Latest / WCHS Network Podcasts / 101724 Let's talk with Carl Lee - A Legacy of Leadership: Earl Monroe's Impact on WVSU Football
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta work.
- 0:10Speaker 2: You gotta work.
- 0:11Speaker 1: Cry sign. It's mine gotta show. Everybody is my sign.
- 0:15Speaker 1: You gotta work.
- 0:17Speaker 2: Cry sign.
- 0:18Speaker 1: Another mile from Saga Dogs Day Line, Don't Tell You
- 0:21Speaker 1: Gotta Burt.
- 0:23Speaker 3: Welcome to Let's Talk with Carl Lee, where sports, culture
- 0:27Speaker 3: and community intersect. Joined Carl and frequent co host Hollis
- 0:30Speaker 3: Lewis as they dive into engaging conversations with guests from
- 0:34Speaker 3: all walks of life. Let's Talk is probably presented by
- 0:37Speaker 3: Attorney Frank Walker, Real Talk, Real Experience, Real Results, Frank
- 0:41Speaker 3: Walker Law dot com. Let the conversation begin on Let's Talk.
- 0:46Speaker 2: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.
- 0:47Speaker 4: So Let's Talk with Carl Lee, and my co host
- 0:51Speaker 4: is out today. He's ripping and running around the state
- 0:54Speaker 4: trying to do his political duties.
- 0:56Speaker 2: Ass soon.
- 0:57Speaker 4: Let's Talk is presented by Attorney Frank Walker, Real Talk,
- 1:01Speaker 4: Real Experience, Real Results. You can visit Frank Walker at
- 1:04Speaker 4: frankwalkerlaw dot.
- 1:06Speaker 2: Com for more information.
- 1:09Speaker 4: You can catch Let's Talk every Sunday at one pm
- 1:13Speaker 4: Thursday at seven pm on five eighty WCHS. If you
- 1:17Speaker 4: want to watch any of our past episodes, you can
- 1:19Speaker 4: go to WCCHS Network dot com.
- 1:22Speaker 5: Slash Let's Talk.
- 1:24Speaker 4: You can also follow us on Facebook at Let's Talk
- 1:26Speaker 4: with carl Lee for any of the updates. My guest
- 1:30Speaker 4: today is what I would call the epitome of a
- 1:37Speaker 4: football coach. And I coached with him at state at
- 1:44Speaker 4: West Virginia State when I was there in ninety six,
- 1:49Speaker 4: and he was my first de coordinator. Now I haven't
- 1:55Speaker 4: even said his name yet, but for the most part,
- 1:57Speaker 4: I'm going to make the case that anybody from Charleston
- 2:02Speaker 4: to who maybe Huntington probably will know this game.
- 2:08Speaker 2: This guy's name.
- 2:09Speaker 4: Coach Earl Monroe played at University of Miami. He was
- 2:12Speaker 4: a linebacker and he started at West Virginia State in
- 2:16Speaker 4: nineteen eighty seven, where he also coached track as well.
- 2:21Speaker 4: When I took over as the coach in nineteen ninety six,
- 2:24Speaker 4: I hired coachman Roe as the decordinator and he would
- 2:27Speaker 4: go on and become that West Virginia State's head coach
- 2:33Speaker 4: in that tenure. Okay, and anybody who knows the history
- 2:39Speaker 4: of West Virginia State when I was there and some
- 2:41Speaker 4: of the coaches prior to we weren't.
- 2:43Speaker 5: We never had a actual winning season.
- 2:47Speaker 4: Coach mon Roe has been the individual who, to me,
- 2:50Speaker 4: in my mind, has been the guy who's turned it around.
- 2:53Speaker 2: He had two winning seasons.
- 2:55Speaker 4: And also I think was ranked at one point in
- 2:58Speaker 4: time during the season nationally ranked as a team, which
- 3:03Speaker 4: again speaks to the leadership and speaks to his experience
- 3:07Speaker 4: and his ability to maintain and establish a coaching a team.
- 3:14Speaker 4: Who's looking for coaching, coach Moroe, how you been doing?
- 3:17Speaker 5: Man?
- 3:18Speaker 2: Doing great? Call doing great?
- 3:20Speaker 4: So coach, I want to go back because I know
- 3:25Speaker 4: you played at the university in Miami, and I can
- 3:27Speaker 4: remember when I first met you and you said that,
- 3:33Speaker 4: because when anybody thinks of university in Miami, I mean
- 3:39Speaker 4: you're thinking as big a football, college football as you
- 3:43Speaker 4: can get. Tell me a little bit about your because
- 3:47Speaker 4: I and I don't know this, which I probably should,
- 3:49Speaker 4: but we've probably never gone back, had time.
- 3:51Speaker 2: To even go back to have a little bit.
- 3:53Speaker 4: Of discussion about where'd you play high school ball? Because
- 3:58Speaker 4: everybody knows you know, you start talking about Miami, you
- 4:01Speaker 4: start talking about places Atlanta, places that have huge high
- 4:05Speaker 4: school programs and send major D one players. Tell us,
- 4:10Speaker 4: tell me and tell the audience a little bit about
- 4:13Speaker 4: where you went to high school. What was the recruiting process.
- 4:17Speaker 4: Who who was negotiating for your skill set?
- 4:23Speaker 6: I played in Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia. I played in Atlanta
- 4:27Speaker 6: Southwest High School and it was a small high school,
- 4:31Speaker 6: unbelievably a small high school.
- 4:34Speaker 4: But now is that relative to Atlanta or would that
- 4:38Speaker 4: be are you talking about here.
- 4:40Speaker 6: In Atlanta and not graduated in nineteen seventy four and
- 4:44Speaker 6: in Atlanta there were twenty five high schools in the
- 4:48Speaker 6: metro area. That's inside of two eighty five right, right,
- 4:53Speaker 6: So it was a lot of high schools. So they
- 4:55Speaker 6: were smaller high schools. They weren't these big conglomerate high
- 4:59Speaker 6: schools that they have now. And just so happened we
- 5:03Speaker 6: had so many great athletes descend on that area at
- 5:09Speaker 6: that time. We won junior year, we won state championship
- 5:14Speaker 6: in basketball. Senior year, we won state championship in basketball
- 5:18Speaker 6: and football. We went undefeated thirteen and zero, and we
- 5:22Speaker 6: were ranked the second number two team in the nation.
- 5:25Speaker 2: Wow.
- 5:26Speaker 6: We had twenty two seniors and nineteen of them signed
- 5:29Speaker 6: college scholarships. So it was just an amazing time. You
- 5:34Speaker 6: can google. Our quarterback was Anthony Flannigan. You can google him.
- 5:39Speaker 6: He was the first African American quarterback at the University
- 5:42Speaker 6: of Georgia. Wow, So you know we had guys go everywhere, Miami,
- 5:47Speaker 6: South Carolina, all over the place.
- 5:50Speaker 4: All right, So you signed, you signed at the University
- 5:54Speaker 4: of Miami. Like again, I can't, I can't fathom that
- 6:01Speaker 4: that that high of a recruiting process.
- 6:04Speaker 2: I didn't. I wasn't. I wasn't fortunate enough to be in.
- 6:07Speaker 4: That size that side of it.
- 6:11Speaker 5: So what what made.
- 6:13Speaker 4: You decide for the University of Miami versus anybody else
- 6:17Speaker 4: that was out there?
- 6:18Speaker 2: Who if?
- 6:19Speaker 4: And who was your Who was the other place that
- 6:22Speaker 4: you was considering going?
- 6:24Speaker 6: And I'm grinning now because my brother was in town
- 6:28Speaker 6: for homecoming this past weekend and we had some of
- 6:30Speaker 6: this conversation. Literally we were recruited by everybody and not
- 6:39Speaker 6: bragging to say that we had so many athletes again
- 6:44Speaker 6: that the schools were coming in to see and try
- 6:46Speaker 6: to get whoever they could get out of that house.
- 6:48Speaker 2: Let me let me clarify.
- 6:50Speaker 4: Coastin Roe has a brother, a twin brother, identical twin brother,
- 6:53Speaker 4: identical twin I promise you you won't.
- 6:56Speaker 2: You wouldn't know the difference if you were seeing them both.
- 6:59Speaker 6: It was a lot of used it on campus last week,
- 7:01Speaker 6: so he played as well. Coached, yes, and he actually
- 7:05Speaker 6: went to Miami. We went to Miami together, all kinds
- 7:08Speaker 6: of package. And the joke is, you know, I was
- 7:10Speaker 6: good enough to earn two scholarships to take him with me,
- 7:14Speaker 6: and he says that he was good enough to earn
- 7:18Speaker 6: two scholarships to take me in with him.
- 7:20Speaker 2: But we had several athletes recruited the year before.
- 7:25Speaker 6: We had two teammates to sign with Miami the year before,
- 7:28Speaker 6: a quarterback and the wide receiver. We had a defensive
- 7:32Speaker 6: lineman that went to USC We you know, we had
- 7:35Speaker 6: guys go to Alabama. We had guys go everywhere. So
- 7:38Speaker 6: the scouts had already been in and knew the junior
- 7:42Speaker 6: year team was better than the senior year team that
- 7:46Speaker 6: won the championship and went thirteen and oh the junior
- 7:49Speaker 6: year team we gave up thirteen points the whole season
- 7:54Speaker 6: and we averaged about fifty. But the two outside linebackers
- 7:59Speaker 6: myself been one and the other outside linebacker, were in
- 8:04Speaker 6: cast for the playoff game and we're playing the option
- 8:07Speaker 6: team and we lost in the first round of the
- 8:10Speaker 6: playoffs our junior year and so we made it packed
- 8:14Speaker 6: our senior year, and we had a great team that
- 8:16Speaker 6: junior year, so we made it packed that senior year
- 8:20Speaker 6: that we wouldn't even go on recruiting trips, and so
- 8:23Speaker 6: we missed out on some recruiting opportunities because we refused
- 8:29Speaker 6: to go on recruiting trips during the season because we
- 8:32Speaker 6: saw our predecessors, the seniors before us, get distracted a
- 8:37Speaker 6: little bit going all.
- 8:39Speaker 2: Over the country, you know, being recruited.
- 8:41Speaker 6: So all of my recruiting trips, unfortunately for those northern schools.
- 8:46Speaker 2: Were in December and January.
- 8:50Speaker 6: So to answer your question of how that process went,
- 8:54Speaker 6: I got recruited at Nebraska. They fly me out, me
- 8:57Speaker 6: and two other teammates, three other teammates. They flew three
- 9:02Speaker 6: linebackers in a running back from my school. We went
- 9:05Speaker 6: to Nebraska was thirteen degrees. You know, had nothing to
- 9:10Speaker 6: do but go milk the cows or whatever. City boy
- 9:12Speaker 6: coming from Atlanta man Nebraska, but it was it was
- 9:17Speaker 6: really a great situation as a small town. Everybody in
- 9:22Speaker 6: the town supports that university. Every storefront's got the end
- 9:27Speaker 6: and the red and all that. Our receipts literally letters
- 9:32Speaker 6: from every business in Lincoln Nebraska. But there's nothing else there,
- 9:40Speaker 6: you know, and they support they Oh yeah, they're tied in.
- 9:45Speaker 6: And you know, they had indoor facility. Then they were
- 9:47Speaker 6: big bill They had big eight championships all over the
- 9:50Speaker 6: place and couple of national championships.
- 9:52Speaker 2: And that part of it you made you lean.
- 9:56Speaker 6: It made you lean and think about envisioning yourself being there.
- 10:00Speaker 6: And then you walk outside that wind hit you and
- 10:03Speaker 6: you say, I don't know now, if I go on
- 10:06Speaker 6: earlier in the year and it wasn't as bit or cold,
- 10:10Speaker 6: they might have got a you know, another thought. Well,
- 10:13Speaker 6: the next week, my brother and I two other teammates,
- 10:19Speaker 6: they fly us to Pittsburgh. Tony dor Sad was a freshman. Wow,
- 10:24Speaker 6: you know Tony Dorsett was a freshman. We go up,
- 10:26Speaker 6: we fly to Pittsburgh. We get off the plane. It's
- 10:30Speaker 6: a foo the snow. We're leaving Atlanta. Man, it's you
- 10:34Speaker 6: know Saturday, they Saturday degree again, it was the late.
- 10:38Speaker 2: So you really just needed to go south.
- 10:40Speaker 4: Your recruiting trip to Miami was very lucky.
- 10:45Speaker 6: That they were the last trip after so after Pittsburgh
- 10:49Speaker 6: and it was snowing and I don't know, if you're
- 10:51Speaker 6: familiar with their facilities. At the time, the stadium was
- 10:54Speaker 6: up on top of the hill and the round dormitories
- 10:58Speaker 6: were down at the bottom, and we had to foot it.
- 11:00Speaker 6: Tony Dor sat and I think the last guy, the
- 11:04Speaker 6: basketball player, uh star was last name night or Nighting
- 11:08Speaker 6: or something, and they were only two had cars, identical cutlasses,
- 11:13Speaker 6: cutless Supreme.
- 11:14Speaker 2: So I don't know what was going on there.
- 11:17Speaker 6: But we go down to the little party or whatever,
- 11:20Speaker 6: and everybody's telling Tony Tony man, we got recruits.
- 11:23Speaker 2: Man and it's a long waist, said we're gonna you're.
- 11:25Speaker 6: Gonna give him a ride back, And you know, Door
- 11:27Speaker 6: said he the freshman, got Freshman of the Year and
- 11:29Speaker 6: all that stuff.
- 11:30Speaker 2: He's like, oh yeah, yeah, we'll give a right weed.
- 11:32Speaker 2: Never saw it again. So I got sick, lost my voice.
- 11:38Speaker 5: It's cold.
- 11:40Speaker 6: I'm looking at the classrooms and I'm looking at the
- 11:43Speaker 6: dorms and I'm looking at the facility. I'm like my
- 11:47Speaker 6: brother and I said, look, man, I don't think I
- 11:51Speaker 6: can do it. I mean they put a they put
- 11:53Speaker 6: a big rush on us. Joe Avazano, who was ended
- 11:57Speaker 6: up in a special teams coach of the Dallas Cowboys
- 12:00Speaker 6: for years, Great guy. He lived at my house. I
- 12:04Speaker 6: come on from school. He got tennis shoes on, talking,
- 12:06Speaker 6: let's shoot some ball. They were really after us, and
- 12:10Speaker 6: they put it made a big push and we were impressed.
- 12:13Speaker 6: Johnny Majors was the head coach, and we were impressed.
- 12:19Speaker 6: So we're trying to narrow it down. We go to Indiana.
- 12:24Speaker 6: We got recruited by Earl Bruce was the coach at
- 12:27Speaker 6: one of them. We went to our state. I'll shoot
- 12:33Speaker 6: the gull on game day to just put the head
- 12:36Speaker 6: on coach. He was coaching at one of them. Indiana.
- 12:41Speaker 6: We got snowed in. We get snowed in. So, okay,
- 12:45Speaker 6: guess what. The fifth trip is the University of Miami.
- 12:52Speaker 6: So the University of Miami was the first place that
- 12:57Speaker 6: we went that it was warmer than it was where
- 13:01Speaker 6: we were where we left Atlanta. And we get down there,
- 13:04Speaker 6: man and now, and we had two teammates there already,
- 13:09Speaker 6: and so that was the comfortability. The coach that was
- 13:13Speaker 6: recruiting us played at Mars Brown College in Atlanta, and
- 13:18Speaker 6: you know, he was familiar with us and we were
- 13:20Speaker 6: familiar with him.
- 13:22Speaker 2: And to be honest, part of it was the weather.
- 13:27Speaker 4: I mean it was a bigger I mean, it sounds
- 13:31Speaker 4: to me like almost all of it was the weather.
- 13:35Speaker 6: Well, it was the weather and the and the pool
- 13:38Speaker 6: at the Union when you walk by to go to
- 13:40Speaker 6: class and you go to fits at the pool, and
- 13:44Speaker 6: it was yes, and the beach and and listen, I'm
- 13:47Speaker 6: just turning seventeen years old. I graduated a year early, Okay,
- 13:51Speaker 6: so I'm just turning seventeen. They take us to the
- 13:56Speaker 6: Rusty Pelican. They have the recruiting girl. They call them
- 14:00Speaker 6: the Hurricane honeys. They'd have a run a car and
- 14:05Speaker 6: they come pick you up and they take you out
- 14:07Speaker 6: to this fancy dinner, the Rusty Pelican.
- 14:10Speaker 2: Google it. It sets out on the bay and.
- 14:14Speaker 6: We're pulling up and Sylvester Stallan's getting out of a
- 14:19Speaker 6: two seater whatever kind of car.
- 14:22Speaker 2: I have no idea what it is.
- 14:24Speaker 6: I'm seventeen years old, man, I am literally going crazy.
- 14:27Speaker 6: I'm looking for the papers and the other thing. There
- 14:32Speaker 6: was some football related thought process in there. Miami had
- 14:38Speaker 6: the toughest schedule. They were independent, so they were independent forever,
- 14:45Speaker 6: and they had the toughest schedule in the nation for
- 14:50Speaker 6: the first two three years.
- 14:51Speaker 2: And I was like, man, look That's where I'm going.
- 14:53Speaker 6: They're not winning a whole lot of games right now,
- 14:57Speaker 6: but that's where I'm going.
- 15:00Speaker 2: I played.
- 15:02Speaker 6: Nebraska and Nebraska. I played Alabama at Alabama. I played
- 15:06Speaker 6: Penn State at Penn State.
- 15:08Speaker 2: I played No. To Dame at No. The Dame.
- 15:10Speaker 6: I played Ohio State at Ohio State. We played Florida
- 15:13Speaker 6: State every year. We played Florida every year, just tough down.
- 15:17Speaker 6: We were beat up.
- 15:18Speaker 2: Yeah, I couldn't.
- 15:19Speaker 6: You know, we we got when we were in some battles.
- 15:21Speaker 6: We had really good defenses and we just could not.
- 15:27Speaker 6: We had Nebraska on the ropes. We had, you know,
- 15:30Speaker 6: played against Joe Montana, played against Tony dor Set. I
- 15:34Speaker 6: think that I'd have to google it, but I think
- 15:36Speaker 6: Nebraska won a national championship during my four years. I
- 15:39Speaker 6: was recruited by them. No. The Dame won in the
- 15:42Speaker 6: national championship. I was recruited by them. Pitt won a
- 15:46Speaker 6: national championship. And some of my homeboys that go in
- 15:48Speaker 6: the pit and they rub it.
- 15:49Speaker 4: In on me till till this day, probably still wearing
- 15:53Speaker 4: that ring. Oh yeah, they won it and put it
- 15:56Speaker 4: in my face. So my brother and I was talking
- 15:59Speaker 4: this weekend. We said well, that's all fighting good. We
- 16:02Speaker 4: could have maybe going to one of.
- 16:03Speaker 6: Them places and we don't know what would have happened,
- 16:05Speaker 6: what was transpired.
- 16:07Speaker 2: We might have won the national championship, we might not have.
- 16:10Speaker 6: But just think right now, we will be going back
- 16:14Speaker 6: to Pittsburgh in November for homecoming.
- 16:19Speaker 2: And in two weeks guess where we're going.
- 16:22Speaker 6: We're going to Miami to the Florida State game and
- 16:24Speaker 6: it's homecoming. So I think overall the experience, Uh, we
- 16:29Speaker 6: played a lot of football, made a lot of great
- 16:31Speaker 6: friends and teammates, and again we get to go to games.
- 16:35Speaker 6: Now we go to spring ball in April, we go
- 16:38Speaker 6: to Miami, we hang out the beach, We go to
- 16:40Speaker 6: two or three ball games a year. Or I could
- 16:42Speaker 6: be going back to Nebraska for homecoming. So it's a
- 16:47Speaker 6: life loan.
- 16:49Speaker 4: Yeah, when you look at it that way now of it, yes,
- 16:53Speaker 4: exactly exactly.
- 16:55Speaker 6: So that being said, we made a lot, said made
- 16:58Speaker 6: a lot of it, then win a whole out ball. Okay,
- 17:00Speaker 6: was in a lot of close ones, but learned a lot,
- 17:04Speaker 6: had some really good coaches, and you know, you never
- 17:08Speaker 6: know what the decision gonna be if you were gonna
- 17:11Speaker 6: win that pid or win it wherever. But overall it
- 17:14Speaker 6: was you got good at great education and played some
- 17:18Speaker 6: good football, learned some good football, and so we think
- 17:21Speaker 6: we made the right.
- 17:22Speaker 2: Decision, all right.
- 17:23Speaker 4: So moving on to all of a sudden you get
- 17:30Speaker 4: to West Virginia. What actually brings you.
- 17:34Speaker 2: To West Virginia.
- 17:35Speaker 6: I signed, I got hurt my senior year. All the
- 17:38Speaker 6: scouts were in, and I got hurt my senior year
- 17:42Speaker 6: and ended up signing free agent. I mean, I was
- 17:48Speaker 6: on the draft bars.
- 17:49Speaker 4: And and and I'm thinking, you know, hey, I'm gonna
- 17:52Speaker 4: get drafted. My roommate my junior year. Who will this
- 17:58Speaker 4: guy up? He was the third player picked in the
- 18:03Speaker 4: seventies sixth draft.
- 18:05Speaker 6: He's my roommate. Well, they had the newspeople coming in
- 18:10Speaker 6: to do the story on the draft. They didn't know
- 18:12Speaker 6: he's gonna go that early.
- 18:14Speaker 2: And he got picked before they got set up.
- 18:17Speaker 6: Third player picked in which was the highest player picked
- 18:21Speaker 6: in Miami until Sam or somebody actually went early. So
- 18:28Speaker 6: John Turner was my roommate my senior year, who played
- 18:32Speaker 6: with you in Minnesota, A good friend of yours. John
- 18:36Speaker 6: Turner was picked this in the second round, first second
- 18:39Speaker 6: and third player in the second round. You know, I'm
- 18:41Speaker 6: thinking I've got a good chance, but I got hurt
- 18:44Speaker 6: my senior year. I ended up signing as a free
- 18:49Speaker 6: agent with Kansas City Chiefs, and I.
- 18:51Speaker 2: Get out there in the leg that I had.
- 18:53Speaker 6: I had pulled a muscle in my hip working out
- 18:57Speaker 6: for some scouts and it kind of pulled away from
- 19:00Speaker 6: the hip and it took it a long time to heal.
- 19:03Speaker 2: But they signed me.
- 19:04Speaker 6: I went out to mini camp and by the time
- 19:07Speaker 6: I got the fall camp, it just hadn't got enough
- 19:10Speaker 6: strength for them to pass me on a physical. So
- 19:13Speaker 6: I actually got a medical release because they put you
- 19:17Speaker 6: on that new Sidebex technology that was brand new technology then,
- 19:21Speaker 6: and they strapped me into that Sidebex machine and it
- 19:24Speaker 6: measures all the muscles in your body and your leg
- 19:28Speaker 6: and said that my right leg was twenty two percent
- 19:31Speaker 6: stronger than my left because of that injury, and so
- 19:36Speaker 6: they released me. Well, then some of the scouts and
- 19:42Speaker 6: agents and stuff said, well, if you want to get
- 19:46Speaker 6: back in the league, you don't want to sit out.
- 19:49Speaker 6: You know, you want to kind of be active. Is
- 19:51Speaker 6: there's something lead going on or whatever, you can play
- 19:54Speaker 6: organized football.
- 19:55Speaker 2: Get your leg checked out.
- 19:57Speaker 6: And so they started this afa American Football Association that
- 20:01Speaker 6: had a team in Birmingham, and a lot of my
- 20:04Speaker 6: buddies were going down to tryout. Said early you're going
- 20:06Speaker 6: and said no, man, my leg felt like somebody shot
- 20:09Speaker 6: me in the leg when it happened.
- 20:11Speaker 2: I'm gonna wait a year.
- 20:13Speaker 6: So they go on, they go down, they try out,
- 20:16Speaker 6: couple of them make the next tryout, couple of them
- 20:18Speaker 6: make the team. I went to the tryout with them,
- 20:21Speaker 6: just standing around, coaches coming over.
- 20:24Speaker 2: Man, you're gonna work out, said no, I'm not. I'm
- 20:26Speaker 2: you know, I'm just looking. This year.
- 20:28Speaker 6: They called Miami, got all the information on me from Miami.
- 20:34Speaker 6: They just start bombarding me. Look, you're only an hour
- 20:37Speaker 6: away from Birmingham. We'll let you stay at home. You
- 20:41Speaker 6: can drive down here three days a week to practice,
- 20:44Speaker 6: and we need linebackers. So I was like, man, I
- 20:49Speaker 6: do want to get back in the league.
- 20:52Speaker 2: So I went down. I went down to Birmingham played
- 20:55Speaker 2: had a really good season. Leg held up.
- 20:58Speaker 6: That team moved to San Antonio, Texas the next year,
- 21:02Speaker 6: and they started a team here, the West Virginia Rockins
- 21:05Speaker 6: in the American Football Association. Perry Moss, who had coached
- 21:09Speaker 6: the old Rockets in sixty nine seventy seventy one. Local guy.
- 21:15Speaker 6: He was coming back to coach the team. He was
- 21:18Speaker 6: coaching the team in Charlotte. We played against him, you know,
- 21:21Speaker 6: a couple of times.
- 21:24Speaker 2: They started. I got back to Atlanta and working again.
- 21:26Speaker 6: They started calling my phone, call him a phone. Nine
- 21:31Speaker 6: or ten of the players on my Birmingham team signed
- 21:35Speaker 6: to come here, and they started calling me. Well, my
- 21:39Speaker 6: dad's from Beckley, originally from Beckley, and he went to
- 21:43Speaker 6: Morris Brown College in Atlanta and stayed in Atlanta. So
- 21:46Speaker 6: my ninety something year old grandmother was in Beckley. So
- 21:51Speaker 6: they just kept calling and calling, and finally I said, man,
- 21:55Speaker 6: I'm will go up there for a year and give
- 21:56Speaker 6: it a try. I said, only way I'll go, you
- 21:57Speaker 6: give me a round trip ticket in a round trip
- 22:00Speaker 6: plane ticket. That way, if I decided that I want
- 22:03Speaker 6: to come back, I got a round trip. I flew
- 22:05Speaker 6: in in the spring of eighty and played with the Rockets.
- 22:14Speaker 2: Man.
- 22:14Speaker 6: We had great teams, We had guys from everywhere. We
- 22:18Speaker 6: won the championship. I started working as a bridge inspector
- 22:21Speaker 6: with Department of Highways.
- 22:23Speaker 2: Start moving up.
- 22:24Speaker 6: Jim Youngblood, who was the secondary coach for the Rockets,
- 22:29Speaker 6: was the safety director for Highways and they were building
- 22:32Speaker 6: the turnpike and relocating utilities for the town center and
- 22:37Speaker 6: all that. So they were hiring guys and on the
- 22:39Speaker 6: job training, and I had engineering in my bright ground.
- 22:42Speaker 6: I was accepted in the engineering department at Miami. I
- 22:46Speaker 6: soon got out of there, but that's why I was accepted.
- 22:50Speaker 6: And my dad was the engineer at Lockey. That's where
- 22:54Speaker 6: he worked and retired from. So it fell right in.
- 22:57Speaker 6: And I loved the work that I was doing and
- 23:00Speaker 6: getting that engineering experience, and so I decided to stay
- 23:04Speaker 6: and play. The next year we won the back to
- 23:07Speaker 6: back championships. So long story short, your roots got deeper,
- 23:12Speaker 6: and I kept moving up with Department of Highways. Played
- 23:16Speaker 6: about four or five years there and then had a
- 23:20Speaker 6: two year low. Couple of buddies, Eddie Ivy being one
- 23:25Speaker 6: of them. He was coaching down at westernast State and
- 23:28Speaker 6: convinced me to come down.
- 23:30Speaker 2: So that's how you got there.
- 23:32Speaker 6: Yes, Hey, Eddie Ivy, Buddy White and Leon Jenkins, they
- 23:36Speaker 6: convinced they were all coaching there and they convinced me, said, man,
- 23:40Speaker 6: you can help. We need some help, need some help
- 23:41Speaker 6: linebackers need some help on defense. We think you do good.
- 23:44Speaker 6: So they introduced me to Coach More. Coach More hired
- 23:48Speaker 6: me and I was there twenty six years.
- 23:53Speaker 5: So all right, good good background.
- 23:57Speaker 4: All right, so now you become the head coach. You know,
- 24:04Speaker 4: my tenures up, you become the head coach? What what was?
- 24:10Speaker 4: What do you think that you?
- 24:13Speaker 2: What was?
- 24:13Speaker 5: What?
- 24:13Speaker 4: What made you be the guy who could actually get
- 24:17Speaker 4: that turn? You know what I'm saying, and and and
- 24:21Speaker 4: I'm not really looking for like a humble kind of heads.
- 24:24Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, Coach.
- 24:25Speaker 2: You'll tell you. I'll tell you it is. I'll not
- 24:28Speaker 2: to cut you off players.
- 24:32Speaker 6: I mean you know, I mean I could stick with
- 24:35Speaker 6: chess out and say, you know I made this call,
- 24:38Speaker 6: that call? Uh you know this, my offensive coordinator did
- 24:41Speaker 6: this and that. Did you know my guys didn't work hard?
- 24:44Speaker 6: I hired two uh uh guys with local ties as
- 24:48Speaker 6: my coordinators.
- 24:50Speaker 4: Uh.
- 24:50Speaker 6: There was a lot of people, you know, wanting to
- 24:52Speaker 6: come in and be coordinators, but uh uh Kip Shaw
- 24:56Speaker 6: who had played for me uh years ago at State
- 25:01Speaker 6: probably eighty nine ninety or whatever, and he had been
- 25:03Speaker 6: to Marshall in Southeast Missouri and so, and he was
- 25:07Speaker 6: one of the great guys, and he was one of
- 25:09Speaker 6: the candidates, matter of fact, one of the top two.
- 25:11Speaker 4: Candidates for the head coaching job. He applied for the
- 25:14Speaker 4: head coaching job.
- 25:16Speaker 6: And Will King, who's a local guy who was out
- 25:20Speaker 6: of coaching there from Morgan State, and he'd been all
- 25:22Speaker 6: around and they were local, and you know, he had
- 25:25Speaker 6: a kid here that he needed to get back and see.
- 25:28Speaker 6: And I was familiar with those guys and a lot
- 25:30Speaker 6: of times that's how that coaching tree works, you know,
- 25:33Speaker 6: you want some familiarity. And so neither one of them
- 25:38Speaker 6: had coordinated, and I just thought they deserved the shock.
- 25:43Speaker 6: And you know, they came in and we stayed with
- 25:46Speaker 6: the same defense.
- 25:47Speaker 2: I gave Will my book and then he made whatever
- 25:51Speaker 2: it changed he wanted to.
- 25:53Speaker 6: I let kept running the offense unless it was fourth down,
- 25:57Speaker 6: and he wanted to go for it.
- 25:59Speaker 2: Like most offensive coordinators do.
- 26:01Speaker 6: And I was like, oh, whoa, whoa, this is my
- 26:03Speaker 6: offensive had on Kenny, you know, but uh yeah, I
- 26:07Speaker 6: let him run the offense. And they were, you know,
- 26:10Speaker 6: they were organized. They were good workers. But nothing slight
- 26:14Speaker 6: of the coaching staff. And then the assistant guys, I
- 26:17Speaker 6: had players, man, And one the great reasons was Chris Brandham,
- 26:24Speaker 6: the guy that played for you, played quarterback for us
- 26:27Speaker 6: when you were the head coach and recruited out of Florida.
- 26:31Speaker 6: He was in this weekend to see me go in
- 26:33Speaker 6: the in the Hall of Fame. Just the greatest guy.
- 26:37Speaker 6: Just timing. Chris was coaching an All Star game in
- 26:42Speaker 6: Florida and he had a quarterback over there that was
- 26:46Speaker 6: just the truth.
- 26:49Speaker 2: And he called me.
- 26:49Speaker 6: He said, Coach, I got this quarterback and he ain't
- 26:52Speaker 6: going nowhere. He said, I'm telling you right now. He said,
- 26:58Speaker 6: I'm telling you right now. He can tear up the league.
- 27:01Speaker 6: He can do things for you. I said, Chris, get
- 27:04Speaker 6: him on the phone. You know, we'll get him up here.
- 27:07Speaker 6: You can talk to him about how we treat people
- 27:10Speaker 6: and what this school does and how this school treats
- 27:13Speaker 6: people and that kind of thing. So it was the
- 27:16Speaker 6: fact the way you and and we had treated Chris
- 27:21Speaker 6: that he felt comfortable enough to do that to send
- 27:25Speaker 6: somebody else back tours and Coach, that's been our success
- 27:28Speaker 6: from from the whole time, was guys sending people people back.
- 27:33Speaker 6: So he sent Kevin O'Brien to us, and four years later,
- 27:39Speaker 6: Kevin O'Brien had the passing record at Western State University.
- 27:43Speaker 2: Uh. You know what I'm saying. So it wasn't nothing.
- 27:46Speaker 6: Uh, Coach Shaw called, coach Chaw didn't throw a single
- 27:50Speaker 6: pass Uh the fall.
- 27:52Speaker 2: The second year he sent us UH a receiver.
- 27:56Speaker 6: He called, same conversation, coach, I got this receiver, he said,
- 28:02Speaker 6: I have no idea.
- 28:04Speaker 4: We played against him. He's in the All Star Game.
- 28:07Speaker 4: I have no idea. I won't bring brought him up.
- 28:13Speaker 2: Same deal, he signs good. No, coach No.
- 28:18Speaker 6: Four years later he's leaving Westernia State for the receiving record.
- 28:25Speaker 6: So to add to you know, again to answer your question,
- 28:29Speaker 6: I mean players, you know, they had to believe in
- 28:32Speaker 6: state and we had to get him there. But you know,
- 28:36Speaker 6: we had a good run of players. And then my
- 28:38Speaker 6: last I signed forty five players that first year and
- 28:46Speaker 6: Brian Mitchell, uh B Mitch from New Jersey running back.
- 28:52Speaker 6: He ended up getting hurt. People don't know how close
- 28:54Speaker 6: we were. You know, hey, we were ranked in the
- 28:58Speaker 6: nation with five and oher the Mitch gets hurt. And
- 29:01Speaker 6: then the last year Kevin breaks his bomb. And so
- 29:05Speaker 6: my last three years we went you know, downhill, and
- 29:09Speaker 6: we were not able with the budgets we had and
- 29:12Speaker 6: that kind of thing. We just were not able to
- 29:14Speaker 6: sign enough quality and Wilson right, right, right.
- 29:18Speaker 4: We got to take a break, but I want to
- 29:19Speaker 4: come back and talk about kind of where the money was,
- 29:23Speaker 4: how you know, when it changed over what made the possibilities. So,
- 29:27Speaker 4: ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna take a quick break and
- 29:28Speaker 4: we'll be right back.
- 29:30Speaker 3: Let's Talk with Carl Lee is presented by Attorney Frank Walker.
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- 30:20Speaker 3: Find previous episodes of Let's Talk at wchsnetwork dot com
- 30:24Speaker 3: slash Let's Talk. This is Let's Talk with Carl Lee.
- 30:28Speaker 3: Now back through the conversation.
- 30:30Speaker 4: All right, ladies and gentlemen, I want to give a
- 30:32Speaker 4: shout out to my sponsor, Frank Walker.
- 30:35Speaker 2: Real talk, real experience, real results.
- 30:37Speaker 4: You can visit Frank Walker at Frank Walker Law dot
- 30:40Speaker 4: com for more information. All right, So, coach, you were
- 30:47Speaker 4: you were, You were getting ready to tell me a
- 30:49Speaker 4: story about your quarterback and and how you got it,
- 30:53Speaker 4: I guess, and how that whole process worked. That kind
- 30:56Speaker 4: of help you get your program turned around, right, I'm
- 30:59Speaker 4: told you.
- 30:59Speaker 6: Those two play there's Kevin O'Brien and Jermaine King were
- 31:04Speaker 6: sent by a former player yours hours from the Florida area.
- 31:10Speaker 6: And the third player in that three headed monster was
- 31:15Speaker 6: b Mitch Brian Mitchell from New Jersey and this crazy
- 31:19Speaker 6: story and he was our first I think he had
- 31:22Speaker 6: nine hundred and something yards was gonna be the first
- 31:24Speaker 6: thousand yard Russia in a long long time and he
- 31:26Speaker 6: got hurt. But his girlfriend was being recruited by in
- 31:34Speaker 6: basketball by I think Bluefield State, and so yes, and
- 31:42Speaker 6: so they were in. They were in transit to Bluefield State.
- 31:48Speaker 6: He had looked up state. We had talked to him.
- 31:51Speaker 6: So they dropped him off at West Virginia State. She
- 31:56Speaker 6: and her mother believed that go down to Bluefield State.
- 32:02Speaker 2: We entertained Brian.
- 32:04Speaker 4: She comes back, I take her to the basketball coach.
- 32:10Speaker 4: We signed them both. She signed with Western James State,
- 32:16Speaker 4: and they wanted to be together.
- 32:17Speaker 6: They were coupled, they wanted together, wanted to be close,
- 32:20Speaker 6: and he just fell it just fell in.
- 32:22Speaker 2: She decided she was going to State. He came to State.
- 32:25Speaker 6: So again to those relationships, former players were guards in
- 32:32Speaker 6: and again I had been there for twenty something years,
- 32:34Speaker 6: well nineteen I think when you came, and so I
- 32:39Speaker 6: had been there well nine when you came, and then ten.
- 32:43Speaker 6: More So, I had a lot of guys that were
- 32:48Speaker 6: coaching in Florida, coaching in Georgia. They were coaching all
- 32:52Speaker 6: over the place, and it kind of made it little.
- 32:55Speaker 6: They had the confidence of me I had. Mike Mayer
- 33:00Speaker 6: ended up being a conference defensive Player of the Year.
- 33:05Speaker 2: He came from him at California.
- 33:08Speaker 6: Now, my recruiting budget can barely get me to Saint Albans.
- 33:14Speaker 6: So this guy, but he played for Steve Diffy. Steve Diffy,
- 33:19Speaker 6: I don't know how Steve got here years ago, and
- 33:23Speaker 6: he was a linebacker. Looked like Brian Bosworth and Steve
- 33:28Speaker 6: had come here and he gone back home in California
- 33:32Speaker 6: and was coaching.
- 33:33Speaker 2: And again.
- 33:36Speaker 6: It's just how you treat people and you make people feel.
- 33:39Speaker 6: He sent his best player, who probably could have gone
- 33:44Speaker 6: to any school between here in California, played any position
- 33:51Speaker 6: that he wanted to play. He sent him to West
- 33:57Speaker 6: Virginia State because of us, and Mike ended up being
- 34:02Speaker 6: you know, again, everything they said he was, yes, and
- 34:06Speaker 6: he was end up being a defensive Player of the Year.
- 34:08Speaker 6: So to again, long story short, to answer your question,
- 34:14Speaker 6: I ended probably I have more contacts as far as
- 34:17Speaker 6: players got their coach and we're recruiting with the very
- 34:22Speaker 6: limited budget. So we were recruiting with little budget and relationships.
- 34:28Speaker 4: Well, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of
- 34:32Speaker 4: jump I'm gonna kind of jump ahead of that part
- 34:38Speaker 4: of it or maybe in more in depth a little bit.
- 34:43Speaker 4: I don't know if people understood, like what, you know,
- 34:48Speaker 4: what West Virginia State's coaching opportunities were when it came
- 34:53Speaker 4: to recruiting, you know, like I know when I got there,
- 34:58Speaker 4: you know, all we had was, like I think, there
- 35:00Speaker 4: was like fifteen what you call tuition waivers, which pays tuition,
- 35:06Speaker 4: not your fees, not any not room and board, not food,
- 35:09Speaker 4: not any none of that kind of stuff. So I know,
- 35:16Speaker 4: I got a chance to go into you know, different
- 35:20Speaker 4: areas of the school and say, hey, how many beds
- 35:22Speaker 4: do you have open?
- 35:23Speaker 2: How many meals are you throwing away every day?
- 35:27Speaker 4: So then all of a sudden we start to get
- 35:30Speaker 4: a chance to have you know, room and board and tuition.
- 35:36Speaker 2: So now the only thing we have is fees.
- 35:39Speaker 4: So and I was fortunate enough to raise a bunch
- 35:43Speaker 4: of money when that when I left, what was the
- 35:48Speaker 4: progress or was there any progress to add to the opportunities,
- 35:54Speaker 4: because I think what happens when we start talking about
- 35:58Speaker 4: schools like West Virginia State, not just HBCUs, but small schools.
- 36:04Speaker 5: The challenge isn't.
- 36:07Speaker 4: Because sometimes you look at a kid and you say,
- 36:09Speaker 4: we're not going to have a chance because we don't
- 36:10Speaker 4: have we don't have enough money to even it's almost
- 36:14Speaker 4: offensive to offer him a tuition waiver.
- 36:17Speaker 5: How much of that changed from the time I.
- 36:22Speaker 4: Left and by the time you got to the end
- 36:26Speaker 4: of your team.
- 36:27Speaker 6: It didn't well, it didn't change. I can't say it
- 36:30Speaker 6: didn't change much. It didn't change much to the positives.
- 36:34Speaker 6: Your efforts got it up to where it was where
- 36:40Speaker 6: we could try to compete, but the other schools were.
- 36:47Speaker 2: Moving on to that maximum thirty six full rides.
- 36:51Speaker 6: So even with your efforts of getting tuition waivers, working
- 36:55Speaker 6: with the cafeteria staff and getting some meal waivers and
- 37:01Speaker 6: you know, bed waivers and that kind of thing, I
- 37:03Speaker 6: think once they when they added it up, I think
- 37:06Speaker 6: you had about what they call because they add up everything,
- 37:12Speaker 6: you had about ten or eleven equivalencies, right, okay.
- 37:16Speaker 2: So those are full riot equivalencies.
- 37:19Speaker 6: So after you put all that stuff you went out
- 37:21Speaker 6: there and scraped and got you still only had about eleven.
- 37:26Speaker 2: Equivalents a full ride equalenson.
- 37:29Speaker 6: So we had to break those up and give this
- 37:31Speaker 6: guy maybe books in this and try to get some
- 37:34Speaker 6: academic so the academic didn't count in there.
- 37:38Speaker 2: But everything else did. And the problem too.
- 37:43Speaker 4: Is and this is gonna this has nothing really to
- 37:48Speaker 4: do with the school per se, but just the reality
- 37:51Speaker 4: because what we have. You have to go out and
- 37:53Speaker 4: recruit a kid, and one of the things you're.
- 37:56Speaker 5: Hoping is that.
- 38:00Speaker 4: They qualify for financial aid all day.
- 38:04Speaker 2: I mean, the first thing you tell them fill out your.
- 38:06Speaker 4: Past, yesse, because now I can't I can't give you money.
- 38:11Speaker 2: If you If I'm more qualifier, I.
- 38:13Speaker 6: Can get into a few thousands yes, you know. And
- 38:17Speaker 6: and and the other issue was we were fighting is
- 38:21Speaker 6: and a lot of schools are doing it now. Just
- 38:22Speaker 6: saw somebody has extended their area. They were extending into
- 38:29Speaker 6: neighboring states and giving those kids in state tuition and feest,
- 38:35Speaker 6: which is a whole lot less than what out of
- 38:38Speaker 6: state tuition fees. So a lot of schools were more
- 38:41Speaker 6: proactive at that are the ones that were the border
- 38:44Speaker 6: state schools.
- 38:46Speaker 2: Shepherd and all them.
- 38:47Speaker 6: They could go all over into DC and all over
- 38:49Speaker 6: to Maryland and all there and offer in state student fees.
- 38:55Speaker 6: You know, it was a long time before we kind
- 38:58Speaker 6: of got over maybe into just a little bit outside
- 39:02Speaker 6: of West Virginia to offer that.
- 39:04Speaker 2: But that was just.
- 39:05Speaker 4: Huge because the recruiting area that that you want to
- 39:09Speaker 4: get it to is up into the DC, Maryland and
- 39:12Speaker 4: all that kind of stuff.
- 39:13Speaker 6: So they were we had a disadvantage there because they
- 39:16Speaker 6: were offering them in state tuition and it was doubled
- 39:22Speaker 6: for out of STATEUM, we tried to get that same kid,
- 39:25Speaker 6: and they probably had twenty five equivalences at the time, and.
- 39:29Speaker 2: We had you had lavin. Mine went up.
- 39:34Speaker 6: To about twelve or thirteen because I ended up having
- 39:37Speaker 6: some players there at the end that I had to guess, like, look,
- 39:41Speaker 6: can I get a little bump here, So mine went
- 39:44Speaker 6: up about twelve or thirteen.
- 39:46Speaker 2: And then when we started catching them on the field.
- 39:52Speaker 6: And we had to back to back seven and threes,
- 39:55Speaker 6: and those guys had twenty twenty five full rise, right,
- 40:01Speaker 6: they had presidents come in and AD's come in.
- 40:05Speaker 2: They jumped by the time we tried to we called them.
- 40:08Speaker 4: They jumped at thirty six, which is a maximum indivision too.
- 40:12Speaker 4: And here we are my last three years still with
- 40:14Speaker 4: twelve and they cut my everybody's budget five or seven
- 40:20Speaker 4: percent there in my last three years.
- 40:22Speaker 2: And so I mean, it just sends you about, like
- 40:25Speaker 2: I said, and it's no.
- 40:27Speaker 4: Excuse we we did with what we had, and we
- 40:30Speaker 4: recruited with what we had facility wise and budget wise
- 40:34Speaker 4: and everything else, and just did the best, you know,
- 40:37Speaker 4: that we could do.
- 40:38Speaker 6: And we had some good ball players. Guys, we have
- 40:41Speaker 6: some really good ball players. But you got to have
- 40:45Speaker 6: you know, for football, you got to.
- 40:47Speaker 4: Have that and some and if you're trying to get
- 40:50Speaker 4: and you know, and I've made the case, you know,
- 40:54Speaker 4: publicly talking to folks about my tenure at Western Union State,
- 41:01Speaker 4: and I try to tell people, don't assume that these
- 41:04Speaker 4: kids can't play at the next level either, you know
- 41:07Speaker 4: what I'm saying, Like the problem with that is is
- 41:10Speaker 4: to get a scout to come there and not saying
- 41:14Speaker 4: that they won't pop their head in there, but when
- 41:16Speaker 4: they pop their head in there, they're not expecting to
- 41:19Speaker 4: really see anything because you know, you go back on
- 41:21Speaker 4: Nett Austin right as we call them snoody, I mean
- 41:25Speaker 4: snooty and hump they.
- 41:27Speaker 2: I mean they could play.
- 41:29Speaker 4: I know, guys, that they are better than that I
- 41:31Speaker 4: played in the league with, you know, but those opportunities
- 41:35Speaker 4: just don't come. But I want to swing in this
- 41:38Speaker 4: the last bit of the show here. I want to
- 41:41Speaker 4: talk a little bit more about you and and and
- 41:47Speaker 4: the accomplishments in which you feel that you've had and
- 41:53Speaker 4: because to me, when it comes down to the Hall
- 41:56Speaker 4: of Fame, you know, and you and I have had
- 41:59Speaker 4: some conversation about all the kind of stuff.
- 42:00Speaker 2: That's happened, you know, kind of behind the scenes. I'm
- 42:05Speaker 2: the guy.
- 42:05Speaker 4: Who's not like, I don't I don't want something that
- 42:09Speaker 4: I don't think I deserve, you know what I'm saying.
- 42:12Speaker 2: And and you know, so to.
- 42:14Speaker 4: Me, like I, when I think about you and I
- 42:18Speaker 4: think about you and West Virginia State, I don't think
- 42:21Speaker 4: that there would be any body currently there in athletics, okay,
- 42:30Speaker 4: and I don't know everybody that's in athletics that would
- 42:34Speaker 4: be do Hall of Fame recognition more than you for
- 42:45Speaker 4: the for the simple.
- 42:46Speaker 5: Fact you have coached.
- 42:49Speaker 4: You know, It's like and and and again when I
- 42:51Speaker 4: opened the show up talking about like, I don't know
- 42:53Speaker 4: who doesn't know coachman Rode right. You know, if you've
- 42:56Speaker 4: ever been down the state, you probably had to have
- 42:58Speaker 4: heard his name. The work that you put in, whether
- 43:03Speaker 4: as an assistant, as a volunteer, as a paid coach,
- 43:07Speaker 4: as a head coach. And again I can you know,
- 43:13Speaker 4: I think we got I think maybe four or five wins,
- 43:17Speaker 4: maybe the top when I was there as the head coach,
- 43:19Speaker 4: maybe yeah, with five and five, which was exciting, you know,
- 43:24Speaker 4: it was exciting. But now to have to two seasons
- 43:32Speaker 4: a winning record and be nationally ranked for West Virginia State, how,
- 43:44Speaker 4: I don't even know, Like how you wouldn't be in
- 43:47Speaker 4: Hall of Fame, you know what I'm saying. And I
- 43:49Speaker 4: want to I want to point those things out because
- 43:52Speaker 4: you know, sometimes you know, when people think about the
- 43:54Speaker 4: Hall of Fame, they try to figure out sometimes you
- 43:56Speaker 4: want to try to figure out, like, you know.
- 43:58Speaker 5: Well, what did he do? How did he do that?
- 44:02Speaker 6: And and you know you can measure wins, losses, uh,
- 44:08Speaker 6: longevity all that, but I think another huge piece of
- 44:15Speaker 6: that formula for a coach.
- 44:19Speaker 2: Is not the trophies that he won to go in.
- 44:28Speaker 4: The trophy case, but the trophies that he sent out
- 44:32Speaker 4: in the community to raise kids.
- 44:35Speaker 6: And and and and and and and be good husbands
- 44:39Speaker 6: and productive adults. And your record as in our record
- 44:47Speaker 6: as that is, we brought kids in that were, uh,
- 44:51Speaker 6: some disadvantaged kids, kids had challenges, and some that people
- 44:55Speaker 6: had written off and said that they were not college
- 44:58Speaker 6: students exactly, and they were academically and they were not
- 45:03Speaker 6: college students any other way.
- 45:06Speaker 2: And we fought uh with your leadership and guys.
- 45:12Speaker 6: I brought some guys in and I knew that had
- 45:15Speaker 6: had some issues, and I said, look, be straight up
- 45:17Speaker 6: with ing. We don't need no surprises when we get
- 45:21Speaker 6: up there, and we're trying to fight for you guys.
- 45:23Speaker 6: And you took them in and some of them have
- 45:27Speaker 6: been put out and whatever, and they came in. They
- 45:31Speaker 6: did everything they had to do, and they worked and
- 45:34Speaker 6: they're so grateful now and there's and they're such well adjusted,
- 45:39Speaker 6: productive adults.
- 45:40Speaker 1: Man.
- 45:40Speaker 2: And I tell people, I didn't win championship down that state.
- 45:44Speaker 2: I don't have.
- 45:44Speaker 6: Any trophies in the in the in the in the
- 45:47Speaker 6: trophy case, but I got a whole lot of them
- 45:49Speaker 6: sitting out here in the audio, and.
- 45:51Speaker 4: Those are my trophies and hot trumming and homecoming homecoming
- 45:58Speaker 4: shows that yes, because the first call I got, what's
- 46:03Speaker 4: from Charles.
- 46:04Speaker 2: Smith, right defensive player.
- 46:09Speaker 4: That was not that was not where and the administration
- 46:14Speaker 4: did not want him to play, no, And we we
- 46:17Speaker 4: fought tooth and nail to get him there. He graduates
- 46:23Speaker 4: and then in turn has a gold jacket.
- 46:26Speaker 6: Yes, yes, like I mean that's where that that that's
- 46:33Speaker 6: what coaches are supposed to be.
- 46:35Speaker 2: That's that's what coaches all about.
- 46:37Speaker 6: Because and I'm gonna use University Georgia and there might
- 46:40Speaker 6: be some dog fans out there, University of Georgia has
- 46:42Speaker 6: been in the top two or three or last one.
- 46:44Speaker 2: But how many arrest and how many.
- 46:48Speaker 6: Wrecks and deaths and all these different situations are having.
- 46:53Speaker 6: And I know coach can't control all that stuff, but
- 46:57Speaker 6: you know, it's a character building thing. I would rather
- 47:01Speaker 6: build character and have guys do the right thing then
- 47:07Speaker 6: to have three championships and guys all over the play. Okay,
- 47:11Speaker 6: I'm glad you said that. Okay, so my judgment of sports.
- 47:15Speaker 4: I don't care what level we're talking about, you know,
- 47:18Speaker 4: but let's but starting youth, middle, high school, and even
- 47:23Speaker 4: maybe college. Right, Are we worried about that? Are we are?
- 47:30Speaker 4: We are? We focused on the challenge of building men
- 47:37Speaker 4: women over winning or or or my success or my
- 47:42Speaker 4: sustainability to be the head coach or be on the
- 47:46Speaker 4: cash staff, double coaching staff.
- 47:48Speaker 2: I gotta get.
- 47:48Speaker 6: Done ws w's by any means necessary, by eighty means necessary, Michigan.
- 47:59Speaker 4: You know they're accused of videotaping signals and all that,
- 48:03Speaker 4: but you don't suspend.
- 48:04Speaker 2: You suspend the coach for a two preseason.
- 48:07Speaker 6: Games like okay, and they going to win the National Championship,
- 48:11Speaker 6: which I hope at some point the investigation turns and
- 48:14Speaker 6: they take it away from But you never should even
- 48:16Speaker 6: put them in that they shouldn't have been. And when
- 48:18Speaker 6: it came down to the final four and they knocked
- 48:20Speaker 6: Florida stayed out, that should have been a question that
- 48:23Speaker 6: they should have been out.
- 48:24Speaker 5: Well.
- 48:25Speaker 6: But if they don't care, they don't care about that Carl.
- 48:27Speaker 6: That's not the focus of what they're looking for.
- 48:30Speaker 5: The interesting piece to that story to me, coach is
- 48:33Speaker 5: is like, okay.
- 48:35Speaker 4: So that that situation is okay, we're sitting in the room,
- 48:41Speaker 4: we're trying to figure out what should we do with this. Okay,
- 48:44Speaker 4: let's okay, let's slap them on the wrist and let's
- 48:46Speaker 4: go on. And so everything is still goode No, it ain't.
- 48:52Speaker 6: Good, And you set a terrible example because everybody else
- 48:56Speaker 6: gonna try.
- 48:57Speaker 4: And that's all that's all, because that's all you can get,
- 49:00Speaker 4: get you know, and and I said in my space.
- 49:04Speaker 2: You know, I thank my mom and my dad, I said,
- 49:06Speaker 2: for beating discipline.
- 49:08Speaker 5: And and and and and and.
- 49:09Speaker 6: And fortitude, And I said, but instilling discipline. But everybody
- 49:17Speaker 6: thinks you got the choice of right or wrong. There
- 49:20Speaker 6: ain't no choice of right or wrong, and.
- 49:21Speaker 4: Ain'b but one choice is right once you figured that out,
- 49:25Speaker 4: and and and and the part of what is right
- 49:28Speaker 4: is what the coaches is saying, not what you say
- 49:31Speaker 4: at home to your kid.
- 49:33Speaker 2: And I think, and I think.
- 49:35Speaker 4: One of the one of the interesting things, and I'm
- 49:37Speaker 4: curious about what you what you say here is coaching
- 49:43Speaker 4: cannot be at home. It like you can't bring your
- 49:48Speaker 4: your your rules and regulations to the field for your kid.
- 49:56Speaker 4: I have a structure that fits me and fits my
- 49:59Speaker 4: team because I'm trying to make them something coach.
- 50:03Speaker 6: We didn't understand when our parents made us come home
- 50:06Speaker 6: and everybody else's kid was out there and we had
- 50:09Speaker 6: to be in at a certain time. We couldn't go
- 50:11Speaker 6: here or we couldn't go there.
- 50:14Speaker 5: And it worked.
- 50:17Speaker 6: So a lot of the things that principles you said,
- 50:20Speaker 6: and I said, and you can't worry your ring. Some
- 50:23Speaker 6: coaches still do it. You can't do this. You gotta
- 50:25Speaker 6: take your hat off in the building. You gotta do
- 50:27Speaker 6: It's structure. Your life has will be a lot easier
- 50:32Speaker 6: if you get used to following instructions and following rules.
- 50:38Speaker 4: And be structured until you the interesting thing because you
- 50:43Speaker 4: you may be the same as me. I passed that rule,
- 50:48Speaker 4: the hat rule, no hats in the building, just for
- 50:52Speaker 4: the fact of discipline.
- 50:53Speaker 2: Just make that you do it, because anybody who knows me,
- 50:57Speaker 2: that's all it is. No your hat guy, my hat
- 50:59Speaker 2: guy anywhere. And you killed me too on that road.
- 51:03Speaker 2: I was like, man, no hat had Is that just
- 51:05Speaker 2: for the players? You know what I'm saying.
- 51:08Speaker 4: But I knew I just wanted and what it was
- 51:12Speaker 4: for was to test them, because it wasn't It was
- 51:14Speaker 4: not a hard rule.
- 51:15Speaker 5: It's just it's just will you listen.
- 51:17Speaker 4: Because so we walk into the athletic building and it
- 51:22Speaker 4: was Jim was included. So see a basketball game, you
- 51:26Speaker 4: see one of the players in there with his hat on.
- 51:29Speaker 4: You go down and see him and say, now you
- 51:32Speaker 4: know you're running right and and the other guys should
- 51:35Speaker 4: be should be telling him. Now you're gonna find out
- 51:38Speaker 4: who your leaders are.
- 51:40Speaker 6: And the guys just going to step out and say, look, man,
- 51:42Speaker 6: take your hat off, right, you're gonna get his all
- 51:44Speaker 6: in trouble.
- 51:44Speaker 8: We're all gonna have to u It was worth it
- 51:46Speaker 8: was worth my I thought it was worth my sacrifice
- 51:50Speaker 8: just to put something out there to see who would
- 51:54Speaker 8: follow it and who would.
- 51:55Speaker 2: Fight, because it's because if you're fighting, what do you
- 51:59Speaker 2: is it really? With this?
- 52:01Speaker 4: You gonna down the road, there's no question, because it's
- 52:04Speaker 4: gonna be something harder than.
- 52:05Speaker 2: That, no question, no question.
- 52:08Speaker 5: So real quick, coach, So tell me if you can.
- 52:18Speaker 4: The feeling in in in which you have, knowing now
- 52:24Speaker 4: and even during the Hall of Fame induction, sitting there
- 52:29Speaker 4: hearing people talk putting the jacket on, hanging it up
- 52:34Speaker 4: when you got home, knowing now that's your that's your
- 52:38Speaker 4: attire for every homecoming, every major event. You know, likely
- 52:45Speaker 4: you gotta you gotta, you gotta bring that jacket and
- 52:48Speaker 4: wear it.
- 52:49Speaker 2: Tell me what that feels like to you, man? It
- 52:53Speaker 2: actually hit me in real time.
- 52:56Speaker 6: Before you know, I always said every day I showed
- 53:02Speaker 6: up down, there was never about me, right, you know,
- 53:04Speaker 6: And that's how we got through it.
- 53:08Speaker 2: It was well, we didn't have.
- 53:09Speaker 6: Time for it to be, because we had a whole
- 53:10Speaker 6: lot to do when we got there, and our.
- 53:13Speaker 2: Office was in the Candy House.
- 53:16Speaker 6: For a long time, and then after you left, I
- 53:19Speaker 6: took over your office and in the Candy House, and
- 53:22Speaker 6: not one time called it.
- 53:24Speaker 2: I walk in that door. We went in there every day,
- 53:27Speaker 2: walked out the picture.
- 53:28Speaker 6: Not one time that I walk in that door and said, huh, well,
- 53:30Speaker 6: the way they gonna put my picture?
- 53:32Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
- 53:33Speaker 6: Just walked upstairs and you went and right, manever dreamed
- 53:38Speaker 6: that Hall of Fame. This is for players, This is
- 53:41Speaker 6: for guys winning championships, because that's what they want. And
- 53:46Speaker 6: so then after the years went on and you got
- 53:48Speaker 6: twenty in, you got twenty five, you got twenty six in.
- 53:51Speaker 6: Then the kids started asking coach you in the hoof No,
- 53:55Speaker 6: I'm not in the Hall of Fame, I said, And
- 53:57Speaker 6: like I told him, say, I said, this is my
- 53:59Speaker 6: hall of fame. All you guys gathered around me, unfortunately
- 54:04Speaker 6: popping bottles and all that other stuff they're trying to do.
- 54:07Speaker 6: And I said, but I said, this is my hall
- 54:10Speaker 6: of fame, guys, this is my jack. You guys coming
- 54:12Speaker 6: back talking about what we meant to you and just
- 54:17Speaker 6: to see how successful you guys are and well adjusted,
- 54:21Speaker 6: you know, citizens haven't been any trouble and some of
- 54:25Speaker 6: them coaching and passing that on.
- 54:26Speaker 2: That's the biggest.
- 54:27Speaker 6: Trippet to a coach that you know his pupils go
- 54:30Speaker 6: out and coach. So it kind of hit me in
- 54:34Speaker 6: real time when I was standing there and I got
- 54:36Speaker 6: there and I got kind of choked up. And Ray Hardy,
- 54:38Speaker 6: who's a nut anyway, we're on the text deal with him.
- 54:43Speaker 2: As soon as they're announced it.
- 54:44Speaker 6: Ray said, I'm taking bet you're gonna cry.
- 54:48Speaker 2: You know.
- 54:49Speaker 6: So I had this thing anywhere I got to try
- 54:51Speaker 6: to have my tear, but I kind of got choked
- 54:53Speaker 6: up when I got up there, and I finally realized that,
- 54:57Speaker 6: you know, this is a big moment in my life,
- 55:00Speaker 6: I said, you know, and I told him, I said,
- 55:02Speaker 6: you know, this is one of the biggest moments in
- 55:05Speaker 6: my life. And I, you know, thank them from the
- 55:07Speaker 6: bottom of my heart. And a lot of times when
- 55:12Speaker 6: you don't have those winning we put in a lot
- 55:14Speaker 6: of hours, man, We a lot a lot of time
- 55:16Speaker 6: and a lot of hours away from my families and
- 55:18Speaker 6: all that. And guys, you don't always see the fruits
- 55:21Speaker 6: of your labor, and sometimes that gets frustrating. And in
- 55:25Speaker 6: this profession, you asked me if I'd ever coach again,
- 55:29Speaker 6: and I looked at you like what you call me?
- 55:33Speaker 6: In this profession, it's the worst profession in the world
- 55:37Speaker 6: because every week, half of the people in your profession failed.
- 55:43Speaker 2: If winning and.
- 55:44Speaker 6: Losing is the barometer of success and failure, so half
- 55:52Speaker 6: of the people.
- 55:52Speaker 4: Now we both could sell insurance. You sell them ount
- 55:55Speaker 4: and I sell them ount. You sell twice what not?
- 55:57Speaker 2: But I ain't fail, Yeah, because you sold something.
- 56:00Speaker 4: If winning and losing is success or failure, have the
- 56:05Speaker 4: people in your profession fail every week.
- 56:10Speaker 6: And that's why the turnover. You look at the pro
- 56:12Speaker 6: turnover every week, and every year, you look at the
- 56:15Speaker 6: college turnover every year. It is not the greatest of professions.
- 56:20Speaker 2: To be in.
- 56:21Speaker 4: So let me so hearing that, let me say, let
- 56:26Speaker 4: me say this to to to anybody who's gonna listen
- 56:29Speaker 4: to listen to this. When you when you start critiquing
- 56:35Speaker 4: the coach, when you start critiquing even the player, you
- 56:39Speaker 4: know somebody else's kid who didn't do this. The coach
- 56:43Speaker 4: should have known that he should have called this, it's bigger.
- 56:49Speaker 4: Coaching is bigger than winning and losing. It's way bigger
- 56:55Speaker 4: and it and and trust me, when you're the coach,
- 57:00Speaker 4: assistant head and you're putting in all this time that
- 57:05Speaker 4: you can't even imagine the amount of hours that you
- 57:08Speaker 4: put in to do that. And you the last thing
- 57:13Speaker 4: you want is to lose a game on Thursday, Friday
- 57:17Speaker 4: or Saturday or Sunday.
- 57:18Speaker 5: You don't want you that's that's not what you want.
- 57:23Speaker 4: But even even your selfishness of wanting to win, I
- 57:30Speaker 4: don't know if I know anybody personally who's a coach,
- 57:36Speaker 4: been a coach who did not focus its overall everything
- 57:43Speaker 4: on the kid itself, right and until you can look
- 57:47Speaker 4: at the benefit of the coach to your kid personally privately,
- 57:55Speaker 4: if you're stuck in winning and losing, you're missing you're
- 57:58Speaker 4: missing what sport, what sports really it. And it's sad
- 58:02Speaker 4: because it starts at the little league louse absolutely well,
- 58:07Speaker 4: they shouldn't even sometimes even have a score in some
- 58:11Speaker 4: of the D and c's. We're teaching competition, we're teaching rules,
- 58:17Speaker 4: we're teaching fundamentals, we're teaching, but we're so caught up
- 58:21Speaker 4: on winning and losing. We lose sight of everything. Yeah,
- 58:27Speaker 4: and you're right, you know, youth football. Youth football is
- 58:32Speaker 4: really where we where we're learning. This bad behavior.
- 58:37Speaker 2: Coming and it just and it just follows you. You
- 58:40Speaker 2: just get worse as you get onto it's your society.
- 58:43Speaker 6: The society is just winning and losing. And again to
- 58:47Speaker 6: talk about the Hall of Fame again, follow you get
- 58:52Speaker 6: a little feeling that of appreciation and a little bit
- 59:00Speaker 6: of the fruits of your labor.
- 59:02Speaker 4: You know, twenty six years and you know only two
- 59:05Speaker 4: had two coaches.
- 59:06Speaker 2: You and I were there. They got eight or nine
- 59:08Speaker 2: full time coaches.
- 59:09Speaker 4: Carl, Can you imagine me and you just two of us,
- 59:14Speaker 4: got all two of us. And so you're there all day.
- 59:16Speaker 4: You got six am workouts, you got study hall, you
- 59:19Speaker 4: got study hall in the evening for the ones that
- 59:20Speaker 4: morning class, you got weight lifting, and it's just the
- 59:24Speaker 4: two of us.
- 59:24Speaker 2: And we weren't splitting.
- 59:25Speaker 4: It was there's just the two of us, and we
- 59:28Speaker 4: put it like and then and so then you and
- 59:30Speaker 4: you fight hard on Saturday and you know, and you're like, man,
- 59:33Speaker 4: so now I got to come in earlier and break
- 59:35Speaker 4: this films down and say I would get better next week,
- 59:37Speaker 4: and you don't always see the fruits of your labor.
- 59:41Speaker 4: But it did not deter uster, just made us work harder.
- 59:45Speaker 4: And so standing up there and finally putting that jacket on,
- 59:48Speaker 4: it just gave me a feeling of completion, completion and
- 59:54Speaker 4: and adoration that they actually.
- 1:00:00Speaker 5: I appreciate it.
- 1:00:01Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
- 1:00:02Speaker 6: You know those fruitures, you know, and finally got some
- 1:00:04Speaker 6: of the fruiture it, right, So that was that was
- 1:00:07Speaker 6: the rewarding, rewarding part of it.
- 1:00:10Speaker 2: All right.
- 1:00:10Speaker 4: Well again, I'd like to thank Frankie Walker. Frank Walker.
- 1:00:14Speaker 4: I can't help it. It's how I know it. Frank
- 1:00:16Speaker 4: Walker Law, real talk, real experience, real results. For more information,
- 1:00:20Speaker 4: you can go to frank Walker law dot com.
- 1:00:23Speaker 5: Coach Moreau.
- 1:00:24Speaker 2: I appreciate your time, man, and again.
- 1:00:26Speaker 6: Anytime, my brother, anytime, my brother. Thank you for the
- 1:00:29Speaker 6: opportunity you could hired anybody as your defensive coordinator and
- 1:00:34Speaker 6: for the little time you had seen me in the
- 1:00:36Speaker 6: office and and doing work.
- 1:00:39Speaker 2: And I appreciate it.
- 1:00:40Speaker 6: Uh, there's definitely no me without you.
- 1:00:43Speaker 2: Brother.
- 1:00:44Speaker 4: Well, hey, likewise man, and like I said, I think
- 1:00:47Speaker 4: you earned it, deserve it, and enjoy it.
- 1:00:51Speaker 2: Thank you, so, ladies and.
- 1:00:52Speaker 4: Gentlemen, We'll be back again next week and we'll get
- 1:00:55Speaker 4: to you again.
- 1:00:56Speaker 5: Talk to you later.
- 1:00:57Speaker 3: Let's Talk with Carl Lee is presented by Attorney Frank Walker.
- 1:01:01Speaker 3: Real Talk, Real experience, Real results, Frank Walker Law dot Com.
- 1:01:05Speaker 3: Comment on episodes, ask Carl and Hollis questions, or it
- 1:01:09Speaker 3: suggests topics. At our Facebook page. Search for Let's Talk
- 1:01:12Speaker 3: with Carl Lee, and remember to like the page to
- 1:01:15Speaker 3: become part of the conversation.
- 1:01:17Speaker 1: If you fall, doesn't do for get back up for
- 1:01:19Speaker 1: your feet. Anything can be a win. Yup, even the
- 1:01:22Speaker 1: feet that say shits a bath for you? Wise villitary,
- 1:01:24Speaker 1: Sweet couldn't play with big kids.
- 1:01:26Speaker 2: I had to sit in the street and.
- 1:01:28Speaker 5: Watch from a distance. But over time I grew.
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: If I put in the work, in no time, I'm
- 1:01:33Speaker 1: doing everything that I worked and prayed.
- 1:01:35Speaker 5: I'm okay.
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: If you ask me how did I do it, I'm
- 1:01:38Speaker 1: gonna say. You gotta work, cry shine, it's mine gotta show.
- 1:01:42Speaker 2: Everybody is my time.
- 1:01:43Speaker 3: He ain't here.
- 1:01:44Speaker 2: You gotta work, cry shine.
- 1:01:46Speaker 1: Love a mind who talking died this day? Line, don't talk.
- 1:01:49Speaker 1: You gotta work. You gotta work. You gotta work, You
- 1:01:57Speaker 1: gotta work.
- 1:01:58Speaker 5: You gotta work.
- 1:02:00Speaker 2: You gotta work.