes and now, and sometimes I coach coaches as well, and I find a lot of value in that as well. And then started this podcast, and then it’s, it’s helped tremendously. Just get everything out, you know. So I appreciate you recognizing that that’s really kind. 

Kirk Wagner

And I just add something to you real quick. I want to suggest that maybe at some point you become the interviewer or interviewee. Yeah, well, that you trust or like, maybe you’ve done this. I know I haven’t heard, I haven’t seen it on your podcast yet, but it would be like, I’m still learning about you, right? I don’t know if I have the full picture, even though I’ve heard you speak on server the podcast, I’ve read your bio, I think would be cool for you to kind of turn that and that’s more for yourself. I think, like you said, getting these thoughts out, I think it would be very helpful for you to kind of have someone that you trust, that you feel, would be able to bring the best out of you and some of the stories, because that’s ultimately what is right. We’re all telling a story, and would be cool. I would listen.  

Amy Bryant

Oh, you’re so sweet. Yeah, I’ll definitely think of that I did just, I am almost done with a little book that I’ve written just, it’s more of like a guidebook for parents. So having to write that has helped to get something use this game.

Kirk Wagner 2:49  

You’re putting out this game, you’re making me feel little. Now I gotta ask coach, you know, all things kids and getting into college. Now, book, I mean, gosh.

Amy Bryant 

It’s a very little ebook. It’s an ebook, and it’s a guidebook. I think it’s 35 pages. Let’s not get crazy here.

Kirk Wagner

Yeah, you know what that, though, that leads into something? No, that’s just like the seed, yeah. 

Amy Bryant

But today, let’s talk about you for sure, because you have a lot of great things to share as well. So to start off, tell me a little bit about your journey through sport. 

Kirk Wagner

Well, journey is a good word, that’s sure. And thankfully, I’m still on it. I’m still on it. And, you know, I think, as I said before, journeys are stories, right? And my story has several chapters. Probably we don’t have enough time to go through them all, but I’d probably highlight three. The first would be dedicated my parents, for sure, Carl and Rose Wagner, German immigrants, entry in the ’50s, separately, dang it, via Canada, the Texas and mom via Ellis Island, New York, the traditional route to Texas. And Dad’s sort of playing career ended, because back then, there was no money in soccer, but he still played in sort of the immigrant League. You know, in those days, ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, it was really played by immigrants here in this country, and he still did that. And wouldn’t you know, his team needed a goalkeeper, and mom’s brother happened to be a goalkeeper, and mom shows up in tow to the game, sees dad on the field. Dad sees mom, and I’m told it was love at first sight. Evidence by six months later, they were married, and then six years later, I came into the world.So that’s, I attribute a lot of my coaching to them. That’s where it started. That’s the seed, if you will. And since the game has been in my blood a long time. And the takeaway from my dad was, you know, my dad passed in 2013 and I remember distinctly to this day at the funeral, Mom and I had to go talk to all the people, and all of these players were there, some of which I hadn’t seen since I was a little boy, and they came to pay them x, and I just Remember the refrain was, your dad changed my life, and he came from an era what they used to call it, an action guy. My dad loved this country. He loved the freedom of speech and the freedoms this country affords and and he but he believed that words were great, important, but it was the actions that mattered. And so that reliability piece I heard all these men now they were men now telling me at that funeral that it was the reliability piece that was so important to them. And so I carry that as a coach. So if I say something, my players know I’ll do it. I stick by that. That’s that’s kind of my code of honor for myself.  And then my mom would, you know, ironically, my mom’s the one that actually got me in the game. It wasn’t my dad. My dad was, you took me. We were poor. Didn’t know it, but we didn’t have any money. Dad was trying to put food on the table, and mom got me in the game. And she tells everyone, even today, that, you know, she brought me in the world, and she was probably going to bring take me back out, had it not been for some way to get me busy. And was in soccer, was the venue, the platform for that. And what I take from my mom, and we’ll talk more about this in a minute, but my mom was not a Didact, and taught me the importance of education. And so what I carry with me now as a coach is I never stopped learning you never stop learning your sport. I think that’s true across all sports. And so just a hack for any coach, you know, if you think you’ve learned the game, you know, rethink that you could be a lifelong learner. And I’m still learning, not only the X’s and O’s, but also because the game changes. All games change over time, but also just, how do you teach? Because that’s what we are. How do you teach? And the kids nowadays don’t learn like you. And I, I mean, I’m putting you in my hemisphere of age, but kids nowadays learn differently, and you need to understand that we can’t look through the lens of what used to be. So lifelong learning is what I learned from my mom. And so, yeah, so that’s that chapter. I think if we fast forward to the second piece would be sort of the high school, college, post college years. And I couldn’t we could have used you Amy back then, for sure, I was highly recruited out of high school to play soccer, but there was a big problem. I had no interest in going to college. Zero I was going to be a professional soccer player. That’s all I cared about. That was my path. But my mom, again, that education piece was like, No, you’re no one in our most of our people, our family, did not go to university and get a, you know, a secondary education, and you will to her credit, but my mom going all around the country, all these school recruiting visits, and I distinctly remember going to Massachusetts. Here I’m from Texas, going to Massa. Never been there before. Didn’t even know where it was, Austin. It was in the winter, and was their winner. They had late winter that year. And the soccer piece was taken care of, like all these recruiting trips. I went to San Diego, I went to, you know, Florida, I went to Illinois, I went all over the place, and all the soccer was always the easy part. But the problem was the housing piece wasn’t covered in the money. And I remember my mom finding out that the room and board at in Boston was more than the mortgage on our house, you can imagine. And now remember context here. Context is in this the second part will also, hopefully this will undergird the second point, which is we have Internet back then we didn’t, you know, you didn’t have that it was anyways. We’ll get on that in a minute. But I remember they tried to solve for that all these schools in this ministry in Boston was like, Hey, tell me about your SAT, we can get you education funding, whatever. And I was Amy. I didn’t know what they were talking about. I didn’t know what an SAT was. Wow, I hadn’t taken an essay T mom didn’t know what SAT was. She generally knew, but we just again, it sounds, it sounds counterintuitive, like, how do you not know that? But back then, and it still may be true. Now, you had a minority of families that knew what it took to get into college, and they had the whole processes down, and they had read the books, and they had family members, and typically correlated with wealth, the wealthy families just had access to that. And there was a sort of Avenue already preset for that. And being a part of immigrant family, not to say immigrants, there were plenty immigrants that had their act together too. We just didn’t. I fell in the other camp. And and so that was a big lesson learned for me is that you need to, need to educate yourself. You need to be prepared for the other side of that, that piece of if that’s you’re going to call it route. And so that’s why I think your podcast is great, because I think there’s probably still some truth to that, more than I would be surprised at how true that is nowadays, considering all the information we have. Anyways, that’s all to say that. Let’s just all say that I left all the strips with the same problem was I had the soccer piece, right? The education piece wasn’t there, and I didn’t, didn’t bother me. My poor mother again, what she went through. But I had a plan A and that was to be a professional player, and so I was cool with all that. But anyways, fast forward to a coach had heard about me, came out, came to Houston to see me play and and after he met with my parents, within 24 hours, I was in Austin, Texas, a little small private university, going to school and playing soccer. I learned later on that he, you know, he basically was a master recruiter, and he told my mom, hey, we’re going to build this program around your son and and he’ll also go to a finding this institution. I went to San Andreas University, which is a very small, private Catholic university founded by Edward Soren. I think he also founded Notre Dame. And so there’s a sister relationship there with Notre Dame. And, you know, my family’s out big school, you know, great, you know, great education.And I was in Austin, going to school and playing soccer and and again, the takeaway as a coach for me, and those were great years. I love St Ed’s. It was great playing there. I ended up being more of a player. I you know, the coach was a great recruiter, not a great coach. And I ended up becoming sort of a de facto coach for four years, and recruiting and all that, which translated into me also getting offered a job there. I coached in college there, and that was great. But the lesson learned, I think, for your listeners there and Amy, I think you know this is you need to do your due diligence and make sure I’ve heard several other podcast, other of your other podcasts. I think this was a thread that ran through all of them, which is, there is a school for you, if that’s the route you want to go. And believe me, I’m not the biggest advocate that college is the only route. I think there are other but Know thyself. Know thy child is super important and and fortunately, I think I got somewhat lucky and backed into a school that was right for me, although I think I didn’t find one the professional route to, who knows, in life, at that early of an age, but I had to wait till later. But had great years at St Ed’s, learned a lot, coached, and then I remember it was, and this is kind of segue into the third piece. I remember. It was 1994 and the US was having the World Cup. And for the listeners who may not know, you know, the World Cup is, is happens every four years throughout the world. It’s all the top countries that qualify for four years, and then they play, kind of like a Super Bowl, and then the winner becomes the world champion, basically, in our sport. And I was, I decided to throw a backpack on and go out to California. And at the time, the Columbian national team was just my team. I just, they were amazing. And I decided to go out there. And I’d always been sort of interested in intellectual side of the game and coaching, or coaching. So I went out there to learn how they were doing, what they were doing. And while I was out there chasing them around, I got the call that it was, you know, I got an opportunity to trial in Germany, and I had to be there in 24 hours. So flew over to Germany and had got landed at 930 in Munich, I remember, in the morning, and I had about six hours prepared, I ended up falling asleep on someone’s house and being woken up to, you know, it’s time for you go your trial. And I was carried, taken to this locker room and and here I am that remember context here, I’m a German immigrant, right? I mean, I’m from my family’s from German. I somewhat spoke the language and going to this room and and there are these men looking at me, like, Who is this? You know, Who is this kid? And that knew I was in a different world. But anyways, trial made the team, was off the contract, stayed there, played. And again, another great, some great lessons learned there from my journey, and I use my coaching, which is that. So the context here was, here, I’m a kid from a city, Houston, at the time, probably had six and a half million people, and the city I was trying out for land suits had, I don’t know, maybe 120 520,000 people. I don’t remember exactly, but German cities aren’t as big as we think of United States, generally speaking, was a smaller, big city in in in Bavaria, Germany, and I ended up living with a family in a village called cleham, which had about 100 people. So take that in context. I went from 6 million to 100 people. They had they had one road, they had a church and a bakery. Wow, are the people. No one spoke English. My German, they speak what’s called Bavarian, which is a dialect and which I speak. Now is where my dad’s dialect was. My mom was from, from Stuttgart, so she spoke a different dialect, but my German was terrible, and it was like time to grow up, right? Wow, yeah. And so the takeaway there, I think, in my journey as a coach, and when I try and convince my players nowadays, is you can do hard things like do really hard things while you’re young, go for it. And I, you know, my context was both college and you and and, you know, professional soccer, but for some it’s just college. Some it’s not playing at a higher level. It’s something else, but, but I try really hard to convince them that it’s, it’s, it’s worth going through that process, because it changed my life completely point to where it even affects my coaching.

Amy Bryant  15:27  

How many years were you over there?

Kirk Wagner  15:30

Two? I basically ended up getting injured my first year and never really recovering from that. And my career was basically over very quickly. So but I remember Amy too, just on that point I remember, just to give you and your listeners some context as well, I distinctly remember I sat the bench for four and a half five months. Yeah, that’s being injured. How depressing is that? And I went from being the guy to sitting the bench, right? And so that was hard, but I remember, I got my chance finally, and we were playing. So in Germany, the big team is Bayern Munich. That’s the Dallas Cowboys, the Dodgers that whatever other sport you want to name it, you know, valiant hawks, whatever of Well, no, aliens, really. Hawks aren’t really the big team. Do you get the idea? We’re not big at all, that’s right. But I remember we were playing Bayern Munich second team, and I was getting my chance, and I walked into the locker room, we were getting prepped, and the coach really didn’t say anything, and the players were kind of real tense, and we just were going out to play. And so I ran the cat while we were walking out to go the field, and I was like, like, what’s the plan? Like, here’s my chance. Like, I’m gonna play in front of the Bayern Munich. This is they’re gonna see me. I’m gonna go to the next level. And, oh, this is it, right?And he just said, Run. And I was like, what? He’s like, run. So anyways, game starts. I run for 90 minutes. I barely touched the ball. It was the most miserable experience in my life. But I remember leaving that game, and by the way, the coach thought we were going to smoke. He had no interest. He was on his way of being fired. Anyways, you know, he we were having a great season. And you know, it’s, it’s a business at the end of the day. And I remember being in the bus on the way home from Munich to the lawn suits, and I remember I could still see the lights and being in smell of grass and just being in there. And I told myself that I will always be the coach I wanted to have in those kind of moments. And that was a huge again. I would have never had that experience had not been placed where I needed to be to feel that, but huge influence on my on my journey as a coach was I decided right then and there I wanted to be the coach that I wanted to always have. And I don’t know if that’s meaningful to parents or but hopefully coaches will understand that and and for me, that means things like, you know, when you’ll be aware of your players, you know, I would have loved to a coach just said, Hey, man, you’re, you’re American here and by yourself, middle of nowhere, you know, just go out there and have a go, you know. And, and believe me, to this day, I still fail at that. I still have players that I probably miss or should have done more for what have you, it happens. But this, this particular case, this coach was just not a very good coach. And that was another shock, shocking revelation, right? I went to a country that soccer is the thing, and you would, my naive mind was like this, they’re going to have the best coaches in the world. And you know, for those parents out there, I can tell you, and this is again, my dad speaking to me. Don’t go off. You know, my coach had played, you know, the top level of soccer in Germany. He was renowned, and he was an awful coach. As a matter of fact, some of the worst coaches I’ve had. I’ve had some big time coaches that, I mean, I had one. You never know who’s listening, but he was Portuguese national team play with you. Sabio was the I mean, he’s, everyone knows this guy. Awful coach, awful, worst coach ever had. So parents don’t go off resume. Go off, what you see and what the action, what you, what you, what you experience in real time. I think bios are important. Doesn’t mean that you can’t be a great coach and have played at a high level, but I think it’s important that you you see the material. And it’s not just wins and losses, it’s, you know, how are they? They might just not be right for your son or daughter, but, but I had here, I was in a country that I thought had everything, and it was the exact opposite. It was, I had a terrible coach, and subsequent coaches were better, but, yeah, I took that with me. Well, that’s such a great lesson. I mean, just because somebody is a good player does not make them a good coach. Oh gosh. And, you know, so often I hear family say to me, Well, my daughter’s being coached by this great you know, former professional tennis player, former professional soccer player. I’m like, Okay, well, how’s the coaching like, what’s, what are the coaching stats? Who have they coach? What’s their what have they done? You know, have they studied the game from a coach’s perspective? Because it’s completely different than actually being on the field. I mean, some people translate it better than others. Translate what they’ve been able to accomplish playing wise to coaching wise. But some just there is no connection there, so you have to be really careful. Yeah, I don’t think it hurts to have been a former player for sure. I think you can relate to a player at a different level. But in today’s world, there’s so much information, and there’s so many great tools that a person who didn’t play a particular sport can use, that it’s just different than what it used to be. But you know, there’s no excuses, even nowadays, that a coach doesn’t have his act together, absolutely his or her act together, because we have tools that I would have dreamed of as a as a young player, my coach is having so fast forward, I think the third piece would be post COVID. COVID, for a lot of people, was very painful and awful. I have to acknowledge that. For me, it was it was a blessing. Frankly, it provided me the necessary nudge to do something different. I was blessed to be able to do that. I I’ve always coached, but I was also in the business world, and I was miserable, you know, I had the house, I had the cars, traveling the world, living the life, and nothing compared to coaching. And I desperately wanted to pursue that, but life, as, you know, with families and kids, and it gets in the way sometimes, and but COVID was the opportunity to kind of in my own way, justify doing something different, having a go. And thankfully, I had, my wife was super supportive, and that was also an agreement, and her dream was to be an entrepreneur, to try a business, and my dream was to focus on my coaching and raise a family. And we packed up our car in Texas with our little 10 month old baby and decided it was between Colorado and Georgia. And because Georgia had a little bit more upside in terms of opportunities in her field, my wife’s a civil engineer, she wanted to get in that space. We drove to Georgia, not knowing the soul. And would you know I came here and we discovered something that’s close to you, which is tennis. It seems like first thing we learned you cannot be in Atlanta, Georgia and not play tennis. Our whole world just changed because of tennis. And my wife is absolutely a crazed tennis player. Now that led me into sort of getting into the soccer community, which led to me sort of coaching in club here, and just finding a great community there, which just then led into Pius, what I’m doing now, which is coaching at a positive Catholic High School here in Atlanta. And you know, that was really started out as an opportunity to help the school. They were, as with a lot of high schools, you know, in transition with coaching, and needed someone to kind of help out. And was approached to do that. Did that, and first year was a huge success. We went to the state final and what a great experience that was hadn’t been there in decades, that segued into them wanting me to go full time and helping the program, and so I did that. I’m what they call a coach, and love it, absolutely love it, and we can talk more about that, but what I’m doing now is coaching High School and coaching club, and I’m fortunate to be able to do that, and very thankful. Best hand on heart, best job ever had. Wow, being coach first and foremost, I think, is definitely the best job ever had. And then being at Pius and being in the club system here is just, I’ve found my place, happy place, and it is just this game just keeps giving back to me, and I like try and do is do the same. Really do that’s great. They are really, really lucky to have you. Let me say that first of all, and you know, I’ve known a few of the boys that have been on that team, they say wonderful things about you and your influence on their lives. So kudos to you for making that impact. I had the greatest job in the world. I’m fortunate in that. Here’s what my wife would say when she’s approached, what did your husband do? She says, Well, he works at the greatest charity in the world. You know, for all the parents out there, trust me, there is no money in coaching. That’s right. Coaches are they can’t feed their families and and part of that is because we love what we do. They get this for free. They kiss for free. But you know, unless you’re in the upper echelons of a sport, or you’re coaching American football, and I’m talking high school football program code, these coaches have multiple jobs. And it’s true. Don’t listen to the myth. Mostly it’s you don’t do it because of the money.

Amy Bryant 24:54

That’s great. I you know, I asked that question, because I wanted to get straight to that, and that is, the coaches really don’t make a lot of money, and I feel like parents don’t understand that. You know that they don’t know they don’t see the paychecks, but they have expectations that their coaches for their children are full time professionals focused on their child, and so I think it’s really important, especially, you know, I recommend to parents, unfortunately, as often happens as they are complaining about a coach and complaining about a decision of the coach, or, you know, whatever the case may be, there’s always going to be moments where parents unhappy with a coach, right? And we’ll talk more about that in a second. But as they’re going through that, I want them to take a step back. I always encourage parents take a step back. And let’s think about this for a minute. Here you are talking about this coach who is probably not even making a quarter of your salary right now to be out there, and is really donating their time. This is almost a pro bono effort on their part, to teach your child this game, to work with your child, to teach your child valuable lessons, all of these great aspects that coaches bring to the table, and here you are disparaging them. Let’s think about how much money they’re actually making. You know, let’s adjust our expectations here, number one, and not that I’m saying their expectations shouldn’t be high for coach, not that I’m saying we as coaches shouldn’t strive to give them the best, but I want them to know that this is that coaches also have sometimes other jobs because they have to make ends meet. They are not working 24/7, on one specific child. So I appreciate you being open about that and sharing that, and that is true at the college level too. I want parents to know that, and you know, I can attest to that after coaching for 23 years, that the salaries are not commensurate with what the value a coach actually brings to the table, although in many situations, those coaches are considered full time. In some situations, even in college, coaches are still part time and have other duties within the department, so they are not 100% devoted to their charges.