Youth Inc. with Greg Olsen

What sport should your kid play? How do you keep it fun and avoid burnout? Shelby Bumgarner sits down with Nicki Marie (@nickimarieinc) — mom content creator with 1M+ followers on Instagram and 2M+ on TikTok — for her unfiltered youth sports hot takes.

They talk about the youth sports landscape in 2026, what Nicki wants her kids to play, her friendship with Kylie Kelce and their shared field hockey background, and advice for sports parents navigating it all. Happy Mother's Day!

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Greg Olsen sits down with two of the most important voices in women's volleyball for back-to-back conversations on the rise of League One Volleyball, the state of the women's game, and what it means for the next generation of girls coming up through club and college.

First, Greg talks with two-time Olympic medalist and LOVB Head of Player Experience Courtney Thompson about her journey from club gyms to Olympic podiums to building the architecture of America's first-of-its-kind pro volleyball league — one that connects youth clubs directly to the pro game.

Then, Greg sits down with Lexi Rodriguez — All-American libero, former Nebraska standout, and one of the brightest young stars in the LOVB Pro league — about her path from junior club volleyball to going pro stateside, the responsibility that comes with being a role model for girls watching, and why she believes American volleyball is just getting started.

This episode kicks off the year-long partnership between Youth Inc. and League One Volleyball, including the launch of The Courtney Thompson Show — a flagship monthly interview series hosted by Courtney, featuring LOVB players and coaches.

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Kevin Clancy — better known as KFC from Barstool — went viral last week with a video about his eight-year-old son Keegan's baseball journey, and the reaction from parents across the country told him everything he needed to know. In this episode, KFC sits down with Greg Olsen to unpack the full story: putting his kid on a travel team where the competition was elite but the fit was wrong, watching his son lose confidence and nearly walk away from the sport entirely, and the tryout his ex-wife convinced him to attend that changed everything. They get into the real tension every sports parent faces — competition versus confidence, pushing versus backing off, and knowing when your kid needs to be the star versus when they need to be the role player. Greg shares coaching advice he's carried for years, KFC talks about wanting to step into coaching as a divorced dad looking for every extra minute with his kids, and they both get honest about the part of youth sports nobody warns you about: it's always the parents, never the kids.Greg also kicks things off with This or That and wraps with listener questions.Subscribe to the Youth Inc. newsletter: https://www.youth.inc/newsletter

Greg kicks things off with a new round of Youth Sports This or That before sitting down with ESPN analyst Chiney Ogwumike for a wide-ranging conversation on raising young athletes, the WNBA's explosive new era, and the remarkable sibling story behind one of the most unlikely stat lines in sports: she and her older sister Nneka are the only siblings in major American sports history to both be drafted #1 overall.

Chiney shares the blueprint behind the Ogwumike household — starting with gymnastics (yes, at the same Houston gym that trained Simone Biles), a long driveway, a dad nicknamed "Playoff Pops" who flew in from Nigeria for every big game, and the $1-per-rebound strategy that turned her sister into a rebounding machine at age 11.

She and Greg also dig into what top college coaches like Dawn Staley and Geno Auriemma are actually looking for when they walk into an AAU gym (hint: it's not what most parents think), why she wasn't good at basketball until she was 14, and the case for raising specialists over stars.

Plus: the WNBA's "janky to fancy" transformation, $250M expansion fees, how NIL is reshaping the international pipeline, and why Chiney believes today's young players face more pressure than any generation before them.

Greg closes the episode by answering listener questions from the Youth Inc. community.

What happens when a kid has every excuse to fail and chooses not to? Derek Anderson grew up without parents, raised himself in Louisville project housing, and became a dad at 15. He still made it to Kentucky, the NBA, and a world championship. In this conversation with Greg Olsen, Derek shares why he requires parents to attend his practices, how coaches are the first business leaders kids ever meet, and what he's seen working as a mental health counselor with NBA players through the Players Association. Whether you're a parent, coach, or just someone who cares about the next generation, this one is worth your time.Subscribe to the Youth Inc. newsletter: https://www.youth.inc/newsletter

Three-time Olympian and Magnificent Seven gold medalist Dominique Dawes sits down with Greg Olsen for one of the most honest conversations we've ever had on Youth Inc.Dominique opens up about the emotional and physical toll of elite gymnastics, the coaching culture she grew up in, why she started the Dominique Dawes Academy to do things differently, and why she doesn't want her four children to go through what she went through — even though it made her a champion.They also cover the pressure of representing her race as one of the first African American women in Olympic gymnastics, what it means to develop the whole child, and why she believes gymnastics is still the best foundation any young athlete can have — just not the way it used to be done.Plus, Greg answers listener questions.Learn more about the Dominique Dawes Academy: https://www.dominiquedawesacademy.comSubscribe to the Youth Inc. newsletter: https://www.youth.inc/newsletter#YouthSports #DominiqueDawes #Gymnastics #GregOlsen #Olympics #USAGymnastics #YouthGymnastics

IMG Academy CEO Brent Richard joins Greg Olsen to break down what's really happening at the intersection of youth sports and college athletics. Beyond IMG's world-class boarding school and development platform, Brent dives into the supply-and-demand crisis squeezing high school athletes out of college roster spots — from extended eligibility and the transfer portal to why Olympic sports are more financially viable than headlines suggest. They unpack the Add More Athletes campaign, why families are reclassifying at record rates, and how the NCAA's inability to enforce rules is creating a system where age and experience trump development. This one gets into the business, the economics, and the policy — and it's a conversation every sports parent needs to hear.Sign up for our newsletter at https://www.youth.inc/newsletterFor more, visit https://www.youth.inc/

This week: Greg recaps a trip to LA that somehow ended with a 5:30 AM workout alongside Christian McCaffrey. Then Daniel Jones joins the show to open up about life off the field and the cause closest to his heart. Plus, listener questions and the debate everyone's been waiting for — what's the greatest youth sports movie of all time?

Kerri Walsh Jennings is the most decorated beach volleyball player in history. Three Olympic gold medals, a decade alongside Misty May-Treanor, and a competitive fire she'll be the first to tell you made her insecure. In this episode, digital host Shelby Bumgarner sits down with Kerri to trace the full arc: a childhood in the Santa Cruz mountains, a multi-sport path that built grit before it built greatness, and the fundamentals-obsessed coaches who shaped everything that followed. They get into what it really took to build one of the greatest partnerships in sports history, what it felt like to compete on the Olympic stage while pregnant, and what Kerri sees now as a parent and club founder that has her worried about where youth sports is heading.Sign up for our newsletter at https://www.youth.inc/newsletterFor more, visit https://www.youth.inc/

Shelby Bumgarner sits down with US Women's Hockey gold medalists Hayley Scamurra and Kelly Pannek. They break down what winning gold was really like, growing up as female hockey players, playing multiple sports as kids, and whether young athletes should specialize early.