BeTempered Episode 111 – Beyond Wins and Losses with Coach Mark Hoffman

There are coaches who win games, and there are coaches who change lives. Mark Hoffman spent 46 years doing both, but ask the people who know him best and they’ll tell you the scoreboard was never the point. From small-town football fields to classrooms and communities across Ohio, Coach Hoff built a reputation for demanding excellence while never losing sight of the person behind the player.

Hosts Dan Schmidt, Ben Spahr, and special guest host Shawn Ruebush sit down with Coach Hoff to explore the lessons that shaped him long before he became one of the most respected coaches in the region. He shares stories from his upbringing, the family values that became his foundation, the mentors who influenced his path, and the experiences that formed his approach to leadership, discipline, and service.

The conversation goes far beyond football. Mark reflects on coaching at 12 different schools, adapting to changing generations, and why standards still matter in a world that often looks for shortcuts. He also opens up about helping students facing difficult circumstances, advocating for kids who needed someone in their corner, and the responsibility adults have to notice what others miss.

At the heart of the episode is Coach Hoff's simple but powerful mission for every player he coached: be a good citizen, be a good man, and be a good dad. It's a philosophy that reaches far beyond sports and offers a blueprint for building stronger families, teams, and communities.

Learn more at betempered.com

Support the show at patreon.com/betempered

Transcript

Patreon And The Be Tempered Mission

SPEAKER_06 0:30

Encouragement and some things I don't always put out on other platforms. And if you feel called to support the mission financially, there are different levels where you can do that too. That support helps us keep producing the podcasts, creating gear, hosting events, and sharing stories that we believe can truly impact lives. And here's the cool part Patreon has a free app you can download right on your phone. It works just like Facebook or Instagram, but it's built specifically for our community. You'll be able to scroll through posts, watch videos, listen to content, and interact with others who are on the same journey. At the end of the day, this isn't just about content, it's about connection. It's about building something together. Not just me and then putting out episodes, but a family of people committed to growing stronger through real stories and real faith. So whether you just want to hop on as a free member or you feel called to support in a bigger way, Patreon is the door into that community. Because at the heart of Be Tempered has always been simple. Real stories, real truth, resilient faith, so that even one person out there that hears what they need to hear, and Patreon helps make that possible.

Welcome And Why Coach Hoff

SPEAKER_07 1:39

Welcome to the Be Tempered Podcast, where we explore the art of finding balance in a chaotic world.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

Join us as we delve into insightful conversations, practical tips, and inspiring stories to help you navigate life's ups and downs with grace and resilience.

SPEAKER_07 1:53

We're your host, Dan Schmidt, and Spar. Let's embark on a journey to live our best lives.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

This is Be Tempered.

SPEAKER_07 2:00

What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Be Tempered Podcast, episode number 111. 111. 111. It was hard for me to remember, but I pulled it through. Hey, today is a special day for me because I get the opportunity to sit down with a man who helped shape a big part of who I am. If you grew up around football in Western Ohio, there's a good chance you've heard the name Coach Mark Hoffman. He's coached in multiple schools throughout Ohio and beyond, spent decades in education, and recently retired from teaching. But if you ask me, his greatest accomplishment isn't measured in wins, losses, or championships. It's measured in people. Coach Hoff was my offensive and defensive line coach at National Trail. If you've ever met him, you know he's hard to miss. He's got a presence about him. He's loud. He's energetic. He's passionate. At times, he can be intimidating. But underneath all of that is a man who genuinely cares about kids. As a young athlete, I thought Coach Hoff's job was to make us better football players. Looking back now, I realize his real mission was much bigger than that. He was teaching us how to be men, how to work, how to persevere, how to care about the people around us, how to show up for our teammates, how to handle adversity when life doesn't go according to plan. Everybody wants to win games. Coach Hoffman wanted to win people. One of the things I always remember about is his ability to bring humor into difficult moments. I'll never forget the middle of a brutal August practice, junior year high school. It was 95 degrees out. It was hot, it was humid. We were exhausted. Coach Hoff could somehow convince you he felt a cool breeze coming off the lake that didn't exist. He had a gift for turning struggle into laughter and pain into perspective. He can make you smile while pushing you harder than you thought you could go. As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate that gift even more. Today we're going to talk about his journey, his career, his coaching philosophy, the challenges he's faced, the moments that shaped him, and why sometimes life requires us to make difficult changes and walk a different path than we originally planned. Most importantly, we're going to hear the story behind the man who's invested so much of himself into the lives of young people. Coach Hoff, thank you for the impact you've had on me, the countless athletes, and so many in our communities throughout the year. It's truly an honor to have you here today.

The Hoffman Code And Roots

SPEAKER_01 4:58

I'm the one who should be honored because uh you turn you guys turned out to be pretty good men. Um I'm just I'm just a guy that, you know, I grew up, I grew up, my family was tough. Um my dad crawled up out of the West Virginia coal mines because my great-grandfather, a huge blacksmith. I'm the midget. I'm the small guy in the Hoffman family. My great-grandfather was six, seven, and he was a blacksmith. And I remember when I was five years old going into his blacksmith shop, and they would just give him bed. You can't be out there, you're too old, you're too this. He walks over to an anvil, goes like this, I think probably weighed 300 pounds, picked it up off the thing, moved it across the room, set it down. That's my grandfather, my great-grandfather. Uh they had six boys. My grandfather was one of them. And uh uh my great-grandfather told all the boys, every one of them, you ain't working no coal mine. You're not working in a deep dark hole with that black long, you know. You're not doing it. So you might as well find something to do. And every one of them did because he was like a scary giant, you know. Uh when I'm a kid, I was about that tall. And uh I I started then because we as Hoffman's live by a code. And you know, people kind of laugh when you tell them that. And I tell them this Hoffman's don't lie, Hoffman's don't cheat, and Hoffman's don't steal. You don't do that. That's our family, you don't do that. You don't have much in life except yourself. You know, and when people can trust you, when people can believe in you, and when people know that your word is your word, that's what that's what it's all about. And and I knew that passed on because my uh my middle son Eric, you know, him and his wife Brooke, um, they had two kids, Bergen and Evie, and we uh riding along in the in the truck with Evie. She was a bot, a little snot-nosed kid, hangs around with Hunter all the time. Those two are like thickest thieves. You can't, I mean, like at school, you you'd look up and school starts at 7.30, and they come rolling in at 729 with a drink and a thing and all that, you know, all that stuff, talking about stuff. They didn't care about that. But anyway, we were what we're in the we're in the truck, we're driving along, and I said something. She goes, She went like that, and I go, what? And she goes, Grandpa, Hoffman's don't lie, cheat, or steal. And from that moment on I know that when I told that to Eric, Eric told it to her, and somebody told it to me, and it moved right on down the line. And and I'm like that, and I'm still like that with all my grandkids and and you know, our family. That's that's one of the things we believe in. You know, I I gotta thank my mom and dad for doing a good job. Um they had four kids, I was the oldest. Um my aunt was a good person, but she made bad choices. And I can still remember when my cousins came to live with us. They uh they were in Dayton. And uh had right Patterson used to have a bunch of old Air Force housing. And once they got rid of them, people move in, cheap stuff and all that. Well, this lady called called my mom, said, Martha, we can't we can't keep John and Gene. You gotta somebody's gotta come get them. My mom says, What do you mean you can't keep them? Well, your sister's gone. She's been gone for two weeks. I can't, I we can't keep them. It infuriated my dad. I don't think I've ever seen him like this. He got in that car, he went straight over there, he got both of them, he brought them back to our house, and they never left. He adopted them. He didn't care what anybody wanted or anybody thought, and that was just the way it was. So, you know, here we are. Sick kids, two adults in a three-bedroom house with one bathroom. And my older sister always thought she's a beauty queen. So me and my brothers, we spent a lot of time out back towards the woods, you know, when we had to go pee or something because you couldn't get in the bathroom, you might forget it, you know. But yeah, you know, my parents were tough. And uh my dad gave me physical strength, but my mom gave me mental strength. My mom was an old Irishman. O'Neill was her last name. They're from South Bend. My mom, even to the day she died, thought Notre Dame was number one. When they put her in the casket, and uh Barnes was getting ready to shut the lid, and they said, Mark, is there anything else? And we had a I gave her a Notre Dame blanket because she's always cold. And uh I said, Yeah. So he said, Well, what is it? So I took that blanket and I went like that. I tucked it in. My mom's always cold. So we buried her with Notre Dame blanket. She was like, Notre Dame's number one.

SPEAKER_07 10:28

There always but uh so so stop you for a second. So your grandfather was a blacksmith. Great grandfather. Great grandfather was a blacksmith. What what did your what'd your dad do for a living?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

My dad was in the produce business. He came out here from West Virginia and he went to Ohio University for two years. Decided that wasn't for him. He, I mean, he's on a track team. He's probably you know, he's good. He's he the the track coach, I remember him telling a story. Track coach says, Man, you're in shape. How did you get that way? What's going on? And I said, I carried ice all summer. He said, What? I carried ice. He goes, You carried what? Ice for ice box. Iceboxes. You know, you go out and they you chip off a 25-pounder or a 50-pounder or maybe sometimes a 100-pounder, and you carry it up to the house and he's carrying it up the side of the mountain, you know, and you put it in the ice box, and uh the next week or whenever you come back and do it. He said, I carried ice all all summer, I'm down as well anyway. He came here and uh the first job he had when he came here was at the Wayne works uh making buses. He was uh he he worked in the engineering department. He he's really good with numbers and all that. So he didn't like it. We got you know Mercury's Pizza? Oh yeah? Well, his brother, his brother, Sal, Salvatore, is my godfather. And my dad started working for him. And when Sal died, called him Toots, when he died he gave the business to my dad. So my dad took over with three trucks and customers and so set him up pretty good. But uh delivering produce to just local businesses. We had about 240 customers. We had um grocery stores, uh restaurants, and institutions that we delivered to. We delivered uh as far north as up um other side of Winchester, Muncie, outskirts of Dayton, South, you know, we we covered a pretty big swath. And that's that's why I loaded trucks all the time.

SPEAKER_07 12:54

Because you were uh child labor by a association.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

I wasn't, you know, I didn't know what a vacation was until I was 35. You know, all these kids would come back and go, we went on vacation. We went on like, where'd you go? Well, we went to the beach, we went to the thing. I said, they said, Where'd you go? I said, I went to the docks in Indianapolis with all the black guys standing around a barrel for them, you know. Yeah.

Work Ethic, Sports, And Temper

SPEAKER_07 13:20

So so you're you're a part of you're part of the family produce business. Talk about what school is like for you.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

School, I I couldn't have cared two cents about school. The only thing I cared about was sports. And and and I think one of the reasons is because my dad would never make us work when we were playing sports. That was your way out. I was playing football, believe me. Yeah. And uh yeah, I I I played on the very first football team national trail I ever had. I was uh I was a freshman. I started both ways. I started at offensive tackle and defensive nose guard. I was about 235. I'm a little sh I was a little 5'10 by then, you know. But the guy that took the very first team, his name was Doug Kaler. He was a stud running back here at Richmond. And he was a just a hell of a wrestler. I mean, he was really good. And when he when he got done playing high school boy, he went to Earl. That's when Earl was really good. They they won a couple bowl games and stuff, and he was part of that. Well, he he took over and he brought his cousin from uh Texas. This little short guy named Don Burns, meaning a snake, chewed tobacco, you know, look he ate, you know, one of me, you know, always had a chew in, you know. Right. Every time he talked to you, spit in your face, and get this you know. So anyway, and another guy that they played with at Earl, his name was Larry Stevens. Uh, he was kind of the receiver group, all that kind of stuff. Well, people think we're crazy when I tell you that if we were having a bad day, if we were something was going wrong, Burns and Kayler would go in the locker room and dress out. And these guys would come out and kill you. I mean, just absolutely, I mean, you know, Gary Moore. Yeah. Ask him. Ask him how many times his head's bounced off the ground with killing.

SPEAKER_07 15:30

So you mean they went in, they'd put shoulder pad helmets on and then pad up and come out.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

And it was like, oh. And we'd always say, man, don't make them guys come out. Don't make them guys come out. We're begging them, you know. But at that time, there was no field at trail, um, no practice field. So we had to practice down at the old Jackson school. And you'd be down on the field and you fall down and you come up and you cut your hand. What is that? That was a rock. Cut your hand on a dang rock. I mean, it's like so. We were out there, you know, and be in the middle of hell practicing with these two guys beating us up, grabbing us by the face and screaming and yelling. But, you know, back then nobody said anything. Parents didn't say nothing. Right. If your dad saw that, he'd walk up and go, good job, way to go. So uh that that's kind of where I started. And I started there, and I was a four-year letter win letter winner. I won the best mental attitude a couple years in a row. And uh I was all conference.

SPEAKER_07 16:38

And then um what what did what did football mean to you in high school?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

No, I was the greatest. Why? Just because I could take out my frustrations there, number one. Um, and I didn't find this out until later in life that my body produced too much adrenaline. And you might we might walk into the restroom and you say something, I'll punch you right in the mouth. I mean, I wouldn't hesitate, I'd just bust you, you know. And and from that uh after I got done playing football in college, you know, I was having trouble because I couldn't control my tem I couldn't control my temper. So I went and they ran a bunch of tests and they found out that my body produces too much adrenaline. And they put me on some pills and calmed me down and I was pretty good at that. But football was it, and I love baseball too. And uh I I didn't I tried wrestling, but I didn't I I don't want people touching on me. I didn't I didn't like that, you know. I mean, yeah, you kind of single it on. You're get get off me, you know. I want you some sweaty guy rolling around on me, you know. I just didn't like it. Basketball, I played basketball in my freshman year, but I found out every game. Shocking. Every game. I never I never completed a game. Oh never.

SPEAKER_07 17:57

Not surprised.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Because he got he found out too. He he quit playing basketball. We just quit playing basketball. We played baseball and football.

SPEAKER_07 18:10

So so football was a way for you to let that aggression out. And you just yeah, yeah. Was it was there other coaches throughout high school that um you know you look you look back on and think of as mentors in any way?

SPEAKER_01 18:22

No. Uh a guy named Marty Sype. He came from Arizona and he'd won the state in baseball a couple years out there, and um or Simon, Simon. Uh he was related to the Simons, the the uh insurance people. His name was Saipe. And uh he made he had a big influence on me because he showed me the game. He he made you think, and he was a disciplinary and but he was fair and he was good and all that stuff. And and he had fun. Uh when I first started playing baseball at Trail, um uh there was an old barn that sat behind the field where that empty lot is right there. And when the wind would blow and storm, the shingles from the barn would fly onto the field, and we'd have to be up there picking up the shingles. So we're in a barn, we're in there messing around, me, Swire and Jay Baylor, a bunch of guys we're picking up. So we looked down, and I said, Swire, Swire, what is that? He said, That's a rat. I said, a rat? He goes, Yeah, it's a dead rat. So he picked it up. It was one of those deals where it just shrunk all down, and all you had was like this tail. I mean, you could hold it by the tail, it looked like a look like a lollipop. So we won the game that day and we had that rat, so the rat became our mascot. And we carried this rat all through the season. So we we go to the regional finals, Larry Swehart, Kurt Sweihart, all those guys. We uh we had good baseball. We had a good baseball team. I batted first, and my senior year I never struck out. I never got on every time, but I never struck out. But uh, you know we Kurt would come up and he would get on, and I'd come up and hit the ball or something, and Swear would score, and we'd be one to nothing for the other team standing out there going on. So we take his rat and we got it. And we're going to all these games and stuff. So we had to play at Troy at the regional finals, and they were good. I mean, uh, but we thought we were better anyway. So we go up there and we got the rat, and we're playing, and we ended up getting beat, Larry Swire's pitch, and we ended up getting beat like two to one. So it made us so mad that we took the rat and went over to the river beside the beside the baseball stadium. We threw the rat in the river. You're no good. That was the end of the rat. End of the rat. And we had uh Charlie Gerhart had to drive the bus. Charlie Gerhart, you know, Tom Heights. Okay, it's his wife. It was her dad. And we wouldn't go anywhere without he had to drive the bus. He was our bus driver.

SPEAKER_07 21:19

So like a superstition, like he had to.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Yeah, like the rat, you know. Rat's gonna help us win. Dead thing, you know, you put on a sandwich or something. I don't know. But based on baseball meant a lot to me.

SPEAKER_07 21:36

So eventually you obviously have some success in football athletically, so you you decide you're gonna go off to college to play. Yeah. Talk about that.

College Mischief Then Finding Purpose

SPEAKER_01 21:46

When I decided to go to college, I wasn't real thrilled about even going. I didn't know I was going. I mean, when am I gonna be a teacher? Really? I'm riding to Harley Davidson and acting crazy and fist fighting and doing all that. Silly stuff, and I'm gonna go and be a teacher. Yeah, all right. So I got there and I thought, you know, pretty good gig. I'm gonna play ball. I'm just gonna drink beer, chase the women, play football. A couple years I'll come back and work in the family business. But once I got there, I found out that it's a pretty good deal. But back then, it I mean, it was brutal. I mean, they you started two days, like the first of August, and you didn't play till September. And so you're you're in two days with around a hundred guys, and you hate everybody by the end of the first week, and you're sore. And so me and Tom Cook, we'd always try to sneak out, try to go to Fort Wayne, you know, get in the car and stuff. So they found out we were sneaking out. So they took my keys. Wait, where did you go to college? Manchester College. Okay. You know, brethren school where you're supposed to be You're supposed to be holy. Yeah. You were not. Yeah, I wrote no. In fact, again, shocking. The Dean of men, Dean Thompson, um, we planned on, we had a pretty good team, and about every five years there was a tradition that they brought, they'd bring us back. And, you know, during homecoming, and they'd throw a big banquet for us. Just that that team. And so we're in there, and Dean Thompson's standing up there, and he's shaking hands and talking to me. His wife was standing beside him. And so I get up, my Dean Thompson, he goes, Mark Hoffman, how the heck are you doing? I was coaching out in North Miami by then. And uh we started talking. His wife goes, Mark Hoffman? Yeah, I'm Mark Hoffman. He goes, she goes, Mark Hoffman, you've been the discussion, you've been the topic of discussion around our dinner table on many occasions. And it hadn't been real good.

SPEAKER_07 23:58

So you were you were you were a hellraiser. Again, I'm not shocked. Well, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

The worst, I think the worst thing we did was we started a water fight. I lived in the athletic dorm, and we'd go and pick on other dorms and you know, dump water on, doing all that. Well, these guys I hung around with uh uh his we called him Modchkin because he looked like the mayor of Modchkinville. And he worked for the city of Mishawaka. So, and he worked for the water department. So he had one of those great big ranches, you know, like you turn on the fire hydrants. So these guys, they come over and they start doing trying to get us to water on us and stuff. So Munchkin, we steal the hose, the fire hose in the dorm. We go to the we go to the water hydrant, and Munchkin hooks it up and turns it on, and we're like hosing them down. I mean, we're like rolling them. So we did it and we drove them away from our dorm, and then we went over to their dorm and hooked it up to their thing, and we were hosing the side of the building down. Boy, we were really got in trouble for that one. That was they were not happy at all. I mean, well did you get in trouble? Like, did they get a lot of people? Oh, yeah, we got in trouble, yeah. I mean, I was I I'd I'd probably still Olapse or something. I don't know. But uh the bad part is it it lowered the water table in the city of North Manchester in that area, and the fire department came out and said, What do you got? Because it if we have a fire, we got a problem. Yeah, you're in trouble. I mean, yeah, we didn't think about that. They were stupid. Right.

SPEAKER_07 25:40

But so you so you eventually make it through college?

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Yep. And one of the guys that had a big influence on me was a guy named Claude Wolfe. Uh Coach Wolf was not not only football coach, but he was basketball coach. And in fact, he played with Johnny Wooten in the PNN games back in the 20s and 30s. He was that good. And uh he was a huge Sean Wooten fan because they were buddies. And um he somehow, I don't know why, even liked me. But when I when I hurt my knee playing linebacker, I had to go down and I played nose guard um on defense. And he was a line coach because I told you about the other guy, we hated him. And um he made me do we'd go to workouts. We had in the morning, we had to go to this stupid dance class. The whole team, we went to a dance class. You know, here's big 300-pound guys doing this. The only good thing about the dance class is this chick had it, her name was Mary Miller. We called her little tuna. She was easy on the eyes, you know. So we called her little tuna, and we'd go in there, but then after it was over, instead of going to breakfast right away, Coach Wolfe would take me and make me go play handball with him. And here's this 75-year-old guy just kicking my butt. I'm just, I mean, just killing me, you know. So he he took a he took a big interest in me. And um, when we decided, and this influenced my coach, he influenced my coaching too. Um, all the football team decided, and it wasn't popular at that time, that we were going to stay on campus, in in town, rent houses, do that, we're gonna stay there. Well, we needed jobs. So my roommate, Jake Stevens, from Troy, Ohio, when I met Jake, he weighed 165 pounds. And when we graduated, he weighed 265 because all he did was eat and drink and and go to school. You know, he didn't do anything. But at one time he's a cross-country writer. Not when he left. No, none of that. No. He was uh round mountain sound. So we we're in there and we need a job. Coach Wolf comes up and goes, Mark, I got a job for you. So, okay, that's all right. He says, Well, you, you know, you played in baseball. You got you and Jake are gonna be in charge of the city diamonds in North Manchester. I said, and the concession stands. Because you had five concession stands, you had five fields, and it was all over town. I said, What are you talking about? I don't know anything about that. You'll learn, it'll be all right. I'll help you. Well, he helped us about that much. You know, he he turned us loose and walked away. We're down there in the morning, we're dragging the fields. We're and and we were the commissioners, and here's these guys, these older guys, you know, had kids planting. We had to learn that they could not push us around. And Jake and I were pretty much the same. They didn't do that. So Jake and I were down working on this field. It's hotter, it'd make the devil sigh. Couldn't take a breath. We're raking, we're getting ready for the games. Comes Coach Wolfe. And it's probably only been about a week or so since the uh season started. He comes down and goes, Come here, boys, I got something for you to do. So, okay, what? Every team always has one or two kids that are horrible. And nobody calls them to go to practice. So these kids have paid their money and they're not practicing, they're not playing. So what we decided to do, we, we were the commissioners, but we, him, decided that he was going to take all these kids and put them on one team. I'm like, he said, and you guys are gonna coach him. I go, are you serious? I said, well, can't I then I started grabbing clean, he goes, I just calm down. It's all right. You have these fields done, and in the evening you can go another ball. Coaching, we just sucked. We were awful. So our first practice, we come out and we got these kids, and we're trying to hit the ball to him. And you know, so I get this kid, he couldn't even catch the ball. He had a nice glove. So I throw the ball to him. Ball goes. I said, okay, I'm gonna throw it to you now. Catch it. So I throw it. I said, you gotta catch it. Oh, okay. I throw the ball again. I said, put your glove up, try to catch it. I said, you ever played ball before? No. I said, okay. So instead of trying to chase the ball all the time, I got a little, I put him up against the fence. And me and Jack put all of them up against the fence, and we started just throwing balls to him. Trying to get him to catch. Because you didn't, if it hit the fence, you didn't have to chase it, you know. So we got to the point where we do that. He's the same kid that got up and got a for some Jesus was on his side. He got a hit, and it dribbled out the maybe putcher, and he runs to third. And I'm like, Sounds like the bad news bears. It was absolutely the bad news bears. The kid ran to third. So I got to go, buddy, what's the matter? Oh, I got a hit. I got on base. I go, you gotta go to first. Just like counting. One, two, three. So we didn't win a game. We sucked. We were just awful. But it made me realize one of the things that kind of changed it too was last game season, we're up one run. I don't know how we ever did it. I think the other team must have gone on vacation and they're playing with like three guys or something. But anyway, the other team, we get two outs. We're up one run. There's two on base, first and second, on that team. I could see the picture. So I called timeout. I thought, yeah, I'll pump them up a little bit. So I walked out there and they all gathered around. I said, you know what the deal is? We're gonna win this game. You're gonna strike this kid out, we're gonna win the game, we're gonna win our first game, we're gonna win the last one. That's the most important one because it'll carry us into the next year. They're all yeah, I said, but you know what it is? We don't have the top secret ingredient. They all look at me, I go, you know what it is? No? Bubble gum. We need bubble gum. They said, What? I said, chew this. It's got sugar and energy, and we'll get it here. Chew. So I started passing this bubble gum out. Here's these kids like, I'm like, oh my God, I hope they don't swallow. They'll die, you know. Their parents will like kill me or something. So we get on to do it. Kid gets up, got a couple strikes on him. I thought, come on, please, God, please, just one, just I'll go to church every day. Kid jacks one, hits it to the fence, the other they score, we lose the game. And these parents were, they were like, we won the Super Bowl. Because we almost won. Because you were in the game. Yeah, we were in the game. But that that kind of changed, you know. I thought, I thought to myself, you know, Huff, you're pretty good at this. Your kids respond to you, and you're you're pretty good. So maybe you ought to buckle down a little bit. So my grade point average went from about a 1-7 to about um a 3-6 because I started studying, going to study tables, doing all that.

SPEAKER_07 33:47

Just just by changing the perspective a little bit. Yeah. That that just helped you recognize, hey, you know what, here's something that I can feel that I'm good at. Uh I can feel that I can I can change some lives just like some coaches has has changed my life. And so that's that that helped to change that.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

Yeah, Coach Wolf was a uh he got prostate cancer. And uh I went down there a couple days before he died. And you know, I'm no puss. I'm sitting down there holding his hand because he's dying. And after he got done coaching, he became a preacher. He always kind of was one anyway. And uh oh, I went to his church and he's always trying to get me to do stuff and all that, you know. And I'm I'm like, come on, coach, give me a break, you know, no, you can, you know, all that.

Athletes, Standards, And Community Pride

SPEAKER_01 34:40

But anyway, uh he he made me realize that there's more to life than just being a jack. Just like I tell kids today. You know, they say, Oh, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do that. I said, listen to me. You have the God-given ability to be an athlete and to do and to do things in life. I said, Any punk can hang on a street corner with a pack of marlborous rolled up in his sleeve, his pants down on his butt, and a joint in his sock. You don't have to be a man to do that. That's a punk. You're a punk. Come do this, go to the weight room, do what I want you to do. Play ball. You might not be, you might not be the best, but guess what? You're part of something. And I always told kids, I said, and you know, I've been in the hood and I've been I've been 12 different schools. When you're an athlete, you walk down the hall, you have a target on your back. And that target on your back, everybody expects you to be a step above. You know how it is. You've been in class, you get a bad grade in class, they don't expect that from you or you or any of you guys. They don't expect that. You got a target. Those teachers look at you and say, football player, I grade you. So I tell those guys if you can't live up to that, then you're pulling everybody down. Your teammates, your parents, your community. You're a representative of this community. When you walk out on that court, that diamond, that field, you are a representative of this community. Nothing infuriated me any more than to hear white hear them call national trash. Dad makes that fires me up right now. You know. We won't go there. I don't want you all fired up. No, well, I felt pretty good about it. Yeah. But anyways, and that's that's what I told kids. I tell them that.

SPEAKER_07 36:45

And that's important. It's real important. Because that's beyond just the game. Yeah. That that's that translates into life uh for for these kids. I mean, it translates into all three of us sitting here, Sean and Ben and myself. And, you know, it it comes down to important mentors and coaches and teachers in our life who um cared more about that relationship and understanding that we're we're not here just to win games. We're here to develop young men and women, you know, whatever, whatever you're coaching. So here's what I want to do. I w I want to fast forward a little bit to you get out of you get out of college and you end up deciding to do what? I'm

First Job, First Mentors, Real Lessons

SPEAKER_07 37:29

coaching.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

I'm looking for a job. And I got my first coaching job. Well, you saw the picture of three of us there, you know, Steve Bryant's in the middle. Well, we played ball together in college, and uh he uh by the time I got out, he had a head coaching job at North Miami, which is up north of Purdue, Indiana, Denver, Indiana. And uh I was working in a bar. I was in a bar, I was checking IDs, uh, you know, looking for a job. And I'd interviewed several places, never had any luck. And all of a sudden, Brian gets a hold of me. He says, Hop, he says, I got a football camp coming up next week. He said, my my defensive guy is a straight up punk. I don't like him. I want to get rid of him. He's gonna go somewhere else. So he says, I want you to come and help. I said, Brian, I don't get out of, I don't get out of here at like 2 33 o'clock. He goes, Don't worry about it. So I did it. And first day we get all organized, we get things going and all that. And I looked to the sidelines, and there's this big tall guy standing there, probably about 6'3, 6'4. And you know, he had like a nice shirt on, nice slack, you know, and he's watching practice. And this went on for like almost till uh we uh over a week, because it was two weeks of this stuff. And um then I see a shorter guy come out and they start talking. Well, the guy that they didn't like was also a history teacher. Well, after practice, those two guys came up. One was the principal of the high school, the short guy, John Stone, I'll tell you about him in a minute, and the other guy was the superintendent. So they walk up to Brian and said, Hey, um what's that Hoffman kid teach? Well, he teaches history. He said, That guy just quit. Have him come down to the office. I walk up and he goes, Listen, I want you to come down to the office. I want to talk to you. And I'm in my coaching stuff, you know, sweating like a dog. So I go down there and walk in, and he says, uh, I'm superintendent of schools. So we talk a little bit, about 20, 30 minutes. He says, You need a job? I go, Oh yeah, I need a job bad. He goes, You got it. Handed me the paper, I signed it, and that was it. I found out that the principal of the school was John Stone. And John Stone was one of the five colonels under Patton in World War II. This guy, and he was the head of the Principal's Association in the state of Indiana. Great guy to get hooked up with. He knew everybody, you know. So I get in there and I get the job, and you know, I'm I'm the defensive coordinator, I'm strutting around, you know, I think I'm studying I become a strength coach, and I'm doing all the strengths. And then they dumped the trainer on me because they didn't have trainers. Uh, can you tape show? Can you tape the ankle? Yeah, you're the trainer. Yeah. So I became the trainer, but I got better. So I'm in there and and we're I'm doing all that stuff, and and Stone is like, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, I mean, you marched, you went by time. Every clock in the building was synchronized. And if you moved at 1013, you moved to 1013. If you moved it at 10, 11 or 12, Stone knew it.

unknown 41:19

You know.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

Well, I was married at the time, my first wife, Cindy, and and she was, she needed a job, and John Stone gave her a secretary job. So time went on and she got pregnant. Um after the blizzard, you get tired of playing cards, you know. So you know what I mean? I mean, there was a the blizzard of 78. Yeah, there was a huge baby boom, you know.

SPEAKER_07 41:45

I was a product of that.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Yeah, you're part of that, yeah. So uh she anyway, she's pregnant and and she's getting like big. Yeah. Neither one of us knew what was going on. We went to school on a Monday and and uh she was about due, and um we had uh Teacher Day. Uh parents came in, parent teacher day. So I'm in my I'm down in my room and I'm talking. I got this lady, and all of a sudden they come on the loudspeaker. Uh, pardon interruption, Coach Hoffman, we need you to come to the office. Your wife is in labor. I go, oh my gosh, I think a woman looked at me and goes, you better get down there. So I get down there, and I have to laugh about it. Here's John Stone. His wife was a nurse. She was a nurse in the army when they met, and she was down at Walbage Hospital. And John Stone, life or death, thousands of people that he's sent into battle responsible for. He's like Mr. Nervous Guy. Oh my God, you, you go get the car, you do this, you do that. Go get the car, pull it up on the sidewalk, don't do it, open the door. Uh he gets on the phone, calls his wife. Mark and Cinder in route. He's giving me whole looking now. I mean, this guy has led people into battle, you know. So he was he was more nervous than us. I thought he was going to get in and drive us down there. So we get down there, Matt's born, all that stuff. And that's the kind of guy Stone was, you know.

SPEAKER_07 43:28

Uh just a good a good mentor for you. Great, great guy. So so you're you're in coaching, you're in teaching, you have your first kid with Matt, who's a couple years older than well, maybe just a year. How old is Matt? Um two years. Is he two years older? I think he's two years and so he graduated.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

I'm losing track of everybody. They're too old. Yeah. I I have a hard time telling you how old I am. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 43:55

But eventually, somehow, some way, you you end up back. In New Parish, Ohio. Yeah. Talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Well, I left I left Denver, Indiana, went to Fort Wayne Homestead High School. Excuse me, Homestead High School. And then I got a job at Lexington High School in Mansfield. And it it was a school, probably double-A school, 2A, a little bigger than Eaton. And the guy I coached with, his name was Butch McCormick. He was the head coach. And lo and behold, he was a river rat. He lived down on the Ohio River, just right across the border from all my relatives in West Virginia. So we hit it off pretty good, you know. And uh he he made me the defensive coordinator down there. And uh I said, I said, Butch, I never applied for it. I applied in Hamilton. I wanted the big blue job, you know. And uh I said, how and he had that job. He was a defensive guy there. And uh I said, how'd you get my resume? He goes, Oh, I stole it off the coach's desk. I go, what? He said, Yeah, I saw your resume laying there. I started reading it and I stole it. I said, so you stole it at Hamilton to get me to come to Lexington? Yeah, I stole it. So I got there, and then, you know, we were there, we turned that place around. I was really depressed there. First year. Oh my God, it was horrible. I had walking studs at North Miami at home stud in North Miami because I was in the weight room. I I made them do it. I walked there, we tussed. I didn't, I had one guy could bench 200 pounds. I mean, we got 80, 90 guys standing around, and they're a bunch of weak sisters. They're like, what do you guys do, man? I mean, what do you sit on the sofa and eat Twinkies? Or I mean, what uh what's going on? Oh, well, we knew I said, well, that's changing. So I went, we had a the weight room was about this big. Everyone was stinking universal machines in there, and you yeah, you know, you couldn't even couldn't take a breath. It was awful. So after the season, you know, which we went, we ended up winning two games, and uh we had a there was a room next to it, but a shower room. I I went to uh the AD and uh principal and I said, knock the ball out. We need weights. We need what we need free weights. We don't need a universal machine. Take it over to the girls, let them do that. I want weights. So we got him. Well, we turned that whole thing around. And uh when I left there, they told me, off you don't leave this kind of job, you stay here. And I left anyway. Uh and I did because I didn't want them bussing my son. I didn't want him busting Matthew, that's five years old, to a school that I didn't want him to go to. And and my first wife, Cindy, she she's kind of a homie, or she's uh a lot more homey than I am. Any place I lay my head, it's home, you know. And uh we decided, and my dad w wanted me to come back and help run the business. And I and I got out of teaching for 10 years. I was still coaching, but I I still did. I was doing that when you guys were. And um uh I I decided to do that. Well, when my dad, when my dad got ready to retire, I thought, I'm going back into teaching. So I went back into teaching. And one thing led to another, and and um Cindy started working at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, and believe me, she's a great lady. Uh she gave me three wonderful kids. I couldn't ask for any better. But uh, you know, things uh just came between us. And I think a lot of it was me being in business because I was gone all the time. I was gone all night, I was gone all day, I was gone, you know, you know, she she told me, she says, you don't even go to church with us anymore. People in church think I'm a I'm a widow or something. And and a lot of that was me, you know. So we ended up getting a divorce, and I got back into teaching, and I was I was still coaching a trail, and um uh Kemper left. Well, back up here in a second.

SPEAKER_07 48:31

You skipped a lot. Did I skip a lot? Did I skip? Yeah. Okay.

Back To National Trail With Kemper

SPEAKER_07 48:37

So you're you're back you're back at National Trail. Yeah, and this is about the time that Sean and I are coming up. So I think we had just completed our freshman. Freshman. Freshman year. Freshman year. And the school hired, uh, yeah, your son Matt was a senior, your son Eric would have been in eighth grade. Yeah. Uh the school hired a man named Matt Kemper.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

My brother. Matt Kemper couldn't be any closer to me than any brother. He could call me right now. I would put these microphones down and I would go. And we became just great friends. And your dad was helping us.

SPEAKER_07 49:17

And um so I I want you to I want you to pause here for a second. Okay. So you get the call to to come and help coach with with Matt Kemper at National Trail at your at your alma mater. Yeah. Uh coming out of a season our freshman year, we were 0-10. 0-10. Hadn't won a game. Hadn't won a game. And um, I don't know how it could get much worse if you're looking at at as far as the wins and losses. And can you do you remember getting the call? Do you remember how it was?

SPEAKER_01 49:51

Yeah, I'll tell you exactly what when you guys came in and Kemper had you in the locker room and he was talking about practice and the setup. I came with Matt. And he he knew that I'd coach before. And and he he got a hold of me, and I said, Yeah, I'll come. So I was standing in there and he's talking, and I thought, this is a guy I want to coach with. I don't care if we're owned 10, I don't care what it is, we'll make it better. We'll make it better. And, you know, we did. But uh, yeah, Kemp, he he's a great guy. I mean, just and you know, Vicki, Vicki's tough, man. She'd she'd get on us a lot. She'd even get on me.

SPEAKER_07 50:35

She probably needed to.

SPEAKER_01 50:36

Well, she did, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 50:37

But uh so you come in, Sean and I are sophomores at that time. Little children. Little kids, you know, just eager to love to play football. Um, Coach Kemper was was definitely for us, uh and I know for Sean for sure, um, just an amazing mentor for for the three years that we had with him and then with you coming in. And and I mentioned in the introduction, I'll never forget it. May have been the very first practice. I don't know. I just remember being on the practice field, and I remember you saying, Oh, you feel that cool breeze coming off the lake. And I'm like, Who in the world is this guy? This guy's a dick. Who is it? Like, where there's no lake anywhere close. I'm sitting here, you know, touching my toes and sweats dripping off my nose, and you're talking about a cool breeze off the lake.

SPEAKER_04 51:27

And just to let you know, 30 years later, when I was coaching with him, he's still saying it. The same thing. That's why them guys started laughing. That's why that's hilarious. I'm curious how Lon Swehart got wrangled in there, if you don't mind telling me.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

Lon was a teacher. Lon had played football uh with me in high school. Lon um is a good, good coach. He's a good technician. Uh that's one of the reasons that girls' softball was so good. And he uh met with Kemp and me and your dad, and he said yeah. And so he he came on staff too, and and we all coached together. Uh Lon and I are good friends. We've been friends for 60 years, you know. Uh he he's a good guy. But but Kemp really when he lost I I was I wouldn't say I was gonna die or anything, but you know, I'm like, oh man.

SPEAKER_07 52:36

You're crushed.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

Yeah. And then they bring in they bring in another guy, Bill Daringer, and he he was a he's a good coach. He had success. He was had success at at North and at Brookville and places like that. But for me, I just like um it's kind of breaking up with your girlfriend. You always remember your first one, you know. And uh so Kemp and I, we got together and well, not we didn't get together yet. After that, um I decided that I was gonna I was gonna move on. Um and Richard Bryant over here uh got wind that I was looking for a job and he hired me. So I went from Richard, and we when I was here, we won like three conference championships, and I mean Richmond was good. Um they've fallen on some hard times now, and I think maybe they'll that they can get people in there that could straighten it up. So am I am I running too long? No, no, no, we're good. Okay, so anyway, um uh I'm there and I I coach, I coach over there, and Kemper was at Sydney.

New Schools, New Cultures, Same Values

SPEAKER_01 53:49

Kemper calls me and says, How you looking at Richmond? I said, Kimper liking him. We're winning. He said, We won two, three complex championship. Can can you come and help me? I go, man, you're at Sydney. He goes, I I know. So I went, I went. And then we went from Sydney to Lima. Hood City, cultural shock for those kids. Me and Kemp, we're like yelling and screaming and doing it, and them kids are like, they're not even out of bed yet, you know. One of the first things we had to do, we had to change practice times. We couldn't have practice at no uh eight o'clock in the morning or I remember the five in the morning for us. Five and six. I mean, you're you're up anyway. What do you got to do? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:44

You're up anyway, still.

SPEAKER_01 54:45

Yeah. Yeah. Never went to bed, probably. Uh, but anyway, so we go in there and I'm like, man, this is thugs city. Guys are like thugs, man, straight up. They're from the hood, you know. They had some good athletes. So we changed our practice times till 5 o'clock in the evening. Because them kids wouldn't show up. They wouldn't show up in the morning. I mean, you tell them to be there at 9 o'clock, they'd be there at like 12.30. And I can still remember we go to we go to scrimmage. And we're going to scrimmage in Columbus. Because we played all over the state. And uh Kemper told him to be there at like 7:30, get on the bus, do a scrimmage is at 9 or 10 or something. I walk in the locker room, there's three guys. Guys, Kemper hadn't been out there yet. And uh I walk back in and I thought, dang, I mean, should I tell him? I mean, if I tell him, I know he's gonna like start ripping locker doors off and stuff. And so I go back out and three went to five or six or something like that, and the bus pulls up, and there ain't nobody there. So I walk in, I said, Kemp, I hate to tell you this. We can't scrimmage, you ain't nobody here. So somehow he got it fixed, and they meandered in, and we got on the bus and went to play. And it was it was fine, it was a good time. But you know, it was it was kind of a culture shock for everybody because you know I started realizing that and I don't want to say like I'm a racist because I'm not. I'm I'm the least racist person you'll ever find. You know, me and Freddie Bullock roomed together in college, and Fred was small college all-American, and his grandma liked me better than he liked him because his grandmother raised him. And I found in the culture that if you really wanted to get something done, you better go talk to grandma. Because grandma's ruled the roost. You know, we had we had some kids that were gonna go away, and and uh yeah, I even experienced this in Mansfield. This guy came in and we had a couple good players and they wanted them, and they were raised by their grandmother, and um this young guy from uh Mississippi State, one of our defensive tackles, his name was Eldon, and his grandma was from Mississippi, and she wanted to go back to Mississippi because she's afraid she'd die up here and they wouldn't bring her back, all that. Well, she was raising Eldon and four other kids, so we get in there and this cocky ass kid comes from Mississippi State, and I'm talking to him. I say, now listen, when we go in, Grandma runs the boat. Talk to her. So we go in. Eldon's dad is sitting here, just got out of jail. Eldon's mom looked like she just rolled off the street. Eldon was sitting here, the recruiter sat here, I sat here, grandma sat here. So uh we start talking, and he ignores grandma. He ignores her, and I saw her. She started doing away. I thought, you're in trouble. So she gets up, walks away from the table, goes and sits on the front porch in the swing. So he's filling the mom and dad full of baloney about what they can do, and we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that for Elton, and we're gonna get him education and all that, you know. And I anyway, we walk out, and and uh she says he says, Well, grandma, what do you think about Elden? Eldon's coming down, we're gonna put him in Mississippi State, he's gonna be that. She looked at him and goes, What do you care what I think? You didn't care an hour ago. What do you care now? Well, he didn't go to Mississippi State. Week later, Mississippi comes. Knock it. It was an older guy like me. I looked at him, I said, You recruiting a hood, right? And he goes, Grandma? I go, Grandma. So we walk in and we sit down. Eldon's dad's down here, his mom's here, Eld's sitting over here, I'm sitting here, recruiter sitting here by grandma, grandma's sitting at this head of the table. So he starts pouring on the jazz. Well, we got this, and he had he puts it all out, and he's from Mississippi, too. He's got that, yes, ma'am, and you know, all that stuff down. And uh so we're we're talking, and they start talking, and she goes, Oh, you boys, would you like a glass of sweet tea? He goes, Yes, ma'am, I sure would. And he turned to me, he said, Coach Alf, you want some sweet tea? I go, yes, ma'am. So she gives her a glass, him a glass, and me a glass. And then the rest of them are on their own. So the guy starts pouring it on. Oh my gosh, I've been on the road two weeks. That's the best IT I ever got. On and on and on, you know. So it went on, and I we went out to the car. I said, You got him. He goes, Yeah, I got him. So Elton comes in the next day to my office and goes, Coach Hoffman, I made a decision. Really? What? I'm going to Mississippi. And he did.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:30

Already knew it. He knew it. All right. I want I want to fast forward here a couple parts of your life that I know. One of the things I want you to hit on, you know, you you talked about Matt Kemper. And my question to you is why you followed Matt, you know, all over 10 years. You know, down to Florida. I mean, uh different schools as as he traveled, you traveled with him.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

Why we're cut out of the same mole. We're hard workers, we're tough guys. We do the right thing even when no one's looking. Nobody in this room or any place can ever say that Mark Hoffman played favorites. I caught my own grandson drinking with four other starters, and I suspended every one of them until they went through a rehab program. And that's the kind of stuff Matt Kemper stands for. And we did that, and we did that places that we went. And I could see he's a he's a great family man, you know. Nick, Nick, you know, you know, Nick. Then he had Katie, she was a little queen, and then they had the twins, and the twins were, you know, all that stuff. And and and Vicky, they were just good people. And in fact, when I first went to Florida, I lived with them for a summer. Me and Adam Kearns, because we couldn't find a place to live. I slept in the bed, I slept in, Katie was gone for the for the summer, went up to Westford, up to Southern Ohio to her grandparents. So I lay, I I didn't want to lay in her bed and stink it up or anything. So I laid down on the floor, you know, slept on the floor. I was there and he treats, he, he always treated me right. He treated me good. He listened to me. We worked good together. We had the same values and the same and the same. We could have been brothers. Right. And and really, we are. And when we get done talking, I tell him, say, hey man, I love you. He tells me, say, man, I love you too. You need to come down, you know, do all that stuff. He's he's a good man.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:48

He is a good man.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:49

Wouldn't take he's a good man.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:52

Yeah, he's a good man for sure.

Head Coach Again And Fighting Apathy

SPEAKER_07 1:02:54

So eventually, you know, after falling Kemper around, you you end up coming back to your alma mater again, this time as a head coach. Yeah. Talk about what that was like.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:06

Deja vu. I'd been to all these big schools. You know, we're down in Florida, 4,000 kids. Walk out on the field, we got 200 kids. Deja vu, man. I I drove down Spring Street past the basketball courts, and I'm going like, wow. I'm back to 1972. I said, wow. And you know, I went back and and I just really didn't get much support there. Um Randy Kearns was the quarterback, and he tried and he did pretty good. I think first year back, I think I won three games. And after that, we just numbers were off. People in the school at that time were telling kids, other coaches, were telling kids not to come out for football. Why are you coming out for football? You're just gonna get hurt. You won't be able to play baseball, you won't play basketball, you won't be able to be able to do that. And they realized that how hard they were gonna have to work in football, and I think a lot of them just took the easy way out. Well, I put up with that for about five years. And then um the AD came to me and said, I just don't think I can support you anymore. And I looked at him, I said, you know what? You never have. I've been here for five years and you haven't done one thing for me. I've raised money for uniforms. When I was there for that five years, I never took a penny of coaching money. I didn't take one penny. I didn't take strength money, I didn't take coaching money, I didn't take anything. I turned it all back in to the athletic department. We did fundraisers, we did all kinds of stuff, we bought things on our own. I made those kids do that. We were out at Sheldon's, and remember when we did the hot dog stand? Remember that? You guys vaguely probably we'd make $4,000 in a weekend on the 4th of July. But that guy loved us because we'd help his customers. He'd come out with a basket full of fireworks, and kids would go down and load it and take the carts and take them back, and he loved us. So we were virtually self-supportive. And um uh a job came up in Earl, and Richard Bryant found out about it. It's the coaches, the good old boys. Whenever anything happens, I I've been out coaching now in Ohio for two years, and I can tell you who's gonna go get a job, who's looking for a job, and who's not, because of the good old boy coaches stuff. But anyway, Jerry Keysling hired me. Jerry Keysling is a good offensive mind, you know. And I knew Macy. Macy was there, and uh I ran into Nick Johnson, uh, Nick Johnson, uh Was one of the players for uh for uh Frank Carr. Frank Carr was the AD then, and it was that was one of the most enjoyable eight years of my life. I mean, we're not playing at Ohio State, we're not playing packed stadiums, we're not doing that, you know. Uh, but guess what? We started winning, and we did pretty good. And when they came in and made a coaching change, got rid of Keisling, that program just went straight to hell. They brought in a guy that was probably one of the laziest, lionest, absolute human beings I could ever be around. And I I wasn't having it. I wasn't doing it. When he got that job at Erlum, and he he played, he played the race card a lot and the and the liberal card. My wife's from Ethiopia, and she was black. My wife, and he's a white guy. My wife's from Ethiopia, and we do this, and da-da-da, and we our kids, and we want the best, and we're moving to Richmond, and we're buying a house, and we're doing this, and we're doing that. No intention of doing that. His wife stayed at her job in Indianapolis. Her kids stayed on the all through the week, and this guy, he might show up at nine, ten o'clock in the morning. Maybe. And I I I wouldn't go, I had enough of that.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:35

So I mean then ultimately that they stopped football, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:40

Stopped the program. They didn't support it.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:42

They had a headhunter come in there. And they and they still have uh one of the administrators over there. I'm not gonna mention any names, uh, that was part of that headhunting team. For some reason, they wanted to do away with football. I don't know why. I can't tell you. Uh, but I will tell you the headhunter came in, and it's a black lady named Cheryl Presley. And she, her sole job was to get rid to get rid of football and Keysling. And and I and I I'm I'm there's not many things I'm bitter about. I'm a little bitter about that because they took a good man and they screwed him over. Right. And good pre and a and a program was coming around.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:27

So I went back to I went back to Trail Teach. Randy Kearns was the head coach. I was helping him with uh weight room. I was a weight, I was a strength coach. I was helping him a little bit. He's trying to pull me back in. But I was at the time where I wanted to go watch my grandkids play and stuff. So I told I told Kim that. I said, you know, I'm gonna go see the kids play. Well, so I'm teaching at Trail. Kearns walks out of Trail on May the 28th. He goes to Utah. Marries some woman, they go to Utah and all that stuff. They're gone. So they have no head coach. So they start, and Jeff Parker was the superintendent then. So he comes up to me and he goes, Half, you're our new head coach. I go, Parker. No, I'm, you know, I just got through hard operation. Nobody in my family wanted me to coach because I went through all that open art stuff. And um I said, no, I'm not. I'm not the head coach. I don't want to be a head coach. I never want to be a head coach. He said, come on. I said, I'll be the intern coach until you find somebody. So next morning, 7:30 in the morning, I'm at the board. I'm writing some stuff. You gotta remember, Kim walks, works in the district office. She's an assistant to the treasurer. So she's got her thumb on, knows. She knows what's going on. So Parker motions me. I go to the back. He goes, This is your sub. I said, What do you mean it's my sub? We need to talk. I said, Parker, we talked yesterday. I'll I'll do it for you. I'll I'll no, no, we need to talk. We need to talk. I said, okay. So the guy takes over my class, and I go down, I walk in. Kim looks up, gives me that wife look. You know what them wives do. They give you that. The evil eye. You better not say one word. You're dead. You know. So I go in there, I go in the office, I kind of shy away, you know, kind of turn my back and try to get those evil stare eyes off of me. And uh I go in there and we talk, and he said, Come on, man. He said, I said, well, you gotta advertise it. You got to do this, you gotta do that. He said, Well, we're gonna advertise it, but we're hiring you. I said, So you're going out and you're advertising this position and you're advertising as head coach and you're gonna and you're not gonna interview anybody. He goes, Yeah. So when I walked out of the office, because we were going to around and do an inventory for uh, you know, gear stuff, because I told him, I said, I gotta have good stuff. I'm doing it, I I I'm not, I don't want no nickel dime stuff. I want good stuff. So, okay, we'll do that. So I walk out. I can still see her. She takes her glasses off, takes her pen, gives me that, you're a dead man look. So I walked over, you know, because she had a piece of candy on her desk. I wanted, I needed something. So she goes, You took that job. How'd you guess? I know you. You took that job. You didn't tell him no. You I said, well, I tried to fight him off. So I ended up taking a true job.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:04

So here's what I want to do. I I want you to to tell everybody your coaching philosophy and and not so much about winning games. Yeah. Talk about what the true meaning of being a coach is in any sport, because I think you did that just as good as any coach that I've ever had in my career in any sport. So talk about your philosophy in developing young people.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:37

What I

Three Goals For Every Player

SPEAKER_01 1:12:38

try to do is I try to give them the sense of fair play. We don't cheat to win. We don't cheat anyplace, even in life. Because if you do, it's going to catch up with you. And, you know, I can I can still see the parents and players when I stand up at the banquet and I say three things. Here's what I want from my players. I want you to be a good citizen. I want you to be a good man, and I want you to be a dad that raises their kids. That's your job in life. That's what you should do. I don't want nothing makes me any happier. I'll go to the grocery store and I'll see a former player, they'll have two or three kids hanging on in front of the cart. Or I go drive by the, I drive by the uh ballpark and they're down there coaching. I see them giving their time. I see in that, I see them at school board meetings, I see them at uh basketball games and football games and baseball games and soccer, whatever you got. They're there, they're supporting their kid. They're backing that kid up. And when their kid walks the hall, you can tell that somebody's raised him. I was at McDonald's the other day. I started to walk in. There was this young family in front of me, and they had two little boys, one probably, I don't know, six, seven, other one, probably ten. The ten-year-old walked up to the door, opened the door, and held it for me. I looked at him, I go, Where'd you learn that? He said, My mom. I said, I turned to the parents and said, You're doing a heck of a job with these kids. I can tell you I've been around kids enough to know when you're doing the right thing and you're doing the right thing. I mean, some little kid, who does that? Most of them try to run in because they got a toy in the McDonald's in there or something. And I told him, I want, I want you to be a good citizen. I want you to be a person that supports your community. I want you to be that person that people will say, I know David Smith, I know, I know you guys, yeah, they're good people. That's what I want. Um I also want you to be a good man. And, you know, being a good man is hard because there's a lot of times when you have the opportunity not to be a good man. You can fall into that, you know, you can fall into that old, well, somebody did this and somebody made me, and somebody, uh that's that's that's a bunch of crap. That's you making excuses why you didn't do the right thing. That's you. You know. I want them to be good men. Because then it sets an example for their kids. Because their kids, I'm around your son. I can tell you're a good man. Your boy's a heck of a kid. He's not a bragger, he's not, he's not a showboat, he's not a he's a kid that comes out, hard worker, works his butt off, does what he's supposed to do, push his kids in the same way. I don't know your kids. I haven't had the opportunity, but I'm sure they're like you. And that's what we need. That's what we need in society. Why do you think you look up in these big cities and these crowds of people are turning over cars and screaming and yelling? And you can't even go to a celebration without somebody getting shot. My question is, where's your dad? Where's your mom? What are you doing? What are you gonna do? Do you have a job? Do you get up in the morning? Do you go to work? Do you buy the little house, the house with the picket fence and the one and a half, two cars, have two or three kids? Do you send them to school? Are you that's that's how you're judged. And your family will be judged that way. That's what I tell them Hoffman's don't like cheaters deal. And the last thing is, I want you to be a good dad. I want you to be a good dad. I want you to be, I want you to be disciplined with your kids, but I want you to be able to throw your arm around them and hug them and kiss them. You know, and it doesn't matter how old they are. I want you to be able to do that. And if you can do that, if I've accomplished that, I'm successful. I've had five failures in my life, and they prey on my mind every night when I say my prayers and go to sleep. Two of those kids are dead, and three of them are still in prison. And I all the thousands of kids that I've probably been in touch with, those five are still my failure. I feel. They're really not. They made bad choices. But I felt that maybe, you know, if I could have done this or I'd have done that, or I'd done, maybe something would have changed. But it didn't. And some of that is when you change schools. You know, you go from this school to that school to this school, you know, and you leave behind people that probably need you more than the next guy or something. But though those three things I I want you to be a good citizen, I want you to be a good man, I want you to be a good dad that raises his kids. That's what I want. That's good stuff.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:01

What do you got, Sean? Ben?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:04

You go ahead.

Feeding Kids And Quiet Generosity

SPEAKER_04 1:18:07

Um, and I kind of mentioned this on the post last night. What a lot of people don't see about you is the behind-the-scenes stuff that I'd love for you to talk about. Um I've seen hundreds of times where you buy clothes, shoes, hand, hand $10 bills out like bubblegum. And um a lot of people don't see that, but when you're around you long enough, you do that. So I mean, there's something to that, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:38

Yeah, I can't go to the cafeteria and sit at the sit at the banquet table. That's what we call all the teachers said, and look over and see a kid with no lunch. I can't do that. And I'm I'm one of the people at at National Trail High School that just I'm trying not to cuss, but I'm there's no other words. That I went to not only the administration, but to the principals and to the head of the cafeterias because several years ago, kids that could not or didn't or have the money or were behind, uh, they take their tray and they dump it in the trash. And then they'd hand them a peanut butter sandwich, an apple, and a milk. They just took that food that they denied that kid and threw it away. And believe me, I went and I raised some kinds of hell. And once that was brought awareness, we had groups of people step in and pay lunch fees and things like that. I I I can't see that. You know, I I look at those kids and I they ain't got it. Uh and I learned at my first teaching job, I never asked a kid what you get for Christmas. Never. I never asked him. I did one, I did a couple times. And the kid said, Coach Hodman, I got a carton of cigarettes and ten dollars. I said, Really? He said, Yeah, that's what I got for Christmas. That's what he got for Christmas. And you can tell when they come back. The kids that have have, and the kids that don't, don't. And I and I I never I never say, what'd you get? How was your time off? That's what I say. We had a kid at North Miami. I was up there teaching history in physic. He came in and he was just filthy, dirty. His clothes were dirty, his neck was black, his fingernails, his hands, all that stuff. Well, the kids were making fun of him. So I got him aside in physic, and I I was pretty blunt. I probably shouldn't have said. I looked at him, I go, what's your problem? Why do you stink? I said, you smell bad. You, you, you're, you, you got dirty clothes. You're what's the deal? And he kind of looked at me, I said, no, really, seriously, what's the deal? He goes, Coach Hodman? He says, My house has a dirt floor. Now you got to remember, you're back in the 70s, and I can still tell you people in our community that had dirt floors in their houses. I said, you got, what? We don't have running water. We don't have any, we don't, our house is, I don't, I don't have it. I said, okay, we'll fix it. So I gave him Phys Ed clothes. Back then you had Phys Ed clothes. And uh the um woman that ran what is OMAC they used to call it. Uh her name was uh Deb Whistler, and I got my I got it and I talked to her, and that kid would take off his clothes and he would, and my aide would discreetly take it to her and she'd wash them and dry them. And by the time Fizz Ed was over, and I said, here's soap, here's deodorant, here's shampoo, you get in that shower, and you get clean. And he would do that. And then he had clean clothes to put back on. I said, here's what we'll do every day. I don't know how many sets of clothes you got. I don't know what's going on. When you take these clothes, don't lay them in the dirt. Find something. Go somewhere, get a box, get a cardboard, get something, put them up. And you bring a different, you wear a different set of clothes in every day, and we'll wash them. But you take the clothes you're wearing, you put them up. Take the clothes in that, put them up. So your clothes are relatively clean. And when you go to the cafeteria, try not to slap pizza on your son. So we did that, and uh he he turned out. Yeah, you helped him out.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:03

Helped him out instead of instead of ignoring.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:06

Or or criticizing her.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:07

Right. I mean, you know You may have been a little blunt in in your delivery, but that's okay. I should have never seen that.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:14

But you know, why do you stink?

SPEAKER_07 1:23:16

I mean you've learned over the years. Yeah. Ben, what do you got? You got anything?

SPEAKER_03 1:23:22

So how many total schools did you coach at?

SPEAKER_07 1:23:24

Twelve.

46 Years, Regrets, And Who He’d Ask

SPEAKER_03 1:23:25

Twelve of them? In how many years?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:28

Well, I helped it eat and I didn't do much down there. I was kind of the sideline guy. Uh that was 46. 46 years. Yeah, it's 46.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:37

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:38

Um I'll be 73.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:39

So And you're still on the sideline, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:42

I don't know what I'm gonna do this year. I'm gonna be 73, and um my family is just got too many nurses. Every damn one of them's a nurse. You know, my daughter's a nurse. My, you know, my daughter-in-law, one's a surgical nurse, Brooks a nurse. My granddaughter's gonna be a nurse. Everybody's, Dad, what are you doing? What are you doing? Are you doing that? I mean, yeah, you're not supposed to do that. You know, I go to I go to graduation party and pick up a piece of cake. Uh, what are you? Yeah, I'm like, go sit down. I'm eating a cake. You know, leave me alone. You know. But uh I don't know. I I've had I've had several job offers, and uh I I've been turning them down.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:33

Um when I quit coaching, uh job I job I really wanted was a job at Finley, uh, the college up there. One of the guys I coached with at Lima was uh defensive coordinator up there, and he wanted me to come up and coach the line. He's a D2 school, nice facilities, hometown kind of thing, you know. And if I would have been 50, 60, I'd have taken it. I'd taken that job. Of course, Kim lets me roam. I mean, she just, I mean, hell, she she let me roam to Florida and didn't even like kick me out or anything. Didn't like throw my clothes in the front yard or jam them in a truck or something. You know, she, believe me, she's she's the one that really I couldn't do without her. If she died tomorrow, I'm lost. I'd be out here on the street with a tin cup and pencils in my hand trying to sell apples. We'd find a spot for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:36

We'd help you out. Yeah. All right, last question. Good. I want you to be honest here. I want you to be honest. I'll tell you the truth. If you could sit on a park bench and have a conversation with someone living or deceased, who would it be and why?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:51

Two people. My parents. My dad. Love my dad. But we we butted heads a lot of times. We're in business. I I was amazed how smart my dad got between my ages of 18 and 25. I thought I knew it all, and I didn't know Jack, you know. And I and he gave me he gave me physical strength. And I told you before, my mother gave me mental strength. My mom, you didn't get no sympathy. I grew up on the hill over in New Paris. It took two buses to get the kids up. I always had somebody. We're always fighting, playing ball. It's like sandlot, you know, one of them deals. I'm down the street and I get beat up. I'm probably about 10 years old, 11 maybe. And I come home, my mom says, What is the matter with you? I got in a fight, I got this. I said, You're filthy, you're dirty, you roll on and got my. So she says, Did you win? I go, No, I got beat up. Come in the house, went in the house, took my shirt off, took me in the bathroom, washed me up, cleaned me up, all that stuff, put a new shirt on, took me out of the kitchen, got me something to drink, peanut butter sandwich, took my hand, went to the front porch, said, You go back down that street and you find that kid. And don't come home until you kick his butt. And I'm like, I'm homeless. I'm like, if I if I never go to hell ever whip that kid's butt, I don't have a house. I better go down and see the Simpson boys. Maybe they'll or the Boris or somebody, they'll let me stay, but they've already had Boris had 13 kids, and Simpsons had seven, I don't know. So she says often's don't take no crap, often no buttons. And you go back down there and you whip that kid's butt. That's my mom. My mom told me that. I'm like, and when my grand when you know my my uh kids and all that start talking about, oh, she's a great grandma and all that stuff. So yeah, she was a great grandma. All right.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:18

Yeah, let me tell you this story.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:20

All right.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:21

Anything else you gotta add?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:22

No, I just I I appreciate what you do in the community. I I do, man. Um I've coached with you for you know eight or ten years.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:32

And I didn't I didn't rule I didn't warp your ruin yet no, not at all.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:36

Okay, well I mean shocked you didn't tell a story about a train and jumping on trains and calling to Richmond boxing. Yeah, you told those stories a lot, and every story you told today I actually have never heard. So it was truth about the boxing.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:57

Well, here's the big thing that I I just hope everybody gains from this one. If you if there's ever a question of where people stand with you, they're blind, right? Yeah, you you have you have no problem uh good or bad telling people how you feel or or any of those things. And and sometimes that's probably gotten you in trouble. Oh, yeah. And other times though God sometimes I got a big mouth.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:26

I'll shut up.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:27

Right. But but the bigger the bigger picture of the whole thing is that I want people to see because we spend a lot of time talking about what you just hit on here in the last 10 minutes about you know being a good person, being a good father, you know, being involved in your kids' lives so that they get involved in their community, that they can be good parents, that they can be good influences on others. And

The People Business And Final Reflections

SPEAKER_07 1:29:53

that's who you are. Yeah. That's who you are. You might be a little rough around the edges. Oh, yeah, and that's okay. But at the end of the day, you've got what a lot of people in our society don't have now, which is you just care. Yes, I do. You care about the kids. Yeah, I do. You care about our community, you came back for a reason, you stayed for a reason. You didn't say no to the job when when it was offered to you again because you care. Yeah. And that is one of the things I think that any coach out there, coaching whatever sport, it's not about the wins and losses. We all want to win. Every kid wants to win. Winning cures a lot of things. But man, if you don't care, you're never gonna have a chance to win. You know why?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:45

Because we're in the people business. We're in the people business. People uh determine our success. What do you think I had bushing these guys coaching with me for? You know why? I coach them. I know what kind of people they are. They're good coaches, they're good people, they're good parents. You know, that's what you do. And then, you know, you talk about well, you know, about being blunt and all that stuff. Well, here's my theory about blunt. If you don't like me, that's okay. If I want a friend, I'll get a dog. I don't I don't need you to be my friend if you don't like me and you don't like the things I do. That's that's fine with me. I'll show you respect, I'll do that. But I don't really care. And the people I care about are the people that I work with and the people that you know need they need something. I try to give it to them. And, you know, I like I said, I mean there's times when I haven't been successful, there's times when I have. So it just it uh I'm proud to be I'm proud to be from this area. And it's not just National Trail, it's this whole area. You look around and you see good people here. You see people that are that are uh that care about their community and their all that stuff, and that's what I want. That's what I wanted for my kids, that's what I want for my grandkids, that's what I that's what I want. And if they go out in a in a world with two or three things that they picked up, it'll carry it. Because there may come a time when you have to double back and you have to find the people that you can depend on.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:36

And if there's nobody there you're on your kind of on your own. Yeah, you know. That's good stuff. You got anything else either one of you to add?

SPEAKER_03 1:32:48

No, it's just the definition of why. You know, you hear people talk about getting burned out on coaching and and everything like that. But if you coach for the right reasons, that's how you're able to last for 46 years and coaching's because you're not coaching for the wins and the losses, you're coaching for the those kids. Oh, they're nice though. Wins and losses are nice. Yeah, yeah. But you're coached for the right reasons, and you you even said it when you talked about you know the five you know mistakes that you call them, but really, I mean, you cared, you poured into them, and you tried. I mean tried. That's all you can ask for.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:24

I don't know. It's just a didn't get it. I mean, you could talk and talk and talk, talk to your blue in the face. I'd go to their houses, I'd uh you know, I'd I'd I'd go to their house when they weren't in school on my plane period, I'd drag them out of bed. I'd go in their house, I'd drag them out of bed, get in a truck. Why you're going to school? I'd make them. I did that to a couple trail kids too. But uh I just I don't know. It's right or wrong. I don't know. I've lived that way and that's the way it is.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:59

I think you've changed a lot of people's paths for sure. Um you and Kemper and Lon definitely changed my path. And that's kind of what you want to do as a coach, you know. You want to take that kid that's maybe walking down the wrong path and show him something different. And uh that's exactly what you guys did.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:19

Well, we always felt sorry for you because you were we we you wore uh shorts in the wintertime.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:25

Weighed 132 pounds, soaking wet.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:27

Soaking wet, yeah. And and tackled uh courtesy tackled Kernasinas. I'll never forget that as long as I live. I see little Bush in there. He's in Kernasinas' legs, and they're going. I get up and Bush shakes it off. He's tackled a guy that played for the Bears, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:48

What were you guys gonna do to him? We're not gonna do this podcast.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:53

Yeah, that was uh that was uh and with that Oh, you're gonna pull something bad on me. You don't remember the preview. Well, he wasn't a coach that year. Oh, that's right. That was your freshman year. Yeah, it was our freshman year. Off air, right? This is why you should be a Patreon member. We'll talk about that. Okay. Well, you know, I do want to join that. Tom Tommy Thomas gave us a speech our freshman year. That does it all. All you gotta do is tell Tommy Thomas. I know, I know Paul and Tommy's probably gonna be listening, and I love them both to death.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:27

So Well, me and Tommy, we were kids. We used to we couldn't get along with each other. We fist fight each other. Shocking. We'd be down at the basketball court and we'd be playing ball, and he'd elbow me and I'd elbow him, and we'd square off and start beating up on each other. Then we'd go get a drink of water and come back and just keep playing. I think we need some of that these days to these kids. Yeah. Careful. A little a little fist fight clear the air. I don't mean stab somebody or something. Right. I mean uh a couple little uh swats here and there, and it's usually our and well Hoff, I I want to say thank you.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:05

Okay. Not not just for coming up here today, but thank you for pouring in to me and to Sean and to all these kids that you have throughout your your career and your life. And and uh I know that it hasn't always been easy. In fact, probably in most cases it was harder than it was easy. But I I hope that you you know and you understand the impact that you had on the two of us sitting here, and I hope when this airs that you feel the love from all your former players and kids that you've mentored, you know, throughout your whole career, because um, you know, through the rough and the gruff and the not being afraid to say how you feel or or whatever, you are a good man. And I thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:50

That's the best compliment I've ever had. Thank you. And and you guys are the example that I'm talking about. Here you are. Good citizens, good parents, good fathers, good, and I I really appreciate that. I I feel kind of you know, uh, because I'm not used to people telling me but I'll accept it. I'm I really I really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. I I really I'm happy to do it.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:25

Yeah. Well, I'm I'm glad that you did and uh really appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:30

Good. Now if they don't, FCC done shut you down.

Share The Show, Sponsor, Patreon Outro

SPEAKER_04 1:37:36

All right, everyone. Okay, we'll lose every follower.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:39

Hey, hey, share this episode, especially if there's someone who uh you know Coach Hoff has has touched throughout his career, and and uh don't be afraid to reach out to him and and tell him, you know, what what he has meant to you in your life, and uh because there's no no doubt he's had an impact on on so many. So do all the things, like and share, go out and be tempered.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:01

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SPEAKER_05 1:38:06

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SPEAKER_00 1:38:28

Patron's glass, a clear choice.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:30

I want to share something that's become a big part of the Be Tempered mission: Patreon. Now, if you've never used it before, Patreon is a platform where we can build community together. It's not just about supporting the podcast, it's about having a space where we can connect on a deeper level, encourage one another, and walk this journey of faith, resilience, and perseverance side by side. Here's how it works. You can join as a free member and get access to daily posts, behind-the-scenes updates, encouragement, and some things I don't always put out on other platforms. And if you feel called to support the mission financially, there are different levels where you can do that too. That support helps us keep producing the podcasts, creating gear, hosting events, and sharing stories that we believe can truly impact lives. And here's the cool part Patreon has a free app you can download right on your phone. It works just like Facebook or Instagram, but it's built specifically for our community. You'll be able to scroll through posts, watch videos, listen to content, and interact with others who are on the same journey. At the end of the day, this isn't just about content, it's about connection. It's about building something together. Not just me and men putting out episodes, but a family of people committed to growing stronger through real stories and real faith. So whether you just want to hop on as a free member or you feel called to support in a bigger way, Patreon is the door into that community. Because at the heart of Be Tempered has always been simple real stories, raw truth, resilient faith. So that even one person out there that hears what they need to hear, and Patreon helps make that possible.