Latest / The Standard / 50 Years of Coaching, $290 Million in Scholarships, and the Truth About What the NCAA Has Done to High School Athletes | Ep. 72 Marc Nolan

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50 Years of Coaching, $290 Million in Scholarships, and the Truth About What the NCAA Has Done to High School Athletes | Ep. 72 Marc Nolan · The Standard

0:05
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Standard Podcast where we raise the bar, rebuild the culture, and call out the lies or misconceptions that nobody else will.
0:13
SPEAKER_02: This isn't motivation, this is a movement.
0:15
SPEAKER_02: I'm Thomas Rowe, alongside my co-host and co-founder Aaron Sarles, co-founder of Blueprint to Blue Chip.
0:22
SPEAKER_02: And today we're sitting down with Coach Mark Nolan.
0:25
SPEAKER_02: Super excited about this.
0:26
SPEAKER_02: CEO of the KickerZone.com, the longest active kicking and punting coach in the United States with 52 years of coaching experience, a former D1 athlete from the University of Notre Dame, an NFL free agent with the Philadelphia Eagles, a proud Army veteran, thank you, sir, a two-time international best-selling author, and the man known recruiting circles in recruiting circles as the villain of the NCAA.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know that.
0:54
SPEAKER_02: In 52 years of coaching, Coach Nolan has helped over 4,500 high school athletes and their families obtain more than$290 million in collegiate athletic scholarships across multiple sports, all while leading large-scale multimillion dollar global information technology contracts for nearly 40 years.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: The kicker zone has produced over 20 current and former NFL kickers and punters, over 300 all-American specialists, and several hundred high school all-Americans, all-state and all-region specialists.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: He holds over 170 coaching drills designed by himself, including the one-step field goal drill and the trademark punt golf method.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: I can't wait to hear about that, which he has held since 1990.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: He holds a national USSFB license, national goalkeeper license one and two, and the covenant Dutch KNBB license, one of the most respected coaching credentials in the world.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: His latest book, the first of its kind ever published, is titled College Athletic Scholarships: The Path to Recruiting Success in the New Age of NIL, the Transhapporal and Post-COVID scholarships.
2:07
SPEAKER_02: It exposes the NCAA issue with more than six years that they've become national headlines, issues that continue to hurt high school athletes to this very day.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: Coach Nolan has helped over 46 current and former military servicemen earn spots and play at the service academies.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: This man has been telling you about the truths of the NCAA for decades, and today he's bringing the truth right here on this podcast.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: We're diving into the truth, what it really takes to build identity, discipline, and legacy in sports and in life.
2:38
SPEAKER_02: Let's get into it.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: Coach, thank you so much for taking the time to join us.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: We're super excited to have you here.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for the introduction.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I just got my 47th kid.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh a kid I trained here locally in Georgia.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: So he's my 47th commit.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: So super excited to see another another guy go up to West Point and try to beat Navy for a couple of years in Air Force as well.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
3:03
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
3:04
SPEAKER_02: Coach, with 52 years of the longest active kicking and punting coach in the country, 200 million, 290 million scholarships, 20 plus NFL specialists produce.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: Most people would have stopped a long time ago.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: What keeps you going and what does raising the standard mean to you after five decades of doing this work?
3:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a great question.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: I and I think it's a three-part three-part question.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: I think the first one is you know, you have a standard, and the athletes have a standard.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: There's also a standard for the parents and a standard for the coach.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: So to me, there's this there's a standard that say a kid goes and he shows up to practice and then he works hard, and you know, the coaches are watching him, uh, and hope the talent takes him there.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: And then there's raising the bar of the standard, which is basically training when nobody is watching them and taking ownership of their nutrition, their academics, their recovery, and their sleep, which is critical in today's area, and then learning to communicate with other coaches.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't mean texting because texting is not really communicating, it's it's a lost art.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: And I think understanding that performance really must be supported by proof and data, and then you know, becoming accountable for the outcomes instead of making excuses.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Right.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Then you've got the the standard as a parent, as a you know, as parents, we will we all have a standard.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, we do the lessons, we take our kids to the lessons, we pay for the lessons, we drive them to practice, we we tend the games, and of course, we defend our children.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: And then there's the ones who are raising the standards where I keep on saying you've got to become more informed as opposed to emotional.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: You got to help your child with their problems rather than solving the problems for them, right?
4:52
SPEAKER_00: And then focusing on development over rankings and then preparing your athlete for life after sport, which I think is a major critical problem with a lot of the generations we have right now.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: And then I think that standard helps them go from protection to preparation.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: And then the last one is basically, you know, what is the coach?
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, the standard of a coach can simply go, I'm gonna run some drills and I'm gonna collect a check.
5:16
SPEAKER_02: Right.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Or or I can or I can tell them some uncomfortable things.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Like I've fired seven kids in my lifetime as a coach, some of them right on the field in front of their parents, thought of things being disrespectful, whatever else.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: And I think and I think coaches have to continue learning even after decades in the field.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: I do that all the time.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm continually trying to learn new things.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I'm taking on AI now and all the other things I never thought about before.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: And then I think you have to measure that performance objectively, not subjectively.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: And I think you have to serve the athletes beyond the playing field because if you can leave them as a better people, not just better players, you've won the game.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: So I think they're the three buckets I would put that in as raising the standard.
6:04
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
6:05
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
6:05
SPEAKER_02: You're also known as the villain of the NCAA.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: That's not an accident.
6:10
SPEAKER_02: What's the biggest lie or misconception you think the NCAA and the recruiting industry has been selling high school athletes and their families?
6:18
SPEAKER_02: And how long have you been saying this before anyone listened?
6:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, I I probably have not liked the NCAA since my national letter of intent back in 1973.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: But and I've been raising the flag for the NCAA for for many, many years.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: There, when I say they're they are, and I even check this out for a lot of other things, I believe they're the most sued organization in the history of mankind or will be.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: Right.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: So they they they are constantly pushing uh things outside, which I don't think helps the high school athlete.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: So I'm an advocate, I'm a high school advocate for the high school parents and and student athletes.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: The NCAA, the the C stands for collegiate, it doesn't stand, there's nothing for high school in there.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: And I think all the years that I've seen the NCAA NCAA do things, it's really been driven for the college athlete.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, NIL is a great example, the sixth year of COVID.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've had 19 COVIDs, right, in our lifetime.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And this was this was the first time in the history of the NCAA with all the other COVIDs we had that we completely shut down all sports.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: That's saying something that's that's saying something, right?
7:28
SPEAKER_00: And then then they took the they had the six-year eligibility, the seventh year eligibility, and then we have the international players coming in.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: We have 3,000, I mean, we have 30,000 uh international students right now playing across all kinds of sports in the United States.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: And I think the NCAA still hasn't even done with this five, this five to play five.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: So when I say that I've been on this wheel of this pinwheel of trying to get the NCAA to come around to thinking, and parents, parents, I think, are afraid to ask the question about well, what what is my son or daughter really going to do now?
8:03
SPEAKER_00: How am I going to get that athletic scholarship?
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Is it all D1 or bust?
8:07
SPEAKER_00: And I can't tell you how many times that problem has come up where a 12-year-old kid walks up and goes, Well, am I am I D1 material?
8:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, dude, I'm just trying to get you to be the starting kicker in your freshman team.
8:19
SPEAKER_02: Right.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: But then you got the parents that are involved in that.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: They're they're fully involved in the whole thing, whether it's reclassifying kids and using that as a tool, or it's just doing things like the NCAA has done recently about just COVID and NIL and everything else, everything they've done.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, that's really why I wrote the book.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: I wrote the book to expose a lot of the things that happened around the NCAA.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, I call them the mafia.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: That's my nickname for them.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: It's funny because we had the five crime mafia families, right?
8:52
SPEAKER_00: The big five.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: Now we have power five, now we have power four.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's why I keep on calling myself the villain of the NCAA, and some people like it.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
9:02
SPEAKER_02: And you were a Division I athlete yourself at Notre Dame and an NFL free agent with the Eagles.
9:07
SPEAKER_02: You served in the Army, you spent nearly 40 years leading multi-million dollar global IT contracts while coaching part-time.
9:15
SPEAKER_02: Most people just pick one lane.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: You've run in four simultaneously for decades.
9:21
SPEAKER_02: What does that kind of discipline actually look like from the inside?
9:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it comes from the discipline and the character and the integrity I had growing up.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, I came from a family of seven kids.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: My dad was uh a Marine from Guadacanal and Iojima.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: So I think he gave us that that discipline.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: And my my mom, of course, her her discipline was if it's raining outside, go outside and play.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: The rain's good for you.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: If it's sunny outside, go custom grass.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: If it's snowing outside, go shovel some snow.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, so her discipline, and I think both my mom and dad grew up during the depression, and I think how they looked at those things helped us as kids growing up ourselves.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: And that gave us the discipline to do the things we had to do to get out of the house, basically.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: We weren't we weren't born with silver spoons in our mouth, and we weren't born with Harvard educations.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: We were just born with doing things like most families did back in back in the day, was just try to try to understand what it had to do, what you had to do to get things done.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Whether that was working in a pizzeria during high school or whether it was, you know, doing other things we did.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: Me and thousands, I mean millions of guys, you know, all did the same thing.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: I think that was the work ethic that our parents gave us, which uh hell has helped me all these years.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: So that's that's why I think I've stayed in so many different lanes.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: And I also believe it's something that God wants me to do.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: I think that you know, every time I asked whether I should do something, it's pretty much me saying asking God, you know, why should I be doing this?
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he doesn't tell me right away.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it takes 20 years for him to tell me, or 25 years later he'll tell me.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: So I hope that answers your question.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: Oh, 100%.
11:01
SPEAKER_02: And I didn't realize, I mean, one of the things that I answer that I hung on to, I didn't really my dad's a Marine as well.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: He was a career marine 26 years.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: And I just think the pedigree that coming up in a military family just gives young men and women just an extra advantage for sure.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: For sure.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: It does.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think you walk into the you walk into the military life, you know, differently.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: You come out, yes, sir, no, ma'am, or those those kind of things.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: Some of us were born into that, but those that weren't, I mean, it's a very quick read of when you stand in front of a drill sergeant who is some big old rednecky thing from South Carolina, and uh you find out he's a great human being uh for what he's taught you in a short period of eight weeks, it's pretty astounding.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that I that is so true.
11:45
SPEAKER_02: You know, one of the things that I always like to tell when my brothers and I, when we got a little bit mouthy with my dad, he's like, he would say things like, son, you know I'm a Marine, right?
11:54
SPEAKER_02: And we're like, Yeah, of course.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: And he goes, and I've seen a lot of tough guys in my time, and you're not one of them.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: And it just kind of set us straight.
12:02
SPEAKER_02: Coach.
12:03
SPEAKER_02: Go ahead.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
12:04
SPEAKER_02: No, go ahead.
12:05
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm ready.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: Your latest book, the first of its kind ever published, is College Athletic Scholarships: The Path to Recruiting Success in the New Age of NIL, Transporal, and Post COVID scholarships.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: You say it exposed NCA issues more than six years before this became national hand headlines.
12:23
SPEAKER_02: Walk us through that and what you saw and what you're experiencing now.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think, and great question, Tom.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: I think because of what I know about the NCAA and the history of the NCAA, you know, one of the things I talked about even before the book in my podcast, I was talking about really the first NIL deal was done back in 1906 with James J.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: Hogan and Walter Camp.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: So NAL has been around for many, many years, but what the NCAA did was they took it up a whole different notch.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, they moved, they moved away, you know, we talked about moving the goalposts.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: The NCAA is probably the best at that.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're a multi-billion dollar organization.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: And when they kept on getting sued by the NCAA, I said, this book has to help the parents out because there's really no place for a parent to go.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: I I don't think if someone says to me, Well, I was a college administrator for 37 years, I'm like, okay, but you know where the sausage is made, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you know how to fix the problem because some of these coaches are so ingrained, having been there 25, 30 years inside an institution, that they they they can't break out of that institution.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's that's what my role was always coming up and saying, here's here's what NIL is really about.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: I I coined the phrase now it's legal in my book way back when.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And then I start talking about the things around recruiting and the six-year eligibility and the seventh year, and the all the international students are coming over and you know, all the people now who are playing college sports that are 25, 26, 27 years old.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to compete, Tom.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to compete.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: If I'm a 16 or 17-year-old young man trying to be a kicker and a punter, it's just very, very difficult to try to say I can compete against the 24-year-old Aussie guy coming from Australia who's been playing you know Australian Roles Football for since he's been three years old.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not knocking those guys, I'm just saying it's it's not a fair advantage, it's not it's an unfair advantage to have somebody be 27, 28 years old.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: And I and I think that's why I'd wanted to expose the book from that.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: And then the other, it could be soccer, it's bad midden, it can be any of the sports.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: They're the international uh group comes over is a is a really a detriment to the high school athletes in the United States, in my humble opinion.
14:42
SPEAKER_02: No, I totally agree.
14:43
SPEAKER_02: You know, my first introduction would to that, we may have talked about this when we first met.
14:47
SPEAKER_02: My brothers were actually high school All Americans, they played at San Diego State, left and right tackle, and they blocked for Marshall Falls back in the 90s.
14:55
SPEAKER_02: And what Matt was a true starter, he was a true starting freshman at 19, and he was actually playing against BYU, and the defensive end was 24 years old because he took a Mormon mission.
15:05
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
15:05
SPEAKER_02: And Matt was like, God, this guy was just, he should be playing on Sunday, not on Saturday.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he just he got his, I mean, he just it took a toll on him because you think about it, this guy is six more years of maturity on you.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: So if you take somebody like you're talking about from overseas or something that's 24, 25, 26, how can a high school athlete possibly compete with that?
15:26
SPEAKER_02: And the answer is they can't.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: They can't.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: And I think I you say, like, okay, well, take take that a step further.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: Take a kid who is 17 and put him down play on the U 12 travel ball team.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: Right.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how how how different would that look?
15:41
SPEAKER_00: How how different would that game look?
15:43
SPEAKER_00: 100%.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: So I and I and the NCAA has their hand in that.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're they're the ones that uh that have allowed that to happen.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: We've got you know, hockey professional hockey league players from Canada coming down.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: We've got you know the basketball guys coming down from the G League, coming back into play in college, you know.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: So the NCAA has had their hands in every one of those major things that have happened for the high school athletes that have been, again, not not good for the high school athlete, and it's been negative to the high school.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: This let's let's see that if this 5v5 helps out, making these guys have to graduate when they're 24, but some lawyer will find some way to sue them for that.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
16:25
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: That being said, the NIL and the transfer portal have changed the recruiting landscape completely.
16:32
SPEAKER_02: Most families are navigating with almost no guidance.
16:35
SPEAKER_02: What do athletes and parents need to understand right now about how the system actually works versus how they're being told it works?
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Great question, Neil.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: And I I look at this problem and it starts at the youth level, in my humble opinion.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: I think when a kid is 10 or 12 years old and they're playing premier or elite or you know, whatever the classification it is, I mean, I think that's where the lie starts.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, when a kid is 10 or 12 years old, there's no kid, there's there's no kid that's 12 years old.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe Jesus when he was 12, you know, but there's there's nobody that's 10 or 12 years old that should be on a quote unquote elite team because I think that lie gets perpetrated as they get older, you know, and that that lie gets to be into the star rankings.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, most people don't know that the star rankings actually came out of the Michelin Tire brothers.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: They came up with that, you know, a long time ago.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's so subjective that even in our little view of kicking and punting, we've got guys who have a ranking.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: This one guy over here will give them a four-star ranking, this other guy over here will give them a five-star ranking.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the times it's tied to monies.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: So I think I think those rankings are the biggest lie because they're they're very subjective to the coach.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: And if I had if I have seven coaches, we can all look around and go, We think that's different.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: To your point, the biggest problem with NIL and the transfer portal is I I can I won't tell you who the coach is, but uh, I can tell you there's coaches out there right now.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: I know one particular who said, you know what, Coach Nolan, I am never going to bring a high school kid in as a specialist.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna go to the portal.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: That was his answer, right?
18:14
SPEAKER_00: So he was okay with going to the he goes, I'll I'll bring two kickers in.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: I'll bring a kicker and a punter in and and let them vie for the money.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: And I think that has been the biggest problem I see in the transfer portal is for instance.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you have if you have any you know grown kids, but if I was if if I'm somebody and and my daughter is she's married now, she's married, and so is my son.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: But if they were dating someone and he came to my house and I said, Hey, by the way, where'd you play ball?
18:41
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, my first semester I was I was at I was at Temple, my second semester I was at Notre Dame, my third semester.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, there's no way you're dating my daughter, right?
18:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, because you're gonna be out of here probably after the the first or second date.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: So I I think they're I think it's given it's given the lack of accountability for the athlete not to have to sit out a year, and there's there's no repercussions for the transfer portal, right?
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Right now, I think they're trying to get they're trying to get better at it, but I think that you know, as we say, the the the horse has already left the barn.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: So we'll see what happens.
19:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a great analogy about dating your daughter.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: That's so true.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they're just bouncing around too much.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: I mean, one of the things we talk about with these athletes is, you know, when you build it, like you can pick up the phone right now and call Notre Dame, right?
19:28
SPEAKER_02: Because you have a legacy there, right?
19:30
SPEAKER_02: You know, and and some of these kids, if they try to call a school and then the alumni or the booster, like, hold on a second, how long was he here?
19:36
SPEAKER_02: A year, and then he took off.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: And we don't they don't want you.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: They're they're not, they have no interest in you if you're gonna just take the money and run.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: That being said, Blueprint to Blue Chip is built on the belief that character has to come become has to come before opportunity, that who you are has to be settled before the offer arrives.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: In your 52 years of working with athletes and families, what happens to the athlete who gets the scholarship before they've built their identity to protect it?
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And another great question.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: I think the identity happens because there's a lot of parents that sadly will have their well, will be in control of their son or daughter's Twitter accounts or their social media accounts, right?
20:17
SPEAKER_00: So you know they're trying to they're trying to talk to a a 23 or 24-year-old GA or QA who by design is on the coach's Twitter account to find out how a kid talks.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: So, and I think when the kid gets a scholarship, they they think the sky is opened up and everything's great.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, the hard work is just starting, right?
20:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're gonna be now you're gonna great example.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: I have a kid that just was number two punter in the country.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: Literally, when he signed his scholarship offer to Georgia Tech, within a month, Georgia Tech brought a fifth-year graduate transfer in to compete against them.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, and that happens, that happens a lot.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: And I and I told and I told this kid, I said, you know, you're gonna that's gonna be a situation every year until that changes.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be dealing with guys that are bigger, faster, and stronger.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I keep on telling these young athletes, look, it's up to you.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to look like a high school athlete when you're competing against a 25-year-old or 26-year-old?
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Or do you want to try to get to that level of weight, consistency, and height and everything else that you're gonna do because that's what they want.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: They have that eye chart.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: And I think these young kids don't really can appreciate what that eye chart means nowadays from a college coach.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: Because let's face it, let's face it, it's all about the W's and losses.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: That's they have a one or two year, all they care about is that depth chart.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: They're they're not really we're not building development like we used to do back in the old days.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: We're just it's maybe Dabno and a couple other guys have that, but and Caleb Harry from basketball, right?
21:51
SPEAKER_00: But for the most part, it's a it's a big business.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's the youth sports business is a$50 billion a year industry, which I call the youth industrial sports.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Complex and the NCAA is just part of that big complex.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: Coach, I'm going to turn it over to Aaron.
22:08
SPEAKER_02: She's going to get into character, legacy, and the standard.
22:10
SPEAKER_02: Aaron, take it away.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: I have so enjoyed listening in on this so far.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: So I want for you to share with our audience.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: You have helped over 46 current and former military servicemen earn spots at the service academies.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: That's a very different type of recruiting than the NIL space.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: What does that work mean to you personally, especially as an Army veteran yourself?
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, it's very humbling because I it's such a great thing to be able to have a young man or woman at the age of 19 say, I want to go serve my country.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: And also realizing that, you know, in my book, I talk about the service academies.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, academics are very, very high.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: The acceptance rate is very, very low.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think Army right now is around 13%.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: I think the naval, naval academy is about 9%.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: I think the Air Force is about 11%.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, and they have a lot of things they have to do.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: They have they had to get letters from congressmen.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: I've been I've been humbled that I get a chance to write letters every year for these kids that go in there to to the Congress or or senators.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: And it's a special kind of person that wants to go into the military.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: It's a special kind of person that seeks that discipline.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying anything different than a kid going to you know a D1, D2, or D3 school.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: It's just different.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, they they've got a different class they have to go to every day.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: They're not taking some of the classes that we would typically take at a normal college.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: And you know, the classification for those people that want to come out and become a an officer and serve our country, really it's an amazing thing to see when you can look at your you're building you're building your worth over yourself.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's most important to these young kids nowadays, turning into soldiers and cadets, is how how important it is to see that when they go in there and listening to some of the speech of like MacArthur's speech, you know, uh about the core and and others is it's really just impressionable.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: And I recommend every opportunity, every kid has an opportunity to get an offer or to go through one of the service academies just to check it out and don't dismiss it right away that all of a sudden you're gonna go the first day and you're going to war somewhere.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it doesn't work that way.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: No, that's great.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: I love that because I think that I think the service academies, I think oftentimes can be really underrated in these kids' search, you know, to where to go play or where to be.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: And so I think we could plug them a lot more because I think it'd benefit both the the student athlete as well as our country.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: So you hold over 170 drills you designed yourself, including the trademarked punt golf method, which you gotta tell me all about that.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: Right, that's a funny story.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I love it.
25:08
SPEAKER_01: You gotta just we I want to know where all that drive comes from.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: What yeah, just fill us in.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I've always been one who who likes to come up with new things, new ideas, new things, new drills.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: And you know, it started back from the army.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it how I came up with my drill sheets was I was in the army and I had a a commanding general son who was a kicker and a punter, and he said, Hey, can you help me do design some drills?
25:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, drill, drill, what are you talking about?
25:35
SPEAKER_00: And I went to the PX and I got two books.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: I got a black and white book, two of them, two different notebooks, and I wrote down some kicking drills that I had thought of and some punting drills.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: And from that, believe it or not, and then I gave them to him, and he was he was so grateful and thankful for Marine.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: And from that, I came up with a one-by-one drill because he's his line was horrible.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: You couldn't, they they couldn't block for him.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: I said, instead of taking three steps back and two steps over, just take one by one.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: And that was 1985.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: And then fastball in 1990, we were out punting one day, a bunch of high school guys, and I was like, Hey, can you hit that ball?
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Let's see if you hit this ball to that trash can over there.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: And one of the other guy goes, What's that mean?
26:12
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I don't know, let's make it like looks like we play golf.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have to hit it like take three to hit the ball and see if you hit the golf in three.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: And that's how punt golf came up with.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: So now it's played universally, I think, throughout the United States.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean I think every kicker and punter that's that plays high school football has played punt golf at some point in time in their life.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: And what are we to make the continue to make the sport fun?
26:37
SPEAKER_00: It is, it's boring.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Punting and kicking, especially punting drills, can be very, very boring.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you, as I mentioned to you guys before, if if there was a milk carton with an ADD picture on it growing up, that was me.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: So I I was always, always trying to come up with new drills, new things to do, you know.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: And of course, I got that from growing up from getting up early in the morning.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: My mother would say I wake up God in the morning.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I've I've always been a little out there and trying to uh help help kids out.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: I love it, I think it's great, and I think how fun would it be to show up to practice here, like what's gonna happen today?
27:15
SPEAKER_01: Like, we haven't done this before, so keep some too, I think, excited and coming back.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, which that kind of dovetails into my next question for you.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: With your coaching experience, I mean, 52 years, you've simultaneously also worked at large-scale global IT in leadership.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: What advice would you give to young coaches and even athletes about what real commitment actually looks like, or how do you show up and balance both of those?
27:46
SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, my grandmother always said if you want something done, give it to a busy person and they'll make sure it's and I think that's where I got my plan B from.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, when I was in corporate America, one of the things we learn about in corporate America from the big honchos, usually from the CEOs and stuff like that, they're always saying, Hey, you got to get involved in the community, you got to do this, you got to do that, you gotta join United Way or go to a breakfast meeting or join the Kiwanas Club or the VFW, whatever else it was.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: So we were always told, you know, in the community, hey, you got to do that because it's about networking.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: And so I carried that over into the world of sports when I was a soccer coach, and then I wanted to find out how I could get some of the guys who play soccer into be more kickers and punters.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: And that's how it really took on this role of getting young people.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: My favorite line that I say to every young kick kicker and punter is that when you hang your cleats up, you must lace up your coaching shoes.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: And I don't care if it's whether you're done playing in the NFL or Major League Baseball or basketball, whatever else it is.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: And I say that to every kid I train, every kid I train, no matter where you go, as a young executive or as a as a former athlete, you've really got to pick up the coaching because coaching is a just an awesome, awesome thing to do to help young young kids out.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: And the and the parents out as well.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: No, I love that.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: I think that's so great.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: What this is my last question before I turn it over to Thomas.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: What's one truth you wish every high school athlete, parent, and andor coach understood about the recruiting process, the NCAA, and what it actually takes to earn a scholarship that most people aren't willing to say out loud?
29:36
SPEAKER_00: I think the truth is that is such a small minority.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, we keep on, you know, it started out with years ago, you know, 7% of high school athletes get scholarships, and you know, then it kept going down and down and down to right now, it's it's probably about one and a half percent of all the kids that play sports America.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: This, you know, there's basically 8 million kids that play high school sports.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: And you know, every year you've got that one to one and a half percent that are playing in their sport that might or possibly get a scholarship.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: And I think because of NIL and because of the transfer portal, that has shrunk even more because the college coaches were not going right after these high school kids, they're going right to the portal.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: I think you're starting to see that pull back a little bit because of the new legislation that's coming up.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: But I believe that's a critical success factor for a lot of these young kids that they should know that is such a small minority of students.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: They don't, you know, it sadly they'll see this one kid's got 45 offers or 74 offers and stuff like that.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: That certainly is not the majority, that's a small minority of the chief that's out there, and I think that's something that these kids should look at.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: And then what they shouldn't do, honestly, they shouldn't focus on that one kid's got 45 offers and say, Well, it was me.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they should just practice harder or practice as hard as those people do.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: And we call it, I call it sports hacking.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, are you doing the exact same things that he's doing?
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Are you doing the same thing as she's doing?
31:05
SPEAKER_00: What are you not doing that she's doing to get to get a scholarship?
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Are you having conversation with coaches?
31:11
SPEAKER_00: Are you doing the things like academics?
31:13
SPEAKER_00: I young lady several years ago, great, great student athlete, she got a 16 on her ACT score, and the college coaches said, We can't we can't bring into our program.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: And mom and dad were like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe they did that.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Well, maybe you shouldn't have stopped going to the Disney showcases and got some ACT prep tests.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: So that's one of those uncomfortable discussions you have to have sometimes.
31:39
SPEAKER_02: For sure.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
31:42
SPEAKER_01: Thomas, back to you.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, yeah.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: Coach, if you could sit down with a high school kicker or a punter right now, talented, working hard, dreaming about a scholarship, what would you tell them about their current coach?
31:55
SPEAKER_02: Probably is insane.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they the current, and thank you for that.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: The current coach, sadly, a lot of times doesn't have a broad enough view.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, they'll say, Oh, he's got a great leg.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, well, what's that based on?
32:09
SPEAKER_00: What data, what data do you have, Mr.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: Jones, that your son is uh or Johnny, what what data do you have your coaches, and how many scholarships has your coach got over the years?
32:20
SPEAKER_00: So, how can he make that decision?
32:23
SPEAKER_00: I think so many kids get wrapped up into like, well, he's got a great leg, he's got a big leg.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: And I get parents all the time that will send me clips and say, Hey, can you train my son?
32:31
SPEAKER_00: He's just kicked a 40-yard field goal.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Yeah, great.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: And then I'll see the person takes you know 19 steps of the ball and it's a smaller ball, everything else.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: And I think you have to set expectations.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the biggest problem is that we don't set expectations with our children and certainly with our coaches.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: And I think the coaches themselves, the high school coaches themselves, they're not setting the expectations because they live in a very small pond.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with that.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: But I look at the pond more globally than they do because of 52 years.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, the 52 years of my data tells me that I know that coach at Georgia Tech is gonna take a five foot nine kicker.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna take a six foot four kicker because he's taken six foot four kickers the last nine years, right?
33:16
SPEAKER_00: I think that's probably the most important thing I can say about that.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
33:21
SPEAKER_02: And what about parents?
33:23
SPEAKER_02: They're investing time, money, and emotion into this process.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: What do they need to understand about how to actually advocate for their athlete without becoming a problem?
33:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, the first thing I would tell parents to do is I would tell them to drink more decaf.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Drink more decaf and stay stay away from the six-pump 15 years, right?
33:45
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing I would tell them, right?
33:50
SPEAKER_00: And and I would tell them to not get so wrapped up into you know the the D1.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I I never really use the word D, the letters D1 any longer, because you know, in in 73, up to 1973, there was no D1, D2, and D3.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: We had two levels, right?
34:05
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: We also had two levels, but a lot of those, a lot of these parents now don't know about that, they didn't come from that generation.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: So all they know of right now is D1.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean, heck, we got we got organizations called D1, you know, D1 or Bust.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: And I think parents, like myself, I mean, I had I had two kids that play at the highest level, and my one daughter was uh an uh international Irish dancer, so they're crazy as well.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: Just letting you know.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: So I think that from a parent standpoint, they have to let these kids enjoy their life.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the backseat conversations I've seen and heard over the years, some of them are really just bad.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: I've shared with you some stories about, you know, a couple of young ladies that almost committed suicide that were college players.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: So if I can give you one quick stat that I know of, it's it's interesting, is that they say the NCAA a couple years ago said that by the time a girl, a woman is in their sophomore year in college, 35% of the times they quit the sport that they supposedly love.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: 35%.
35:10
SPEAKER_02: Why is that?
35:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know what?
35:12
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of things that go on, of course, sororities, uh, we you know, all those kind of things, boyfriends, girlfriends, life in general, social media.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: I think the bullying is a huge issue.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: I just had one of my kickers and punters whose girlfriend plays at a certain school, and they literally had to fire the coach because she was such a cancer to the to this team, to the Wilmers Lacrosse team at this local school.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's the one issue.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: I think on the boy side, it's a little lower, it's about 24%.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: But again, same thing, right?
35:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a kid will say, Hey, I don't want to do this anymore.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm burned out.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: And and I think the burnout is a very, very serious thing.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: And in addition to the burnout, that you have all the things that go on in college.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, mom and dad had a tight ring or rung on this child for the first 18 years, and then all of a sudden, you know, Timmy goes off to school and goes, What do you what do you mean I don't have to go to college a class today?
36:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to go to class.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: What?
36:14
SPEAKER_00: And I think setting those expectations for parents and turning the lever down a little bit is easy.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, I say this with my wife being Asian, so you know, they got the best, they got the worst of both of us.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: They got me being a hardcore and they got my wife.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: So both our kids, God bless them, they're both doing great and awesome.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: Our son's finishing his PhD, and our daughter just got married, so we're we're happy about that.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: But even I had to learn those lessons as a parent.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: I had to learn when to dial it back when I was talking to my son.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: And I had to say in the same thing with my daughter, because my daughter just has more of the New Jersey kind of way about her telling me how telling me off, where our son's much more congenial and nicer about it.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: He's got my wife's side of her.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: So I think if that answers your question, I think parents have to really sit back and enjoy what they're doing with their kids because it's a very short period of time.
37:14
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
37:14
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
37:15
SPEAKER_02: On that one, I'm gonna turn it back over to Aaron for the rapid fire round.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: Aaron, take it away.
37:20
SPEAKER_01: Okay, perfect.
37:21
SPEAKER_01: I love this section.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: It's I start the sentence and you're just gonna finish it for me.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay, Mark.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Discipline equals doing what matters before what's doing easy.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's really good.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Leadership equals.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think serving uh I think serving and then speaking last and and and setting the standard is a leader.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: And I I if I can just give you a brief understanding of that.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, I look at Michael Jordan, who is a phenomenal basketball player, and I look at Phil Jackson, a mediocre basketball player, right?
38:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh Michael Jordan, arguably one of the best, greatest basketball players of all time.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: But he said his leadership was so difficult and so tough, he could not lead a basketball team.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: Phil Jackson, on the other hand, played about 12 minutes a game, right?
38:15
SPEAKER_00: But you know what he did?
38:16
SPEAKER_00: He sat next to every head coach when he played and he learned the skills, not sitting on the bench trying to check out the girl in the third row or you know, asking for a beer, you know, while he was hanging out there.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: He sat next to the coaches and listened to everything he did.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: And I think his leadership style is what made him such a great coach, even though he wasn't a great basketball player.
38:39
SPEAKER_01: That's that's such a great example.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: That's such a great example.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: What about legacy?
38:44
SPEAKER_01: What does legacy equal?
38:49
SPEAKER_00: I think the lives I've helped change that keeps changing others.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: And I I hate I hate to ask it, but can I just one give you one more quick story?
38:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: So the young young man I talked to about who just went to Georgia Tech, I met him his freshman year.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: His mom and dad, his original mother and dad were cocaine addicts.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: So his parents, his new parents, adopt him.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: They take his parents out of the equation, bring him into their life.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: By the time he was 11 years old, they had to pull his teeth out from the cocaine that his parents were like ingesting into his cereal in the mornings and stuff like that.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: So I met him his so his sophomore year as a, and you know, he was all over the place.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: Kicker, punter, play soccer, play basketball, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: And I got him into punning and kicking, but mostly punting.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: And I said to him, you know, Jonathan, you someday are gonna have a story to tell.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: And there's gonna be some young man or woman out there, and maybe not 20 years from now, that's gonna hear your story and it's gonna spark the interest that sparked interest in what you're doing today.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: So he now has a full ride offer to play at Georgia Tech on the football team.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: Amazing young man, parents are amazing, what they've done to take him through it.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: And and I think that's that's part of that legacy that helping these kids out has always been part of my my focus.
40:19
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
40:20
SPEAKER_01: That's such an incredible story.
40:21
SPEAKER_01: What is one thing you would never compromise on?
40:26
SPEAKER_00: Quitting.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's ever said that.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
40:31
SPEAKER_01: And what is one message?
40:32
SPEAKER_01: If you could put it on a billboard for every high school athlete in their family, what would your message on that billboard be?
40:41
SPEAKER_00: I would say at 12 years old, you're not gonna get a D1 scholarship tomorrow morning.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: So listen up, everybody.
40:52
SPEAKER_01: It's not coming anytime soon.
40:55
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: That is so good.
40:58
SPEAKER_01: Okay, Thomas.
40:59
SPEAKER_01: With that, I'm gonna kick it back over to you.
41:02
SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Aaron.
41:04
SPEAKER_02: Coach, before we wrap up, we'd like to open up the floor to the to our guests and just kind of a free flow.
41:09
SPEAKER_02: Is there something we didn't touch on today that you feel athletes, parents, or coaches need to hear about the recruiting process, the NCAA, or what it really takes to earn a scholarship in this new era?
41:20
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I I think that parents need to really do a lot.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the world with the internet and with AI and everything else is so phenomenal and so open that I think the biggest problem that I see with parents is they're not really engaged in understanding what it takes from the recruiting standpoint.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, they may they may be sitting home watching dancing with the stars uh for an hour, an hour and a half, right?
41:46
SPEAKER_00: As opposed to going, like, okay, why am I why am I going to have my son go to this recruiting camp?
41:51
SPEAKER_00: He's a three-star athlete, he's a senior, he's not gonna probably get a scholarship.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: So why not spend the time to look at all the scholarships that are out there?
42:01
SPEAKER_00: There's someone said there's over$2 billion a year that doesn't get reimbursed from kids from scholarships.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: So I'm I try to tell these parents to get engaged in the early on the process of recruiting, sit down with your son.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: I I probably did last year, I think I did about 502 30-minute conversations with parents throughout the United States just on the aspects of recruiting.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: It was a free call.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: It was like, hey, if you're you know, it doesn't really matter who you are.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you some things I know about, you know, not just a sport, but the recruiting efforts.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: And from there, I then tell them, okay, now I've given you some data.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: Now start trying to find out what schools you want to go to and why.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: And so many kids don't ask so many parents don't ask it, don't ask the why question.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: They just see the D1 and they cut everything else off.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: They think D3 is kind of like a horrible thing.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: So I would I would ask parents, I would tell parents that athletics and scholarships in this day and age is is getting more and more uh cumbersome.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: But I think the parents who spend the time going through the NIL and going through transfer, heck, I even built a whole free program just on NIL on a school community.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: So I think parents, if they can spend more time with their kids and sitting down and discussing recruiting issues, not D1 issues, but recruiting issues, they'll be a lot better.
43:28
SPEAKER_02: Right, right, exactly.
43:31
SPEAKER_02: Coach, you went from the rapid fire, now you're in the hot seat.
43:34
SPEAKER_02: Art imitating life.
43:35
SPEAKER_02: What are the top three sports movies of all time, according to coach?
43:40
SPEAKER_02: And it can't be Rudy.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: Top three sports movies.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: I would say the Jimmy Pearsall movie, sorry.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: The Pride of the Yankees is another one.
43:53
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: And probably the the hockey, the 1988 hockey, uh Miracle.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: Miracle.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: are are three of the ones because they're just so they're just so full of awesome things that people had to overcome you know the hockey guys some of them didn't even make the team that came back and fought and fought and fought you know and in Jim Pearsall story you know and and even I had to throw a fourth one in there I forgot about this but Jim Thorpe I mean what an amazing what an amazing human being that guy was as well 100% 100% yeah I always uh my number one is miracle you take a bunch of misfits you put them together with one goal one mission and they get themselves a gold medal yeah next is Rocky talking about the underdog oh my god and then Hoosiers is another one great great I mean and they're all great because they they all deal with adversity and I and I think that's the biggest challenge I see with kids nowadays I think I tell kids you know what I think you think that your biggest adversity is not getting upgraded to a a 16g iPhone that's not adversity you know having a few broken bones in your life is adversity and battling back from it you know right then they're the stories that that that I think are the most fantastic ones that that we can learn from no doubt coach where can people find your book The Kicker Zone well on our new website we just got a new website we rolled out on the kicker zone they can go on the kickerzone.com there's an Amazon link right there okay that they have it and you know for for for those who want to get it on there I'll also send a free autograph copy along with it as well so not that it's worth any more money you know than there is and I hope and I sent you guys a copy of my book I think you got it hopefully I I haven't seen it yet we'll go when we get off here we'll we'll find out what address Aaron did you get it I have not received it yet a week and a half ago it was two weeks ago oh wow well we're definitely gonna have to look into that we'll talk about it off uh off camera coach where can people get a hold of you whether it's a website email or your social media handles yeah so I'm on LinkedIn I have a YouTube channel called the Athletic Scholarship Truth I have a a school community as well as my podcast which is called Don't Out Kick Your Coverage and it's on 40 some odd channels and it's the only 100% podcast dedicated to the high school athlete and their parents dealing with everything around college sports.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: And my website for kickers and punters is www.kickerszone.com is actually pretty easy to get a hold of me at 678-2007540.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: If I can give one little thing my last comment to you guys and the parents is this is this quote I learned this from Willie Stargil when I heard about him he's you know somebody asked him why you always have a smile on your face and Willie Stargil said you know why because every time that the game of baseball started the umpire always yelled out play ball he never yelled out work ball that's it when kids get into work ball as opposed to play ball some of them lose most of them lose their passion.
47:07
SPEAKER_02: No question coach coach thank you for sharing 52 years of telling the truth when it when it would have been easier to just stay quiet and for bringing that truth here today and team if this conversation hits you do two things for us one share this episode with someone who needs to hear it a high school athlete and their family in the recruiting process right now a coach trying to build a standard that doesn't bend or a parent who needs to understand what really is happening inside the NCA before it's too late.
47:37
SPEAKER_02: And two pick up coach's book Coaches and Athleteship Athletic Scholarships the paths to recruiting success in the new age of NIL the transfer portal and post-COVID scholarships and team if you're an athlete parent or coach ready to raise the standard check out Aaron and myself at blueprintbluechip.com we help athletes build identity discipline and legacy that goes well beyond the game and if this episode has resonated with you leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
48:05
SPEAKER_02: It helps us reach more athletes parents and leaders who need to hear coach's message this is the standard podcast and this movement only grows when we raise the standard together talent fades but truth endures.
48:18
SPEAKER_02: Let's raise the standard rebuild the culture and become the standard coach Aaron you guys have a fantastic rest of your day team we'll see you next time thank you thank you ever