#90 Jeff Scurran

Episode 90 - Coach Jeff Scurran.  Jeff is one of the most accomplished and respected football coaches in Arizona, with a career spanning championship high school programs, college football, quarterback development, and international coaching. Jeff shares lessons from decades of building winning programs and explains why great coaching still comes down to developing the individual athlete, mastering fundamentals through what he calls “mindless, endless repetition,” and getting players to embrace the process. He discusses the importance of creating genuine buy-in, building programs around family and community, and why head coaches must see themselves as problem solvers whose responsibility extends far beyond the field. Jeff also reflects on how NIL, transfers, talent acquisition, and the changing landscape of high school and college athletics are impacting the game—and why coaches can never lose sight of the ultimate purpose: helping young people love their sport, develop life skills, and become the best version of themselves.

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SPEAKER_00 0:03

I'm gonna go ahead and introduce you. Um Jeff Skurren. I I think there's probably a lot of people in the Arizona area and beyond that know you. Um legendary football, head football coach in the state of Arizona, coach of multiple schools, won what, three championships. Yes. Been a head coach in Europe, um, and and you know, Pima Community College, you're in the Pima Pima Hall of Fame, and and uh amongst a lot of other things. So thanks for jumping on. This is we've been trying to do this for three weeks now, and between my internet and and us getting getting together, it's been difficult. So I appreciate you coming on, coach.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Always good to see this. The Smith family and I go back a long, long way. Yes, sir. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

As far back as when I was eight. I'm 53.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

So I think you were I was gonna say, I think you were under 10 the first time we we crossed paths with your dad. Yeah. Yep, yep. I was eight years old. And I almost moved to Los Angeles uh to be your high school coach. Yeah, I know. I know that was your that was one of your father's big plans.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah, that was that was before I found Loyola and Coach Grady was my high school coach, who is again, he's he's you know, he is Loyola, so great experience. But like tell us, tell us everybody a little bit about what you're doing now.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Well, I work uh overseas quite a bit. I uh first of all, I train quarterbacks, you know, kind of like Minucci and Giovano up in the Phoenix area. And uh I get kids, I even get kids coming down from Phoenix. And and it's not that I'm better or anything. It's it's you know, when you get to to the level working with those types of guys, a lot, you know, you they're all everybody's good. And it's a matter of who fits what in the little bit of throwing style, a little bit of personality style, you know, wraps in. And uh so I get I got about 27 quarterbacks I'm training now. I like to do a little bit more private type lessons, and then we do small groups from time to time. But uh I a little bit more personal touch than the large groups, and uh and then I go to Europe and put on good big camps. And my current sponsor is the Union Jack Classic, which most people are becoming familiar with, particularly in the Phoenix area, because ASU is gonna play in our first game versus Kansas in Wembley Stadium uh September 19th.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

So that's that's awesome. That's awesome. So, what what's the organization that that you're working with right now over in Europe?

SPEAKER_01 2:38

It's called the Union Jack Classic. And like I say, they're gonna be doing that football game. We have a four-year contract with Wembley and the Big 12, and we're gonna be bringing over some really good football. Uh, because a lot of the fans over there, they they see the NFL. And it's but from their club level to the NFL, they don't even realize the that not just advanced high school ball, uh, not JUCO, small college, medium college, big college, power fives. Uh that they don't most of them know that's there, but they really don't see the football. And when they see Division III, they come over and they go, wow, that's really good football. The linemen are still 300 pounds, the running backs still run 4, 4, 4, 3, 40s, you know, the guys are all you know bench pressing 400 pounds, yeah, you know, that they begin to say there's a lot of good football players in the USA, and they have to up their game. And it gives them, it gives them some real knowledge, some thinking if they really want to come over and play. Because the goal for a lot of the juniors is to come over to the USA and play for a high school. And so I work a lot of that on the side, try and play some kids, the the kids that I think are are uh would have a good experience. But it's it's it's it's football's growing like crazy. Flag football has helped quite a bit. Yeah, it is. It's brought a lot of interest in football in general. Uh flag's a little bit different game. I could go on for hours about the problems of flag football. Five on five compared to seven on seven. Five on five is the international game. Seven on seven is the the game in the United States. When are the two coming together? You know, it reminds me of the old days when when they had their own version of Olympic basketball, you know, with a different three-point arc and the and the extended uh key so that a big man couldn't dominate and all the different rules they had in international. But now they've come together, realizing that that gives the Europeans much better chance of playing in the USA if that's their goal. And so flag football's come along that. But now we're gonna have the world championship games coming up in Düsseldorf uh uh in in next next week, as a matter of fact, and uh for flag football, and that's gonna determine who goes to the Olympics, because there's only gonna be six teams, six men, six women go to the Olympics. That's all. And people don't realize that because it's an exp it's a it's a uh uh an experimental sport for the Olympics. And it's gonna be the five-on-five game, which is different from the seven on seven that most of our teams in high school play.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

100%. You know, I I know a lot of guys, whether I coached them or coached with them, that went over to Europe and and half coached and just absolutely loved it. And I'm I haven't, you know, I between Rip Shear and Brock Alivo and and many others, and I haven't really gotten the chance. We had Brock on the podcast, but we didn't really talk a talk about that. Um what it what kind of what kind of kids do you get over there to play? Have they played other sports? Have they never played football and they just want to get into it? I mean, what's the whole learning process from a coach's standpoint? Because I mean, you've coached at every level, but these are kids that have grown up either watching football, you know, playing football in their backyard, or or playing tackle football at a youth level, high school level, whatever it may be. So how how much difference is is it over there with the the the young man that you get to play over in Europe?

SPEAKER_01 6:17

It's a cardby, it's the full spectrum. I mean, you get kids that see it on TV, you get kids that uh that uh that can come over to the United States maybe on vacation, and they go to the Los Angeles and they get a chance to get into the game, they see the Rams play, they see the crowd, and they just go, wow, and you know, I want to do that. And it's the attraction, it's the gladiator uh impact. I call it the gladiator impact because in football you kind of suit up the way a warrior would suit up the morning of a battle. You see what I mean? You know, you remember that feeling when you're putting your gear on, you're looking in the mirror, and you're going, you're getting yourself mentally right. A lot of kids are very attracted to things like that, and they don't get that in a lot of other sports, especially soccer. And the soccer has its own different mentality, and it doesn't have quite that team bonding thing that football is so famous for. And so there's a there's there's the infinite variety of reasons why kids get in. The difference is they get into it a lot later, and it's expensive. Kids they don't play sports in schools over there. Now, you're seeing the advent of the last eight, ten years, you're seeing the rise of academies that are coming into being now. So and a lot of them are just football academies. That Vietnam Vikings are probably the the best franchise in all of Europe. And that part of that reason is they're uh well first of all, they had a coach named Tom Smythe 40 years ago, 50 years ago, that started going over there and starting things, and he's one of the best high school college coaches in Oregon history. And you know, coaching Oregon State, uh Glewison Clark, and high school ball won state championships at multi-schools, just a great teacher and motivator coach. And he did a lot over there, but they opened up an academy about 10 years ago. And now they have kids going to school while playing football, just the same way we would have in the United States all over the country. And that's one of the biggest differences. But kids, they got to pay. It costs about 300 euro just to belong to a club.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Okay, for for me, hey, Jeff, real quick, coach, explain how much in dollar US dollars is 300 euro. Because I've I've never I haven't been a year enough. So what are we talking about?

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Right now that'd be about 350 dollars. But that's just to belong to the club. But you're gonna put about, as the British would say, you're gonna put a quite a few quid into your kit. And what that translates to is quid is just you know, dollars money, and uh, you know, but uh, you know, it's British pounds, you know, one one one quid is a British pound, but that that's about $1.75. And and but you the kit is your uniform, and they've got you wouldn't believe a $500 helmet that Riddell would put on a $500, $600 helmet that Riddell would now put on a high school kid is probably a thousand dollars over there. And so everything, everything gets more expensive because there's no manufacturers over there, because there's that's not a big enough base, and the import taxes are just killing it. That's one of the things you see when people talk about tariffs, not to bring politics in, but it does impact it because when our tariffs go up, the cost of kids playing football goes up, and the number of kids eligible to play goes down. So you're not getting the masses playing like soccer over there. Because what does it cost to play soccer? I've done camps uh in North Africa, in Morocco, and uh and the offense goes out on the field, the defense comes off the field, and the helmet and shoulder pads they trade because they only have one set. They have 12, 13 sets of uniform pads, and the kids that go on the field wear them, and the kids on the bench take them off and give them to the other kids. It's really interesting. And they don't flinch. That's just that's just what they're used to. But to play soccer, they put two rocks over here, they get a bunch of yak skins, they tie them up with leather, and they use that as a ball, and they're playing soccer. I'm not kidding you.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

I but coach, what's what's it like the first time those guys over there that haven't actually played, what's it like the first time that they get hit? Do they do they take it pretty well? Is it kind of a shock, like, whoa, this is what it's all about?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

You get you get there's three things. Funny you should mention that. I've I've talked to a lot of people about that. There's three reactions. Number one is think about think about you and me stepping into a boxing ring with someone who knows what they're doing and getting hit in the face. Even with you're wearing a headgear, they got 16-ounce gloves, but you still get popped right in the nose. Okay, there's three reactions. There's the guy that says, Okay, enough. I don't like that at all.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

I'm done. Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

There's another guy that says, hey, that's kind of fun, you know, and I get to try and hit him back now. And then there's the middle guy that says, Meh, let me see if I like this or not. You see what I mean? But with the cost, the cost of playing, Corby, that's that's what takes that middle group, which I think is the largest number. I think that's the middle group that the that the money aspect goes, eh, am I because you can imagine a parent putting out 15, 1600 bucks for a kid to play, and the kid goes, eh, I don't like this.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

That's wild. Yeah, I I so another question I have before we get over to your high school career and and all that kind of stuff. Um from a teaching standpoint, and you're ta teaching, I would imagine, basic fundamentals and technique constantly. I mean, it it it it it it's not even to the extent of uh teaching a high school kid um once they're a junior or a senior. Um has have have you found that that it's because I know you were doing that, you were over in Europe, and then you came back and you and you know you became the head coach at Rio Rico, so you were dealing with high school uh kids again. Did you find for yourself as a coach that having to kind of retreat and and teach these European players almost like youth players, like you did? I mean, I've coached youth, I coached my kids, and everything has to be repetitive and it has to be basic fundamentals. Um, do you think that helped you um as going back to high school for a little bit um as a coach as far as teaching those fundamentals in what you told your assistant coaches that you wanted done to make kids really develop them?

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Definitely yes. But here, here, you're you're looking at just one thing. I actually had, keep in mind, after I uh finished it uh it's at Pima, and then I went back and did Santa Rita for three years, and they hadn't won, uh they were 0-10 when I took over. And and we got uh we went to the semifinals in the first year. I got the NFL National Coach of the Year, and then we went to the state championship game for two years in a row after that before I left. And uh uh I'm I'm telling you, uh and I and right after that I went and coached the first time 2012 in Italy, and then I've been, you know, and then I came back and coached again, and then I went back to Germany, and so I I've had that. And every time I've come back, I've become a better fundamental coach. Because yes, you have to do that. And and and it reminds me, uh, you know, if I hadn't been tutoring quarterbacks, starting it, you know, and now I even have a seven-year-old. I post online, the kid's great. It's so much fun to work with. But all these, even when I started the bringing them in at eight years old, eight, nine, ten-year-old group, you know, I had to teach them this is gonna be mindless, endless repetition. That's the three-word phrase I make them memorize. My if you're not ready to do this, don't come to me. Because you're gonna have to do this, you're gonna have to do this, you're gonna have to do this, you've got to do it until and do it correctly until it becomes habit. Because when you get on the field as a quarterback or any player, but mostly as a quarterback, the one thing you can't think about is your throwing motion. You've got to think about the play, you've got to help other people, you gotta set it up, you've got an audible, you've got to diagnose the defense, the ball gets snapped, you got to read the defense, you got to, you know, it you cannot be thinking about your throwing motion. You have to be thinking about the game. And to do that, and to do that correctly, the process of throwing the ball, the stroke, if you will, the footwork, that has to become natural. And the only way you do that is repetition, repetition, repetition. Mindless, endless repetition.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

When when you go, because I know you travel around and you do a lot of speaking engagements and you talk at clinics and all that kind of stuff across the country, and I'm sure over in Europe, um, you know, there's a new generation of of specifically high school coaches, just coaches in general that that have kind of come up and and and it happens, you know, generationally and all that kind of stuff. And um I know what I was told from the generation that I followed, that my dad's generation, you your generation, stuff like that. What what is your big message? Because what I found, and I know you have too, you get coaches that I don't want to say they're green, but they're four or five years in, super energetic, super, you know, go at you, and a lot of times what gets lost is those small things. Do you do when you talk to at these clinics and and and talk to staffs and stuff like that, do you really harp on what you just said, just the just a consistent and constant repetition? Um how do you how do you emphasize that with the younger coaches?

SPEAKER_01 16:09

And and what you said, and it's it's exactly what you just said, exactly. Perfect, you got it. And but add to that the fact that you're coaching a team sport, but you're really coaching an individual kid. Now, my wife gets on me all the time because Corby, as long as I live, you're gonna be one of my kids. You know, I can't help it. That's just my it's it's the way I was brought up. You know, you're you know, my it when I went to college, I played for Ray Graves at Florida, and I was one of his kids. And and when I became his GA, and that's what I was my first, you know, to college football, uh, my first real in-depth was being the you know, the the GA to the head coach, which basically I wasn't doing that much on the field coaching, but I was in the rooms, the meetings, and and and the organizational part and all that. In the end, you're coaching a kid, and you're coaching an individual person. And even though it's a team sport, you can't forget that. The the rub that that I'm seeing now that I think you're alluding to is everybody wants to coach talent. That's what everybody wants. The NIL, the whole thing is all bled into that. Listen, you look, you look at the the back end, and I'm not listening the people, the rules were okay, nobody broke rules, you know, things like that. But you you have schools in this state. I I listen, I was at Foothills, we went up to play a state championship game, and they had 23 kids, our opponent. What were playing 23 kids that got Division I scholarships and they were playing in the 4A. I had one kid that was a Division I. I had a one double A kid, and I had two Division III kids, and we're trying to beat these guys for the state title with 23 D1s. We uh Corb, I had I had I had half my team really didn't even want to play the game. They when we won when we won in the semifinals, they were all they knew we were gonna have to play. We find out that, found out that night, and they were saying, you know what, coach, we won our state championship already. How do you win that way? How do you win a game like that? You can't. And that's part of our problem now, the talent all sequestering. And I say this with a kind heart to coaches because I know they want to win. I know strategy is important, relationships are still, all that still is important, but it's not as important. And everybody wants talent. The name of the game now is the acquisition of talent. I'm gonna beat you because we have more talent. I know we're gonna coach them, I know you're gonna coach your kids. The best way for us to beat you is we just go on the field with a lot more talent. The game is often won before we ever step on the field. You're seeing fewer and fewer upsets, except at the top elite level, where everybody could afford to buy these guys. But once you get out of the top 30-ish colleges, how many how many schools could afford to do that? You get into D3, you got one D3 school right now that's doing it what by the D1s. They just built a 25,000 seat stadium that looks like the NFL could play there.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Who's that?

SPEAKER_01 19:22

And they're playing Mary Harden Bale, Mary Harden Bale.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

And and and are are they well coached? Yes. Are they well disciplined? Yes. Do they walk on the field with a lot more talent than everybody to play? Yes. Yeah, it's not fair. It's really, really, really not fair. And and and yet it's legal and they're not breaking rules. You understand? We just, we just we've lost that. The NCAA, and we all know this, is locked kind of lost its way. The AIA hasn't done much better. We had Dr. Harold Slemmer in charge of the AIA for a time, and we understood the importance of parity. That everybody should be under the same rules. You played your neighborhood kids. If you developed your kids well and you got a good group, you can win the state championship. Next year you might be five and five and still did a great job coaching your team. And I think those of us that coached in that era, that learned to coach in that era, had a huge advantage, still do, because we have to coach. It's still about coaching that kid, teaching them and developing fundamentals. But it's harder now, and this is what you were bringing up, it's harder to get that into the brain of these kids because they want to go on that path of B. John Robinson. And yet they don't know. I know the path of B. John Robinson. Bijon Robinson did not get in a car and drive up to Phoenix to play for a better team. He stayed in Tucson, played for his team. You see what I mean? Yep. He couldn't have to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Here's the thing with with Harold's Harold Slimmer. Um, I mean, he he was a different breed just because of his I mean, he was a football coach. He was from Pennsylvania, right? I mean, he did it at a time that that it was just different. I mean, you know, I I don't know who out there has seen all the right moves, but I grew up on that movie, and that's the air that's the area that Harold Slimmer is from.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

And and Corby. And Corby, he was an educator, which meant kids kids come first. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Let me let me ask you this because I had a hard time with this, and this just was kind of uh, you know, it it it just kind of added on to um me feeling like I wasn't um I wasn't serving anymore as a as a coach here in the in this state. Um but I I think it was two thousand twenty three or twenty four, but the AIA came out, sent head coaches, um, head football coaches a a survey about the NIL for high school kids in the state of Arizona. Um I emphatically said no. I don't know how many others did. Um 'cause I uh I think I understood it maybe a little bit better. And it and it can't be monitored in any way, shape, or form other than social media. You can't wear your school's if you're promoting a brand, you can't wear your school's name. You can't have anything on with your football team, nothing like that. Um and and there's I I don't know if there's 13 or 15 other states that are allowing NIL stuff with high school.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

I think it's 37 right now, by the way. I think it's 37 now, yeah. What what are your thoughts on that? I'm I'm just listen, I'm your dad's I I'm an Ohio boy, I'm an Ohio schoolboy, right? I grew up with a buckeye football in my crib. We picked up, my parents didn't like the snow, we picked up and we moved to Florida. I grew up in Ohio in my blood is is Southeastern Conference and Ohio football. That's who I am. So what do you think? I am I'm I am of that era, and I can't help it. And I'm proud of it. I still talk about Midwestern values all the time. I know a lot of people now don't really understand all that, but I know you do. It's family, it's community, it's kids, it's education. You know what I mean? Those are the things I grew up on.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

It's toughness. It's toughness.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Personal toughness and helping help. Your toughness, you use your toughness to help others. We grew up that way. I got suspended 13 times for fighting in junior high school, and 12 of the 13 times. 12 of the 13 times were protecting other kids that were being picked on.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

So what let okay, so let me because I want your opinion on it because you've been around forever, you've seen it all. Um, and I would ask my my dad the same thing or or guys you know that were coaching then. Um but like college football. It's completely unregulated. I have a problem with that. I have a problem and have since the start because I was a transfer and had to sit out a year. I'm good with the with the uh graduate transfer policy. Um they came out two years later than I was playing. Um regardless, the transfer probably, I completely understand the one-time transfer. Like you go somewhere, the coach leaves, or something happens. Hey, here's a freebie. Go ahead and transfer. I like to find Corby.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

I've always I've always lobbied for what I call a coming home rule. In other words, yeah, you go away to school, something happens, your family. I think there should be a no I agree. No, no penalty. You get to go back to your community, to your state, because things happen, your your grandparents get sick, your mom dies, something happens, your dad loses your job. There ought to be a coming home rule with no penalty.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

But continue because Yeah, no, so I I I mean, the problem with the NIL stuff in the college is the transfer portal. It's not NIL itself. I have no issue with college players, they're adult kids. I mean, for the most part, 18 to now it seems like 28 years old. But um, yeah, I mean, they're they're adult kids, um, right? And and so more power to them. Um, I have a problem when you combine the two. The the transfer portal, there's no consequences because the kids are 90% of transfers are are it's because of money, right? So I have a problem with all that, but but regardless, I don't have a problem with them getting paid. You know, we need to regulate it. I don't know if that'll ever happen unless you get a group of the big four conferences just break away from the NCA, which I've said before, and I think it's coming sooner rather than later. Uh but I have a problem with 14 to 17-year-old kids having some sort of NIL deal. They they can't even, you know, if a parent gives them $5, most of them lose it. You know, there's no fiscal responsibility.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

There's no rules about that money going into a trust or that money going into an account where they don't get it till they're a certain age. There's no rules about anything like that. Listen, it's it's uh the whole world. Look at we just went through the World Cup, a great event. You know, the United States did a great job. I, you know, the it it went off really good. Uh uh, but you saw in that all the politics, as soon as that was over, you saw an attempt by by some group to come in and buy the World Cup to to privatize it and monetize it more. And and uh this is this is just the direction everything is headed in. And I I made up my mind, uh, you know one of the things about winning that people don't understand is you get yeah, it takes good coach, it takes luck, it takes it does a lot, it takes a village to raise a child. I've come up with a slogan, it takes a community to create a championship program. And you understand that very well.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

I do, but I want you to dive into that. Tell us what you mean, because I think for I think for head coaches at the high school level all across the country, whether they've been doing it for 20 years or doing it for two years, I think it's something that that that is always at the forefront of their mind. It's always something that they're trying to, with the times changing, even if you've been a head coach for 20 years, you're still trying to adjust and grow and adapt. So talk talk to head coaches about the importance of that and what are some things that they can do to really, you know, allow the community to create the culture of winning.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Well, first of all, you you don't get hung up on the money. It's about the kids. Yet, football is a sport of money, but it's A, and it's it's over here, and it's over here. The kids don't need to know about the money. That's my job. When we're when I was at Pima and we got to that bowl game where we won, I wrote the book about we were 40-point underdogs, we won in the last minute of the game, and and we, you know, we I had that whole experience of doing that. And one of the things about that that I learned is that my plan would work if I could get the team to buy in. It was about the kids and the buy-in. I told them that they've gone, coach, that we're going to a bowl game. We're gonna have to take 17 hours on a bus. We're supposed to play a game the next day. We got, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I said, listen, we're going there on a Tuesday. The game's on a Saturday. It's on national TV. We're flying there. I'm taking care of everything. We're gonna do a bowl game experience. You guys take care of your job. Okay. As soon as the team left and all that, my staff was in there, and my staff looked at me and go, okay, where's that money? Are we gonna afford that?

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Right, right.

unknown 28:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

I go, that's that's what I got. That's it. You guys do the game plan. You guys work on the kids. I'm gonna take care of that. Yeah, because but that's what we have to do. Can you imagine Kurt Signetti? You know, he's real popular now, and everybody's looking at. Can you imagine him walking into those kids and talking about the different money the kids are earning? No, no. His the number one thing that that guy did, he did those cards, those those wish list cards for his kids that he interviewed. Everybody they were thinking about bringing in. And if they put as their number one goal on there to play in the NFL, he threw the card away. He wanted the kids whose number one goal was, I want to win the national championship. That's where you start. You got to find the kids that are hungry to play, hungry to learn, and hungry to be with what you're selling them. What do you bring to the table, coach? What's your thing? And my thing is always, always, hey, you come and play for me. We're family. I take care of my family. And I explain to them, like I was talking to you about, about Midwestern values. It comes to family, it comes to community, it comes to education, it comes to helping each other out in hard times. These are the things that count. You know, I'm still, thank God, the the thing about faith, I'm not a big I hate social media, but I couldn't live without it. Because I'm in touch with two, three thousand former students and athletes of kids I've covered. You know what it's like. That it's great for things like that. And one of the things I've learned is how important what I taught them about the process. Now, we won. So maybe that's why it's the process. But the process is everything, and that's where mindless, endless repetition comes in. That's just a part of it. That's something you got to embrace. Unless you're LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, that you have all that great, I'm using basketball, all that great athletic ability, okay. It's not the sneakers, buddy. It's not the sneakers. It's that's even those coaches. Those guys, those guys had athletic ability, but they also had that burning desire to win and do whatever it took to win, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Right, right. And and that's what I was gonna say. Their process, their process was greater than any, any other anybody else's process. I mean, Tiger Woods, too. I mean, those guys, you know, you always talk to your teams about like enjoy the process. It it's not it's not the game, it's the process leading up to it.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

You know, yeah, and I changed that instead of enjoy because I never enjoyed it, but I embraced it because I wanted the end result. And for me, for me, embracing the process meant I had to learn all the other different things because I was too small. Hey, listen, when I went to Florida, I was one of the fastest guys on the team. And guess what? The next year we integrated. And all this media came to me. And I went from like number four or five fastest, okay, in a in a 40, to like number 30 in one day. And everybody said, and people came to me, a lot of guys on the team, a lot of the media came to me and said, Hey, you're too small, you too this, you the only thing you had was speed, and now you're not fast anymore. You know, and they said, you know, are are you are you pissed off? Are you upset? Are you they all wanted a story about that? And you know what I told them? I go, it's how it is. I don't make the rules, I don't set the rules, but one of the things I've learned if I want to win is I better embrace the process. And people, I can't not change that. You know, see, I'm upset with the AIA because they have freedom games, right? They're not freedom games. They assign you those games. You don't, you don't get to pick. We we try, we tried to play.

unknown 32:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

And it wouldn't work.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

No, you you go in and you you give them a list of eight schools and then they pick which ones, and half the time. Those schools aren't a part of your list. They're not freedom games. We tried to skip them.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

I gave them eight schools on my list and I got one. And I got three games that ruined our ruined, ruined our whole season. Okay, that they have it right now with the current process they use for max preps. There's schools that could go nine and one and never make the playoffs. That's that's that's just wrong. It's just, it's just wrong. It's taking away the how would you like to coach at a school where you come in and your kids and go, hey, we're gonna have a great season this year. We can't, we we're there's no way mathematically we could ever go to the playoffs. How would you like I get up every morning in the offseason and start working and planning to win the freaking state championship game? That was my personal process. That was my commitment to my kids. And I would go from the first day, everything we were doing was two goals. Number one, we're gonna we want to win the state championship, but more important than that, we want to be the best version of ourselves that we could possibly be. And to do that, here's the process, here's the plan. And to go, I can't even imagine, I can't even imagine getting up in the morning and doing that and going through all that work. Because remember, half my time I was both offense and defense coordinator. And I always did special teams. So most of my career I did all three. And we won. And my assistants, I wanted them to take over, and they go, Oh, you're just better. Well, say, Sundays at my house were hell.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Seriously. Yeah, that's what people most people don't see. The the job of a head coach. Hey, that that first year that we tried to schedule, that we were playing a varsity schedule. Um, our first three games, Ben Franklin, we and we were playing with nothing but sophomores. Ben Franklin, who had just moved down from 4A and was a playoff team of 4A, and we were playing the 3A schedule. Um, the next game was Thatcher, who was the previous year's runner-up. Right. And that in the third game was Sabino, who had just won the 3A state championship. Those are our first three games. And again, we didn't pick any of those, we didn't choose any of those. Um, how do you how do you get what would you say to coaches as far as you talked about the buy-in earlier, and I think that's an important part of this podcast. Everything that that I'm doing with MTTS Sports Group is to get kids to buy in, get coaches to buy in, get community to buy in, get the the school to buy in. I mean, you've done it, you've done it, you know, year after year for it seems like a hundred years. Um But what what what was some what are some things that that you did really to get buy-in from all those different entities, especially the the players and the and the assistant coaches? It's the kids.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

It's it's the kids. You don't you don't talk about yourself. I'm the messenger, but when I go to speak, when I go to raise money, when I go to talk to community leaders, the picture is of the kids. Here, here are the people. I'm trying to help this person and this person and this person. I'm trying, I got kids out there that can't afford to go to practice. I got kids whose moms and dads get a that the mom gets a temp job in the morning to make money, and we want them working. And the but but now that kid has to stay home and babysit the three or four younger brothers and sisters so the mom could go take the temp job for the day. I would get the the home ep teacher to buy in and we could bring the kids to school, and the kids during the day would learn to supervise the children and work with you see what I mean? You and me as head coaches, we are in the problem-solving business. That's what we do. When we were going to the bowl game in Texas, I I had to get my team to that game physically and mentally prepared to play football for a bowl game against a team that was much better than us. There was five-time national champions. Now, how do you do that with uh in a team in their fourth year of ever existence, and no one had ever played Division I football, no dropbacks, no, no superstars, no, you know what I mean? We're playing against a team with 40 guys going to play Division I football at a full scholarship college, and I got maybe 10 or 11 that are gonna do it because of their hustle and grit. You know, I've got to create, I've got to create a patches. I had to go to my community and sell opportunity for my kids. I'm gonna educate them. I'm gonna do you have to have a package that appeals to the end user just like just like you were selling a new product. You know, you got a new sneaker, or you just put it out there and say, yeah, we're better than Nike. Everybody's gonna chuckle and laugh. You got to show them, you gotta demonstrate them, you gotta get out in the field and do the nitty-gritty, knuckle dragging, dirt in the fingernail work, right? To get yourself seen, and now you could create a voice. It's it's all about the kids. It's all it's like my charity in Mexico. I don't talk about the good things I'm doing for a community. I show the pictures of those children coming out of those horrible barrios with nothing. Their schools don't play sports. It's gotta be for a club. To be in a club, they have to pay to get in and they have to provide their own equipment. You see what I mean? I've got to create an opportunity. And every single one of those kids, Corby, that I got into a sport in Mexico was a kid that wasn't gonna run across the border, that wasn't gonna join a gang, and wasn't gonna sell drugs. You see what I mean? That that becomes the message. And and I got people from the right and the left giving me money for that project because it was good for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Yeah, a hundred percent. What um last thing I want to ask you about, and uh I mean, there's a lot of things that have been lost amongst coaching um in the last 20 years, 10 years, even five years, you know, and and not to anyone's fault. It just things get lost, right? Things get lost over time, and and with social media and and you know the political climate that we live in, and the the NIL climate that we live in, and you know, the the the the you know, I'm gonna take care of myself first climate. I was talking to someone uh the other day who has a son that's uh gonna be a junior in high school and great baseball player, and you know, August 1st was the first day that coaches were allowed to contact them of their junior year, and he's getting blown up and already got visits set, and we sat down and talked, and I, you know, I gave him my input. Baseball is a different sport, but at the same time, it's kind of like, you know, just one of my big messages was don't say anything to anybody. You don't need to go tell people, you know, this kid, you don't need to share it with your best friends because you need to focus on, again, the process, embrace the process, focus on your process of continuing to get better because those things get pulled nowadays. There's no loyalty. You can get a scholarship offer, commit, and three months later they bring in someone better and they say, Yeah, we don't have that scholar. That's not the way it used to be. And that's just one example. So a lot of things are being lost. So, what would you really harp on, head coaches across the country at the high school level specifically, um, to try and just keep at the forefront of, you know, uh of their minds as a head as a head coach? What are a couple things?

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Okay, first of all, you should be playing your sport because you love the sport. Okay, that's number one. So, as you as a coach, you go back, go back and see, am I doing things that are chasing kids away, or am I doing things that are gonna make these kids love to play football or baseball? Or I don't care what the sport is. I don't care if you're in the drama class, I don't care if you're you're in the marching band. What as you as you as the head person, what are we doing to make sure that these kids love the sport? Now, if you don't do those things, you can't really say I want them to love the sport because you don't do anything toward that to meet that goal. Okay, that's most important. Number one. Number two, what are you doing to make them understand? Because they that how do you embrace a process that you don't understand? I don't know about you, but I was never the guy that you could just shove it in front of me and say, do it because I said so.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

I was I was never that guy. And listen, as a quarterback, do you want that kind of guy? No, you don't. You need someone out there that can control everything, can adjust and adapt and make things happen and change things and correct things and so you hey, how many problems do we solve in the huddle? In the huddle, right?

SPEAKER_00 41:33

You know what's funny. I'm gonna interrupt you, coach. I'm gonna interrupt you real quick because this I was just telling this story. Hayden Fry, the great Hayden Fry, used to call plays on Saturday. He'd sit up in a in a tower all week during practice, and then he'd call play on Saturday. Three out of five plays that he called would come in wrong. Either we didn't practice that play, formation was into the boundary when it shouldn't have been, just something was off, right? So, as a quarterback, if you didn't know what the heck you were doing, you know, you had to make adjustments. So that just to emphasize your point, we all do it as coaches, but go ahead. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

So, so, so, so all of this that you're doing, all this by position and and and of course quarterback being the pinnacle and all that, but all this that we're teaching, we are teaching life success skills. And I think almost every time you sit your team down, you know, we all do at the end of practice, and my kids would get so sick and tired of hearing me say, guys, I stopped talking about football five minutes ago. I'm talking about life now. And I would make a point to do that. Rhett Rodriguez, my one of my favorite players I've ever coached, never made straight A's all through high school, all through college. Not a great athlete, by the way. Not but a great football mind, a great football leader, a great quarterback in terms I mean, how many guys in high school are throwing in the mid-70s completion rate, right? You know, and and and and and we did the statistic of all the clog plays, the plays that we send into the huddle, okay, that we called that were passes. 49% of the time he threw the football. That's it. That that that's changes, that's wrong plays, that's adjustments, that's audibles, that's that's I can't throw it, I'm running, that's taking a sack, that's all that. 49% of the time that we called the pass, did we throw the ball? Okay. That's that's a quarterback. And yet the receiver that comes and says and and gives you an attitude, and we see it right on the field, right on the field. The argument's on the sideline. Sometimes your audible and the receiver will throw their hands in the air right on national TV, right? And how can you how can you win that way? Can you imagine? In the height of his career, uh uh Bill Belichick, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, the the uh uh Don Shula, uh what's the face from Dallas, uh Hank Stram from Kansas, you know, the the you can uh you know uh uh can you imagine Vin Vince Lombardi? Can you imagine those guys allowing the player to throw their hands up? Can you even think about that? And and and go to go to basketball. Phil Jackson and and what's his face from the Miami, he's the head guy of Miami, he now uh, you know, uh Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I don't follow basketball. With the footback here, you know, looks like Gavin Newsom. Pat Riley Pat Riley. Pat Riley, you know, those guys, yeah, can you in their own completely different ways. Can you imagine that happening? Think of the role that Phil Jackson had Michael Jordan play on the court. Yep. As opposed to, so Phil didn't have to be the guy every single minute pounding the guys, this is what we do. We're the triangle team. You may not like it, this and that, and the other. Run our system, learn our system. I got to spend seven summers with the Utah Jazz when I was with Bigger, Faster, Stronger. And I work with their inbound rookies. And I used to work with with uh uh with John Stockton, Carl Malone, Jeff Hornichek. I not not that I teach that that those guys were always there. And I would ask them a zillion questions because they ran Jerry Sloan, the head coach, was so good that he had those guys running the team on the court. You see what I mean? Yep. 100%. Those are all, those are all way, because we are, we are as head coach, we're the problem solvers off the field and on the field. We're the ones that got to teach the coaches. How many times as head coach did you have that list of we're gonna go over these four plays where we come together for run game? And you get over the line guy comes over and the line coach says, Hey coach, we only got the three of those.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

Yeah, I know. I know. 100%. We just wait. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, no, we yeah, it happens all the time, and I think that's something that every head coach deals with that people don't even think about it. But hey coach, I I really, I really appreciate you. Um we're gonna do a round table at some point with a couple other coaches and love to have you on that. And um I'm glad we got everything worked out.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

I'm back from Europe October. I leave a week from Friday. Oh, this is my longest trip. I'll be gone uh seven weeks. And uh so uh I got to see a lot of kids, a lot of places. I'll be in uh I'll be in Iceland, Norway, uh, Amsterdam. I have a camp in Amsterdam, then London, and then Germany, and then uh France, and then three places in Switzerland. So I got a nice.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

Keep pushing it. Keep doing the good work, coach. Get it out there. And again, I really appreciate you. I mean, we've known each other for 45 years. A long time. Yeah. So and I've always admired what you've done as a man and as a coach. And so thank you for being you know instrumental in in my life, you know, as a man and as a coach. So I really appreciate that. Appreciate that. Hey, just hi to mind. Just hang out.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

Hi to uh hi to mom. Hi to Al Allie. Make sure you pass along my greetings to everybody. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

Hey, just just hang on a sec, coach, okay?

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Okay.