Masters in Coaching Podcast- Episode XL

Tim Cates talks with long time Santa Ana HS Wrestling Coach Scott Glabb about his decades of success in the sport. Scott is a Wrestling Hall of Fame Coach for the work he did helping his student athletes on and off the mat. Read his book "A Saint In The City." Scott also teaches classes at CUI and their Masters in Coaching and Athletics Administration Program.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Three decades as a coach a teacher, he's a Hall of Fame wrestling coach,
an author, and he joins usnow on episode forty of the Masters
in Coaching podcast Let's Go Well,welcome into episode number forty of our Masters
in Coaching podcasts here on iHeart RadioYouTube wherever you may be watching and listening

(00:24):
to bull components of our interview thisweek. We are so glad that you
joined us and we are excited towelcome in our guest. Twenty nine years
at sant Anna High School as ateacher and wrestling coach, compiled over four
hundred wins. Coach thirty six individualCIF champions, fifty six state qualifiers,
eighteen state place winners. He's coachedtwo National champion wrestlers. One of his

(00:46):
former wrestlers went on to fight forthe UFC and analysts for ESPN. He's
been named the sant Anna Unified SchoolDistrict Teacher of the Year, semi finals
for the Orange County Teacher of theYear Award. He's a two time recipient
of the California State Coaches Wrestling Award. He's in ducked into the National Wrestling
Hall of Fame back in twenty fourteen, and he's been involved with the Fellowship
of Christian Athletes since nineteen ninety two. And he's got a great book that

(01:10):
we're going to get into, calleda Saint in This City. He is
Scott lab and he joins us nowhere on the Masters and Coaching Podcast.
Scott, Welcome, Thanks, thanksfor having me. I enjoy doing these.
Thanks Tim, Did I get everythingin? You've had a long,
illustrious career coaching and teaching. That'sa mouthful, but mid you've been super
successful and we just appreciate you comingon today. Yeah, you know,

(01:33):
I've been really blessed. Yeah,this was a Southern California was the last
place I ever wanted to end upliving in or working in. So it's
definitely been life changing and we hadhad to go out of great success at
Santa High School. We got alot to get into your career teaching and
coaching. Get into what your involvementwith Concordia University Irvine. You've been there

(01:56):
since twenty eleven. You've created anew class that you teach, and you
teach multiple classes there, so we'regetting into that. We're to get into
the book as well. I know, it's very successful and great. Let's
just get into you. And howhow does a guy from the Pacific Northwest
end up in Santa Anna, California. Well, I graduated from Eastern Washington

(02:17):
University Cooper Cup and I got outand I went back to my old high
school and my dream was to teachand coach where I went to school.
And I went back and I substitutetodd and I volunteered coach. And then
the opening came up for a headwrestling coach, and my old high school

(02:38):
coach, you know, recommended me, and I thought this was it.
I'm gonna fulfill my dream here.And they didn't hire me. I was
young. I was twenty three,twenty four years old. Back I understand
they hired somebody that they said paidtheir due, And so I was a
little bit lost at the time,and I was also going through a depressed

(03:00):
I was dealing with some really toughself image issues and then not having a
purpose. I ended up being admittedinto a psychiatric carry unit on a fifty
one fifty and a fifty one fiftieswhen you're a danger to yourself or somebody
else, and spent a few daysthere and when I got out, I
realized, hey, I've either gotto turn things around or you know,

(03:22):
just ended all. And I hada girlfriend that lived down here in southern
California. She was in Orange County, and she just said, hey,
what do you got to lose?And I had a sister that was living
down here, and she was right, what do I have to lose?
I didn't have any other opportunities inWashington. No other jobs were opening up.
When I applied, I wasn't gettinginterviews. So yeah, I ended

(03:45):
up moving to the place I dreadedmost, Southern California, and just kind
of roding my bike around during theday looking for work. This is pretty
sad. I brought a snow combemachine with me, and I ended up
selling snow cones out in front ofstores just make a few bucks. So
here's two college degrees and a dreamof being a coach and a teacher,
and I'm out selling snow cones tostrangers just to make a few bucks.

(04:11):
So times were pretty rough, prettyrough when I got to southern California.
And then I picked up a jobat Marina High School for a couple of
years, and during that whole time, I was working through my depression.
I was getting some counseling, Iwas taking some things personal, and it
just didn't seem like it was agood fit for me at Marina. So
I quit. And then the athleticdirector at Marina goes, well, Santa

(04:34):
Anna High School is looking for awrestling coach. I go sant Anna.
I don't even like driving through SantaAnna, let alone work in sant Anna.
But I had no other options,no other opportunities. And I went
in and shook hands with the athleticdirector and he said, you're hired.
And I said, you didn't askme any questions and applied for the job.
You're it. And some wondering what'sgoing on here that I don't know

(04:59):
about. That's kind of how Iended up at sant Anna. So you're
there for twenty nine years, you'reteaching and coaching, and you're coaching wrestling.
Do you have a wrestling background orwas that something when you when you
decided, hey, I want togo teach, and I got my degrees,
and you know, I'm trying tofigure out my life. Coaching was
going to be something that you weregoing to continue to do, right.

(05:19):
I wrestled to high school and atsixteen, I remember in the wrestling room
I decided I wanted to be ateacher and a coach. Also in college
at Pacific University and forced grow byagain. I was there for a couple
of years. It was a prettystrong NIA school and best for the Eastern
Washington University and finish step wrestling thereand even coached up there for a year.

(05:40):
So wrestling. I didn't have afather growing up. My parents were
divorced, He wasn't around, hedidn't spend a lot of time with me.
So wrestling kind of gave me thatcommunity, that family, the coaches
to look up to like father figures. So it really kind of gave me
something to latch onto that to fillthat void that I didn't have with my

(06:03):
relationship with my father. Do youthink, Scott, that background that you
had and going to wrestling is thatoutlet is maybe something that you were drawn
to Santa Anna for because of thestudents at that school, maybe some of
their backgrounds and going through life atthat time for them individually, you were
that right person who's lived it,done it, felt it, know what

(06:27):
it's like, and now you canpour into these kids at that time,
absolutely I think it was just allpart of the big plan, God's plan
he has just I think a lotof what I went through, the depression,
being suicidal, not having a fatheraround, my father was an alcoholicing,
getting involved in drugs. I thinkall that kind of prepared me and

(06:50):
got me ready to walk into SantaAna High School because those problems that I
just matched along with hundreds of othersI was faced with. I mean,
and that's why I wrote the book. I wrote the book to explain to
other people, Hey, this iswhat's going on when you're not growing up,
you know, in a middle classor upper middle class era, you

(07:11):
don't realize the real issues kids aredealing with. And they're still showing up
every day going to school and walkingout on that wrestling match when they're fighting
their own matches at home or inthe streets. So yeah, absolutely that
experience definitely helped me. Scott glabis joining us here episode forty of the
Masters and Coaching Podcast, longtime teacher, coach, Hall of Fame coach in

(07:34):
wrestling at Santa Ana High School.All right, you take over the program,
Scott, What was it like whenyou took over? What was the
state of the program at that time, the state of the program. They
only brought in like football coaches tocoach. There wasn't anybody in that program
that was really there that had apassion for the sport. It was just

(07:54):
you're picking and choosing different guys inthe building that hey, you was wrestling
this year, now you're gonna coachwrestling. And they had a few walk
on coaches, nobody that really hada passionate love for the sport. From
what I remember, it was amess, to be honest with you,
I had about thirty kids, andI didn't understand the Hispanic culture. I'm
a corn fed white boy from Washington. I get down here and I'm getting

(08:16):
excuses like I've got to go interpretfrom my mom at the doctor, and
I've got to go pay the phonebill. And it's like, why does
your mom need you to go tothe doctor with her? And why can't
you just put a check in themail instead of walking to to you know,
pay the bills. And so therewas a lot to learn. There
was a lot for me to understandhow that culture worked. And because I

(08:39):
had a certain way of thinking,and you show up to practice every day
and you put one hundred percent inand there are no excuses, And it
definitely it wasn't like that at all. It was totally the opposite. Did
it take some time to adjust foryou at that point? Did you have
to adjust to them and they hadto adjust to you? Yeah, well
I had to adjust to them first. I had to start being a little

(09:00):
bit more lenient and understand the circumstancesthat I was dealing with. And all
the excuses. These kids would showup, but they just had a lot
of things going on in their lifethat took them away practice, so they
couldn't practice the whole time that wewere there. Luckily, we had a
six period athletic period, so theywould all show up for that, but

(09:22):
then of course the excuses would start. For instance, we would have a
two day tournament and Friday they allshowed up to go wrestle. At the
tournament, we got smashed. ThenSaturday rolls around and we got to get
up at six in the morning andhalf the team's gone, and they go,
where is everybody where? Did everybodygo? Oh? Glad? They
only wanted to go on Friday becausethey got out of school to go wrestle,

(09:43):
And so it's like Oh, that'sgot a change because showing up with
half a team. You need fourteenguys and we're showing up with seven.
It's impossible to win any kind ofdual meet. So yeah, and then
we had the perception of being thugs, these vandals. They they were recognized
for going into schools and breaking intolockers and vandalizing things. We had a

(10:05):
really poor reputation and so it wasreally difficult to be invited to wrestling tournaments
because of that reputation. How longdid it take to then get that program
turned around, maybe get the kidsfocused coming back on Saturdays for two day
meet, start winning and changing thatreputation for the Santa and And wrestling team.

(10:28):
So this is kind of a miraclethat took a probably about a year.
I started getting them to show upfor those two day tournaments. What
you have to do when you're coachingat Santa and As you got to get
on the phone. You got tostart calling kids at six thirty seven in
the morning to get them to showup that morning to get and if needbe,
I was sending coaches out to gopick those kids up at home.

(10:50):
I didn't I didn't believe there's alot of the philosophy that, well,
if they're not here, then theydon't want to go. Well, maybe
they're not here because they don't havea parent at home to wake them up,
or maybe they're not home because theydon't have an alarm clock, or
maybe they don't have a ride.So you got all those things into considerations.
So that was pretty hands on whenit came to tracking these kids down.
And if I had to go totheir house and knock on the door

(11:11):
and find out why they have beenshown up, then that's what I would
do. But we were like eleven. We were like eleven and sixteen.
My first year we beat teams similarto ours, and then the following year
we were twenty six and three.So I'm going to holy cow. Huntington
Beach High School beat us seventy sixto nothing my first year, and then

(11:33):
beat us by six my second year, and then the third year we beat
them, and it just from thatthird year on when we won league.
We had won twenty six league time. We won a league title every year
until I retired, So it wasjust I don't know, it's hard to
explain how it just kept continuing tobe a success. There's a lot as
you just talked about. That goesinto maintaining a program, to building a

(11:56):
program, and then to win aprogram. And not to say that winning
is the win all be all here, but winning helps kind of fixed things
and kind of helps like, Okay, hey, it's worth getting up now,
It's it's worth wooting in the extraeffort in Hey, I'm gonna get
all my stuff done I need to, but I'm gonna make sure I get
my butt to wrestling practice and makesure I get to the meets. Did

(12:18):
winning help that? Did you noticeafter that year one where you guys year
two were winning and winning again andagain and again. Did that help the
program help the kids? Oh?Yeah, I mean at the time the
football team was winning a little bit, but other than that, the schools
really struggling in the early nineties withwins because we're in the Sunset League,
so we're in there with Edison andHuntington and Bell and Marino, some really

(12:43):
tough schools in Orange County. Soabsolutely winning does help. They have a
little pride tradition, and once thatguy going, more and more kids would
come out. I got up toone hundred and twenty five kids one year
team yeah, and once the wordspreads and people realize you're winning. I

(13:05):
think the most important part was peoplerealized I cared that I love those boys.
You know, I forgave them.It was easy for me to forgive
them, whether they stab me inthe back once, two times, three
times. I gave kids second andthird chances that would quit, and then
they wanted to come back. Ijust like the coaching program being transformational and

(13:28):
trying to change lives and make adifference. And you know, yeah,
we got all these rules as coaches, and we want to follow all these
rules, and if you don't followthe rules, you're off the team.
But that kind of stuff doesn't work. And when kids realize I got a
quote, nobody cares what you knowuntil they know that you care. And
I think when those boys realize,hey, this guy isn't walking out of
our lives. This this man's stickingaround. And I was consistent every day

(13:52):
and I followed through. And oneof the biggest things I tried to teach
them as to be a man inyour word, if you make your sps
and you know, B knows.So there's a lot of those little mantras
that I would have to throw inthere and and try to get them to
buy into And so you have tobe a pretty good salesman too. Not
only you're a coach, but youare a father figure for a lot of
these kids pouring into on and offthe mat. But uh, you know,

(14:15):
making them turn from boys into menand grow up and be accountable and
take responsibility for things, which ispart of coaching. And I think some
people get into coaching may not understandthat that is part of it. It's
not just going out and doing xsand os and holding a two hour practice
and going out and trying to getwus and at the end of the year,
see what your record is and whatthe act of the awards are going
to be. It's it's building thesekids characters. It's building these kids and

(14:39):
holding them up and holding them accountable. And that's awesome. And you did
it in the sport that isn't football, isn't baseball, isn't basketball. But
Russell, you had one hundred andtwenty five kids come out one year.
I'm blowing away by that. Yeah, well, I was like I was
over a hundred. For about tenfifteen years, over one hundred kids would
come out. It was a rureally difficult to manage. But I just

(15:03):
hey, you know, I gota bigger impact your influence. The more
kids that come out, the largerthe influence the coach can have. So
uh, you know, in wrestling, there are no cuts, okay,
and they cut themselves. It's sucha tough sport. It's so demanding,
and we were a year round program. I expected them to wrestle in the
spring and the summer. Uh,in the fall. They worked hard and

(15:24):
so you know, eventually those kidswould cut themselves. That didn't didn't think
it was gonna be a fit forthem. Just twenty eleven, you've been
a professor at the Masters in Athleticsand Coaching Administration program at Concordia University,
Irvine, and and since then you'vetaught class. If you actually created a
class there, the faith based coachingclass there in the Master's program, talk

(15:48):
a little bit about your involvement,how you got involved, and and why
you felt like you needed to createa class outside the wrestling class on the
faith faith based coaching. I wasa student there from two thousand and seven
to two thousand and nine. Ineeded a master's I needed to go up
on the pay skill I mean,hey, this is a perfect fit Masters
in coaching, athletic administration. Maybesomeday I want to be an athletic director.

(16:12):
It was a great fit. Andback then it was all in person
and it was fun going to theclasses and meeting other coaches. And so
after I was almost finished up,Tom White came up and says, glad
you're going to be teaching after Ohokay, And so I started off with
the wrestling class and those were inperson in this summer, and then they

(16:33):
moved to online, and then Iwent to I've been involved with Fulship Christian
Athletes for a long time and havea real good relationship with the guys in
charge around here, and so Iwent out to a three dimensional coaching workshop
in the Missouri where FCA is based. I was really inspired at that workshop
to come back and try to developa class that had the concepts and ideals

(16:57):
of the three dimensional coach. Andthree dimensional coaching is some coaches. Most
coaches coach fundamentals, like you said, the exes and ohs, and the
coaches coach the mind, which ismotivation, but only five percent of coaches
and coach the heart that's building relationships. So I decided to come back and
use some of those elements from threedimensional coaching and some of the stuff I

(17:21):
learned and develop a class called faithbased coaching and how to insert your faith
as a coach, How to bea servant leader, you know, how
to care about kids, how tobuild those relationships, why those relationships are
important, and then for the mostpart, if you do that, the
winning will come, and if thewinning doesn't come, the relationships are lifetime.
I love my alumni. I lovemy Santa An alumni. I love

(17:45):
getting together and going out to eatwith them. I love just hanging out
with them and being invited to thingsand barbecues and et cetera. So it
really, really it explains after you'vedone your thirty years of coaching and then
they all come back and still wantto keep in touch with you. It

(18:07):
really touches you and helps you realizeas a coach that you know, I
did what I was supposed to do, make an impact. And funny you're
describing that, and I think backto my coaches in high school. We're
going back twenty five twenty six yearsJohn Burrow High School in Burbank and a
baseball coach who I still text witha couple of days ago who's now the
athletic director at that high school,and just kind of communicate with about things

(18:32):
happening, whether it's just sports orjust things happening in life. And then
I think of other coaches I've hadthat, you know, didn't didn't invest
in me and didn't put that effortinto building a relationship on and off the
field, that I don't talk toyou anymore, And I look back at
it's like they didn't. They didn'tdo much for me. I didn't,
you know, outside of yelling alot and demanding a lot of things on

(18:52):
the field. They didn't. Theydidn't really care about me much more than
that. And I think about mybaseball coach who who did, And you're
right, it's the more you canpour in with the heart on the field
and off the field. It's It'ssomething I think coaches don't understand, and
some of them it may take afew years for young coaches to figure that
because they're they're so locked in.And I got my first head coaching job.

(19:14):
I want to win. I wantto beat this other team. I
want to be successful. I wantto be the coach of the year.
So that they put all the otherstuff aside for the kids. Right,
I put on myself with and winningtwo when I first got to sant Ana,
because I wanted to fit into theOrange County culture here and and that
wasn't happening. And so this isthis is how I remember the Lord spoke

(19:36):
to me one day and said,you're never gonna win at sant Ana,
so invest time in these kids.And I thought to myself, while I
became a Christian at thirteen years old, that worked for me, So why
not. I got the FCA going, started sending an FCA camp, raising
money to take them there, andyou know, getting them to church and
retreats and and and then it waslike wow, it just kind of just
total flip. Everything just flipped.So for me it was like I gotta

(20:00):
keep that focus. I gotta keepthose relationships. I can't get focused on
winning because I think it'll be takenaway from me once I quit investing in
kids. All right. Scott talkeda little bit about a Saint in This
City the book. When did youstart with the idea of writing a book?
How long did it take? Wherecan people find it? And I
know Jay Moore a good friend comediansand wrestling coach fully endorses as well.

(20:25):
Oh yeah, okay. So andI had a lot of people go,
hey, you got good stories.You ought to write a book. You
ought to write a book. Andthen I'm thinking, you know, I
don't want any regrets, so Idon't want to be like seventy five sitting
in my rocking chair, going,man, I should have wrote a book.
So I got starting about oh three, and then I got discouraged.

(20:47):
About two thousand and nine, Iwas I was getting discouraged, and I
just thought, who's gonna want thisand who's gonna read it? And then
I went to the NCAA's and someguy was selling a book. It was
a nonfiction and it was called NearFalling. I read through and I go,
this guy can do it, thenI can do it. So I
got motivated again and hammered it outand got it first published in twenty ten

(21:08):
through a company out of Oklahoma.But then they went bankrupt and they weren't
paying our royalties to us, soin twenty eighteen I had to start all
over again and redo the whole book, and I added chapters about girls wrestling,
because Goals Wrestling has taken off andwe had two goals win state titles.
So I did a couple chapters onthem. Because those goals had just

(21:30):
as much adversity and hardships as theboys, so I did a couple chapters
on them. I just want it, Like I said earlier, I want
people in the Midwest, people thatare playing sports somewhere, are wrestling somewhere,
understand that like my sons, theydon't get how hard it is for
some of these boys to grow up. They don't get that they're barely making

(21:52):
ends meet. They're struggling. Andthere's one boy out of my son's team.
I retired from Santa and went overto the Coasta Mesa to help out
over there. And there's one kidon our team who has to pour water
in the toilet every time he usesit, and he hasn't had a fridge
for three or four years, andyou know, sleeps in the same bed

(22:14):
with his mom because it's a studioapartment. That's the kind of stuff that
people don't understand yet. This kidgets up every day, he goes to
school, and he comes to practicing. He works hard. So that's kind
of why I wrote the book,And I want other people to be a
saint in their city. I wantto see other educators and coaches mentor these
kids, invest in these kids,build relationships, just pour into them.

(22:34):
And in the back of the book, I have letters from kids about what
the sport has done for them andhow the sport of wrestling helped and what
some of their circumstances were in situations. But that's basically what I wanted to
do, is just let people knowthings are a lot different, you know
in the inner city and urban urbanareas for kids outside of teaching back in

(22:56):
Cordia, and you said you're helpingout at Costa Mesa. What else are
you up to now? After twentynine years of teaching and coaching, you
do deserve a little downtime. Well, I was so worried about downtime that
I took on way too many things. You know. I was doing the
Concordia thing. I'm doing that,and then I set up my son's school

(23:17):
sometimes so I can keep tabs onthem. There's two of them there,
one place baseball. One wrestled,and I'm a commissioner in the city of
Costa Mesa. I played for thatjob and so I have that and just
on a couple other committees on I'mon the Athletic Council at Vanguard University because
they started a wrestling program and Ihelped them find a coach and they're starting
girls wrestling here pretty soon. Soyeah, I'm keeping pretty busy. I'm

(23:41):
gonna I have to say no toa few things now. Well, three
plus decades coaching teaching, you're aHall of famer. You continue to do
great work with the young folk,and we thank you so much for joining
us here on our fortieth episode ofThe Masters and Coaching Podcast. Scott,
thank you so much, continue success. I forgot you asked me where to

(24:03):
find the book. It's on Amazon. You can just go to Amazon type
of saintan the city in and itshould pop up down Amazon and see e
book and a paperback. And I'mworking on audio right now, so perfect.
No. I appreciate you having meon and I love sharing this story
and hopefully maybe it can inspire someof these young coaches, like you said
to kind of, you know,turn the corner a little bit and start

(24:25):
focusing on on their athletes. Well, I'm convinced this is going to be
a Disney movie in a few years. That's another. That's a little podcast
already. Have you thought about Scott, who's gonna play you? Oh man,
Jack Black. That's great. God, thank you so much, Thank

(24:49):
you for joining us, and continuesuccess. All right, take care of
thank you. Well, there hegoes Scott Glad. Wow. What a
story. From the Pacific Northwest toSanta Anna, to selling snow cones on
the street, to coaching and teachingthree decades as a wrestling coach at Santa
Ana High School. He's a Hallof Fame coach. Wow. Check out

(25:11):
his book, A Saint in theCity. You can find it on Amazon,
Barnes and Noble. A Saint inthe City. You could also find
out more also through the Masters inCoaching Athletics Administration Program at Concordia University,
Irvine. He is a professor there. Check out his wrestling class and his
faith based coaching class as well atConcordia University, Irvine. Again, the

(25:32):
California Coaches Conference is coming up.Registration is open. It's June twenty seventh
through July one. Learn from someof the most innovative experts in their field.
Their nine sports specific courses plus strength, speed conditioning sessions check it all
out at Cui dit Eedu slash coaching, CUI dot edu slash coaching. Thanks
to Scott Glapp. Thanks to youfor listening and watching. Until next time.

(25:56):
Episode forty of the Masters in Coachingpodcast is in the book Books.
Tim Cat's saying, so long everybody, m hm