Latest news with #YouthInc
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Greg Olsen says he and Tom Brady have built 'really nice personal relationship' this past year at Fox
While Greg Olsen, an Emmy-award-winning color commentator, hasn't been shy about his feelings toward Fox management after his demotion last year, he's remained committed to separating his business grievances from his personal relationship with Tom Brady, who replaced him as the network's top game analyst. Olsen had Brady on the new episode of his podcast, "Youth Inc." to discuss Brady's youth sports journey and how it helped shape his competitive drive that eventually piloted seven Super Bowl victories. When Olsen joined "Yahoo Sports Daily" with Jason Fitz and Caroline Fenton Tuesday, Fitz referenced the recent Youth Inc. episode with Brady and asked Olsen if it's weird for him to be talking in that space with a colleague who is also a competitor in the sports broadcast industry. "It's really not weird at all," Olsen said. "Tom and I have gotten to know each other over the last 12 or so months and have actually gotten to have a really nice personal relationship. "We knew each other as players, but just on the field before and after games saying hello. But it wasn't really until Tom joined Fox that we really got to know each other more on a personal level, and I've just really enjoyed being around him, spending some time with him." Olsen said during his "Daily" appearance that he was just at the Fox seminar in California, where he caught up with Brady. But the former tight end's conversation with Brady on Youth Inc. was front and center for everyone to watch. And the All-Pros addressed the elephant in the room toward the end of the episode, albeit through the youth sports lens of how you can be a good teammate. "We've discussed this a lot privately. There's been a lot of speculation about our relationship, a lot of speculation about our working relationship," Olsen said on Youth Inc. "Something we used to try to preach with our kids all the time is, you can compete against people, but in order to prop myself up, I don't have to pull you down." Olsen added: "I think, and I'm not patting ourselves on the back by any means, I'm just using it as an example where you can be highly competitive and you can be highly motivated in a very competitive world that you and I now live in and still be incredible supporters of one another and still share information and still want to see each other do well." Brady notably took Olsen's place alongside Kevin Burkhardt as Fox's No. 1 game analyst after signing a 10-year, $375 million contract with the network. Brady's up-and-down rookie year in the booth ended with his first Super Bowl broadcast, just two years removed from Olsen calling the first iteration of Eagles-Chiefs on Fox. "I was very much a rookie this last year, but I looked up to a lot of people that I thought, 'Man, he does a great job!' And you're obviously one of the greats already at such a young age," Brady said to Olsen on Youth Inc. "I watched so much Greg Olsen broadcasting tape, and I just said, 'OK, well what's he do that I really like that maybe I can apply to what I'm doing in my prep or on air?' And then [do the same thing with] other people that have been in this business a long time because [I'm] trying something that's totally new and totally different." While alluding to the delayed gratification he received during the first chapters of his playing career, Brady stressed the importance of getting a little bit better every day. He also conceded that he knows not everyone's going to be a fan of his on-air work and that he's never going to be perfect. But, more than anything, he's trying to be "good with the man in the mirror," in other words proud of what he's working toward. "I'll be here for you for anything," Brady told Olsen on Youth Inc. "That's the reality when you ask anything, from now to the rest of my life, because you've been available to me, and that's what a great teammate is." Then Brady hinted at his and Olsen's competing roles in the network. "And there's a part with our jobs that people want to write about that — I don't give a s*** about any of that. I just care about my relationship to you," Brady said to Olsen on Youth Inc. "I know if I'm cool with you, that's all that matters. And I know that when you call, I answer. And I know when I call you, you answer. When I got a question, you answer it. And when you got a question, I answer it. ... This time will come and go, and the articles will come and go, but the only people that need to be cool are me and you, because that's all that matters to me in my life. So that's how I view it." Olsen is itching to call big-time games again, but he's also continuing to drive home the point that he can both push for that opportunity and support Brady in his role at Fox. Brady, meanwhile, is clearly thankful for that support.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Greg Olsen: Tom Brady & I have gotten closer since joining FOX
Yahoo Sports' Jason Fitz and Caroline Fenton are joined by the NFL on FOX analyst to discuss his relationship with the 7-time Super Bowl champion and their work together on the Youth Inc. podcast. Learn more about Greg's show at View more Video Transcript I think we got to be honest for a minute. You and Luke and Jonathan Stewart coaching a middle school football team. What is that like for the other teams that we're competing against here? I coach my son's middle school team here in Charlotte. It's me and my dad who was my high school coach, Luke Keely, Jonathan Stewart, Todd Blackledge, former quarterback, uh, Penn State. Last year, Tom was nice enough to film, a selfie video to get the kids before we kicked off the season like a hey man, let's go. You've put the work. When I surprised the kids. And put that on in the classroom before we took the field. It was like, uh, you know, like in Braveheart when like he gives that big speech and then like everyone just runs across the battlefield and like takes axes in the face. We could have run the kids out of the room when they saw your face on the TV delivering that message. I wish we like turned the camera around and film them, cause it was a special moment. So again, thank you for that. That's just a small clip of a big thing. Youth Inc officially launches Tuesday. August 12th content and commerce platform built for you, sports families, coaches and teams. The great Greg Olson you just saw there joining us now talking about that. Lot to get into you with her brother, but I've talked to you about this before. I see that clip of you talking to Tom, and we all know that you were in that spot and we know how much you want to be that number one. How weird is it for you to be talking to somebody where you guys both have similar career trajectories and roles that you're looking for in broadcasting? You know, it's really not weird at all. You know, Tom and I have gotten to know each other over the last 12 or so months and have actually gotten to have a really nice personal relationship. Um, you know, we knew each other as players, but, you know, just on the field before and after games saying hello. But it wasn't really until Tom, uh, joined Fox that we really got to know each other. They're more on a personal level. And I've just really enjoyed being around them, spending some time with them. I was out at the Fox seminar earlier this week out in California and got to hang and, uh, and catch up. So, you know, it's not weird at all. I'm just appreciative, but a guy like him takes time to come speak to our audience about maybe something that you know, everyone's always asking him about, you know, NFL and winning Super Bowls and all that. I want to ask him what it was like growing up with sisters. I want to know what it was like driving home after a bad game with his dad and what it was like dealing with adversity and failure. What has made Tom Brady what we know? Give us a little sense. What are those lessons that we can pay to our younger, uh, our younger athletes and to our children. And that's really what you think is finding these really interesting people that have really great, um, journeys in the sports world. But how do we pull out some nuggets that pertain to the youth sports journey and, and the age-appropriate stuff. So, um, Tom's our kickoff. We have Malcolm Gladwell and Ryan Day, CJ Stroud, um, author James Clear, the author. I mean, we got some really cool guests coming down the line what you think, and, uh, we're really excited about it. Close
USA Today
7 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Greg Olsen finds common ground with Tom Brady through youth sports
Greg Olsen says we can look at his relationship with Tom Brady like two young players on a football field. The association begins as they clash with one another on the field, but it develops into a friendship. "It's very similar to how we were with so many guys in the locker room, right?" Olsen tells USA TODAY Sports, "whether they're guys at your position group that you're competing with for time or guys on the offensive side of the ball that you're competing with for opportunities and targets and catches and plays in the game plan. "Competition is at the center of everything at a high level. And anything that is competitive and anything that's worth doing is going to come with that level of competitive spirit." When he retired after a 14-year NFL career as a three-time Pro Bowl tight end, Olsen, 40, quickly rose to Fox's No. 1 color commentator during games and worked Super Bowl 57 with Kevin Burkhardt between the Chiefs and Eagles on Feb. 12, 2023. He was replaced by Brady, as the network's top analyst to start the 2024 season. It stung but, Olsen says, the demotion didn't get in the way of the two learning more about each other when Brady arrived at the network. "No different than some of my best friends that were teammates," Olsen says. "Yes, we were on the same team, but the better I do, I'm going to take more balls away from you and I'm going to get more playing time from you and you're trying to do the same thing to me, but that doesn't mean I want you to drop every pass and run the wrong route. That's a complete opposite of the nature of team that everyone's trying to build in this profession. "Tom and I have had a really good both professional and now a personal relationship and prior to the last year, we didn't have a real deep personal (one) – we obviously, had played against each other a lot and had a ton of respect – but just getting to know him as a person, as a dad, as just a friend, we both have young teenage daughters, and we kind of share and laugh over stories about that, and then we're also both raising teenage sons, which is a whole different world." When he retired, Olsen found himself like many of us with kids who play sports: Confused and even overwhelmed, He created the Youth Inc. podcast. He brought in famous athletes and coaches as well medical experts and noted commentators in the youth sports space. On Aug. 12, Olsen and his partners are launched Youth Inc. , as a digital content and commerce platform built for youth sports families, coaches, and teams. It debuts with a Brady interview, in which the two directly address their relationship publicly for the first time. "As long as I'm cool with you, I know that's all that matters," Brady tells Olsen in the interview. "I'll be here for you for anything because you've been available to me." USA TODAY Sports spoke with Olsen and co-founder Ryan Baise about Youth Inc.'s launch. What is Youth Inc.? Youth Inc. started in 2022 as a series of podcasts in which Olsen took his easygoing style and analytic football mind that breaks down complex schemes into simpler terms. "I've been the first to say this podcast is not for us to tell everybody else how much we know and you need to do things the way we do it," Olsen says. "Listen, I'm along this journey and this learning process right alongside our listeners. I don't pretend to have all the answers." With the help of a $4.5 million seed funding, the platform has expanded offerings, marketing itself as a one-stop shop for media content, merchandise and business services. "The focus for us has not really been X's and O's content or coaching drills or things like that. We felt like there's good resources out there if you're going to look for that type of content," says Baise, who leads the organization's e-commerce initiative. "There's pros and cons in this youth sports world and the way that it's evolving, but fundamentally, at its core, we believe that there's nothing better than youth's sports for a child, as a parent, for society when done right." How has Youth Inc. changed? While Youth Inc. will still offer podcasts – Malcolm Gladwell, Ryan Day, Bryce Young and Clayton Kershaw are part of the new season – it now offers an array of digital content. This author contributed to it earlier this year in an interview with Coach RAC, of Savannah Bananas fame, and his parents. Coach RAC, who distills complicated baseball drills into friendly bite-sized social media nuggets for kids, is part of the spirit of the new movement. "We have three pillars of the content: Information, inspiration, and then entertainment," Baise says. Tim Murphy, a third founder who has worked at Audacy and The New York Times, has helped acquire content and expertise for the website. You can search by sport and topic (training and nutrition, mental health, parenting, coaching, tryouts etc.) to find written, audio and visual content. "I spend a lot of time coaching and parenting and in the world of youth sports, running practices and games and managing teams and all that, and I still get a lot of the things wrong," Olsen says. "I still do things where I look back at the end of the day, of the week and I say I probably should have done that better or different or whatever the case may be. So I'm right along with our viewers and there's a curiosity that I have." Baise, who worked for Fanatics, has brought in a fanwear space primarily for high schools and travel clubs. What did Tom Brady tell Greg Olsen's middle school team When Brady was starting out as a broadcaster, Olsen offered him advice on the profession. Brady provided an inspirational message for Olsen's team this season. Olsen coaches his two sons – Tate, 14, and T.J., 12 – for a Charlotte, North Carolina middle school. He also has a daughter, Talbot, who is TJ's twin. "His message was that this is the highlight of your life," Olsen says. "Like these are the moments that you're gonna always remember playing football with your buddies for your school, with your parents and the town and your friends in the stands, playing the team from across town that you grew up playing. It's just the moments of playing for your school, in all sports, playing for your school is the best. It is just, it is so much more special than all the other travel ball and super teams and showcases where everybody's just a rent-a- player. Like, this is sports at its purest form." What is Olsen's message to youth athletes and their parents We know from his chat with Brady that the future Hall of Famer was a backup quarterback who didn't know how to put his pads on correctly. Nothing came easy, but he was always prepared because he says he knew how to compete. It was an area of common ground the two found they shared. "Continue to take a long-term approach," Olsen says. "And I think in today's day and age, it's so easy to be creatures of the moment and get caught up in the moment in time. And it's a snapshot of a really long journey. And I think for young kids, mine being in this group, they all view themselves where they are right now. Like, everyone is so worried about comparing to your peers in this moment in time, and especially for the young kids, what they don't realize is it's not a level playing field. Maturity and development and all of that stuff happens at very different paces for different kids, boys, girls, and then obviously within all of those divisions and age. So if everyone can just keep the idea is to get better. "Everyone's doing whatever they can to make that given all-star, that showcase, that Instagram reel, whatever that moment in time of success or failure becomes it becomes almost an indictment of labeling these kids of who they're going to be the rest of their life. And what we know is it's not a race to 12. It's not a race to who's the best sixth grader. It's just not the way sports works, even though at times it feels like it does.' What are Olsen's future broadcasting plans? Olsen will work games for Fox this season with the goal of getting back to a Super Bowl. "I'm sure that's not unique to me," he says. "I'm sure every guy who gets a microphone at Fox, CBS, NBC, everybody wants to elevate to that next level. "I didn't know a lot of things that I know now, and that was no different than when I was a player. That was no different when I was a broadcaster. And I'm sure Tom would say the same thing. His first year as a quarterback, he probably wasn't nearly as good as he was in year 20. "Him being good doesn't make me bad. Me being good, doesn't make him bad. It doesn't work like that. It's independent. We can both pursue excellence at our given career." Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons' baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here. Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@
