Away Game: A Christian Parent’s Guide to Navigating Youth Sports – Brian Smith & Ed Uszynski

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Away Game: A Christian Parent’s Guide to Navigating Youth Sports

Guests:Ed Uszynski and Brian Smith

From the series:Youth Sports Pressure (Day 2 of 3)

Air date:February 5, 2026

Ed (00:04):

We’ve been discipled to really, really believe at our core that having a third goal when the other team only has two goals in a six-year-old soccer game really, really matters. We’re not being discipled in our Christian discipleship spaces about how to think Christianly in the context of sports.

Dave (00:32):

Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Dave Wilson.

Ann (00:38):

And I’m Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave (00:51):

All right. We got Ed Uszynski and Brian Smith back with us to talk about navigating your child’s youth sports world.

Ann (01:02):

Ugh.

Dave:

What do you mean? This is awesome.

Ann:

It’s great. It’s just such a hard, complicated topic in our culture today. And I think as Christian parents, we need help navigating this.

Dave (01:12):

Yeah.

Ann (01:12):

We’re going to get it.

Dave (01:13):

We’re going to get help today. So let’s go.

Ed (01:20):

Brian and I have been having a great time referencing the story of the prodigal son who performed really poorly in a stretch of his life, decides he’s going to try to come back home, and what does he find? There’s actually two people waiting for him. One is his father whose arms are open wide.

Brian:

He’s running to you.

Ed:

He’s running to him. He’s going to throw a party for him. I think the son is probably surprised to find Dad with his arms open wide and getting ready to throw a party for him.

Dave (01:49):

Yeah.

Ed (01:50):

Though he also comes into brother who’s like, “Dude, you don’t get to come back home. Dad, what do you mean you’re going to celebrate him and not celebrate me?” Okay. And there’s this attitude. Too often, what our kids are finding on the car ride home or during the game is stern older brother who says, “You’re not good enough to come home. You don’t deserve it. You’re not living up to what you need to live up to.” And you can hear that in my tone, in my body language, or my silence. It comes out in a bunch of different ways or my constant correction, my constant, constant correction and fixing of you. Versus the father who almost seems naive. But he knows what the kid’s done and he’s still saying, “Based on our relationship, based on things that are true about us, regardless of how you’ve acted or operated, come home to your father.”

Dave (02:47):

Okay. How do we get to be that dad?

Ed (02:49):

Well, okay, there it is. So we need to do some self-work first. I’ve had to do this. Again, I get one more shot at it, at least with my family. What is it that’s driving me? What are my fears? What is it that I’m trying to prove to the world through my kids?

(03:07):

Why is it that they have to play the sports I want them to play and operate in the way I want them to operate? Where is that coming from? For me, it’s different insecurities. It’s different wounds. If we can use wound language from my own sports past. It’s my own disappointments as I scratched and clawed my way through sports and just never felt like it was good enough. I want them to get past where I was. Again, those are not bad motives in and of themself, but their journey is to be their journey. Why am I projecting my journey onto them and trying to force them to be the solution to my problems? Again, that’s a hard thing to have to look in the mirror and even say to myself, but it starts there. How do you heal from any of those things? You get them out into the light.

(03:56):

You bring the gospel and Bible truth to bear on them. You lock arms with other community that says, “I get that. I do the same thing. Let’s stop doing that together. How do we look different this week on Friday night at the game? Let’s change.”

Brian (04:10):

We’re hoping this turns into a movement of people who want to start doing this. It’s really hard to do what you just suggested if it’s just Ed Uszynski committing to do this on his own, but if he can lock arms with people in his community, holding each other accountable. So you got people in the stands with you who know you and know your tendencies and that you’re prone to maybe say something when the ref makes that horrible call. And when you do to have a relationship and an expectation where they can say like, “Hey man, let’s just chill out and you can receive it because you know they love you.”

Ed (04:41):

Well, so much of what we’ve said too that we need to do is just shut up.

Dave (04:47):

What do you mean?

Brian:

That might be bringing your Christian faith to bares.

Ed (04:50):

Just stop talking.

Dave:

They shut up where?

Ed:

On the way to the game, during the game, after the game, my youngest, the ninth grader, he actually knows how to articulate better than any of our other kids. And on the way to a game, I was just giving him a little bit of how to get ready and what to do today. And he said, “Dad, I don’t need a hype man. I don’t want to hear anything.” Okay, thanks for saying that. Even during a track meet, we’re yelling, “Go, Trey, go.” And again, not even any instructions, but he said to me after the meet, “I don’t want to hear your voice during the meet. I’m glad that you’re here.” He said, “It distracts me.” And I don’t even have to say after the game, almost none of our kids on the car ride home—Brian, you could talk more about this.

(05:41):

This really has been researched. Almost none of our kids really want to talk right after the game about what happened in the game. So that’s what shut up means.

Brian (05:51):

Yeah. Let’s put ourselves on a Saturday morning at a soccer field. What are you going to hear from parents as the game’s going on? What are some of the things that people are shouting out at a youth soccer game?

Dave (06:04):

Oh, we’ve all been there. Get to the ball, go get to the ball. Score.

Brian (06:07):

Kick it. Go, pass it. Pass it.

Dave:

I mean it’s just nonstop.

Brian:

It’s chaos. And everybody’s doing it. And so one, let’s put ourselves on the field, mentally go there. You’re one of the kids playing and all you’re hearing is go, go, go kick, pass, shoot. And it’s chaotic. And what sports does to our kids is it helps them learn how to be creative and learn how to make right decisions and wrong decisions. And when they pass it to somebody and it gets taken by the other team, they should learn like, next time I need to kick it, maybe a little bit harder. But if all they’re doing is being robots and just completely direct … Every step they’re doing is because we’re telling them, “Pass it right now or go fast right now.” And just even how ridiculous that is in a game like soccer, well-intentioned parents, we’re yelling, “Go, go.” They’re going already. They’re running and we’re just saying, “Keep running.”

Ed (07:01):

Go faster.

Ann:

This is so convicting.

Ed (07:04):

It is to us too. I’m shuttering right now.

Brian (07:05):

What we’re doing is we’re robbing them. We’re robbing them of the ability to actually make these decisions and figure out, is this going to work or is it not? And that’s how kids actually get better in sports is when there’s autonomy and creativity to make a decision and then figure out on their own.

Ann (07:22):

It’s well intentioned, but you’re absolutely right. When you think of the kid of what they’re hearing.

Ed (07:27):

They know you’re there. You brought them to the game. They know you’re there. It’s mostly for me. It’s mostly for me.

Ann (07:33):

And then parents compete. “Oh, they’re yelling more. I better make my child know that I love them as much as them.”

Dave (07:43):

We meet a ton of couples who say FamilyLife helped them when they needed it the most. And that’s what being a FamilyLife Partner is all about, helping others find that same encouragement and tools that you found right here.

Ann (07:56):

And we’d love for you to join us. So click the donate button at FamilyLifeToday.com and become a partner today.

Dave (08:07):

Do you know about the 12-year-old Cooperstown baseball tournament?

Ed:

Mm-mm.

Dave:

For 12-year-old baseball teams, anywhere in the country can go to Cooperstown and play a tournament. And they have these mini, little, Little League stadiums that look like major. It’s awesome. So I was one of the coaches, right? And the way they set up the stadiums is that they don’t have bleachers. They have a section for the parents right behind your dugout, right behind third base. And they’re all barking behind me, telling the kid what to do on second base. He’s literally like, “I see coach telling me to go, but my dad’s yelling stuff.” I literally had to turn around after three innings of this, and I just did what he did. And I go, I walked right over to 20 of them. I said, “Shut up. Your kid is completely confused and you’re hurting your kid.” I go, “Maybe I’ll make a mistake and he’ll get thrown out. That’s my bad, but he can’t have 15 coaches.” Why are we doing this?

(09:00):

What is going on?

Brian (09:01):

Well, the why. Again, it’s while I’ve just traveled a long way to come here, I spent a lot of money. I’ve paid a lot of money to be in this league. There’s an expectation, one, that they would win and get better as an athlete. And so when you see what they should be doing and you’ve invested all of this into them and you know the quick fix is, I just got to tell them what to do. We know what they’re capable of. We have all this confidence in who they can be. And if we can just control them as best as possible, they’re going to get to it. But it really stems from, man, we’ve just got a lot invested into this and we don’t want to see a wasted investment. That’s why we’re saying we as Christian people especially need to shift this investment from all about the earthly metrics to, man, what if we started looking for things like, are they actually paying attention to the kid who’s sitting on the end of the bench who traveled this far and is not playing at all today?

Ed (09:54):

That sounds ridiculous.

Ann (09:55):

Yeah, it does.

Ed (09:56):

We recognize that.

Dave:

Yeah.

Ann (09:57):

Yeah. What you just said, they’re going to recognize the guy. Who’s going to do that? Unless you’re intentional as a parent pointing out these, and you’re calling it discipleship. And if we use it as a discipleship process and parents are like, “How do we do that?” And you’ve given us some little tidbits. Let’s go into that a little more.

Ed (10:16):

Well, I’ll give you an example right now. Again, with my ninth grader, there’s one kid who is part of their pack of kids and he hasn’t been hanging around them anymore and all the kids were over our house one day saying, “Oh yeah, he’s kind of gone off the edge somewhere.” Again, they’re in ninth grade. “What do you mean he’s gone off the edge?” “Well, he won’t respond to any of us when we text him.” “Have you actually gone and tried to talk to him?” “Well, no.” They’re all in school with him. So I just said to my son, I wasn’t doing this in front of everybody yet, but I just pulled my son aside and said, “Why don’t you go talk to him at school?” And I love Trey to death, again, because he will say what he’s thinking. He said, “Dad, if I did that, that would be weird.

(10:57):

Nobody goes and talks to each other or asks where have you been.” And I said, “Trey, I know it would be weird. It’s only weird though because nobody does it.” And again, there’s a whole bunch of things that we’re going to do that are going to be weird because we follow Jesus and that’s kind of a follow Jesus type thing; that you’re going to see somebody that might be struggling and initiate with them with words and just see what happens. I don’t know whether he’s done it yet or not, but I need to give more energy to those conversations. Am I concerned? Yes. That never goes away. How did tryout go or how did you do today? I’m not saying that goes completely off the list, but what if we just reordered it and it’s like, I’m going to hit you with way more of the go talk to your friend moment because that’s going to matter when he’s 25.

(11:49):

Whether or not he makes the team or where he’s at on the hierarchy of good players as a ninth grader is not so much going to affect his marriage when he’s 30. Whether he actually learned how to initiate when somebody looks like they’re struggling should affect the rest of his life or her life.

Brian (12:08):

Yeah. Let’s say too, if Trey were to do that, you’re introducing this category. Let’s say he does it. The other part of your job as a parent is to go crazy.

Ed (12:17):

Celebrate it.

Brian (12:17):

To celebrate. We keep saying, man, what we celebrate, our kids are going to replicate. So we can’t just introduce the categories. Man, we need to make sure we’re cheering just as hard for those spiritual gains as we are for the physical gains. My son’s a ninth grader, football team—he’s really small. He’s a Smith—is not playing much. We run the veer. He plays wide receiver, so they never throw the ball in the veer.

Dave (12:42):

They never throw the ball in the veer.

Ann (12:43):

That’s frustrating.

Brian:

There was a game earlier this year where they did throw the ball once. He caught a pass. I was so excited afterwards to talk to him, give him a high five. And so he’s coming out with the rest of the team. They’re freshmen. They stink so bad. Physically, they just smell. And I was like, “Buddy, great job today” though. “So awesome. Catching a pass.” He kind of pulled me aside and he’s like, “Dad, I prayed for the team today.” It didn’t register. I was like, “Yeah, what was it like a five yard out or did you have a seven yard out?” He was like, “No, Dad, in the locker room before the game, the coach asked me to pray over the entire team and I did it today.” And it was one of those moments where I had to be like, “Okay, Brian, just forget about the catch. This is awesome.”

(13:26):

A freshman on the team is praying for everybody before a game. And so as parents like, yeah, we need to have these self-awareness moments of, man, what do I need to celebrate today that is something that in 20 years will hopefully show up again?

Ed (13:42):

Well, and why do I care? Again, this is just those gut check moments. Why do I actually really care more about the pass being caught than I do that he got to pray?

Brian (13:51):

I did care more about that.

Dave:

Tell us why Brian cares more about it. Why do you think he cares more about it? I don’t think he cares more, but why does he care?

Ed (13:59):

Well, again, I can answer for myself. I don’t even need to put it on Brian.

Dave (14:02):

Well, you know, Brian, what do you think’s going on?

Ed (14:04):

Well, he wants his son to do well, and he doesn’t get to catch hardly any balls.

Dave (14:10):

And that’s a good thing.

Ann:

It just feels good.

Ed:

Yes, it feels good.

Brian:

I can tell you too. I go to the game, and this is where I need my own growth. I go to the game with an expectation of I’m really excited to see if he gets in, or I’m really excited to see if he gets to run a couple plays, or I’m really excited to see if… If in all of my if categories are on the field, instead of, I’m going to just try to observe today and see if I notice anything, I’m going to try to partner with the Holy Spirit and say, “How is he carrying himself on the sideline? What’s his demeanor when the ref makes a bad call against him or a teammate?” I’m just going to watch him to see if there’s any glimpse God would give me in that moment, that maybe later that night we can have a good conversation about.

Ed (14:52):

The youth sport industrial complex has been discipling us to only look for certain things.

Brian (14:57):

ESPN culture.

Ed (14:58):

Yeah, this is really important. We’ve been discipled to really, really believe at our core that winning, that having a third goal when the other team only has two goals in a six-year-old soccer game really, really matters. Again, let that sink in. We’ve been discipled to believe that that really matters. And what we’re saying, again, we’ve all been discipled by that culture in an unchecked way because this almost never gets talked about in Christian spaces. When was the last time you heard a sermon about how to live Christianly in the context of sports from the pulpit or a theology of play? Again, that’s almost a whole nother discussion, but we’re not being discipled in our Christian discipleship spaces about how to think Christianly in the context of sports. So we’re almost entirely at the whims of what sport culture is telling us we should be looking for on any given day that we’re out of practice or at a game.

(16:01):

And we’re saying you can still look for those things. We’re not saying that’s bad.

Brian (16:05):

You can do both. Go do both.

Ed (16:05):

But do both. And right now we’re at a deficit of Christian people who are saying, here’s this whole other list of measuring, of metrics that we’re looking for as parents from the time they start playing until the time they stop, whether that’s at 10 or 15 or their final game of their high school year, or they play to the end of three or four years of college. We want to have a different list of what it means to win as a human being and as a Christ follower in sports spaces.

Dave (16:37):

What are some things on that list?

Brian (16:37):

I mean, we could just start with the fruit of the Spirit. That seems like a good spot. The Holy Spirit’s already saying, I’m going to produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

(16:51):

That seems like a good list to say, “God, as I watch my son Hudson today, would you help me to see some of this fruit in his life? Where are the gaps? Where can I speak life into?” And just be quiet and observe and watch and enjoy the fact that your kid is playing a game and you get to sit in the stands and watch it. We keep saying too, we learn best when we experience something. For our kids, they get home at the end of the day. They’ve just been around people for six, seven hours. And what do we ask as parents when our kids get home? It’s like—

Ann (17:23):

How was your day?

Brian (17:24):

—“How was your day?” “Good, fine.” And we don’t know because we weren’t in the lunchroom. We weren’t sitting next to them in school. So we don’t really know what happened throughout the day to be able to disciple them in those moments. I mean, whatever they give us, we can turn that into conversation.

Ed (17:40):

At best, we’re getting that. Some of us are getting, “Don’t talk to me.” Yeah, that’s just the reality. Some of our kids won’t talk to us at all.

Brian (17:46):

I mean, I have a 14-year-old daughter. We’re getting the warped version of reality. In sports, we don’t have to guess at all. We’re sitting in the stands, and many of us have a front row seat to seeing absolutely everything that’s going on and every emotion possible. We get to see the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. We get to see the perceived injustices going against them. And we have the opportunity then, as their primary disciplers, to take what we’re observing on the field and partner with the Holy Spirit to help them grow in their faith. But again, if we’re willing to take this investment that we’ve put into it and look for those, kind of spiritual games.

Ed (18:23):

If we’re willing to grow in our faith first—

Brian (18:25):

And that’s really where it starts.

Ed (18:26):

—as Dave said. We really do. I have to keep checking myself.

Somebody said this in the context of marriage, that the one place, regardless of what you’ve done in walking with God for the whole day, the place that you most definitely should have a quiet time is on the porch before you walk in the house at the end of the day.

(18:44):

Whether you’re the wife coming home or the husband coming home or you’re both coming home at the end of the day because what I want to do is walk in the house and be served. But what needs to happen as I’m led by the Holy Spirit is I actually now get to be a Christian husband and go into the house and look to serve Amy and look to serve my kids and look to be their dad. In the same way, maybe the one place where we need to have a devotional moment, all of us is in the parking lot as we’re parking the car, we drop them off at the curb to go into the stadium or the pool again, whatever, and just have a quiet time moment there, either alone or as a couple and just say, “Help us to have a patient attitude today.

(19:26):

Help us to keep our mouth shut today, really. Help us to look for things that we don’t normally look for. Help us to be more interested in the other kids and the other parents and what they’re struggling with,” which again, that’s such a transformational approach to going to a game that I’ve been experiencing a little bit in this last year finally, where I’m actually starting to feel empathy for other parents who are just ripped to shreds because their kid’s not playing or he or she’s not playing well and they’re embarrassed by it. And it’s like, how do I minister them? My kid’s worse. He’s not even getting in. Your kid’s playing at least. My kid’s not even playing. My flesh wants to give energy to that, but the spirit actually wants me to ask them questions. “Tell me more about why you’re struggling so much with that.

(20:13):

Again, I kind of get it, but what’s actually going on between you and your kid?” We’ve had some amazing conversations with other parents. That’s a really different way to go to a game.

Dave:

Yeah.

Ann (20:24):

It’s such an open door to the gospel because we’re so vulnerable in those moments when our kids are struggling. And so to bring some hope or joy or just relationship, it’s needed. And it’s like being in a hospital.

Ed:

It really is, Ann.

Ann:

People are open and they are on the fields too because you see kind of our best and our worst when we’re at our kids’ sporting events.

Dave (20:48):

Well, I remember every single day when I walked down the little ramp to coach high school football, it was my devo moment. I literally prayed every single day, “Lord, do not let me be that coach or dad who’s so into how they perform. Help me today to model Christ. Help my words to model Christ. Help me to see the ones that aren’t playing on the side, get them on, into practice. That’s what I’m doing here. I’m not a coach. I am a model for Christ.” And that’s the same perspective I should have had as a dad, right?

Ed:

Yeah.

Ann (21:21):

I think you were really good at this. He put no pressure on our kids.

Ed (21:24):

Okay.

Ann (21:24):

He’s like, “If they’ve got it, they’ve got it.”

Ed (21:27):

Okay.

Ann (21:27):

There’s not—like, “I’m not going to make it. I’m not going to”—

Dave (21:30):

Here’s my question. Here’s what I didn’t do well. And I’m not going to look at her. She’s going to go, “Oh yeah, you didn’t do this well.” I wanted them to play at the next level more than they wanted to, especially my youngest.

Ed (21:42):

You did. Okay.

Dave (21:44):

And Cody got all the way to the NFL and played for the Lions for two years on a practice squad and he kept pulling his hamstring. He did it four times and they resigned him four times, which in the NFL world, that doesn’t happen. You’re a free agent, you get hurt. I always said, “Yeah, Calvin Johnson pulls his hammy. They’re waiting, but you.”

(21:59):

Anyway, so he got back and then the last time he did it, the GM literally told me that day “He’s a starter. This kid’s a starter this year.” And he pulled it two hours later, first day of training camp. And I mean, I know Cody knew Dad wanted this for me more than I did because he knew. He literally is like, “Dad, He’s called me to ministry,” and he’s a pastor today. But I’m like, “Yeah, that can wait. That can wait. You don’t understand. Ministry’s hard.”

Ed:

Because it’s so cool for your kid to make it.

Dave:

But what is it going on in me I think that wanted it more than—I mean, he wanted it. Nobody worked harder, but there was something in me that’s like, “Why is that?” I was mad at God. I was like, “Come on.”

Ann (22:34):

It’s an idol for all of us.

Dave:

Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s the heart of it.

Ann:

Think about it. We all gather—I’m so bad because this was my world and our kids were all in sports, but we go by these, what do you call it?

Dave (22:46):

USIC. The U sports Industrial complex.

Ed (22:49):

Industrial complex.

Ann (22:49):

Yes.

Brian:

USIC.

Ann (22:50):

So we go by any of those complexes, soccer, whatever. You’ve got thousands of parents there. It’s like—

Dave:

It’s a modern-day temple. It is.

Ann:

It is a modern-day temple. And I said it’s our idol today. And so when we go by that, who doesn’t want their kid to be the star?

Ed (23:09):

Yeah.

Brian:

For sure.

Ann (23:09):

We all watch it on Sundays, on sports. What would it feel like if my kid made that catch?

Ed (23:15):

Feel really good.

Ann (23:16):

It would feel like this is amazing.

Ed (23:18):

Yes.

Ann (23:21):

Look at me. Look at them. I think it becomes an idol. But for you, I think it was just so fun, and it probably was a little of an idol.

Dave (23:26):

It’s fun, but there was something broken in me because I know when Cody was playing college football, I would walk in the stadiums really happy because I knew he was going to catch 10 or 12 balls today. He’s going to be the star.

Ed (23:35):

And you feel good about yourself. We talk about this all the time.

Dave (23:38):

And you’re like “This is going to be awesome.”

Brian (23:39):

Your kid’s getting like this. Your kid’s running well or performing well, and you feel like a million bucks, and they struggle or drop the pass or strike out or keep hitting the ball into the net and you feel terrible. You’re embarrassed.

Ann (23:51):

What is that?

Brian (23:52):

You feel shame.

Ann:

Yes.

Brian:

I think we all get it.

Dave (24:01):

I’m telling you what, it’s one thing to talk about. It’s another thing to go home and do.

Ann (24:05):

But here’s what’s kind of blown me away of this idea of how navigating this sports area with our kids can be a discipleship process and a discipleship time with our kids. I don’t know if I’ve ever thought of it like that.

Dave (24:18):

Yeah. So go get the book Away Game and you can find it at FamilyLifeToday.com. It’s in the link in the show notes. Just click on that link and buy the book. In fact, I’d say buy a bunch of books and give them to your friends.

Ann (24:29):

Do it in a small group.

Dave (24:30):

There you go. Oh, and they’re going to be back with us again tomorrow.

Ann (24:33):

If you need more on this or any kind of parenting help, you can get more at FamilyLife.com/ParentingHelp.

Dave (24:45):

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