Episode Transcript
Alan Helgeson (announcer):
This is the “Health and Wellness” podcast brought to you by Sanford Health. The conversation today is around how Sanford Sports training yields results for a future Hawkeye. Our guests are Hudson Parliament, Justin Parliament, and coach Kurtiss Riggs, Sanford Sports Academy. Our host is Matt Holsen with Sanford Health News.
Matt Holsen (host):
Thanks to all three of you for joining us today. We appreciate your time. First off, I want to start with Hudson and congratulate you on your back-to-back South Dakota Gatorade Football Player of the Year Awards and on your commitment to the Iowa Hawkeyes. I’m sure that took a ton of hard work. How did those accomplishments make you feel?
Hudson Parliament (guest):
They make me feel great. Knowing that I’ve put in a lot of work the last four years and that it’s paying off big for me.
Matt Holsen:
For those who may not know, you were an impressive offensive lineman at Brandon Valley High School, among many other things. 109 pancake blocks to your name your senior year and I don’t think you’ve let a sack happen for the last two years. So congrats on that too.
You are college bound soon, like we mentioned. Take us back to when you were a bit younger. When did you realize that college football was your goal? What was the moment?
Hudson Parliament:
Seventh or eighth grade, I knew I wanted to play college football.
Matt Holsen:
When did you realize that you needed kind of a more serious training environment?
Hudson Parliament:
Probably been my freshman year when I’d gotten pulled up from freshman football to varsity to play. I knew to be successful at that level, I needed to develop my skills and get better and be able to compete with some better talent and some older kids.
Matt Holsen:
Justin, as Hudson’s dad, what would you add to that and what were you looking for? How did you end up partnering with Sanford Sports Academy?
Justin Parliament (guest):
You know, being pulled up as a freshman to play varsity football, I just remember me and his mom and sister dropping him off at practice and picking him up from practice each day. The kid wasn’t old enough to drive to even get to and from practices and it was a big transition.
It wasn’t something that we necessarily saw or expected by any means, but at that point we knew that the coaches believed in him. And that was a big step there. It was like, OK, now you’re going to be competing against older, stronger, faster, more experienced kids. So what are you wanting to do? Are you wanting to do anything more?
There was some teammates, too, that were doing some off-season work and they invited him in to join them at the Riggs Academy. They were commuting him back and forth and helping him out there. And he came home every time and was like, he was excited every time. And we knew that it was something that he wanted to do. So we fully invested there.
Matt Holsen:
It seemed to work out great. I’ve got a question for coach Kurtis Riggs. What would you say is the biggest benefit Sanford Sports Academy provides to its athletes?
Photo by Sanford Health
Kurtiss Riggs (guest):
Hudson’s a little different story. Justin hit it pretty spot on. You knew you had something there that was pretty special. Hudson was a very good wrestler. Justin and his wife did a great job with allowing Hudson to get involved with powerlifting. He was exceptional there.
Then they kind of made a choice. So, to move away from wrestling and to focus on that outside training for football, they started to get enough interest, and Hudson had a love and passion for it.
And he came in actually doing some defensive line stuff first and he could play both sides. You saw that longevity-wise and the need at a position was probably greater on the offensive line side. He was willing to play both. And I felt like he was great.
We knew he was great but his junior year in our combine, he took an offensive tackle that’s at South Dakota State now that’s, I mean, he’s 6-foot-5, 325 pounds. Hudson was at defensive line against him and he launched him darn near four or five yards backwards. And that clip was on social media. And I got more calls about that clip and who is this individual and how powerful he is. And things were already moving in the right direction at that point but they really took off after that. You just knew you had a special individual physically but also you’re getting a great person off the field too.
Matt Holsen:
That’ll definitely capture some attention I would assume. Hudson, what was different about day one when it came to Sanford Sports Academy football?
Hudson Parliament:
Coaches there really cared and really wanted to develop you and help you get better. Gave you all the right tools and all the right coaching and just how they truly cared.
Matt Holsen:
I love the story that Coach Riggs just said about the combine. Do you remember that moment? What was going through your head when that happened? When you became kind of a viral moment on social media?
Hudson Parliament:
I do remember that moment. That was awesome. I remember, I kind of surprised myself when I did it. I didn’t really know where it came from but it was awesome. It was cool.
Matt Holsen:
How did it make you feel to be treated like a serious athlete when it came to your work with Sanford Sports?
Hudson Parliament:
It felt awesome. They pushed me harder because they knew I could take it and I needed it and I truly wanted it.
Matt Holsen:
It seems to have worked. I’ll go to Coach Riggs next. What does Sanford Sports do to promote its athletes to college coaches? What kind of a network do you have?
Kurtiss Riggs:
It’s pretty vast. I’ve been able to, over the years, either with me coaching or people I coached with or coached under me have all succeeded in the field. And you just keep those relationships.
And so, when you say you have someone of the stature and power and ability of Hudson, it travels quickly. It travels to all levels and we’re able to reach all levels, which is a huge benefit for someone like Hudson.
And thankfully parents were great about also coming to me and saying we’re not sure about some of these things because the recruiting world is crazy. And Justin can attest to this, Hudson too. I mean you’re getting inundated constantly by people and you’re not sure what you’re supposed to ask or what you can say or can’t say. You just feel honored to be looked at and recruited by these institutions.
And so we were out able to help him have an agent come in and just talk to him, get to schools for camps and then pretty much they had it. Then they knew, and Hudson was strong in his faith of “here’s the school I really loved.” I know when I asked him, “Why Iowa?” he was quick to say it’s the one school when I left that I already started to miss.
I think that a lot of kids can’t do that. A lot of kids, they try to do what they think everyone else thinks they should do. So to be able to know and recognize and feel comfortable is huge.
Matt Holsen:
Justin, can you add to that? What was the recruitment process like for Hudson and how did Coach Riggs and his team help?
Justin Parliament:
We started getting some feedback from like Hudson’s high school coach, Matt Christensen. I think there was some feedback to him from Kurtiss real early on. It wasn’t necessarily told to Hudson or our family but it was kind of secondhand. And that’s when I knew that Kurtiss was talking to, I think in the beginning it was probably FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) schools.
And then as Hudson was doing combines and the training, they were coming in and we were getting more feedback and then that was translating to social media. They started to contact Hudson and inviting him to camps on junior days. And then he went to the SDSU camp after his freshman year and was offered at SDSU.
And that’s kind of what started things. And I know that Coach Riggs was talking to them prior to that. That’s when everything kind of exploded, really. And that evolved to FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) schools. Kurtiss had given me a little bit of feedback. I don’t think he necessarily gave it to Hudson, which I always respected that. He would talk to us. He didn’t want to, I mean I felt like Coach Riggs was trying to keep him humble, keep him working. Doing what he had done to get him to that point and wanted to continue to see where he would take it himself. It kept Hudson focused on football and doing the things that he had done to get him to that point.
Once other schools started to reach out, then we knew that it’s like, OK, we kind of talked as a family and talked to Hudson. It’s like, OK, is this something that you want to continue to pursue? And he was all in and we started signing him up for camps after his sophomore year.
So where he started to attend more like FBS camps which most all of them resulted in offers. And then it just kind of exploded. Just the way it was handled was really appreciated by our family.
Matt Holsen:
I appreciate that. Hudson, what would you add about the recruitment process? Was it exciting? Are you happy it’s over? What do you remember about that process?
Hudson Parliament:
Now that it’s over? I am happy that it’s over, but during it, it was exciting. It was fun. It was stressful at some points too. I remember a lot of the phone calls. I remember coming home from school a lot of times and being like, OK, I got a phone call at 6:30 and one at 7. And those were exciting, but those were also probably stressful points of it.
Overall, it was a lot of fun. I mean, going to visit all the schools and meeting all the different coaches and just seeing how each place is different.
Matt Holsen:
For other 15, 16, 17-year-olds, if you would have any piece of advice for them or what you would’ve liked to have known during your process, what would you say to other youngsters out there?
Hudson Parliament:
When you’re being recruited, like a coach is either texting or DMing or calling you, treating them with respect and taking their time to respond to them. Look for a place that truly cares. You know, that they are going to develop you and help you with the recruitment process.
Matt Holsen:
Justin, as a parent, what would you like other parents who may be getting into this process in the future, what would you like them to know?
Justin Parliament:
Every recruitment process is different. Not to compare your child to somebody else. Go with your gut feelings, having conversations as a family.
Matt Holsen:
Kurtiss, what would you add to that and how can families or athletes connect with you and your team?
Kurtiss Riggs:
Just going a little bit back on some of the things that were brought up here, and Justin kind of touched a little on it. Hudson was so humble and I think that humility is what made his teammates so much better.
Because they came with him to work out and they worked to be as good as him. And I think that’s why some of his teammates earned scholarships because of those workouts working with him. Some of the offensive linemen were able to go get scholarships and that’s why they won state this last year.
They had lost in the state title in a great game his junior year and then won it this last year. And I really believe it was those types of things, his leadership and guys following his lead and their quarterback too. But for us, it’s come in and train and we’re going to train you to get better.
And as we recognize, and we’ll be very honest, if we feel like you have the potential to play college, we’ll tell you that. We’ll say, hey, there’s an opportunity here but we’ll also tell you the level of what we think. We’re not going to mislead people as many places do and say, “Oh, you know, he can play quarterback at Oregon,” when there’s probably very little chance. And we’re very honest about the percentages and the opportunities but if it’s there, then we’ll definitely help get more out of it than what’s there.
And so, anyone can go to sanfordsports.com and find your way into the football element. We got all our academies there. There’s a lot. But the football one, we got a great staff. All our coaches are head coaches. They’ve coached at the college level, professionally or a lot of them are local area high school coaches.
Some of the high school coaches had to coach Hudson and then had to worry about going against him too. Which was always funny because they would come to me after and say, what do you think we can do to get him to maybe come to, you know, O’Gorman or whatever? And they were laughing about it. They know that they’re diehard Brandon Valley and that’s what makes them so great.
But it was a pleasure to work with them and a pleasure to get to know the family. I can’t wait to follow him. I think it’s funny though that (former SDSU coach) Jimmy Rogers – Justin talked about this – Jimmy Rogers was Hudson’s biggest fan early on as a freshman. Jimmy Rogers was like, “I would do anything to get Hudson Parliament at South Dakota State.” He said that to me. And now he’s the head coach at Iowa State.
And Hudson’s second biggest fan was Tyler Roehl. He watched Hudson work out with me, and he said, “That kid is going to be a center in the NFL someday. Mark my words.” He was the running backs coach at Iowa State at that time. And he just said, “Man, we’d love to have him here.”
And then he ended up going to the Detroit Lions but is now the offensive coordinator at Iowa State. And so Jimmy and Tyler are going to have to coach against Hudson and they’ll be rooting for him but they’ll also be dreading when they’re going to have to face him I bet.
Matt Holsen:
I think you have a bright future ahead. Hudson, what are you most excited about as you get ready to head to Iowa this spring?
Hudson Parliament:
I’m ready to get started. Kind of start at the bottom again and work my way back up, developed by the coaches there and learning things from the older guys and earning their respect as I do it.
Matt Holsen:
What would you say to Coach Riggs and Sanford Sports?
Hudson Parliament:
I’d want to thank them for all the things they’ve helped me with, developing my skills on the field and then the recruiting process. Helping me and my family through that and all the support and help they’ve had.
Matt Holsen:
We want to wish you all the best. Justin, anything else you want to add before we end our time here?
Justin Parliament:
Trusting your coaches. I remember, Hudson, his freshman year played defensive line as a starter going into his sophomore year, I think after the Legends camp, his current offensive line coach at Brandon Valley came to him about playing offensive line. I remember Hudson coming home, he was very disappointed and struggled with that. There was a lot of emotion in that.
If you ask Hudson now, he is like, you know, they knew. Believing in your coaches. They’re getting feedback and they’re seeing things too. Kind of to Kurtiss’s point about a position, you see a lot of that in the recruiting and in college football too.
Somebody goes in and thinks that they are something, but a school will see them as something else in a lot of cases. I think the high school coaches at that level see that early on and they have your best interest in mind.
Matt Holsen:
I appreciate you sharing that. As we look ahead here and head into February and the spring, what comes next? What are you excited about, Justin?
Justin Parliament:
I know how excited he is to be surrounded by similar talent. Just like Hudson said too, you know, start over. Like him starting over the same way when he came into high school football. Had no expectations. Earn the respect of coaches and current players. I really feel like he has a great opportunity, especially in the weight room when he gets down there.
That was part of his decision to go early. He can push guys, upperclassmen and in that weight room, start over and be a zero star. Go to work and do what he did to get him to this point and just do it all over again.
Matt Holsen:
I think that’s well said. As we get close to ending here, what would you like to say about your relationship with Sanford Sports? Or what do you think other parents should know if they’re thinking about engaging with the Sanford Sports Academy?
Justin Parliament:
It’s different in the way that it’s just brutally honest. In some cases, that’s what us as parents, we need to have somebody that can evaluate and give good, honest feedback. That is, it’s going to be time well spent for the athlete, the family.
There’s all different divisions, NAIA, Division III, Division II, Division I coaches there, and they evaluate the talent rather quickly and place you. And I think if you look at the placement, it may not always be where somebody wants to be placed, an athlete or a parent. All college football is high level football, you know, and being grateful for all of them opportunities.
Matt Holsen:
I want to wish Hudson and family the best of luck, and I want to thank you all for your time today. We appreciate you.
Alan Helgeson:
This episode is part of the “Health and Wellness” series by Sanford Health. For additional podcast series by Sanford Health, listen to wherever you hear your favorite podcast and on news.sanfordhealth.org.
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