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Tomorrow can be different from today.
Our lives often leave us feeling hopeless—like nothing will ever change. But perspective is everything. When you know where to look, hope can be found in the spaces and places you least expect.
Join Jason Gore (Lead Pastor of Hope Community Church) for a fresh perspective, practical steps, and weekly encouragement that hope really is possible… even in real life.
That's not healthy in my opinion.
Now, I'm not saying people shouldn't do it.
If it's a bad situation
and the coach is, you know,
saying things he shouldn't be saying, then
that's a different conversation.
But competition is very important in your growth.
And I think all of us grow more when we're being pushed.
You know, that's where you get better is when
someone's competing with you.
Yeah.
Welcome to the Hope and Real Life podcast with Jason Gore.
Our team is passionate
and committed to bringing you more hope in the everyday
real areas of your life.
If this conversation and content is valuable for you,
please do us a favor, like, subscribe, and even share.
You never know how valuable it could be
to share a little bit of hope with someone else.
Let's get the conversation started.
Well, hello, hope and real life family.
We are here with you this week with a brand new episode
and a very special guest.
We are going to be talking about raising
young athletes in the world of sports,
and our very special guest is head football coach Dave Dorn
from the NC State Wolf Pack Coach,
welcome to the show. Thanks
For having me. Yeah,
Absolutely, man. Big
topic today. Um, but
before we jump into the topic, uh, I'd love for you just,
just take a moment and, uh,
talk about yourself for a minute.
Let us know who the man is that we've got here on the show.
Just a kid, you know, still coaching the game he loves,
um, been married now almost 26 years to Sarah.
Uh, three boys. Gonna be an empty nester in July,
so got some, uh, prayers out there for
that, that would be welcome.
But yeah, three sons won at App State, one at NC State
and one headed to East Tennessee State.
So, um, been here 11 years going on 12, which is, uh,
a long time in coaching.
Yep. Yeah, it is a long time.
I'm fifth in the country and tenure now. Yep.
Which is pretty crazy for college football coach,
but blessed to live in Raleigh and have been here this long.
Yeah, man. Just keep building
any of these kids and just keep winning.
Yeah. Hey, um, do your,
do your, you said you have three kids. They play sports,
So, yeah. Uh,
Connor will play football at East Tennessee State.
Okay. Yeah. Luke played high school football.
Jacob was track and he's into the cars,
and that's his life right now. Yep.
Well, coach, when we were talking about like, hey, what's,
what's the best thing to engage as it relates?
We know a lot of young people raising kids these days in the
sports world, and we kind of got off on this tangent about
how, um, we talk a lot about
how kids are different these days,
and to some degree they are.
I mean, I, I coach, uh, youth sports as well,
not the same level that you do, obviously, but, um,
but you do, kids are a bit different
these days from when I grew up.
But you said a very specific and crucial thing you said,
but we don't talk about
how maybe parents are different these days as well.
Uh, what was it that, that that kinda led you to that point?
How, help us unpack that for a little bit.
Yeah. Well, uh, I've been coaching 30 years now,
and so in a lot of ways kids are changing
because the times have changed.
The, the, uh, social media, the cell phone,
the technology in their hand, um,
classes are online.
I mean, all these things are making 'em grow up differently,
but from my eyes, when I'm coaching 'em, the things
that have changed, it's really not them.
You know, it's how they're being brought up
and the things they're not doing.
Um, maybe that we did in our generation growing up with, uh,
you get outta school and you go meet everybody at the school
yard and everybody plays until dark.
Yeah. And you go home and yeah, it was every day, you know,
that you were competing, uh, and doing different things
and playing multiple sports.
And, um, so things have changed a lot.
And I think the parent parental
involvement has changed a lot.
Um, you hear all the, the buzzwords about that.
But you know, back then the teacher was always right.
The coach was always right, right.
And, uh, you had to solve your own problems.
You had to suffer through that and learn how to deal with it
and communicate with people.
And so now you're getting the phone call from the parent
about the kid instead of the kid coming to you
and saying, Hey, coach, I'd really
like to talk to you about something.
So a lot more parental involvement
is the biggest change. I see.
What if you could say, Hey,
'cause we got a lot of listeners, probably young parents out
there, and maybe they got middle
schoolers, maybe they got high schoolers.
But if you could offer what is a healthy role
or a healthy perspective on parental involvement in
the life of a young athlete?
Yeah, I think, um, obviously taking that word as it is,
parental involvement is a very positive thing.
You know, I think young people need to learn to communicate
and they need to learn how to solve problems better.
And, and, and they need to have some common sense in that.
And, um, they're gonna fail. Yeah.
Like, that's part of growing up.
And I think letting 'em fail and,
and talking 'em through what that failure is
and giving 'em advice on how
to deal with the failure is great.
Yeah. But solving the problems
for 'em is the issue, in my opinion.
Uh, the kids need to be able to have these discussions
and how to advocate for themselves.
Yeah. Because that's what the real world's gonna be for 'em,
is learning how to advocate for themselves and, and,
and so I think that's the biggest thing is yeah.
You know, support your sons and daughters and,
and give 'em great advice.
Uh, seek counsel when needed.
But when it comes to the moment of truth, I guess,
having those tough conversations, they need to learn how
to do that and, and to have eye to eye not text Yeah.
Conversations with people that matter.
Why do you, I mean, could you speculate at all?
Do you have any speculate? I'm sure you probably have,
but what has like been the change primarily for parents?
It's led them to be, um, a bit less, Hey,
if you got in trouble in practice,
if you got in trouble in school, you need to shape it up.
Versus like, well, let me call this teacher
and find out what the teacher did wrong.
It's a great question. You know, I mean,
entitlement's a big deal not just with athletes,
but the country in general.
Right. Um, people feel like they have
the right to do those things.
And, um, the cell phone is to blame,
in my opinion, you know?
And not that I don't have one or use one, I do,
but used to go to school as a kid and you were gone.
Right. And your parents weren't talking to you
or anyone else, you know, I mean,
until you came home from school or practice
or whatever you had, and now there's the check-ins
throughout the day and how you doing honey?
And, you know, oh, I forgot my lunch mom.
You know, all that stuff. Like, they just don't have
to solve their own problems the same way because access.
And I think that's the biggest thing is we have access
to all the information all the time
whenever we want it, which has created more interaction.
And that's not a bad thing, but it can be overused. Right.
So you got parents that say you've got one who wants
to see their child succeed, uh, they want to, uh,
see them maybe have some success that they didn't have.
We know that parents can have a tendency
to live vicariously through their children.
Right. Maybe we'll come back to that one in a moment,
but if you had to encourage a parent on, Hey,
it's not just sports.
Let's talk about developing a well-rounded, uh, young man,
whether it's school, whether it's involved in other
activities, is there anything that you've seen like, Hey,
when a young man has these things in their lives along the
way, um, there's a much higher likelihood
that they're gonna succeed when they get
to a program like what you're running.
I say this to our players all the time.
Show up early, have gratitude, use the golden rule,
work harder than the people in the room
and stay a little bit longer than they do,
and you'll be in the top 5%.
Yeah. And just do that. Yeah.
You know, and if you have a hard day, so what?
Learn from it and go to the next one. Yeah.
But I think that's a, just a hidden skill is just showing up
with a good attitude and you're supposed to be somewhere,
act the way you're supposed to act.
If there's 10 people in the room,
be the best worker in the room, you know, and that's it.
Just compete. And I think just having a, a, a routine, uh,
of competing that way.
And we all want to trust our athletes.
Like that's, as a coach, the number one thing you want
to trust and they want to trust us,
and trust is built over time through consistent behavior.
Yep. And that's the biggest thing I would say as a parent,
you know, I mean, you just wanna build that
where they understand this is how I'm gonna go earn respect,
how I'm gonna go earn trust is
through consistency and work ethic.
Yeah. We've had, we had, um,
John Delony on the show last week, um,
and he kinda alluded to this a bit, uh, Joe Rogan, who is,
has not been on the podcast, but Joe, if you see this,
you should come hang out with us at some point.
But, but he says, man, you don't, uh, if you just show up
and work like at a medium level of hard in today's world,
you're gonna be so far above the majority of the people.
Yeah. Uh, it's not even funny.
And it didn't used to be that way.
I mean, it used to, it used to be it's hard work,
and then who has the most talent?
Who has, but now, man, you just see people
that maybe don't have the talent,
but if they're just willing to show up
and put in the work, treat people well, build trust
through consistency over time.
And you just see the sky's the limit for 'em. But yeah,
I think the opportunities are for everybody out there
that has that type of demeanor about 'em.
And, you know, I think that's where the allowing them
to have a easy out Yeah.
Is, is really detrimental.
And you see it with college sports, obviously, with
and high school sports now
with all the transferring going on.
And I was talking to Bradley Chubb about this this weekend,
and he just said, go dolphins.
Yeah. What do you think about that?
And I said, I think they're robbing our youth
of the opportunity to understand adversity.
Yeah. And he said, absolutely. Yeah.
He said, that's what it's all about.
Yeah. We talked to, um, so Coach Donald,
the head coach over at Garner, um,
we have conversations regularly.
It's just so different.
And, and thankfully he just doesn't care about this at all.
I mean, he is a man of integrity,
and he's like, if you don't wanna be here right.
Go play somewhere else. But there's this thing,
you have a highly talented player that seemingly comes
with expectations, and maybe the parent has expectations.
And the truth is, they might just go play football in
another high school right down the road.
I mean, you, you just didn't do that when I was growing up.
It's like, this is your team, this is your coach,
and you might not like 'em,
but if you wanna succeed, you get a, you gotta learn how
to work within those boundaries.
Yeah. I mean, when I grew up, if a kid transferred, it was
'cause you got kicked outta school.
Right. You know, I mean, you got in a fight
or whatever happened, you know what I mean?
The kids didn't leave because they wanted to,
they left 'cause they had to.
Right. Parents were moving, whatever it was. And yeah.
I just, you know, that, uh, ability to have grit
and sustain challenging situations
and be a competitor gets taken away when you
can leave whenever you wanna leave.
And, and I think, you know,
the coach at Garner's got a great mentality about it.
I mean, ultimately you wanna coach
people that wanna be there.
Right. You wanna create a culture that, uh, endears people
to that as well, you know,
that they have pride about being in your program.
Yeah. But you know, when you have four or five guys
or girls in your, in your team element,
and they got one foot in and one foot out, that's not good.
Right. You know, particularly if they're getting it at home,
uh, you didn't play enough,
we're just gonna take you somewhere else.
Like, that's not healthy in my opinion.
Now, I'm not saying people shouldn't do it.
If it's a bad situation
and the coach is, you know,
saying things he shouldn't be saying, then
that's a different conversation.
But competition is very important in your growth.
And I think all of us grow more when we're being pushed.
You know, that's where you get better is
when someone's competing with you. Yeah.
So I've got, um, I've got some young athletes, uh,
that live under my roof.
And, uh, man, I'll tell you, it's been a journey, like
to realize like, okay, how do I,
and then sometimes they're playing sports where
I have some experience, and so I end up coaching them.
But, and so it's been a journey for me
to learn like what's the line between
my expectations on them, um,
versus their expectations on themselves
and when those things don't match up and,
and how to be coach, how to be dad.
But, um, obviously there's some parents, it's difficult.
I actually think it's difficult if you're not intentional
about not letting, um, this idea
of living vicariously through your children.
I think it sneaks in and we don't realize it.
But, um, one, have you seen that? Do you see that a lot?
And then two, what are some signs,
like if there's a listener out there, what, what,
what are some signs you could say, Hey,
you might be living vicariously through your child if
Yeah. I
mean, it happens a lot. Yeah. Um, and there's a fine line.
You, I mean, you want your parents to cheer
for their sons and daughters out there.
They should be. Right.
And and my mom's the biggest cheerleader there is
when it comes to my success.
You know? And so when does it get overbearing?
Probably when they're in the middle of every
conversation bragging about it.
Right. And, um,
I think particularly when they're blaming other people
for their son or daughter's faults, you know, I mean their,
their performances
or whatever that is, uh,
the greatest growth comes when you own your own stuff.
Right? Right. And, and for our athletes
and our coaches, same thing.
If we don't do something, well just own it. Right.
I gotta be better in this area
and then let's get a plan together and let's go get better.
You know? I think as a parent Yeah. Be a cheerleader.
Support your sons and daughters.
Cheer for the teammates too. Don't, you know? Yeah.
I mean, I think that's cool when you're in a crowd
and you hear somebody's dad cheering for one
of his friend's sons playing.
I think that's awesome. Yeah.
But, uh, I think when you get involved
and start blaming the coach, or,
or just, you see it a lot where they start saying, oh,
my son's better than that kid.
He should be playing. Like, that's
not good for their son to hear.
Right? Yep. You know,
the conversation should be, how can we get better?
Yeah. Let's meet with coach.
What are the areas that you're struggling in now?
What's a good plan? Like,
what can we do to make these things better?
And if you spend your energy on the improvement aspect
of it, instead of the comparison aspect of it,
I think there's a lot more growth capable.
Yeah. Um, there's a book, atomic Habits
and the author, he talks about how so many of us,
like it used to be about setting goals.
And so the goal could be
to be the starting quarterback, right?
Could be the starting running back,
or I'm gonna win the a hundred yard dash.
Well, the reality is, everybody that lines up on the hundred
before the gun goes off has the same goal.
Yeah. But everybody's not gonna win.
And so he kind of breaks it down into, hey, like, what's,
what's the actual plan that you're gonna put in place?
And then just focus on that.
And then let's just see if the
other things don't start stacking. And
We say, begin with the end in mind.
So the end, we wanna win the a CC championship, right?
That's our goal after that is how are we gonna do it?
You know? And, and then it gets into the players like,
what this player has to do to be good enough
for us to do that is this.
And then we sit down and create the plan
and then, all right, this is how many days we have left.
So we gotta get this done in 42 days.
You know, what are we gonna do?
Let's plan out each day and, and break it down,
and then get into winning the day and,
and just bite it off a day at a time.
And then you can achieve the goal.
You can be the a CC champ,
or you can be the starting
quarterback or whatever the goal is.
But if your focus is all on the goal,
you're not getting anything done Right.
Hope in real life family, I want to take a moment
and let you know about a resource that we have for you
for your own personal development, spiritual enrichment,
and really a way for you
to find a bit more hope in real life.
We have a tool for you called the Hope in Real Life app.
It offers things like parenting tips, financial resources,
marriage insights, uh, if you're looking for it,
there's even Bible reading plans in there.
And there's a community
where you can even share prayer requests
and know that someone is praying for you for whatever it is
that you have going on in your life.
It's available right now in the Apple App
Store or in Google Play.
You can search hope in real life in both stores,
or you can use the download link that is in the show notes.
Remember, tomorrow can be better than today
and hope is possible even in real life.
Uh, let's talk about, so you mentioned putting a plan in
place, which is, uh, you know, I would recommend
to any parent that comes to me
and says, Hey, how can my kid do better on the field?
And it's like, well, don't worry about that
and let's talk about what plan you
have to get 'em up to that point.
Um, but in, in light of that, you've got, um,
in today's world, you've got, um, I mean,
you could play in tackle football leagues in,
in the youth world, you know,
three outta the four seasons a year.
If you wanted to, you could wrestle year round
basketball a, a u year round.
Um, what are your thoughts on, you know,
year-round training schedule for, let's say, you know,
for elementary, middle school and high schoolers?
Yeah, I got asked this at our clinic.
We did over the weekend. Uh, I,
I love multi-sport athletes personally.
Um, one, it teaches them how to be on different teams, how
to interact with different athletes,
different coaching styles, uh, trains different muscles
because they're moving differently in those sports
and it keeps 'em competing in games.
Um, which I think is the ultimate part
of this is learning how to compete.
The one sport athlete has one season of competition,
and then the rest of the season is basically practice.
Right? And so they're losing out on the
teamwork, they're losing out on that.
I know they're still getting coached when they're trained.
Uh, and in some cases, I think that some
of their muscle groups get kind of locked into one thing.
You know, you don't have that when you go from football
to basketball to track.
You're using different muscles, you know,
and you're, you're helping your body stay
healthier by doing that.
The travel team aspect of it too,
I've never had a a son go through that.
I witness it a lot. It, it seems pretty crazy to me. Yeah.
That they're all over the country doing all this stuff
and, um, not on their scholastic teams with their,
their kids they grew up with,
but from what I understand, that's kind
of the way it is in some sports to get recruited.
Yeah. I, I can tell you from my vantage point, again,
from the middle school, high school side of life,
you can see the programs that somehow,
or the communities that somehow keep kids playing together
from a young age in their community versus
getting divided up
and going to play on this high level talent team
over here and this high level team.
Yeah. The chemistry that they have, the ability to,
you know, to they know how to compete with one another
seems like it sets them up
to succeed at a higher level. But,
Um, yeah, I mean, we just had a really good football
player named Peyton Wilson.
That was a great wrestler. Yep.
You know, and our best defensive lineman coming back,
Daven Dan was a great wrestler in high school.
I think those things are big, you know, and,
and a lot of quarterbacks were pitchers, you know, I mean,
you just see that, and to me,
they're getting good at being a competitor.
They're getting good at being coached,
they're getting good at leading.
They're getting good at learning how to fail
and learning how to succeed.
And there's more to it than just, you know, going
to these big turf gyms that they have now.
And you're working on one sport.
Yep. I wasn't gonna harp on this,
but you kind of lobbed me a softball here.
Um, let me, if you had to say what's the,
what's the best sport
to play other than football, what would you say? For a
Football player? It's wrestling for sure.
Okay. You heard that for a football player.
It's wrestlers. I, I'll tell you why.
And I, I know I'm biased, right?
And, um, you know, wrestled my whole life.
But what I love about wrestling is the things
that you said already.
Um, man, it's really hard to step on a line face
to face with another young man
with one referee and blows a whistle.
And at that point, your mom can't save you.
Your dad can't save you.
I mean, the, the ref can maybe make a bad call,
but you still got more time to make a decision.
Your teammates can.
And look, football was my first love growing
up, honestly, still is.
Um, my son wrestles, he plays football, he loves football.
There's just something about 11 guys
working together to pull something off.
It's just, man, how can something
be more engaging than that?
And more exciting. But there,
there's no offensive line to block for you.
There's no pass rush to make your life easier as a db.
I mean, yeah, it is. You, you can't hide.
And so no, you're on your own.
If you don't get it done, you just
gotta go back to work again.
Yeah. And so I think that I, I've seen in football players
as well, like when you develop that level
of mental toughness that I think comes from wrestling,
I think it sets you up to succeed and just about anything.
But again, I'm biased, uh, but I could see it.
We went and visited the Navy Seals when I was coaching at
another school, and, um,
their lead recruiter came in the room
and addressed our team.
Like we were new, new recruits, basically.
And said that their first two things they look
for are wrestlers and football players when they recruiting
because they've been tested.
And they understand teamwork and they understand failure,
and they know how to get up and fight.
And particularly in wrestling, um,
you're in the arena with one person that's a test
of will skill and mental toughness.
I mean, that's what it is, you know?
And so that's a huge carryover when you talk about
being a good football player.
Um, in, in some
of our conversations recently on this topic, you have, um,
regularly said something like, Hey,
it's not the way it was when we were coming up.
Mm-Hmm. Um, talk a little bit about what was a part
of your upbringing that, um, instilled in you?
What makes you the coach that you are
and have the philosophy that you have as a coach today?
Uh, well, I had great parents.
They were hardworking people.
Uh, I started working in fourth grade,
so I learned the value of a dollar early Wow.
In my life. And, uh, was caddying carrying bags
and washing golf balls and changing battery acid out
and golf carts and all that stuff.
And, and did that
until I started painting houses in the summers.
And, uh, all along I was always playing all the sports,
and I had great coaches.
Uh, my basketball coach,
Tom Caldwell was also my boss as a painter.
So me and like six football players would paint homes
for him in the summers and he'd boss us around.
But, uh, I just had tremendous support around me
and the coaching aspect.
Uh, my football coaches,
my basketball coaches, they were tremendous.
You know, my grandfather was a coach
and I mean, he was tough, you know, he was a great guy.
Take us, take me out in the driveway,
teach me stuff in basketball,
and we had 30 some odd cousins.
And, you know, there was an argument.
You were either pulling weeds
or he is putting boxing gloves.
He put boxing gloves on us and had us fight it out. Yeah.
You know, so, I mean, that's just how I was raised,
you know, and that you should work hard.
You should treat people right.
You should have respect for your elders
and that you should listen, you know, to the people
that have more wisdom than you. Yeah.
Yeah. It's amazing how, and,
and again, we started this whole conversation around
maybe parents have changed,
but man, when I look back on my life,
and by no means am I in a perfect place today,
but, um, I did have a mom and a dad that loved me.
And while they weren't perfect, I mean, they were divorced
and it was tough going back and forth and week weekend,
but, um, they did instill a certain set of values
and they did know when to say enough's enough.
Um, but I remember my dad told me, uh,
when I was graduating from high school,
that he prayed my whole life that I would,
he knew he wasn't gonna be around as much.
Parents were divorced, but he prayed
that I would have coaches and influencers in my life Yeah.
That would point me in the right direction.
And to this day, uh, whether it was my JV football coach,
coach, bill Boyette, uh,
or whether it was our varsity football coach,
coach Bill Devine at Carey High School,
or Jerry Winterton, my wrestling coach, I mean,
I regularly reach out to those guys
and say, I just wanna let you know this
is where my life is right now.
And I have no idea how I would be here if it wasn't
for the leadership and for the work ethic that you invested.
It showed us and modeled us and called us into.
And so, yeah.
I mean, I don't think enough can be said for getting
athletes and and young folks around people
that can build into them
and probably call 'em into something harder than
what comes natural for a parent in a lot of
Ways. Yeah. I mean, I think youth
coaches have such an opportunity
to help, you know, and serve and guide and, and lead
and mentor, um, maybe now more than ever.
Yeah. Um, and they have a tough job.
You know, they're very tough job. The parents are critiquing
'em in a different way than they used to.
Um, a lot different way, you know, particularly with
what people just pop off on social media about people,
you know, I mean, so they have
a much more public job than they used to.
Right. Um, but man,
they can have such an impact on the youth.
And, uh, you have no idea, you know,
where at least in my life,
I would've had no chance without some
of the things I learned from my coaches.
Um, I'm, I'm gonna jump on that for a minute.
So I, I started, um,
and this is, this has zero to do with me
and everything to do with what you just said about the
impact that youth coaches can have.
And, um, you know,
we live in a world right now in this podcast,
it's called Hope in Real Life.
We live in a world that, man, it's not easy
to start feeling a bit hopeless and, um,
but sports are a way
to kinda help put families on, on the right track.
And so it's, I would say, I think it was nine years ago,
I made a decision to start coaching youth football.
And to be perfectly honest with you,
it was, my kid's gonna play.
He's kind of young, but he wants to play.
I I kind of just wanna make sure the
guy kid's not gonna get killed.
And so I'm gonna, and I know a little bit,
and so I'm gonna go out there and I'll carry water jugs,
I'll do whatever, and I'll be quiet
unless I don't need to be right.
And, uh, that was my attitude going in.
Um, but what I realized was it, I mean, man, this, this,
it was probably the one of the best opportunities I've ever
experienced in my life to serve families,
to help people build community, to model for people
what it means to be, uh, a young man, uh, what it means to,
Hey, thank your parents for bringing you to practice.
And now I sit back and, you know, nine years later
and kids that I had to coach, that I had the privilege
of coaching and being part of their family for, you know,
whether it's, you know, three years in elementary school,
three years in middle school, and now they're freshmen,
sophomore, juniors in high school, making plays.
And, you know, they're being respectful.
They're making good grades. Uh, there's kids that are, uh,
you know, I know we have a lot of listeners that
don't have any idea who God is and,
and that that's great though.
I hope you find out, um, like kids started coming
to the church and just this past week I got a text message
from a mom, from a kid who goes
to another campus saying he made a decision to follow Jesus
and wants to get baptized.
And these are things that you don't experience
unless you actually jump in.
And so I say that just to tag off of what you said,
if you're listening and you're trying to find a way, Hey,
how can I find some purpose?
'cause I know it's hard in this life to find purpose.
You have no idea what a blessing you can be
to a community by just saying, you know what?
I don't know everything about coaching,
but I'm gonna jump in and I'm gonna make a way for a kid
to be able to play a sport and do all I can do
to be a positive impact on their life.
I wanna get on. Um, we've talked a lot about parents,
we've talked a lot about families.
I just wanna talk about athletes just for a moment.
Um, what, there's a lot of athlete, I don't say a lot.
There are some athletes out there whose talent is
through the roof and for whatever reason,
it seems like they could be more focused on individual
stats, um, versus overall team success, kind
of a me over a we mentality.
And I'm, I mean, I could share stories.
I'm sure you could do the same. What would you say to that?
Well, the, the most recognized
athletes are on the winning teams.
That's right. Yeah.
You don't see a lot of all conference players
on teams that can't win games.
And so I think it's more of a cultural thing.
You know, you have to preach that if we play for each other
and we win games, that you're gonna get recognized.
Yeah. And your stats are gonna come if you do
what the right things are for your teammates
and football's, uh, I mean,
it's 11 people at once working in unison
to create a positive play.
You know? And if one of the 11 doesn't do it,
it usually doesn't work out.
It's a unique sport that way.
And it's, I've always said, it's one
of the greatest laboratories of life.
You know, there's 120 plus kids in our locker room from
everywhere, and one parent, no parent, two parent,
four parents, you name it, you know, different religions,
economic backgrounds, you name it.
But they all wanna play and they all wanna win.
And so at the end of the day, it's about
what is gonna help us win the game.
And there's gonna be games
where certain guys get the ball more than other games
for a variety of reasons.
But I think selfish, um, is what that is.
If, if it's all about me, it, it's not about,
the team doesn't work very well.
Right. Uh, on winning football teams
doesn't work well at all.
But when everybody starts playing really hard
for each other, all of a sudden you start making plays.
Yeah. You know, because the plays work better when the guys
work together like that.
And, and sometimes they just haven't had that experience.
They've been on bad teams and they're the guy or the girl
and they're used to carrying it, you know?
But pretty soon that doesn't work. Right.
You know, they get on a team, like surrounded
by other talented players.
There's some growing that has to take place, you know,
sharing the ball if you're a
basketball player, whatever it is.
But I think it's,
it's more about the team than it is the individual if you
want individual accolades. Yep.
I think a lot of times it's, it's good for parents to,
to remember, very small percentage of
athletes are gonna play D one football.
Yeah. Even smaller percentage.
Obviously you're gonna end up playing the NFL you,
same thing could say for major
league baseball for basketball.
And so at the end of the day, you might want your kid
to be able to do that, whether that's
because that's their goal or
because you want to live vicariously through your child,
but the likelihood of that happening is so small,
especially if they don't go
about their business the right way.
'cause eventually they're gonna hit a coach like you
or Coach Donald, it's gonna say, Hey,
we've talked about this enough.
You're either in or you're out. Right.
And so at that point, your success gets limited.
And so there's always something
on the other side of football.
And man, I just don't know
of many successful people long term in any industry across
the board that don't understand.
It takes a team and it takes
more than just me to get something done.
And so what we don't realize
as parents is we're actually feeding a monster if we don't
get behind this the right way.
That yeah, they might score one extra touchdown in a game,
but man, they're gonna get fired as soon
as they get out and get a real job. Yeah.
Yeah. I think, you know, coddling of America
or whatever you wanna call it, you know, I think, uh,
you're doing your son or your daughter a huge favor.
Um, if you just let him fail
and teach him how to work through it, how to be a grinder,
how to handle tough things, that's gonna prepare 'em more
for life than helping 'em do it.
And that's what we all want. Yeah.
We want our sons and daughters
to be successful high school athletes
or middle school athletes and all that.
But don't we want more for them to be successful in life?
Yeah. You know, and I think that's the thing
that's getting lost right now
because I inherit this, the habits, you know what I mean?
And I, I get a kid at 18 and I got 18 years of parenting
or coaching or whatever it was that sometimes we have
to change, this is how this is gonna work.
If you want the results that you said you wanted.
And so it's like anything, you, you have to practice it.
You have to practice it with them.
And I think getting them to state what they want, you know,
like, what do you want out of this?
You know, I wanna play college football.
All right, well let's find out how we get there.
You know, any college football
coach will give 'em the same answer.
You gotta go to work. Yeah.
Like, you gotta work really hard to get there.
And when I go into school
and talk to coaches, if they tell me how coddled this kid is
and how entitled this kid is, that's a huge turnoff for me.
Yeah. I'm looking for the gym rat. Yeah.
You know, the kid, that's tough. That's a good teammate.
Like that's what we're looking for.
We're not looking for the, the kid whose teacher
or parent fixes all his problems for him.
That's a huge red flag for us.
Hope in real life family. I wanna pause for a moment
and let you know about an opportunity
that I believe can help you find a bit more
hope in everyday life.
Listen, I know a lot of our viewers probably aren't a part
of a church, or maybe you gave up on the church a long time
ago and, and believe me, uh, possibly for good reason.
I understand. Uh,
but I don't want you to miss out on the hope
that you can actually experience by journeying alongside
of a group of people that really are seeking
God's best for their lives.
If you are the least bit curious, uh, we try to make this
as simple for you as we possibly can, wherever it is
that you digest digital content podcast, you can go
to the podcast store.
You can check it out on YouTube
and just search Hope Community Church.
You'll be able to find our messages
there and check those out.
Or if you actually want to tune in during a service time,
uh, you can go to get Hope TV at four 15
or 6:00 PM Eastern Standard Time,
or you can tune in at nine 30
or 11:15 AM Eastern Standard Time.
Again, that's at Get Hope tv.
We hope that you'll take a chance with us
and experience what it is God has for you in your life.
You're gonna find practical messages
that will help you find hope in
the everyday moments of your life.
Hope you'll check it out. So if you do have a young athlete
that does want to play college sports outside of just
athletic skillset, um, what are college coaches
or college recruiters looking for to determine whether
or not they'd be a good fit for their program?
Well, let's just assume that the person is
already a great athlete.
'cause obviously that's what we want first is,
is is he good enough to play here?
Right. Right. After we've checked that box,
then it's all the other stuff.
You know, what kind of teammate is he?
What are his intangibles? Does he love to train?
'cause in football, we only played 12 games promised. Yeah.
And the rest of it's practice or lifting
or running, it's blood, sweat and tears until game day.
You know? And, uh, I like finding guys that love
that they love what goes behind the scenes.
You know, how are they to coach?
How do they handle, you know, when they screw up, you know,
what's their academics like?
Look at the transcript. How many times are they tardy?
How many times do they miss school?
What do their grades look like?
You know, talk to different people in the school about their
personalities and what they're like
with other people in the building.
How do they treat people? I mean, there's a lot
of questions that go into this.
A lot of research. And at the end of the day,
I've got three sons.
My coaches all have sons and daughters.
We're leaving our wives
and our sons to go work
with these kids every day for a lot of hours.
And I want those hours to be with good people, you know?
And so we're looking for good people.
And that's the easiest way to say it.
I think good people make really, it's the price
of admission to get in the door.
Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, yeah,
they're a great athlete, or I wouldn't even be looking into
'em, but if they're not good people,
they're probably not gonna be a good NC State wolf packer.
They're not, because I'm not gonna tolerate that.
And so I have to do a lot
of homework on the front side of it.
And so just, you know, the more they can be good people at
the school, what can they do to help others?
You know, how do they treat people in the building?
Uh, not only are they good teammates,
they're good classmates, teachers like being around them
and the type
of person you would want your son or daughter to be.
Right. Like, that's what they need to be.
They shouldn't be late. They shouldn't be making excuses.
They shouldn't be missing their assignments.
They shouldn't have a bad attitude. You know?
I mean, it's, it's an opportunity
to advance their livelihoods by going
to college on a scholarship.
You know, it's, it's a lot
of money when you talk about getting a full ride.
Yeah. And so they gotta earn it. Yeah.
And you earn it with good behavior.
Yeah. I, I don't think a lot of young athletes
or families for that matter realize, okay, great.
Your kid's a great athlete. They're kind of a dime a dozen.
I mean, there's some special guys out there,
don't get me wrong, but there's a lot of great athletes.
And so if you're not putting the other things in place,
if you're not doing those things, um,
you're not gonna get the result that you want.
Well, coach, I, I know we're coming up on time here.
Um, and, and we started out by saying, Hey, let's,
let's help parents recognize maybe how they've changed.
If you had to say anything else, I mean,
obviously you've said, Hey, don't coddle your kids.
Let your give your kids room to fail
and then teach them how to handle failure.
Yeah. We've said, um, Hey, don't focus as much on the goal,
but focus on the process leading up to
what it is that you wanna see.
And put that on paper. Actually live that out.
Anything else in final parting words, if you had one
or two final words to say to parents right now
that you want 'em to hear, this is your chance.
Yeah, I think just enjoy it. You know? Yeah.
You see too many, many people just miserable on the stands.
Like, I go watch my son play at Cardinal Gibbons, so I'd go
to the games and it was just a complete group of people.
Some of 'em cheering and some
of 'em just complaining the entire game, yelling at the ref,
yelling at the coach from the stands.
And it's like, man, your son's gonna be done
playing this sport pretty soon.
He'll never play football again. That's what I'm thinking.
And you're missing it. Yeah.
You know, I mean, just enjoy it. Enjoy game day.
Enjoy talking to your son
and daughter about practice, you know,
and helping 'em get better.
And, and don't forget
that they're gonna be out of the house pretty soon.
You're not gonna get it back.
We gotta choose two things, you know?
I mean, how are, we're gonna have energy
and how we're gonna use our time, and that's about it.
Like, and we don't get any of 'em back, you know,
and that's the one thing, I mean, it's just, I have
to remove myself from the stands a lot.
Yeah. 'cause I can't enjoy watching my son play if I'm
listening to all that stuff, you know?
And that, that gets missed a lot right now.
And I think just enjoy the ride.
Uh, I don't know that you do have any of these,
I didn't ask you this before the show,
but are there any resources out there
that you would recommend for any parents, um, any influencer
that, that you've had on you that would be good
for our parents to check out?
That's a good question. And I don't know off the top
of my head who I would give you.
I think, um, there's a lot
of really successful coaches out there.
Yeah. You know, I think just listening to some
of the soundbites that I see him on ES, ESPN all the time,
you see him on Instagram all the time.
I mean, I have so much respect for Kobe Bryant when you, uh,
get into his demeanor as a competitor
and what he was wired like as a worker, that was one
of the most gifted athletes maybe ever in the sport.
And see how hard he worked. Yep.
Go back and look at how hard Jerry Rice worked
as a professional football player and,
and what his off season program was as a receiver built.
Uh, when you look at, uh, you know, Brady
and his routine in his forties
and how crazy it was, um, these guys work really hard.
And, and the coaches that were integral for me, for them,
for anyone else, same thing.
They were probably very authentic.
They, they're probably very honest and truthful
and sometimes in a painful way
because you need to know what you need to get better at.
Right. And I, I tell our players that like,
you should be happy when somebody tells you what you need
to get better at, because that gave you the
opportunity to improve.
If we sugarcoat it, you're not getting better. Yep.
So look for that, you know, not demeaning information,
you know, constructive, demanding, truthful,
loving information.
I think that's love. Yeah.
When you tell a kid, I love you,
but man, this has gotta get better. Yeah.
We, um, we've got, uh, and
or middle school kids that are,
that are now high school kids.
To that point of thinking, we, I actually,
if you were on our team, if a coach gave you instruction,
told you to do up downs, told you
to run Gassers when you're done, you say, thanks, coach.
Yeah. Period. Because he did that.
Because he cares enough about you to help you get better.
Um, you mentioned K Kobe Bryant, man, I loved what, um, I,
he said some one thing in an interview one time
where he said, my philosophy was I would get up in the
morning and I'd go to the gym and I'd do X, Y,
and z you know, for 45 to 60 minutes.
And then I'd shower up, and then I'd go to school.
And then at lunch I would have this routine,
and then I'd go to the practice
where the team works out, and then I'd eat something.
And then on 50% of days I'd do another workout
after everybody left.
And I just figured when I was in high school
that if I could do that for two to three years,
by the time I was a junior
or a senior, the work had stacked up enough
that I don't care how bad you wanna beat me, you,
you just don't have enough math left.
Right. To catch up to where I am.
And I think if, man, if you really wanna be great,
and so much could be said for work life balance
and work sports balance, and we talked briefly about travel
sports and the impact that can have on the family,
but man, if you, if you wanna succeed,
if you have an athlete that puts in that kind of work,
the reality is it's going
to show when they hit the field and when they hit no.
And there's no guys like me and you
or like, like you out there, they're thinking, you know,
what if I get a kid that bus his tail does everything right
and has the athletic ability
that I'm gonna hold back. And so,
Yeah. I mean, the key to winning
games is your preparation. Yeah.
And, and he was the ultimate guy in preparing. Yeah.
And he'd talk about Kobe Bryant,
and he did it for his own self-confidence too.
Right. 'cause he knew that he had out prepared everybody
and that he was ready more than they were all the time.
And yeah.
I mean, I just think getting into the leaders
that are out there like that,
and if you get into all the really, really all,
all the way back to some
of the greatest thinkers in the world,
they all failed a lot.
Yeah. And they wanted to learn through failure.
And I, I just think it's such a great tool
that people look at as failure is such a negative It is.
But only if you repeat it. Yeah.
You know, every one of these times we, we have a stumble.
It's because of a reason. Yeah.
So study the reason and then don't let it
happen again the same way.
Yeah. And just keep doing it.
And, and that's how you become the best
version of yourself, you know? Yeah.
Elena and I, we were having a conversation right
before we came in here
and, um, we were just talking about
how some leaders can seem like maybe they walk
with a little bit of a limp
or maybe they got a little bit of a wall up.
And I said almost the same thing.
I don't know of any great leaders that haven't either failed
and had to learn from it
or gone through something incredibly hard in life
and you just don't see it.
Yeah. A whole lot. Um,
before we sign off, I, I ask just about all of our guests,
uh, one question podcast is hope in real life.
If you had to say over the next five years,
any topic in the world, what are you most hopeful
for in your life?
Ooh. Not football, just in No,
You can be football. Yeah.
It can be five a CC championships if you,
That's a given. Yeah.
That's a given.
You know, uh, I think for me it's just peace. You know?
I mean, I, I deal with, uh, a a lot
of turbulence all the time, you know, and,
and football, college athletics has changed more in two
years than it has in maybe 200 years.
You know, another podcast Right.
Mean that's just a completely different animal. Yeah.
And so, you know, I just wanna do the best that I can, um,
where I'm at, um, and do it the right way.
And, and after 28 years, I would've thought I knew
what those things were, but
because the last two were relearning in a lot of ways
with the transfer portal, NIL, the,
the conference realignment, the,
the playoff system changing,
all these things are happening right now.
I mean, it's completely blown up the sport.
And some of it's really good, you know,
but for me it's a new seat.
Yeah. You know, and so even though I'm in year 14
as a head coach, it feels like year three Yeah.
With some of these changes. Well, it is year three.
And so just that peace
and that clarity on the best things to do for the program,
for the kids, and for myself and my staff.
Well, coach, I know you are a busy man.
I greatly appreciate you taking the time to come in here
and to share some wisdom with us
and to hold up some things that truthfully,
or some of our parents might know.
But it's just good to hear it from a voice Yeah.
Who's been there, who's tried and true, who's seen some
go down a bad road
and has seen some, have tremendous success.
So I appreciate you being willing to set along some events.
Yeah, yeah. Some time for us, uh, to our listeners, uh,
thank you all so much again for spending some time with us.
Hey, I wanna encourage you, if you've got, uh,
maybe it's a family member, a friend who you know,
has a young athlete that they're growing up
and in athletics, do them a favor
and actually share this podcast with them.
You never know how just, uh, a simple text message
and them taking 30 minutes can actually impact not only
their lives, but their children's life
and who knows for the rest of their life,
the impact that that can have on others.
So go ahead and share that coach one final time.
Thank you so much for being here with us. Thanks
For having me. Yes, sir. Go
Pack. Go pack.
Thanks
for tuning into this episode
of The Hope in Real Life podcast.
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