Chat By The Pitch
Chat By The Pitch
Podcast Description
Chat By The Pitch is your go-to podcast for North Texas soccer parents. We connect you with local clubs, coaches, and from around the world experts to help you make informed decisions for your child’s soccer journey. Each episode features interviews with top coaches and specialists, offering tips on player development, team selection, and the latest soccer gear. Stay ahead of the game with Chat By The Pitch—where soccer families find their edge.
Contact: [email protected]
Links: linktr.ee/ChatByThePitch
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast covers a range of topics pertinent to youth soccer, including player development, coaching strategies, and navigating the youth soccer landscape. Episodes delve into personal stories from influential figures, such as Tracey Leone's reflections on youth soccer culture and Nate Baker's insights on fixing the U.S. youth soccer system.
Welcome to Chat By The Pitch — the soccer podcast that goes beyond the game.
Hosted by Ian Babcock, Chat By The Pitch is built around real conversations with the people shaping soccer from every angle — coaches, players, parents, club leaders, educators, entrepreneurs, analysts, and innovators. This isn’t a highlight show and it isn’t built around hot takes. It’s about the stories, lessons, challenges, and experiences that actually define the modern game.
Whether you’re a parent trying to better understand youth soccer, a coach looking to grow, a player chasing the next level, or simply someone passionate about the sport, Chat By The Pitch gives you honest, long-form conversations that dig deeper than surface-level opinions.
Every episode explores what really happens behind the scenes:
• The realities of youth soccer culture
• Coaching philosophy and player development
• Leadership and communication
• Parenting athletes in today’s environment
• The mental side of competition
• Building healthy club culture
• Technology changing the game
• The pathway from grassroots to elite levels
• Mistakes, lessons, and success stories from people living the game every day
Guests range from grassroots coaches and academy directors to former professional players, educators, authors, performance specialists, and creators working to improve soccer at every level. Some episodes focus on tactics and development. Others focus on leadership, culture, parenting, business, and the human side of sports.
What makes Chat By The Pitch different is the conversation style. These are not rushed interviews with canned answers. Ian approaches each episode as a passionate soccer parent, coach, and student of the game, creating open discussions that feel authentic, relatable, and educational. The goal is to ask the questions many people in soccer are already thinking about — but rarely hear discussed honestly.
Listeners come to Chat By The Pitch for:
• Real conversations instead of scripted interviews
• Practical insights coaches and parents can actually use
• Different perspectives from across the soccer world
• Stories that inspire growth on and off the field
• Honest discussions about the challenges in youth sports
• A deeper understanding of player development and leadership
If you care about soccer beyond the scoreboard — the people, the process, the culture, and the future of the game — this podcast is for you.
New episodes released regularly.
Connect with Chat By The Pitch on social media and join the conversation happening around the game we all love.
Turning down MLS. Walking away from an SMU scholarship. A trial at Bayern. Jay and Carey Cappis share how Christian Cappis bet on development — and won.
In Part 2 of this conversation, the Cappis family walks Ian Babcock through Christian’s player pathway from club soccer in Houston to the professional game in Europe: captaining a national-champion FC Dallas Academy side, youth national team call-ups, an MLS rights battle between Houston and Dallas, and the decision to start at the bottom of the Danish Superliga instead — because development beats badges, free boots, and even bigger money.
Jay and Carey get honest about the hard parenting moments too: letting go when Christian moved to Dallas his senior year, the summer he came home with no prospects while his friends left for college, and the day he was deported from Denmark over a paperwork mistake. It ends with the advice every soccer parent needs to hear: it’s their journey, professional soccer is a business, and your job is to support with eyes wide open.
Key Talking Points
- Why Christian turned down bigger clubs — he scouted their recruiting versus their developing and knew where he wouldn’t grow
- Free boots, kits, and warmups are enticements, not development — how the family saw through the sales pitch
- “In charge from day one”: making his own decisions from a YMCA rejection at age two and a half through every club choice after
- Playing up with older kids, scoring the winning goal against the Texans, and how one bold team choice opened the next door
- Letting go: the senior-year move to FC Dallas Academy — and living like a pro (groceries, laundry, driving to work) before ever signing
- Youth national team life: “Hey Dad, I’m going to Spain today”
- The MLS rights battle between Houston and Dallas — and why Christian took his chances in Denmark instead
- Walking away from the SMU scholarship, the Bayern trial that almost happened, and the quiet summer where Christian never doubted
- Deported from Denmark with 24 hours to leave — the life education no classroom offers
- Player identity beyond soccer: marriage, cooking with a Michelin chef, and advice for parents — it’s their journey, and pro soccer is a business
Quotes from the Guests
- “He’s been in charge from day one.” — Jay Cappis
- “Everybody wants you until they see you.” — Jay Cappis
- “Your choice, your responsibility, your consequences — all the way across the board.” — Jay Cappis
- “He could basically tell you, ‘I will not develop there. They’re great at recruiting the top players, but they’re not great at developing them.’” — Jay Cappis
- “He very calmly just kinda looks at me, and he’s like, ‘It’s okay. Don’t worry. We got this.’ He never doubted.” — Carey Cappis
- “You have a finite shelf life as an athlete… You can go back to college anytime.” — Jay Cappis
- “You’re on a journey with that child. It is not your journey. That is theirs to live.” — Jay Cappis
- “Professional athletics is a business… They will do what’s best for the club, and if that means it’s not good for you, that is not their problem.” — Jay Cappis
- “We never really set out with the goal of getting a college scholarship or even the goal of him being pro… it was more of just, well, what’s next?” — Carey Cappis
- “I’m not so much proud as I am pleased. He had a vision of what he wanted to do, and he pursued it.” — Jay Cappis
Connect with the Cappis Family
📸 Instagram: cappis_property_group
📸 Instagram: jcappis
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#ChatByThePitch #YouthSoccer #SoccerParenting #PlayerDevelopment #ChristianCappis #CappisFamily #SoccerParents #DevelopmentOverWinning #ProPathway #USMNT #ClubSoccer #SoccerPodcast #YouthSports #GrassrootsSoccer #NorthTexasSoccer #PlayingAbroad
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