Ep43 - David Elson

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What is up all of my friends out there in podcast land, this is Glenn Bill with the Get Attitude Podcast. Welcome to the Gap Live. The Get Attitude Podcast bridging the gap from who you are to who you want to become and from where you are to where you want to be. So today and this month we are focusing on attitude booster number eight, which is Love Adversity. And I got a little adversity for you to do that. We were supposed to be talking with Trevor Moed, the author of It Takes what It Takes. Trevor was a mental conditioning expert and he was unable to make it. He had a last minute emergency. So I called another football guy and he is happens to be my brother in law. He is a former national, not a former, he still is a national champ defensive coordinator for the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. He coached with Jack Harbaugh. He was a defensive coordinator doing that and then he's traveled to many different programs. So when it comes to loving adversity, I can tell you this, there are no better people to talk to than college football coaches. And so we are here on the Get Attitude podcast. It's great to have everybody on there. Please make sure that you go to Streamyard so we can get your comments up and going on this podcast with the great David Ellison, defensive coordinator in Indianapolis of the Marion University Knights. Is that cool? Dave, welcome to the Get Attitude Podcast. It's great to have you, Great to be here.

I've listened, watched, etc. Several times and have gotten into other podcasts because of this one as well. So I appreciate it.

That's good. And I know David, we talked often about how can we get better, how can we improve ourselves. And I know that you have podcasts that you listen to and one of the things you really do a great job of is asking questions not only of the people around you, but of yourself. When we talk about loving adversity. Right. I know you've been through adversity and we can walk through some of that. But maybe talk to me or give me the story about the biggest adversity in your life and how you overcame that. What was going through Your head. What was your attitude about it as you maybe bounced from program to programmer? Maybe it was personal, I don't know. But we'd love to hear that story.

There's. Man, I got to get used to my camera. No, there's no question. It would be number one, I would say very fortunate that I don't think I've experienced anywhere near the adversity that some others have. I've talked to our defensive team about that recently. Just. We do a thing called Triple H Hero Hardship Highlight. It's a thing from one of John Gordon's books, and we had each one of our guys do it. And I did it first. And my first thing was I said, look, I've been very, very fortunate. And what seems like a hardship. What I'm going to say is a hardship. I'm almost embarrassed to say it because so many people have been through such harder things. But my biggest thing was definitely getting fired for the first time when I was the head coach of Western Kentucky and, you know, absolutely no excuses whatsoever. We were 09 and got called to the President's house on Sunday night and said they were going in a different direction. And there's a lot of, you know, things to. It certainly was not expected. You know, we were rebuilt. We were. It was our first year going to fbs and, you know, we were building it, and it was kind of the plan, and we were right in the middle of it and got the rug pulled out from under us. And that was adversity for the first time. You know, sitting down and telling your family that this big new house that we just built and newborn baby. And I'll never forget as long as I lived, Jessica, my. She was about in fifth grade at the time and sitting on the. On the. Our bed and telling her and Lauren at the same time, and absolutely no words. Just one big tear came down Jessica's cheek. And that was adversity for me. You know, that was. That was tough. And honestly, looking back, it's been 10 years and did not handle it very well initially. You know, I was. I was a blame and why me? Why this? And it took a while, but I finally went back to, you know, what I teach and what I talk about all the time, which is control the things you can control. And I just went back in, all right, now, what's next? And, you know, started looking for another job and figuring out how we were going to make that transition as a family. And we have. We've. We've done. We've had our ups and we've had more adversity over the last 10 years. But honestly, that first bit of it has helped me handle these other ones. You know, in our profession, they say you're not a coach until you've been fired. And so that was. I had been 16 years into coaching, and that was my first time. And I've been a part of that a couple times since then. And so, you know, you know, it happens. And if you're going to be in this profession, or I would say any profession but ours especially, you've got to be ready to handle adversity and the things that go with it with, you know, moving and affecting your family, etc.

So there are a lot of coaches in the college game. I mean, certainly you're not the only one. I think that's just a great thought. You're not a coach until you get fired. What, what's it like to be a college coach? When you think of. Or when I think of people that are in the real estate business or insurance game or whatever business people are in, I always tell people when I'm speaking, you know, when you wake up in the morning, it doesn't say, glenn, Bill just missed a sale, Glen, Bill failed as a realtor or a speaker. But, boy, when you're a football coach, you're in the headlines, Your job is being reviewed in the headlines. Talk a little bit about, you know, what it's like, what's the mentality, what's the attitude of some of the greatest of you and some of the greatest coaches you met. When you, when you think about being publicly reviewed in the newspaper weekly, how do you guys handle that? And what are some of the antidotes other coaches have used to deal with that?

I think, first of all, I always say this, you know, when I kind of tell my story of what's happened throughout my career. And I always say, look, last time I checked, we live in America, and I choose to do this so there's no woe is me. It's a choice. I love it. I can't imagine doing anything else, you know. So to go to your question, I, at whatever point began to realize and just, look, it's a lifestyle. It's. It's a different. I mean, people think, you know, when they hear about our schedule and, you know, the hours in season and the weekends and that type of thing, you know, people just kind of give you a crazy look like, whoa. You know, and it just, I just come to realize it really is just a different lifestyle. Your wife, your Kids all just learn to adapt to it, and it's just different from, you know, the demands. And then there comes the. You know, it's in the newspaper. It's. Everybody has an opinion about, you know, how the quarterback played or what you call on third and ten defensively, offensively. And. And with all of that being said, I still go back to control what I can control. I listened to some of, you know, over the years, I've said, you know, I don't mind stopping somebody stopping me and giving me an opinion. It might spur a thought. Like, hey, that's a good point. I didn't think of it that way. Maybe, you know, but at the same time, you can't listen to all of it. You can't. In leadership, you know, you can't try to please everybody. You got to be who you are. You got to be loyal to the people that are in your building. You got to worry about those people. And I go back to, you know, control the things you can control. I can control my attitude of how I respond to it. I can control how hard I work to make him not want to criticize me, and then don't worry about any, you know, all the other stuff and the noise. And I think that's what, you know, the best coaches out there. I mean, Bill Belichick has got to be the best example. He could absolutely care less about anything that goes on the media. You can tell it's just pure torture to have to even, you know, talk to him. But I think it's. Every time I watch him, it's just a great example of, like, why aren't all coaches like that? Because really, he's focusing on the main thing and keeping the main thing. The main thing which is, you know, his people and his team.

I love the saying about control. You know, are you letting the things outside of your control control you?

Right, yes.

Or do you let everything that's inside of you control you? Are you controlled by what surrounds your life or by what is inside of you? And so many people live their lives letting the outer world control what they do, how they feel, how they act. And they never look inward. They're always looking, whether it's their job, whether it's their record, whether it's their paycheck. No matter what, they're always looking for happiness and success outside of themselves. And so I think for our gappers today, the message is control what you can control, and the person that you can control is yourself, especially in times of adversity. Now, let's talk about times of greatness. Certainly one of the highlights of your career had to be coaching with Jack Harbaugh on a national championship team. I'd love to know, what did you learn from Jack? What was it like to be a national champion defensive coordinator? What were the. The. The lessons there? And then, was there a story in that year before you became a champion where you actually did overcome adversity?

Well, working for Jack Harbaugh is, you know, that's really who I've become. You know, I mean, I learned the first thing that comes to mind when people ask me that question. What'd you learn? I say the team. The team. The team. That goes back to him working for Bo Schembechler and with the Woody Hayes and all those influences and. And anything you do, it goes back to. Is it benefiting the team? I mean, that's it. I mean, that was the core of who he was. It was all about the team. You wanted people that felt that way, that, you know, believed in that, or, you know, you tried to teach it to the people in your organization. And I would say the other thing is just enthusiasm and love for what he did and, you know, kind of being a servant leader for the people around him was those were the things the experience itself was. And this is. I think this is hard for people to get. This is a. Probably more in coaching, but I think it's happening outside as well. But another thing that we talked about a lot with him was being able to have conflict, being able to disagree and have constructive, you know, conversations. Now, back in the old school days, those conversations would get a little bit more intense than they probably can these days. But to this day, it's one of the things I talk with every staff that I'm around, like, hey, we've got to be able to, you know, argue and nobody get their feelings hurt. And at the end of the day, there's a quote on loyalty from. From Colin Powell about paraphrasing it. Hey, disagreements are great. They stimulate me. Let's. I want to hear your opinion. And you've got to be able to. We have to have to trust each other to do all that. But at the end of the day, loyalty is, I'm going to make the final decision, and you've got to walk out of this room treating that decision as if it were your own. And so going back to, you know, that's things I learned from. From coach. And then, you know, the experience. We started off that season two and three, and Jason Michael, who is currently the tight End coach for the Indianapolis Colts, coaching Zach Doyle. Jason Michael was the quarterback and he would tell you he was, you know, he wasn't the greatest thing in the world. But we were down at halftime in Northern Iowa and it wasn't looking good. And they were ranked 6 in the country. We weren't ranked. And all I know is they came out of the locker room and they said Jason Michael had gotten on them. And we came out and we got on a run against Northern Iowa, beat them 34 to 12 or something or 20, and went on a 10 game winning streak and won the national championship. And I think the biggest lesson was there was no, there was no story other than that it was complete focus. I mean, you just put your head down and you went to work. And there wasn't, you know, back in those days, there wasn't much media and all that anyway. But people ask, what was it? You know, I said, yeah, we had some adversity at 2 and 3 and we weren't, you know, we went off to a good start. But Coach Harbaugh just, I mean, it was just dialed in focus when that day and worry about all the other stuff, you know, when you get up the next day.

I love it. Hey, we got a lot of people on watching us, which is great. I just want to say hello to one of your biggest fans. Look at that Carolhan in Cleveland. So if you guys are watching, if you have a question for coach Elson and Dave's been, he's been coaching everywhere from the east coast to the west coast, south to the north. If you know David, show up and say hi. We'd love to recognize you. Thanks for being with us on the live episode of the Get Attitude podcast where we are talking about loving adversity and our gaffers and the people that tune in. It's good. Here's Kyle Draper. Kyle is a new teammate of mine. Kyle, it's great to see you. Kyle is handling all my content owns content compounding. If you're a realtor, loan originator, you definitely want to be with Kyle. Kyle, thanks for checking in. My guess is Kyle was a football player too. So you know, everybody, we all like to talk about successes, but adversity, what I like to just as a football guy, what was the worst loss you had as a coach? Like, you know, I know that's never fun, but I always used to say, look, I can't remember the wins, but boy, do I remember the losses. Was there a loss that you, that you had and then how did you come back and I mean feel free to, you know, it was 63 to nothing. I hate. Look, I've been a part of coach 25 years, guys. I've lost games 53 to nothing and it doesn't feel good. But you know what, you got to come back. So if you're losing in life, if you're losing in finances, if you're losing in your relationship, it's the response that matters. And some people think that us two guys may be, you know, infallible or we have this coat armor but share with us maybe one of the worst losses you went through and then like what was the lesson that came out of that? What do you tell yourself?

2009, third game of the year, we've lost Tennessee and we lost to South Florida and we've got Central Arkansas coming. This is our first, first year being bowl eligible in FBS in the Sunbelt Conference. It's at home and Central Arkansas is an FCS school and we're charging onto the scene as this new fbs. And so we're supposed to win the game. They're just an unbelievable monsoon storm during pre game. We barely could warm up. Didn't matter. Central Arkansas came out and beat us. Like we didn't. I mean I think it was 28 to 7 maybe or 28 to 14. I don't remember the score. But that's the first one that comes to my mind when you say, you know what, because that's, that's one of the things I do if people ask about things in the past. I just go, all right, whatever comes in my brain first is what you know must be it. So there's certainly a lot of other of other losses, but it was just that hey, you're supposed to beat them. Looking back on it, they were a really, really good football team. But any same thing, control what you can control. And we would always say, you know, you want to do that in a positive and competitive way. And so if you win a game, we're going to celebrate and we're going to, you know, have fun and enjoy it for 24 hours. Most people have heard of the 24 hour rule in football. You want to either celebrate it or be miserable for 24 hours. But then you got to move on. And so if you lose a game, you know, how do you stay positive and competitive? How do you respond in a positive and competitive way? And what we've always taught is the positive thing is learn from it. Alright, let's go turn on the video. Let's evaluate it as Coaches, let's look at how we called it, let's look at how the players played it, how do we prepare and learn what we can do better. And then the competitive part of it is let's make sure we remember the feeling, which is an awful feeling in that locker room and that 24 hours and let that feeling motivate you to be a competitor and go out and practice even harder and better and more focused and all those things as you go in into the next week. And you know, that's one thing is, you know, I think with adversity that I've learned recently. And I know a big part of this has come from how you talk about attitude. I've always talked about it as reactionary. You know, the whole E plus R plus O events plus response equals outcome. And that it's all about how you respond and how you respond. And then I've heard more from you and listen to some other things and reading books about, hey, how about be proactive with your attitude. How about bring the mindset to, instead of waiting to react, you know, be on the aggressive and it's how you walk into the room. And so I think, you know, it all comes back to the, as coaches, when we do lose a game, you know, how are we going to approach our players and our other coaches, etc. You know, so the little pop up things are very distracting. I've never done that before.

We'll wait to visit those people afterwards.

It still goes, it still goes back to, I think, you know, staying positive and competitive. And it's, it's just a, it's a mindset that you've got to, you know, bring to it regardless. That's good.

And that's the book, the ABCs of attitude. And it says get attitude. It doesn't say got attitude with the question, but it's about getting the attitude. And as we talked about, controlling the controllables. But most importantly, stop trying to control the things outside of your life. And what we find causes the most stress, causes the most pain, causes the most trouble in relationships, is everybody focusing on everything outside of them. Those of you who follow me, if you're on this, please go to the University of Attitude. Please go to Glen Bill speaker and follow us there, as we always are, posting information and content that is relevant that will help you get attitude. So look at Carol, God love her, look at us. Sorry. Don't be sorry. If you're listening to this and you like it, feel free to give us, absolutely, we can answer. Tell me the Story about the player that you coached with the greatest attitude who comes.

Well, I would say it's got to be Brian louder. Because one of my sayings would be find a way. That's something. I think it's an attitude. I think it's. But it's. Guys will come to me with an issue or whatever and I'll just, you know, in a very lovingly way say, you know, gotta find a way to get it up. You know, we gotta find a way. It's, you know, more probably a task, but I take it into, hey, you gotta find a way to have a better attitude. You gotta find a way to, you know, get here on time, whatever it is. But anyway, Brian was a walk on at Western Kentucky. He was from right there in Bowling Green, Kentucky. When he first walked on, we had a secondary that to this day is the best secondary I've ever been associated with. We had three that played in the National Football League, and one was Kyle Moffat from here in Indianapolis that had transferred from Indiana. And so he walks in and 5 foot 9 at best, 175 pounds. And he just could have walked away. I mean, had to be incredibly intimidating. I remember in the summertime, because he was local so he could come over and work out with those guys. And I was just like, oh, this isn't going to last long. This guy's gonna, you know, and he wasn't. It wasn't, you know, the outgoing enthusiastic, that wasn't the attitude. It was a determined attitude. You know, it was. You could just tell after a couple days like, oh, wait a minute, he's not going away. And so then fast forward four years. He is our starting strong safety in the 2002 season, which we ended up winning the national championship. This was before that, but he had brought me a letter and he said, hey, I'm applying for law school. He was a 4.0 student. I'm applying for law school. And this is my letter that I'm turning in that I had to write. Would you mind, you know, reading it for me and just proofing it? And in there he tells a story of when he was a freshman that he had. He was being overwhelmed with, you know, being a student athlete, the rigors of social life, you know, academic Life, Football Player, etc. And he stated as he came to a coach, letting them know he had all this stuff going on. He was struggling. You know, he was. And as he said, and I was awaiting a sympathetic reply and what next came. What came next was three words that changed my Life and you know, are three words that I've lived by. He said. He looked at me and said, find a way. And then he went on to say, from that point forward, I found a way to balance those three things. I found a way to get, you know, my responsibilities done, to sacrifice when I need to sacrifice. And you know, once again, it goes back. The question was who had the best attitude. He could have walked away, gone and been a lawyer, but his attitude was one of determination that, you know, football was something he wanted in his life, but he also wanted to be a great student. He's a guy that he actually got one B and fought tooth and nail because the teacher was wrong and he knew it. And he went to the above the teacher and had everything documented and got the grade change because he wanted to graduate with a 4.0. So, you know, determined, you know, attitude or find, you know, like I said, find a way. But Brian Laurier is a very successful attorney in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Now that's cool. And so, you know, the lesson there. And not to mention being a walk on and being football players, when you're a walk on guys, you know, you don't get free meals, you don't get the best locker, you don't get the best equipment, you don't necessarily get any gear. And it's. You talk about being humble and working it up. So what a great example that is from David. And hey, check out Kyle. My guess is he's probably doing some really great stuff. We're going to go ahead and finish up with knowledge through the decades. I'm going to put you on the spot. It's live to say what comes to your heart. If you.

I've seen you do this before. This is rough.

Yeah. So I know you probably don't remember being born, but what we always like to do is walk through your life. And you're over 40, 40 now, almost 50, so you don't even have to answer five questions. But when you think about either your kids being born or a newborn baby, what's the attitude lesson that people can garner from childbirth or being a newborn?

Attitude lesson, Man, I just think, I think it was just the possibilities, you know, just to have that outlook on life that, you know, the possibilities are endless when you're that young and to instill that mindset and young people that they can do anything, you know, and that there's time, it's never too late to get going and every day is.

A new day until. Yeah, until society and our parents and our attitude coaches Screw us up. The great Les Brown. I was fortunate, you know, he has a video called It's Possible. And I would recommend anybody that studies personal development go to watch Les Brown the it's possible speech. And it's so true. So many people set the goal, they focus on the goal, but the problem is that gets in the way. But to simply keep saying to yourself, it's possible, whether it's finding financial freedom, whether it's finding your spouse, whether it's finding your mate, whether it's beating cancer, no matter what the challenge or adversity is in your life, go watch the Les Brown video and use that mantra. It's possible. And the problem is, is that our attitude coaches and our society and things outside of us, you know what, they do everything they can to shut us down. So many people want you to do better, but you know what? They don't want you to do better than them. And that's the reality because they can't handle it. So I want you to think about when you were 10 years old. I think that puts you around third grade, Christian grade school. David, tell me, if you think back to third, fourth grade, what was the attitude lesson for you that maybe something you learned in third or fourth grade or what comes up as a memory for you?

Memory would be third and fourth. It was a championship game in cyo. It was pouring down rain. And I remember us getting out there and our coaches saying, let's go dive into the big mud puddle down at the end and get this over with. As far as we're not going to be worried about the weather. The weather's not going to affect us. And I always think back to that when there is bad weather, you know, it's like, hey, control what you can control. And they got a plan just like you do. And so, you know, you learn that, you know, don't let the environment affect you, you affect the environment. You know, just listen to some. Actually it was Trent Dilfer talking. He's a high school coach now, and he talks about. In their program, they talk about being the thermostat, being a thermostat and not the thermometer. You know, set the tempo of what the environment is going to be and set the temperature, I should say. And so that was. That's the first thing that comes to my mind is third and fourth grade CYO football. And our coach is Coach Duffy. And having us do that, and we won the game.

That's good. And the attitude lesson to draw from that, as we mentioned before, especially when Dealing with adversity gappers is that nobody has a unique problem. When I ask people, I say, I want you all to give me your most unique problem. What dominate your thoughts? What makes you tremble? What scares you the most about life? And people are like, well, bankruptcy. I'm like, well, hell, that's not unique. Dying from cancer, that's not unique. My kid Odin, from drugs, that's not unique. The point is, just like you said, if you're playing in a terrible climate in a game, the other team's got to play in it, too. And whatever adversity that you're facing in your life, if you're watching this, you need to know that there are other people that are facing the same adversity. And all you need to do is search them out, to search the people that have bridged the gap to get from where they are to where they want to be and from who they are to who they want to become. Whatever adversity that you're facing in your life, the answers are there. But you must look outside of yourself. You must find people who are going through the same thing to make it happen. Look at this coach. Is this guy a former player?

He was good.

Ryan Freeman. I coach Ryan. What's up, Ryan? Good to see you, my friend. Hope you're doing well. Thank you, Ryan. Ryan's a coach for a lot of young kids here in Indianapolis. So, Ryan, thank you for what you're giving back to the game and to people. Okay, so, coach, now you turn 20 and you're headed up to college. David Ellson played at Butler University. He was awarded the Tenacity award twice, which, you know, is. That's an honor. It's a big award. And again, it gets back to, you know, it's an award that you should cherish. It's award you should be honored from. But with the crowd that we hang around, nobody ever wants to honor you because we all know them, Right? Talk to me about the lessons, you know, maybe you learned from your coaches and being a butler, or maybe it's a life. What was the attitude lesson when you turned 20?

My first thing there is really a butler. And being influenced by those coaches. I vividly remember sitting on that back hill right outside where our locker room was, and you would have to walk down to get to the practice fields, and we'd be sitting there tying our shoes, you know, getting our stuff on, and Bob Bartolomeo, Bill Sylvester, Dan Roshar, all those guys, they'd come walking through, and I just remember he said, vividly going, man, they look like they're having fun, you know, because, you know, there was some ribbing going on. There was, but, but and then just watching them out at the practice field and then seeing the influence, you know, Cat Boso would have been part of those guys, you know, that group. And that was when the light bulb went off for me. Go do something that you love, you know, and be around people you want to be around. And that's a choice, you know, to go and choose or find out what your passion is and then go do it. And so I've always told that story, among a few others, as far as why I got into coaching, what influenced me, you know, Jim O', Hara, which, that's before I was 20. So keep letting me. He's, you know, the main reason why I wanted to. And so, yeah, that was, you know, kind of finding your way as a, as a 20 year old figuring out. I think it's one of the toughest things that 20 year olds right now have going on. Right you're. Now what do they want to do? You know, all these guys here, that's. I think it's the most important thing we can do is help them figure out, you know, who they are and what, what career is going to be is going to make them happy.

I think the great attitude lesson is pursue something that you love. But yeah, the pressure to not pursue what you love, the pressure to succumb to other people's thoughts of what you love, that gets down to being honest with yourself about really what you should be doing. If you're somebody out there right now that knows that you're not doing what you should be doing, I would tell you to keep listening to the Get Attitude podcast. Make sure that you rate. Subscribe and review. If you're not subscribed, please subscribe this. If you're watching this now, please share it but please get to our link and subscribe because we can continue to use as many followers as we can. We're here with coach David Elson from Marion University. He's the defensive coordinator of Marion University. He is a national champion defensive coordinator at Western Kentucky University. And we are doing knowledge through the decades. We're halfway through his life. Now we're going to 30. I don't know what you were doing when you were 30. Maybe you do. It may have been when you were the youngest Division 1 head coach in the country. I don't know how old you were. I have a feeling there's going to be a really good attitude lesson Coming out of your mouth on this one.

The decades. The decades. That decade right there. Well, the next seven years was very, you know, learned a lot. The attitude lesson would be that when you are in a position of leadership, your attitude is being watched by everybody every second of the day. And it is what, you know, you have to. I learned that. That every conversation, every. It mattered. And I didn't feel like I changed, but sometimes I would forget early on, oh, yeah, the title changed, but I didn't think, you know, so anyway, I just think the attitude of accepting, you know, the responsibility of, you know, who you are and what you mean to other people and that you got to be on your A game all the time.

The boy now, which is what we talked about, right? The lesson of being a college football coach, but being a head college football coach. But when we go in, if you are a person that is in leadership, and let's face it, aren't we all in leadership? Because, look, you can't lead anybody unless you lead yourself, baby. So when David mentions you were being watched all the time, everything that you were being. That you're communicating is being evaluated. Everything that you're saying is being judged. Well, I want you to just think if you're only leading yourself, and I want you to think about your self talk and what you're saying to yourself. And are you looking at yourself and your self talk as if you're the head coach of you. And are you being critical? Are you judging and are you performing at that level? So never thought of that one, Dave, Even though it may seem obvious. But to live under that light bulb, man, that's got to be tough.

Yeah. And something I heard recently, once again, on one of John Gordon's deals, but he talked about a guy that in his 60s had run like three double triathlons or something crazy. And how do you do it? And the guy said, I learned to stop listening to myself and to talk to myself. And that what you're saying, putting the positive things in, you know, you have to. I do it every day. I mean, you have to. You know, that to me is the proactive mindset of it. Instead of being reactive to things and say, no, man, I got to get the good stuff going and talk to myself about, here's what you've got to.

Be right now, guys, gappers. That's. I mean, let's stop listening to ourselves, because everything we're listening to, especially our self talk, is as bad as the media. Let's start talking to ourselves. And if you guys Need a resource if you need to know. What am I supposed to say to myself? How am I supposed to talk to myself? I'm telling you to get attitude podcast and our guest, David, you're knocking it out of the park. Thank you so much. This has just been great. So, okay, we're not going to get to 50 because you're not there yet. But let's talk about where you were when you were 40 and that would be be what, eight or nine years ago and what lesson when you were 40, you may have been in New Mexico. I don't know where I would have.

Yes, I fired at 38, Indiana for a year, high school for a year, and then got out to New Mexico State. Man, it was just had to be lonely, just adapting, you know what I mean? Adapting part of the country. Never been in recruiting places, never been to, you know, and I still think, you know, it goes back to, hey, look at it as a great opportunity to experience new things. People say, oh, Las Cruces, New Mexico and like the weather so hot and all that. I would prefer that heat to the humidity back here in the Midwest, you know what I mean? I always say that was, I loved it. But yeah, I think just experiencing something. Never thought in my life that I'd be in Las Cruces, New Mexico and you know, just responding to that the right way and embracing it and saying make the best of the situation even though you're away from your family. And you know, we embraced FaceTime and like I said, found ways to make it work and connect.

I love it. Well, Coach, I want to tell you that you adapted very quickly. The great Trevor Moad ran into technical difficulty. I think he's actually out of the country and his connection couldn't hit. So I called Coach Elson literally three minutes before this thing goes off and God love him, he's there. He put out, he was vulnerable. He talked to us about loving adversity. He gave us rock hard solutions and real answers on how to overcome the adversity that you're facing in your life, in your business, in your relationships. If you liked what you had, reach out to David and tell him thanks for the interview. He's on Facebook, you can find him there. He's on LinkedIn and you were just fantastic. How about a quick Marion Knight overview? How are we going to be this year and are we going to get another. Are we going to be able to get to the national title?

Yes. I went out and watched our guys yesterday organize their own seven on seven. We're not practicing right now. We'll start that in a few weeks. We have. We'll have a spring season, but I went out there and just watched. We're allowed to. And I was blown away. They've done it some this summer, but now with everybody back on campus, and we had a ton of guys out there and the success here is evident. They've earned it over the years and been really good, but we've got just a great core of leadership. A guy by the name of Riley Pease that is as good of a leader as I've ever seen. In the short time that I've been here, he's blown me away. And so we got a lot of really good pieces in place. And Marion football is going to continue to be right up there in the top of the country.

We have. Look at that. Mary Durie.

Yeah.

You know Mary, right?

Oh, yeah.

2020 is testing us now. Her son was a baseball player at Wabash. Are you guys playing? Are you set to play this year or no.

In the spring.

So your fall football is not happening right now.

We're looking at Sprint. We're having spring practice in the fall.

Oh, my gosh.

The calendar looks like now.

All right, well, I tell you what, guys. If you're missing college football like me and I know Coach Elson are what's really cool. I see all you parents out on Facebook posting live video from your 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th. Keep posting football on Facebook, people. Please do it because it heals the soul. David, you healed our soul today. Thank you for your lessons on loving adversity. We will have this uploaded to all of our platforms on the Get Attitude podcast. No matter where you're watching, please remember to rate. Please remember, subscribe and review. Please. If you like what David Coach Elson said today, please share this or send it to somebody who is dealing with adversity in their life so that we can make it a better day for them. Coach Elson, thanks for being a part of the Get Attitude podcast.

Hi, brother. Thank you for having me.

All right, I owe you dinner. We'll see you.

All good.

Okay, Bye. Bye.

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