#75 Dustin Peace

Dustin Peace is the former Head Football Coach at Canyon Del Oro (CDO) in Tucson, Arizona.  Over his 15 year head coaching career at CDO, Coach Peace went 119-50.  He started his head coaching career by winning the State Championship during his first year as well as ending his coaching career with another State Championship.  Coach talks about how practicing in the morning changed the trajectory of his program and allowed both players and coaches to find balance between school, football and personal life.  We also dive deep into his accountability system, which every coach could learn from.  Coach Peace started his head coaching career by winning the State Championship during his first year as well as ending his coaching career with another State Championship.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Coaches and athletic directors, it's Corbin Smith with MTTS Sports Group. Let me ask you a quick question. What are the biggest challenges that you face when it comes to leadership development and culture sustainability? At MTTS Sports Group, we have created a system through leadership speaking and training, staff alignment seminars, as well as culture seminars that address those issues. We also offer a six-hour fully immersive leadership stress test for your teams called the Tour Crucible. If you are interested at all, go to www.mtts sportsgroup.com and let us know how we can help. Enjoy the podcast. All the things that we wish, everything that I wish I would have done that I didn't know that I was asking for help and one everything that I did wrong is why that MTTS Leadership and Culture Development System, why I created it, why I wrote the book, why I started this. It's it's everything I didn't do. Um so that's cool, coach. Yeah, I'll go ahead and I'll go ahead and introduce you. Um Coach Dustin Peace. He is the uh head football coach at a youth flag football team at Tucson, Arizona. Yep, yep. I just said I love it. Um no, but in all seriousness, um you retired a couple years ago. You were the head football coach at Canyon Del Oral High School in Tucson, CDO. Um man, I I've I've known you for a while. I mean, you helped with with when I took over the Larry Smith Coaching Academy after my dad's coach, you know. Yeah, so do I. All 500 of them that we could give out. But uh no, extremely man, you yeah, I you know, we can go down through your accolades, and I know you're very humble and and gracious and stuff like that, but I I didn't know this until I was doing some research. Your first year as a head coach, you went 14-0 and won the state championship, correct?

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Yeah, we had some pretty good guys, yep.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Yeah, yeah. Your last year as a head coach, you went 14-0 and won the state championship. Yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

That kind of, yeah, that kind of was not totally planned, but I I knew I knew that was my last group. I just kind of knew it. Um was a lot invested in that group, and uh man, it paid off.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Well, it was a special group. I mean, I remember it because I was coaching at the time. I I just you know, I I remember keeping up with it, just keeping up with it. And I do with Tucson, Tucson, you know, Tucson's special to me. But um, so 119 wins and 50 losses in 15 years. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

15 years as head coach, yeah. I was I was at CEO seven years before that, so yep.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah, I knew that. I knew that. Um, man, a lot to talk about. I first want to say this because you brought it up, but my nephew Mason Bray is a quarterback at U of A, and you sent me a picture the other day of um he was your flag football team's coach.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yeah, yeah, it was awesome because we had uh last year our flag football coach, because U of A does a great thing where they have the players um from the university get involved with the community and uh and coach a football team, and there's a a parent coach that helps, and I'm the parent coach now. Um, and uh last year we had Caden Luke, who which was his roommate, uh Mason's roommate, and then Caden moved on to West Virginia who who played for me. And I said, hey man, yep. Yeah, I was like, hey, dude, you got to get me hooked up with Mason because me and Mason connected uh last year because he was doing the flag football last year, and I was like, hey man, I want him to coach our boys and take this over, and uh real fun. Uh great kid, great young man. Uh so excited. My boy got to be coached by him, but yeah, it was awesome. It was fun.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Yeah, yeah. Well, I I when they I'm in Colorado right now for about another three months before we move back down to the valley. But uh we went to the U of A Colorado game and um actually got to meet Caden Luke's parents. Good people, man. They they uh they spoke super highly of you. Super highly. And I I know you're close to that family, but what a great family. What a great kid.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yeah, awesome kid, family. Um, good tradition at CDO. Brother's there right now. Um, he's doing some big things. He'll be a junior next year. So yeah, I just kept up with Kate and he's been calling me about fishing, uh, I'm a big fisherman too. Been calling me about uh his fishing techniques out in West Virginia, so that's been cool to connect with, you know, kind of this leadership piece, connecting with our kids outside of uh outside of football. And uh me and him have a good outside relationship, um, and it's been awesome.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Good. Before I ask you about um, you know, the importance of that, I I I want to ask you just real briefly, what made you, and I know you played football at NAU, um you went to Flowing Wells High School, correct? Yep, yep. Yep, Flowing Wells. You're in the Flowing Wells uh Hall of Fame. So um what made you want to get into coaching? Was was it your your was it your coach? Tell us a little bit about your coach in high school.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Man, you know, um you know I came from a Flowing Wells area, Tucson's, you know, not the best area. Um came from a pretty tough upbringing. Um football, you know, like a lot of coaches, uh kind of saved me, put me on a different path, made me a different person than and than a lot of my family. Uh now I will say my dad was a state champion at Floying Wells in 1976, so I went to school there, kind of followed that whole, you know, um tradition in our family. But my head football coach, my freshman year, I was able to play varsity, and I played for a guy named John Kashner, um, who just recently passed. Um he was the head coach at Floyne Wells for about 10 years and then won a state championship in Coolidge, you know, has a huge history in Casagran area. And then for my last three years, it was Pat Nugent who was my head coach. Um so me and Coach Nugent, he was like, you know, my father figure, um, really took care of me. Um when I got my senior year, I got hurt in football. I tore my Achilles tendon, my my fourth game of the season. Um we were playing Terrell Suggs in Hamilton, actually, when Hamilton just first started. Yeah, so tore my Achilles tendon in a non-like just non-contact way. And my my scholarships and things of that kind of tumbled after that. And Coach Nugent, you know, I remember him driving me up to NAU for me to go meet the staff and try to get me a walk-on spot and all that other number. And he just, you know, had had we not took that trip, knowing this now, you know, 20-some years ago, it may have not been my path. You know, it may have not been, you know, I know I wanted to go to college, but once you're in, you know, just kind of like our aspirations as coaches, once we get kids into college and that ball gets rolling, a lot of times that you know you're able to finish that. So um he did that for me in so many ways, you know. And then when I stopped playing, came back and coached for him when I was 20, and then never stopped coaching at CDO for 22 years, and uh got a chance to play against Coach Nugent, you know. I mean, coach against him not too long ago, you know. Our last year, we played each other twice. He was at Micah Mountain. So um he went from my father figure to somebody I work for to somebody I coached against, and now he's just a he's my really good friend, but he's still my coach. I'll call him coach to the day I die. So um, you know, and I got many more guys that on my staff. I was really lucky, you know, um, that I connect with uh all the time. Like Pat Ryden, who's the head coach at South Point, was our defensive coordinator. Um, so our whole Fullen Wells football tree um was all a part of that. Like Warner Smith. I don't know if you know Warner Schmid from the University of Arizona. Yes. Yeah, he was my old he was our O-line coach in my sophomore year. So he was one of the yeah, he was like just a huge factor in our life too. You know, being young, he was just out of college and uh coaching us and all that stuff. So a little bit about how I fell in love with the sport, you know, and uh and who mentored me along the way. And I kind of fell in love with CDO. We invested so much time in there that I just kept staying and kept staying and kept staying. And uh even now, you know, my kids in fifth grade, probably on the track to go to CDO. Um and I'm still connected to Coach McKee, who's the head coach over there, and we had a lot going on. So yeah, I haven't left the computer yet.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Are you are you living up in that Oro Valley area?

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah, well, I could I teach up here at a at an elementary school right up the road, but I we're kind of in the the the uh foothills um foothills mall area, so not too far from CDO. I'm like 10 minutes from CDO.

unknown 9:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Yeah. How important you you were talking about, we were talking about Kate and Luke, but how important is it, has it been, and how meaningful is it for you to stay in contact with former players or former coaches and um you know have that type of connection with them? Because I know for me, I and I didn't realize this until we got fired at Missouri, and I think I was 28. Um and I realized really quick, because I had a bunch of my position kids like, Coach, we're gonna transfer, go wherever you go. I said, No, you're not, you're gonna stay here, you're gonna stay in Missouri, you know, blah, blah, blah. But you don't realize uh until you step back how how more influential those people and how more meaningful those those kids that you coach and the coaches you coached with, the impact that they have on you until you're no longer around them um on a daily basis. Not that we took it for granted, but just that it was so meaningful to me now that I'm out of coaching. Every kid that I coach, good and bad. So yeah, what's the importance for you in regards to that?

SPEAKER_00 10:41

You know, and it brings up a great point that I have that I always felt when I was, you know, being the head coach is you had this pressure where you always moved on. Like, you know, after 15 years, when that group left, you loved them so much. Um, but then you said goodbye to them, and a lot of your focus was on the next group or the next upcoming groups, and you lost a little contact with that. So in my heart, I always felt a little guilty that I wasn't able to connect with those 50 guys year in, year out that invested everything in you. And uh when I stopped, I kind of had this thing going where every day I was gonna reach out to a kid, just a random kid, just some kid in my in my phone that was from 2010, and text them and be like, hey, this Coach Peace, how you doing, man? And uh, and I've done a lot of that since, and it's made me feel a little more complete. Um, because it's always been about the relationships for me and and the development, you know. Granted, the success comes with with all that other stuff, with the leadership, the stuff that you're talking about. But yeah, with that last group that I was really close to, because a lot of those guys, we had we had about 18 guys that played as sophomores, and we we took some licks. We weren't very good. Well, we were good, we made the playoffs, but we were like six and four their sophomore year. But um, man, you know, having them in the room every single day for four, three to four years, got really close with that group, and now I'm able to connect with them more because I'm not I'm not coaching right now. So I really appreciate, you know, being able to have those conversations. And you know, we've had get togethers like a state championship reunion. I brought them over for for uh for the holidays and we watched the game again and we took a picture. We had like 30 guys there, it was awesome. So being able to do things like that, because you're able to slow down has kind of been something I've appreciated and know that I will definitely, if I get back into it, I will make it very meaningful to keep that connection rolling. You know, not that it's been lost at all. Like I I just saw Kadeem Carey at the we had our little track meet last Friday, and man, he gives me the biggest hug, you know. His his boys are playing in the same little league as my boys, and like uh it's all coming back now, you know. So I'm getting so old now that their kids are are coming up.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

So that's funny. Let me let me ask you, because we we really, I mean, and obviously we talked about the MTTS sports group um and the the the development system with leadership and and culture, but when I talk to coaches or athletic directors, and I do it pretty much every day, and one of the things I I make sure that they understand, everybody talks about character, right? But character starts with developing leadership. If you can when you're developing your student athletes or even your students in the classroom, as coaches, I think we're always trying to develop them as leaders. And and when you instill leadership and develop leadership, you are automatically instilling, you know, character with within their their self. And I know we talked prior, and you said you had um you had a system when you were at CDO that you used um to measure character and commitment. Tell us a little bit about that because I think I think systems, and and before you answer, I'm sorry to interrupt my you before you even started, but the we as coaches we deal with problems every day. Problems arise for us as as head coaches every single day, just like everybody else. Our job in the role that we're in is to find solutions to solve those problems. But the but I know one of my biggest mistakes is I didn't have systems to take the solutions I had and implement us implement them within a system. So you mentioned a system to really measure character and and commitment. And I think a lot of coaches really need to understand that they need to work off of systems, just not solutions.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Yeah, so you know, my first couple years, things were easy, 14 and 0, 13 and 1, life is great, you know. And then for me, we got to one of the years we went three and seven, you know, and uh I really at that moment I became a better coach. Um, because I learned, you know, it's not all, it's not all about wins, it's not all about um, it's about connecting with your team. Because one of the things when we were three and seven, we weren't very good on the football field, but our team loved each other. Our team was close, and that warmed our heart. That made us feel like we had a great year, and I went for that from now on, you know, and from that point I kind of transitioned to I want that even more than I want 13 and one, even more than I want 14 and oh, honestly, because I want those kids close. So in January, every year, when you come back, you know, everybody's hitting the weights, everybody's saying, you know, we're gonna work hard, we're gonna be in the weight room. You know, that's that's what everybody does. So I tried to do something, and and I actually last year I went through a a five-meeting plan with CDO last year, doing my whole character development that I that we do and and how we measure it. Because kind of picked this up from uh uh like a Simon Seck. I don't know if you know him. He's like a business leader kind of guy.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

I know who he is, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

And he yeah, he's got this, and I'll send it to you. He's got this great, and I I credit him for it. We're able to measure everything about our athletes. We measure their 40, we measure their their weight, their height, their jump, they're how they catch. Like every coach knows how to do that. The thing we don't measure is their character or their commitment or their trust. How can we trust this individual? And the way he the way he termed it is he talked about Navy SEALs, you know, how do they pick the the Navy SEAL team six out of all the best players, best people, and and we put it on a grid. I used to teach math for seven years, so we put it on a coordinate grid and we measure, you know, your most talented athletes with your most trusted athletes. And and there were four quadrants that we talked about. You know, your high talent, your high trust, you know, those are your captains, those are your guys that are natural leaders. That's easy, you know. Your low talent, lower talent, but high trust, those are the kids that you need on the team, you know, that um that are gonna do the right things, they're gonna serve roles that you need. It's that low, it's that high talent, low trust kid that can be a killer. And it the low trust, low uh talent, those kids don't play football. And I kind of frame it in that in that text with kids. But even though that high talented kid, if he doesn't have trust, he could be a killer for you and your on your team. So we talk about how we generate captains from that. Then from there, we had a measurement system where we would rank the kids from one to 52. There would be like, I'm pretty sure I gotta get stuck at the top of my head, but four categories. So we had measure them in their daily attendance to my class. Were they on time? So they would just get three points every day. Three points. If you were late, you got one point versus three. If you weren't there, you got a zero. And that's part of life. You know, if there's gonna be days where you may have to miss something to go there, the only thing I would excuse them for was like a school-related function. They had to go in a basketball game, and they're not in class that day in my class. Yeah, there was there were some exceptions there. So there was the daily attendance in our in our class, there were their grades. So they would get on their grades, they would get um certain points for an A, B, and C. That was the second category. Next category was tardiness and attendance to their other classes, and then um then we would have a character sheet that would go around all their teachers, and their teachers would rank them as fair, poor, good, or great. So we had those four categories. They could always attend tutoring to make up for absences, they could always um do community service to get extra points. So there's a whole interactive system. We'd all have points tied to it, and we would have we would put that bad boy up there after four and a half weeks. We'd slap it on the board. Here's our number one, here's our top ten guys, here's our bottom, you know, here's here's where you rank, you know, and eventually um we'd get the right guys on the bus, you know, and the right guys would start making the right decisions, and we would get people would grow. So so we would erase it after four and a half weeks and we would start over. Four and a half weeks again. Then I would do that all the way till we hit spring ball, and then we would know who our top ten character guys are or top whatever. And we would also talk about growth, you know. Um, you know, you went from this many points this time to this many points this time, and it it took a lot of time, don't get me wrong, but you know, in the in the spring you got time for that, you know, in my opinion. Right. You know, uh, because we had a pretty good advantage at CDO where I'd have the kids two hours a day every single day. So I had them 10 hours a day. Um, all my football kids, not just the varsity kids, all levels. So we were doing this on all levels freshman, JV, varsity, calculating all those things, and then we would measure, okay, here's your high trust guys. We now have a measurement to measure our high trust guys. Um, and man, I ran that for about eight years. I was doing that, and I would tweak it and I would adjust it. Yeah, it was uh it gave some hard data because I'm a data guy, you know. Um gave some hard data to can we trust you, you know? Are you out in the community doing things? We would provide opportunities for them to do community service and you know, and they'd have every opportunity, like, okay, you're gonna get sick, you know, might miss a day, but you can do community service, we can get to tutoring. There's ways to make this up because in the season, somebody's gonna get sick, somebody's gonna, somebody's gonna miss because they're sick. Like, how are we gonna accommodate for those things? So to me, that's when we started separating ourselves and our kids, we we eliminated the in-season problems so much more by holding them to that high of a standard, not even in the season. Um, then it's once the season hits, we were we were touching on that, but we were kind of already in fifth gear working on football stuff, you know. Um, and that's kind of been the goal that I've been trying to tell. Um, like when I went to CDO last year, I was like, hey guys, you're investing this much time now to um to make it all football come the fall. All relationships come the fall, but not classroom, not off the field, not you know, all this stuff. So um, so anyhow, that's been our system. Our kids, our kids love it too, because they're they take pride in it, you know. And I'd get shirts for the kids and all this other stuff that we would tie incentives into, and we'd put their names on the board, like we'd publicize it all. I send it out to parents.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Good.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

Our top. Top 10 character. I'd email the whole system to our parents, so our parents knew it. You know, I wouldn't send the points of like everybody, but I'd say, hey, here's our top 10, this this whatever. Um, so anyhow, that was our system. Um, and it and it really stuck with me because, you know, we measure so many other things. We just we have no way to measure.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

We measure everything.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Yeah, you know, no way to measure how we're gonna be able to count on somebody. And and uh it's been pretty cool. So since I did that, my last year, we had a kid that went four straight years not missing a single practice, a single summer workout coach, or anything for four entire years. He's had better attendance than me. You know, and uh yeah, and we created like an award after him. So, like having this data created into other things as well, you know.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

What I and I know um because I would that was that was an area that I struggled with, right? How do I measure and and how is it visible? You know, if parents come into me and say, hey, why isn't my son playing or something like that? And and you know, I I kept notes on everything, I was very organized. But early on in my my head coaching career, I I reached uh one of my mentors was Max Ragsdale, you know Max. Yep, um, who was at Campo Verde, Campo Verde as a head coach, and and uh he told me about his system, and it's not the same as yours, but it's basically an accountability system. I mean, you're grading them on everything, you're using points for attendance, for community service, for practice, for off season stuff, for classroom stuff. Um, and then they have to hit a certain percentage, right? And so that really was good for me as a coach because, like you said, I had data on them now, and you know, we publicized it too, maybe not to the extent as you as you did, but tell the coaches, tell myself out there, what how did that change implementing your system? How did it change your culture? And we talk about this all the time, player-led compared to coach-led, right? And because ultimate goal is the your best teams are player-led teams, but how do you sustain that that type of a culture by implementing something like your system that you guys use to hold kids accountable?

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Yeah, I mean, you know, since the kids had the ability to have it as freshmen, once we finally got it rolling year after year, it became a thing of pride. You know what I mean? Like we we also have this thing where we we do this whole system where we measure, we do measure their 40s and we have a top, we call it the Superman. This was kind of called the Iron Man system. So our kids, even our seniors, would go to our freshmen and be and and hold them accountable and s and congratulate them for the things that they're doing. So when you have that buy-in and that connection from bottom to top, and they know it for four years, it becomes a very meaningful thing. And like, it's not a thing we're gonna hide from, it's not a thing that's gonna go away. Um, it's a thing that's gonna always be there. And and I tell kids that, you know, and our kids eventually start understanding at the end of the day, if you and you run the fast same 40, and you and you are the same height, and you and you are the same whatever, same whatever, I'm probably gonna be looking at this other piece of of information as and our team will too. Because I even ask our team, would you rather have this kid on the field or this kid on the field? And that's where you get to the player-led situation. Um, because you know, our captains can't be guys that are on the bottom of that list. Our captains can't be guys that are on the on the middle part of that list, you know. Um, so we're gonna have that's where we get back to that grid where you have to be a high character kid. Your talent, your talent is your talent, you know. You were born with your talent uh and uh to a degree. We try to change it as coaches, but what we can change quicker, and I tell our teams this we can change quicker our character and our accountability and our commitment. And if we can change that quicker, we're gonna have greater growth, faster growth than trying to change your 40. I'm gonna work for two years to change your 40 for one tenth. When we can make you a more accountable, more coachable kid, we might get better results.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Yeah, yeah, that's good. We uh we also talked about, and I want to explore this a little bit because I think it's a struggle, especially I think for a lot of coaches, but especially in warmer area states, and and um, you know, you got the guys that that practice in the morning, guys that practice after practice, guy or after school, guys that practice at night. And and when I was the head coach, I was always like, it was harder for us to practice in the morning just because when I was at McClintot, from a socioeconomic standpoint, I mean, we had guys taking buses to get to school, you know, and and um it was hard to do it at night because again, a lot of these kids were working, and so we just you know dove into the heat and did it right after school. Um, you guys, you you said your last four years you you started practicing in the morning and it was a game changer.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Yeah, I mean from every aspect, and you're 100% right. It has to be the right demographic um to make that happen. You have to get your administration on board to make that happen. You have to get your parents on board to make that happen. But once all that goes, once all that goes and people feel the benefits of it, it's it changes everything. You know, um, it really drug out another four years of me coaching personally because I was able to be home for dinner every day. Um, yeah, I was able to pick the kids up from school, I was able to do all those things that all these coaches don't get to do, you know, right six to seven months out of the year to make that happen. So for a coaching standpoint, it was awesome. Parents, same thing. You know, um, it's the last four years. Some of the parents will have their kids in their home. And man, if you get to have dinner with your kid for another four years and not have them at football practice every day of the week, six days of the week, um, that's a game changer. And uh administration loves it too, because uh it's a lot easier on them um to have that morning practice and not compete with all the other sports going on. So we were done. Um, and everything was complete. It was pretty nice for us. We would start at 6.30, and I had the kids in class till 10. So I was able to, yeah, we practiced from about 6.30, put two hours in. Then we would go hit the weights, then they had showered, then they'd come in and watch the film that we just had on the field. So that turnaround of being able to have that lesson on the field, already, they're already watching what they just did an hour ago. Um, we're already breaking that down. We come in, we're fresh in the morning, you know. Um first couple years took took kids a while, and it goes back to that accountability thing. Some kids struggle with the morning, struggle getting up, um, struggle being accountable and being able to do that. Easy to hit the I'm sick button, you know. And one of the one of the things I'd always have them do is if they were sick or something like that, a little uh a little cheat code here that I liked was they had to put it in Huddle in the group message. You know, Johnny, I'm sick.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

So everybody knew. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Everybody knew. So when you showed up to fourth hour and you were totally fine, your teammates can hold you accountable. You know, they can, you know, I I told them, you know, you don't you can lie to me all you want in your face, but if you lie to your friends too, um, and your teammates, uh, that's a bit of a problem, you know, that we're not gonna have a healthy team, we're not gonna have a healthy relationship, you're not gonna be a good friend. Uh so you know, just having it in the morning and our coaches ended up loving it too, man. But it takes a lot from your administration. Like I had six on-campus coaches, so they all had their planning period first thing in the day, so they can they can finish practice and then get into their regular classes. So it was an amazing setup. Um, it's what got us over the top the last few years, no doubt about it. Um, and our kids, our kids love having the afternoon off. They can be kids, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 30:37

I'm sure. Um for for a quick reference, for a quick reference, Dusty, what what um what time was first what time did first hour start at CDO?

SPEAKER_00 30:49

So the everybody came in, like if you had a regular first class, it would start at nine o'clock. So we my kids had our class at nine o'clock, which pushed them till ten o'clock before they had their first academic class. You know, and I talked to some of the coaches in the valley, like I talked to uh Coach Jewel, who was at Brofi when I was first doing this, and he doesn't even have that kind of luxury. They gotta get off, they gotta get their kids to class. I was like 8 30 or 9 or whatever it was. And then they were going at like 5. So it was really, really tough to get kids in at that early. But you know, and then even towards the end of the week, Thursday, we would come in at 7:30 and and do our hour and a half or hour kind of deal. Friday, they wouldn't even come in till nine o'clock. So we'd let them sleep in. So it was like it was recovery throughout the week to make that happen, you know?

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

No, that's that's great. I mean, for for coaches too. I mean, I obviously you you you were you were tired from coaching for now. Um you have a younger family and wanted to be a dad, which I I it's amazing. That's amazing to me, Dusty. That because very few people would do that. I mean, I people don't know this, but I got out of college coaching, turned down three jobs at Division I schools after we got fired at Arkansas State, because I told my ex-wife that if I ever if she ever had to work because she wanted to stay home with the kids and she was an attorney, if she ever had to work, that I would I would get out of coaching. And um all three of those jobs were you know lower level D1 schools, but she would have had to work, and I had two we had two kids at the time, and it was more important to me to be be with my kids and be a dad than be moving around. So kudos to you, man. That's that's awesome. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

You too, brother.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Now we go to the same elementary to school together, they had me for PE.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

It's wonderful. Yeah, that's good. Um, let me let me I I told you I wanted to ask you about this because you've had a lot of kids that have that have transitioned to the next to the next level and played at a very high level. We've had NFL players come through there, you know, big-time college uh kids, kids that gone and played at all levels. What and I think this gets lost with a lot of high school coaches, and and within my business platform, one of the things I'm doing is an athlete family mentorship. It's not a recruiting service, no exposure. I'm not going, it's to prepare and to educate these kids just like I did as a head coach, these kids and their families on the process and what they can do to help themselves and be able to communicate effectively with their head coach through that process. Um there's a lot of guys out there that you know what the way recruiting is, the landscape right now for high school kids, it just keeps getting worse. Right? Yeah. Um what do you feel like your role was when you were a head coach in that process? What we all know, and people don't necessarily parents don't always believe it, but that it all comes back to the head coach. These coaches, these college coaches are gonna come to the head coach. That's who they're gonna, that's who they're gonna trust. Um, and so you have an obligation as a head coach to if a kid wants to go on, you you have to help him find a place. Mia's got to do his work. But so what what do you feel like a high school head coach's responsibility is in that whole process and in in today's day and age of recruiting?

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Yeah, I think I mean, you know, like you said, coach, we've been in it at a different level and we were able to grow with what has happened now. I feel for these coaches that are coming in now, you know what I mean, and with the landscape, like you said, of the current high school level kid, it's way different than it was five years ago, let alone 15 years ago when I started doing this. But again, for me, this communication, this heavy work on the recruiting starts in the spring. Uh, we have I bring in anybody who, you know, I hold a whole night session where we break down what is recruiting, what does it look like? Good. Um, how am I gonna help you? Um, and we're pretty good. You know, I was I actually I had a huge advantage being at CEO because I was there for such a long time that a lot of people trusted what I said as far as it comes to recruiting services and all these other tugs, ways they're getting tugged. Like we didn't have a big uh group of kids that did any club ball or did any um outside services too much. Um we were lucky because we had a lot of tradition and we had a lot of um, you know, a lot of history of sending guys off and things of that sort. Now I'll tell you though, it wasn't easy. You know, um we had so many examples over our years that were just of success stories. Yeah, we had Kadeem Carey, who two-time All-American at the U of A, went to the Bears, you know, Blake Martinez, who played for the Packers, and the, you know, we had those. But we also had kids like Caden Luke, like I just had, who led the the state in rushing. We were we were a state championship team and had no scholarship offers, zero scholarship offers. So um it's finding that balance and educating parents and kids, like what is the realistic option for you? You know, when they know that, because you know it's kind of fresh, you know, Caden Luke, who holds our clean power clean record with 360 or whatever it is, and you know, ran the ball for 40 sometimes in the semifinal game, and all this stuff, you know. If I can't get that kid somewhere, there's a definitely an outside, uncontrollable force that coaches are dealing with, you know, and that parents gotta be aware of and kids gotta be aware of. Now, the one advantage I will say that's happened over the last few years is to me, I feel better marketing to my players nowadays, Division II, NAIA, Division III, because guess what? Exactly. You know, guess what, man? You're you're gonna you're gonna live high school, you're gonna continue to live this family-oriented high school level football. You going to go D1 and do all that, that's great, but they're gonna be bringing in 60 guys every other year trying to take your job. Um, and you're gonna you're gonna have to hit the portal if you got to hit the portal. Like it's a different world. Um, we're advocating for, hey, man, go play NAI at this beautiful school, continue your education. Guess what? It's gonna cost you the same amount as it'll cost you to go to the U of A and just pay tuition. Boom. Go be a football player, be a part of a family. And that sell to me is even bigger than before. Because before, you know, in in 2010, it was like Division I or nothing, you know. Um, but now there's so many opportunities for kids. Like um, I'm a part of the National Football Foundation coach, and we just did the uh the spring recruiting down in Phoenix, and and I was out there coaching and doing that. Now we had 130 kids go, and like six, like two-thirds of the kids get offers and opportunities. Like, there's so many uh ways to make that happen. There's just you gotta educate the parents early. You gotta be realistic, not break hopes and dreams, but um, but be realistic with them too, and uh and find ways to get kids in front of places without spending money on an outside service. Um, simple as that. I believe that, you know, and I'm an in-house guy. Like you should be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

Yeah, well, I mean, yeah. You you and I both, I mean, we we know as head like the the high school recruit the the recruiting services, and I'm not gonna name them, but they for the sport of football, they're they're not helping. They don't do that, it's a money grab, you know, and and so that's where I've approached it differently from an education standpoint. And you know, that let me just say this, and I think you would agree, that like I said, college coaches are gonna go back to the high school coaches in the sport of football, they're not gonna go to seven-on-seven coaches or trainers, or they may in other sports, but not in football. And the reality of the situation is when I was coaching college, and back then it was all, you know, it wasn't it wasn't like emails and stuff, I would get a packet and it'd have a kid's name and maybe a picture on it. And if I didn't recognize the kid's name, I didn't even open it, it went straight in the trash. And so these college coaches are are responsible for the evaluation of players, parents. If you're listening to this, and all a high school coach can do is educate you, prepare you as a family, uh, be realistic, be honest, be transparent with uh the high school coach's thoughts on where you think you can play, and then send film out for you to those levels. If you got a division three kid or an NAIA kid, you're not gonna send it to an FBS school because they're it it's reputation, right? Yeah, um for for the head high school coach. But um once that film is sent off, once they evaluate you, if if as a head high school coach, we you know have to have thick skin because if they don't reach back, reach out back to you about the kid, they're not interested, and you just have to know that. And so once that's done, you know, we're out of it for all intents and purposes. Um yeah, it's I I agree with you, Dusty. Like to be in that situation of a of a newer coach coming in, like, whoo, it's rough.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Yeah. Yeah. You know, and like you just said, you know, as a head coach, you have to you have to be accountable to your assessments too. You can't just be feeding the these college coaches, okay, I got a guy this, I got a guy at this, I got a guy at this. Eventually you have to prove to them that your word means something, and that's gonna all come program too. It's not just about you, but they want to come see Coach Smith because I trust him. He gave me a real evaluation about this kid five years ago, and now I trust him for whatever reason. You know, I've had those relationships where I've said, hey coach, man, I love this kid. He's good on the field, he can do this. Here's his grades. Here's here's a couple things that I gotta be transparent about because it's about my program, not necessarily about the one kid. Um, but again, that ability, then then that guy will come back in the door and recruit another kid from you down the road, you know. So, coaches, the thing that parents, you know, parents listen to have to understand too is there's a factor there that you have to protect the program on top of doing what's best for your kid, too, you know. Um, so that's a tough fine line new young head coach in the recruiting world. Um I recommend even my last few years, I had a young recruiting coordinator. I call him a recruiting coordinator, and he uh he answered all the emails, sent out all the video. And then, you know, like you said, at the end of the day, the coach is gonna come ask me when he's ready and he likes what he's seen. He wants to ask how the kid is straight up, you know, and uh then I'd have those conversations. But I had I had someone doing all that other hustle and bustle, meeting with people and things of that sort. Um, it's a little bit different now because uh coaches don't come as much as they used to, you know. In our day it was visits all the time. Yeah, now they they go to the same spots, but um they even do that for their their count, their head check. You know what I mean? Um you know for so many years.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Yeah. Yeah, I I think um one of the one of the things that my last couple years, because I started doing more research when things started to change, was that these parents and these kids, they don't understand that that there are close to 800 schools that aren't Division I, Division II, III, NAIA, not junior, not including junior colleges, but four-year institutions, almost 800 schools have a college football team. It's a lot of schools, man. It's a lot of opportunities. Yeah, and then you throw FBS and FCS and you're at a thousand.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Yeah. Like we had kids at uh, you know, at CDO last year that went to our showcase, that NFF showcase. The year before, when I was the head coach, they were juniors and those kids didn't play. We were pretty good, you know, all that other stuff. They were okay players. They went to that showcase, and man, they're both playing on the same school out in like Lords, Indiana, or something. And they're they're experiencing their college together with their best friend. They went to high school, man. You know, there's the ball rolling for them to get their college education and for them to just develop. You know, so to me, that opportunity is is bigger than it's been before. And that's the where that focus should be with parents, you know. I agree. Um, and you know how it is, coach. And I always we always used to have this funny saying, not funny, it might be a little harsh, but one of my old school head uh coaches, one of one his name's Tommy Steele, he's one of the best assistants in Southern Arizona. He was at CDO for 30 plus years. He said, Well, if you wanted to be a better player, you should have chosen different parents. You know what I mean? He uh he always used to say that. Where you know, parents, if if if you if things in your family were not close for your kid in the level of football, it's hard to it's hard to jump that. It happens, don't get me wrong. But there's there's that factor of um of you know ability that you that you're given, you know. Um but in the other level, at those other levels, you can work your way to get into those other levels, and that should be our focus. Sure. You know? Yeah. I agree. And you know, I'll say this too for yeah. I'll say this too for our other head coaches listening, real quick, is uh it's your job also to keep your kids hungry to play football. You know, there's there's that I noticed over my years there were there were kids that um sometimes got too burnt out, sometimes weren't ready to continue. So there's that balance and that that energy that you gotta have in your program to keep them wanting to do what's best for their path, you know, and uh sometimes it is football, sometimes it's not, but preparing them for that.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

Oh good. Well, Dusty, I really appreciate you taking the time, man, jumping in the car, finding a clean space to do this. So uh 45 minutes went quick. Yeah, I know it does. That's why now you know why on all these big podcasts, why they go for three or four hours, because you can just keep going and going and going.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

Yeah, we barely scratched anything.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

I know. Well, we'll we'll circle back. I got some Tucson guys. I'm gonna do a round table here in probably a month or so um with some guys there, and and you'll definitely be, you know, we'll we'll find a time for everybody to be able to get on. But again, I appreciate you, and uh I look forward to I know you're not done coaching at that level. Um you know, I think everybody does. So get those kids raised, and when it's time, you'll you'll be back at it. So and I'm looking forward to that time. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

Yeah, and my little eight year old, he'll be ready too.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

Cool. Good. Well, just hang on just a sec, okay? And uh, coach, appreciate you, man. Alright, man. Thanks, brother. Thank you.