Effort Over Outcome with Heath Clark

Effort Over Outcome with Heath Clark

From The Struggle Bubble by Chad Kutting and Craig Surgey

March 9, 2026 · 49 min · Episode 34

About this episode

Heath Clark discusses the misconceptions surrounding youth sports and education, emphasizing effort over outcome.

Heath Clark has been coaching football and teaching history at Los Gatos High School since 2008. He's the kind of coach whose former players still come back. He's also the kind of dad who had to stop going to his daughter's flag football games — not because of scheduling, but because a parent accused his 14-year-old of conspiring to throw a game. For five-year-olds. That story is the tip of it. This episode tears into what we've gotten wrong about youth sports, education, and what "success" actually means when your kid is eight and everyone around you is acting like the scouts are watching. Heath talks about why football is actually better learned late, why the hardest workers — not the biggest kids — end up ahead, and why he writes a single sentence for himself before every season about who he's trying to be as a coach. This year's word: love. Chad and Craig push into specialization, the pay-to-play trap, and why the best Sunday of flag football season happened when nobody kept score. The conversation also gets into Heath's nonprofit, We Train LG — built because paying to play shouldn't lock kids out. NFL guys and awkward seventh graders train side by side on the same…

People in this episode

Hosts: Chad Kutting, Craig Surgey

Guest: Heath Clark

Topics covered

  • youth sports
  • parenting
  • coaching
  • education
  • success
  • nonprofit

Keywords

  • youth sports
  • coaching
  • parenting
  • success
  • education
  • nonprofit
  • flag football

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: We Train LG

Places: Los Gatos High School

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