The 1% Kid with Channing Chasten

Welcome to Reading Inspires by Reading Is Fundamental.

I'm your host, Dr. Erin Bailey.

This podcast celebrates the power of books and the joy of reading.

In each episode, we talk with educators, librarians, families, authors, and literacy champions to explore one big question: What does reading inspire for you?

Through stories, research, and real-world experiences from classrooms, libraries, and homes, we explore what literacy looks like and why it matters.

Whether you're nurturing young readers, shaping learning spaces, or simply love a good book, we're glad you're here.

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Let's get inspired.

Erin Bailey: Welcome.

I'm joined today by Channing Chastain, a former college and professional soccer player, and the founder of the 1% Kid Nonprofit, and an author of this book, The 1% Kid, which I will be sure to link below.

Channing is passionate about helping young people grow, not just as athletes, but as learners and leaders.

His journey highlights the powerful role that early academic habits, especially reading, can play in shaping confidence, discipline, and long-term success.

So welcome to Reading Inspires, Channing.

Glad you're here.

Channing Chasten: be here on Reading Inspires, and yeah, I can't wait for the episode.

Erin Bailey: it is also Teacher Appreciation Week, so we want to celebrate and shout out all of our teachers.

Even if you're not listening to this episode during Teacher Appreciation Week, just know that we appreciate you all year long, and I know Channing has a couple teachers he wanted to shout out.

Channing Chasten: Yeah, I would love to shout out.

My mom used to be a teacher, so my mom, her t- her kids used to call her Mrs. Chaston.

Mrs. Lockhart, who was my junior high teacher.

Mrs. Cross was my math teacher in elementary school.

I'm pretty sure I'm missing a couple others, but those are some that really stand out to me.

Senora Steckly was, like, my, my Spanish teacher in high school.

Those are definitely some teachers I wanted to shout out, so I appreciate all of them and everything they've done for me.

Erin Bailey: Thank you, and I personally make it a part of my practice too.

Any time I do something and it reminds me of a teacher or it's something that a teacher taught me, this is a just an example, but I write logic models now when Riff applies for grants.

I reached out to the teacher who taught me how to create a logic model and just said, "Hey, thank you.

You taught me how to create a logic model," and I use them all the time now.

So little things like that can just show gratitude, and I highly encourage anyone who's listening to reach out to a teacher, not
just during Teacher Appreciation Week, but any time that you are feeling grateful for something that a teacher has passed on to you.

So with that said, we will hop on in.

Channing, to start, I'm sure everyone who's listening would like to know about your background, your journey as a student athlete, and how your early experiences with school and reading helped shape who you are today

Channing Chasten: Yeah, so a little bit about my background.

I'm from Cleveland, Ohio originally.

That's my hometown.

I started playing soccer around the age of three years old.

It stuck with me.

I played many other sports football, track, baseball.

The list goes on and on.

But soccer just stuck with me because I was usually the only Black kid playing the game and I knew if I was gonna stand out, I wanted to stand out for being the best.

I thought it was pretty cool to be good at s- using your feet.

Not, definitely not many kids were good at using their feet.

So, m- ended up moving to- Arizona when I was 10 years old.

Had a dream of playing college soccer at Ohio State.

That's where my mom went to school.

And even after moving, I still had that dream or goal.

So made that dream a reality.

Played college soccer at Ohio State from 2019 to 2023.

Was able to sign professionally for Phoenix Rising in the USL Championship right after my junior season which was an amazing experience for me playing professional soccer.

But after that, I then went to write a children's book just to inspire kids that with anything they, they want to do achieve in life, it's possible, but they have to have the right mindset, practice, perseverance, patience, and the 1% better everyday mindset.

So that then led me to starting my own nonprofit, which is all about fostering enjoyment for learning and reading through a beautiful game and teaching kids to have a growth-orientated mindset in everything that they do in life.

So that's a little bit about my background and how, what got me here today.

Erin Bailey: amazing.

Can you share a little bit about your one-- I'll call it a 1% theory, but this idea that you need to get 1% better every day.

What does that look like, and why were you inspired to write the book?

Channing Chasten: I would say the 1% better everyday mindset came to me when I was at Ohio State which I guess that was my dream school.

After my freshman season, I played about 30, 40 minutes a game as a freshman, which is really good, but my sophomore year was our COVID season, and I still played probably about half, minutes, 50 minutes a game.

But there was this guy that was a senior that was starting over me.

I mean, I was pretty frustrated, and at the end of the year, we have coach-player meetings.

And in my coach-player meeting, I asked, "Why was this player starting over me majority of the games?" He said, "We always thought he would produce."

And I was very frustrated and I said, "But I was producing when I came on." So that led to me entering the transfer portal where s- where kids can go to kind of transfer to another school or university and play soccer at a different college.

But when I was in the transfer portal, I really had a face-to-face with myself and I said, "What do I look like transferring just because it got a little difficult?"

When that little kid had a dream playing college soccer at Ohio State, why would I leave just because it didn't pan out exactly how I wanted it to?

So I told my coach, I'm gonna come back to Ohio State for the rest of the years, and I also told myself, I'm just gonna get 1% better every day and make sure by doing that, I leave no doubt that I should be starting every game.

So I was like, I wanna get one just a little bit better than I was yesterday at my right foot, studying, passing, shooting, whatever it may be.

I just wanna get a little bit better than I was yesterday and improve.

That led me to starting every game my junior year ultimately getting seen by other professional teams, and then signing a professional contract with Phoenix Rising.

So that's kind of why that 1% better everyday mindset has, or theory Has impacted my life and led me to re- name my book The 1% Kid.

Erin Bailey: I think it's a mindset.

It certainly works well in sports, but it's something that everyone can adopt really in any pathway that you're going in life, whether it's sports or school or your job or a hobby that you're pursuing.

Just telling yourself 1% better every day, it feels more achievable, right, than saying, "My end goal is f- 50%."

It actually reminds me of my husband, Joey, who was also a college athlete.

He thinks of everything in percentages and be- because he's an accountant.

And he, as a college athlete, I guess, would tell his team, you know, they would get through one practice, and he'd say something like, "Well, we're 2% done with practices for the season," or something like that.

And chunking it that way brought him a lot of you know, comfort.

So I can see where thinking, "I'm going to get 1% better every day," it feels more doable, achievable than trying to just drastically increase your score or your starting time or you know, whatever it is.

Channing Chasten: agree more, and I love how he thinks in percentages.

I would say that's definitely like an athlete thing,

Erin Bailey: Is it?

Okay, that's good to hear.

I thought it was more of his accounting mind, but it's probably the accounting and athlete together.

So certainly, and I know this from my husband as well, being a college athlete is really almost like a full-time job.

I mean, you're on all the time.

Can you share with our listeners, and especially those who are maybe parents of students who are athletes and may be pursuing being a college
athlete how were you able to prioritize academics, and what role did academics play, and how did this influence you to be a better athlete?

Channing Chasten: Yeah your husband kinda hit the nail on the head.

Playing Division I collegiate ath- collegiate sports is not easy.

It definitely is a full-time job.

You have to learn time management, and that's something definitely that playing at the highest level taught me.

And to play at Ohio State, it's known as probably, if not one of the top three, top four universities when it comes to sports in the country.

So the pressure on the student athlete is high.

You have to perform not only on the field, but also in the classroom.

I know there were times when we'd have an away game at night, and we wouldn't get back 'cause we had a plane, and we wouldn't get back till like 3:00 AM.

But I had the next day an 8:00 AM class, and I don't know what it was, but waking up at 8:00 AM in college was so hard compared to waking up at, like, 6:00 AM for high school.

But you still had to go to class.

We had mandatory study hall hours when we were freshmen, 10 hours a week Including we have practice every day, we have skill class every day.

You still wanna have a social life a little bit.

There are things that you have to say no to.

So it's definitely difficult, but I would say it taught me so much more in life where I use it in my time management skills I use the power of saying no to things that may not benefit me or may not benefit my goals or align with what I wanna reach.

And it's also saying yes to things that might be difficult in the moment, but will help you in the long run.

So that's kind of what being a student athlete taught me is just really time management and how to put an emphasis on your time and how you use it.

Erin Bailey: love that it's taught you time management.

That's certainly a skill that will, you know, you'll use for the rest of your life.

But also what you said, the power of saying no.

I've never heard that before, and I feel like in college you're almost encouraged to say yes to everything because it's all about creating new experiences.

But perhaps it's about finding the balance of what to say yes to and also, to your point, the power of saying no, to be able to feel confident that you can make a decision to turn something down and to prioritize something else

Channing Chasten: Yeah, it's not easy to do, especially 'cause where you said you wanna say yes to everything, which I still did, but when you're a college athlete, you have to get your grades as well to be eligible to play the sport you love.

So I had to make sure I said no to some things, and that I wish I could have gone to, but in the long run it paid off.

Erin Bailey: Absolutely.

So let's talk about children's literacy and your passion there.

From your perspective, why is building strong literacy skills so important in childhood, and especially when... for children who are balancing things like sports or other extracurriculars?

Channing Chasten: Yeah, it started at a young age for me.

My mom like I said, she was a teacher for a long time and an administrator as well, so education was paramount in my household growing up.

And whenever I... was summer, she would always have... we would have book projects to do or book reports to do in order to play outside or in order to go on a trip during summer break.

And that really taught me that literacy is important.

But also as I've grown up, I res- I realized that literacy has a direct correlation to the incarceration rate.

Kids that can't read at a third-grade proficient reading level have a way higher chance of going into incarceration, and that's actually how many prison beds they make based on the third-grade reading proficient percentage.

And then I also realized they had a direct correlation to success in school.

There are a lot of kids that just bypass reading below the level, but will then still move forward in education and in grade levels.

And then there's kids that are in high school that still can't read.

I've just realized that reading, not only does it help you with your imagination, not only does it help you with your creativity- But it helps with your vocabulary.

It helps with you become a better speaker with other people.

So I've just learned how literacy helped me in my life and allowed me to become a better speaker.

It allowed me to be more creative.

Allowed me actually to enjoy reading.

Every time I used to read when I was younger, I would always fall asleep just because I kind of fell into the book because it was that engaging and entertaining.

But I would say that's why childhood literacy is super important to me and why it's something that I do with my nonprofit and my book.

Erin Bailey: 1% Kid nonprofit and the, your mission and what work you're doing there?

Channing Chasten: Yes, so the 1% Kid Foundation is all about soccer, literacy, and mindset.

We look to foster enjoyment for learning and reading through the beautiful game, while also teaching kids to have a growth mindset to achieve anything they want to in life.

So we do interactive book reading experiences at schools, youth organizations.

We do workshops, mindset workshops, goal setting workshops sportsmanship and leadership training workshops.

And then we also do soccer literacy and mindset camps, which are my favorite where we start the camp off with a little bit of reading, whether they're getting read to, we're popcorn reading, or they're learning about financial literacy.

Then we'll go into the soccer basics of learning how to pass, shoot, dribble, and then at the end they're getting time to play.

But throughout that entire camp we're reinforcing the growth and rich mindsets.

I'm talking about practice, perseverance, patience, resilience, all those life skills that are important to have in life no matter if you're playing a sport or not.

So that's kind of what we do in a nutshell at the 1% Kid Foundation.

Erin Bailey: That's incredible.

I'm so excited to hear about that.

What a cool camp.

When you're working with children through the camp, do any of them ever come and describe themselves as non-readers, or maybe they see themselves as athletes and they don't see how important reading is?

And what kind of strategies have been successful with those kids

Channing Chasten: Yeah, I definitely have seen a lot of kids say they're not read- non-readers, and I would say that was maybe me a little bit when I was younger, even though I was forced to read.

I really enjoyed reading Greek mythology growing up.

And I would say kids are non-readers until you put a book in front of their hands that they can relate to, see themself in, or something that they're passionate about.

So when there are a lot of kids that say, "Oh, I'm a non-reader", but they're at the soccer camp and they see a book that involves soccer or they
see someone on the cover that might look like them or look fulfill- familiar to them, they want to then read the book 'cause they're intrigued.

They're like, "This is something I'm passionate about.

This is something I'm interested in." Then kids will begin to read.

So I think it's all about just appealing to those kids and what they like and what they enjoy.

And if you can find a book that involves that, they'll be, they'll turn into a reader very quickly

Erin Bailey: I couldn't agree more.

I always say a couple things.

You've heard it before, reluctant readers are my favorite readers, and there's no such thing as a non-reader.

There's only readers who haven't found the right book yet.

So I think you're spot on there, and I appreciate what you said.

Interesting too about Greek mythology.

I hear that from students in Reading Is Fundamental programs as well, and it's not something that I would think young children would gravitate towards, but they do love Greek mythology.

So you talk about... I mean, if you could create an ideal environment to inspire children to read, whether it's at home, school, sports program, what would that look like and what role do mentors or coaches play in shaping that environment?

Channing Chasten: would say the first big part is definitely having books available wherever that may be.

So if it's at school, we need a library that's full of books, not just for books that have always been in the library, but expanding our reach to different books that kids want.

So maybe it's doing a survey.

What type of books do the kids want or the students want?

To ensure that when they go into the library, they have no shortage of books that they want to read.

Whether it's at home, how can we continue to give kids books for free or at re- very low discounted prices so that they can build an at-home library to read over summer, right?

I know a lot of kids will have that break from school, and they're not doing anything to help their literacy scores or to continue reading and progress.

And then I think with mentors and coaches, it's people like yourself, people like me maybe s- younger, older siblings talking about the
importance of reading, talking about why it helps them in their life, talking about why they just enjoy it maybe for fun as a pastime.

I think it's... And then saying, and then encouraging that younger kid saying, "This is probably why you should read it," or, "Maybe if we find a book that you enjoy I'll take the time to read it with you."

So I think it's just putting books first in their line of sight and then helping them with personal stories as why reading helps you in your life and why they might be intrigued to read more.

Erin Bailey: Yeah, absolutely.

Access is key, and that's what we focus on at Reading is Fundamental too, is building those home libraries and making sure children have access, not just to any books, but books that are really going to resonate with them, books that they find relevant.

So I'm sure all of our listeners would love to hear what were some of those books for you as a child growing up?

What were some of the ones that piqued your interest and engaged you?

Channing Chasten: Yeah.

Like I said Greek mythology is one of my favorites, so I love Rick Riordan.

So, what is the name of the one book?

It's Percy Jackson.

The Percy Jackson series was prob- probably my favorite.

I know when I was little, it was like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Captain Underpants.

They were just funny, so they appealed to me.

It didn't feel like I was really reading I loved Harry Potter as well.

I love just magical Greek my- mythology, all those type of things.

Those really piqued my interest when I was reading.

So those are my top, those are my top books for sure.

Erin Bailey: Yes, humor and Greek mythology, and series too.

I share this a lot, that if you wanna get a child hooked on reading, introduce them to a really great series because they're going to keep reading.

They want to find out what happens next.

Well, thank you.

I always end the podcast by asking guests what does reading inspire for you?

Channing Chasten: Reading inspires, for me, creativity and the thought that I can do anything in this world.

I think when I see different authors and the amazing work they create, it makes me realize that in life you can create anything.

Whether it's you want to be the president one day, whether you want to create a amazing invention, anything is possible, and we can see that through
the books that we read with how creative they are and how masterful they're able to make it enjoyable for us to read and put their thoughts onto paper.

So I would say that's what reading inspires to me, just that, to know that anything is possible, and create- creativity's everywhere around you, as long as you're looking for

Erin Bailey: Absolutely.

I always say, too, it takes creative people to build a better world, to build the future.

There are people who build things, but there are also people who dream what is going to be built next.

So we need a balance of all those people.

Channing Chasten: Most definitely.

Erin Bailey: Well, thank you so much, Channing.

It was wonderful to have you.

And again, thank you to all of our educators who are listening.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week now, and any time of the year.

Thank you for listening to Reading Inspires by Reading Is Fundamental.

I hope today's conversation sparked new ideas, meaningful connections, and a renewed love of reading.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, share it with a fellow literacy champion, and join us next time as we continue exploring what reading inspires