EP:441 | Vic Schaefer: The Turkey Hunting Basketball Coach

This week we are joined by legendary Coach Vic Schaefer. Considered to be one of the best collegiate women’s basketball coaches of all time, Coach is also a rabid turkey hunter and fisherman. He has produced national title contending basketball teams at Mississippi State and now Texas. He joins us in person to tell sports stories, hunting and fishing stories and explains how the outdoors helps him relax. It’s a fun podcast. 

Listen, Learn and Enjoy.    

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm Jeff Foxworthy, and welcome to Gamekeeper Podcast. If you want to learn more about farming for wildlife and habitat management, you are in the right place. Join the Gamekeeper crew direct from Mostyoak Land Enhancement Studios. They discuss the latest wildlife and habitat management practices. News, and of course, money. There's no telling what you'll learn, but I'm going to tell you, I bet it's interesting. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

As Doctor said, let's have some fun. We're live in 3, 2, 1. All right, everybody.

SPEAKER_06 0:31

West Point, Mississippi, home of Mostyoak. We got a full crew here. Dudley Landy talks you with a big smile on his face. Yeah. And our guest on the couch, let's just jump right over there and get him in a book. We've got Coach Vic Schaefer. Come on. I mean, a great friend of the brand. What a great guest today, yeah. Maybe the greatest women's basketball coach ever.

SPEAKER_08 0:53

Oh, I don't know. His head's big enough already. I mean, who He's at the top of the food chain.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

More importantly than that, I mean, he had a great morning at Wisconsin, too. I mean, I know we're talking about it.

SPEAKER_08 1:09

It could be like business. And they would say this guy could do and write a big order and whatever. He would go, Yeah, but can he yelp? Yeah. So he may be a great coach, but I can promise you he can yelp.

SPEAKER_06 1:20

I think that's the case. Yeah. Absolutely. We've we've uh gosh, we've watched you for a long time. And you know, one of the things I wanted you to do just right off the bat, because when I watch you on television, I I just see this scowl that sometimes comes on. So just pretend I'm a ref and I've blown a bag off. Would you look at Dudley that way? I bet you there's some some refs there that like, ooh, I'm I might better pay more attention next time.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

Oh, probably. There might be some, but most of them think they're all right all the time. So, you know, it just uh it is what it is. But um, you know, a lot of a lot of coaches will look uh talking about referee, they'll look, you get your assignments two weeks out. And I worked for a guy, Coach Blair, for 15 years, and he always knew who we were gonna have, you know, each game. I don't ever look. I got too many things to worry about besides worrying about who's calling my game tonight. Uh I find out when I walk out on the court three minutes prior to tip. Now, for those next three minutes, there might be some trepidation on my part, but at least I ain't worried about it all day. That's a good point.

SPEAKER_06 2:30

Yeah, yeah. Doxie, uh going back in your mind, what do you remember when he first showed up over at Mr. State?

SPEAKER_08 2:36

I do. And in fact, if I'm not mistaken, that your handle or nickname out there in the basketball coaches were the Minister of Defense. Yep. Hey. Because they were the lockdown he coached the national championship at Texas AM. And uh their their claim to fame was man, just brutal. What uh you know, the best word I ever heard for great defense in basketball was uh Nolan Richardson's deal. It was at 40 minutes of hell. And that's what his teams will put you through, you know.

SPEAKER_06 3:11

Lenny, if I said 1-3-1 or 2-3 or 3-2, would you know what we were talking about? Um probably not.

SPEAKER_08 3:18

He was thinking you're probably talking about fertilizer. I barely know. One, two, three. The fertilizer on the bottom.

SPEAKER_06 3:22

Yeah, I was going with fertilizer, but I'm like, oh. All right. Let me get him introduced properly. I got a little something I wrote here. All right. So here we go. So Coach Vic Schaefer, right now he's head of the head coach for the Texas Longhorns women basketball team. He's renowned for transforming programs into national contenders with high intensity and a defensive focused style. A two-time National Coach of the Year, a five-time conference coach of the year, and he was named the 2018th Nate Smith National Coach of the Year. He's the only coach in NCAA history to lead multiple teams to multiple Final Four appearances, previously with Mississippi State and now with Texas. He is known for intense dedication and passion, often highlighting defense and intentionality in practice. At Mississippi State, he built MSU into a national power, leading them to two national championship games and three Final Four appearances, culminating in a 2021 and 62 record. And with all the glory and accolades that come from his coaching career, he is also a gamekeeper, owning a farm that he manages for wildlife, including a lake for giant bass. We'll talk about that later, hopefully. He's getting the hooks in already. So coach Vic Schaefer is also a passionate turkey hunter. And I say, is there anything more American than a great coach creating opportunities between playoff games and practices to go turkey hunting? I don't know.

SPEAKER_08 4:51

Slim me up, Bobby. You never were that complimentary about it.

SPEAKER_06 4:55

Drop the mic, wherever the mic is. We're just excited to have you. And your your your interests, uh, your your love of hunting. It just it's so much fun to watch somebody be vocal about it on a national platform like you were recently. Yeah, that was so cool.

SPEAKER_08 5:10

He then he told the world, guess what? And he almost didn't do it. He was telling me at lunch, he said, by this time tomorrow, I'll I would have killed a wild turkey. And he said it took work to fulfill it. He thought he was he was on the way out of the woods.

SPEAKER_06 5:24

Yeah. So, coach, we're we're happy you're here. Our podcast is known for hard-hitting journalism. We asked the tough questions. And I want to start with the first one. Is there any truth that you moved to Texas because the Rio birds were easier to hunt than these Mississippi?

SPEAKER_04 5:42

Well, the facts that is a true fact. There's no doubt about it. But first, just thanks for having me today. Uh uh I'm truly honored to be here with you all. I appreciate the opportunity. Um, you know, have known uh Toxie for a while now, and obviously tremendous uh I can tell you all this. I I I get my check and I could come over here to that store and spend it all. Uh and and have come close a couple of times, uh, but just uh have followed uh this this company, the family, and um really just appreciate everything that they do for the great outdoors because I love the outdoors. And um uh as passionate as I am about coaching, my team would tell you coach does it, you know, scouting report on our opponents, but he also knows what the scouting report is on the fish. When I go fishing, I tell them all the time, I'm not going out there to drink beer and sit in a boat all day. I'm going out there to I'm gonna know where they're at, I'm gonna know what time they're eating and what they're eating. And uh that's just uh just I guess that's how I'm I'm I'm uh wired programmed and wired from my job to even in the outdoors. And we all know it doesn't work that way every time, but that's the way you hope it does. And uh this morning was a great example of good fortune and good luck and having a great uh turkey hunter with me. And uh so but um just appreciate you having me today. Um the question?

SPEAKER_06 7:15

Yeah, well, true or false? You you left Mississippi to move to Texas because the Rios were easier to hold it.

SPEAKER_04 7:22

The Rios are uh not quite near as wily, and they certainly haven't been educated by every student at Mississippi State. Uh there's no doubt about it. Um and um, you know, but um it's uh I've been you know, I have a place about 50 minutes from my house that that I can be at, and uh I've I've in I've enjoyed being there. Uh I can bow hunt it in in deer season if I can happen to get away for a little bit, and certainly in the spring. It is you know, the thing about the Rios is that I can sit in that we get five days at Christmas where I give the kids off. I can sit there in a bow box and I can hear those turkeys gobbling on the creek in December 25th. Wow. It's just crazy. I mean, and uh that would be cool. Yeah, and I've had them strutting in front of me on Christmas Day, you know, just it it's just the way it is down there. That's a bad career move for them around here. Yeah. So um anyway, uh it's uh they are not as nearly as wily as these birds here. As I found out last week, uh, as I had one slip in on me really fast and he got really close. And it's just a matter of 30 degrees with that gun's pointed here, and he got here, and there was nothing I could do about it. And it just it was over that fast.

SPEAKER_08 8:44

It's crazy how close they can get to it. Yeah, no, I mean the thing about here, and I don't know if it's because of the hunting pressure for so many generations already, or with predators or whatever, but the the the distance in time between they smell a booger and they're gone. I'm telling you, is so quick. It's that's why we all know here, and most people hunting in the south, especially, but you can if if if they see you before you see them, your chances have dropped like tenfold. Yeah, even if they're in close gun range.

SPEAKER_05 9:14

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you that just reminded me of these three gobblers that I had at 30 yards last year. I was moving my hands about to reach for a call and boom, gone. Over with. Yeah. Didn't even know they were there until they were running off.

SPEAKER_06 9:29

So do you remember uh I'm sure you do. Can you tell us a story of your first turkey or the turkey that just cemented you into being a turkey hunter?

SPEAKER_04 9:38

Yeah, I probably killed him in Arkansas. My wife's from Arkansas, and I was telling Toxie, uh, I really didn't hunt turkeys as a kid. Uh my father and I dove hunted together, we fished together, but uh living in Texas and the places that we lived, we really didn't have an opportunity to really hunt a lot of other things. And he wasn't a big deer hunter. And uh, but um when I met my wife, she lived in Arkansas, and her brother-in-law is a really good hunter at Walt. And uh that's kind of when I got my baptism on turkey hunting. And uh, you know, that first turkey that I killed, if I'm not mistaken, it I it's a triple bearded bird. He's mounted, he's mounted in my house over here on 182, and I probably crawled 200, 300 yards on my belly just to get close enough and hope that the hen would drag him in front of me, you know, because I certainly wasn't very talented calling a bird my my early my years, you know, and uh and uh but he I've it it's a special bird, no question whether he had one beard or three. He had three, and um, and uh I think I had my my niece uh who got into taxidermy is the one that that mounted him for me. Oh wow, that's cool. Very cool.

SPEAKER_08 10:59

Yeah, well, what's her name and where's she working out on? Yeah, she doesn't do it anymore. We got a freezer for give her a plug.

SPEAKER_06 11:07

Yeah, it's expensive to get a turkey mounted these days. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_08 11:10

It's getting out of it's getting way up there, but it's a lot of work. It must be a lot of work, it really is.

SPEAKER_05 11:15

You know, I'm I'm really liking those framed feather modes. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_08 11:20

That's just they're a lot of work too, though. I've talked to some guys that do it individually, they're beautiful, feather boards. That's the big thing now.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

But they're clipping every one of those feathers and gluing them individually. Yep, it's crazy. Pretty amazing. I said I was gonna do it, but I hadn't done it yet. I say you're gonna. You mean you're gonna try to do it yourself? Yes, because I, you know, I've I've I've caped every turkey every turkey, probably for the past um. That's gonna be require some patience.

SPEAKER_08 11:48

Yeah, a lot.

SPEAKER_02 11:49

You know, you know, you know.

SPEAKER_08 11:50

But he hadn't done it. I've got patience, you know. It's like a it's like the the worst possible jigsaw puzzle.

SPEAKER_06 11:56

Yeah. So did you grow up uh just you started off with maybe uh squirrel hunting like a lot of folks or rabbit hunting? How did you think? What was the right of passage?

SPEAKER_08 12:04

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_04 12:05

Yeah, that my dad um my dad had a single shot uh 20 gauge that he quail hunted with in LaGrange, Texas. That's where my grandmother lived, and that's where my daddy was born, and that's where both my parents are buried now. And uh I just got exposed to dove hunting really that that early in in in my life, and uh and we we would go and I I look back now and those times that I had with my dad, you know, it'd be a good hunt if we might have killed five or six apiece. You know, we'd sit there in the heat of Texas and sit in a big wide open uh you know Dovefield and and uh if we killed five or six apiece, and now I think about all these hunts we all go on and you know, we kill our limit, and you know, a lot of times we're in an eye there really quick. And man, my dad and I might have had one of those, you know, and uh, but yet we had so many quality hunts together, not necessarily quality based on how many we killed, it's just what we did together. And you know, when I when I lost him, he lost him, you know, I was 29 and that was way too early. But the one thing I could say is that dad and I had done things tenfold. You know, there wasn't anything I I said like, oh well, I wish we could have done this or I wish we could have done that. We did it. And uh now we never turkey hunted together, and I'd love to take him turkey hunt. Now I think he'd he would love to do that. But uh, you know, just growing up in the outdoors, catching white bass on a topwater in the spring when the white bass were running up on Lake LBJ, uh, you know, that was a that was a big deal for me growing up. We'd we'd have our family vacations in a 23-foot travel trailer up on the bank of the Colorado, which is now Lake LBJ, and you'd open the door and you'd be you'd be up on the bank looking down on what used to be the river. Now it's dammed up into lakes, you know, up on you got Inks Lake, you got LBJ, you got Travis, you got Lake Buchanan, and but that was a that was a a a great vacation for us. I mean, just it was as simple as anything you could do, yet it was just awesome, you know. A lot of nature in that way.

SPEAKER_08 14:35

Well, you know, yeah, we talked about it. It's like I think it not necessarily the older we get, but just the way that the world is now. There's so much stuff going on that's kind of, I think, you know, I hate to say it, but God's crying about it a little bit, going on in the world when you get out there in nature, and it's what I was getting at, it's almost like the simpler the better now. Yeah, you know, and it's so refreshing because it's like you know, this morning, and he's you know, how hard they have to work today at his job. And he said, Man, killing that turkey and watching, you know, what was so cool about it is he was actually could see him out there on the limb.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_08 15:13

And a hen too, and she flew down and all that stuff. He said, I just feel like I've been through complete ray rehouse a couple days ago.

SPEAKER_05 15:20

I mean, you just forget about your your problem or gives you perspective, that's for sure. I've I've heard Bobby say that a bunch about you know, fishing in the boat. Fishing does that to me. So I'll do me too. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 15:31

If you need if you if you need someone to watch out for your pun, Bobby's probably suspect. I'll raise my hand, but he's you know, he's secretive about everything. I'll give him dibs if it's like he happened to go to a place and he could turkey hunt on a you could tell torture him with a red-hot poker and he wouldn't give it up, be like a spy in a movie. Yeah. Same way on fishing, though. I mean, he thinks he's keeping, we're not gonna run to any fishing hole, but he would, he would, you would put a gun to his head, he wouldn't tell you where his secret honey hole is fishing.

SPEAKER_06 15:58

I had a secret honey hole about five years ago, and I would take some pictures of these really beautiful six and seven and eight-pound fish, and I would send them to Lanny. And I made the mistake of an of a one of these cell towers popped up in one of my pictures, and he figured it out. I knew exactly where it was.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Guess where I'm fishing. And I hadn't been back.

SPEAKER_08 16:20

Well, the difference is he owns it, so nobody's sneaking in there.

SPEAKER_04 16:24

Yeah. One of my fondest memories of of those days is when I finally got old enough. Like we didn't own a boat. We we couldn't afford a boat. But dad had a 9.9 Johnson. Oh, yeah. And we would take that with us, and then we would rent a 10 or 12 foot aluminum boat, you know, right there at the trailer park where we'd stay, and we'd put that 9.9 on there, and man, we thought we were it. Oh yeah. And but one of the best days in my life as a kid was the day that my dad I asked my daddy, hey, can I go by myself? They were going into town to get groceries, and I didn't want to go. I said, Dad, can I stay here and fish? Can I get in that boat and go? And he said, Yep, you be careful. And and I could swim, and he didn't have to worry about that. He said, Yeah, you can go. Because I could see on the bank those white bass were chasing those shad. It was boiling from bank to bank. And he could too. And he knew it was killing me. And so he let me go. Well, when he came back, he looked down on me. I was right below the trailer in the in the you know, 200 yards down in the river, and he could see the bottom of that boat, y'all, was five deep in white bath. I was catching them every cast and wasn't putting them on the stringer. And so he said, Hey, he screamed down at me, hey, you meet me up there at the dam right now. And I picked him up, and he and when I picked him up, he said, You need to string these fish. They're dying and they're gonna go bad. And he said, Give me that rod. He went and catched them every cast, and I couldn't catch up with him. He kept throwing them in a boat, and I'm trying to put them on. I mean, when we got done, y'all, I bet we cleaned fish. This is long before electric knives now. I bet we cleaned fish for six hours on the bank of the river, and I kept looking at him and go, hey dad, they're still going. Yeah. He's like, son, we're done. We ain't going back. He goes, we got to clean these fish. And but that was one of those days that I just will never forget and really special, you know, really special.

SPEAKER_08 18:40

Yeah, that's a great thing. So it's so important when you hear your stories until you see what he's become and stuff. And so the outdoors is teaching you so many more lessons than you know, just whatever you caught or killed or whatever. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 18:53

And memories with your dad like that, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_05 18:54

Oh, yeah. Those white bass are fun to catch. I've I've done it one time uh at Lake Yucatan on the Mississippi River. Yeah, and they just go nuts when you're in them.

SPEAKER_04 19:05

And again, we we didn't know any better. Like those fish taste as good as any f other fish you might think of today that's a great tasting fish to us. Man, that was caviar. That was the best fish you could eat. Fried.

SPEAKER_08 19:19

I wouldn't have thought of catching a fish we didn't, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

No, that's what it was about.

SPEAKER_08 19:24

We scaled them most of the time. We didn't get into flay until a little bit later when I was a game. We scaled them all. I wouldn't think, man. I couldn't wait to take something home and clean it, you know, and eat it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:33

So, Dudley, why don't you let's let's why don't you ask me rapid fires? Let's get to them a little bit better. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 19:37

All right.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

So brought to you by our friends. Nutrient solution. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 19:42

Yeah, I'm gonna ask you a few questions just for fun, but uh trying to get to know you better. Okay. All right. So uh Bobby even threw in a question. Um Are you ready? Name the first football, tailgate, or baseball game food that comes to mind. Frisky. How long have you been chasing turkeys? Thirty plus years. What style of call do you use the most? Uh diaphragm and a slate. Uh NIT or NCAA? Shoot. Next.

SPEAKER_06 20:20

Oh my goodness. I happen to be an Auburn person, but I can't get any love at an Auburn's NIT uh love victory. No.

SPEAKER_05 20:28

What gauge are you using on turkeys these days?

SPEAKER_04 23:38

I need to change, but I'm still shooting a 12. But it was a brand today. It was a brand new gun. It's the first turkey I've killed with it.

SPEAKER_05 23:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 23:45

Yeah, an over and under um, is it what is it the American um Yes. Yes. American arms. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:53

Yeah, those are cool. You could like put a tight choke on one and like a modified it's a very light gun. Uh do you travel much to hunt or mainly stick with Mississippian, Texas? Uh pretty much Mississippi and Texas.

SPEAKER_04 24:08

I've killed turkeys in this year, I've killed two in Virginia. And um, I used to go to Kansas every year, but I don't I don't haven't been in a while. But most of my hunting is in Texas or Mississippi. Okay. Uh what was the very first team you ever coached? The well, probably the first team I ever coached was an an AAU team. Um in in when I was in college, the first job I had was coaching the freshman boys basketball team at Millby High School in Houston, Texas. Wow. Okay. It's the oldest high school in the city, but I'm the first freshman coach they ever had. Okay. Figure that one out.

SPEAKER_05 24:49

Yeah. Didn't even know that existed. Yeah. Name an eating establishment around here that you miss frequenting. Ooh. Or a couple.

SPEAKER_04 25:00

Yeah. Um you know, my good friend Frank. Jones on the veranda and uh we we enjoyed going up there together.

SPEAKER_08 25:10

Uh it's taste now.

SPEAKER_04 25:11

Yeah, it's taste now, and and I enjoy going up there um with Mr. uh to see Mr. Fran uh Fant.

SPEAKER_05 25:20

Um Craig went to high school with him. Yeah. Uh well, what about a spot in Austin?

SPEAKER_04 25:28

Um you know the Capitol Grill is kind of my spot downtown. I like going there. Um and it it's just I like the atmosphere more than anything. Where we're at my table that we usually get in there, just it's just comfortable.

SPEAKER_05 25:44

I'll have to try that next time I go. Yeah. Uh do you have a favorite movie?

SPEAKER_04 25:50

Uh yes. Uh uh, I have a so I have a couple. My wife would tell you that I've watched Top Gun a million times. Okay. And Top Gun Maverick a million times. Okay. And that's probably close. Aaron Brockovich is one of my favorite movies as well. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:11

Uh have you had more turkey success early morning or late morning?

SPEAKER_04 26:16

Um, probably late morning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:18

And even a little bit late early afternoon. Okay. And uh I won't tell anybody, but uh last but not least, have you ever looked at your game camera picks during a game? Uh no.

SPEAKER_07 26:32

Good answer.

SPEAKER_08 26:36

That there was only one answer to the game. Yeah. You should have just asked him what's the shortest amount of time when a game was over that you looked at them. Yeah. And then you might have gotten a good strange. Might have gotten an honest answer there. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 26:53

So when you're do you draw any parallels between hunting and coaching that just kind of come to mind? That I mean, discipline seems like something that just runs through you and stands out. And you got to be disciplined to be a hunter for sure.

SPEAKER_04 27:08

Yeah, I think what just what I said earlier, and I I didn't mean to sound the way I sounded it, but it's just I'm I I'm real thorough in scouting. You know, our opponents. I spent a lot of time watching film. Um I know what they're gonna do and how they're gonna do it. My team, my biggest fear is my team coming over to me in a timeout and going, hey coach, we hadn't been through that. We didn't what are they doing? We hadn't gone through that. Uh I feel like I'm um uh very thorough in um in doing my homework. And the same's true when I go fishing and hunting. What I was saying earlier, I I feel like, and and that's what's hard about coming to Mississippi and turkey hunting is that I'm not able to scout. I have to rely on somebody else a lot of times and trust them. But normally, you know, if I was here, I'd be doing it. And uh and and so when I go fishing, I know when the major is that day, I know when the minor is that day. Um doesn't mean I'm not gonna fish the rest of the day, but at least I know at that time I want to be where I think they're gonna be. You know, if the major's from 1230 to 3, I'm gonna be in the spot that I feel like that's where they're gonna be, and they're gonna be that's where I think the parallel. And then again, as a kid, I sat on that dock for hours and never caught a fish. It never deterred me. Wow. I just stayed after it, you know, and because that's where I was that was my happy place as a 10-year-old, 11-year-old, 12-year-old. It didn't matter. Um and even today, when you go fishing and you go hunting, I might throw you might throw 500 times before you catch that 30-inch, you know, speckled trout, like I was telling you at lunch. Which I saw a picture of. I thought it was a salmon. It's a giant speckle trout. Uh before or before you find you you find them, right? You know, and and so you just you gotta stay after it. And I guess what I said earlier probably more pertains to my son. He's more of a killer. I I will go fish all day, and if I catch three, I'm fine. I will hunt all day, and if I don't kill anything, I don't kill anything. But I was out there, I was in amongst them. I'm good with that. He's gonna be the one that if I call and say, Hey, Bub, you want to meet me down in Port O'Connor? I'm down here now, we had a good day. Well, how many did y'all catch?

SPEAKER_03 29:41

I can relate to that.

SPEAKER_04 29:42

And then, and you know, if I tell him, hey, it was it was really good, he'll go, okay, I'll come. Or if I tell him, yeah, it was it was tough today, you know, but we feel like tomorrow's gonna be a better day, wind's gonna lay. He's probably call me tomorrow and let me know how you did. Yeah, you know, he he wants to go catching, he don't want to go fishing. You know, if I tell you, hey, we're gonna go dove hunting, he's gonna go, what kind of field they got? You know, he he wants to go killing, he don't want to go hunting. So, and that's okay. Oh, yeah. Because I've spoiled him, quite frankly.

SPEAKER_08 30:13

Not only that, but you also taught him the value of a scouting report. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

Well, I think, yeah, when he's talking about, I just think we talk about it all the time. MRI, what's the most recent information? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_08 30:24

Even with the cameras out, the the the most definitive scouting report is MRI. MRI.

SPEAKER_06 30:30

So with the way your seasons fall, though, uh it uh it's gotta be tough to for you to find a chance to get away to hunt uh until after it's over with, I suppose.

SPEAKER_04 30:38

But deer season is probably tough. I I hate to say this on on public network, but I don't I I it's it's fine. My law, my rule this year, and I'm not as young as I used to be, and my cardiologist is here in in Startwell. And uh I kind of get I get looked at every year, and and he tells me to stop wasting his time when I come in there because he says I'm in great shape. But uh he told me this last this time last year, he said, Coach, you're you're not as young as you used to be. He said, You need to be, I know you, you're in that grind for seven months and and you're working seven days a week, and even when the kids have a day off, because you have to give them a day off. He said, I want you to take a day off. And I said, Well, I do. I take a day off. He goes, No, you go to the office still. I go, Yeah, I do. He goes, I don't want you going to the office. So this year, it's the first time if we went on Sunday, I fish on Monday. And we won every Sunday in January and February, except one. And we won every Sunday in December and November. So for the first time in my life, when we'd get finished playing on Sunday, I drove three hours from my place in Port O'Connor and I was fishing on Monday, chasing the trout and the redfish, and it was I've never fished that time of year. There's nobody around, there's no competition, there's no boat traffic, and the fish like to eat. Hey. And so I had a great, I had a great, great year. I mean, not just with my team, but taking that day and getting out of the office. Breathe, my wife will tell you, as soon as I can breathe that salt there, my blood pressure comes down way.

SPEAKER_08 32:34

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 32:35

You know, and so just just just making myself do that. Uh, I think it really added value to me as a coach as well as as a as a person. Like I just needed that. And uh, and so I did that this year. And um dove season f falls in September, so I can hunt doves. We were talking about that in lunch. Dove season's fine, it doesn't bother me. Uh it's the duck season that I love, and I have a great dog. But again, on Monday, there was lots of days that I blasted and casted. And so, and we had a great duck season in Texas this year down on the coast. Lots of pentails, wigeon, gadwal, um, teal. I mean, that was our bag a bunch of days and limits every day, just about. And so I just made myself do it. And it didn't, we still won 35 games. And, you know, somebody wants to say, well, you would have won 37, okay. But I would disagree. But I just again, I think you got to do it. I feel like I have to do it in my line of work. Um I I and again, my doctor prescribed it, so I'm just doing what the doctor said.

SPEAKER_06 33:53

It's gotta be stressful. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 33:55

What you're doing, it's gotta be stressful. You know, that's a his that's a testimony you just gave us, you know. And there's obviously there's it one more important testimony there, because he is a great man of faith, too. But we talk about in one of the basic underpinnings of our brand, and people here is and you hear me rant and rant rant about stuff, it's time. Don't waste time, you know, in spending quality time, because no matter who you are, you can't get time back. And so I think that's a great testimony to that because here he is doing his top, top flight job in his craft, in his career. I mean, on a global basis, national basis. But yet I it's making him better, and he's living, I mean, he's living the life of championship basketball at the same time he's getting to enjoy what his passion is too. So I think it's so important to have some balance. I just the people that have to throw everything they love under the bus for their career is a little sad for me. And I know you see it, it's so much pressure on coaches these days. I couldn't imagine. How can you I mean, how can you you know you're better for having done that? No question about it. Because it's just face it, not to make excuses. He's just like one one little streak of bad luck, it kept him from be wearing a ring right now. Because he had a he, I mean, arguably, you know, really good team. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 37:17

Really, really good and really yeah, and picked a bad night to play bad.

SPEAKER_04 37:21

That's right. You know, exactly. But and you know, uh again, it's it's just uh I what he said about sacrificing, like when I was an assistant and my kids were growing up, man, I I did miss some things. And one of the reasons that I took the Mississippi State job was because I was gonna be the head coach and I could say if I'm gonna miss my daughter playing in a high school game or I'm gonna miss my son playing a baseball game, which I wasn't gonna do. Right. But I had to do it as the assistant. If the boss said you got to go here or we were leaving to go there, you had to do it. But once we came here, I didn't miss too many of those because you just don't get them back. And we still I'm so lucky, y'all. I got twins that are 30. My daughter's on my coaching staff, my son's right there in town with me. We still have dinner together as a family, and they both like to go on vacation with their mom and daddy. That's so stupid.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

That's pretty solid right there.

SPEAKER_04 38:22

That's uh that's a really cool thing, you know. We're all going to Costa Rica on Monday together, and um, you know, that that's a piece for me that I'm really proud of.

SPEAKER_08 38:33

So of Mr. Fox's them. And I'm trying to quote them all again now because I took it for granted, some maybe I was benefiting from it, but you just reminded me of one of his favorites when he would see all of us with him. And not much was said, but he had a little smile on his face and said, What's up, Mr. Fox, or what's up, Daddy? He said, Nothing much better than having all your chickens tucked under one wing, son. That's right. And so that reminded me of it exactly what you just described. There's really not much better for me for sure. Nope. I guarantee you for y'all.

SPEAKER_06 39:03

I it it's amazing to me that to hear you say that about uh, you know, a Monday, because I I would just picture it being a pressure, if you let it be, it could be such a pressure cooker, and you found an escape valve. And I love hearing you say that your blood pressure drops when you smell that salt water. I mean, whether it's turkey hunting or deer hunting or or fishing, it it's it does something to people if they allow it to.

SPEAKER_04 39:30

Well, even when I go to the bow blind, I'm taking my computer and I'm watching game film. I've got a tablet with me. I'm an old school guy, so I'm writing down all the notes on a tablet. I don't really go to kill anything, to be honest with y'all. I like getting close, you know, and to have those deer in there close and tight, that's enough for me. I mean, I can't tell you. Last time I killed anything with a rifle, I think we were talking about maybe that maybe that elk that I killed, you know, several, several, several years ago. But other than that, I take a bow if I'm going to the woods in deer season, but I'm also taking my computer because I'm in a bow box and they can't see me. And um, you know, I'm working as much as I am. But still, when you can look up from that screen and look out there and you can see deer 10, 15, 20 yards from you, and they don't know you're there, there's some there's some value to that. Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Lane, you got a question? Uh, you know, just interesting to learn more about um, you know, your I guess the the coaching uh aspect of things. And did you play basketball when you were young? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:39

I played um in high school, I was uh football, basketball, baseball player. I was probably bet a much better baseball player than I was um football or basketball, and probably could have played it longer in college, but I loved basketball and I played two years of junior college basketball. I ran out of ability really quick, y'all. And uh and height probably could never had that. And uh so, you know, my dad told me, you know, when I was trying to go through all these is son, five, ten guards are a dime a dozen. And I didn't realize it until, you know, you go to junior college and there's 17 of you, and it was just a real humbling experience for a guy that thought he was pretty good, he was all state and thought he was all that in a bag of beans. And the truth of the matter was I was number 17 out of 17.

SPEAKER_07 41:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 41:34

And um, you know, and and and still competed the best I could and and hung in there, played two years, but man, I ran out of ability really quick. And so now all of a sudden you have that yanked away from you. You go to college and you know, now what do you do? You know, and that was that was hard. But God had a different plan. That's right. And uh, and so, you know, uh, but yeah, I played it. Uh and you know, in coaching, my career could have gone way different. Um, because when I got out of college, I graduated in December, and um a lot of people don't know this, but I was a I was a baseball umpire. I umpired a lot of college games. I had all the big high school games in the city. I loved it, was passionate about it too. And um uh Joe Brinkman uh has an umpiring school in Florida, and uh I knew a guy that was American League Umpire named Mike Riley, and Mike called me and said, Coach, they're gonna take 11 guys this spring from Brinkman's umpiring school, and they want guys with degrees, and you've got one. He said, I think you can make it. And uh I just met my wife, we had just got married, and uh I told Holly, I said, Holly, I think I'm gonna quit coaching. I'm gonna I'll go I'll I'll move to Arkansas and I'll help your daddy check cattle for four or five months, and uh, and then I'm gonna go to Brinkman's umpiring school. And uh she she looked at me and and she was a coach herself at the time and uh her daddy got wind of it. And uh they lived on a on a street called Muddy Lane in rural uh northeast Arkansas in a one blinking yellow light town, and he was the superintendent of schools for 30 years. He got up in the winter and drove the roads at four in the morning to see if the buses could go to pick up the kids. Wow, but he was also the superintendent. Well, he drugged me out on muddy lane one night, and he said, Vic, I hear you want to go be an umpire. He said, Uh you thought about that? I said, Oh yes, sir. I'm I think I'm I'm good enough, I'm ready, I've been wanting to do this. He said, Man, he said, I really want you to think about that. He said, I think you like coaching. He said, and uh here's what I think. He said, I think you like coaching, and you're gonna find out that you're gonna miss coaching and you're not gonna be happy. He said, and if you're not happy, he said, my daughter's not gonna be happy.

SPEAKER_08 44:38

Wait, the last part of that is, and if mama ain't happy, nobody's happy.

SPEAKER_04 44:42

And so that that conversation walking down muddy lane and it was muddy that night, uh I changed my mind, you know. And and and so then getting out of college, my my choices, I could have easily ended up being a football coach, but I really wanted to coach basketball, and the only job that I was offered was the least paying. Uh and but it allowed me to do that, and um, and so uh that's what I chose to do. But I turned down two really good high school jobs, but my first sport would have been football. And you know why I didn't take it? Because football coaches got to work on Saturday in September, and I won't die. There we go. Wow, how about that? I'm telling you, that's a truth. That's the truth now. I knew if I was coaching football and I had to go up there on a Saturday and work half a day, that's gonna affect my dove hunting.

SPEAKER_08 45:41

One of our dear friends passed away now. That reminds me of his story because, and I won't get these numbers exactly right, but uh Bill Robertson turned down, you know, he was a starter over Terry Bradshaw and in college. And so, and it's and again, out there, I may not have the numbers right, but it was like he turned down a 75 or 90,000, something like that, pro offer to take like seven or eight thousand dollars of coaching, I mean, and uh teaching, so he could duck hunt every day.

SPEAKER_06 46:15

That's making a good decision.

SPEAKER_08 46:17

Yeah, yeah. Worked out pretty good. Worked out pretty good.

SPEAKER_06 46:21

Remember that from the video. Richie, uh uh, you had you said you had a question?

SPEAKER_01 46:25

Yeah, sure. Uh so y'all talked a little bit earlier about your season this year, you know, it was uh final four, 35 and 4, uh 20 and oh at home. But can you talk about in here at Mississippi State in 2017 and breaking Yukon's 111 win streak?

SPEAKER_04 46:41

Yeah, you know, I can get pretty emotional about uh my time at state. Um, you know, you you build something um with your bare hands from the ground up, and um you know it's a it's a it's a great lesson in that sometimes it takes a ticket or a bad experience to allow you the opportunity at a ticket for a great experience. And you know, beating UConn in 17 in the final four on the biggest stage in my industry, they'd won 111 straight, but 365 days before that we went to Bridgeport, Connecticut, and got beat 60 in the sweet 16. 60. You try eating a piece of that humble pie.

SPEAKER_08 47:34

Yeah, but it was like largely the same personnel on both sides a year later.

SPEAKER_04 47:39

That's right. But so you go to that year, we win a we win a second round game here at home against Michigan State, and just an incredible that really kind of started the whole atmosphere and and selling out the place. I think to this day we still have the top 20 attendance records in the building for what it doesn't matter, what it is concert, men, women's basketball, it doesn't matter. But when we when we went up there, y'all, UConn's team was the best team and still is to this day in the history of women's college basketball. So I'm I'm I'm I'm reading my team the story of David and Goliath, the slingshot and the pebbles.

SPEAKER_07 48:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 48:32

I'm showing a miracle on ice, you know, the US hockey team beating the Russians. Like I'm trying to give my kids hope because they are a monster. And we go up there and it's 32 to 4 at the end of the first quarter. And I can remember walking off that floor and Scott Strickland my ADs in the hallway, and I'm I looked at him and I I just said, Man, I am so sorry. Uh and And he said, Hey, you don't apologize for anything. He said, You're gonna get this opportunity again, you'll be back. And so three hundred and sixty-five days later, you get the same opportunity against the same team on the biggest stage in the game. And you go in there and we had them down like 16 in the first half. Like I don't think they knew what hit them. People in the stands didn't know what hit them. And then you go to the second half and they made their run, and we got down four. And we ran a sideline out of bounds play, and Victoria Vivians from over here at Scott Central hits a big three to get it to one. And then we get the lead, and then the referees tried to take it from us. And uh we we weather that storm, we go to overtime, and we beat them in overtime on on Morgan Williams shot. We and so here's what people don't really realize. We were the second game, that game, our game started late. Our game was over almost at midnight. By the time we did media and got them back, when we walked into the lobby of the Lowe's Anatole Hotel, there were 5,000 people waiting on my kids, and most of them bulldogs. I mean, our fan base was so passionate, so good. I mean, those people, that wasn't my team, it was their team. I called them the people's team.

SPEAKER_07 50:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 50:47

And when we went in that, when we walked in there, like that place erupted. And I'm like, guys, y'all gotta quiet down. There's people trying to sleep in here. But really, there weren't. Even if you weren't a Mississippi State fan or a basketball, you just knew something special was going on. And when our kids walked in that lobby, that place erupted. And so my kids didn't, we didn't get back to the hotel until 1 30. So let's just say they didn't go to bed till three. South Carolina's been in bed since nine. And and so we have to get up the next day and and we had tons of stuff to do. It's the first time I'd ever been there as a head coach, certainly first time my kids had been there. And then I think we played on Sunday at noon, and we just didn't seem to have much left. But if you go back and ask people who won a national championship in 2017, they might not be able to tell you who won it, but they can probably tell you who won the semifinal game and who beat Connecticut. And you know, it it took a ticket getting beat sixty to get that ticket to go win that final four game and beat Connecticut. And you had to go through this to be able to get through this. And and that's the way life is sometimes. You know, you you gotta get that raff rough patch, you gotta get through that rough patch before you can go experience the the other piece. And that team was man, they were special, you know. Uh and then we go and do it again the next year, you know. We go back and um man, that team was really good. And we go 37-2 that year, and uh so we were 34 and 5, then 37-2. But the best team, y'all, I ever had at Mississippi State was the next team. So back to back, we play for the national championship back-to-back years. That second year, Notre Dame throws it in off the glass from 35 feet with three seconds left to beat us, and we were up 11 and a half. Well, then the next year, that team is 33-3, and they're a one-seed. But just like in anything with the NCAA tournament, two things are key. You got to get hot and you got to have a little luck. We were unlucky in that we were the one seed that got sent to Oregon to play Oregon, and they were the two seed, and we had to play in front of 13,000 ducks, got beat 88-84 because we couldn't guard pick and roll. That was my best team. There's no doubt in my mind that team would have won the national championship. Tiara McCown was a monster. She was two-time first team All-Americans, 6'6, 6'7. Um, I just had a really there was a really, really good team, and um we just got unlucky. But all of our time from building that thing to the ground up to selling 6,500 season tickets to having to move season ticket holders to the second deck because the students wanted more seats down low in the student section. Um just really, it's really a special time. You know, I just I say it all the time, it's the best eight years of our life for the Schaefer family. My kids are graduates of Startville High, they're graduates of Mississippi State. Obviously, my daughter played for me at state, um, was on the all-defensive team in the Southeastern Conference, took 90 charges in her career, which means she probably got trucked about 200 times, um, all five, five of her. But, you know, just such a such a special time, and we developed so many special relationships, not just with state fans, but with everybody. I mean, Ole Miss fans would tell me if I saw them on the road, hey coach, I'm from I'm from Ole Miss, but just want you to know, really appreciate what you've done for our state. And and for me, I was saying this earlier. There's so many special parts of this state. I love going to the coast. I love going down there. I trout, you know, I'd go down there, trout fish down in in Biloxi and Gulfport and and Pass Christian. Uh, I love the Delta. I've got my special farmers down there that are just so good and and they've been so loyal. Um, you know, and I love love love those folks. Uh love the people up in Olive Branch and and those folks, I mean, there's just I can go on and on and on, but there's just so many special, special people. And again, I I even coming back now, I just I run into people all the time, and they don't forget, and they're appreciative just as much as I'm appreciative of my time here. Um, and that's why I'll come back here when I'm done and I hang it up. I'll be at the farm and hopefully I get to see you guys a lot more.

SPEAKER_02 57:50

And I'm like Bobby's gonna be out there.

SPEAKER_08 57:53

Uh you know, you're gonna see Bobby a lot more if you get him, you let him fish.

SPEAKER_06 57:58

Let's let's talk about this farm a little bit. That but that story I got challenged during the yeah.

SPEAKER_08 58:04

Just real quick about the time thing is that you know, that moment when they beat UConn, and then of course it was disappointing, you know, because you're looking for the results of that, you know, that the whatever the national championship, the accolades, the accomplishment of doing your career and all. But the the one thing listening to it would teach you is like, because I've said a lot of times, first of all, it's like um jobs come and go, businesses come and go. We've be friends with someone in the industry, they work somewhere, they gotta let go, or they move on to another company, or you know, whatever happens. But friendships can never be taken away, regardless. And also, which is this is a great testimony here, um, because of the person he is, much more than even the coach. But those special moments are honestly not measured by the results. There's no way if they'd have won the national championship, it'd be any more special of a moment than what he described in the middle of the night in that hotel. So, you know, and the thing about it, no matter what happens, no one can ever take that away from him, or our fans here. So that's something to always be sure you keep in mind because what the the world will make you to focus on the bad part or the negative part of stuff. And that's the great thing about hunting and fishing, and I always said too, is those memories, those moments can never be taken away. And there's nothing like the relationships you build over. I mean, our bond isn't about because of I went to state and he was, you know, the greatest coach we ever had there. It's because there's a common love of the outdoors that builds that bond. So I just to get off my soapbox about it, it's so important to us to get that out to people. You know, it's good work. Because I mean you just you're robbing yourself if you're not experiencing the great outdoors. You just are.

SPEAKER_06 59:57

True. So tell us about this farm and what you're doing on it and what you hope to do. Yeah, the the activities.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:05

Telling them at lunch today, I I uh, you know, I was we had we were we had lived in town in Sherwood Forest, had a great place, but the kids had graduated and and I told Holly, I go, God, I gotta get out of here. Like I gotta get out of town. And of course, you're talking about Starval, it's not like it's a big city like I live in now. And uh, but it was and it was a great neighborhood, but I was like, I I really want my own place. I want my own land. Um, you know, I had finally gotten to a place where maybe I could afford to um buy something. I didn't know what it would be, but something. And I said, you know, if we can find the right place, maybe we can build us a home. And um, and so uh I'd played golf out at Old Waverly on a Friday, got done playing at five o'clock and was sitting in in in the in the in there uh with with they were we were divvying up who had won and lost, and phone rang and Holly said, Hey, what are you doing? I said, Well, I just finished playing golf. I'm I'm headed home, I'll take, we'll go to dinner, we'll go out and have dinner. And she said, Well, I want you to stop by and look at this place. We'd looked at a couple of places, and I go, No, I'm not doing it. I go, I'm tired. I played golf. I go, it's hot today. I said, I'm gonna come home and take a shower and we'll go to dinner. I'll look at it some other time. She goes, No, I want you to stop by here and look at it. Just stop, I go, honey, I'm not doing it. Like, I'm I'm tired, uh let's go to get dinner. Uh we can look at it maybe some other time. She goes, just stop. It's on the way home. So, you know how you do. So I gave in. I'm like, okay. So I drive down 182 and I pull in off 182, and uh all you can see is that lake that sits way off the road, those trees that are round it, and I didn't have to drive 10 feet off the hot pavement. And I got out and I looked at her, I said, This is it. And uh and the uh the realtor was a friend of ours, and and uh he said uh it's going on the market Monday. I said, No, it ain't and uh and so uh I I talked to uh I talked talked to the to the owner and then talked to his daughter. So the history was uh a man and his wife had lived there since the house had been there since 53. It smelled like granny's house, um you know, real moist, mildewy, you know, type. Sure. Um when you walked out on the pier on the lake, there was the remnants of a wreath, like a spray. And um come to find out his wife had passed away a year before and her ashes were in the lake. And uh this guy was 89 and it just got away from him. He couldn't keep up with it. And it was 80 acres, and uh the lake is 20 acres, and um, you know, the house had been there forever, and uh so um we uh uh uh I had some heart to hearts with him. Uh I think he had in retrospect, you know, he had had an opportunity multiple times to sell it to developers and he just wouldn't do it. And as I found out later, after I bought it from him, I called him one day and uh and uh I said Mr. Walling, um okay, I bought it from you. Tell me where the bodies are buried, tell me everything about it. And he said, Well, he said, before I do that, I got one request. I said, sure, what is it? And he said, I raised my kids on that lake. I swam around that island three times a day as a young man. He said, I built that lake. It took me seven years to dig that lake and two two-inch rains to fill it. He said, I moved that creek over. It used to run right down the middle of that lake. I moved it over to where it is now. He said, uh, but my wife's ashes are in that lake. Wow. He said, I have one request. When I die, you gotta put my ashes in that lake. And I said, Well, Mr. Walling, that ain't no problem. Am I coming to get them? Are you having somebody deliver? And he said, Well, I think my daughter will bring them to you. And so um, you know, we he had two barns in the back that were just you couldn't even walk in them. He was a hoarder. He had anything and everything you could possibly think of. He had a cockpit of a P-51 back there. But he had two mobile homes that were all grown up over. He had like a 34-foot boat that he was going to use as decoration in the lake that was grown up, you know, just shrubs and trees and everything grown up over it. Supposedly at one time there was a there was a 65 Corvette buried in there somewhere, but somehow it disappeared. And there was like three or four big pieces of equipment, excavator, you know, big uh just big that were dead. And so the only thing I told the daughter when when we were making the deal is I said, you gotta get that crap out of there. Like you gotta, y'all gotta get somebody to come get all that. And they and they did. But my wife saved all the barn wood and we used it in the house. Wow, we've used it for backsplashing in some bar area, kitchen area. Uh there was a copper top to the fireplace uh on top of the roof. We took that off. We've used that for part of the um uh of our stove above our stove, and then we used it on the outside and the outdoor kitchen stove.

unknown 1:06:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:05

But here's the funny thing. So we buy the place and it's it's September, and I've had this conversation with hi. I'm like, hey, now season's fixing a start, kids are out of the house, we can build us a nice, real comfortable, you know, three, four bedroom, about 2,500 square feet, you know, have a little outdoor kitchen area, and I said it'd be really nice. We go through the season. By the time I get to her in April, it's 6,600 square feet. 20, 2,200 feet of covered porch and outdoor kitchen.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:42

Perfect. Living just right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:45

So, you know, it's it's our dream home. And uh, you know, um Mr. Mr. Walling's been out to see it and he just cried, you know. And one of the things I promised him was that I would never sell it to a developer. I would never sell it. I've told my wife, you can bury me here. Like I'm I'm good. This is where I want to be.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:06

The land.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:07

But I I told him I would never ever sell it. Uh, I would respect it and use it with my family just like he used it with his son and daughter, and then their grandkids. Um, you know, I would I would treat it the same way. And you know, he told me, he goes, Coach, I could have sold this place for a whole lot more and I sold it to you. But you promised me you would you would uh you would do use it like I did, and he said, and that means that means more to me than anything. And so that's what that's what we've done. And we built our dream home. We never got to live in it. Uh by the time it got finished, is when I took the job to go to Texas. And uh, you know, uh, but we still come back and uh we've spent Christmases here. Oh wow. And uh that's cool. So, you know, it's just a it's a really special place. And I told him that today at at lunch, my AD asked me, you know, he goes, Hey Vic, do you ever sell that place in Mississippi? I go, Oh no, I'm I'm not sold that. And he goes, Well now, what are you gonna do there? He goes, Nobody retires and moves to Mississippi. And I said, Well, you look if that's the case, you're looking at the first dude that's going to because that's where my butt's gonna be. I think whatever I'm doing. I think you're making nervous, I think. So anyway, it it's just I'm telling y'all, anybody that goes in there and and you sit up on that porch, it could be August and 110. It is as comfortable and cool up on that breezeway as anytime, anything, and you look down over that lake and you'd swear you're looking at the Colorado River just easing by. It's just the most beautiful place, and it's got so much character to it. My wife, so my wife went to a uh what do you call the places that have the trees that you're gonna cut them up? Lumber mill. Yeah, well, she went to the place that had the tree, got with the guy, and and picked out the tree that we have two bars, one inside and one outside. Wow. And she picked out the tree that he cut that bar out of, and both of them have a knot hole where they have a hole in the in the in that tree that they've cut out. And uh she picked out the tree, and uh, that's the bar on the outside in the outdoor kitchen and the inside. And uh there's just a lot of character that we kept in as part of that house. And uh so it's just a it's an amazing place. That's all I can say. And you know, I told my wife when I flew out last night, I said, now look, if I kill a turkey early, I may come back uh early. Because right now I'm not supposed to go back till Sunday. Uh and uh said, I may come back uh early. And I killed that turkey this morning. I thought, okay, where can I hunt tomorrow?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:02

One more. I got I got a place to stay. I mean, I just you know I mean and they extended the season for you. I mean, you got this weekend too.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:11

You know, you just don't want to leave. Like I go back there today and I I'll I'll I'll enjoy my lake. Uh I'll I'll make sure all the fish feeders are filled. I'll I'll fart I'll go, I'll go over here to is it Mike's store over here about 50 and get me some crickets and and see what my bluegill size is. And you know, I just what are you doing to manage your lake? All right. So I got a guy that kind of helps me with that. It you know, he tells me I need to be taking those those little bass out. And you know, I'll I'll catch one that's like pound, pound and a half. I'm thinking, hey, they're getting bigger.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:46

He wants me to take them out of there, and I'm like, golly, you gotta do it, do it, you know. I'll be able to do it for you.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:53

It's hard, but it you gotta get it. I know, I know. And uh what are they chopping out at? So I'll do I'll do that. I've got some You're so transparent. Yeah. I I've I've caught, you know, maybe a five. Uh, you know, I I wouldn't say I've I've caught a bunch of fives, but I'd say I've caught a few fives. And uh most of them are in that probably most of them are in that area that need to come out, to be honest with you. Yeah. And uh, but I noticed last week when I came in, the fish I caught were bigger, you know, and I thought, okay, we're getting somewhere. But he would tell me, you know, I and I'll I'll text him and go, hey man, they're they're getting bigger. He goes, take them out. They ain't big enough. Yeah, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:37

So well that sounds like a special place and a special story that you've got to go along with it.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:42

It reminds me of the Moss Hill property slogan. Find your favorite place. So he found it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:47

Yeah, and it almost takes back to your childhood. My wife loves getting into bad boy and just driving around. And I bought so since then we've had 40 acres come up next to me that joins me, and I bought it. So now it's 120. It was 80 when I bought it. Now it's 120. And uh You got trees on the 40 too. That's right. That's where the that's where the woods are. It's on your turkey back there.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:11

I know I was looking at yeah. I have I can watch those. If you got too many of those, I can help you.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:17

But you know what funny is since then I bought a 186-acre farm down in Winston County that's completely different. It's all big hardwood timber, rolling, big rolling hills. Beautiful area. Yeah, Winston County. Springs coming out of the ground. Wow. And it's bordered by the Knoxby River on one side. And but it's just completely different. It's all hardwood timber. There's white oak acre and trees that swallow all of us up standing together. I mean, it's just really in a beautiful place.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:44

We got some turkeys down there, too. There is, there is some turkeys there.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:47

Don't but don't even mark a picture of it.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:48

No, I'm I'm not, but that was that the reason for is that a hunting place that you it is.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:53

It's I have no desire to cut the timber on it. Um I don't need to.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:57

Yeah, we might talk in just some spots.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:59

Yeah to diversify. Not much. And I would love to have that expertise, you know, come down there and tell me that. But I I don't need the I don't need the the money. I don't need to cut the timber. I want it for the wildlife. And uh it's just it's just a beautiful place. I mean, it's a beautiful piece of property, and and I did. I bought it just for the wildlife.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:22

Hey, you know, my daddy, all he ever wanted to do was own some mature hardwood timber. In fact, when he bought a farm or two that was open ground, he planted hardwood timber and he reforested a bunch of stuff just because he he lived to own something that you know, even because he knew it would be good hunting either way, but he wanted to be able to go out there and sit down or go out there and drive in his truck or or ride and see his trees. That that cranked his tractor, I think Mr. Fox is more than just about anything.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:54

It's gonna be out of left field, but you got any marriage advice for anybody listening to this? At least we got a lot of young guys that listen.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:03

All I can tell you is you know you it's a give. It's it you you gotta be by you gotta be willing to give, and and uh and and for me is it from where I sit, there's a responsibility as a man to take care of your family. That's it. And it ain't easy. It's not, but it's worth it. It's everything you know and and but there's a responsibility that comes with that, and you need to wear that as as to me as as the husband, it's your responsibility, not with just with your wife, but if you have kids, at the end of the day, it's the same thing that I tell my staff, and I I try to wear as a coach, like the buck stops here, you know. Be accountable. Nobody cares about your excuses except your opponent. You got to be accountable, and uh with that comes responsibility. If you don't want the responsibility, then you might need to think twice about saying I do.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:06

Yeah, that's it. Uh you know, it's it's so valuable to have someone like you with your wisdom to come in here and sit down. There's so many directions we could go. You know, hunting is just the easy stuff we love so much, but there's so much wisdom to you they want to perceive.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:22

We need some coaching around here, right? I mean, we could use a little coaching.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:27

But when someone's been down the road and experienced so much, it is just good to listen. I know it we don't want to listen when someone sounds preachy. I don't ever want to be preachy. I'm just passionate. But uh all I'm hoping to do is like just take it for your own thing, just a little perspective. You know, and so just for me, I'll tell you, just listening to him today has given me some some the gift of some more perspective. 100%.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:55

Sure. Is it harder to coach girls than boys? I was gonna ask that.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:59

Yeah. Yeah, you know, I I I don't um I it's been so long, you know, it's been since 1989, 90. All I know is is that um, you know, y'all were talking about Nolan earlier, and you know, I haven't coached at Arkansas six years and being there with Nolan Richardson. I was on the women's side and he was in his heyday on the men's side, and that's how we play. You know, we we pride ourselves on 40 minutes of hell. We pick you up from baseline to baseline, we show you the door when we're done with you. Um, you know, and that's just that's how we play. It's amazing how it breaks teams down, though.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:37

It breaks down more than their offense when when you're so it's so smothering. Yeah. It's like what the word is for us. Not humiliating, but it's just so, you know, it just shuts the door on so much we can do that. You you watch, he talked about, you know, teams that come back and all, they largely gonna do it by shutting you down on defense, not as much as by lighting the scoreboard up.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:00

Well, you if you want to play fast and you want to be up tempo, it's hard to play fast taking the ball out of the net.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:08

So if you're not if you want to do that, you better be guarding them and making a miss. And I think that's where we pride ourselves. You're just not gonna run your pretty offense against us. You're you're not gonna be able to run your whatever you're trying to do. You're gonna have to create something. And um a lot of kids can't create. They they gotta be wide open, they gotta have their feet set, they gotta come off a pretty two-down double screen. They can't create something one-on-one. And so for us, that's kind of where we're at. We're we're not only gonna pick you up full court and and work you up the floor, but then when you get on the half court, it's not gonna be a lot of fun. You know, hopefully we're we're creating, we're putting you in a position that you just ain't comfortable with. And uh, but uh again, I think that's the the beauty of who we are and how we play the game. You know, we we say it all the time, it's not what we do, but how we do it that separates us from the rest of the country. And I'm sure that's that's uh applicable here at at Mossy Oak. I mean, it's it's it is everybody's if it was easy, everybody do it. That's a great thing. And and if if if every company was the same, well, everybody'd be top at the top, right? But it ain't it. What separates you is how you do things. I'm pretty sure they're doing the same sled drill in football at Alabama that they're doing at Tennessee, that they're doing it at Florida, that they're doing it Texas. They're all doing it. But what separates you is not what you're doing, but how you're doing it, how you're the attention to detail, the focus that you have, the energy in which you do it, that's what separates you. And again, I I think you know it's that's a fair assessment for a team, a company. Um you know, for me, if somebody describes my team as tough, physical, and aggressive, I'd probably like that. Thank you. If if they if they described Sark's football team as tough, physical, and aggressive, he'd like that. If they described our my basketball team or the baseball team, hey man, they're tough. They're physical, they're aggressive. Slosh probably like that. You know what that does? That don't say anything about your skill set. It don't say anything about your jump shot, doesn't say how fast your pitcher throws it, don't say anything about how fast your running back is or how far your quarterback can throw it. But if somebody describes your team, your company, hey man, that's a tough group right there. You know, that team's physical. That company's aggressive now, you better watch. You probably like that. And I I just think that that's for us, you know, that's in our locker room. It's on the wall. It's it's something that we hang our hat on.

SPEAKER_08 1:20:08

I'm gonna give you one more you didn't mention that I think makes it special. It separates people too, is that and you you even alluded to it a couple times. You you talked about the movies you watched ahead of time. You are, you know, and that's a good lesson for all of us. You you get what you believe. You literally, yeah, people ask me how'd I do what I did. I was like, because honestly, because I got the greatest gift, because people believed in me. They believed I could do it. And that, you know, the same way with the team, you've given your teams that belief. And in the, you know, and that starts all of the stuff you just talked about. But if you don't believe you can do it, you're not going to. No matter how hard you work. You take that belief, and the next thing you know, it's magic. And we've watched you create magic everywhere you've been.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:58

You know, the game's real fair, y'all. You get out of it, what you put into it. And the same thing's true for a company, uh, same thing's true for a marriage. Relationship. Same thing's, you know, true for friendship. It's real fair. You're gonna get out of what you put into it. If all you do is show up every day at eight and you all you haul and butt at five, your company's gonna be okay, but you ain't gonna be elite. The same thing's true for my team. If we got practice at 2 o'clock and you're showing up at 5 till to get your stretch in before we go at 2 when the buzzer sounds and we're walking out of there at 4:15 and you're out the door and you're not spending time on your shot, you're not working on your maybe playing one-on-one with a practice guy or something, you might be okay. You ain't gonna be elite. And and that's again, you know, it's just that's another thing that we really hang our hat on. It's really fair. You'll get out of it what you put into it. And that makes sense.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:00

Yeah, everything. Well, did you believe in you get in their minds that it's fair, then you also tend to eliminate the whining of if it's not fair. Because I mean, whining and complaining is not gonna do you one frazzling thing. And it doesn't matter if it's you know athletics or work or business. And so when you you you make them understand that it's fair, honestly, and it's up to you, then you look, you know, if there's something to blame, you just look at yourself, not everybody else. Sure. And the only way you're gonna help yourself is by working harder. Comparison is a thief of joy.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:33

Big time. Well, you got you got quite a smile, you got a twinkle in your eye. You and I I see now why you're so successful. It doesn't take long to it's just it it really does. Something special right there. So, I can't believe he knocked the NIT though. No, he didn't even answer the question. Yeah, he refused to deserve no response. But anyway, it's just been great. Why don't you say goodbye, Dudley? Goodbye, Dudley. Get us out of here, Richie.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:59

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Game Keeper Podcast. And be sure to tune in again. Subscribe to Game Keeper Farming for Wildlife magazine, and don't miss the Mafio Company's Fistful of Dirt Podcast with my good buddy, Ronnie Costa.