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Coaching Mind's Podcast: Perform at your best!
Coaching Mind's Podcast: Perform at your best!
#128 - Don Thomas: Beyond Talent-What It Really Takes to Succeed in Football
From walk-on to the NFL, Don Thomas's journey is a masterclass in mental toughness, resilience, and relentless work ethic. He didn’t play football in middle or high school, but after his baseball career ended, he walked on to the University of Connecticut football team—eventually earning a scholarship, a starting spot, and All-Big East honors. He went on to be drafted by the Miami Dolphins, endured the struggles of a 1-15 season, and later played for the Lions and Patriots, even competing for a Super Bowl alongside Tom Brady.
In this episode, Don shares how his walk-on mentality—earning his spot, preparing relentlessly, and outworking the competition—shaped his career. He talks about the critical role mental toughness played in his journey, the impact of Bill Belichick’s culture, and how he’s now passing those lessons on as a coach and a father.
If you’re looking for a powerful story of perseverance, grit, and what it takes to succeed at the highest level, this episode is for you.
Are you an ATHLETE looking to take your training to the next level? Check out our website to learn more about 1-on-1 training opportunities:
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mentaltrainingplan.com/academy
Hey, welcome to the Coaching Minds podcast, the official podcast of Mental Training Plan. Today, very special guest, don Thomas. He was a walk-on at UConn who became an All-Big East player, was drafted by the Dolphins and then played for the Lions, Patriots and Colts and is now the Director of Player Development for Grand Central Sports Management. Don, thanks so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me, man, I appreciate it. Those were some of the highlights. Maybe just give us a quick rundown of your story, kind of a little bit of your background and what led you to where you're at today.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, it's an interesting story. I've probably told it a million times ad nauseum. It never gets old. So I'm originally from Connecticut.
Speaker 2:I grew up, born and raised Youngest of three, two older sisters. Mom was a school teacher. Then she became a principal. My dad worked for the Boy Scouts in New York City, so he commuted every day and you know my mom was super overprotective of me growing up as far as sports goes, and one of her things was just football, which just wasn't one that she was just keen on me playing. And, um, you know, she taught in the city that we grew up in and she was a principal, and so one of her, one of her lines, was that she just didn't want to see the same people that she's teaching and have them see over out there on Saturdays as well. And as I grew up, I found out that it was more of she was scared for me to play football, and by the time that she did give me the green light to play football, I was in high school.
Speaker 2:In the high school I went to didn't have a football team and I was pretty good in basketball and baseball was my number one sport, and so that kind of was just like one of those things where I was just so immersed in baseball. I just didn't care that we didn't have a football team and I just played baseball and basketball in high school and I got a couple of looks and smaller offers for baseball coming out of high school. But you know, baseball is a weird sport where it wasn't full scholarships and all that stuff. Both my older sisters were in college and so my parents are like listen, it's still too expensive. And I applied to UConn. I got into UConn and they gave me a ton of money for being in state and you know all that good stuff. So I was like, well, uconn is a big school. I always want to go to a big school. It's an hour away from home. You know, I'll take my shot at that and try to play baseball at UConn.
Speaker 2:And, uh, went to UConn as a regular student, try to walk onto the baseball team. It didn't work out and I just knew my athletic career wasn't over with. Just something in me was like you know, you're not done yet. There's no way you're not an athlete. There's no way you're not gonna play an organized game ever again. That's meaningful, you know, you're 18 years old, like it just wasn't it for me, like it wasn't like I was, I was not satisfied with it being over and I think that was like the biggest drive for me was was knowing that it wasn't going to be over and not accepting that as the final answer, and I wasn't going to let someone else take that for my future.
Speaker 2:So you know, I became friends with a few of the football players on the team as this, as the my first semester went on. I met them and one day when their season was over, the whole team was in the gym playing basketball. I go man following Saturday open gym and I was in there and some of the other guys saw me. They couldn't believe I went to school there at that size, right, I'm like 6'3", 6'4", 255, 260. That's like a guy on the team height and weight, right, and so, like you go to, you know, usually playing football, I'm like, well, I've never played football before, let alone try to play a division one level. It's kind of a tall task. So, thought about it went home for um fall break and one of my crazy one of my old teammates in class, like that, went to high school with me. His older brother played at UConn and he was just finishing up. He was a fifth-year senior. He was graduating in December. So that was his last season and me and him went and worked out like every day during Christmas break. He was back, he was done with school, he graduated and went back to school and just lifted, ran every single day.
Speaker 2:And then one day I saw Coach Edsel outside running he was a head football coach at the time running on the track in the back of the student gym and I threw everything down to the guys I was living with. I'm about to go talk to them. I ran around the building, ran up on them. I was out of breath. I told him. I was like hey, coach Edsel, my name is Don Thomas, you know, play football. I want to walk onto the football team. He kind of looked at me and he's like you go to school here, right, you're a current student at. I was like, yes, yes, he's like all right. He just kept looking at me. He's like, all right, we'll come into the office, we'll, we'll try to get something worked out for you.
Speaker 2:At the time we didn't have the big facility that we have now, so there's a small office like connected to the student gym and he I guess he had told like the coaches hey, I ran into some big kid, um you know, coming off the track. I told him to come in, and so they all would pop their heads out. When I came in the office and, before you know it, like the linebackers, coach, defensive line coach, the coordinator and coach, that's all came out. They were talking to me. They didn't say they were gonna set you, set a workout up for me in a couple weeks. Come, you know, be here at this time.
Speaker 2:I went, worked out, ran a couple 40s, did a couple drills and they said they let me walk onto the team and, um, I stayed up and that was like right before spring ball of my freshman year, so this school's almost out, it's like April right before the spring game. And I stayed up on campus with one of my teammates that became a really good friend of mine, danny Lansana, linebacker. He played in the league for a little bit as well, and so I stayed on his couch and took a class and started working out training with the team. And make a long story short, that was kind of like the setup for it. But you know, I was redshirted my sophomore year I got on the field only on kickoff return.
Speaker 2:My junior season, which was my redshirt sophomore season, and then I earned a scholarship, my true senior season, and then, a couple games into the season, my coach asked me to come back for a fifth season where he told me I'll be the starter at right guard. Believe it or not, I played offensive line. A lot of people look at me now and I'm like 265 and I was 315, 310 at the time. So I lost a ton of weight since I finished playing. But I came back, you know, I came back for that fifth season and, to be honest, quite honest, I'm like I'm on scholarship so my parents want to pay for it. I'm not ready to go out in the real world yet and start working for a living yet. Like, let's prolong this for at least another half a year, see what happens. And I did that. And so I came back and I started all 12 games at right guard and it was kind of a whirlwind man.
Speaker 2:Before you know it I was, you know, first team all Big East. I got a Hula Bowl invite, got east west shrine game invite. I got a combine invite. I was the number five rent guard. Uh in the in in the draft or the nation coming out uh, into the draft. I signed with an agent. I was down and training down in atlanta getting ready for the combine and before you know it I'm running a 40 at the combine, like it was. Like you know, everything's like kind of like is this real pinched myself? This has been a long dream.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, six-round pick into the Dolphins and you know I never looked back. Started as a rookie from the second day of training camp on Became the starter at right guard and you know battle injuries throughout my career. But I played eight years, Started in Miami for two years. I was in Detroit for a year, didn't play much. Then I went to New England, played a ton, played in the Super Bowl here in Indianapolis in 2012,. And then signed a four-year deal in 2013 with the Colts and did three years of that deal. But I was battling. I tore my knee up pretty bad and was just battling, trying to get back on the field and finally decided that it was enough. And eight years is nothing to hang my hat at, knowing the the story that it took for me to even get to that point where people are like man, I don't know how that happened, you didn't play football growing up like where, did like when, what, how? So great ride. It was a great ride that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I'd love to go back to just the you. So here you are, getting ready to walk on a Division I football program. Nothing's guaranteed, you know. You don't even know like, is this really going to work out? You never played organized football up to that point. To begin with, what was the mindset that you think really helped you succeed from from that moment?
Speaker 2:you know, to be honest, I I didn't care that I was had all like everything you just stated like had had I had the whole deck stacked against me, right like everything was stacked against me, and I didn't care, like I just went out there and I was, I was happy to be there and I truly knew deep down inside that, like I could play with these guys, I just had to learn. And so I just literally was just like all right, when I get out to practice, I'm going to get in the back of the line every single time and when we go through these drills I'm going to watch the older guys watch the footwork, watch their hand placement, watch the pad level, watch all that. And if coach says they did a good job, I'm going to try to replicate that when it's my turn to go. And if they didn't do a good job, I'm going to try not to do what he just yelled at that guy for. And I think that's how I learned. I had to learn the game.
Speaker 2:So I was a sponge, I was humble, right. I didn't have a big ego. I knew deep down inside what my potential could be, because I truly honestly believe that and I didn't need to speak that to anybody. I didn't need to go out and tell anybody because the people were like yo, you're crazy, you're a walk-on Like. You know what the walk-on stipulation is, you know what that whole deal comes with. Like I was cool with that. But I also knew what I could do. And I've always had that mindset of like when I'm on the field. Like I tell my kids all the time like when you step on the field, when you step on the grass, you step on the hardwood, when you step anywhere in the building, when you have other people that are your teammates you're competing against. You need to understand. You have the mindset I'm the best person out here. There's nobody better than me, right? Like you have that mindset you're going to play well, right, but there's a lot that goes along with that before you step on that field to have that confidence. But I knew I was doing everything I could. I bust my ass, I ran as fast as I could. I was always the first to finish sprints.
Speaker 2:I was always lifting. I was, by junior year, going into my senior year, I was the strongest on the team. I had never lifted a weight in high school. I started lifting weights when I was 18, when I got to college. You know what I'm saying. So I really only had like three years of weight training to have like one of the heaviest bench press, the heaviest bench press on the team, probably top five. Top three or four squats on the team and then a top three or four you know power squats on the team and then a top three or four. You know um, power clean on the team, right and so like we would do that, when you put all the numbers together, I was three, then I was two, then I became one, right and so like that was unheard of.
Speaker 2:So it's just always a mindset of like I'm competing. Every single time there's film, I'm watching it harder than you are. I'm studying it more. When we got to lift weights, I'm putting that weight on you are. I'm studying it more. When we got to lift weights, I'm putting that weight on you. Catch me if you can. When we're running sprints, catch me if you can. You know what I'm saying. So like that alone was like I'm doing all this. So this hopefully translates to the field. Now I just got to learn to play the game. You know what I'm saying. So I think that was my mindset.
Speaker 1:My progression was just to keep getting bigger, better and faster every single year. To see what happened. Yeah, were there any moments along the way early on where you, where you doubted yourself, where you came up short, where you had to push through and fight through and battle through some, some adversity and some failure?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean my first year I wanted to quit. I wanted to quit my first year, but I knew that I came too far to do that. Like I knew that it wasn't even a possibility. Like I knew that if I did that I would never live with that decision. It would still haunt me to this day. Right, like I knew that. And I was 19 years old when I knew that.
Speaker 2:But it was hard, man, it was hard, like my coach, my line coach at the time. He was relentless. He was hard. Like my coach, my line coach at the time. He was relentless, he was. You know, he didn't care if you're a walk-on or he didn't care if you're the starter. But more so, the walk-ons got it worse. He was like quit, if you want, I don't care, it's one less guy I gotta worry about that I try to bring along right. And so he just.
Speaker 2:Everything I did was never good enough. Everything I did was bad. Like I was getting beat. I was to learn technique. I was trying to get my fundamentals right. Like you know what I'm saying. There's times where I wanted to quit, but I knew that. Like that wasn't me anyway. Right, I'm not a quitter, like so. But there were. I had those moments. I tell, I tell guys all the time like you don't have, like we're human, you don't have those moments you doubt yourself, you know like you will. But like what do you get out of quitting Cause? Like this is life lessons right? Like this is like if I'm gonna quit this, I'm gonna quit when anything gets hard in life. And so like I'm glad I stuck with it, I'm glad I didn't quit, I'm glad that I fought through all that adversity. Then I came out on top at the end.
Speaker 1:At what point did you realize you know, hey, I'm, I'm not going to just make the team like I can continue playing at an elite level. What do you, what do you think kind of was maybe that moment where you had that spark of yeah, I've got the confidence that I know I can now take this to the next level.
Speaker 2:You know, that happened truly like when my senior season, once I got that scholarship, I knew I could play at the next level, or I'm not going to say the next level. I knew I could play at the Division I level, like be the starter, and I still wasn't the starter. And so I still worked and prepared like I was going to be the starter and they sprinkled me in a little bit.
Speaker 1:That was heading into your senior season. You were still not the starter. Okay.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, because I came back for a fifth year. So, heading into my true senior year, when I earned that scholarship, that training camp, I knew I should have been starting. I knew it. But I knew that there was two seniors in front of me. I knew that those guys had started for a year or two ahead of me. I knew what it was. Still, I knew that at any moment if one of those guys went down, I was the next to go in. So that was enough for me to be ready to go.
Speaker 2:But what really did it was, you know, coming out of that senior year. We went, we got through spring ball. Spring ball was easy. I was playing at a high level. We had like our junior pro day and I ran that. We ran some 40s, did some stuff. And actually the director of football when I first went in the office, when coach Edsel told me to come to the office my freshman year in 2004, that year, um, he had left UConn. He was now the director of football, scouting for the, for the Cardinals at the time, don Corzine, and so he came back as one of the scouts to scout some of the guys and so I ran a 40 and I ran like a four eight something like it was crazy and I've always been able to run. So I ran like this four eight and I was probably like 299 at the time, maybe just tipping 300.
Speaker 2:And my mom forced me to go on spring break trips. She's like you're going to spring break this year. You never go. Whenever you come home, you always go back lift LA fitness Like you. Whenever you come home, you always go back lift LA Fitness Like you're going. You need experience, have some fun in college.
Speaker 2:So, reluctantly, I went I'm getting on the plane flying from New York to Miami. Get on the plane and as I'm getting on the plane, my phone rings and it was Coach Corzine from the Cardinals. He was like hey, you ran a good 40. You look good blah, blah, blah. And I was like I appreciate that. And that's all it took for somebody to tell me that, somebody from the NFL level tell me that I may have a shot. And I just took that and ran with it. And then my coach, when I came back, we had spring ball, because this was right. Before spring ball. We came back, we had spring ball and after spring ball my head coach said hey, listen, if you do everything right this year, you have a chance. We'll let the see where the chips fall. Let the chips fall where they may, was the exact words that he said to me, and that summer was just like hyper drive. Like that summer I came back I said I'm going to be the biggest, fastest, strongest guard in the country. You don't know my name now. You will, by the end of the season, promise you that anybody that's on this schedule, any defensive tackle, anyone that's on the field with me, if I have to get my hands on you. You got hell to pay Because I knew that I didn't have any film.
Speaker 2:I had zero film. So every play was an audition for me. So I knew that everything had to be perfect. I knew the level of play that I had to have. I couldn't take a playoff. I couldn't afford to be hurt. I couldn't have a bad game. A bad game was out of the question.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So just by the grace of God, luckily, everything's lined up. I played 12 really good games in college and it worked out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So now here you are, heading into the draft which now you know, now there's there's even some more uncertainty. You know you don't know what that's going to look like. You're preparing, you know, you've you've got this thought in the back of your mind that this guy from the Cardinals said you got a shot, but still nothing's guaranteed for you. Still, you're going out and you know, busting it every single day, preparing with just a hope in the back of your mind what was, what was that like and how'd you handle that uncertainty?
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, it was just a lot of unknown, like everything every day was just like gray, like when I looked at a calendar it was unknown. It was just like I'm just going into this thing day by day, literally just take it and just trying to seize the day right, like, how good can I be this day, whatever is presented? So if it's right now, it's workouts, right Like. All right, let me dominate these workouts. I'm down here training for the combine in Atlanta with, you know, 25 other offensive linemen. I got to stand out, I got to be the best one. I mean, these kids were from Clemson, virginia Tech. You know. You name it Bama. You know all the big schools here. I am just a kid from, you know, from Connecticut. Walk on. You know. You know UConn, big East. We're just getting the program really people knowing about us.
Speaker 2:We had a little Cinderella season at 07 year. Can I compete at this level? It was a lot of questions that I that I that were in the back of my mind that I just had to shut up all the time and just go out there and know confidently like you can compete with anybody. You probably would have been at a bigger school, but you just didn't play football in high school, right? So I think that's what I really held on to. And you know what gave me that confidence was, yeah, we played some really good teams my senior year. Confidence was, yeah, we played some really good teams my senior year. But when I went to the east west shrine game I'm playing the you know guys from Florida, you know guys from Texas, guys from all these super big programs and I'm competing against them if not beating them, we're dominating them against in these reps on one-on-one pass rush or team periods. I was like man, listen, let's go that's all I needed, yeah.
Speaker 1:So now here you are, you're in the NFL. What, what would you say, were the biggest mental adjustments going from college to the pros? And? And did you have maybe even that same experience where you realized, oh I've, you know I've gone from, am I gonna make it to, I belong here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, rookie minicamp was easy just because it was rookies against rookies and it was no different than, you know, being at an all-star, you know all-star game for college. So that really wasn't the challenge. I was mentally fine, I didn't struggle. We got to OTAs and you know that first year we went well. My senior year of college I drafted to Miami, right, so they went one at 15. So they cleaned house brand new coaching staff, brand new front office. Bill Parcells was the VP, he's the one who drafted me. It was a whole new mindset and they were like, hey, you're going to run with the twos to start off this thing. I'm like, all right, like twos, all right, the second team, fine, whatever. And it was just like the league is.
Speaker 2:I tell people all the time like it's faster, but it's not that much faster than high-level Division I football. What it is is your decision-making has to be faster. You have to be precise on your, all your techniques and you have to read things very, very fast and dissect them very fast to make the right move, the right step, the right decision on the field. And that's what separates guys to be able to play at that next level. Because, yeah, we see athletic guys all the time. You look at him like how is he not playing in the NFL? How's he not playing in the NFL? How is he not playing in the NBA? How is he not? But he can't make that split decision, that split-second decision, to be effective. And I think that's where a lot of guys struggle.
Speaker 2:So for me it was just over-preparing. I had to over-prepare. I always kept that walk-on mentality when I got out there. Before I got out there to watch film, know that, you know, know, like my opponent watch practice film from the day before, even learn my teammates and how they rush, how they, how they, you know, play against the run, how the linebackers read things, what tips them off, all those kinds of things, so that when I got out there the game could slow down, because now I'm prepared for that, how they're going to play it, what's the next move, what's the call? When I hear this, what are they doing? I think that's what helped me out.
Speaker 2:So, like with that, and then Parcells, coach Parcells came to me and told me you know, the first day of training camp, once we got back, he was like listen, he was like there's no reason why you shouldn't be the starter. He told me this my rookie season, first day of training camp. He pulled me aside. We had a water break. He's like we over to one-on-one pass rush. Next he was like, all you have to do is keep the guy in front of you. Nobody can beat you. You use your strength, you use, you, use your, your leverage, your long arms, no one can beat you. He's like, just keep him in front of you. That's when you tell me something from like when someone that I know, I, I revere, you know trust what they're saying. Like if you tell me that you see something in me, right? So like, that's all I need, right. So I went over to one-on-one pass rush.
Speaker 2:I was still going with the twos the first day. When I got in I just saw him come on his golf cart. He whipped around behind the defense and he looked at me and he's like. He mouthed and he's like keep it. I. I just gave him a nine like that and I won two reps in a row and finished the day with the twos. I came in the next day, second day, training camp, and they put the depth chart up on the dry erase board and I looked and it said 66, starting that right guard. Go with the ones. Never took another. Never took a twos or threes rep ever again when I was in Miami.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That just wasn't what it was.
Speaker 1:So then you go, you go from uh being on a one and you say one and 15, 1 and 15, yeah, 1 and 15 team to it's you, your team and one other team in the entire world left playing football, here you are playing on a Super Bowl team. What was that like? Maybe the elevated pressure, the elevated expectation of, hey, I mean, this is the game that you grew up as a child watching, that everybody in the world grows up watching this game. There's not a higher stage in football. What was the pressure like in that moment?
Speaker 2:It was unreal. I mean, like you know, I had a moment before the game like I can't believe. This is like I'm here, like it's unreal. But at the same time, you can't have that moment distract you from what the main objective is. When you look at it from a standpoint of like I'm here at the Superbowl, right Like you, you you have that moment where you're in awe, but you also have to dial it back in to be able to focus. It's like you know, every kid has that moment in their backyard or, you know, in the middle of the street or with their friends.
Speaker 2:Like you know, for the Super Bowl, no time left on the clock. You got one second left, one play to run. It's fourth down. You're down by five. You got to get a touchdown to win the game. You're just in it, man, but you got to perform. Like you know what I'm saying. So it was a very surreal moment, a very surreal feeling, a very crazy time to look back on it, that I'm just like man. I can't believe I even was there to do that. So it was just a cool experience, but it was just one of those that you never forget to think that just a few years ago, I was my first time ever even putting a helmet on to now, here we are, the biggest game in the world when it comes to football, american football and you're a very, very focal point of winning a football game.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, yeah for sure. So you know, kind of kind of moving on to to where you're at today, director of player development with with grand central sports management, when you, when you now see these athletes that are that are, you know, coming through, that are preparing to play at that next level in your mind, what's the biggest difference that you see mentally between the elite players and the average ones?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love these questions you got. You have some really good questions, by the way because this is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is what the people need to understand. Right Like, I love every guy. We sign to our agency. We hand select guys, we watch a ton of film on them, I evaluate them. But you can't evaluate character. You can't evaluate that through film. Right Like, does that guy have it or not? Because a lot of guys can hide through just being talented. If you're talented enough and you can get through college, youth sports college, high school college, and then you can get there. But a lot of guys can get right here it's about getting to that next level. What does it take, right? And so it's kind of crazy. I just talked to Chris Evans this morning. Ben Davis product, michigan, he's in Cincinnati and we talked about it a little bit and it's, you know, it's not to, it's all a mindset.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know I'm saying you got to have it, you got to have it. And so what separates guys for real is a lot of it is mental. A lot of it is mental Like there's a lot of guys that can play in the league, there's a lot of guys that can you know. You look at him like how's he not? You know, how's he not there right now? Like he's got every athletic tool known to man. I wish I had his genetics blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But why is he not there? And it's a mindset. He just can't unlock what, what needs, what it needs to take to truly be a professional athlete.
Speaker 2:Your athleticism only gets you so far. Like I said, the decision-making, your mental, how fast can you process? Right, it's? It's a chess game within a chess game, right, and it's like. It's like you have to make it to where the game is. Checkers, and I'm playing chess at all times, and that's when you become a professional, just to stay in the game. And so it's not easy for people to understand.
Speaker 2:I think what helped me out, what got me through it, was just my walk-on mentality. At even year six, seven, eight in the league, I still was like, hey, I gotta work, I gotta outwork this guy. I don't care how much money you're paying me, yeah, because, guess what, it doesn't matter, because you can get rid of me tomorrow. This is football. This ain't, you know, guaranteed I'm making a 53, like, yeah, I'm the guy for you right now, but if I'm not performing, they will find someone else, and I think some guys just don't get that, and a problem with it is is a lot of guys would get put on pedestals growing up because they're so good, they're gifted, they're talented, but they don't understand that, like everybody else has been put on that pedestal too, and the guys that are still there are the guys that figured out how to work harder than the next man, and so a lot of guys fall short because of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The first NFL player I ever worked with. He had zero mental issues in high school football ever. He was the best dude on the field by far Zero issues in college. He didn't even have issues really for the first year and a half in the nfl. All of a sudden blows out his knee. Now he's trying to come back. You know, here we are nine months later, year later, trying to decide in his mind do I now have what it takes? Can I still trust this knee? Can I still turn, open up and run the way that I need to? Can I do I have what it takes? Can I keep? And he'd never. You know he's a great. Here's a grown man who's never been put in this situation to really ask himself and be challenged on Do I have what it takes in your mind? Are there, are there skills like that that you is there, maybe like one or two things that you wish, man, if guys could just, at a younger level, learn how to do this, they would be so much more prepared at the highest level.
Speaker 2:Well, you're talking to a guy who had nine surgeries in his career too, right? So you know a ton of surgeries I had, and so you got to go through something first. You can't have the easy street your whole life. Oh, that's good. You got to have some adversity, you got to. You have to go through something. It has to be hard at some point. How bad do you want it? How bad do you? How, how like, how bad can you overcome these obstacles that are in front of you, because everybody's going to have obstacles? How big are the obstacles? How assisted are you when you hit these obstacles is kind of what's going to determine the man that you're going to be as you progress in this sport, or female, in whatever sport you choose. But you've got to go through something first. It's important, it's imperative, right? That's why, even with my son and my daughter, I let them fail. No-transcript. Beautiful, I loved it. I didn't tell him that you got to. You got to. You got to understand. You're going to go through something. How bad do you want it? How bad are you going to work harder to come back from this failure that happened? You're that, this disappointment, so that doesn't happen again.
Speaker 2:When I, when I tore my knee up, I just had a. I went through rehab every day. You're pushing. It's mental. There's days where you don't want to be doing rehab. You want to quit. You want to. It's too hard, it's not easy. You know it hurts. Do you trust the training staff? Do you trust your body? But then when you finally get back out there now you got to play through that right, like it's there.
Speaker 2:Medical history shown that this is the rehab You're good, you've had enough scans. Well, you just got to go out there. You got to forget about it. You got to trust that it's there. You got to go play at that level that you know how to play at. Also, learning that your body is somewhat limited Now it's not what it used to be. Coming back from this injury, you got to learn how to adjust and play with that, with inside of that right Like your, like your knee. You probably can't plant like that. You got to learn to plant a little bit differently, right. So it's just. It's just all a learning process. But if you don't have any adversity before you hit those big obstacles, it's a lot tougher for you man and that's.
Speaker 1:You know, I was a, I was a high school, high school coach, and I was a teacher for 15 years before stepping out to do this full time. And just hearing that that story about your son man just just hits home for me because it's like it. In that moment, in that situation, there are so many parents who their solution for that would be go call the coach, go send an email, go set up a meeting with the athletic director, figure out why this is wrong, what you're going to do to fix it. Rather than, man, what an opportunity for your son to realize you came up short. So what are you going to do about it? And how much harder are you going to work If you really want to go chase down, chase down this goal? I love, I love that.
Speaker 1:That was the, that was the piece of advice that you had. So here you are. You have the opportunity now to coach your own son and to kind of see this journey from the other side, from the coach perspective and there's certainly youth. Sports now is certainly very different than when you and I played, and you know, obviously you didn't even play football in middle school or high school as you go on this journey kind of from the other side, from the coaching perspective. What are some of your thoughts on how today's athletes are preparing?
Speaker 2:I think a lot of kids are overdoing it. I think a lot of parents are losing sight of what's important and what's really going to get your kid to that next level. I think that is a huge piece of it and I think that kids are just getting burnt out. You have a lot of kids with a lot of potential, but they don't have a time. They have zero rest time through a calendar year. They're doing something every single season. They're have a time. They have zero rest time through a calendar year. They're doing something every single season. They're playing a sport. They're not getting home to 9, 10 o'clock from training, from doing this. At some point you got to rest, you got to regroup. You got to be a kid too. You know you got to be because at 9 times out of 10, you know professional sports.
Speaker 2:You take 10, you take 10 people. Nine of us ain't making it. Maybe those 10 ain't making it. That's how finite it is. So we lose sight of life in a, in a sense, right Like like, and I feel like a lot of kids could be better than what they are. But just mentally they're worn down. Physically they're worn down. You know, their parents are riding them because they're living through their kids and, um, you know, I'm just one of those guys where it's like my son's got 19 games a year, padded football. That's all he's got. So, fbu, don't call me about bringing him down to these practices.
Speaker 2:We're going and I don't care about naples, I don't care about, you know, like, the, the extra rankings and all that stuff. That means nothing. And so I think that a lot of it is like I think less is more, less is more when it comes to getting to the next level, because I can't have a burnt out athlete. You're going to hit your ceiling junior year of high school. You got no potential to go because you're just burnt. And then what happens? You don't want to play anymore, you don't want to do this, you don't want to do that, you don't work as hard. So now your potential is gone because you've given everything you had when you were 12 to 16 years old.
Speaker 2:It's crazy. I think that's something that's important that I really want to stress to a lot of people, because I coach youth football, I coach middle school Like it's just a lot. So, like with these athletes, I feel like they just need to understand that, like you don't need to play a million games a year. You need a rep, you need the reps, but we can get the reps through film study. We can get the reps through you know what I'm saying? Running conditioning. We can get the reps through. You know what I'm saying? You just being a student of the game, however, it is right, but you can't be physically out there beating yourself down 12 months out of the year. It's crazy to me.
Speaker 1:So let's say I'm a parent. Let's say, you know, I've got this child who I care about more than just about anybody else in the entire world and I want to do everything in my power to help them achieve these goals. Help them, you know. If it's something that they want to run down, I want to put them in a position where they're going to have the best chance of doing that. How do I decide when there's all these voices and there's all this? You know, if you don't try out for this team and you don't make that team, then that means you can't do this and then you'll never do that. How do I, how do I separate that noise of just? You know, this is too much versus well, but you do actually still have to work hard and put in that time.
Speaker 2:Well, you have to prepare. You also have to be smart, right, and I know everyone isn't going to be able to tell the same story. From my journey I get that and I know that it's a one-off and all that kind of good stuff, so I'm not blind to that. There is a true saying that less is more and you have to be selective on what you choose to put your child into. You have to look at who's instructing these teams, who's coaching these teams, what kind of organization is it? Are the events that you're going to? Are they organized? Are they worthwhile for you to be involved with? You know all those things are factors. And then you also have to look at my child's played a ton of games, but has he truly learned from last season? Has he gotten better? Has he worked on those things that were weaknesses in his or her game from last year? When did we take the time to actually fix those problems and go into next year? Are we just going to go from my school team to this organized travel team and we have a couple of practices a week and we're just playing four or five games, you know, on the weekends and we're traveling here, we're traveling there and we're playing against, quote unquote, the best competition in the country.
Speaker 2:But did you take time to build those fundamentals, to really be dominant, to really get better? Did you take the time to really work on your flexibility? Did you take the time to work on your speed, your athleticism? Because each year is a progression? I had to get bigger, faster, stronger Once I got to the league. It just didn't stop. When I got to the league, I had to get better every single year, and every year I took the time after the season to go back through every game, every snap that I played, get feedback from my coach right on my exit interview.
Speaker 2:What do I need to work on? What do I need to get better at? Okay, I need better ankle flexibility, all right. Well, we're going to work on that this offseason. I need to get more explosive. We're going to work on that because, guess what, there's guys coming up behind you that will take your job.
Speaker 2:But when it comes to the youth level, you got to take a step back and think about okay, how am I really getting my child better? Am I just putting them in a whole bunch of stuff? And that's going to be the road to success? Well, guess what? Everybody's a whole bunch of stuff at this point. Hey, I need to go back into the lab, I need to go back into the dungeon. Like I say, go back and go to work to fix what my inefficiencies were the season beforehand.
Speaker 2:And I think parents need to understand, like you don't need to have your kid in every single. You can't go from you know padded football to seven on seven, back to padded in the spring to go back to a you know padded. Fall season is crazy. There's some. There's such things as called you know concussions there's. The body wears down. You think these kids are invincible because they're growing, but over time, you know before you know it. Now you start seeing little things compiling to big things and you start seeing surgeries at earlier dates and you'll see a kid that's been freshman in college and he's already had two knee surgeries. Right, like it's becoming to be the workloads too much.
Speaker 2:You got to be smart. You got to look at it from science, right, science. You got to go back and just be smart with your kid, because no one loves your kid, like you said, more than the parent does. Right, you think your kid's the best in the world, but sometimes you got to be realistic too, right, I love my. I love my kids more than anybody ever will, but I also not going to throw them out there and say they're going to get better that way. We got to go back. We got to fix things first and we got to take steps to put that whole complete package together. So when it's time to go, you're the one who rises to the top.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just I'm thinking about all, the, all the time, the hours, the travel, the money, the commitment that's involved in participating in some of those things after the season. And if you legitimately sat down with your high school position coach and you went, play by play, through every snap that you had that previous year shoot, even if you were, even if you weren't, a starter on the field, and you just said, hey, I want to watch all these cut ups, will you watch film with me? I mean, most high school football coaches would do backflips, like absolutely I'll watch film with you because you don't see that anymore.
Speaker 2:Like you don't see. Like and that was another thing too Like I was a student of the game, like I watched film ad nauseum. After practice, I'd bring the iPad home and sit there and watch film. When I was, I'd be holding my son in one arm and watch a film on the iPad and the other. You know what I'm saying. Like because I knew that my way to prepare was to know in every possible situation, in whatever situation, what the outcome is, what are the?
Speaker 2:And once I figured that out, I know there's only one to three things you can do in this situation. It's third and short. We're in the red zone. You're blitzing. You're a 65% blitz team. Now what are your blitzes? You're going to stunt the line. You're going to Blitz the guy. You're going to Blitz the wheel off the edge. You're a stunt team.
Speaker 2:So I expect TE with a Mike Blitz. You got double mug backers. You don't show that. I know those two guys are dropping out, so I'm just going to set to my three technique. I'm not worried about him not making a call to the bat. Slide him to have him go, try to chip the three technique and not waste my time on a backer that dropped into coverage.
Speaker 2:Those are the things that make you a better player, because now you've eliminated the guessing game, you can go play fast and you know what's going to happen. And I think that guys have to understand. You've got to watch a ton of film, you've got to know your opponent better than he knows himself, because that's the way that you're going to beat him. Right, it's not just physical, it's a mental game. It's so much more mental. I remember little giants when I was a kid. When that came out and they said football is 80 mental, 20 physical. I'm like that doesn't make any sense. And then, as I started playing, I'm like yo, that's so true. Yeah, and it is. You got to have the physical part about it. Right, you got to have, but you got to know what's about to happen too, and you got to know how to beat your guy before the ball snap. You know what I'm saying. That is the key to being a successful athlete, especially in football.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Got two more questions for you as we wrap up here, just kind of looking at a little bit larger perspective now. A little bit larger perspective now. So we've done a lot of talk about individuals, whether that's you, whether that's other players. Being a veteran now I've been doing this for a while Tell me a little bit about how important is all of this, the mental toughness in terms of a team culture, not just an individual being able to achieve the goals that he or she has set for themselves. But now we, collectively, are going to come together because nobody's winning a Super Bowl, national championship, state championship you fill in the blank without that. What do you think is most important when it comes to team culture?
Speaker 2:Culture is everything. You look at the Eagles they have good culture. You look at a team like Detroit they have a growing culture. It's growing, it's going to get there. They're going. Growing culture, it's growing, it's going to get there. They're going to be a championship team very soon.
Speaker 2:You know, guys have got to first off, it starts with the leader leader of the team, with the head coach. He's got to instill the culture into everybody that steps into that program, from every assistant coach to the trainers, to the, to the, to the interns, to every player, to the, to the. Everyone has to buy into the culture. Once everyone buys into the culture, right Now we're all moving towards a common goal. Everybody has that. I don't care if it's the janitor cleaning the toilets. I can say this when I was in New England, I bought into the culture. The first day I walked into the building you could feel the culture change. I came from Detroit. We were four and 12, so we went 14 and two.
Speaker 2:That very next season, when I went to New England, right, the culture was different. Everybody that was in the locker room had the same common goal Nobody missed meetings, nobody skimped out on workouts. Nobody didn't get treatment when they needed treatment. No one cut corners. Everybody believed. The coaches were in there at 5 o'clock in the morning. We're watching film at 6.30 on the run game install and nobody complained. Brady was in the room with us going over the run checks against these different fronts and these. If we see this blitzes we're going to check out of this, how we're going to block it from the court. Everybody was in.
Speaker 2:So culture is so important in team building at these youth, youth ages. This youth level is super important. With how much bonding time can I get with these kids? Just not in, you know, conditioning, strength conditioning, but outside of that, right, like I got to get these guys to become brothers, I got to get this group to become siblings so that we all believe in each other, so that we all can go out there and have each other's back at any given moment. Yeah, I think that's the most important part about, you know, culture and winning and winning teams is is building and creating that and having the right people in there how much of that, or maybe what?
Speaker 1:what's the role there of the head coach? What's the role of all the assistant coaches? And and then what's the role of? Yeah, but the player's also gonna buy. The coach can preach all he wants, but at some point, if the guys don't buy into it, that's not gonna work. What, what's? What's been your experience with that?
Speaker 2:so it changes from level to level to level, right. So, like, when you look at it from like, let's just go from high school right from like winning programs in high school the coach has to also be a father figure, right. More importantly, he's more of a father figure than he is x's and o's, in my opinion. Right like. He's the guy that these, these young men are or or young women are are around for a great percentage of the day once they're out of you know school, and they need someone else to look up to, to guide and lead them in the right direction. They have to believe in that person, that they know what they're doing and they have their best interest at heart. You get to college, it's no different, but now you're coaching young, budding men and women that are going through different changes in life and you have to know how to adjust into, how to adapt to those. Right, but you have to also know what you're talking about and really teach them the game, the fundamentals, to become a better player on the field, court, whatever it is, but also in life. Right, you're setting real, true life examples to where the aha moments come in, when they're 25, 26 years old and they're faced with some adversity. Remember what their coach told them, either from the youth level or from college. And then, when you get to the pro level, right, you got to be a guy that the BS is over with. Yeah, like these are adults now. These are legitimate adults that are either he's a fraud or he's real. He cares about me, but I also know that it is a business. But how much is he going to take care of me and how much do I see everybody else believing in this man? Right, so that I can fall in line and believe in him as well? And so that's what you see.
Speaker 2:It's hard sometimes where you see a coach that's trying to be a player's coach and there's coaches that are just like, hey, I'm going to coach you, right, this is how it's going to be. And then you have to find that. But the real true successful ones are the ones that find that fine line. You look at a Dan Campbell right, a guy that played. Now he's a coach. But guys know that he knows what he's talking about. They believe in what he's talking about. When I was in New England with Belichick, like you knew that he knew his X's and O's, but you also knew that he was going to take care of you from a standpoint of a player as well, and he could relate to you. He knew how, even though he was let's just call it like it is he was 60 something years old, old white guy that could talk to a 22 year old young black kid from the inner city. It just was what it was, but you respect him because was talking about and he was fair.
Speaker 2:I think fairness is. Another key point for coaching too is to be fair. I'm not saying play time fair, I'm saying being truthful and honest with your players so they know the true expectations of what to expect when they're out there. Right, being fair, right, not having favorites. Who's going to go in there, who's going to perform? That's the guy who's going to play for me and that's who I know I can count on when it's time for the count on it. Look, he has. He's showing the results to make that a credible case.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love that. So the last question I always ask guests as we start to wrap up here, knowing what you know now, if you could go back and give that that first year walk on version of yourself one piece of advice, what would that piece of advice be Never doubt yourself.
Speaker 2:Never doubt yourself. You're better than what you or what's being projected of you. You got this far. You got this far already. Like I kind of get worked up about it a little bit I'm an emotional person but like if I could go back and tell myself that, like that's what I'll tell myself. Like, never doubt yourself. You can do far more than you can even imagine. You got to believe it first and foremost, though, because guess what? You're the only one that's going to believe it to be true, like everyone else is like yeah, prove it, show me, I know I can do it. Go out there and be the guy who you know you can be. Never doubt yourself. If you know, if you think that you truly believe in your heart, you can do something. Go do it Right.
Speaker 2:Like in my career, like I feel like now, looking back on it now you know, I try to get my people like the kids I coach and my and my children to understand is like I did everything, day by day, right. I just went out there and tried to perform as good as I can, as hard as I could, for what was given to me, but if I truly never doubted myself, like I don't know where my career could have been Like barring injury if I truly knew my potential and how good I was playing at the time, and really believing and trusting and understanding that you never know what could happen. But just don't doubt yourself. We're all going to have those moments. We're not going to win every rep. Get back up and go harder the next time. Yeah, it's a learning experience, but don't doubt yourself though. You got this far for a reason. Just keep pushing, keep pushing.
Speaker 1:Love that Well, don. Thank you so much for joining us today. Wish we could just sit and talk ball for another hour or two, but this has been absolutely fantastic. Appreciate you stopping by.
Speaker 2:Man, anytime I could talk ball, I'm down, so I appreciate you having me brother.
Speaker 1:As always, if you've got questions, want to learn more about how mental training plan can work with your team, don't hesitate to reach out to us. Visit mentaltrainingplancom. Fill out the contact us form at the bottom. If you've got topics you'd like to hear about in the future, send those our way. And until next time, make your plan and put it to work.