During a recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Brendan Schaub positioned himself as the level-headed youth sports parent, the kind of guy who pulls overbearing dads aside and sets them straight. The problem is that everything Schaub described about those parents applied directly to himself, and the receipts were already out there for anyone paying attention.
Schaub told Rogan he coaches his son Tiger’s baseball and football teams, using that platform to paint himself as a voice of reason among the chaos of youth sports parents.
He described pulling dads aside and telling them, “Hey, can I give you some advice, man? You got to back off, dude.”
He spoke about kids wanting to quit because their parents had made the sport feel like a job, and how a parent’s self-worth should never be tied to their child’s performance on the field.
The contrast between that version of Schaub and the one captured on camera elsewhere could not be more glaring. In his own stories, told on his own platforms, Schaub revealed a very different approach to youth sports parenting.
He described telling his son, while at the mound, “Buddy, if this kid gets a hit off you, we’re not pitching anymore,” referring to an opposing player he described as overweight and slow.
He openly admitted he “saw red” at a game, yelled things he should not have said in front of Tiger’s teammates and coaches, and at one point told his son, “You will be separated from your mother and you will go to the Dominican Republic.” He later said he apologized to Tiger and to everyone present.
Then there was the championship game. Tiger was running a fever, had thrown up in the truck the night before and again at home that morning. Schaub’s response was to tell his sick nine-year-old, “Your teammates are counting on you, buddy. We got to win one.”
Tiger ended up throwing up in right field during the game.
Schaub also admitted he cannot sit in the regular parent section at games because of his yelling, that he has cussed loudly at games on multiple occasions, and that he regularly takes his son’s performance personally in ways he himself acknowledges he should not.
Additionally, Schaub is not even listed as an official coach of his children’s teams. He attends and participates, but the coaching title he used with Rogan appears to be another embellishment added to a story that was already built on a shaky foundation.
