#83 Zack Threadgill

Zack Threadgill is a longtime Arizona educator and football coach who spent 13 years leading the program at Apollo High School, where he built a culture centered on integrity, communication, accountability, and relationships. A former Apollo player himself, Zack shares a powerful perspective on leadership, mentorship, community involvement, and the realities of balancing coaching with marriage and fatherhood. In this conversation, we dive into the evolution of his coaching journey, the importance of investing in young people beyond the game, and why developing communication skills, strong culture, and authentic relationships are just as important as wins and losses.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:03

Yeah, well we'll get going here so we can so you can spend some time with your family. But no, all good.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

I'm excited, man.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Yeah, so am I. I'll go ahead and introduce you. Zach Threadgill. Um we've known each other for a while, coached against each other. Um previously the head football coach at Apollo High School in the Phoenix area. Um was there for 13 years as a head coach. You're still there. You're just not not coaching anymore. Um so thanks for coming on, man. It's been a while. Thanks for having me. Excited. I think I think the last time I saw you, I think you guys beat us 57 to 10. And I know. Yeah. I think that changed, I think that completely changed our season and kind of the trajectory. I mean, we used it as like, listen, this isn't the old McClintock, but um, yeah, we had to knock that out. So thanks for doing that.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

That was one of those things where it seemed like everything went right for us. One of those games where the opening script and it everything kind of just fell into place. And so uh it's nice when you got really good players too.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

And then I think that actually the last time I probably saw you was my oldest son, Preston, graduating in 17. And he went to Mesquite, and they played you guys. I I don't know if it was in the regular season or the playoffs. Yeah, it was in the regular season.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yeah, um 17. We played against your stuff on in did he graduate in 17? Yeah, so what have we got to do? And they beat us, and that kid was all over the field. He was all over the field. I I mean both sides of the ball. And uh yeah, he he got us that game.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

He had a he had a great career at Weaver State, so it was fun pulling. Um, let me ask you something, because I I mean we all get into it for different reasons, and just reading some things about you. When when you first became a head coach, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you weren't you weren't married, correct? Yes, you weren't a father, yeah. Yeah. So 13 years and and kudos to you, you know, for for doing what you do yearly, you know, to reevaluate kind of everything that that was going on when you were a head coach. But give everybody a little bit of of your perspective on um, you know, just just that transition of of becoming a head coach, then getting married and having kids, and and I know it because I lived it, and it's part of the reason I got out of coaching college football. But um, from from your perspective, what changed the most for you from the time you became a uh head coach to the time you um retired as a head coach, if you will?

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Well, that's a great question. I um I guess my time availability probably changed the most. Um but you know, when I I was real fortunate with timing, and you know, I got done playing in college and was an assistant for two years and interviewed for the job when it opened really for experience. I knew I wanted to be a head coach, but I don't know if I was ready. I was 26. And the next thing I know, they said you're hired. I said, okay, what next? And um, and so at that point, I I'm I'm you know young. My brother's living with me. I my younger brother, Steven, and uh he's gotta be 23 years old. And uh we said, let's go do this. And so at that point, we're living we're single and we're uh just really married to our job at that point. You know, we're we're fresh new teachers at Apollo High School, very high energy guys. Uh we went so to be able to take the job at that point where we had really no off away from school responsibility. Um and so we're really able to dive into that, really able to dive into the relationships and really able to uh just have a great experience. And so then, and and that was great, and it really that was great to start the foundation that way. And I think that as you went on and ended up getting married, so I was 2006, and I ended up getting married in 2012 and had my twins in 2013. And so we really changed fast at that point, and so um I think that another thing that um you know our kids were born in August, and so right at the beginning of football season, and so that was a whole nother thing too, because they were uh premies, they were in the hospital for a little while, the NICU, and so the time availability and the value of that time, um, the value of time really became apparent to me. And then uh also uh at that point up to that point in my life, I was always in control, in my opinion, at least, right? Like I could control my schedule, I could control the team, I could control uh what we want to do with the calendar, all of that. And then now I was put in this situation where it really took me just to submit and say, you know, God, I am not in control at all, at all. Right. And so I'm gonna just trust you. And um, so then at that point, moving forward, having kids and coaching was great because my wife was super supportive, has always been super supportive. But really, like team mom and the girls were totally involved too. And so uh it was great to share that with them. Um, and then it just kind of got to a situation where it was kind of my time wasn't able to give what I was able to give before. And I felt that if I'm in if even if I'm only able to give 95%, how can I stand up in front of this group of kids and say, I need you to give me 100% when I could only give you 95%? And I thought that that was a good time for me to just kind of step back and kind of evaluate uh some priorities. And then uh, but it made it easier then when I got back into it.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yeah. Right. So, because I think the reason I ask you that, Zach, is because I think there's a lot of guys, and I know I struggled with it as a as a young father and and young husband for the first three or four years that I was coaching, first four years, um, you know, it was just me and and and m my ex-wife at the time. And um, once we had, you know, Preston, our our first, my whole perspective changed. Um, and you know, at that level, I mean, you're working 16, 18 hour days, 20 hour days during the season, and you're working seven days a week, you know, for seven months out of the year, and you're on the road for another three months. And um, but my perspective, you know, kind of went from you know, all about me to the greatest thing in the world just happened to me. And I was able to see it. And so when I when we went to Arkansas State, and then we got fired, you know, the whole staff got fired. Um, I turned down three jobs, you know, Tulsa UAB in eastern Wash or Eastern Michigan, got out of it, moved back to Arizona because we had two kids at the time, and it was just one of those things. And it's a hard thing to do because you miss it. Right. Right? You you miss being around, being in the it's that locker room mentality, right? Whether it's with the coaches or the kids or whatever. Um and I think a lot of there's a lot more coaches out there that go through what we went through as far as you know, really soul searching that. But I think there's a lot of coaches that that don't make the decision to stop coaching um because they're afraid they're gonna miss it. Right. Um and and it is, I mean, there's different avenues to to follow, you know, and God has has a path for all of us, and and um, you know, it it's a hard decision to make. Um but what was that evaluation process that you were talking about, like year after year that you went through to make sure that you were all in 100%, not 90 or 95 or 80? Um if you don't mind sharing it.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

I mean, you don't have to do that. I think it's I think it's critically important that coaches and not just head coaches, but all coaches evaluate themselves at the end of the year and evaluate, you know, what went well, what went wrong. More importantly, moving forward, do I have what it takes? And I still have that same juice, am I still have what it takes to do this for the whole year, not just for a couple months, and um to bring that energy every day and you know, it's something new every day. And so uh I would look back at that. I would I would talk with my wife, um, you know, check in with her, how she's feeling about it. And uh she's like I said, always super supportive. So for me, it just came time to like just the first couple years after kids was like, yeah, I still got this. I'm still we're in a good spot right now. I felt like I settled into a good routine. And then uh, and then just one that that one that final year. I never I never was in the middle of my last season thinking this is my last season. Right, right. I was never I never treated it like that. I treated, I I never, and I did that throughout my entire career being a head coach. I didn't ever wanted to look in week seven and say, man, I don't think I'm gonna do this anymore. Uh I want to, that was unfair to anybody involved. And so I stayed true to that. And then those first couple weeks afterwards, and really Christmas break, is when I just really realized, you know, I'm giving a lot of my time to this. And I think that it's time to take a step back and invest my time uh in some other places.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Good. Good for you. That's that's a big move, and I'm proud of you, and it's a hard thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Harder than most people. It is, because it doesn't leave you. You know it doesn't. You still can watch a game, and now you're looking at how what's what would you do here, what would you do there, how did that happen? And I love it, man.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

I I think that's always going to be before before I forget, because it just popped in my mind, but you you know about the the um MTTS sports group, right? Um I've created uh a nonprofit. I've just been doing that the last two months. So we need to have another discussion um some other time. Get on the phone and talk about that because I'd love to think you're gonna you're gonna love it. And I'd love to add in. You spoke briefly about that before. I want to follow up for sure. Yeah. Um here's a question I have for you because I I always tried to do this. When you hired, when you were a head coach, when you hired assistant coaches, I don't care what level, I mean, you took the same approach as as I took as it didn't matter if you were a freshman coach or a coordinator or an assistant coach, it didn't matter because you were all one staff, right? It didn't matter what level, um, didn't matter which title. When you hired new coaches and that had families of their own or or you know were married um without kids, married with kids, did you what was your approach to them in regards to their family? Um would you, you know, want to meet the the wife and the kids? Did you guys, you know, was it important for you to really make sure that um you know the the time that it took to coach at the high school level was understood and could be committed to and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_00 11:32

I I made that a big priority um it especially early on, of explaining what the time commitment was gonna look like and you know, talking about their current schedule and how Apollo football or how football is gonna fit into that schedule. And some of those conversations ended with us saying this isn't gonna work out. And some of them ended with us saying we need to, you know, this is gonna work and we can make this work. And so um, there's no way to like beat around the bush about that. That's there's some time some things that just, especially during the season, take some time. And um and the families really sacrificed a lot for us to be able to do that. And so just making sure I remind them to communicate with their wives or or girlfriends, especially young coaches. Uh, and I was one of them, but when when I see those young, young 20 coaches coming in, married and girlfriends, reminding them, hey man, like make sure your priorities are in order. Make sure, you know. And if you if you're ever getting a sense that it's not, having a conversation with that coach off to the side or telling him, hey man, get out of here. You know what I mean? Maybe you don't need to be here on this Saturday. Why don't you go take a day? And so, and I was also trying to be very understanding of that as well, because all coaches' search situations are different, especially some are on campus, some are off campus. Um, and so that the working schedule, the timelines, having guys who own their own business, having guys that work for the fire department, you know, the schedules are changing. Right. So just trying to be as understanding as possible and accommodating as possible to those guys.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Did you with your weekly in in-season schedule because for coaches, because I know everybody's different, you know, we know guys that have done do things completely different, and everybody does it kind of their own way. How did you have it set up? Where would you guys come in um on Saturdays and pretty much work the whole day and try and get 80, 85% of the game plan done and then give them Sunday off? Would you leave it up to your coordinators to kind of decide about you know the weekend? How how did you set that up?

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Uh we we went we met on Saturdays, Saturday mornings. And again, I think that was the result of me just wanting to do what worked for me. Um and so we would meet Saturday mornings, try to get as much as we could done, watching our film. And I've done it where we bring the kids in, where we didn't bring the kids in, you know, with the advancement of Huddle, you could there's a lot of stuff you can do where you don't necessarily all have to be in the same room. And so, but Huddle really didn't come into my tenure until the end. You know, when I first started, we were doing VHS, and I got back, you know, and so um, so we would come in Saturdays, work, try to get as much as we could done, and then a follow-up of coordinators over the weekend. I I was doing some coordinating early, and then when my brother took over as my offensive coordinator, and I had Sam Jacobs as my defensive coordinator, who would, you know, just stepped down from Sunny Slope. So that was the perfect marriage, really, because I had two guys in the roles that were really fit well with this just personality scheme. We worked so well together. And so when we had them, it seemed like our weekends were a lot less. There was a lot more trust in those guys where we'd still get our work done. Um, but then we would just have communication. My brother and I, again, living together by each other, being able to meet up whenever we needed to. And then uh Sam, we were just always in communication. So I think the responsibility was a little less there. I mean, now um meeting on Sundays, some teams do that. Um, but gotta get in there, I think, and meet with those guys and watch the film and and and explain the plan so everybody's on the same page. That's just so critically important. That first practice and through every practice, but making sure everybody's aligned. So Saturdays is what we would do. Try not to overkill it.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Right. Well, and it helps, like you said. I mean, I you know, there was a couple years there at McClintock where my the offensive coordinator was Anthony Figueroa, who's the head coach at Marcos now, and the defensive coordinator was Sammy Johns Sammy Johns, you know, who's been I so those were my coordinators, and you want to talk about that, it was the best staff I've ever been on because it was important to everybody. We all held the same standards, we'd hold each other accountable, and guys got their stuff done, you know, and and the communication was was unbelievable. And I, you know, you're fortunate that you experienced it too with your brother and with Sam. And uh it's a rare thing, though, I think.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Um, you know, especially you mean it. I mean, the communication, you could just pick something up where you're talking about clip 34 or clip 82, and how are you gonna do this against this motion? And what are we gonna and it sometimes those conversations literally last like a minute, maybe a minute, 15 seconds, right? And then maybe it's hey, I want to get this playing script, or it just that fluid communication. And it seems like when we were most successful as a team, is our communication was right, was that, right? Was was was fluid, not just between coaches, between kids, between everybody. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Well good. I before I get into you know leadership and I want to talk about your six rules that you had um and community and stuff like that. I want to because we we had a pretty lengthy conversation. I think you were on the beach somewhere. Are you in Mexico? Yes. We're in Cancun, spring break, yes. Yeah, so um I appreciate your time, but we we spent some time talking about you know meant having being a coach and and the importance of mentoring other young coaches. Um, I know and I've said many times who who my mentors were both in college, um, as a head coach, um, as a high school coach, like it there's been a multitude of of guys. Um who were a couple of yours, why were they important to you? And why is is is you know that conversation that you and I had about you wanting to really, you know, help other young coaches, you know, not make the same mistakes that we made, or just you know, be the best ver be the best version of a head coach and man that they could be.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Yeah, I'm really intrigued by that, helping young coaches. And um, you know, for me, when I was that guy, uh Kelly Moore was was a guy that really helped me, reached out to me. He's been a uh friend, and and just um to be able to have someone to talk to, ask a random question and not feel bad about it, just a comfortability there with him. Um he was great, really appreciated Kelly. And then um, I'll tell you what uh after my first year coaching football as a head coach, uh Mark Nold was in, he had just won two back-to-back, he had won back-to-back state championships at Apollo. He said, Hey, you need to come be on my staff. And I'm like, Coach, I didn't play basketball at the park, and I don't really know much about that. You know, he just kept saying, No, you're gonna be great. It's all gonna work out. You're gonna be great. It's gonna, and so I didn't realize what he was doing at the time, but he became a major mentor for me because he was able to show me really the culture side of it. He was able to show me um all of that. And so um watching how he interacted with kids, how he established his culture, his leadership, his communication, how he dealt with people. I didn't realize it at the time when I was taking the job, how he was really teaching me how to be a coach. And uh, and I just so that was a huge step for me. Um and then I was able to stay with the basketball program, which was great because now Mark left. We ended up winning the state championship. So you get to see that level of you know competition and how that goes. And then Mark ended up going to Perry. And uh I stayed with for the next couple coaches, and that was great because you know, anytime you're in a new environment, you're learning still, you all got that energy and juice. So I got to learn a lot about that sport, coach that sport, and try to get as many wide receivers and DBs to play football as I can.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Yep, so um, and then uh man, so many good coaches that have played a big part of my life. You know, I've been surrounded with really, really good coaches. I mean, my dad was is uh a critical mentor for me. Uh Vern Jacobs, Sam's dad, um, those guys just growing up at a young age, uh, watching those guys coach and the joy and how they had their whole family involved was critically uh like impactful and influential in my development um as a person and definitely as a coach.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

So um why why do you think it's it's because I I I have, you know, not necessarily on the podcast, but I've had so many conversations with young coaches. And one of the first questions I ask them is like, you know, who's your mentor? Or, you know, people have reached out to me and like, you know, leaned on me, and and that's you know, without saying it, but I ask a lot of young coaches, like, who who are your mentors? And they're like, I don't well, why not? You need someone to direct you, especially as a as a new new head football coach. Right. Um because you don't know what you don't know, and you need to, I mean, I'm I'm fortunate like Dick Banacheski, right? Bano was one of them when I got at McClintock, Max Ragsdale was another one. Of course, of course I had Jim Jones and Preston Jones because they were my former in-laws. Um, but there were a lot of different people. And I mean, we played played, you know, Campo one time and got beat, and it was a tough, close game. And I had an issue with I had an issue during that game. And it was not something that I had had previously seen or had to deal with. Um, and so I called Max like on my way home. I'm like, hey, and we had just played him. I'm like, how do I handle this? And he gave me the greatest advice on how to handle it. And and I handled it that way. And and you know, it turned out the way it should have. Let's just put it that way. But um, oh no. You know, so how important is it for you still there?

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Yeah, I got me. I did I agree that all happened.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

No, I don't know. How important is it for younger coaches and why is it so important for them to have mentors?

SPEAKER_00 22:34

They they need because just what you said, they don't know what they don't know. And they need to not be afraid to ask a question. I think that's one of the biggest mistakes young coaches make. They they feel like they should know it, and they they don't want to reach out to someone to ask uh their opinion or guidance. And the reality is that's I would love nothing more for anybody on my staff or any coaches at any time that wanted to just talk ball. Like that's part of the community that that I miss. You know, the community of the coaches, um, the ability to help. Um, and I I just think that as a young guy, thinking that you could do it by yourself or on your own, you're crazy. And you need help. And and that's just not what coach does with everything. And as men, we need to be able to ask for help sometimes. And especially if it's a head coach, you know, it's one thing if you're just a coordinator, and I don't want to say just a coordinator, but I just want to say if my responsibility level is a coordinator versus a head coach, if you're a first-time head coach, there's so many times where you are just feeling like I kick me through today with my head on the room. You're all yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

And you feel like you're alone.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Yes, leadership is a lonely position. And um so to have someone that you could talk to, it is really valuable. And and it gives you perspectives, gives you some ideas. Maybe he's just a soundboard for you to kind of try out something new, I guess. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

I I had um my former father-in-law, who was at Red Mountain forever as a head coach, started the school, but I remember he told me when I first got hired, he's like, a lot of what you're gonna be dealing with is not football related. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, you know, and and I coached for him and I was his assistant head coach, and you know, he was a little bit older, so he just kind of like you handle it, you handle it, you handle it. But even taking on that responsibility, uh you don't see behind the scenes the amount of calls, emails, you know, administrators coming to you, teachers coming to you, parents coming to you, um, other other students coming to you. Um there's just so much. And it's kind of like, and I've said it on here so many times, it's it's it's it's hopefully it doesn't fall on deaf ears, but it's kind of like being a new parent, right? Like you you can be a great aunt and uncle and have that experience, and and you have all these people telling you what it's gonna be like, but I know for me before we had our first kid, it was it's like everybody was telling me what to expect. And I finally got to the point where it's like nobody can prepare me for this, and it would it would kind of irritate me. And you know, being a first-time parent, it's like no one can prepare you for that um until you actually live it.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

I think it's a fabulous analogy. It really is, because when you're interviewing for a head coach, young coaches, um yeah, you don't know that stuff until you see it, and it it's always changing, and there's no handbook on how you're gonna what you're supposed to do. And and you're gonna get contacted by a lot of people and you're gonna see a lot of different issues that some have nothing to do with football at all, but it they require your attention. And sometimes they require your attention right now in this moment, right? And you need to be able to manage your time appropriately, think with a clear head, not emotionally. And that's where it goes back to having a mentor and someone you could lean on in those situations because the more you're exactly right. I that probably was my biggest shock of being a head coach is how much non-football related things I was dealing with that were very, very important. You know, fundraising. Very important.

unknown 26:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Um, a little bit of the so you said so you said fundraising. I was gonna talk about community because I'm pretty sure 90, maybe even 100% of people, you know, when they go in for a head coaching interview, at for any head coaching position, doesn't have to be football, but you know, I know I've been asked in it in every single head coaching interview I've been in, is they want to know about how you're gonna involve the community, right? And so I think everybody has a has a pretty good answer. I mean, I think every every head coach understands the importance of getting the community involved, but then it falls off drastically as to where maybe 50% of the head coaches actually follow through, and the other percentage they don't. But it's not because they don't understand the importance of the community, it's because they don't know how. They don't have a system or they don't have you know people to ask, how do I get my community involved? You you know, at Apollo, much like McClintock, it's it's it may look like a big community, but it's not. It's very condensed in a in a tight, tight race, you know, area. Um, and I know it's super important to you. And I think that's a part of your culture that that I always knew about. And probably one of the the greater things that that I loved about the way you did things in in your football program. How did you get your community involved um to really buy into what you guys were doing as a football program?

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Man, that was um a lot of that I could probably credit to the fact that that's the neighborhood I grew up in. You know, that community is the neighborhood I played at Apollo. And so it was never the plan to be Apollo's head football coach, but like I said, the product of good timing just kind of happened that way. And um, and so and my brother graduated from Apollo, and we had a lot of young coaches on our staff with a lot of energy.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

I lost your I lost your audio. Oh no, lost your audio, you're back. Yeah, I got you. Yeah, yeah. I lost you when you said that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

That that I lost you when you you said I just I was saying that uh having gone to school in that community, growing up in that community, um helped that I ha already had a lot of ties. And it and it helped that um we could dive right back into those. And so um we were trying to do whatever we could. We were just walking into businesses blindly and trying to sell them an ad in our program, or if they wanted to hang a banner at the field and trying to get involved with team dinners. And it's just when you don't have a lot of off-the field responsibilities, you could do that. And so I would love now to see what kind of more efficient ways or more interesting ways that I could try to get that community involved because sometimes that's that's a big challenge.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Yeah. We would uh one of our big fundraisers, it was called uh, well, we changed it from cow chip bingo to chicken drop bingo when we were at McClintock because there weren't a whole lot of cows around that area. So um, but we would we'd have a big barbecue, we'd invite community people, you know, and the whole community we'd go out and put flyers out. That's you know, it was free for everybody. Well, you know, a couple years we had a um a uh firefighter police officer. Um, you know, we you know, we made it up where they played flag football, they competed against each other, um, and that drew a lot of people too. But um most guys have become a head coach at a high school, right? They they aren't fortunate enough to really understand the demographics, um, socioeconomically, the the type of community that that they're getting involved with. Um you were fortunate because because you grew up there and went to school there. You understand the culture, you understand the type of kids that were there, even though I'm sure it had changed a little bit since you had been there. But um some words of advice to coaches that are that are struggling with understanding the community, uh, that go out and do all the things you said that you did, but there's still a lack of connection. Is there anything that they really need to dive into to really understand the community and make more of an impact?

SPEAKER_00 31:07

I I yeah, I think that um that's another great question. I would um I I we really starts in the locker room. And it really starts with the relationships with the kids and the families, and knowing where that kid comes from, and knowing where he's going home tonight, and knowing um that. And then once we have a good feel for what the locker room looks like and what our community of family looks like, of football family looks like, how does that reflect? Is it the same in in the community? Does the community mirror that? And and and is there some connections there within our community of football, within the community in which we live, and and how do we make those connections? And how do we um put kids in connection with the business, maybe, or or or a job opportunity? Or how do we um how do we just find a way to really uh I mean you say invest in the community, before we invest in that community, we really need to invest in that locker room. And the people that we're coaching, the kids, the families, finding out who they are, what's making them tick and and and um understanding their current situation. And usually, like I'm saying, that's reflective of the community that you're coaching in. And so being able to help within uh your community any way you can, but um that that seems to be a bigger challenge, especially with social media nowadays, of established it's just crazy, establishing connections is also almost becoming tougher now uh than it was maybe before.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

And you know what? And and this took me a year to figure out, but when I got to McClintock, you know, everything, these kids had this mindset that everything was optional, that you know, everything was individualized, everything was optional. If they didn't show up, they didn't show up. Um, there was no accountability, no discipline. And the beautiful thing about about that marriage when I got to McClintock is that is that I quickly realized that these kids wanted discipline. They wanted structure. They may not always like it, but they craved it. And I think that's us as a as a society and human beings in general, may not always like discipline, but we crave that because it offers structure. Um but I was managing around kids having to work or kids not being able to get rides or kids showing up late. And finally, after that first season, I came up with just a one-pager and it was kind of a questionnaire. And I sat, you know, every single kid down in the program together and I said, here's what this is. Take your time, it's due in two days. But there were questions on that. Do you work? How many hours a week do you work? Do you contribute to your household's income? Meaning, and then I had to put it, you know, explain what that meant. Um, who do you live with? Do you have any brothers or sisters? If you do, how old are they? Um, what do they do for a living if they're older? And every single kid turned that in. I mean, I had to chase a couple, but it opened my eyes, and I quickly learned that at that school, 75% of our kids were working. Okay. And about of that 75%, about 50% of that 75%, um, a portion of their income went to the household. And then on top of that, 90% of our kids um came from either single parent or no parent household. You know, when I say no parent, not living on the street, but living with another family member that wasn't their mom or their dad. Um, and I continue to do that every year um because things changed in the past. I I I mean, and I don't remember who told me about that, but it may have been, you know, I I remember having a conversation with Jermaine Dudaker, who was R A D and still there, and he's he told me he's like, you just you need to learn every kid. And I know you're gonna do that, but you need to speed it up and really find those buttons, you know, in in the whys. Why are they late? Why are they not showing up? You know, that kind of thing. And it made my job, not that it was ever easy, but it made a made a made it a lot more effective, you know. So, but that kind of goes like what you said, goes into the community involvement and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Right. And you really that's that's right. I think that's a great thing. I think young coaches should listen to that and take that note from you because uh I guess it goes back to what we were talking about saying earlier about just getting to know your locker room and getting to know when when you understand that situation, it's a little different, you know, and kids lethargic at practice, and some coaches are just she's not giving good effort. And he's just what's wrong with that kid? And like, do you know what's wrong with the kid? Have we talked to him? And as a head coach, I know, you know what I mean? And so now the conversation after practice is with the coach, not with the kid. Right. Okay, man. Let me, I I should have let you know this earlier. That's my fault, you know, and not being on the same page. But we gotta give a little grace in this situation. Absolutely, and that's not true all the time, but it definitely is true sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Right, right. Um, let me ask you about this because this will take a little bit of time. Um, but I read where where you had, and I don't know if rules is the right word, but you had six things that you consistently focused on with your student athletes. Um, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Do you have a license? I'm trying to think what this is. I I'm gonna have to have to dig in the archives.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

There were um, hold on, let me, I'm gonna pull it up. Yeah, there were there were six things, and and I thought it was really cool. And not that you forgot about it, but I want to ask you kind of about each one of them. Um where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Um your program based on six rules, the kids will always live up to. So standards, you can call them standards, but it was caring, citizenship, fairness, respect, responsibility between yeah, are those your pillars?

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Yeah, when I can't take credit for the pillars. I I can't take credit for really leaning into them, but uh that I think that was like a school or a district um initiative. And I and I thought at the time that we were where we were as a program and what our district and school was pushing for, that was like boom, that's what they're doing. This is great right here. We need to really lean into this. And so let's I can't do that for coming up.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Well, let's take that because I I know what were three to five pillars or standards that you consistently enforced that the kids, when you were coaching there, that we could say, hey, what are the you know, what are the three to five standards, or you know, what is the program centered around? The coaches, you know, spoke the same language on it, you know, all the time. They had to live it, you lived it. What were three or five of those standards that for the program?

SPEAKER_00 38:33

Man, that's um I would say um the integrity piece, and I don't even know what those six pillars of character, I don't even know if I could say those right now. Um but for for us, the the the integrity was big, you know. Um uh the the uh the the honesty and and um communication was big. Um and you know it's so funny, you know, it's it's what were the things built on and all these things? I I try to think back. And those first couple years, I don't know if I would say that we had that, right? Like we're trying to just figure it out at that point, right? And so what are we gonna lean into and who are we gonna be? And um, and so when we would go to camp um in Carlsbad, we would really have some team building sessions at the end of the day and where we'd really dive into that. And I think those kind of changed per the team. Sure. And I think the team, you know, depending on the personality of the team and kind of where we were, and if it's guys that are coming back into a two, three years returning starters, that we need a new message, or we need to just kind of spin in a new way. Um, but I just think that, you know, being being who say, be who you say you are and and being and and being accountable to yourself, being accountable to your teammates, and uh, you know, being honest with your communication, I think are things that we talked about all the time. You know, and and and at the end of the day, one you know, we always said be just challenged them with being the best version of themselves all the time. And I think that you know, those three things building into that have a lot to do with that, you know, if we can and they're gonna they're gonna serve you well throughout life, not just in football.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Yeah. I let's I want to lean into communication because that was something that you know I was huge on and still am. You know, I've always been a communicator. Sometimes I've been accused of being an over-communicator. Um I think it's so essential, right? And and not knocking, you know, the generations or anything like that, but that's one of those things that is starting to become lost, you know, with within society as a whole, um, is the ability to communicate effectively and understand why communication is so important. And uh so my question, my question for you is, you know, the importance of communication. What you know, and what kind of conversations would you have with with with with your kids year after year about why it's so essential to be able to communicate.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Right. And and there's so many levels of that communication. Um but you really gotta take the emotion out of the conver out of the communication. When when we're and there's so many levels of communication, meaning, okay, I'm we're communicating our game plan to you, right? And how are we gonna communicate that in the most effective way? Um, we're gonna communicate what we're gonna do in practice today. We're gonna redo this, and or we're gonna communicate our rules, or we're gonna communicate uh, you know, during practice when we're coaching your individual technique. And I think that's what I was talking to a lot about the emotional and the feeling tone, like taking it personal. Like we're not coaching you. This has nothing to do with you as a person and everything to do with you as a football player. We're talking about stepping with the correct foot, we're talking about proper hand placement, eyes should be here. And uh, we need to be able to communicate that effectively with each other. And so we can't take that personal when coaches coming at me or coaches talking to me in the film room. You know, I think that I've seen a lot with the communication now in that direction. Some of that stuff gets taken personal, and uh, that's not good. And so we really before it gets to that point, we gotta, we just gotta be able to talk to each other. We've got to be able to communicate uh in the huddle, we've got to be able to communicate effectively during practice. And how much can we simulate the game and practice from a communication standpoint? Whether whether that play's coming from upstairs, that play's coming from the sideline. You know, you all week long we tell the the coaches sitting here telling the quarterback to play, and now we get in a game and we're running a play in with a kid. Well, if you're gonna run a play in with the kid, why don't we run the play in with the kid during practice? Right? And so uh finding ways from a schematical standpoint to practice your communication, I thought is is is critically important to your practice plan and to ultimately your game plan. How are we gonna communicate these things during the game? How are we gonna communicate this concept during the game? You know, and if if all we're doing is watching that huddle film on a sideline, you know, we need to be able to the first time we do that maybe should not be the first game that we play. Like, should we we at least maybe we don't watch the sitting right there on the sideline watching the huddle, but maybe you should. Maybe we should run a drill where we go over here and we run inside run, and then all of a sudden we go over here to get some water and we practice sitting where we're gonna sit and we're gonna watch the film now we're gonna do it in a game. And then you know you have all these great ideas when you're no longer the head coach. But I know kind of getting off topic with that, but but the but if if the communication from top down is critically important. The coach, head coach must communicate with the coordinators and the position coach. There should be no miscommunication there, so that the message is clearly getting relayed to the kids uh and there's no confusion. When there's confusion, then you get hesitation, then you get right uh problems arise.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

Did did you find that that the more effective you know you communicated with your assistants and they communicated with their their players? Did you find that the their effective communication really transferred to the athletes being able to communicate better outside of football as well?

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Well, that's we wouldn't make into that a point of emphasis, you know. Um helping them communicate and the, you know, at the end of practice, or we talk about this all the time. We're developing the whole kid. We're not we're not just coaching football, right? You're you're coaching some life in there too. And being able to give them examples, I would say it all the time. Communication is the key to football and life. I would tell kids all the time, it's the key to football and life. I tell my PE kids that during PE volleyball. Hey, you know, communication is the key to volleyball and life. Um, but it's there's a lot of truth there. And so absolute truth. Teaching these kids, you know, during when it comes to homecoming. Okay, we're gonna ask someone to homecoming. We're not gonna text them. We're gonna have a conversation. Okay. We need to uh talk to a teacher about a grade. What's the appropriate way to do that? You know, you want to talk to your mom and dad about something. What's the appropriate way to have that communication? And how do you, how are you prepared for those communication? Exit interviews with your coach at the end of the season. Make sure you guys are educated and you're you're ready to go in there and have a communication, uh, a conversation that's not personal, that's all about the personal growth and development of you individually and this team overall. And so just hard conversations aren't easy and a lot of people run from them. And so being able to have those, being able to practice those with kids is is important. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

Well, listen, we could go on and on and on and on. Um I'm gonna have you, I'm gonna have you back on so we can really dive into some other stuff um at some point. So uh this has been great. I mean, the perspective coming from from you know how you got into it, the importance of of just life and football, um, and mentorship and and communicate. I mean, this is something someone's gonna listen to. And and again, my goal for each one is someone just take, you know, everybody just take one thing. And you've definitely done that. And I greatly appreciate you, coach. And um having me on, thinking to me. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, of course. I actually thought about you when I first started it, and I just things got swamped. And anyway.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

That's awesome, though, man. Yeah, yeah. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Well, we'll we'll talk more about what's going on and get you back on here at some point and uh dive into it. So just keep kicking butt, okay?

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Let's follow up on that uh on that nonprofit.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

Yeah, we will. Take care of those uh all all the girls in your house.

SPEAKER_00 47:21

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We got uh tonight we got rehearsal. We got they got a play coming up. So we got rehearsal.

SPEAKER_01 47:27

Good night. Well, enjoy. Hey, hang on just a quick sec, okay? We'll do. Thanks, Zach. All right.