welcome to the struggle bubble I'm Chad Cutting yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and I'm Scarlet Sergei there she is Miss Celebrity welcome back from Tahoe Surgees thank you Scarlett how was it how did it go good tell me more ready let's show him more oh what let me get behind you hold on for everybody listening and not viewing the video Scarlett has come to present Holey Moley a giant banner National Title Competition 2024 Showcase Grand Champions 2024 Showcase Grand Champions Scarlett that's amazing you and the entire TDC had a pretty incredible week up in Tahoe how much fun was it really really really really fun it looked incredible do you wanna give any shout outs to your teammates and your company uh no that's mean you didn't win the whole thing on your own who was your choreographer Tiana Barami and Bria Pallet who what Dance Studio 2 dance for the dance company of LA Scata big shout out to the TDC who was the winning dance was jungle who's in the jungle dance Scarlet Alexa Morgan Fiona Naomi Analia Elia Chloe Kate Alyssa Ella Margo did you and me so we said five consecutive days of dancing Scarlett were you tired at all not really not really she wasn't tired at all you know what I wanna learn even more about though you so you danced all week long and then I see some incredible videos of you and your dad on a kayak yeah we went how far did you go we went well we kind of went down I don't know maybe we probably did a mile yeah after being so tired I guess you said not so tired you were able to get in the boat go on Lake Tahoe that's incredible you had a lot of fun will you go back next year yes but I really wanna go skiing when I'm on my Insta spam let's do another Starbound competition in the wintertime congratulations Scarlett and the entire TDC of Los Gallos family sounds like an incredible week when I'm on my Insta spam I will um add the jungle dance so anyone listening can look at my Instagram and see the dance that won the showcase thank you okay you're dismissed see you later that sounds like a really fun week got back last night and that sound in the background is Scarlett spraying your dad with oh my God what did she just spray all over you oh my God fragrance perfume perfect oh man I I'm glad we don't have smellovision right now because that looks pretty awesome that's pink and prey you got back late last night Sunday Sunday we rolled in as a horrible drive home

00 o'clock something around there yeah it was a lot it was a long long drive home and we were just talking about last week there's a lot that goes into it for them to prepare and get all the way to this showcase and it was incredible week they they won some awards looks like they had a lot of fun but you're also able to spend a good amount of family time up in Tahoe while you were doing the dance and being around the other families competing but also your own family I think the activity you described was you said it was tree topping which I had no idea what you're talking about explain a little bit to our audience what you guys did on Saturday so three topping is ziplining and obstacle course when you're like between this like scheme green uh so I think they do blue green and black diamond so it's like different variations of height and difficulty so you like 10 feet off the ground 15 feet off the ground 25 feet off the ground whatever the variation of height was and then part of its zipline in part of its obstacle courses but obviously your harnessed in Clifton and it's like three hours long so it's all in the middle of yeah the forest in in Tahoe and then yeah it's a bunch we went with Kate so Kate mate was uh you know as she is excited and enjoying every single minute of it so no it was a blast it was we finally got a little bit of downtime and then the drive home and it was a long weekend I mean she they're exhausted I mean they were you could tell by the amount of food they were consuming how hard they were working honestly um but it was a lot just give everybody this listen to quick overview and again I'm taking this as the dance dad that had no idea right looks cute we go twice a year to see the recitals you know end of the summer and then Christmas time that was my mentality going in then you get into this and the kids are competitive dancers etcetera and so they start Sunday nights they did open in number so when they do the showcase so the way that it's built is you are scored at 300 points if you win you then the top five I think they did went into showcase so then the showcase one is like the bigger prize but then so you may have got like a 2 91 and I got you in third place but you messed up somewhere so then you get another chance to do it which may get you like a 2 94 2 95 whatever and when it's so for the kids did it showcase which was the the final performance before you do your dance again then they ordered solos um then they did it's age specific so like minis juniors seniors etc so Scarlett does both she does minis and she does juniors um so I think in total is kind of wild I think she I think most of the kids probably do 6 to 7 dances over those Monday Tuesday Wednesday then if they win any not solos just groups you go then into the showcase which is what the kids they had I think Chloe had 2 showcase dances or 3 and Scarlett I know had 3 cause she had a mini one and then 2 juniors so but yeah they they won again it's crazy it's against Sacramento it's against you know all over the place so it's pretty pretty impressive production and it's in the huge auditorium in the casino so like thousand plus people 15 people watching out I don't honestly like you know some 6 7 yes so much work and preparation goes into it as well you have this big event to look forward to a week long thing that you're working all spring maybe some of the winter in and looking forward to now it all wraps up pretty successfully in the it's on to the next season and that's a little bit of what we're gonna talk about today on this episode of the struggle bubble the preparation that it takes to go into subsequent seasons I'm on the Los Scottish Little League board and we're planning right now to go into fall ball and then 2025 spring season Craig you're getting ready to go into the fall season for all of the Scottish United and everything that goes into it in your new role as uh as director over there so we're talking a little bit today about what it takes the behind the scenes a little bit about what we what we know people know about and a little bit more about what actually goes into making a successful season that many people don't know about in the amount of work that it takes so I'm gonna go ahead and go first on the Little League side it is the end of July which means all of our spring season is fully complete what you're seeing on TV over the next month will be the Little League World Series that is the culmination of all the work that goes on in the spring season for every team every district every section across the United States and rest of world so this is really the the end of the entire season of all the all star teams okay hold on question question is that a real thing like all these kiddies get in like you how does it work like what I should say so break me down for how you get to the World Series we are a local league that is the smallest unit of measurement in Little League we are Los Goddess Little League every Little League across the country is that league they run it on their own they follow uh Little League International guidelines and at the end of every season they vote for the best team to represent the league in certain age groups so everybody you see on TV is likely 12 years old you had all the fun stories of Danny Almonte and everybody else of you should see and we'll talk about a second the birth certificate checks and address checks and all the things that go into verifying that you are that age you don't turn that next year older until September of this league season each league is part of a district so there's little chunks of geography that are broken down to say Los Goddess Little League is a part of District 12 okay and they and then you guys all follow the same rules regulations assigned by Little League or assigned by MLB all the way down so you have the general rules of baseball that we all follow but when it comes down to actual team composition and the rules on the field the length of the bases the distances to the mound all of that is governed by Little League International and the local leagues have a little bit of leeway on some local rules that we can go into but in general it is 100% run by Little League International we follow those guidelines got it got it and then as we play out what you're seeing now is those leagues compete for their district title that is so nice I heard this girl yep pull yep so there's another seven teams best of the districts play the other districts in the section you win your section you go to state the state of California is broken into two you are so happy for the rest of the week in Northern California State if you win Northern California State you go on to Western Region yeah and then you win your western region you go on to represent that region in the Little League World Series oh well so you just have to win region and then you go into the big pool so then it be west Norcau region to go to the World Series and what people don't understand is the time commitment so these boys and girls playing softball the league softball have played just about every day or every other day from June 5th just in this tournament and then we started our Little League season back in February because the weather clears up for us in California so they've been playing baseball a long time to get to this you have some parents that wanna schedule summer travel right do a trip like you just did go up to Tahoe go off yeah you know you gotta you gotta stay ahead of it a little bit but a lot of teams are playing we've got a couple teams in this in the um same district that are playing on in that western region playing on in state which is pretty impressive to see the amount of wins it takes to get to those tournaments wow there's representatives of just about every country so once you get into that western region are you good about my name there's a US champion and then there's a west of world champion that goes on and plays one another Dominican Republic Cuba Japan I presume a 3 strong and that's the part of Little League that everybody sees from the outside to see these these World Series but what we're going through right now for the local league is we've wrapped all of that summer ball up we're gonna start a fall season right after Labor Day Woof fall ball which is a little bit more low stress not a not a heavy yo competitive environment we just wanna get kids back on the diamond and start playing but with that comes some back office that needs to get done we need to select a board we are 100% volunteer driven and we get recurring board members that will stay on but you age out once you have a kid in the league and they get beyond 12 13 14 you aged out you're not coming back so it's really a bit of an art to get every position filled that really helps drive and continue momentum into the next season so you have a president which is the the role that I'm serving you have a vice president of operations just a general assist to everything that goes on with the board we have a VP of information so the website registration we have a safety director that make sure that we're doing everything we can to protect arms concussion protocol do everything to keep the kids healthy throughout the season a coaching director to make sure that we have the right coaching recruiting the right practice plans we have what's called a player agent that has everything in the player's best interest that runs evaluations that runs helps run clinics that helps get the registration data into the VP I like that we have a fields director make sure all the fields are playable and conditioned for the right part of the season we have a secretary that's able to keep us all get all the board meetings the agendas everything properly notated and one of my favorite we have a director of community affairs Phil Noff has been part of the Low Scottish Little League for decades and he helps connect the town and the league and everything that we're doing with one big thread so that we're best representing the best interest of the kids with the town so a lot going into it behind the scenes yeah there's a lot is this a shout out for anybody that wants to join to reach out to you careful what you wish for the sponsorship director to help bring in the local community and you know sell banners and uh yeah best thing in best thing in this town I swear to God and that's another one that I forgot about so yeah there's about 15 rolls in total uniforms equipment there's a lot that goes into running a league that I think just gets missed you show up on opening day and you know here's your uniform here's picture day what wait hold on hold on you mean I don't just give you a check and everything's dialed in is we have a volunteer buyout so every year there's about let's say 800 rolls throughout the season need to be filled that's anything from snack shack to field preparation uh to evaluation day volunteers and we offer you know if you don't wanna do any of those if you don't wanna volunteer for your six hours you can opt out of it and we have plenty of people that will pay that money and just not want to show up to do those we also have a good amount of people that will pay that fee and still show up to volunteer throughout the season yeah yeah I mean time I mean if if your commitment in life is so hard up and you wanna help but you can't you send a check in cause you still feel like you're giving something back even though it's not time especially with what we're doing this isn't travel baseball this isn't a for profit organization we wanna raise enough money for two things the first is to make sure that we can run the league efficiently yeah you know it's no longer $5 to rent the field it's significant like over 35 40% of our budget goes to just renting the fields from the school district or from the town cilatra that's what we use for the schools the town is a use agreement that we're able to get access to the fields which is has been great we have a great partnership but with that comes full maintenance of the of the fields it's not that we are you know a tenant and everything is provided for us we we pay the money to rent the fields and we're 100% on the hook to make sure that the fields are taken care of prepared so if there's 6 inches of rain like we had the past couple of years we have a team of volunteers that are out there with rakes and quick dry getting all that done and shout out to Adam Fisher and his entire crew that have gone out the last couple of years and prepared these fields they look incredible but a lot goes into more than just a check making sure that we're able to take care of those fields for the kiddos yeah that's awesome but it is a lot I don't disagree we uh we do a lot the same through soccer right you got three and a half thousand kids so I think the league is now the second or third biggest league in Northern California um and multiple layers so you going through the layers of um the leagues that get up to that um World Series just in ours you obviously have recreation and competitive and then comp splits out into um no cow which then has multiple leagues in it it goes from copper bronze silver gold Premier and then a certain age would be the 20 this year I believe GA so that's another league on top of that that has its own so the kids playing Norcal as well which is NPL and then they playing GA also and then with GA you have to do showcases and it's just another level up that gets closer to college I would say um it's a lot of college coaches will look at that level and see if there's any kids that reach it um but to your point of fields game days referees we have it a little different we have um a whole system and we have a whole referee team and a system in place that assigns the rest of the games if they can conduit depend on the schedule but then the same field teams it's a lot it's a full time it's a business it's not a part time there's just so many players what's so we use a system it's called arbiter it's mm hmm same another position that I forgot is hmm hmm and do you do you need to recruit the referees or is that all part of a pool no so both actually so there is a pool as they graduate through they've got to be recruited and trained and then it said if this is a huge shout out I'll put it out and out all the teenage kids that want jobs I think it's close to like between 35 and 70 dollars a game depending if you're the middle ref or the line ref and and depend on the age is something insane there's this kiddos out there that I used to coach that are now refping that they're racking up $200 a weekend so great little learner um but yeah so recruit train put them in the pool and then arbiterra science when and where an issue oh yeah yeah yeah for sure for sure um and we or doesn't have I mean your girls are young enough now there's just one center referee correct no no no just one just one they have three they have the uh sometimes they start 99 so that would be like the U tens I believe they would be now and we we transition in August I'm getting if there were you nine in the spring that you 10 now but um but 11 v 11 obviously has um which would be 12 year olds will have uh senten two lines um line referees um but yeah it's a lot I mean I mean and you know we can go down this road but a lot of it is parents interaction and and coach interaction um they cause some of these referees and honestly like we talked about this before like I got called out by referee last spring and some of the education the refs get and I'm not pointing fingers at all but this rule changes every year so you know it they should be educated right they should be given updated knowledge etcetera and you know sometimes they get it wrong totally fine but it's constantly moving so you know there's a frustration if somebody gets something wrong naturally but I think it's it's definitely died down over the last five years or so there's a lot less the coaches take more action on the parents to protect the referee which I think is fantastic and I think the referees do a really good job of keeping the education up and running and some of the best referees that I've been this year they'll actually come to me before the start the game to make sure that I know that the rules have been updated and you know this is changed or whatever that is and so I can tell my players as well so think he's got better I think um I always think there's gonna be an issue there um but I think he comes all the way from the pros as well you don't see as many pros um getting after the referees as you used to it's it's really interesting because we talked about this on one of the earlier episodes of everybody's dealing with something throughout the day that includes the the officials and the parents and everybody going through it but just know that behind that there's a volunteer or they might keep getting paid $35$50 but they're out there because they want to be out there and you know give them a little bit of of Grace as you're going through there so that we can continue to have one because it's one of the biggest problems for us on baseball this year we had a pretty decent turnout towards the end of the season where a bunch of kids the same thing they're making money to buy a new glove to buy a new bat and you know it's been you know pretty solid to see them you know want to be out there and give back to the community but I also get those emails from the coaches and from the dads oh this kid shouldn't be out there this kid shouldn't be out there just let's take a take a minute and realize that they're doing their best and you know what the complaint jar is the same jars the volunteer jar so if you wanna come in and let me know that somebody's not performing that's great let's get you out there so we can show these kids how it's done or you can learn how hard it is well we talked about this with Thomas right like when their parent are coaching the kids and the kid turns around and says well you gonna do it then same exactly the same as I was gonna say I think a lot of this comes from the pressure from the parents as well the parents relate the pressure to the kids the kids then related to the official the parent related to the official everyone feels cheated like it's just a whole you know spectrum of bad because oh my God if we lose this game you are never gonna get that scholarship man I don't think it was that one incident in that one game that lets you not get in yeah that's just a blame and I think we can extend it to all of these volunteer roles that um that we're seeing out there not just the umpires but there's you know snack shack workers we hosted a few tournament games and it was the first day that they were working the snack shack and this if you can picture at your it's about like a 7 by 7 cube here that you're dealing with hot dogs and cookies and sodas and everything else in between and the line starts to back up and you know everyone's alone what's taking so long why why why can't you guys move through this and like let's just again you're out here watching a baseball game let's give everybody some Grace and then there is the other side of it of we had a couple crews come out a couple volunteers that just took so much pride in what they were doing and as a league president when they represent the league well and help you run the league a little bit better that day just make anything a little bit you know cleaner you're so thankful for it they took ownership accountability they were gonna be the best volunteers possible in that moment and you don't get a lot of that all the time some people see that volunteering as alright I'm gonna slog through this next two hours I'm not gonna enjoy it I don't wanna be here just refreshing to see some people come in and just have a good time with it yeah that's a mind shift to your point right it's one of those um yeah when you work out and it just completely hurts the next day like yeah you you're welcome yeah well tell me a perspective on how you want to get it done I think this translates both what we're talking about with the sports but also in the professional world of finding a passion if you really want to accomplish something and and you have a mission then great everybody can gravitate towards that and help you accomplish that when you're clear you're transparent you're you're in it for the right reasons when you're not say it's about the money or it's about getting your kid on an all star getting your kid on a comp team or you're doing it for the wrong motives well then it starts to deteriorate because as soon as you don't see that light at the end of the tunnel you're not in it to actually make an experience better for anybody you're in it for yourself and changing that perspective is I think important to be able to have the right volunteers have the right mindset when you're out there and coaching as well if you're in it for the paycheck on the soccer side or on the baseball side you're in it for some other reason besides developing the kids it's gonna be a long season and everybody else is gonna you know pay the brunch for it oh yeah amen to that amen to that yeah there's a lot goes into it we've done multiple um meetings calls over the last month I would say of you know transition in a lot and and a lot of it is organization right I I sure you guys are the same as everyone's got ideas everyone's got thoughts everyone's got processes they wanna put in but getting that all documented into a single I wanna say single painting glass but into a single area um is is a job in itself honestly um you know and you guys probably the same in baseball we have a curriculum we have a periodization then we wanna you know change things up depending on the group and like you saying last week about the batting cages trying to do extra training on top of the organised training whatever that looks like and who's gonna organise it location based all those things cause the kids want more we wanna provide more just a lot takes a lot of time lot of energy to get it all and you know hopefully some parents only listening like we listen to everything and we try to accomplish as much as possible but just sometimes we just either run out of time or you know we just can't get it all in so well you can imagine that it's one of the things that I I open up to you about her you know event to the other board members about me we get emails all the time and the emails come in and they're very very specific and it loses focus on what we're trying to do across you know we represent over 500 kids you represent over 3,000 kids we can't optimize everything for everybody and it you get and there's been times where I've wanted to walk away from being literally president because it's you're just beating down about you can't be perfect there's you're not you cannot please everybody just stay with the process like it's work for so long it'll work for you as well just stick with it don't keep jumping and again we took a nice with Thomas in the professional game but um it all figures itself out but again if you got an idea or you wanna do something throw a flag like come and have a conversation yep we're wide open to feedback and I think coming in with that feedback with a perspective the broader league can my feedback be applied to everybody or a broader group is just specific to my kid my experience and then offer to be involved I think what I call swoop in poop if you're gonna swoop in and poop all over the plan or the process or what's going on and then swoop right back out and not get into the weeds try and help us figure it out that's not helpful and we are we have full time jobs we are we are volunteers in this we're trying to figure it out we're trying to do the best for it yeah exactly the uh the feedback is helpful 100% we listen to all of it and we try to make it work and we don't wanna be a squeaky wheel culture either where everybody that's the loudest gets the last say but we're trying to build a community I I firmly believe that if we are all in in it for the right mission and for the right reasons it's gonna make the league better and the kids experience better but to do that means we're all in this together and I'm super thankful for everybody on the board that I've worked with and has has come and gone or still on the board because they make the experience that much better and I feel like we're building that community we're building that momentum so that more and more kids participate and we're seeing that we're seeing more and more kids come out and we're not a competitive league meaning we're not there's no cuts if you wanna play you're gonna come out and play we're gonna find you a team and that comes with its own challenges you have the all stars that we just talked about it's really difficult to go from an all star season into a fall ball season where some of the kids it might be their first year baseball but if you build a strong enough community and everyone understands why we're here and how we're all gonna make each other better then that it reframes and refocuses everybody as they come into that season yeah no I love that well I'm talking about community and feedback where were we at last week yeah approaching uh over 300 subscribers 400 downloads um of the of the last couple of episodes attractions coming the what we'd really love to see is all of the friends and family to get on these episodes and give us feedback calling calling out there we just got done talking about feedback and what can make it better right to recap if you're joining us for the first time today and you've gotten this far 30 some minutes in Craig and I have both been in the professional world for over 15 years in Silicon Valley we've also were born and raised on sports soccer baseball all the other sports you can play in the backyard and we've got young kids or trying to juggle all of it make it all work and the effort of this podcast is to let everybody know we're not all flying separately we're all in this together we're all experiencing similar things and to give you a bit of a behind the scenes look at what it takes to start a company run a company run a youth sports organization be a coach be a dad be a good husband as much as we can try I don't know what our report card is after this week Craig but we're doing our best I'll give you this little sentimental one the joy of seeing the kids come out and see me be in the dressing room area after not knowing cause I was driving and cars and everything else they were stoked and there I'm gonna remember it forever I'm sure they probably won't but just the excitement of me making sure I was there just to see they can't see me in this you know in the in the crowd they can't see me watching their dance they probably got an idea on there but then when they're done and I can come to the backstage door and they come out guaranteed that they probably will remember that and it's you know it definitely that struggle bubble to juggle okay got to get that there at this time they're running early I've got to get there I've got to get there an hour early or 30 minutes early I'm gonna take work calls when I'm on the way I'm gonna jump on my laptop when they're not performing I'm gonna you know just exhausting but making sure that I'm present for when they exit that's the memory they're gonna be able to say remember when we and you're gonna be part of that we and it's gonna be that kayak ride that they did after all set of dust gonna be the rooftopping or tree topping or whatever the heck you called it tree topping skylining uh yeah Echo found a dog or found a bear that's fantastic I'm glad you survived but it's it's creating the we memories we were there we did this and I don't even think they'll remember the results of the competition it's gonna be the overall experience that's the community part that's what we're trying to bring to the the masses cause we're all we're juggling something we're struggling with something and we just gotta try and mould it all together and and build it as one so I think we got a few shout outs on this week's um podcast we're gonna get out TDC great job Bria with a dance company Lasgos Little League Lasgos United Soccer um who else we got I'm gonna shout out fitted hey dude I'm just representing low scouts Little League here and under these lights I'm sweating you got some BFC front and center they've been a recurring guest on this show yeah so we are and these these are local right for 8 Santa Cruz Lasgaz Little League what is so right though just takes that community and as you build that and people know what you're trying to build those conversations with sponsorship or any way they can help out you know building a press box or sponsoring the the pop up tents that you guys have on the sidelines it just becomes that much easier for conversation because you're all in it to build out that community it's not about the next dollar that comes in it's about the experience for the kids and people people invest in that they invest in that that belief that passion but it's exhausting behind the scenes to be able to put on that smile and face every single day knowing that you got an email in the inbox about something going wrong in somebody's eyes and you're needing to address that which can be trying at times yeah well just to wrap this one if anybody wants connections hit us up on Instagram or emails phone whatever if anybody's interested in sponsorship in any of these or anybody who just wants to connect to dot with somebody use us we're here to help and we wanna help the community and grow the community as well so please please reach out and as Chad said keep subscribing keep passing it on we really appreciate it we wanna get to that thousand downloads um a week if possible and be one of the top percent podcasters it takes 21 episodes as you sent early this week chat just 21 episode just keep talking just keep going uh well you're 100% right so as always we are on Instagram the struggle Bubble Pod we are available everywhere podcasts are available you can also visit us at the struggle Bubble dot com hope this was helpful for anybody as you go into your fall seasons we're about to go into back to school time you're gonna have soccer practices baseball practices dance recitals all the fun things are gonna happen back again we're available to talk you through any feedback on our leagues or about the process or running your own league please let us know yeah happy to help on any of that from the sport side please let us know please share the podcast we're trying to grow a little bit different tools become available to us as we hit different thresholds 1,000 downloads is what we're targeting we'd love your help to get there with that we'll see everybody next week look for us being available on Tuesday afternoons we're gonna try and stay on schedule as the new school year starts and if you have any feedback you know where to find us hey up hey up hey up cilatra