The Manual Every Sports Parent Needs
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Episode Summary
Todd Merkow sits down with Skye Eddy — former Division I goalkeeper at UMass and George Mason (Final Four), briefly professional in Italy, All-American, US Soccer coach educator, founder of SoccerParenting.com and The Sideline Project, and mother of two — for a conversation that Todd calls the one he wishes he'd had when his daughters were still playing. Skye is a Title IX baby who grew up as the game was exploding, went on to coach at the national team programming level, and then discovered, when her daughter Callie started playing in a paid club environment, that being a former professional player and an active high-level coach did not make her a good sports parent. That gap — between knowing the game and knowing how to show up for your child — is what SoccerParenting.com was built to close.
The origin story is specific and honest. Callie was getting in the car after training saying it was boring, doing the same thing over and over. Skye stopped and watched. She saw what Callie meant — too few balls, standing in lines, instruction not calibrated to the age group. She asked a few parents on the sideline what they thought. They were satisfied. That was the moment: parents don't know what a good learning environment looks like, so they can't advocate for one. That realization became the foundation of the company. When she went to the club CEO to offer help — as a licensed coach, a US Soccer trainer, someone actively working with U14 national team programming — he looked at her like a crazy soccer parent who was there to complain. She had no voice. That experience set her off, and she's been building the answer ever since.
I realized how difficult it was being a sports parent — and I'm a former professional player. I'm an active coach. I actually needed help and guidance on how to show up for my daughter.
The conversation covers the three challenges Skye was navigating as a sports parent: the closed door between parents and coaches (she wasn't viewed as a stakeholder in her own daughter's development), the gap between how she was showing up for Callie and what Callie actually needed, and the lack of alignment with her co-parent on how to support their kids. She's direct about the third one — it doesn't get talked about enough, and the mixed messaging it creates lands directly on the child.
We have to stop using those handful of crazy sports parents as an excuse for not engaging the vast majority of parents who are level headed and sometimes stressed.
SoccerParenting.com is built around six pillars: the body (physical development, growth, injury prevention, functional movement), the mind (anxiety, goal setting, mental performance), the game itself (rules, positions, tactical understanding), the next level (rec to travel, college dreams, how to support a high-performance kid), the coach-parent relationship (boundaries, difficult conversations, what a good learning environment looks like), and parenting itself (the car ride home, managing your own stress, building your own learning). The curriculum is expert-driven — Skye is not a sports psychologist, but she's brought in global leaders in mental performance, bullying prevention, and athlete development to build the content. Over 200 club partners across the US. Growing globally.
Just hearing your voice gets me out of my mindset — even if you're just telling the goalkeeper she made a good save.
The Sideline Project is a 15-minute course focused on game-day behavior — not for the hostile parent (that's what Return to Good Standing is for), but for the vast majority of level-headed parents who don't realize that what they think is helping is actually holding back their child's long-term cognitive development. The research is clear. The course distinguishes between supportive behaviors, distracting behaviors, and hostile behaviors — and then asks parents to have a conversation with their child about how they want to be shown up for. Skye's son wanted to hear her voice. Callie didn't — even hearing Skye say something positive to the goalkeeper got Callie out of her mindset. So Skye showed up in what she calls attentive silence mode. Over 50,000 parents have taken the pledge. 64.5% report improved game-day behaviors. 32% say their relationship with their child improved.
One of the greatest things I did for Callie was not go to her games. I realized just me being there, she was feeling stressed.
The episode closes with a rapid-fire round and a final message: you have everything you need to support your child. Sometimes you just need to sit back, reflect, and trust your instincts. The resources are there. The education is available. The question is whether parents will engage with it before the damage is done.
Top 5 Takeaways
Being a great athlete does not make you a great sports parent. Skye was a former professional player, an All-American, and an active high-level coach when Callie started playing club soccer. She still needed help. The skills that made her excellent on the field — high standards, competitive drive, deep knowledge of the game — were not automatically the right tools for supporting a child through her own athletic journey. The gap between knowing the game and knowing how to show up for your kid is real, and it doesn't close just because you played. If anything, it can make things harder, because you see so clearly what's possible and you care so much about getting there.
Parents are not viewed as stakeholders — and that has to change. When Skye went to the club CEO to offer help as a licensed coach and US Soccer trainer, he looked at her like a crazy parent who was there to complain. She had no voice. That experience is not unique to Skye. The historical dynamic between coaches and parents has been so adversarial — coaches burned by irrational parents, clubs defaulting to closed doors — that the vast majority of level-headed, well-intentioned parents have been shut out of a conversation they belong in. SoccerParenting.com is built on the premise that parents are essential stakeholders in their child's development, and that collaborative relationships with coaches, with clear boundaries, produce better outcomes for kids.
The Six Pillars give parents a map. Most parents don't know what they don't know — Skye has sat with parents at Liverpool Academy and asked them what they want to learn, and they couldn't answer. The six pillars of SoccerParenting.com — the body, the mind, the game, the next level, the coach-parent relationship, and parenting itself — give parents a framework for building their own education. You don't have to figure out what questions to ask. The curriculum does that for you. $65 a year for access to the full library at soccerparentresourcecenter.com. That's the price of one tournament hotel breakfast.
The Sideline Project is not for the crazy parent. It's for you. The hostile parent — the one screaming at referees, berating kids on the field — needs Return to Good Standing. The Sideline Project is for the 90% of parents who are level-headed and sometimes stressed, who think they're helping when they're actually distracting. The research is unambiguous: parental commentary during performance holds back long-term cognitive development. The 15-minute course walks you through the three behavior categories, gives you question prompts to have a conversation with your child about how they want you to show up, and asks you to take a pledge. Over 50,000 parents have done it. 32% say their relationship with their child improved. Fifteen minutes.
Ask your child how they want you to show up — and honor the answer. This is the most actionable thing in the episode. Skye's son wanted to hear her voice. It kept him motivated. Callie didn't want to hear Skye's voice at all — even a positive comment to a teammate was enough to break her concentration. Two kids, two completely different needs, same parent. You don't know which one you have until you ask. The Sideline Project gives you the question prompts. But you can start right now: sit down with your child before the next game and ask them what they want from you on the sideline. Then do that.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is not go. Skye started missing some of Callie's games because of her own coaching schedule. Then she noticed Callie seemed to enjoy those games more. So she started doing it intentionally — letting Callie go with other families, skipping the ECNL showcases, giving her daughter some games that were just hers. It made a real difference. This is not abandonment. It's attunement. Some kids need you there. Some kids need you to trust them enough to let them have the experience without you in it. The only way to know which one you have is to pay attention — and to ask.
Alignment with your co-parent is a conversation that doesn't happen enough. Skye named it as one of her three core challenges as a sports parent, and Todd echoed it immediately. When two parents are sending different messages — about effort, about expectations, about what success looks like — that mixed messaging lands directly on the child as stress. It doesn't have to be a conflict. It just has to be a conversation. What do we want this experience to look like for our kid? What are we going to say on the car ride home? What happens when we disagree? Have that conversation somewhere other than the car with the kid in the back seat.
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