Ace Flores grew up as the only member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in his school. He couldn't afford club soccer. He moved between Texas, Florida, and Rhode Island. He turned down a Division One offer to serve a mission in Uganda. And on his last day in Buena Vista, Virginia — he met a girl at the gym, lost his nerve, and then found her on Instagram an hour later.

She just got baptized.

He baptized her himself.

This episode is EVERYTHING this podcast was built for!

Ace is a center back who just transferred from Southern Virginia University to Rhode Island College — not because SVU wasn't right for him, but because working until 3 AM at Taco Bell before 6 AM training sessions wasn't sustainable, and his family had never seen him play a college game.

So he prayed about it, entered the transfer portal, and the Lord put him exactly where he needed to be.

We talk about growing up moving between three completely different places and never having the money for club soccer — just a ball and his dad's shed.

We talk about being outnumbered in eighth grade history class when the teacher started explaining Joseph Smith and polygamy and he sat there quiet and alone.

We talk about Uganda — the bucket showers, the 4 AM arrival, the companion from Zimbabwe who polished his shoes and danced to while making breakfast, and the gift of discernment that changed the way Ace prays every single morning.

We talk about SVU, Payden Pemberton, playing center back when he was recruited as an attacking mid, and what it felt like to start fifteen out of seventeen games in a historic season.

We talk about the USMNT, the pay-to-play crisis, Tim Howard as the greatest American soccer player of all time, and why Cape Verde — where Ace's mom is from — won everyone's heart in this World Cup.

And at the end, Ace gives advice so simple and so personal it stopped me cold:

• Read your mission call.
• Get your patriarchal blessing.
• Find someone you can talk to.
• And develop a relationship with the Savior — because you are so much more than your occupation on this earth.

This one is special. Don't miss it.

🎧 Listen now and share this with someone who needs to hear it.
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The World Cup is over. Spain are champions. And I have a lot of thoughts — some of them are going to make people mad.

In this episode I'm going full debrief. No guests, no script, just me sitting down a week post-World Cup and saying everything I've been thinking since the final whistle blew.

Infantino needs to go. I'll die on that hill. The integrity of the international game is not safe with him running FIFA and this World Cup gave me more reasons than ever to believe that. Too many coincidences. Too many inconsistencies. Too many moments that just didn't add up.

I also owe someone an apology. I was wrong about Diego Luna. I said before the World Cup that he should have been on the roster. And then I went to his RSL game against Burnley, did the eye test in person, and came away genuinely disappointed. Pochettino was right to leave him home. I don't love how it was handled — but the decision itself? I'm eating crow on that one.

I still stand by Tanner Tessmann. I still stand by Cameron Carter Vickers. And I think Malik Tillman and Weston McKennie need to be untouchable in that midfield for the next four years. But Diego Luna? Pochettino saw something I didn't. And the eye test confirmed it.

I also talk about what made this World Cup quietly historic — the last dance for a generation of greats that we may never see together on this stage again.

Messi.

Ronaldo.

Modric.

Neymar.

Salah.

De Bruyne.

Kane.

Casemiro.

And why the controversy is drowning out something we should be stopping to appreciate.

Plus — A'nue's first professional soccer game, RSL's sensory room, and why watching a six year old talk tactics during a World Cup is one of the best things that's ever happened to me as a dad.

🎧 Listen now and share this with every soccer fan you know.

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#WorldCup #USMNT #SpainWorldCup #FaithFamilySports #Soccer

Bennett Candland didn't think he was good enough to play college basketball. He got cut from his freshman team, didn't try out sophomore year, barely played junior and senior year, and had exactly zero people looking at him coming out of high school.

So how did he end up playing at Southern Virginia University, serving a mission in Alabama, training Army bomb disposal units, and now working with Air Force Special Warfare operators in Las Vegas?

One conversation at a time. One decision at a time. And one principle he made long before he ever needed it: lean into the gospel, even when you can't see why.

This episode goes deep. Bennett opens up about what it was actually like being an LDS athlete in Maryland and Pennsylvania — where the basketball culture was about as far from gospel standards as you can get, where his social life with teammates was basically nonexistent because of the choices he refused to make, and where he watched those same teammates come to practice still recovering from weekends he wanted no part of.

We talk about his mission to the Deep South, how it turned a shy kid who could barely communicate into someone who now coaches elite military operators and earns their respect in the first five minutes. We talk about SVU, the revenge tour that brought him there, the professor who called him before a test he was about to sleep through, and what it meant to be there when all three Candland brothers were on campus at the same time.

And at the end, Bennett drops some of the most straight-shooting advice this podcast has ever heard — no preachiness, no script, just a guy who's lived it telling you exactly what he wishes someone had told him.

"No one cares about the beginning of the movie. They care about the end. So wherever you're at — start committing to it right now."

🎧 Listen now and share this with a young athlete who needs to hear it.
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#FaithAndAthletics #LeanIntoTheGospel #MissionLife #FaithFamilySports #LDS