S2 Episode 3: Coaching the whole athlete and supporting the parent journey with Warner Athletics

In this episode, we talk to Melissa Warner and Steph Beall, longtime coaches and co-owners of Warner Athletics. Melissa and Steph talk about blending technical on-field training with the mental side of the game, and how emotional intelligence has helped them build stronger connections with their athletes. They share how creating personal mission statements, leading with values, and focusing on whole-person development have shaped their coaching philosophy. They also discuss their focus on parent education, the importance of the self-led journeys for kids, and how they manage stress while balancing the many roles they play in and out of sport.

Transcript

Kate Wischhover: 0:03

Okay, hi, welcome you guys. Thanks for coming and joining us today.

Melissa: 0:07

Thanks for having us.

Kate Wischhover: 0:09

Yeah, of course. Um, why don't we just start with little introduction? Um,Steph and Melissa from Warner athletics, I'd love you could tell us a little bit about yourselves, how you got into coaching, how you got into Warner, and we'll take it from there.

Melissa: 0:27

Awesome. Um, yes, I'll start. I am Melissa Warner. I am the founder and CO head coach and co owner with Steph. Um, Warner athletics kind of started almost accidentally. But I've been coaching since I was still playing in college, so for almost 20 years, which is wild, and yeah, started Warner athletics in 2015 Steph joined us in 2018 and it was just off to the races since. How about your coaching?

Steph: 1:00

Oh, so obviously, played in college and started coaching, actually, the year before I went to college, I was a JV coach for high school team, which was awesome. So about 27 years now, I've been coaching, which is kind of crazy to say out loud, but yeah, it's I've done it my whole life. Basically, I've never, I think I've had like a six month sabbatical away from coaching. From that time, so

Kate Wischhover: 1:27

awesome. And what do you guys do at Warner athletics? What's your specialty? What's your niche?

Melissa: 1:34

Um, we do technical on field training. So it's a lot of technique, lots of on field coaching, but I would say what sets us apart is the mental side of the game. So we focus a lot on our players mindset. We focus on their mentality. We talk through a lot of things that are troubling them, that are not necessarily just unique.

Kate Wischhover: 2:03

Awesome. Well, I believe you guys have joined us in the past for some of our in person trainings. How has emotional intelligence maybe shaped your coaching philosophy, and how did you get involved with ei focus.

Melissa: 2:23

Well, we were lucky enough to receive an email at Mesa about ei focus and upcoming training, and both of us responded and were accepted. So that was pretty cool. And we went down to the training center and participated in, I think it was three days of training. So we stayed there. It was awesome. We met a lot of really cool people. And I think for me, emotional intelligence is really at the core of everything we do. I think without being able to understand kids and their kind of, their feelings, their emotions, their body language, we wouldn't be able to have the impact that we have with with players, like she was talking about, you know, being able to sense when maybe something's not right, or they're stressed, or they're struggling with school through our conversations and kind of using those skills of emotional intelligence, I feel like it allows us to better connect with the kids as well as support them in whatever direction they kind of need to go.

Steph: 3:17

Yeah, I think going to that event was just absolutely incredible, hearing that all of us coaches are, you know, in effect, doing not just the coaching piece. It's like the bigger picture. It was really nice to connect with all coaches from across the country and and learn their stories and from, you know, professionals that have done it on the biggest stage, like it was a really cool fit. And, yeah, it's definitely shaped how we coach, for sure, and I'm excited to chat about it.

Kate Wischhover: 3:47

Yeah, I'd love to hear that. Do you have a favorite memory you want to share from that weekend,

Melissa: 3:54

probably when Miss Val came and spoke with us. Love Miss Val. Yeah, she's just enigmatic and so passionate, and it was like she was just talking about, I don't know, I don't even know exactly what she was saying, but I felt her passion. Does that make sense? Like she could have been talking about paint dry, and I was just so enthralled by her. But yeah, she was, she made a huge impact on me?

Steph: 4:23

Yeah, she's an incredible and I think one of the cool things that she does when she speaks is it feels like she's looking directly at you, and it's like you and her in the moment. And I'm like, How do you do that when you have 35 people in a room where you always feel like it's like this connection, and she's speaking directly to you and sharing your message. But I think for me, my favorite, and I brought this, this is flip, and so this was the gratitude stuffy that we passed around throughout the weekend. And I actually got to name her and keep her, which is cool, but this is something we've continued to use in our own like camps and clinics. Is, you know, bringing some of. Little stuffies and having the kids pass them around. And I think the importance of being recognized for little things really big builds Kids Connection and confidence. And so this was a big deal for me, and something that I keep around, that I see, that always reminds me of that weekend. So, like, I

Kate Wischhover: 5:17

love that. Yeah, I was not able to attend that weekend. But I've seen all the photos I can see, even just through the screen, you know, seeing Miss Val and her energy. And I actually have seen some cameos of blip is the name, yeah, I have seen some cameos. So it's nice to see that you guys are taking care and still using those practices that's awesome. Is there any moments that you can recall from your own coaching with Warner athletics that you've used your emotional intelligence skills, perhaps, that you feel like sharing today?

Melissa: 5:59

Yeah, I think I mean that within Warner athletics and we also coach college team. So we coach at Mesa College. I'm the head coach, and she's our goalkeeping coach, and we use it in that setting a lot. But I think the biggest, the biggest takeaway and impact that I that we have on the field with Warner athletics is just the simple connection and like asking, how are you and just starting off with connecting to our players and our kids and our athletes as humans, rather than just soccer players. And I think that's the biggest difference. And you'll see, you know, kids just absolutely grow and explode and thrive when they feel like they're being heard and they're not just a commodity. They realize they're not just wins losses. You know, that's the biggest thing. And learning to take the time to ask a question and just pause and wait for the response and encourage kids to think a little bit deeper than surface has been my biggest use, for sure.

Steph: 7:04

Yeah, is, you know, the ability to help kids recognize their own worth. And I think this kind of tags along to what Melissa was saying is their worth is beyond their athletic abilities and highlighting their strengths, not just as athletes, but as people, and celebrating those with them, I think, goes a long way. And for me, I feel like, you know, you've connected in the right way, and you've used these skills when we're getting invitations to weddings, to baby showers, to high school graduations to birthday parties, little things, little moments that they want to celebrate, and they want to include us in those moments. So I think for me, that's kind of that big picture of like, Hey, we're doing the right things, because they want us around outside of just the soccer field, which is really cool, yeah. Oh,

Kate Wischhover: 7:47

that's great. Yeah, those personal relationships I feel like are something that are often overlooked. So that's great to hear. That kind of brings us into our next question. We talk a lot on the focused athlete podcast. We talk a lot about values and leadership, and how we establish values with our teams, with our coaches, within ourselves, and how we can be vulnerable and share our values and share how we feel with our peers. What do values mean to you as coaches?

Melissa: 8:27

everything.

Steph: 8:31

One of the like, I think most fun exercises, maybe not the most fun, but one of the most poignant exercises we do is talking about creating a personal mission statement, and values are at the core of that. And I think, I love the analogy of, if you're, you know, in a boat and you're trying to get somewhere, but you have, you know, you don't know where you're going, you're just going to kind of be that bobbing around in the water kind of person. And I think values are part of what help you understand where you want to go. They give you a direction. They're kind of like your compass, you know, to make sure that you're focused and making decisions, and life is easier when you really understand what your core values are. So I think, to me, they're at the part of everything that we do.

Melissa: 9:11

Yeah, and especially with team coaching, I think it's, it's like Steph said, it becomes a a road map, and it becomes very easy to see what aligns and what is not, you know, within your values, and if, if you start with values that are important to you. And you know Tracy ham, former Tracy ham, Tracy Joyner shared with us, you know, how she builds culture, and it's all around that set of values. And the most poignant thing to me was, I'm not going to enforce things that I don't care about, so those are outside of my values, right? I think a lot of coaches will use buzzwords and think they have to say certain things, but really figuring out what's aligned within yourself as a coach and then living from them was was really impactful for me. So yeah, every. Thing, yeah.

Kate Wischhover: 10:02

Oh, that's great. Yeah. More on values. I mean, have you ever, I mean, they're so important. So have you ever had a any difficulties with them that you've had to redirect? And what do those journeys look like when you when you hit a roadblock in your values?

Melissa: 10:22

I love that question, because I think for a long time I, you know, as a 20 something, you know, young adult, I didn't really find clarity in my values. And I found that, you know, I was learning to be a professional. I was learning to be a coach and, you know, a responsible human being, and I didn't think very hard about what my values meant to me. And so it was really hard to be authentic and actually help and guide other people just kind of floating around. So I love that you asked that. And I think, you know, for me, once I had some clarity on what's important to me and and the bigger picture, I think, of what we're doing here, like, yes, we're coaching, but it's the bigger picture. Like, I want our athletes to think 1015, 20 years from now, like I did back on, okay, that was the moment that I was most impacted by this coach or this activity or this situation, right? And so, yeah, I definitely had a lot of roadblocks just in the fact that I didn't think about my values. That's my personal kind of experience and learning from clarity.

Steph: 11:35

I've always had a pretty like strong moral compass and understood what my values are, and I attribute a lot of that to my parents. For one, I think, teach me what values were, but also two, allowing me to live my own values, and not making me live their values, if that makes sense, they were very big on like, be who you are, and as long as you're true to yourself, everything else kind of follows the line. And so I think for me, professionally, I haven't had a lot of issues with getting away from my values. I think more so in my personal like dating life, whereas, like, you know, dating someone who maybe doesn't quite align with my value of healthy living things like that. And I think that's where it showed up a little bit more for me in my personal life as opposed to professional

Kate Wischhover: 12:22

Yeah, I think that's a good point, because I, I do sometimes feel that with the work we're doing, it's hard to, you know, cause that reach to flow further than just on the field or, you know, within the team. And I'm glad you mentioned your relationship with your parents, because I did want to ask some questions about your recent parent education initiative that you've been taking. You've recently been hosting some education workshops. I'd love to hear what inspired that. Hear more about it, the parents we worked with.

Steph: 13:02

You know, I think there's a multitude of things that parents struggle with in the current environment, at least in soccer, and I would imagine it's pretty similar across the board, in terms of competitiveness, how to help their children handle pressure, how do I support them without, like, being too overbearing? And so we have a lot of conversations around, I think, all of those topics with our parents, and so we started talking, and we're like, why don't we just create a little series to start to address some of these topics in a more formal manner with a little bit more education, where they can ask questions and interact. And it's surprising, because I think a lot of what we sit around and talk about, and probably you guys as well, we assume is common knowledge. And we figured out through these workshops that there's a lot of things that we just think everybody knows and they really don't. And so I think for me, that's been a really impactful thing, that there's value in all of the stuff that we find passion in. And through these educational workshops, we've been able to share a lot of knowledge, and so far, they've been really successful, and the parents have been super engaged with a lot of questions, and they're definitely looking forward to the next ones we've covered, what we call the carpool coach. So those tough conversations from, you know, games or practice on the way home, you know, how do you support your child in you know, allow them to kind of explore their own feelings without giving them answers. And then our last one was on burnout and motivation, which was pretty cool. So it's been great.

Melissa: 14:28

Yeah, it has been. And it's we, we kind of figured, you know, we created this online module, mm hmm, educational toolkit for kids. And it, you know, it goes through like Steph mentioned earlier, like creating a personal mission statement, and it identifies your, you know, values. But we realized that, you know, if we meet with kids once a week, or if we do this really cool summit or camp leadership, you know. Opportunity once a year, like the information is not being reinforced as much, and parents are with their kids all the time and giving parents the resources to make their relationships better with their kids, and also reinforcing the educational materials that we're teaching to the kids, I think that was the biggest thing that sparked us, too, to to want to really move forward with this parent education initiative, because parents do need that support, and it's not common knowledge, and it's difficult to learn, and it takes trial and error, and it takes a lot of bravery and and, yeah, we just wanted to create a safe space that parents could come and learn and grow and and hopefully use those tools to help their kids too.

Kate Wischhover: 15:47

Yeah, that's a, I mean, that's great thing to mention, because I do think that it it takes, like you said, a lot of bravery to recognize that maybe as a parent, not that I would know, but as a parent, you might need to react differently or interact differently. So that's great. That's wonderful. What you guys are doing, is there any one thing that you wish that you could inform parents about about youth athletics, just in general.

Melissa: 16:26

Great question. I have something that I kind of comes up for me as I wish parents knew all of the sides of what it is to be a kid these days. Because I think when we were kids, it was a little different. And, you know, obviously everyone talks about the introduction of social media, right, like the the pressures that way. But kids are really smart, and they have a lot of feelings, and they are very perceptive. And I think a lot of times, I just wish parents would like, I wish parents would talk to their kids like they can handle big conversations, like not to say, you know, we should be talking above them or anything, but I think it's hard for me to articulate. But like, kids are smart, period. And I think kids can handle more than some parents realize. And let your kids make mistakes, let your kids try things, let your kids fail, and then talk, talk them through it, because they're capable of handling a lot more than I think a lot of parents, sorry. That took me like, Oh, that was great.

Steph: 17:54

I think for me, it's, it's recognizing the importance of a self led journey, allowing kids, within reason, obviously, to kind of be the captain of their, you know, own ship. As far as athletics go, understanding when to back off and allow them to take a step, step back when they need to, as well as, like, the right times of like, Hey, we're just being lazy and we gotta push you so, like kind of finding that balance between, you know, pushing them forward, but also allowing them to make their own decisions. I think it's probably one of the hardest things, but it's also one of the most impactful and powerful things a parent can do to help their kids be successful. And I think that goes beyond athletics, you know, like into real life decisions and in other areas of their life. So I think that that self led journey is so important in figuring out that balance.

Melissa: 18:49

And I think kids just want to be heard at the end of the day, like, I think that's kind of what I was getting at, is like they have a voice, and they want to know that they're part of the conversation. Yes,

Kate Wischhover: 19:01

definitely. I love that kind of circling back to you guys and just emotional intelligence as a whole. What are things that you guys do for yourselves, to manage yourself, your mindset, your stress, especially when you're wearing multiple hats, doing Warner, athletics, coaching, what are your tools?

Melissa: 19:33

Exercise?

Steph: 19:36

I think honestly, the multiple hat sing, the soccer piece is always easy. I think, where I know I struggle, and I think I can kind of speak for the both of us, is like running a business and trying to figure out all these areas that maybe we don't have a lot of experience in. And I think one of, honestly, the biggest tools that I give myself is compassion to make mistakes and. And also admitting when I don't know things and asking for help. I think those are probably the biggest things I do for myself professionally, and I'm still learning how to ask for help, but I think that's a big tool that has really been beneficial in the growth of our business, is knowing when, like we're above our depth here, like we need to reach out and find someone who can support us. So I'd say those are, like my biggest things. Yeah.

Melissa: 20:26

I mean, like she said, exercise, I think is important, connecting with nature, like doing little things when we have pockets of time in between, like taking one hat off and putting another on is very important. And I think, you know, reading and learning and educating ourselves like that gives me so much, just like excitement to go on and continue so that, but, but I love this question so much because it's so multifaceted, right? Like, it's like, yes, self care. But then, to your point, I think, you know, one of the big things is realizing that it kind of takes a village and to do really anything impactful at the level that we desire, and leaning on our other coaches for help and learning from them has been really cool, like we have younger coaches that just vibe with our kids different and, you know, we learn all kinds of new words from our college kids, you know, our college athletes and stuff. But it really like, I think leaning on collaboration too has been really important. And, yeah, realizing that, you know, there's a lot of growth, and that takes a lot of discomfort sometimes, so kind of just leaning into that discomfort has been very eye opening.

Steph: 21:53

It's been fun and connection, and I think that goes along with the collaboration piece. Is like the chances that we have to connect with people like you and other coaches is really it inspires us to continue on the journey when sometimes you might not be feeling you're like, oh, you should just go get a corporate job. It would be much easier than doing what we're doing now. But then you think back and it's like, Well, I wouldn't have had this conversation. I would have not connected with this person. And so I think that connection piece is really important in terms of like, continuing the journey ahead and not feeling like you want to give up. You know, it's always that inspiration,

Kate Wischhover: 22:25

yeah, of course. Well, that was great. Thank you guys so much for joining us and sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate taking time out of your day.

Melissa: 22:35

Thank you. It's been a real fun conversation. All right. Well, I'll talk to you again. All right. Thanks. Bye.