Urban Meyer: Selfless Teams - [Glue Guys, EP.7]

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Welcome to Glue Guys. We're your hosts, Shane Battier, Ravi Gupta and Alex Smith.

And we're bringing you behind the scenes of the locker rooms, the boardrooms and the living rooms that taught us everything we know about what it takes to be great leaders and even better teammates and friends.

We hope the conversation helps you bring more ambition and more joy to your own work, life and relationships. It certainly has for us. Today's guest is certainly obviously extremely close to me. Changed my life. I talk a lot about the stories from college. My college coach, Urban Meyer, who is one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, like end of sentence, you know, I think he's one of only a handful of coaches who have ever won national championships at multiple schools. I would say three because of, you know, I feel like self proclaimed national champions my last year at Utah even though the polls didn't say so and we never got a chance, you know, if only there was a playoff back then. But you know, I think one of the winningest coaches in college football history, right? And he's done it everywhere he's been and had, you know, obviously a, a crazy, a crazy ride in acceleration to fame, you know.

Well, it's just amazing that here is a guy now, obviously first ballot hall of famer, national championship winning coach busted on the scene. Took this skinny 190 pound quarterback from 186, 186 pound quarterback and turns him into a Heisman finalist. Probably should have won the Heisman that year. I mean this is like Cinderella. Crazy story that I'm super excited to hear how Urban felt about inheriting this. This guy who was self proclaimed Sloan could throw the pill but not much else.

Well, and certainly again like you, we mentioned like, you know, obviously there's certain elements of luck and timing in life and if this, you know, if Utah didn't hire Urban, like we're, we're not sitting here talking. We're not sitting here talking. It's flat out the truth. The truth at like how lucky I was at the time that we hired this crazy guy, you know, from Bowling Green and again changed the trajectory of my life forever.

And then also just you know, in addition to being like an innovator in football, I think just the broader point of, you know, kind of this obsession, this an obsessive guy in terms of driving results and someone who's been honest about the cost of some of that obsession. And I just can't wait to explore that with him on, you know, what does it take to be great and what are the costs of being great?

Yeah.

Truly one of a kind. And you said it like, you know, certainly affected my level of commitment forever like, you know, like he raised the bar. Coach, what's up?

Hey, my quarterback.

What's up?

What's up Coach?

There we go. I got it up. All right.

We're going to call you coach. We're not going to call you by your name. What were your impressions of an 18 year old Alex Smith at Utah when you first get there and you got to be real the whole thing on our podcast, we're real. So we don't want to, we want the non airbrushed version of what you think. When you see this kid, you're going.

To get the real. And Alec's not going to like it. He knows. I think the first time I met him was probably at meetings or whatever and we were very concerned because obviously they really struggle, they're really not very good on offense at all. And Dan Mullen and I, Dan was, I don't think he was coordinator yet, but he was my quarterback coach and we kind of stumbled on the spread offense that no one really ran. You know, we were, we would stay up late at night, just kind of move tables around, move chairs around and just think of creative ways to move the ball and, and we come, you know, we had a guy named Josh Harris at Bowling Green that ended up, he was a running Back we turned into a quarterback that became a draft pick of the Steeler. That's how good are you? A Heisman candidate at Bowling Green. And so we kind of had that. We really had a visualization of what wanted our quarterback to look like, act like, run like, throw like. And Alex wasn't that. So we go to our first, we go to our first mat drills and run around. I think Alex had a bad back at the time too. And I remember we were convinced that we needed to go get another quarterback because we had a guy named Brett Elliott that was kind of a workman, you know, kind of a grinder, you know, not real talented, but a really tough guy. And we liked him a lot, but just not a great, A good player, not a great player. And so we were set on going to go and then Alex was probably going to leave because he just didn't think he fit. We didn't think he fit. And then, man, I mean, you talked about transformation. That just a five month time period, it was phenomenal.

Well, what changed?

Well, first of all, Alex is Alex. Alex is one of the hardest working, smartest, toughest. I don't think, I think people do now, but I would always, when people mentioned Alex, they knew he was intelligent, they knew he's, you know, could throw the ball and all that. But that's, to me, that's part of, you know, that's a part of Alex. The other part that people didn't know is that's the most competitive sucker and toughest guy. I mean, he, you know, he's a 4.0 and comes from a family of higher education and you know, principals, etc. Etc. But this guy's a rugged player and, and he's competitive maniac, which is exactly what we love to coach. So it was a great marriage and his body started to change. He got healthy when Reggie Bush saw Alex playing because Reggie was his tailback at Helix High School. And Reggie would always say they would turn on the film and like, who is that? That's not the same guy that was at Helix High School. So. But it was like Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow wasn't Joe Burrow when we first got him at Ohio State. He was a young underdeveloped guy like I think Alex was. I don't want to speak for Alex, but I know what I saw and I mean, obviously he became a monster. His first start against Cal Berkeley, he's 6 foot 4 and a half and I want to say a buck 90 and his legs were as big as that Finger right there, right in front of me. He scrambled out of the pocket against Cal, and he's running at me. I was going, get down. You know, I'm thinking, oh, shit, if he goes, we have no more quarterbacks. If he gets down. I mean, if he gets hurt, we're. We're screwed. The season's over. I'm going, get down. Because he was so skinny coming out of that pocket. But he gained, you know, by the time he finished, was probably 215.

Yeah. Both those numbers are being generous, the 190 and the 215.

Shane.

I turned into a runner. I turned into a runner. But, like, when. When coach got there, no, I was. I was slow, still kind of awkward, skinny. So I was not. I hadn't. I hadn't. I definitely became that over the two years. Like, it became a strength, but it certainly wasn't.

I just don't understand. So new coach shows up on the scene, all right, the guy who didn't recruit you, right? And he says, hey, we're gonna. We're gonna. We're gonna play a game that, like, no one has played before. All right? Alex, you're gonna. You're gonna run the ball. We're gonna design run plays for you, okay? And you're the centerpiece of this offense, all right? That's gotta be crazy. I mean, like, now. It's not like, now, like, yeah, of course. Like, you know, these guys running through it and. And are. Josh Allen, like. But, like, at the time, like, what are you thinking? Like, who is this guy?

So it's like.

It's like Ted Lasso in, like, perfect soccer.

What am I thinking? What am I thinking, Shane?

Perfect football.

So I coach, I've told him this story, and I. And I think there's some truth to this. Like, when you first got to Utah, Like, I'm just being honest. Like, I didn't. There wasn't, like, a lot of love there, you know, between you and. Between anybody, because it was so freaking hard. And you made it so hard. And, like, the. You, like, the. The level of commitment, the accepted level of commitment, just. Just kept getting. Just kept getting higher and higher, right? For the entire team. And the mat drills and the offseason workouts. I've told these guys a little bit about that stuff that, like, you really. You tested everybody, right? Like, this is the off season. We're not playing games. And I think everybody was getting tested from a commitment standpoint, right? Like, you weren't gonna be able to sit on the fence anymore. Like, it was you were gonna have to declare you either kind of all in or not. And certainly plenty of people walked away from the program. I do think, though, for me, I had never been pushed like that from a work standpoint, from a demand, a demanding standpoint. And it wasn't a demanding from a play. Like, I mean, that was part of it, like, but I never felt like I had to be perfect. It was more of a demanding from a commitment standpoint, from like a work ethic standpoint. And I think that's for me, Shane, to your point, like, I had never. We. We did like, speed school was a part of this. Like, you had to go train and we did it all the time. And like, I got stronger and I was forced to. I've told him stories like, I'll never forget Dan Mullen coming in or coach you coming in. Like, it would be the end of a workout. Shane, you're, like, done again.

I'm.

I'm toast and skinny and. And Irvin would make everybody jump up on the pull up bar. Okay. And it was, who's gonna hang the longest? Right? Like, you're done. Wow.

No.

And before this though, we would do like pull ups till failure. He would just have us, like, we'd be doing pull ups, tail failure, and then at the end, it'd be this contest. And there was always a contest, right, like, who's gonna hang the longest? And if you.

If you.

And I'd be going against, like, safeties, you know, these like, jacked rip dudes that, you know, and like, you lost. You lost every time. Or we'd go do wall sits till failure. You know, you'd be over against the wall, like, wall sits still failure. And like, I just. I think you learned you had a lot more in you than you thought, and you broke down a lot of these mental barriers.

My question for coach, I watched Swamp Kings and Alex has told us about the mat drills. That is the single craziest shit I've ever seen in my life. Okay, I'm not exaggerating. I've. Where did that come from? Can you describe Matt drills? Where did they come from? How did you come up with that?

Well, this is a wheelhouse subject. The leadership process or belief that I have is that I believe God didn't make mistakes. I think there's greatness in everyone, and it's the job of a parent and a leader to find that greatness. And how do you do it? You know, I grew up in a military family. I have the most incredible respect for our men and Women to serve our country. My whole life has been studying the Special ops, the Army Rangers, Navy seals, Green Berets. I've done USO trips. I've been to Navy SEAL training. I've done. I've read every book you can imagine, and it's called Crucible of Training. So our job, when you become a head football coach, to me, is no different than maybe Seal Team 3 or Seal Team 6. I just approached it the same way. And every day in SEAL training, you have to make a decision. You know, do I really want to do this? And I would always tell our players and coaches, that's okay. If you don't, you can pick up the phone book right now and find thousands of places that are really. It's not that important. You know, at Utah, we expect you to be the very best at what you're doing. If that doesn't fit your job description, I'll sign your papers right now and move on, because we'll find some people. That's the same exact approach the Navy SEALs take. You know, we're. We're not begging people to come to Navy seals. You're in here, out. I don't compare what we do to them, but I certainly modeled our entire program after that. So we wanted people to ring the bell. I wanted my. My job, and I. I'm glad I'm out of it now, because you can't do that now. Every. You talk about transfer portal. Every player on our team would transfer. And that. That actually made me feel good. I mean, it's no different. I. Once again, I. I don't understand the confusion, though, you know, and it's. Let's go. This is a great visual. The crucible of training. So a crucible. And I'm sure you guys know this, but I love talking about this. You take, you know, precious metal, gold or silver, you put this in a crucible. You know what you do to that in a pot? You know what you do that. You turn up the heat so hot that it starts to boil. And you know what happens? The impurities start to raise to the top. The bad stuff. You know what you do it. Then they scrape the bad stuff off the top. You know what's left? Pure gold. The best gold that's available. I believe the same thing with a team. You build a team, you make it so hot that, you know, two things happen. Guys like Alex Smith and Tebow and J.T. barrett and Braxton Miller, all these great quarterbacks I've had, you know what happens? Those guys start to shine. They get bigger, stronger, faster. There's commitment or leadership. It becomes phenomenal. You know what happens to the others? They go. And I don't mind when they go. I actually, you know, subtract addition by subtraction is not a negative. I think it's a positive. We were picked last in our conference and within two weeks I saw we had something I couldn't break. These guys, you know, I mean we, we, we. The first weight workout, we chained the doors shut, we put dark mats all over the windows and screaming and yelling and I mean chaos and body cramps and all that. And I remember knowing, I mean, sure, they're bitching, whatever. I hope they, I don't, you know, if you're not bitching, it's not a good workout is the way I look at it. So we stumbled onto something phenomenal, historic. And our leader is, was Alex.

How do you find that in 17 year old kids though? I mean, you're recruiting these kids and you know what's coming down the pipe. Okay. The hardest thing that they'll ever have to do. So, you know, we have a lot of business leaders on here and recruiting is a huge theme, identifying talent. So how do you, how do you see in a young person if they're able to handle the, the crucible or not?

I'm very transparent and I, the first team meeting, I'm sure I told Alex, like I've told everybody this, some of you guys aren't going to want to do this and we can save each other a lot of time here, you know. You know, it's about going to class, about doing the right thing about training and being all in. Because if you're not all in, you'll get exposed so fast. And I actually did that in recruiting a guy like Eric Weddle. We recruited Eric Weddle. You know, it's not like I went in there and kissed his tail and said, yeah man, we really need you. I said, no, no, here's what's going to happen. We're going to bust you up and when you're done, you'll be the finest version of yourself. There's no other staff that can take you to where we're going to take you. And we are track records really good. And then, you know, once the track record did get really good at Bowling Green, Utah, Florida, then honestly, recruiting wasn't that hard. Now certain players wanted nothing to do with it because they wanted, you know, where's my free T shirt? That's not a, that's not a big part of what we did a big part of. We did. We're gonna. We're gonna push you until you say no mas.

So you're recruiting. And even the prompt of, like, I'm not gonna kiss your ass, and. And I'm gonna be upfront that frankly, this isn't for everybody, and I'm letting you know that this is hard and elite. Right. Don't you think that that in itself attracts the people that want to be elite, like, that maybe are more comfortable with it being hard and, you know, having that demand on them versus the other people, too, that want the free T shirt, that want, you know, again, want to be pampered.

Yeah.

Siren. It's a siren to the whack jobs, you know, like. Like all of us are.

It's a bad signal to the people that want to be pushed and that want to see what they can become.

But you're.

I mean, keep going. But that. That's what I'm hearing.

And that. The. The shameful thing that I think Zephan, I started off with. I really believe there's been so much greatness in this world wasted because of parents, because of teachers, and because of coaches didn't properly push people. And. And I always tell people, too, that love. I. It's. I'm with my own children the same way. Love is not soft. Love is really hard, man. There's no one else I love as a player more than Alex Smith, and he just told you that it's uncomfortable at first. You're damn right it was. He was £186 and he was slow. I mean, football really wasn't that important to him. I don't know what else to talk about, you know, other than, hey, Alex, we either go or we don't go. And obviously, like I said, I'm in.

Did that change as you went to Florida and then Ohio State and you're recruiting a different. You're recruiting kids that like the kids at Utah. I mean, they were like me. Like, they had. Maybe they had an offer, you know, like, they are a couple. Like, they were. It was a different caliber, kid. When you get into Florida and Ohio State, you're recruiting kids that are getting recruited by everybody. Right? Like, so does that process change?

It really did. And Bill Belichick became a very good friend, and he really helped me because I was so enamored with speed. And Alex knows that if you ran, I recruited you, and I said, we can coach through the other stuff. And a lot of times it didn't work. And then finally I developed in core coach Belichick, I'm not exactly stealing his, but ours was. Mine was very close. He had five or six principals that it meant to be a patriot. And he came down to see me at Florida in 2005, right. My first year. By 2006 or 7, I knew exactly what he was looking for. He didn't have to talk to Mike. I mean, he was. The way he worked was unbelievable. He met with every free everybody. And finally I got so close with him that I said, you don't. Those people don't fit what you're looking for. Here's what you're looking for. And then I developed my own. And I have five of them. And I actually done this in the business world when I. I've been on a couple boards, I spoke. It's. I think everyone has to have very clear, definitive qualities that they're looking for. What I found out, they don't. I didn't. But mine are. Number one is competitor. I think the single common, most characteristic of every great player, every great coach, every great business person I've ever been around there just eight. They detest losing. I mean, losing makes them ill. Number two is toughness. I think mental and physical toughness. I don't care if you're running a shoe company to. I think you just got to be tough. I think that obviously there's different levels. You know, maybe seal toughness versus it's different, but I think there's a correlation there. The third one is leadership. You gotta lead yourself, that lead others in that order. You can't leave others before you lead yourself. Intelligence is the next. You know, football is a complicated game. The world's complicated. And fine. 5 has even become more and more critical. And it's adaptability. When that three technique flushes you and flushes you from the pocket, when the receiver runs a run route, when he's at 12 yards instead of 16 yards, when. And Alex knows that's what makes Mahomes to me is I love watching the guy. I mean, 65 to 75% of the plays he makes are the broken plays. So he adapts. So those are the five qualities that we would and I would. I mean, I got so nuts about it with a sharpie. Every coach had to, you know, put their name on the line. And everything was one through five. One is four. Five's great threes average. And so if I'm recruiting Shane Battier, whoever the position coaches recruited, if he'd stand up in front of the old staff and I'd say Toughness or a competitor, he'd say, five, okay? And I said, okay, write it down. That's your ass. Now, if he's a three and you say he's a five, it's gonna be a bad day for you. He's coaches the five. And I go. I went through each of the five, and I learned that from Coach Belichick.

You're doing analytics. Before analytics was cool.

We did make mistakes, some recruiting mistakes at Florida, Ohio State. I can count the recruiting mistakes on one hand. We just didn't make them because we had a system in place that said we're not going to take. But I walked away from some players. One's probably going to be an NFL hall of Famer. And I walked away from. Because he didn't fit my. You know, I'm never going to say who it is because I look like.

A buffoon, but it's because they were all Midwesterners. You're talking. You're talking to two Midwest, proud Midwesterners here.

Bedrock Midwestern values.

Yeah.

Hey, coach, you talked about how you have to be tough. Tough, tough, demanding. Where is the line? And, you know, how do you know if you're crossing? Alex told me that you. At Utah, when you'd have the team dinner, you used to make the coaches bring their families, right? So that the kids could realize that if they didn't play well, these coaches, families were going to have to move. I mean, that is intense. That is intense. Like, can you tell us about where the line is and how you get there?

Wow, that's tough. I really did it for two reasons. I brought the families. First of all, I love my family to death, and I love seeing them. And coaches don't get to see your kids. My kids were young at the time, and those are my favorite. When I knew they'd show up on that Thursday practice and I'd see. And they had the players over our house constantly. That really changed Alex, by the way, after we went to Florida, we still did it with players. They didn't really enjoy that as much as you guys did at Bowling Green. Man, they were at my house even when I didn't want them there, you know. You know, life had changed a little bit. But the number one reason I had the families there is I wanted them to see that these maniac coaches actually love their wives, love their. You know, I think there's a real problem in society right now with families. I really do. It's obvious. I mean, I'm just stating, like, that's like saying the Sun's going to come up tomorrow. There's a problem right now in our country and that, that is that the husband loving their wives and loving their children and, and you know I just wanted them to see that. That's number one. Number two, I did. I, I don't know if I exactly said it like Alex said that you know, if you guys don't play well, these guys will get fired. But there's a, there, there's a lot of reality to that.

I think it was more of like for me the commitment.

Right.

Like if you guys aren't committed to. And I think that was always the healthy part that as I like reflect back that it was for you at least in my like memory of this. It was always about commitment. It was never actually about like again not making mistakes or playing good which is what I always thought was like amazing. It was always the commitment. And I told this guys, these guys that and everybody. But like the walk ons that were committed got treated just as well as like the superstars that were committed. Like it wasn't necessarily from a production standpoint. Again everything was from a commitment standpoint. And so like I, I liked that. Like listen again to your point shane, these are 18 year old, 19 year old guys that like you're worried about, you're worried about the party you're going to go to that night or you're the girls or like you know, school. Like there are a lot of people that football ranked way down on their list of priorities at, at a, at a university especially like Utah. Like these, a lot of these kids weren't thinking about going pro or anything. And so I thought it was a healthy, just this exact. And it was weekly, every Thursday, you know, and you sat with them and it just was a good reminder of like listen, there's, there's more at stake about this. Like this is important. There's a lot of people that are investing in this and you know like it just was a positive symbol for me. I never took it as a negative.

And Shane knows this too but coaches actually spend 10x times with their players than they do their family during the season. 10x mentally too.

I mean if you're not, if you're, even if you're with your family, you're thinking about your guys and what do they need, right? So it's not just physically you're away from your family, mentally you're away from your family.

And I actually think that that to me part of the genius to me of that is like you are, you are getting. You gotta make it really real for somebody, right? You have to shake them into understanding that their, their lives matter and their commitment matters. And I think that's pretty cool, you know, rather than just like, you know, messing around.

The other thing we did is we had open invites. All the families, you know, they know Alex's family came and you know, I, once again there, I, I, we identified this years ago. You know, you get that nuclear family, that player has got a really good chance of succeeding. You don't like you. You better as a Herdman or a tribe mentality to help raise that player because you're going to deal with stuff along the journey and everybody has stuff to deal with. But I really wanted their families around so they're there, become that trust in it and that My favorite culture that exists on this planet is the Polynesian culture. And I knew nothing about it until I got out to Utah. And when they talk about their cousins, their nephews, their uncles, their, I mean, they're serious. I don't know all my nephew, you know, I'm not proud of that. But when you go recruit a Polynesian player or you coach a Polynesian player, you are, you're coaching that entire family. And Alex knows that. I never knew that. And so I, by the time I, I first got there, that who's this guy that's never coached a Polynesian? By the time I left or by the time we got cooking, I was like, I was part Polynesian man. I was right. I was taking my shoes off, eating that food and loving those families. Because I'll tell you, to this day, I'm still so close to a lot of those Polynesian families.

I wanted to ask you, so you've played for some amazing, amazing coaches. So who were the coaches that you felt you learned the most from and who really invested you and who did you really take stuff away from that you implemented into your pillars and your style, leadership style.

I was lucky. I was in that generation of Tom Osborne. Who was the first. Nebraska was the first, I think the first university ever invest in their players the way they should be invested. That's. You still see that happening today, the facilities and nutrition. You know, when I was in the 70s, where weightlifting really wasn't. You weren't supposed to do it. I remember a doctor telling me not to do it. I started reading about as a kid, and I went from 120 pounds in sophomore year, high school dog, 185. Instead of hitting singles and doubles, I was hitting bombs out of the park and Became an all state safety because I read about Nebraska, you know, not because we were doing it. I was doing it. And so Tom Osborne was really influential, I mean about investing in their players. And then Bo Schembecker, Woody Hayes and a guy named Earl Bruce are my mentors. And my first staff meeting In Ohio State, 1986, Earl Bruce comes walking in and Woody Hayes was still alive in there. And he just in colorful language, made it real clear what's important. Number one is premium place on education. Every player will graduate or you said, I'll effort and fire you. Number two is toughness. And number three is selflessness. So I would like to thank for the next 30 years, 38 years of my career, those three principles. Were it premium placed on education or you cannot take educate. I know nil. It drives me nuts when I hear that that's great if you make millions of dollars. Most of them don't get a degree and get a job. So that was number one responsibility. Then. The toughest teams always win. I believe that the toughest teams will always find a way to win and then the most selfless teams will always find a way to win. So that's that. You have to say, who are my mentors? And then I'd add Lou Holtz in there as well.

Coach the number one. If I were to use one adjective about our Utah teams, it would be selflessness. So I talk, I tell this exact story. And I want to hear from your point of view, like, how do you create selflessness? Right again. Especially in distracted, you know, teenagers. But one of the things that I loved was watch. You made everybody watch special teams and you coach special teams and I'd never, you know, especially as quarterbacks, you're like siloed a lot in your just your quarterback room. You know, you spend it, you spend so much time just in your unit and that watching special teams and watching these crazy guys like Bo and Casey run down and you highlighting these like high effort, just like selfless acts. Running down a kickoff and taking on double teams and like the walk the wedge and just crazy stuff was certainly one of those things that I vividly remember sitting in there and rev, you brought this up like that meeting breaks. I'll tell you what, you look at Beau and Casey differently, right? And it certainly. I've talked about this too. There, like from here. There were times also you'd put up a loaf, right? And if you were that guy, like that feeling. If you were that guy in that chair and you loafed after just watching. Yeah, you Felt tiny. I don't know. Like, that was one thing that I vividly remember. But, like, how do you go about creating selflessness in it especially? These are big teams, big organizations. There's lots of people.

They have. It's very competitive internally.

Right.

Like, it's hard to create selflessness anyway. But then on a team with the stakes being so high that I'm super curious about that.

Yeah, I think it's still alive. It's not in my lifetime. I'm 60 years old now. It's never been harder to create that. No. This is a me world. This is social media. This is about always comparing yourself to someone else. And why does that person have that? Why? I don't. I mean, it's a struggle, man. And I'm still very close to a lot of college coaches and. And it is really, really hard to. But there's teams that do it. The Georgia Bulldogs do it. You know, it happens to be. Why they're 43 and two, I think in the last two years. There's other teams maybe, you know, I started to say as talented, but that haven't won because there's me on that team. So I think that's a disease of a. That that'll kill a team. And, you know, the whole special teams thing, you get what you emphasize. You know, I always. I was an offensive coach, but I wanted to. I really believe coaches need to have their arm around players and be involved. And. And that was my way of coaching every player on the team, you know, because I've been at programs where, you know, he's the offensive coordinator, he's the head coach, but he never talks to the defense, never talks. Special teams, you know what normally happens? The defense stinks and the special teams aren't very good start. It's not. It's not that the scheme. Because everybody runs the same stuff. It's. Why is that player going so hard? But motivation is short, powerful ways of getting people to do sometimes unthinkable things. The motivation and motivation. This comes from my college senior year in college, is love, fear and hate. Those are the strongest forms of motivation. Two of them are unsustainable. Fear and hate are not sustainable. So motivated team, you know, you change your jersey, you know, use fear. If we don't get this first out on pulling your scholarship, you know, or, you know, use fear. Use hate, you know, or love. But. And I don't mind playing. I didn't mind playing against the motivated team. The team you wanted to stay away from was the inspired team. And Its inspiration is long, sustainable ways of. It's a culture of getting phenomenal performance. And there's only two qualities and inspiration, and that's ownership and love. And those are very sustainable and extremely powerful. So I wanted teams to own it. I brought that up because of special teams. Alex just. Alex just gave us an example of an aspiring team. When he walked out, he saw Bo Nagi. I promised. He put his arm. I said, hey, man, thanks. He just. He just owned it. That's an inspired team. You get an inspired team, it's hard to lose. You get a motivated team. At times, the motivation wears off.

Coach. And how. How does expectations deal with this? Because for me, you know, again, and, you know, obviously you and I have remained close over the years, but I had no idea that when you went to Florida, it kind of mimicked, like, when I went pro. The expectations, obviously, of being the number one pick. I had never dealt with that. And it thrust me into this fear, this fear zone. Like, I was terrified to make mistakes, and it consumed me. And I had never played football like that. Like, when we played. And again, you mentioned it, like, obviously, Utah, there were no expectations for us. Like, zero. And I don't remember you ever. I remember, like, you were fearless, right? Like, it was a little bit of bring. Bring it freaking on. Like, if we got a chance to play a big school, it was like, we're chomping at the bit because we got nothing to lose, right? And so I think the entire team played like that. And I had no idea, again, watching even Swamp Kings, that, like, when you went to Florida, was it a similar experience that, like, all of a sudden, like, man, this is different, right?

Yeah, that. I went through exactly what you went through. I mean, to the point I had mental health stuff. I had depression, I had anxiety disorder. Where alex. I lost 37 pounds one fall. I got addicted to Ambien because I could not shut it off. I became, you know, it's the great saying that Mac Brown and I once said, yeah, I got great news, good news and bad news. Good news is you won a national championship. You know what the bad news is? You just won a national championship. So everything you do for the rest of your life or your career is based upon what, winning the national championship. And it was. I mean, it was insanity for a while. I had to step away from Florida, whatever year that was. I mean, I was having chest pains. I had a 911 call. I just lost.

How old were you at this point, Coach?

Oh, gosh, probably 50 or before that. Even before 50, I bet. 48 years old, we won two national championships. We just went 13. And one friend of mine, I won't use his name, but a friend of mine was a head coach, had a heart attack and died. I was having these severe chest pains. It was called a supplement. I never, later on got diagnosed with esophageal spasms, which it would. I'd sit there and go, oh, man. And I thought, you know, I thought, it's over. And then I. I'm like, why am I doing this? We just won. I don't really love it anymore. I'm horrified of losing. I remember we went 13 and 1, and we had problems at Florida, selling tickets. I remember our ad came in, like, pissed off. No, he wasn't pissed off, but we're 13.

1.

We just won 20. We just lost. What? We lose to Alabama. And I remember we couldn't sell tickets. And the fans are pissed off. You know, we just won 26 and 2. A national championship, undefeated season. We just lost Alabama. Oh, we can't sell tickets. The Sugar bowl. And you know, what happened? What's the problem? What's the. And I said, I'm good. I'm gonna go do TV and go. I miss my kids. No, I have three athletes. All my kids are really good athletes. I'm missing these damn games for what? For this. And I'm going to kill myself. And so I reached the point where.

I said about, did you have any of that at Utah? I'm like, just personally curious.

No, none. I was a gunslinger, man. I was like. You said, I remember on tv, was it Trev Alberts at one time said that. Oh, I went after his ass when he said, I think it was him. So they're not. They're not bcs, really. I went. I mean, I lost my mind on national tv, said, bcs. I said, I promise you, we have more BCS players than have these freaking teams out there. And I think I said something like, I'll. I'll personally buy your ticket to come watch us practice and then see if you. I mean, I went after them.

Knowing what, you know now about your health, is there anything you could have done differently? I tried, but before that, if you could go back with a time machine and say, okay, you know, if I would have done X, you know, maybe I wouldn't have had such a physical reaction with the gift of retrospection. Now, is there anything or was that just. Was that just the cost of the process and the cost of winning and greatness and staying at that level.

I'm very jealous at times about those that were able to sustain careers and you know, they lose a game and hey, we'll get them next time. You know, I've never said that in my life. Get up next time. No, we got to fix what happens. So I, I've had, I'm older now and I've had time to reflect. I'm done. No desire to go back. So I've had time to reflect and it wasn't like I wasn't aware that was going on. I wept. I'm not stupid. And my wife's a psychiatric nurse. We, we were very clear what was going on. And I would try to have mechanism where it'd be my faith and my family and friends to kind of just, you know, keep, you know, thank God you have that because if you don't, that's alcohol, drugs and other stuff because it's, it's a real issue. My appreciation for the mental health issues out there. It's. We're the first school to ever have a full time sports psychologist. Because of what I went through, I. When I saw players with their goal there, I said, we need help. And we had a full time at oh House. No one else had that. And that was because I believe that's so serious. So to answer your question, it just gives you a very short shelf life in the coaching profession. And you know what? I'm okay with that.

You did this thing with Wright Thompson between Florida and Ohio State, and the article, to me, like, it makes me tear up. You were very real, I think, in giving Wright that kind of access and then being real with him on what you were thinking through. Were you able to implement what you wanted to do at Ohio State versus Florida? Because you had those expectations, but you had the knowledge and you had some time to reflect. You had the contract with your family. Like, what. How did it work at Ohio State after you kind of knew those things?

Much better. I mean, I was, you know, I signed a contract with my daughters before I signed the contract. You know, I'm blessed with beyond. I have three kids and three spouses of our children that are like family, so. And five wonderful healthy grandkids. So we're very close family. So I was very took to task by my. And my kids are older. My oldest daughter, I told people I'm not scared of much, but I'm scared of my wife. And my daughter, my oldest one, she was on me now. And so we call each other our best friends. So she was on me constantly. So it was much better. I'm not saying it was perfect, because it wasn't close to perfect, but it was much better than the last couple years at Florida.

And do you think you needed that age and that kind of call out from the family in order to have it be better? Because one of the things we try to figure out is the cost of the obsession. But do you have to be older and wiser to deal with it? And do you need the people around you to fix it? Or do you know what I'm saying? Or could that have happened earlier? Could you have had that at Florida with the right, you know, surroundings?

I don't know.

I think you got to be broken at times. And I've seen players get broken. I've seen coaches, I've seen executives reach the point where, you know, thank God it was a catastrophe. You're broken. I told you. My good friend had a heart attack and died. And I know exactly why, because we would have conversations about the stresses of things, and stress is a killer. So I really feel for people that don't have that support group, because where do you go? You know, I know Alex has had some stuff go on and personal, and I mean, where do you go? I love Alex's family. I can see why. He's who he is. And. And if you don't have that, where do you really go, you know, other than faith? And I'm curious, where do you go? It's catastrophic. Some things that people get into because they're, you know, and I. We actually did an article, the Lone Wolf, that this is a very common issue with people today, that they became overwhelmed, that they are. Fear of failure is paralyzing at the crux.

Also, what Ravi's getting out. Like, we talk a lot, but, I mean, to do anything great, you have to be obsessed, right there. Takes a level of commitment. But how do you also find that balance, that life balance? And I guess, is that even possible.

The perfectly balanced life? No, it's. To me, that's. And I, you know, I've talked to my children about that. Is that, you know, you want the white picket fence and you want to be home at 5 o' clock having dinner every night with your family? I'm. I'm good. But, you know, is that going to be enough to keep you motivated? And is that going to scratch every itch that you have? Is that. Is that. Are you a competitor that wants to conquer the world, or are you happy that way? So. And the good thing is that's their choice. So do I think there's a work life balance. I really don't. I think you have to make the most of it. You know, guys going on golf trips. I never did all the, you know, hey, we're going away, we're going through this. I was always. Any time I had was. And you knew that, Alex. I mean, it was at a baseball game, softball game. It was something with my family because that time is so cherished, you know, And I just feel that we've been around the world twice or many times now, and you just see that with people that when that's missing. Alex, there's really bad stuff that happens when you don't have that support group.

And that family to the fearlessness. Like when you're at Ohio State and you guys are the favorites, you're playing, I don't know, Ohio University. Like, do you. How do you kick your team into at that point? Like, eff it, you know, like, you can't, you can't live in the fear. Like, we got, you know, you have to, like, you got to let it.

Go, you know, Shelly, one time we're watching, we're ironically getting ready to play for the national championship against Ohio State, where I'm laying in bed, I'm reading my playbook, and she's watching Boise State play Oklahoma. I don't know if you guys remember that. And Boise State wins. Beats. They run all these trick plays and all this. And she kicks me. I'll never forget, she kicks me and she goes, are you watching this? And I said, yeah, I'm busy. But, yeah, watching it. We're playing, oh, how safe, ironically, for the national championship five days later or whatever. And I'm watching it and she says, she used to be so much fun and do all that stuff. Why don't you? And I got so.

That's awesome.

But I started thinking that, you know, the, the, the fearlessness starts to leave and as a leader, you want, you know, our. For our. Our message was always 4 to 6, A to B, was that I wanted our players constantly. Because I believe. You do what exactly what your brains tell you you're going to do. Whatever you say to yourself, you're going to do it. Now, a lot of people won't admit that if you're, you know, Alex, if you're. Oh, shit, don't throw an interception. Don't do this. Guess what? You're going to play paralyzed if you said, F this, man. I'm going to let this sucker go. You are. And sometimes mistakes happen. I much rather have that kind of team. But if I'm given the Persona, you know, this all the time, that's not good. So I mean, that was a constant battle. Not at Utah. Utah, man, we're running kickoff return fit. You know, we're doing all kinds of stuff.

Well, coach, when you have five first round offensive linemen, I think the smart play is run off tackle a few times every possession. Right. I mean, you know, I don't know about your lineman at Utah, Alex, but you had to get a little more creative, right?

Well, you play to your strengths. But like, I think that was the beauty of again, your offense that you had come up with.

Right.

Like at that point the spread option was. And, and I'd actually be fascinated about this. Like, when did, when did that idea spawn? Because from what I understand, you used to always talk about you were at Notre Dame and this was in Notre Dame heyday, and they had to pick. You guys had to pick of the litter in the country as far as recruits and that you would play down to competition. You were running this kind of old analog offense. It didn't really take advantage of any like where. And I guess with all of this, like when as an assistant did it kick in for you that like, like, obviously this way isn't working and I, I think I got a good idea about a different way.

Dan Mullen was my GA at Notre Dame and we went to visit Scotland and your, your uncle, John Smith. John L. Smith, right? Yep. And Louisville. And they were doing the, the spread, not spread option, but spread. And, and I used to sit there and talk to him, say, how do you block the safety blitz? He goes, coach, I haven't seen a safety butch in six years. We're spreading the field and we're, you know, doing this and, and dad and I went down on a Sunday where our plan was to go Sunday and come back Sunday night. We stayed for three days. I remember we went, bought like underwear and T shirts and toothbrushes because we ended up staying because we couldn't leave. That's how mesmerized we were. That I, a year later, I take the job at Bowling Green and we're taking over a team that was 1 in 10, 2 and 9. And I'm watching a personnel going, we, we, how are we going to do this? And we almost put in the wishbone because I'm an option. I just studied the option throughout the years. And so basically we, we, we cheated the wishbone. And that's the evolution of the spread offense. It was never done before at the Time. Rich Rodriguez was messing around with it, Northwestern was messing around with it. But we went into the single wind style football and the spread option. And then one other quick story. Alex, I give you credit, I'm not sure if you ever seen it on tv, but in Alex's either first or second year, we were, we had a three by one set. So you had, you had Paris, Warren, Savoy and Matson on your left and the guy on the right. And we ran a replay and the receivers got the wrong signal. They got. Ran a bubble. So they ran a bubble, the defensive end closed, you pulled it, and there's a linebacker standing right there. You start to run it at the last second, you throw it out to Paris, he catches it, goes 70 yards. Kyle Winningham's our D coordinator and I mean, he's screaming at me, what was that? That's not on the script. That's not on the script. And I was like, I looked at Dan and what the shit was that? That was the first rpo.

No way.

That was a.

That is an unbelievable story, Alex. You are the progenitor of the rpo, Alex.

If you, if you were a real Silicon Valley guy, you'd have fucking monetized the shit out of that by now.

Okay?

I'm telling you. Come on.

That's unbelievable. I can't believe that story.

The receiver he's talking about, Paris had played quarterback and so Paris, like had, he was kind of our do it all little option H back. He ran routes, he'd come in the backfield and yeah, he, I remember pulling it and like you're running up on a wheel linebacker and it's like, well, I don't, I don't want the ball. And Paris is sitting out there wide open. So I kind of flipped it to him and you know, he was a phenomenal player and took off. So.

And then remember, remember the game winner against Cal? We ran basically that play. We ran shovel and we had the guy, you know, kick back like he's running a bubble. And you, they took away the shovel and you kicked it to Brandon Warfield the last second. And that, I mean, to me, I look back and I see all these teams doing this stuff. I was going, that was 2003, man. And no one ever done that stuff. That was so cool to see us be part of that.

That's unbelievable. That's an unbelievable story. Alex never told us that story. You invented the rpo. That, that, that should go on your.

You're the founder of the rpo.

Yeah, yeah. Very small hand in this.

All right, Coach, if you go back to what you said you look for in players, competitor, toughness, leadership of self than others, intelligence, adaptability. Where do each of those things come from for you? Why are you a competitor? Where does the toughness come from? You mentioned your dad. You know, where do each of these things come from for you on the five dimens look for in a person?

It's my father, you know, and we just. The family I grew up with was, you know, I was the only person to ever have a B. My sister. My father's a chemical engineer in army armor division. And, you know, it was just. There was no gray area. I mean, I just remember growing up and there's right and wrong and there's, you know, good grades, bad grades. You win or you lose. There's not. There was never a nice game. You know, what, do we win or do we lose? And either it's the hatred or the fear of losing has paralyzed me or not. It's driven me, but it's also paralyzed me. I mean, my life was about. The majority of my life is what was a score. And I still do that in golf and tennis and, you know, much little, you know, much less version. But everything is competition to me. It always was. So. And I like being around guys like that. I'll be honest, I. I have a very close group of friends and they're like me. They're. You know, when we play golf, it's not, you know, we. It's. You want to kill each other, you know, and it's just the kind of people I like to be around, you know, I like to. Around tough people. I'm not a big fan of soft people. Adaptability is something that you have to constantly work on, you know, because the ever changing world that we live in with children and all that, so I just, it's. It's who I'd like to be around. It's, I think, is the winning formula for teams and people. That's how we came up with it.

Coach, I've never asked you this, but like, how did you view. And I'm kind of fascinated this because like my last year I got to sit in on a lot of those staff meetings. But like, how did you view from a leadership role? Like, you're the, you know, you're the CEO, you're the, you're the top of the pyramid. And then you've got all these position coaches, right, that coach their units. And then you've got, you know, a hundred plus, you know, kids at the bottom like how the whole role of managing the position coaches and the coordinators and like the communication through them. How did that flow? Like, certainly, if you like, we talk a lot about like the pyramid structure and you know, like, how do you like. And a lot of times it's not built for like the transfer of information and these core philosophies. Like, how do you. How did you think about that?

I didn't know this, but after the fact, when I was in Florida, I read an article. It's called small. Small unit cohesion. I recommend it. So it's a. An article that I believe it was speech at West Point and I'd look it up if you guys have a chance. But it's small unit cohesion and it's something I made our staff read every year. I read it multiple times during the year just to keep reminding myself that the way. The way God created us, that, you know, and I used to call it. I, I don't know if I did it at Utah, but I eventually quit calling them assistant coaches and called them unit leaders as in special Forces. You know, the United States military history is incredible. When it was around the Revolutionary War, you know, the, the most difficult thing for most human beings to do is to pick up a first sane human being is to pick up a rifle and shoot someone. Why would you do that? I'm not talking about criminals. I'm talking about from. For the military. That's not normal behavior. So you have to brainwash these. You know, you got incredible people joining our military. And the further, you know, you did it for love of country, but the further you removed yourself from the Revolutionary War, love of country and the United States military, and it's in this article, actually did a survey and I want to say how many people, Shane, do you think would actually pull the trigger for love of country back in the mid-1900s, early 1900s? 15%. So if they're pushing, you know, for God bless America and all that, that's not the most efficient way to get your someone to fight for your country. The second thing they did a survey is how many people would pull a trigger. This blew my mind away. How many people would pull the trigger for killer be killed? You think it's very high. It's 35%. However, how many people would pull the trigger for a family?

Everyone.

Hunter. Yeah, so hence the special Forces option. That's. And they went from, you know, the army's thousands of people, no Unit B or you know, I don't know the exact terminology. And so when I speak to a team, I'm speaking to 105 players, but I really, I'm speaking to those 12 coaches or 10 coaches. And those 10 coaches got to take it in their meeting rooms. And the identity of our team are these units. It can't be for a love of team. And, you know, team's great, but anything beyond 10 to 12 people, you start to lose that personal approach. So I became enamored with the whole power of unit. That was a big term we use for my entire career. Power unit. Only as strong as our unit. At the end of the day, if we're nine, there's nine units on a team. If we're nine strong, I promise you we're going to sing the fights on in about four hours. If we're seven of strong, it depends on who we're playing. If we play a shit team, yeah, we, you know, we can get away with five units. But you're playing LSU at lsu or you're playing Alabama, you're playing the team up north. And we go into that game with seven units, we just got our ass kicked. And don't be that unit. And I look at that coach and say, you know what, you got to do what you gots to do, but your unit better perform.

How do you identify strong unit leaders?

Yeah, the five callings I just showed you.

Same.

Same thing.

Same thing.

And how consistent were your unit leaders over time? Coach?

I think the most undervalued people in any organization, other than the players, they're the most important. Those assistant coaches at Utah, I had, I had a couple marginals, but I had, for the most part, I had some phenomenals. Kyle Whittingham and Dan Mullen and those guys. I got stuck a few times with some marginal leaders, and it hurt us badly. And I would always tell her, ad when I found the right coach, I'm going to pay that guy whatever it takes to I he. The only way we ever lost a guy is to go be a head coach. It got bad for a while. Every year I'd lose coaches to be head coaches. And that, that is as much as losing a guy like Alex or a great player. When I lose a coach that I trusted, it broke me down because I'd interview these other guys and I got stuck with a couple ones, and I'm like this, why did I hire this guy? Because it just ends up I'm doing his job now. So those coaches are, man, are they valuable.

That's the namesake of our pod coach. It's called. It's Called Glue Guys. We celebrate the Glue Guys and the Glue Gals. It is just make the world go around and just hold it all together. You know, they may not get the acclaim, they might not have the spotlight on them, but like every great leader, every successful company, every great program is made up with multiple, multiple Glue Guys and Glue Gals. And for you, so it sounds like it's your, your assistant coaches, that's your.

Unit leaders coach, you mentioned there like a word that you hadn't said yet, but I think it's at like the core certainly of a lot, but like trust, right? They, when you had one of these unit leaders, like trust was a big part that you could trust, that they, they, their makeup, like where their loyalties lied. Again, those five qualities. And certainly I think even larger as a team. Like I've joked a lot about those first five months, you know, when you got to Utah and how uncomfortable they were. But like once, once you proved your commitment level, like the trust was never broken, right? Like from there going forward and again, it didn't matter your production on the field, but like just like, I guess your philosophy of trust in a team, right, like, you know, being able to tell the truth, you know, again, all the way down. I don't know.

Just like how do you build it because it's so important, how do you build it in 100 person team? And maybe it's the units or whatever.

Well, that's where I struggled in the NFL, I think so bad, Alex, is that I, you know, how do you develop trust? Trust takes time. And maybe I was used to the college player, the younger person that would come over the house, that I would get to meet his family, you know, and there's none of that at that level, you know, and I tried to kind of, you know, keep doing it all and it's not that way at all. It's grown men doing a grown man's job. So trust, you lose trust now, you lose a locker room, you lose a team, you lose everything. And trust, how do you, I just, I struggle with that. How do you earn trust? You know, the way I earn trust is by being with a guy for eight hours a day. And you know, having you around my family, I'm being around your family. You see exactly what makes me tick. And I'll do anything for you and I would expect you to do the same for me. That's, that's to me, a trustful relationship that takes a lot of time and a lot of time together and, and you know, in college, back in the day you had that time, I was in the weight room every day. I was. I was in the quarterback meeting rooms. I was. Those guys are over my house. They're here, they're here. And then all of a sudden you start to get this right here, this, you know, this young kid from Helix and his coach from Bowling Green. All of a sudden you get, wait a minute. Now that's pretty cool. I put my arm around you and, you know, I'm fourth down and one against Wyoming, and the. When the lights went out there, there's no hesitation, there's no second guessing and all that. When you don't have that, it's painful. And I've experienced that a few times.

You know, it's. It's funny, Coach, One of the things we talk about is, you know, how the world is similar or not in business and in sports, look, there's nothing like a sports team ever. There's nothing like a sports team. But, you know, around here you'll meet people that have made billions of dollars or whatever, tons of money. They've been really successful and they're miserable. And the thing that they miss is the being in the trench with their teammates. That's the only. And the, the only thing they want is that trusted relationship. They have all the money in the world, they have success. All this stuff, external validation. But what you just described, the thing that actually people want is to care about the people they're around and to win it for other people. It's not holding a rifle, but it's so funny. You have to learn that lesson on your own. The only thing that you actually want is to do it with somebody that you care about and do it together.

That's all that matters in my life. That's very well said, by the way. And it's hard to believe, but I think there's other people out there. That's not even part of their equation. Really?

You don't think that's true for everyone?

I do believe that's in everyone's heart. What you just said is in everyone's heart. God created you. There's no way he made a mistake. However, there's influences you get stuck in. And I've been in. I walk out of high schools and I've been, you know, I've been in the. Someone said 900 high schools in 30 years or whatever. And I walk out of those high schools, I'm thinking, that poor kid, my God, that poor kid is in that high school. And that's going to influence that kid. I do believe that's in everyone's heart. Sometimes it doesn't come out.

So, coach, talk about transition. It's something we talk about a lot. Obviously, Alex and I stepped away from our own crucibles and transitioned from being the COO to a venture capitalist. So all of a sudden you say, I'm stepping away. You know, I no longer have the competition. The toughness, leadership, intelligence, adaptability. That's. That's my scoreboard.

Where.

Where do you find that and how do you pivot and how did you think about your transition to television and sort of your. Your post coaching career?

I'm having the time of my life, you know, Shelly and I just celebrated 35 years, five grandchildren, which I never took a day off. You know, I would. I would leave, but I would always work. So there was not one day in the 38 years that I. 39 years might have. 38, 39 years that I ever said, I'm. I'm shutting her down today. I never did that. First of all, I didn't think it was right because I thought we would lose that edge. And I was caught. You know, Coach Mick will tell you, or Bayless or my strength coaches, we're supposed to be gone in the summer. I'm. Every day, I'm getting run down. Who was there? What do they do? Tell me the numbers. That's about four hours of my day. Then I go to lunch and mess around with the kids and all that. I come back and finish up the playbook. So I never really took time off. I never realized this life was out there. And Fox call it the big new kickoff. I love those guys. Mark Ingram and Rob Stone and Brady Quinn and Matt Leiter. They're like my brothers. They're incredible people. I actually love doing. Every Thursday, I leave and I can't wait. You stay involved in the game. I'm on three charity boards. Tim Tebow foundation, the Folds of Honor, and the Veterans Golf association. And I can't get enough of those guys. And then I have the grandchildren. So I am. We do a podcast now, the triple option, too, that, by the way, just hit number one. So I'm fulfilled. I really am. And it was hard at first. It was really hard at first. My sister retired. She was a provost in Cincinnati, and I asked her about it one day, and she. She doesn't even know it, but she really helped me. She says, you know, your life's like a bunch of chapters in a book. And just that time to move to the next chapter and the next chapter. Is going to be as good as you want to make it. And I. My gosh, am I loving it.

It's important to me. Like, certainly. I like being pretty open, certainly about the time when I'm. When I'm doing TV or whenever I'm talking about my career, about. About it. All right. Especially a lot of the internal stuff is part of what you do. Now. I. I'm fascinated that, like the Wright Thompson article again, the Swamp King, stuff like that you. Were you very open about all this stuff that you went through as a coach and even on the personal side, because most people, I think, try, especially in football and even your upbringing, like through your dad, like, you try to present strength constantly. And as part of this. And I'm just fascinated from the Wright Thompson article is like when you were talking about the Champions Club, the dinner, you know, that we used to do after wins, and you talking about how you slowly stopped going to those. And then. And then you went. And nobody was there. Right. And. And then it hitting you that like. Well, they were. They stopped going because I stopped going.

Yeah. First being mad that nobody's there.

Right.

That's the coolest part of the article right there of like, where is everyone?

It's like, yeah, I mean, the highs and the lows and everything that you've gone through as a coaching. I don't know, like, it. Is there a part of it, like doing the TV and I've heard you like talking about all this stuff. It's, you know, obviously it's amazing. And you're one of only a handful of people in the world that have ever done this stuff, you know, is that part of it? Giving it back? Like, the lessons learned?

It's certainly a cathartic experience to release some of the. And, you know, when you look back, I was so guarded for so long, I'm almost to the point where I don't give a. You know, I don't. If I can help someone, I'm going to help someone. If I had ups and downs and ins and outs and highs and lows and yeah, certainly I have. And if I can help, I. I'm at the point right now that's my whole life and I'm in the bike. I love Fox and all that, but if someone across the street needs help, I'm jogging over there to help. And I'm not talking about help moving. You know, I certainly do that. But I mean, if I know, like, I speak to some local high schools here, and I actually work with the sheriff department, we're going to put together the real life Wednesdays that we did at college where, you know, the kids stuck with these, you know, tough situations about teaching them fiscal responsibility and all that. The give back is the most cathartic experience that you experience. It's the absolute release of, you know, when you. When you say you don't give a. That's not correct. But I. I'm not out there on a pedestal anymore where everything I do, I'm gonna get shot at. If I did, I don't care anymore. If I can help someone and take my experiences that God gave me to help someone, man, is that a great feeling. And that's a focus of mine.

Coach, One of the things that I really appreciated from reading the Wright Thompson article was you were still in it and you were being real about it. And I think the idea of the article of, can you win the whole world and lose yourself? I think anyone who has ambitions, you think you just want to go get the championship or whatever it is, and just sort of the point of the fleeting nature of how satisfactory that is. That was a huge deal for me. Some of the anecdotes you shared and were courageous enough to share about your children and, you know, how you have to work to get back into their good graces. That stuff was very affecting to me. And I'll just tell you, like, I think the choice to let Wright go that deep with you, that was affecting in ways you might not even know to people that have nothing to do with the world that you were in.

And Wright's so good, Eddie.

Oh, he's just the best.

Coach. Appreciate it. Thanks for coming on.

All right, Coach.

Yeah.

Thanks for tuning in to Glue, guys. We're on social media at GlueGuyspodcast, and we'll be back next week.