August 8, 2025 • 16 mins
For Shop Talk, Coach Bill talks about coaching football again this season after a several year hiatus! And the amazing kids he's coaching.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Everybody's Bill Courtney with an army or normal folks. Shop
Talk number sixty four. Welcome into the shop. You brought
your kids back.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I think they're mad that you haven't been letting them
ring the bell turning shop talk. They've been giving you
nasty side ice.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Oh are they? Who's ring the bell?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
How A don't we let Landry give it you first?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Guess?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
First guess first, Landry.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Guess first, Landry. Come on, Landy, get your bought over
here where shop talks open. You gotta let everybody know
ring that thing. All right, there you go, say I'm Landry.
Hold it not yet, say I'm Landry. This is shop
Talk number sixty four. Welcome to the shop, and then
ring the bell. Do it. I'm Landry. This is shop
top number sixty four. Welcome to the shop Talk. There
(00:45):
we go, Landry, welcome to this in number sixty four,
number sixty number of Jerry Kramer. I'll be dad gummed
it is the number Jerry Kramer. All right, So here's
the deal Alex is making me do this shop talk.
I'm going to discuss it begrudgingly again. But at the
opening of every show we talk about how I was
a football coach in inner City Memphis. That led to
(01:07):
a movie called Undefeated, which is basically why you're listening
to me now, because that's what kind of thrust me
out into the public world. I coached for thirty three years,
some of the most rewarding other than my children and
my wife and all of that, probably the most rewarding
things I've happened to be in my life a result
of those thirty three years of coaching and the kids,
many of which are now young men, and just been
(01:31):
a blessing my life. Around around the time my last
son quit playing, I coached for another couple of years,
COVID came, got out of it. Pretty much thought that
was the end of my coaching career because I've got
a business, I got this podcast that Alex makes me do,
other things going on, and that was it. But I'm
coaching football again and back on the field for the
(01:53):
first time in three years as fall and Alex said,
you know, you should tell everybody about that and what
has taught me and what I'm getting from it. So
shop Talk number sixty four when we come back. I'm back, baby,
Coach Bill's back on the sidelines. In just a minute.
We'll see in a second. Okay, everybody, welcome back to
(02:25):
Shop Talk number sixty four. Here's the deal. There's a
school in Memphis called Middle College High School. It's a
public school as college, and the name I'll tell you.
Oh gosh, he's so impatient. Here we go. It's called
Middle College High School. It is a public school, and
it's called a choice school. And the word choice means
(02:47):
you have to choose to go there. It's not in
a district. But the other part of the choice is
the school can choose to let you in or not.
Kids have to take a personal interview with administration. They
have to write and entrance they have taken interest to
XAM and they write an essay about why they want
to attend a good school and what they want to
do with life afters. In addition, the kids there typically
(03:12):
satisfy all graduation requirements by late sophomore year, at late
junior middle junior to late junior year, and they spend
their summers and then their senior year ALEX taking college courses.
It's called Middle College. Oh I learned yesterday in fact,
that they had two kids graduate this year with seventy
(03:37):
hours of college classes. In seventy hours, right, because they're
almost juniors in college. Yes, yeah, because you need one
hundred and twenty to graduate college. Dang, they're going to
save a lot of money. That's it. Not only do
they save a lot of money, think of their their
act scores are off the chart because they're just accelerated
(04:00):
their academics.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, and you're more likely to know what you're doing
in your future.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
That's the other thing that they say is after taking
thirty hours of college credits. Many times they start off
the first semester or two and then they change. But
you know what, that saves them from changing in college.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
There's so many seniors in college you still have no
idea what they're doing. So these guys can experiment an
even younger.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
It's incredible. It's a small, single a school. There's only
about three hundred and fifty kids in it. So here's
what happened. Back when I was at Manassas.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
It's not a big field for a football team.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
It's not small. Yeah. Back at when I was at Manassas,
Middle College existed, but they didn't have a football team.
And so there's a thing called co opting where schools
that don't have football teams, their kids can co op
with another school, and so when I was at Manassas,
I coached kids from Middle College because Middle College was
(04:58):
the co op with Manassas. So that's it. About three
years ago, Lisa and I at a Mexican restaurant, minding
our own business, having a margarite and some chips and
more than that, No, I think I probably got an achelot.
I like cheese achalades. What do y'all like for Mexican?
What's your favorite? I like you like Caesadilla's? Okay? One
(05:22):
vote for cast a malcajette? What's that? You have?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
A malcajette?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I don't even know what the world you just said.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
It's like a really hot stew. Or they put like
chreiso and shrimp and pepper. Then okay, one vote for those.
What do you eat?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
What do you like? Abrito? Good burrito? That's two votes burritos.
But since I'm really pique, usually get the cheeseburger cheese
Mexican cheeseburger. That's great. George, do you like anything Mexican?
Usually does? Casadia? What what fries? Okay, y'all? Are y'all?
(06:02):
Y'all just proved to be quite uninteresting on the Mexican front. Anyway,
I am in the Mexican restaurant Don Tree. Harris walked in.
Don Tree. Harris played linebacker for me at Manassas, but
it was a middle middle college graduate. He uh, he'd
gone on to to Murray What is it Murray State
in Kentucky. It's fine, Murray State and Kentucky and graduated,
(06:26):
went to OTC. Anyway, came back to Memphis, started working
for Middle College. And he said, coach, why don't you
come back out of retirement coach with us? And of
course Lisa was sitting there and her mouth looked like
the end of an uncoked hot dog when he said that,
because she just kind of scrunched up. Wasn't really excited
about me coaching again. And I said, man, that's awesome.
(06:47):
Year past. He called me back and he said, coach,
you're serious, come we'll come back. And so Lisa and
I went by and visited the school and what we
found were bright, hard working, no metal detectors, not a
bunch of institutionalized kids, but kids looking to do something
(07:07):
with themselves, and we fell in love with the organization.
Then I'm at ad and I'm at the administration, and
here is this little school dead in the center of
Memphis that's a public school doing it right. And I
fell in love, and so at Lista and I started
(07:31):
working on our schedules so that this spring I could
coach and this fall I could coach. And I am
now the offensive coordinator Little Single, a middle college high
school football in Memphis, Tennessee. And our first game is
in three weeks and our first scrimmage is Friday, and
(07:54):
I am having a blast. I'm like a eight year
old on Christmas Day. So the other part of it
is I'm coaching kids who don't see athleticism or entertainment
as their quote way out. I'm coaching kids who are
(08:14):
studying their butt off and see a career in some
professional field as their way out, and are playing football
just for the love of the game. And the lessons
of commitment and teamwork and integrity and character and the
value of showing up on time deeply resonate with these
(08:35):
kids because they recognize that those tenants, those fundamentals translate
well to them being successful at the vocation that they
are already starting to concentrate themselves toward. And they are
still fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year old meat headed kids.
But it's such a refreshing reminder of what kids can
(09:00):
be when led, administered to and talught properly. And in
some part their attitude toward life, approach towards school, and
their commitment to the practice and what we do has
reinspired and reinvigorated me, And so I am able to
(09:21):
have my cake and eat it too.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Even you need that inspiration, I do. We all need it,
right with people, after the success you've had and the
acclaim and all that. I mean a lot of people think,
all right, well, you're just an inspired person. But I
think this all the time, like with the stories and
the people we get to meet. I mean, inspires me
every single week, and we all need it.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
I'm a normal dude, we start every show. I'm just
like anybody else. The only difference in me and thousands
of other people doing great stuff across the country is
my story happened to get told. I got a spotlight
put on me. But I'm a normal guy. I have
down days. I need to be inspired to. I need
to be re encouraged because despite the fact that I
call out Fox and CNN and social media and all
(10:02):
that stuff. It permeates into my brain. I read it
and fill it too, and you can get your dobber
in the dirt if you're not careful. And engaging with
these kids has reminded me, just like our guests do,
how rewarding engaging in areas of need where you have
(10:23):
a skill set and a passion can be. And I'm
able to do it and I'm enjoying it. And so
you guys google middle college football and Memphis Tennessee Middle
College High School in Mephic, Tennessee, keep up with us.
This season we open where a little single A school
and we open up with a four A school in Alamo,
(10:44):
Tennessee called Crockett County and they are big and fast,
and we have thirty five kids on the team and
they got about eighty and that's going to be quite
an assignment and a challenge. And then later on the
season we get into region games and I hope to
take them to the state ELFs and go as deep
as we can. And typical situation, inner city school underfunded.
(11:07):
I've raised a lot of money to get new equipment
and to get these kids outfitted as best they can
and the call was answered by a lot of people
in our community to raise money for all the equipment,
the jerseys and stuff. And so we've got that.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
I'm going to say the amount because it's impressive. Around
one hundred fifteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, got one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars we've raised
in the last I guess three months. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
But it also speaks to the challenge too, right, you've
got to raise that much money. I mean, as you
told me, think about all these other city schools and
how are they possibly supposed to do it?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
It was we did the same thing of an Assis.
We had to raise fifteen to twenty thousand dollars a year.
I mean, here's the neked start. Horrible truth is a
lot of these inner city schools they have six region
games and you play ten games a season, and the
four games that they go play against the big, massive, private,
wealthy private schools out in the county. They play those
(12:01):
games because the county pays them five thousand dollars a
game to come be their homecoming queen or their senior
day queen. So the kids are basically being pimped out
on the non conference games to bigger, more powerful, wealthy schools,
so the school can get a check to fund at
the very rudimentary level equipment and buses and officials and
(12:23):
everything else you got to pay for. Because the districts
and these inner city districts don't have the money to
properly fund athletics. Well, I didn't want these kids to
have to go through as much of that, so I
called on a bunch of old supporters and friends and
send an email out. Within probably two months, we had
(12:45):
one hundred and fifteen hundred and twenty thousand dollars and
we've spent about eighty thousand of it already on new equipment.
People realize what a football player walks out on a
football field Friday night. If you count his cleats, his helmet,
his shoulder pads, all his pads, his jersey, his pants,
his gloves, everything he's wearing two thousand dollars. So if
you got forty kids suited up, you gotta have Aty Graham.
(13:06):
It's an expensive thing to do, and a school that
their entire athletic budget from the district is ten thousand
for football, basketball, baseball, girls, soccer, everything else. You do,
car washes, you sell sausage and cheese. You beg borrow,
plead and steel, but even at the end of it,
you're still short. So ultimately your kids go out on
(13:26):
the field improperly equipped. And we've remedied that for at
least middle college, but there's a lot of schools around
that don't have that remedy.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
But the other thing I was going to pay tribute
to you, I think it's very cool that you're not
the head coach. Like a lot of people in your
position who've been the head coach before would not be
willing to go coach again.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
And I don't care about being the head coach. I
just want to work with the kids. I know titles
can bite my butt. I don't care if it's a coordinator, coach,
the headache. For your humanity, I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Know that's true about a lot of coaches, right if
they have any success you're head coaching, they wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
A A lot of people get infatuated with the title coach,
and if you are, I think that's more of a
turkey person thing because you're really not motivated by the
right reasons. I'm motivated by engaging with the kids, watching
them succeed watching them approve, and I'm also motivated by
candidly selfishly. I'm motivated by the fulfillment I get and
(14:27):
watching their success. It's it's phenomenal. So anyway, shot talk
at number sixty four. I'm coaching football again at Middle
College High School in Memphis, Tennessee. I hope you guys
will follow along this season and see how we're doing.
And if you see us getting beat seven to six,
you know our defensive coordinator is great and I suck
because I'm the offensive coordinator. So hopefully they'll score.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Boyds and it'd be a pretty boring game.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, no kidding, it will. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I'm going to replug Sparky Rear in an event Miss
Fans Oxford People August.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
August twenty eight. We're interviewing him about his book, The
Dean Memoirs and Missives. It's going to be awesome. Sparky's amazing,
he's a friend, he's a mentor to me and thousands
of others, and he is one of the funniest, most engaging,
inspiring guys you'd ever want to meet. You are nuts
(15:18):
not to take an opportunity to join us to learn
more about it. And to RSVP. You can go to
sparkyreardon dot event bright dot com, Oxford, Mississippi, August twenty eighth,
y'all you need to engage in it. If you liked
this episode, rate and review it, join the Army at
normal Folks dot us. You can email me anytime with
(15:41):
ideas for shop talk or any stories about people you
think we can highlight on Army and normal folks.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
How about coaches that have impacted you? Email us some
of those stories.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
That's a great idea. If you've had coaches that have
impacted you, tell us who they are on the stories
and how they impacted you. We'd love to highlight stuff
like that because there's nothing more than a normal folk
than a guy that's coaching and or doing that work.
And you know, I hope y'all will do that because
then we can have a shop talk about how we
should treat our coaches. But that's for another day.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Oh, I got a good one for that, Mike Methani.
Do you know the Metheni Manifesto?
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Don't bring it up right now?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Do you know what you know about it?
Speaker 1 (16:21):
I do know about it? Yeah, but yeah, that's a
future shop.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Tal all right. So send those stories to Bill a
normal folks dot us.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, Ratus reviewer, subscribe, become a premium member, normal folks
dot us. What else? That's it? All right? Who wants
to sign us out of here?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Who wants to ring the bells?
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Come on, come on over here, she'd see everything faid
all right, say your name, say well, thanks for joining
us at the shop, and we'll see you next week.
And ring the bell. Dude, I've been Alpi says, thanks
for joining us in this shop. See you next week.
Everybody's Bill Courtney with an army or normal folks. Shop
Talk number sixty four. Welcome into the shop. You brought
your kids back.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I think they're mad that you haven't been letting them
ring the bell turning shop talk. They've been giving you
nasty side ice.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Oh are they? Who's ring the bell?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
How A don't we let Landry give it you first?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Guess?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
First guess first, Landry.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Guess first, Landry. Come on, Landy, get your bought over
here where shop talks open. You gotta let everybody know
ring that thing. All right, there you go, say I'm Landry.
Hold it not yet, say I'm Landry. This is shop
Talk number sixty four. Welcome to the shop, and then
ring the bell. Do it. I'm Landry. This is shop
top number sixty four. Welcome to the shop Talk. There
(00:45):
we go, Landry, welcome to this in number sixty four,
number sixty number of Jerry Kramer. I'll be dad gummed
it is the number Jerry Kramer. All right, So here's
the deal Alex is making me do this shop talk.
I'm going to discuss it begrudgingly again. But at the
opening of every show we talk about how I was
a football coach in inner City Memphis. That led to
(01:07):
a movie called Undefeated, which is basically why you're listening
to me now, because that's what kind of thrust me
out into the public world. I coached for thirty three years,
some of the most rewarding other than my children and
my wife and all of that, probably the most rewarding
things I've happened to be in my life a result
of those thirty three years of coaching and the kids,
many of which are now young men, and just been
(01:31):
a blessing my life. Around around the time my last
son quit playing, I coached for another couple of years,
COVID came, got out of it. Pretty much thought that
was the end of my coaching career because I've got
a business, I got this podcast that Alex makes me do,
other things going on, and that was it. But I'm
coaching football again and back on the field for the
(01:53):
first time in three years as fall and Alex said,
you know, you should tell everybody about that and what
has taught me and what I'm getting from it. So
shop Talk number sixty four when we come back. I'm back, baby,
Coach Bill's back on the sidelines. In just a minute.
We'll see in a second. Okay, everybody, welcome back to
(02:25):
Shop Talk number sixty four. Here's the deal. There's a
school in Memphis called Middle College High School. It's a
public school as college, and the name I'll tell you.
Oh gosh, he's so impatient. Here we go. It's called
Middle College High School. It is a public school, and
it's called a choice school. And the word choice means
(02:47):
you have to choose to go there. It's not in
a district. But the other part of the choice is
the school can choose to let you in or not.
Kids have to take a personal interview with administration. They
have to write and entrance they have taken interest to
XAM and they write an essay about why they want
to attend a good school and what they want to
do with life afters. In addition, the kids there typically
(03:12):
satisfy all graduation requirements by late sophomore year, at late
junior middle junior to late junior year, and they spend
their summers and then their senior year ALEX taking college courses.
It's called Middle College. Oh I learned yesterday in fact,
that they had two kids graduate this year with seventy
(03:37):
hours of college classes. In seventy hours, right, because they're
almost juniors in college. Yes, yeah, because you need one
hundred and twenty to graduate college. Dang, they're going to
save a lot of money. That's it. Not only do
they save a lot of money, think of their their
act scores are off the chart because they're just accelerated
(04:00):
their academics.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, and you're more likely to know what you're doing
in your future.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
That's the other thing that they say is after taking
thirty hours of college credits. Many times they start off
the first semester or two and then they change. But
you know what, that saves them from changing in college.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
There's so many seniors in college you still have no
idea what they're doing. So these guys can experiment an
even younger.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
It's incredible. It's a small, single a school. There's only
about three hundred and fifty kids in it. So here's
what happened. Back when I was at Manassas.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
It's not a big field for a football team.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
It's not small. Yeah. Back at when I was at Manassas,
Middle College existed, but they didn't have a football team.
And so there's a thing called co opting where schools
that don't have football teams, their kids can co op
with another school, and so when I was at Manassas,
I coached kids from Middle College because Middle College was
(04:58):
the co op with Manassas. So that's it. About three
years ago, Lisa and I at a Mexican restaurant, minding
our own business, having a margarite and some chips and
more than that, No, I think I probably got an achelot.
I like cheese achalades. What do y'all like for Mexican?
What's your favorite? I like you like Caesadilla's? Okay? One
(05:22):
vote for cast a malcajette? What's that? You have?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
A malcajette?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I don't even know what the world you just said.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
It's like a really hot stew. Or they put like
chreiso and shrimp and pepper. Then okay, one vote for those.
What do you eat?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
What do you like? Abrito? Good burrito? That's two votes burritos.
But since I'm really pique, usually get the cheeseburger cheese
Mexican cheeseburger. That's great. George, do you like anything Mexican?
Usually does? Casadia? What what fries? Okay, y'all? Are y'all?
(06:02):
Y'all just proved to be quite uninteresting on the Mexican front. Anyway,
I am in the Mexican restaurant Don Tree. Harris walked in.
Don Tree. Harris played linebacker for me at Manassas, but
it was a middle middle college graduate. He uh, he'd
gone on to to Murray What is it Murray State
in Kentucky. It's fine, Murray State and Kentucky and graduated,
(06:26):
went to OTC. Anyway, came back to Memphis, started working
for Middle College. And he said, coach, why don't you
come back out of retirement coach with us? And of
course Lisa was sitting there and her mouth looked like
the end of an uncoked hot dog when he said that,
because she just kind of scrunched up. Wasn't really excited
about me coaching again. And I said, man, that's awesome.
(06:47):
Year past. He called me back and he said, coach,
you're serious, come we'll come back. And so Lisa and
I went by and visited the school and what we
found were bright, hard working, no metal detectors, not a
bunch of institutionalized kids, but kids looking to do something
(07:07):
with themselves, and we fell in love with the organization.
Then I'm at ad and I'm at the administration, and
here is this little school dead in the center of
Memphis that's a public school doing it right. And I
fell in love, and so at Lista and I started
(07:31):
working on our schedules so that this spring I could
coach and this fall I could coach. And I am
now the offensive coordinator Little Single, a middle college high
school football in Memphis, Tennessee. And our first game is
in three weeks and our first scrimmage is Friday, and
(07:54):
I am having a blast. I'm like a eight year
old on Christmas Day. So the other part of it
is I'm coaching kids who don't see athleticism or entertainment
as their quote way out. I'm coaching kids who are
(08:14):
studying their butt off and see a career in some
professional field as their way out, and are playing football
just for the love of the game. And the lessons
of commitment and teamwork and integrity and character and the
value of showing up on time deeply resonate with these
(08:35):
kids because they recognize that those tenants, those fundamentals translate
well to them being successful at the vocation that they
are already starting to concentrate themselves toward. And they are
still fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year old meat headed kids.
But it's such a refreshing reminder of what kids can
(09:00):
be when led, administered to and talught properly. And in
some part their attitude toward life, approach towards school, and
their commitment to the practice and what we do has
reinspired and reinvigorated me, And so I am able to
(09:21):
have my cake and eat it too.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Even you need that inspiration, I do. We all need it,
right with people, after the success you've had and the
acclaim and all that. I mean a lot of people think,
all right, well, you're just an inspired person. But I
think this all the time, like with the stories and
the people we get to meet. I mean, inspires me
every single week, and we all need it.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
I'm a normal dude, we start every show. I'm just
like anybody else. The only difference in me and thousands
of other people doing great stuff across the country is
my story happened to get told. I got a spotlight
put on me. But I'm a normal guy. I have
down days. I need to be inspired to. I need
to be re encouraged because despite the fact that I
call out Fox and CNN and social media and all
(10:02):
that stuff. It permeates into my brain. I read it
and fill it too, and you can get your dobber
in the dirt if you're not careful. And engaging with
these kids has reminded me, just like our guests do,
how rewarding engaging in areas of need where you have
(10:23):
a skill set and a passion can be. And I'm
able to do it and I'm enjoying it. And so
you guys google middle college football and Memphis Tennessee Middle
College High School in Mephic, Tennessee, keep up with us.
This season we open where a little single A school
and we open up with a four A school in Alamo,
(10:44):
Tennessee called Crockett County and they are big and fast,
and we have thirty five kids on the team and
they got about eighty and that's going to be quite
an assignment and a challenge. And then later on the
season we get into region games and I hope to
take them to the state ELFs and go as deep
as we can. And typical situation, inner city school underfunded.
(11:07):
I've raised a lot of money to get new equipment
and to get these kids outfitted as best they can
and the call was answered by a lot of people
in our community to raise money for all the equipment,
the jerseys and stuff. And so we've got that.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
I'm going to say the amount because it's impressive. Around
one hundred fifteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, got one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars we've raised
in the last I guess three months. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
But it also speaks to the challenge too, right, you've
got to raise that much money. I mean, as you
told me, think about all these other city schools and
how are they possibly supposed to do it?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
It was we did the same thing of an Assis.
We had to raise fifteen to twenty thousand dollars a year.
I mean, here's the neked start. Horrible truth is a
lot of these inner city schools they have six region
games and you play ten games a season, and the
four games that they go play against the big, massive, private,
wealthy private schools out in the county. They play those
(12:01):
games because the county pays them five thousand dollars a
game to come be their homecoming queen or their senior
day queen. So the kids are basically being pimped out
on the non conference games to bigger, more powerful, wealthy schools,
so the school can get a check to fund at
the very rudimentary level equipment and buses and officials and
(12:23):
everything else you got to pay for. Because the districts
and these inner city districts don't have the money to
properly fund athletics. Well, I didn't want these kids to
have to go through as much of that, so I
called on a bunch of old supporters and friends and
send an email out. Within probably two months, we had
(12:45):
one hundred and fifteen hundred and twenty thousand dollars and
we've spent about eighty thousand of it already on new equipment.
People realize what a football player walks out on a
football field Friday night. If you count his cleats, his helmet,
his shoulder pads, all his pads, his jersey, his pants,
his gloves, everything he's wearing two thousand dollars. So if
you got forty kids suited up, you gotta have Aty Graham.
(13:06):
It's an expensive thing to do, and a school that
their entire athletic budget from the district is ten thousand
for football, basketball, baseball, girls, soccer, everything else. You do,
car washes, you sell sausage and cheese. You beg borrow,
plead and steel, but even at the end of it,
you're still short. So ultimately your kids go out on
(13:26):
the field improperly equipped. And we've remedied that for at
least middle college, but there's a lot of schools around
that don't have that remedy.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
But the other thing I was going to pay tribute
to you, I think it's very cool that you're not
the head coach. Like a lot of people in your
position who've been the head coach before would not be
willing to go coach again.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
And I don't care about being the head coach. I
just want to work with the kids. I know titles
can bite my butt. I don't care if it's a coordinator, coach,
the headache. For your humanity, I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Know that's true about a lot of coaches, right if
they have any success you're head coaching, they wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
A A lot of people get infatuated with the title coach,
and if you are, I think that's more of a
turkey person thing because you're really not motivated by the
right reasons. I'm motivated by engaging with the kids, watching
them succeed watching them approve, and I'm also motivated by
candidly selfishly. I'm motivated by the fulfillment I get and
(14:27):
watching their success. It's it's phenomenal. So anyway, shot talk
at number sixty four. I'm coaching football again at Middle
College High School in Memphis, Tennessee. I hope you guys
will follow along this season and see how we're doing.
And if you see us getting beat seven to six,
you know our defensive coordinator is great and I suck
because I'm the offensive coordinator. So hopefully they'll score.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Boyds and it'd be a pretty boring game.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, no kidding, it will. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I'm going to replug Sparky Rear in an event Miss
Fans Oxford People August.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
August twenty eight. We're interviewing him about his book, The
Dean Memoirs and Missives. It's going to be awesome. Sparky's amazing,
he's a friend, he's a mentor to me and thousands
of others, and he is one of the funniest, most engaging,
inspiring guys you'd ever want to meet. You are nuts
(15:18):
not to take an opportunity to join us to learn
more about it. And to RSVP. You can go to
sparkyreardon dot event bright dot com, Oxford, Mississippi, August twenty eighth,
y'all you need to engage in it. If you liked
this episode, rate and review it, join the Army at
normal Folks dot us. You can email me anytime with
(15:41):
ideas for shop talk or any stories about people you
think we can highlight on Army and normal folks.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
How about coaches that have impacted you? Email us some
of those stories.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
That's a great idea. If you've had coaches that have
impacted you, tell us who they are on the stories
and how they impacted you. We'd love to highlight stuff
like that because there's nothing more than a normal folk
than a guy that's coaching and or doing that work.
And you know, I hope y'all will do that because
then we can have a shop talk about how we
should treat our coaches. But that's for another day.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Oh, I got a good one for that, Mike Methani.
Do you know the Metheni Manifesto?
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Don't bring it up right now?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Do you know what you know about it?
Speaker 1 (16:21):
I do know about it? Yeah, but yeah, that's a
future shop.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Tal all right. So send those stories to Bill a
normal folks dot us.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, Ratus reviewer, subscribe, become a premium member, normal folks
dot us. What else? That's it? All right? Who wants
to sign us out of here?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Who wants to ring the bells?
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Come on, come on over here, she'd see everything faid
all right, say your name, say well, thanks for joining
us at the shop, and we'll see you next week.
And ring the bell. Dude, I've been Alpi says, thanks
for joining us in this shop. See you next week.
Host
Bill Courtney
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