Put me in coach a chat with Ron McIntyre season 4 Episode 9

Hosts Dan and Scott Jones sit down with Ron McIntyre—former educator, football coach, and now published author. They reflect on McIntyre's long-standing relationship with the hosts' family, his upbringing in Edmonton, Alberta, and his coaching and teaching career at McNally High School. The conversation is informal and personal, touching on discipline, mentorship, and legacy.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to another episode of Justice on Justice and I
was host by Scott Scholtz.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Here is my baby brother, Darn.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Jones, who's had a busy podcasting day down. He is
now on his third podcast and now his co host Blas.
When he was a guest on my other one on Unscripted,
and before that he was I don't know what do
you call yourself a guest or co hosts on that
one with Shame.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
It's a yeah, co host a social free on eight
eighty ten.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
So your podcast had just hitting a giant peak here
podcasting today. So we are very lucky to have Ron McIntyre,
who is a published author. That's not words I would
have said back in the day if I'm honest, but
no offense.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
We know wrong.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
For a long time, he was our teacher and football
coach back in the day with min Alley High School,
and then he actually was a coach for both my
boys as they went through mint Alley High School. So
there's kind of a lot of interwoven and interconnecting.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
This was wrong in our family. So thanks too much
for being here. We really appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
Well, thanks for having me. It's going to be an
interesting chat I hope it'll only be interesting if you
ask me tough questions, So feel free.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
So why was I the favorite over Downing? You did
what you were told all of the time. It doesn't
make you a better person. That Nazis were good at
that too, right.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
So, so you were an educator for a long time
in football, coach at start wherever you want to kind
of start.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Back in the day, and how you came up, Like
where are you from? What's your origin story?

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I guess?

Speaker 4 (01:43):
Okay, So I'm an edma to alberta guy, and my
father was a policeman like yours was. In fact, my
dad said that I have to ask your dad sometime
about a sergeant he had a long time ago, and
it wasn't my father was another guy. But I guess
the guy was kind of a miserable fella, and your

(02:04):
dad wanted to take him apart and it wouldn't have
been good for his career, so my dad talked him
out of it. And that's probably going back to the
early sixties. So I grew up.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
My parents split up when I was twelve or thirteen.

Speaker 4 (02:21):
But I always knew I was going to play football
because my dad played football in Saskatchewan. I was just
that's almost as simple as it is. I just I
was always enamored with the game. And then in high
school I switched this high school. I went from Harry
Ainley to Scona, and I ran into Jim Gilfillan, who
later became your coaches. And he was a transformational figure

(02:44):
in my life and a lot of other young men's lives.
And so Jim and I so how I ended up.
But now I went to Calgary, and he got me
back to Edmonton, which I wanted to do.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
He hired me at McNally, got me hired in eighty eight.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
And Ron Shepherd was a principal, and he was an
old Scona guy, so I kind of knew him, but
I was always in trouble with him when he was
the assistant principal, so I was a little surprised that
he went to bat for me anyway. And then so
I got to I got to coach, and I got
sorry about that.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I got to coach and teach.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
Social studies alongside Gift, and we became friends and until
his death a few years ago, and he was a
great mentor great friend. And yeah, so we so the
Jones boys and I had something in common. We were
both coached by that fella and playing a great game

(03:46):
and what else can I tell you? And then I
ran on the stairs. You were training for Whistler.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yes, but I want to jump in there because I
actually have to worry and I don't know why this
stuck with me. So Jim Gillfillon transformational character in my
life as well, one of the greatest people I've ever known.
And for some reason, he told me a story about you,
and for some reason it's stuck in my brain. And
you were a coach at the time. So he pulled

(04:14):
me aside because he always kind of stood off to
the side. He wasn't quotes that were the coaches and
the players were. He kind of had his own space.
So I kind of would just drift over there because
they like being around him. And he's like, yeah, young
Rond Knockintyre was a player of mine, and he had
some troubles, like he had trouble kind of performing and
had a little anti authority issue.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
And he said a simple thing.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Was Ron was on the field and he wouldn't tie
up his laces his football. He was cleats and giff
Is like, hey, Ron you're lacist, and you just looked
at him and you're like whatever, and then you drip
and fallow whatever, and he reminds you again, and then
he said something like I don't know if you remember this.
He's like, you can't make me not like you, or
you can. He probably said, there's nothing you can do

(04:58):
that will make me love you. He probably in those
words and super calm and super chill. And then you
started tying your races like.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
He just had that subtle way of you.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
I would rather die on the football field than disappoint him,
and I just supported him a couple.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Of times with my rage from the field. Yeah, you
had you had a temper. Yeah. But the thing is
about he had a.

Speaker 4 (05:22):
Real strong background in psychology, and he had his demons
that he had to conquer as well. So he he
understood the adolescent male. He had a gift for that.
The adolescent male exists in a it's almost a permanent
state of chaos. And he kind of knew if you

(05:46):
if you think that about a teenage boy, you know,
and what they're going through hormonally and all that other stuff,
and the you know, like, what what.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Does my future look like?

Speaker 4 (05:56):
As a sixteen seventeen year old guy, Will you instinctively
know that women aren't going to marry a guy You're
not You're not going to be a high sought after
prize if you're collecting social assistance. You got to have
a career, You got to you got to get your
act together. Jim understood that. He understood where we were,
and he operated from the context of you take the

(06:21):
kid where he's at, and it doesn't matter if.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
He's really low or really high, but the object.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
Is to maximize their potential and growth, and that means
you have to be forgiving.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
But on the other I don't know if Jim ever
did this to you.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
But when he got the face mask and he pulled
you in, there is in the cover of the book
that guy is Roger Bergs when he's six. When Gift
got into your face and said that is not acceptable,
that line meant more than a guy screaming at you
in front of a team.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
So he built that connection. And yeah, and he was
really good. Yeah, he was really good at what he did.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, he grabbed my after my third unnecessary rock penalty
in a row. I had forty five yards of penalties
on three successive plays and I got pulled off and
he grabbed my face and he was very mad at me.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
So he was like his eyeballs.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Were two inches away from my eyeballs and he was
kind of the spitting yelling and then basically go.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Out a seat and then you just have a seat.
And just thought like I was made out of lap up.
But then I never did it because he basically, you're
hurting the team.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
This is more about you, Like he gave you a
life lesson cutting through the red. That's all I was
seeing that.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
I was again a bit of a hot heart, but yeah,
he knew what to do. So how did that then
inform your being a teacher?

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Like just did you want to be a teacher forever?
Or is it did he have a role and you
wanted to do upward?

Speaker 2 (07:51):
For I was always a history guy when I was
a kid.

Speaker 4 (07:54):
I would read stuff and I was just I really
like different things around different periods of history.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
And then what do you do with a history degree?

Speaker 4 (08:03):
And I always liked football, and I did little coaching
while I was in university as well as playing. And
I was always very cognizant of the impact teacher or coach,
but I hate to say this. In my evolution a
good coach, when I use the word transformational, you might
hear that one hundred more times. A good coach has

(08:26):
got you because you love the game. You love the contact,
the physicality, being with your mates. Danny was a great teammate,
as I recall, because he would he made it fun.
Dan made it fun to go to practice. You need
guys like that, and at any level, from the pros
I've worked with right down to the battam guys. If

(08:50):
there's so much about football, so the coach then has
kind of got a hook into you. And especially if
the coach can be a little positive with you themistic
about your future and maybe a bit of humor or
a smile at the right time.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
You've got a chance. So I was. I had great
coaches in university too.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
I had Frank Cozantino, who won national championships.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
I went to York and we had some success out there.

Speaker 4 (09:18):
We didn't win a national championship, but you could just
these guys they can change lives.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
And so then with your history degree, what do you do.
While it was kind of a natural to go into
teaching and coaching, I coached right up until in my fifties.
So and I'm back at McNally this fault. Oh yeah,
I gotta gotta get after it again.

Speaker 4 (09:45):
There's many there are not many sorry, not many inner
city schools playing football anymore. McNally he's now an inner
city school. Stuff got to and they got good kids.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
Sorry, no, no, no, it's funny. I two things. I
just went to McNally the other day. I I popped
in there that I was driving by. I had a
feeling I wanted to go in there.

Speaker 4 (10:04):
I went.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
I went to talk to the office. They gave me
a once a Tiger, always a Tiger key chain, and
I walked around the school and other than some paint,
it's not much has changed since nineteen ninety two when
I graduated. I was just gonna say, you talked about
transformational coaches, and Ron you were definitely one of those.
You and Giff I put you guys in the same
category one hundred percent. And then there's the coaches. And

(10:28):
this is I'm not trying to this isn't in any
way trying to be smirch anybody. But then there's the
coaches that are the technical coaches or whatever, right and
not saying that you weren't technically sound because you're both
but you and Giff had that ability to connect with
the players. And if it weren't for you and gif
and for me, Larry DeFraine was one of those people
as well when because he spent a lot of time
with the defensive backs and that's what I was. But

(10:51):
then you get the you know, the kind of the
coach that is all about the game, all about the
technical stuff, but doesn't have necessarily the same connection with
the with the players. And how do you like when
you're in that and you see that, how do you
manage that? Like when when there's some coaches that just
don't connect.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
So yeah, and.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
Went while you were talking, I was thinking of police
officers and why is it that some guys can build
those connections others can't. Some don't seem too concerned by
not having them either, But the older I get a
couple of business like I spoke with the Rotarians and

(11:40):
the Rotary Club and.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
They you know the book.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
One of the guys read the book and before the
talk and he said, the connection is everything. It's a connection.
And he was a car salesman, he owned a dealership.
The connection is everything. Why is it? You're right, you
have technicians. They can understand the subject matter. They can
understand football and the x as and o's.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
How do you build it? Where's the humanity?

Speaker 4 (12:14):
Like?

Speaker 2 (12:14):
How do you build that.

Speaker 4 (12:16):
Connectedness that's spending time with athletes a little bit, you know,
pulling the guy aside and you know, might be just
saying to a kid you know as your girlfriend blind.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
But the silly stuff like that, and you know, you
make your inwroads, but.

Speaker 4 (12:38):
I don't know, you get a sense from people when
they care about you. And I walked into car dealerships
where I felt like the guy was going to try
and meet my needs and if they weren't there, he
would point me to another dealership. Well, that guy's going
to get recommendations and he's going to get my business
in the future if things change.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
So that's how that's the billion dollar question, Dan.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
And I, damn, we may come back to it later.
I'm trying to think back to one of the things
that Gift died as an athlete. You guys can comment
on this is if you missed a tackle or something,
at least you were out there with the helmet and
shoulder pads trying to make the tackle and maybe your

(13:27):
feet stopped moving, or maybe your head was on the
wrong side, or maybe you didn't run through the tackle.
But he would make sure to tell you, you know,
you did two things right. What would you fix And
you'd say, well, I should have had my head in front.
But there was always a sense of optimism and positivity,
and that was when. That's how I tried to model it.

(13:50):
And I modeled that after a gift, that I couldn't
just go into.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
A dressing room and tell kids everything they were doing wrong.

Speaker 4 (13:56):
And I could never go in And you know, you
put me in the same stratus as a gift, that's
very nice.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
But I don't ever think of that.

Speaker 4 (14:03):
I just know how I could operate and how I
could sleep at night, and if it was crapping all
over adolescent nails because they weren't all Tom Brady's or
Wes Welkers.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
I didn't want any part of that.

Speaker 4 (14:15):
I didn't want any part of the beatdown mentality on
kids because that's not how I would I couldn't function
like that, and I was. I was fairly troubled, but
I just I couldn't do it. I mean, I think
some coaches are successful doing it.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
I just.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
Part of that, I think is all three of us
are a little bit with a contrarian streak.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
And really, if you have a coach who and we.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Had coaches even blackguardy there who, that's all they do
is shit on you. Pretty soon you're like, oh, fuck yourself,
like you now your words mean nothing to me because
every time you talk to me, it's some bullshit and
I have no no interesting in listening to that person.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
And there were coaches that.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
Will not stop back then, ayhere like that. The ones
who you listened to were, like you said, were there, Yeah,
here's what you do differently this okay, well here's what
you did right. But there also was an authenticity to
how you coached, how your fellow coach, how a number
of other high level coaches were because you knew you
weren't bullshitting either, right well in sunshiny rainbows where you're.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Like, oh no, that was really good, when you're like, oh,
I was terrible. So you knew that when.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
You were given the feedback, it came to a place,
like you said, of caring, but it was actually an
authentic observation.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
I was yeah, and I'm trying to think.

Speaker 4 (15:30):
In fact, when it got really bad with me and
coaches in my last year at university, that brought up
a guy from the States and he didn't know much
about me, and I didn't know much about him, but
I almost try and screw him.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
And the same thing.

Speaker 4 (15:45):
I had a coach in high school that I didn't
particularly care for, but it got to the point where
not only am I not going to play for you,
but I may try and hurt you. And as an
adelaide us, you know that kind of mentality where you know,
to be a substitute teacher in a junior high school

(16:05):
or high school can get pretty rough. Sometimes you're dealing
with a person in chaos or the adolescent is it's tough.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
So yeah, no, I totally get it.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah, it's interesting too. Like Scotty was talking about, you
have the coaches that just shiit on us. And it
was funny because we'd win a game and then and
then and then one of the coach would shoo on
you for winning the game because you didn't win the
game enough, And I'm like, what the fuck is that?
But the guys like you and Giff and and for

(16:38):
me deframe you guys would mitigate it. You guys would realize,
I'm sure it's in a very very quick level. You
would realize what the coach, that coach is saying isn't
landing with a bunch of the players or with some
of the players. So you would come in after the fact,
you wouldn't say anything about the coach. You wouldn't saying
what they said. But you guys would mitigate it, and

(16:58):
you would turn it, and you would turn it. You
turn on the positivity doll. And I always like later
in life, I wondered, like, did you guys do that
on purpose? Was that like a good bad cop thing,
or was it that that was the way that person was,
And you guys knew in order to motivate these chaotic
little minds like the Dan Joneses and the Brian Christians
and the Matt Santashas, like all of those people that

(17:19):
you knew how to motivate properly.

Speaker 4 (17:24):
I think maybe consciously, not sure about consciously or subconsciously.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
We would get to a situation.

Speaker 4 (17:33):
As a staff, and that was a really good staff
where if somebody was going to say the stuff that
we would get negative on was never about scoreboards, It
was never about scoreboards, but it might be about honesty,
like you're not if you're putting yourself above the team,
you're going to hear about it. If you're if you're

(17:55):
not putting the effort necessary, you're going to hear about it.
There was a certain standard, but it wasn't about the scoreboard.
So sometimes if Gift didn't like what I was saying entirely.
There was one instance where I said, if you make
a bad play, so there's a dB you would know this, Dan, like,
if you make a bad play, you've got to be

(18:16):
able to race it out of your head. And I
think you've got to take a pink raser and you
got to get rid of it because youve got to
reload for that next play.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Well, Gift took that as well. You know what the
kid might think.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
He didn't say this, but he got up after me
and said, don't make the bad play. Don't think that
everything is forgiven in life. You will not be able
to forgive yourself. So if you think you can take
a playoff and erase that play, not happening.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
So that Gift was like the kind of the guy
in Star Wars.

Speaker 4 (18:48):
You know, he was always floating around, and so sometimes
there were corrections made, but no Duff, Gil Fillen, the
two gentlemen you mentioned, were always they.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Came out of the same thing, the same thing, solution based.
You know, we're gonna figure this out. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
I found Larry Defrain more technical, but again that's not
a slight. He kind of had the because he was
a DC, so he was more along those lines. And
then you'll Phil would kind of just thought of the
D line of your coach, and he was kind of
the overarching defensive but he the frame was more of
the x's and o's, and then gilfil would come and
kind of correct the behaviors.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, No, they were a perfect team. They were. Duff
would take the defense in.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
Places that Giff wouldn't, wouldn't think about, Like liked his
particular fifty or thirty four defense.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
If you went at the end and outside.

Speaker 4 (19:50):
He liked that and with pressure, and sometimes Duff would
design something that was a little different that didn't influence
the D line in him, but he was he could scheme.
He could really scheme stuff that wouldn't screw it.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
It wouldn't it wouldn't put too much.

Speaker 4 (20:07):
Crap in your hand. Either into the athlete's head. So
they were a really good combination. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
That was the beauty of that too, because that's a
really important point because football, and we can talk about
the intricacies a little bit, there's such a complicated game,
but it is so important that everybody on that field
does their job. But what was brilliant about those plain
days for us is, yes, there was a technical aspect,
but I.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Didn't need to know what the DV would do. I
mean just a fuck.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
I didn't know what I was doing and probably what
my the line the next to me was doing, and
the linebacker behind me.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Everything else was neither here or there. Go to where
I was supposed to go, and just.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Make sure you know where were going and get there. Yeah. No, Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (20:50):
One thing I've noticed after being away from coaching for
like twelve years.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
I'm sixty six. I was probably coach when has fifty two,
so I've been away from it for quite a while
is how young the kids are. I forgot how young
high school guys are.

Speaker 4 (21:06):
And the second thing is you accumulate so much knowledge
in your head, but you've got to bring it down
to a level where that guy can get in his stance,
and no, he's got three things to worry about his stance,
firing out in his hands or something whatever those three
things are, so you got to bring it back to
that and just keep it to those simple fundamentals. And

(21:27):
gift was always big and I know zip about police work.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
A gift was always saying, you've got to do things
in threes.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
So my whole teaching career, I gave three objectives on
the board. Today we're going to learn about Napoleon's army,
Napoleon's views on citizenship.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
Three three things.

Speaker 4 (21:47):
And it was the same thing in football. He said,
you got three things you can get and get through
to a kid about tackling whatever it is, stance, hips, rap, whatever,
and he said, don't.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Ever make it more that because they can't remember.

Speaker 4 (22:02):
But as an adult, it's the same thing with me.
My wife will give me one hundred things in the
brunning and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, there's going me
three things here that I can die test. But anyway, yeah,
and that's huge because then that frees up the brain
to be creative, like to be able to execute, you know,

(22:24):
like I don't know, but if I know my last
year at university, that guy gave us so much grap
to try and process at the staff of the ball. Well,
the play last three to six seconds, like, come on,
and we're thinking we lost My last year, we lost
nine starters at York to ankler knee injuries because we

(22:46):
were all standing around getting hit and we were in
the best defenses in Canada the year before, we're.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Just getting slaughtered.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
How many years an you play?

Speaker 2 (22:57):
Or or.

Speaker 4 (23:00):
My fourth year I got hurt because I was standing
around thinking, thinking.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
How much I didn't like playing here.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
You got back to the So you have grid Oar wisdom.
A playbook for leadership is a title what how long
have you been planning this? And then tell us a
book about the creative process to put that together?

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (23:23):
That one, I hadn't planned it.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
It was during COVID. I think, how long have we
been out of COVID? Five years? Yeah? I was probably
in there that I was.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
It was starting to percolate, and frankly, I was thinking,
there's there's way too much negativity in a great nation
and a great civilization. I got kind of a different
view on when I look outside every day that we've
come a long way as the humanity, and part of

(23:55):
it is the institutions that have helped create it.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
And in a funny kind of way.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
Popo is one of those institutions that has helped so
many people. It's inclusive. You know, you don't care what
color or religion.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
The guy is beside you.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
If he gets to the quarterback, you're my best buddy,
you know. And then I was thinking about my father
in law played with the Eskimos and Johnny brighton Normi Kwang. Well,
what Bright and Quang went through as minorities in the
United States and Canada to just make the hair stand
up on the back of your neck, there's nothing like
it in today's world that rivaled what happened to Johnny

(24:31):
Bright and Normy Kwang. Kwang couldn't swim in a public
swimming pool at Melburn when he was a kid.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Johnny Bright was.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
He was a Heisman hopeful until some redneck out of
Oklahoma State which is now Oklahoma State was Oklahoma.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
A and N.

Speaker 4 (24:49):
They broke they can custom three times in the first
ten minutes in their game, put them out of the game,
just total cheap shots, and they got it on fin
And so I looked at it, and I thought, here's
one of the things like, if we're going to sit
around and talk about all the things that we're not doing,
is a civilization and as a community, well, I can't

(25:11):
go there. And it's kind of like the solution based
thing about teaching coaching, and you know what a lot
of people.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
Have talked about.

Speaker 4 (25:19):
And one thing I knew is that the game of
football done properly changes lives. And so I thought, well,
I'm going to study the great programs in Alberta's history
to see what the commonalities were.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
And I started interviewing guys and it just snowballed.

Speaker 4 (25:33):
And pretty soon I had interviewed probably seventy guys across Alberta,
from Raymond to eighty five year olds that were Eskimo alumni,
and of course all the stories I got from my
father in.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Law, and.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
It just made sense to write a book about these
programs and maybe be.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Kind of a blueprint for.

Speaker 4 (25:55):
How a young guy could maybe if you want to
know about how to coach football, why wouldn't you look
at the best football programs in Alberta's history, or these
football coaches if they were in the States, like Pete Canellen,
at UC He's one of the programs I studied in
the eighties. If he was down at Alabama, different place,
different time, they'd be building a statue of him in

(26:16):
front of their stadium.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
And he'd be making eight to twelve.

Speaker 4 (26:19):
Million dollars a year, just like saving the guy was unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
And I would argue the same thing.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
About Brian Dudley at Raymond High School coach Gary DeMann
at Saint Francis another guy.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
You would have died to have your.

Speaker 4 (26:37):
Son's coach by these guys, just like we were lucky
to have played for Jim Gilfillan and Larry Deframe. So
then I looked at the Eskimos and the Huskies of
the sixties and where the leadership came from and all
that stuff, and then I thought.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
Wow, this was so interesting to me.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
I thought, I hoped it would be interest stink to others,
and so.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
I went for it. And my wife was happy because
she loves football.

Speaker 4 (27:09):
So a couple of what was it about a year
and a half ago it was published, I went through
Freezing Press out in Victoria. They were good, they hupped,
but I had a couple of guys helped me. John
Short will broadcast for you guys.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
Of course, remember John and the history chairman at the
U of A.

Speaker 4 (27:29):
He was, I mean, these guys were awesome editors like
short Short. I said, John, you got to help me
with this, and he goes, yeah, I read it. And here,
open up your book. Random page. He said, spin your
finger around a pick a paragraph and I read the
paragraph and he said, can you get rid of a sentence?
I go, oh, yeah, that one. He goes, you can
do that with every paragraph.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
He wrote, run no offense, come back to me, get
rid of ten thousand words and they did.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, so that's kind of outlet.

Speaker 4 (28:04):
And then I sold enough books that my wife said,
why don't you write another one?

Speaker 2 (28:08):
So I'm kind of grappling with that right now.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
What were some of the seams, Cause you talk about
these guys are great football coachers, and another time about
the millionaires, why was that?

Speaker 4 (28:22):
I think they were kind of The game is like
you said earlier, it's very It's a complicated game, but
it's simple, isn't it. Like you guys are both defensive guys.
I was a defensive guy. When the guy's running the ball,
your job is to stop them. They doesn't get much
simpler than that. But there's stuff that you can you

(28:43):
but it's not that easy. There's you got to do
things the right way. So it's a game that I
don't think there's a game like it.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
That's just me.

Speaker 4 (28:52):
Rugby is a good game. I coached rugby, but you
can't throw the ball forward. It's unnatural. My rugby buddies
will argue that, you know, well, you could cook it
for But football is a real interesting, real interesting game,
and I don't think there's a team game like it.
When I coached with Weilke, he said, there is what

(29:14):
other game have you sit and watch the defense and
hope they do well, and you cheer them on and
maybe they get scored on it and it's your turn.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
It's the ultimate test of team to do that.

Speaker 4 (29:27):
Every other game you're playing offense and defense, you have
nobody to potentially point the finger at.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Football is different.

Speaker 4 (29:35):
You know, you stand on the sidelines and you watch stuff.
So these guys were all super incompetitive, they super loved
the game. They were all viewed themselves as transformational coaches,
and they were they they.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
Wanted the best for their athletes.

Speaker 4 (29:53):
Raymond in particular is a community because it's a small town,
but kids grow up dreaming to be Raymond comments, that's
a little bit different thing.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
But the old believed in team.

Speaker 4 (30:06):
Nobody was above the team, so team leadership came from
players and coaches and all these things.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
And yeah, yeah they were in the end.

Speaker 4 (30:19):
Honestly, at the end of the book, I don't remember Scott,
but I said it, which should be sure, be good
to send them all down at the table and Dennis
Cadatz from the Huskies his past, but to get down
and just talk about football, because they would all instantly
get what the other guy was saying.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
And man, did they win?

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Oh I think you said a lot of them was
a quarter was like they hated losing more than they
liked me. Yeah, Like Brian Dudley remembers his record is
like quote, I'll say one hundred and eighty and ten
or some ridiculous number, but he says, I still remember

(30:57):
the game we lost the cards, and I remember the
two drops that cost us the game, and I'm still
thinking about what I could have done different.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
And that's like sixty years ago. Yeah, so yeah, they were.
They were super competitive. Gary Demand used to go out
to Folown every year and paddle around the lake his light.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
His wife was laughing about this, and he would just
draw place forever.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
Felt he had to have something different than the other guy.
And they call him.

Speaker 4 (31:27):
In for lunch and he'd be sunburned probably, and you
go back out and paddle around. He just left the game. Yeah,
and they all had super support from their spouses. Pete
Canellen's wife still remembers all the players and all those.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Dino teams like they were her sons, you know.

Speaker 4 (31:43):
And all those long hours that they spent outside the
family while who's picking up the slack they are? Yeah, Yeah,
and they all in a weird way, they all had
They all had fun.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
Like Pete Canell and one.

Speaker 4 (31:59):
Of the guys talked about Pete Canellen is a frustrated comedian.
Our staff at the University of Calgary in the eighties.
They were frustrated comedians. They drive you crazy because there
was always making fun of you. They're making fun of themselves.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
You know. It's just had a lot of fun.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
So you've coached I don't know even how many people
do you think you've coached? Thousands? Thousands? Are there any
standouts like people that you coach and you're like they
were the perfect player. They were the perfect combination of
thinking and physicality and team player and any standouts that

(32:38):
you had over your career. And I know that's a
tough question because there's a lot of people that you coached,
and I just wanted to just wondered if there's anybody,
any few standout players.

Speaker 4 (32:48):
The the ones, the ones that rent a lot of
space in my head, were the leaders. I had a
fellow at East Glenn named Travis Well, Travis couldn't throw

(33:10):
the ball with the darn Travis. But I've never had
a kid where I turned over the leadership of that
team too, like him, Like I was having troubles with
a one particular kid. And I don't think Anthony would
mind this, but Anthony.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
Barrett and Anthony was getting very frustrated in the game,
and I don't think I've done I never did it
before or after. But I said to the Travis, go
take care of the boy, go take care of him.
And he did, and Anthony came back almost instantly, composed,
ready to go, and we made a run at winning
the playoff game.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
Because of it, Aravias had this unnatural ability to lead
and it wasn't and he was a fun loving guy
and he wasn't like super intense. You know, you think
that coach should say, I just like the guy that
would run through walls.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
All the time. I don't know. Yeah, those guys are
good to have, but Travis.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
Another guy was a quarterback named Danny peel And who
went on to the Wildcats.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
Andy was a phenomenal leader. Those are the kind of
kids that I'm thinking of them. Like, was there were
there guys like, well, if Trevor Bowlers, did he.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Come after you or no?

Speaker 4 (34:25):
We played the same Okay, so Trevor Bowler's physically was unparallel, Like,
I don't know any guys like him.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
I didn't like tackling drills when I got lined up
with Trevor Bolo.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
No, yeah, I would. I would feign injury. I would.
I'd say I got a phone call or something if
I did.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
No.

Speaker 4 (34:49):
But there was those guys, But it was the and
the other guys that kind of stick out over the
years are the ones that got the most out of
the game. Like if you're you know, Matt Sentiss and
you're probably still talking, Matty got a lot out of
the game. Yeah, it's it's an interesting question because quite

(35:15):
often you gravitate towards the more skilled guys, the guys
that could run like the wind, like Scott. You remember Rockwood, Jeff,
Jeff made a play in the city final I've never
seen before or since when he they ran the ball
about eighty yards on a pitch and we were playing

(35:37):
in the top division against a school that was way
bigger than us, and their team was bigger than us.
Lizard and Rockwood is the backside corner, did tackle the
guy in the five yard line our five yard line. Yep,
So he ran like one hundred and thirty forty yards
to make a play. To me, that just epitomize his

(36:00):
team over self because he could have easily just watched
that guy run down the far and every coach says,
you have a pursuit angle.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
But he did it, and he saved the title for
you guys with that play. We lose. Yeah, So those
are the kind.

Speaker 4 (36:16):
Of things, so Dan and the coach goes, well, that's
a tribute to that guy's character.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Well it kind of is it kind of?

Speaker 4 (36:27):
It probably is, but I can't really verify that because
I haven't seen him. It was forty years ago and
I haven't seen him since. Yeah, it's a good cops
get you. His dad was a reason.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
So when you talk about guys who got a lot
out of football, I think, I know my perception.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
What does that mean to you? You say those words.

Speaker 4 (36:50):
Gave him a sense of self worth, gave him a
few lessons, a life lessons, a little been a knowledge
about themselves, how to behave around others, how to maybe
help hold a few people around you accountable as well,

(37:12):
because football can all be on the coach, you know.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
So, yeah, life lessons.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
Some of the some of the stories will you as
policemen would know this, And I don't know why how
you could do that job because you're dealing with the
sad part of our community every day.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
I get you get your rewards, I'm sure, but I
don't know.

Speaker 4 (37:39):
So you know some of the stories and some of
the backgrounds of kids and for some reason they're drawn
to the game and they come out and they don't
know how to put their equipment on, and then they
make contact with somebody and they find their courage, and
maybe they find the courage to excel on the field,
and you hope that it gives them the stuff that

(38:00):
they can go home and open up a textbook and
do a little study and maybe ask a girl to dance.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
And that sounds kind.

Speaker 4 (38:08):
Of funny, and I don't mean it to be funny, but.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
That courage and sensitivity part is what makes men.

Speaker 4 (38:18):
I'm trying to think, I'm trying to think of. I
don't want to mention names, but I let just put
it this way. I've also seen some incredible stories where
teammates would say, hey, Mac and Parry, you know, you
better take a look.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
At this guy because he's not eating. He doesn't have
any food. He hasn't eaten in three days.

Speaker 4 (38:35):
You get that kind of sensitivity to teammates needs and
you know, and.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
Some of them, well one of those guys is your cousin.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, that's belonging to Like you put all the same
shirt and now you have to get something that maybe
a home life's not great where you don't feel like
you belong and now you do.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
As the purest maritalkers, you get to go out the
field if you do your thought. Like you said, it
doesn't matter what your background is.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
And Jeff Brockwood's tall, whitey, skinny dude who probably.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Has never run that fast, before or since, other than
what it was his time to shuttle. I remember in
another city final.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
At the other end his name, first name was Scott
it over his last name. He was kind of a
backup kid and they ran his side. I think it
was against Sep and he was a sweep to his side.
And and again I don't know why his fix on
the room. It doesn't come to mean, which I wish.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
It does, because of course you want to be in.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
The play goes the other side and that kid makes
the tackle of his life and Bill Fellow goes, I'm
so glad he got that. He as to me, it's
so like you've had your time. It's so good to
eat up experience that level.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
Well that well, it's funny that play. So for the
people that are watching and I watch this, these are
things that happened thirty five years ago, or that that
boy was a tall, skinny kid who had no business
being on the field, and he saved in the semifinal,

(40:01):
or we would have lost that one to not get
to the final against Lisert.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
He's no business being there.

Speaker 4 (40:06):
He was skinny, he was not very strong, but he
had the mental toughness that you die for and he
just went out and made that tackle.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
You remembered it. I remembered it.

Speaker 4 (40:17):
We didn't rehearse this discussion, but I can still see
that guy making that tackle and GIF that was just
he goes act.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Did you see that? Did you see who made that play?

Speaker 4 (40:30):
He reached over a guy and he had like seven
foot long arms about probably about six inches wide, and
briefed in their quarterback who was a very good player
coached by a very good coach, Dalton Smartsho became a
friend of mine. Well, but you're right, and meritocracy, you
know that's neat. Yeah, it's funny you remember that.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
I know, like I hadn't given a no thought until
you thought, well rock with and I like the fuck
I remember because he was kind of building a question.
Mark just had kind of hunt a little bit fun
and I can see him running down the field of that.
And we had again with Ressert.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
They were checked down it like their offensive line.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
With the same way as most back then by coach Ready,
who you mentioned a ton of times in your book.
Just kind of a lot of pre eminent like football
families in town, and we had no business.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Even competing old with them, let alone beating them.

Speaker 4 (41:22):
Do you remember CBC came to the school and talked
to me. Yeah, like, how can your guys at one
hundred and eighty pounds, your defensive line one hundred and
eighty five pounds average, how can they.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Beat those guys? How do you expect to show up
on the field. Well, I don't know. I mean they
may have scored twice against this, but not.

Speaker 4 (41:41):
Three times because you guys are just tough and executed. Yeah, no,
that was that and those kind of things like you know,
you talk about that boy's play. Do I remember the
trophy being hoisted? And I don't remember that, but you
remember that play. Those players are a transformation part of

(42:03):
the sport, right.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
What's funny because I ended up coaching boxing and soccer
and coach my daughter, both my daughters in soccer and
my one daughter at a high level. And I took
a lot for me. I wanted to coach the way
you and GM coached, Gift coach because and to me,
it was and I would even like when I was

(42:28):
having kids try out for our premier team, I would
look for the ones with heart, not necessarily the best athletes.
Sometimes there was athletes they were better athletes, but I
could tell that there was zero heart, and I don't
want that because that's kind of one of the things
I learned from you guys, is heart's way more important
than skill, and you can teach the skill, but you
can't teach heart. And I think that's one of the

(42:50):
reasons why McNally won games like games against Lizard that
they shouldn't win, because the way the teams that I
played for in McNally, and I think the teams you
played for, Scottie, they were hard teams, and they were
hard because of the coaches that we had that built
that heart. And I think that's the most important thing
in' sport.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
Maybe it's we allow it to flourish and don't beat
it down. Don't try and make it about the coaches.
This is about you the athlete, and we want you
to excel. Every coach would say that like we want them,
but I think a lot of guys it's kind of like, yeah,

(43:31):
we won that championship. Yeah, there's no doubt we were coaching,
but we were always like by the time you got there,
Dan Scott had they had run the tough road to
get us a championship. Because mcnell it was not very
good in.

Speaker 5 (43:46):
The the low eighties, in the nineteen eighties, and then
Scott would the first did have one title. And then
I think when you were there, Dan, like what did
we win the city by forty points or something?

Speaker 2 (44:01):
That was really when I climaxed, And yeah, there's a lot.

Speaker 4 (44:07):
I've done some work with junior hockey in out in
Vancouver and.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
With the Left for Surrecides, and.

Speaker 4 (44:16):
One of the things that became apparent is it's true
in all sports that hard. Like if you take a
type A talent, like you top grade talent with a
with a bad attitude there, they're team killers. They will
kill that team. If you take a bunch of average
guys with type A heart and character.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
Oh boy, got a chance.

Speaker 4 (44:44):
And I think in those years Scott, like when you
guys got it going, we had some tremendous skilled players too.
Like I'm saying we didn't have skill, there was some
tremendous skilled players. But you can't do it with your
skilled players on any team at any level. That a
lot of professional hockey guys about this. Guys have been
loved at the top, same deal, same deal.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
We've seen it.

Speaker 4 (45:06):
And then until we got the Baby arguably the two
best hockey players in the world, but they need to
support staff.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
They can't do it themselves. And with some of those
skilled players, like because I coached for six years squalls,
like the boys would go through hide back to my
high school.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Oftentimes, especially at the lower levels, so those skilled players
don't really run up against them because they're so much better.
Like when you're twelve or thirteen and you're that much better,
you're going to run over people around people at a.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Far higher level.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
And then as they progress through and get into say
high school or junior, well, everybody else run it just
as fast, and everybody else is just as big.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
So what do you what else?

Speaker 1 (45:42):
And if you haven't had to have any strikes through
your career, oftentimes you see those guys start to win
through their way to.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
That and then they just go away and they don't
tell anyone.

Speaker 4 (45:54):
Yeah, And when I coached university and junior football, you'd
see that some guys just fold their camp and shouldn't have,
but they could never just compete.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
And it's funny too.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
And this this I won't give schools names, but when
I was coaching university in junior football, you could tell
the kids from certain schools they had neagerness to learn,
and they didn't mind getting knocked back down because he
knew they could. Well, yeah, I can figure this out.
And they get back up and they try it again. Others,
once they got knocked down, would you know, start their

(46:30):
molding or finger pointing or whatever. Yeah, so good cultures.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
That was also a fellow skill set is you didn't
let you get too low, but he sure as hell
didn't let you get too high.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Like I roar again. Also we open up old my head.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
I managed the time, and I did this really well
bout them, but I couldn't do so. Just as the
stock goes through a field goal jump over the center
back that you could and I blocked it, and I
was so happy that I've blocked it, and.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
He pulled me aside. I was a good block. I
don't ever want to see that again. You act like
you've been there before.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
Okay, so now you did good, but don't be an assholes.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
Like a dickhead. So that that piece is really important
for those programs.

Speaker 4 (47:13):
I studied, and in particular Saint Francis Same Francis talking
to Gary Demand who's in his nineties, was a lot
like talking to Gift and Uh Saint Francis. At the
end of the game. They keep their helmets on the
whole game. At the end of the game they do
they run to the nearest goal post, shake hands, and
run onto the bus with their helmets on. They don't

(47:34):
talk to girlfriends, they don't talk to their parents, and
there's no celebration. And I asked Gary about that, and
he was a real stickler for this, according to his players,
and Gary said that we respect the game, we respect
our opponents, and we respect the referees. Don't talk to
me about referees. You're not talking to them. We need

(47:55):
Rafts treat them with respect. And that was kind of
the essence of Gift too. He didn't like Grafs particularly,
but he knew we need him in the game, and
we're not going to use him as bloody excuses. Your
celebration broke that cardinal tenant of the University of Calgary.

(48:15):
They called it reload, so after a play, you just
learned to reload and go on to the next play.
And that was gifts thing too, remember him saying all
the time, next Playboy's next play, You're not gonna, you know,
do your em on a super Bowl and even if
you have won the city championship, do it with class,
shake hands, line up, get your trophy, let's go home,

(48:38):
you know.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
And Gary Demannic Calgary was a real stickler for that.
It's the only way to be otherwise.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
You again, you see watched the Florida Panthers win and
the chirping and the calling out and all that kind
of stuff operating like it.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
It makes me not want to even watch it. Honestly,
what did the Evanton Oithers do after watching that? They
spent they with some extra reps. Yeah, they're gonna work
harder to be.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
Yeah, well are you talking about the Did you see
the sticker that Marshann put on himself. It had the
Oilers logo, but it said losers instead of the Oilers.
Oh geez, Like that kind of stuff is just it's
it's not even good for the game in my opinion.
I just it's because you got young kids watching and
there they model that behavior. And it's one of the

(49:25):
things that drives my wife mental. I won't say what
school she works at, but she works at the school
and they sing oh Canada every morning like they do
O Canada. Every morning and she goes. It drives her
nuts because it's always the hockey kids that are swaying
during O Canada, because they see on the ice the
guys swaying during OH Canada. And it makes my wife mental.
My wife's like, you should be standing still and honoring

(49:46):
OH Canada. But it's what they watch and it's what
they want to be. And when they start to see,
you know, players like Marshann do something as classless as that,
they think, they start to think that's okay. And I
think that's where I think that's where athletes they don't
realize their responsibility sometimes when it comes to modeling behavior
to young one up and coming athletes.

Speaker 4 (50:08):
There and you get and this is Tom Wilkinson. I
coached with Tom with the Bears, and Tom, I don't know.
I think he's got five great cupbreaks, a great leader.
He said the same thing you did.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
He said. Anybody who says they don't have to be
a role.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
Model, Like there's a famous quote some guy I don't know,
he said, I don't have to be a role model.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
He's a basketball player.

Speaker 4 (50:31):
If you need role models, especially, look across the table
at your dad. But I'm not supposed to be a
role model, and Wilkie said.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
That is absolute garbage. That the pros should be and
we should, almost as fans, demand that of them.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
They got they got a piece of this community, they've
got a they've got a stake in our community. Help
us raise our young people. Mm hmm the way it
should be. Yet some of them just they just discard
that idea.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
That's stupid.

Speaker 4 (50:59):
They want to see us dancing around like idiots and
they you know, no, so yeah, no, I couldn't agree more.
And then it makes our job doubly tough, because how
do you argue with the guy making twelve million dollars
a year in the NFL. Well, he's dancing around, and
he's pointing his finger, and he's taking roughing penalties, and
he's he's doing all the things that you tell kids.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
This is not the way to behave, this is not
what men do. And he's making twelve mil. How do
you argue with that?

Speaker 4 (51:27):
You know, well, you argue with it by just telling
him they're not going to do it that way, like Scott.
You're not going to jump around Scott after a play.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
That that's done and you go, okay, never did it again, Yeah,
I don't think I even did it before that.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
It was just one of them to get caught up
at a moment anyone's like, I can't believe I actually made.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
Its work, and yeah for me, And then it was yeah, no,
it's a good game if it's done right.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
It's such a meaningful game. It's that it did so
many positive things for my whole life. And I only
played five years, a couple of years of bout them
that three years in high school and then became a
cop too early, so then that kind of cutty junior
slash year or eight career.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
That could have could have would have should have been.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
I don't know that it would have really changed anything,
but it was all the things we've said of belonging
somewhere and everything matters. The guy next to you matters
more than what you do, and sacrifice the team. And
it's hard, here's not there's a lot of uncomfortable in football.
And it could be because it's thirty five above, or
you have to go against Trevor Bowlers and you have
to tackle this kid who will play in the NFL

(52:39):
that day, or it's fucking minus twenty eight and the
snow and you're gonna have to go throw to your
plastic helmet into.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
Some other kids positive, So take that ball away from
So it's.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
All that, it's all lessons for life to find where
those edges of comfort and discomfort are and explore those
so that you when the hard things come your way,
which they're going to, that you've already kind of trained
yourself that you can do a difficult stuff.

Speaker 4 (53:03):
One of the things that they do, like one of
the things that Gift was really good at. But all
of these guys in the book The Fall Five Teams
is there were no exit doors. You couldn't blame somebody.
You're not gonna blame reps. You're not gonna blame the weather.
You're not gonna blame the blame the offense. If you're

(53:25):
on defense, you're not gonna blame somebody on your team.
There were no exit doors. And the Gift always talked
about this, Uh, mirror, go to the mirror, Go to
the mirror. There's the answers. Get going, and how often
do you light in life? I know you've got a
police association probably makes it tough to fire cops. I

(53:47):
work for the Alberta Teachers Association, which made it next
to impossible to fire teachers, but you could have guys
operating in a completely weird way that was and conducive
to building team on a school staff.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
I imagine that it's the same in any job. Well,
in football, you can try and straighten that stuff out.

Speaker 4 (54:12):
It is a true meritocracy, and teammates can influence you
and say when you're not gonna You're not gonna be
like that out on this team.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
You're not gonna. So it's really a unique thing.

Speaker 4 (54:25):
But you know the second part of this story is
so the guys that I interviewed, guys would break down
into tears reflecting on how that game impacted their futures
as businessmen. The Forzanni family. Tom for Zany didn't break

(54:46):
down into tears. He would be disgusted if I said.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
That, and he did.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
He had him and his brothers built a billion dollar
business sports check And I asked him how he did it, like,
you know, first generation Canans, Italian Canadians, how do you
do it?

Speaker 2 (55:03):
And he said, we got it all from Gary demand
in Saint Francis.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
Seriously, seriously, how you treat people, how you strive for excellence?
You outwork anybody else. But you treat people with dignity
even when you're letting them go, and how you demand
excellence from your You said we learned it from Gary.
I'm not going to argue with him if that's where

(55:32):
he said he learned it from. It wasn't from business
school at Utah State. It was it was from this
high school experience. Yet here's the sad part of the
story today Fellas we're de emphasizing it in her schools,
we deemphasize this stuff. That's part of the reason for
the book is. You know, they've taken coaching time away.

(55:55):
They don't hire coaches, they don't they don't value it.
So in the city of Edmonton, we've lost high schools
don't have teams. I always knew, do you remember Navide? Yeah, yeah, okay,
So Navide and I have often laughed about this, but

(56:16):
I knew one of the things that if you're going
to integrate minority groups into the Canadian.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Way, I knew. And we got naviid out for football
and say and saw the way.

Speaker 4 (56:25):
He responded to the game. He was all in and
he just got named a principal this year.

Speaker 3 (56:32):
Good for him.

Speaker 4 (56:33):
Yeah, I'm not sure, I think it's an elementary but
so then, but that was true.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
We had kids from all over the world with.

Speaker 4 (56:46):
Common goals and values the sport, and you just knew
that the multiculturalism that way was a good thing. We
could bring them all together and we could we could
go in the same direction, and that was really cool.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
My kids Chargers, we played Chargers well. But along those lines,
we were at or a CFL game at the ups
Gamer and.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
That's most fuck up I had. Looked down the road.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
There was fifteen kids sitting in a row, including my
youngest set. He's the only white kid to run because
coming from the South Side. For Chargers, there was a
lot of folks like first generation, came from Nigeria, other
areas in Africa. Like it was awesome because hockey was
not like that. They both played hockey. Hockey's all white kids,
and it's expensive and it's going to just be the
white privilege kids. This was such a better atmosphere the

(57:39):
COVID that coaching was really love, but the families and
it were just more of a sense.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Of community with football I found than the hockey.

Speaker 4 (57:48):
No, it is and one of the things that's a
little distressing for me is football is pricing itself out,
even in the high school. Some high schools are up
around a thousand bucks to play. Well, if your dad's
making twenty five bucks an hour, that's a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
Hopefully schools can accommodate that and allow them to play.
But I'm seeing less and less of it.

Speaker 4 (58:07):
You're seeing high school football flourish in the suburbs of
both Calgary and Edmonton and the rurals, but it's struggling.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
In the city. And we got to fix We've got
to fix that. We got to keep keep fighting it
because it's too good for these kids.

Speaker 3 (58:24):
And I think a lot of people don't understand that
the positive things that come out of sport, right they
and and sometimes people get too academic and it's like no, no,
and and then like I know some schools were even
taking down sports banners and and the gyms and and
not honoring the history of the sports and the schools.

(58:44):
And when you see that, you're like, what you don't
realize and go back to the you know, the question
we talked about is you know the people that get
the most out of the sport. And I will talk
openly about Maddie because he's been a friend of mine.
I know he won't care Maddy needed football more than
football needed Maddie. And the person he is today is

(59:05):
because of playing football and because of playing football for
someone like you and for and forgive, And that's the
reason he's a teacher, right like you guys became that
those roles that role model for him, and and and
and I would suggest completely change the trajectory of his life.
And I and that's a single story. And we know

(59:25):
that that that single story is over and over and
over and over and over again, and and and you
know I I go back to like even look, I
use this as an example just because it's a good
example boxing. And I look at Muhammad Ali. And most
people don't know that Muhammad Ali's first boxing coach, from
the time he was first in a ring to the
time he went to the Olympics was a police officer

(59:46):
from Louisville, Kentucky. And what happened was Muhammad Ali someone
stole his bike and Muhammad Ali was going to go
throw a beat and on this kid for stealing his bike,
and he got stopped by this police officer. And I
forget the police officers. It's something like Joe Smith, but
don't quote me on that. The police officer said, no, no,
take all that anger and that energy and you come
meet me down at the gym and then we'll see

(01:00:06):
how we go from there. And literally, if it weren't
for inner city sports and it was the Palace program
back then, the police athletically, we wouldn't have a Muhammad Ali.
And I think we have a whole bunch of Mumuhammad
Ali's out there. We may not know them, we know,
they may not have, you know, be famous, but I
believe that high school football, high school basketball, boxing takes

(01:00:31):
these kids to a place where they need to be
and they would never have gotten there if it weren't
for sport.

Speaker 4 (01:00:39):
In the next the next book, I interviewed female football
players and was curious as to why they played the game,
because we know why we played it as guys, and
there's lots of reasons, but I was really struck by
the female perspective of sport. But forget that for a second,
but one of the things, one of the knocks on
the game has been talks masculinity, and there's toxic femininity too,

(01:01:06):
but toxic masculinity.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
I always thought that football could.

Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
Take that aggression in that chaos and channel it in
a way where you would learn to control it, where
you could learn, you could learn limits, and you could
learn strategies, like when Scott was losing his mind and
you'll film pulled him aside and said, three forty fifteen
yard penalties isn't going to cut the mustard. You had

(01:01:30):
to go into a place in your head where you
could learn how to control things. And so if you
take football away, my son in law was a downhill
bike racer up in Whistler where you were Scott, and
he was cancuss five times by the time he's twenty five.
There's lots of ways for young guys to kill themselves.

(01:01:52):
Football allows adults to work with them and in a constructive,
positive way. And I think we're moving in a direction
where we can talk openly about these things and rather
than how it teaches aggression and how it results in
this and that and blah blah blah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Yeah, it's a good game.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
The thing about that when the argument there that makes
me a little bit not a lot of nooid is
the aggression is already there. It's not teaching aggression, it's
it's harnessing aggression, and there's nothing wrong with masculinity or femininity,
and yes, are there versions of it that become toxic. Yes,

(01:02:36):
it's not the football field that you find those things, right,
in my opinion, and I talk about sports culture is
quite a bit. There's some very interesting there's a there's
a whole criminology area on sports. Justin piche Is, an
academic in Manitoba does a lot of this work, and
I've spent some time with them at at different conferences.
But you start to look at the cultures of sports, right,

(01:03:00):
and you look at you talked about rugby earlier, and
what do they say? Rugby is a game of the
game of hooligan's played by gentlemen. Because what happens after
a rugby game. Everyone's giving each other hugs and people
are probably going for a pint together. Boxing. What's the
first thing you see after a boxing match? These two boxers,
male or female, hug each other at the end of
that match and have mad respect for each other. They

(01:03:21):
may have been chirping earlier, whatever, as soon as that
matches over, there is peace there. And I think when
you start to look at sports cultures, I think I'm
not gonna go into it. I'm not gonna blame other cultures,
but there are some sports that have toxic cultures as well,
where their the behavior after isn't necessarily as positive as
what I've seen in football and rugby and boxing, And

(01:03:43):
I think sometimes that's about who's playing the game and
who's coaching the game.

Speaker 4 (01:03:48):
Absolutely, and there's no doubt on football. Sometimes the bad,
bad things happen, and wrong things happen, like you know,
the self glorification and all that crap and cheap shots
and better than DA.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
So the game can be played in the wrong way.

Speaker 4 (01:04:06):
But when it's done right, I think it's great, great
for kids, and it's also just a great game to watch.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
M I just love to Football has been right in
my experience and again playing it and watching in my
whole life very and when there's an outlier, there's an outlier.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
Like even in the NFL, if you have a dirty player, you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:25):
Can kind of one half the dirty players that are
playing at any for a couple of three years.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
It's all called out instantly now, which is interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
Even at that highest level, there's a lot of show
voting and all that kind of bullshit. The bull level
but they're also trying to get attention so they can
get their next contract, because it starts a couple of three.

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
Years and then they're not. Then the dream is over
and now they've got to get a real shots. That's
part of that. I also excuse that a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
But at the lower level, even in the c if
the guys who are doing that right, they're not doing
it for the money.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
They're doing it because they'd love.

Speaker 3 (01:04:53):
To play with that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Because they're not making ship. They're having to get jobs
after all that a very very slough few.

Speaker 4 (01:05:00):
I went to Saint Francis and watched them practice because
I was curious if the Gary demand legacy continued. And
this is a third generation coach, so there they're head coach,
played for a guy who played for Gary and the
line is solid. But if you saw these guys practice,
you'd be just so impressed. They went hard, no false brabado, nothing.

(01:05:25):
Somebody tried to take off his helmet because it was
cooking that day, and a guy just quietly went to
him say, hey, we keep the helmets on. They were
doing line drills where they're running lines not I couldn't
find one kid cheat on anything. The whole practice. They
won the city championship this year. But that kind of
quiet determination that Gary preached.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
They headed who wouldn't want their son involved in a
program like that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
Gary forcut guys because of ability, never and he made
him feel like. He called it the Beaver team, the
scout team, and the Beavers were the guys that put
on the other team's offenses and defenses. And those guys
felt like they were as much a part of the
success of the team because Gary believed it as the starters.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
And he was right.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
If they put on a good show for the starters,
we got a chance. And I talked to guys that
weren't great players for the book. They all said the
same thing, like no, no, no, no, oh, we were
all we were all in the same boat.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
Yeah, awesome. If you're ever in Calgary, what.

Speaker 4 (01:06:35):
Does Spallumbo's Sausage House? And see if Tony Spallatini's there.
He's an old Dino, old Saint Francis Brown, and he's
a big part of the book.

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
You heard about it, Yeah, but him singing the praises football, Well,
he's made a lot of money in the restaurant business
and he's put tons back tens of thousands of dollars
back into the game.

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
He believes it, believes in it so strongly.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
It is a beautiful game. I think that's a great
way to end. Unless you have anything else you want
to talk about it what he missed. But we're good, awesome, good,
usually pay your time. Congratulations in the book. That's so cool,
and I'm I'm very happy to hear you writing another.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
It is good. Iron Wisdom is the guy that we've
been talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:07:21):
I'm here at the heck didn't he I'm looking forward
to reading it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
Okay, good, buy them for your friends. I'll buy them
for my dad, so you'll be get another order for me.
So okay, good. Appreciate getting the autographed too, even autographed
for me. That's a nice touch.

Speaker 4 (01:07:38):
Thanks for inviting me on. And it was good chatting
with you. And some day I'd like to hear about
how this book, what should get out of it, if anything,
on what you've done for a living, which is make
our community safer. Oh that's a thankless job.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
Thank you boys, Thank you awesome, thanks very much, appreciate it,
appreciate your time.

Speaker 3 (01:08:04):
And yeah, just that we were recording this on treaty
six Territory. And it's interesting, it's the last day of
Indigenous People's month of June, and you know, we've had
some we had some pretty cool stuff here at Northwest College.
We had a Indigenous UH People's Day and where we
got to have Inuit throat singers, Mati dancers, Treaty six

(01:08:28):
drummers UH. And I just was as watching that and
I've been fortunate to be around it a lot. UH
and just the beauty that comes from the community and
from the culture. And I think as we move forward,
we need to really honor that more and appreciate what
the this land was before we came to it. And

(01:08:48):
with that, I love you, Thank you,