Ep.37: Coach Chris Fryer, Part 2

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:24):
All right, everybody, welcome to another episode of the Enkiddo Podcast.
We got part two of Coach Friar today. We went
over his life's work and all the coaching mechanisms that
he did, his philosophy, the people we work with, his background.
But after we got we touched a little bit his retirement.
But his retirement's unique and it happened during pandemic, So

(00:49):
we're coming back to discuss that. We're coming back to
discuss his only losing season and some of his thoughts
around that, and just felt like it wasn't didn't have
enough for that first episode, so we needed to break
it up into two. So just so everybody's kind of
clear on his success. As long as these stats are right,

(01:09):
you correct me if I'm wrong. You had a winning
percentage of eight oh one and then a winning percentage
of eight to seventy five at home, and then you
had five hundred and seventy five wins. That sounds about right,
and one hundred and forty three losses, so pretty good,
but every loss took a piece that it did deadly.

(01:31):
But the U and I remember when I was around,
there was only a couple losses of piece you know so,
but let's go into that last year. You're only losing season.
Let's talk through that, because I know there was a
lot of life lessons that you probably pulled out of
that at the end of your career that you know,
just a culmination of a lot of things, and a

(01:51):
lot of people probably wouldn't have gone out. They would
have said the ego would have gotten the way and
said I've got to keep you know, I've got to
do this. And I look at guys like you and
even weird to say Belichick, who's so close to Shule's record,
but now he's at North Carolina, Like you just have
different paths, right, you decide where you're going to go.
So let's let's dive into that season, what was going on,

(02:13):
what you thought, and then kind of how you handle it.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Okay, you got to kind of remember in twenty eighteen
and nineteen we had gone to the state tournament, so
we had made two years of good runs and we
had everybody coming back. In twenty twenty, we had one
kid who graduated T Davis and she was moving on,
but everybody else is going to be back.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
That year.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Just some strange, crazy things happened that spring one was
Will Prud's sister, Taylor Prud. You know Will plays out
here at Lipscomb. Now, he was probably the best player
in mind it's had in a long time. And I
know coach Allan would agree to that because he was
a Mister Basketball finalist. And so Taylor, she was going

(02:52):
to be that kid that came in for that girl
who had graduated and filled that position, and she had
worked out hard that spring. And then she goes and
plays au and she tears her acl. That was a
blow to begin with. And then we get to the
month of May and my best player coming back was
a freshman, Reagan Grimes. And her brother, Reggie Grimes was

(03:16):
ready the best player in the state of Tennessee football player,
and he had Nick Saban down at Mageed High School.
We never had Nick Saban down there. He was recruiting.
And Reggie's dad, who had played for Alabama and played
for the New England Patriots, he was down in our school,
but he got hired at Ravenwood, so he left to

(03:36):
teach at Ravenwood and he took his son with him. Well, then,
of course the daughter's got to go to so in May,
I'm losing my best returning player. We have spring practice
and she comes to me at the end of spring practice.
I had no clue what was going on, and I
had heard rumors. And that's probably one of the mistakes
I make when I hear things like that. I don't
go investigate it immediately. I'm thinking, no, that's not really

(03:58):
gonna happen. So she tells me at the end of
spring Coach, I'm going to Ravenwood. I've got to We've
been a transfer. I'm transferring out because my brother and
my dad and she was upset about it. And I
was really upset about it because I love that kid.
She was going to be a tremendous player and she's
proven to be that because she's at Tennessee Tech now.
She's been a three year starter and they won the
OVC with her, and she's going to be a tremendous player.

(04:21):
And I need you coach long enough, you realize when
you have a special kid, and she was going to
be one of them.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
And then are you know?

Speaker 2 (04:27):
We've always been a post oriented type team and our
big girl I had to have hip surgery before the season,
so this is like two I found this out two
weeks before the season, and what's important is not really
going over all those things that occurred, because to me,
those kind of become excuses.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
So you just got to play your hand in what
you have.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
And and I was I had planned on coaching in
twenty twenty. I knew I was going to retire at
the end of it. It was it didn't matter if
we want to state championship, or we had a losing
season and or we didn't win any games. We had
come into it. We had one girl who had ever
really played high school basketball, and it was our point guard,
which was important. But she was the one player on

(05:10):
our team that the two previous years we were in
the state tournament, the other teams didn't guard. She was
like the Christian gibsone. They didn't guard the poor grade.
Except she couldn't stand out there and have thirty six points.
She was gonna miss. She had a nice little pull
up jumper and you couldn't press her. She was quick
as a hiccup. So going into the season, I could
foresee playing ninth graders that weren't like Casey Pigg and

(05:36):
Page McFarlane. These are ninth graders who struggled in eighth
grade to play, and we're really going to struggle at
the high school level.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Just so happened.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Lebanon in twenty twenty had probably their best team. They
had a chance to win the state that year, not
because they were great, but because the state was average
overall and they were going to be in the state tournament.
Beach had one of their better teams. Gallatin had their
best team. So our league was going to be tough
on top of everything else, and so that was gonna
be difficult in her to deal with. But so happened.

(06:07):
You know, you had the pandemic occurred. They didn't even
have a.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
State championship that year.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
There was no state championship for that season. But the
crazy thing is when I got I knew what was
going to happen. I knew we weren't going to have
a chance really to compete. I knew it was going
to run out of you know, we might could fight
for the first half, but it was going to be
the second half of depth was going to hurt us
because we didn't have anyone that could help the ones

(06:32):
that were out there. So I was really looking to
think we're not gonna win a game. There's no way
We're going to take a bunch of kids who really
hadn't been very good in junior high and expecting them
to play immediately high school basketball and compete and win,
win against high school kids that are seventeen eighteen years old. Fortunately,
we were able to win our first game, which was amazing.

(06:52):
I couldn't believe we wanted. We played Overton and we
beat them, and we had a little old freshman kid
that scored twenty six points in that game.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
I thought, didn't take.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Other teams long to figure out you got to guard
her tied, she can shoot, but the other ones you
can kind of leave alone. And so people kind of
got the scouting report, so we had we had a
more difficult time. But the whole point of the whole
the conversation here is really not about what occurred. It's
kind of how I thought was the best way to
respond to that. And I had always taught our kids

(07:24):
not ever to give up, not ever to not you know,
to quit. And I see this in kind of different ways.
When I played basketball, and I played my sophomore year,
Coach Hatcher was my coach, and I had younger players
that were a little bit better than me, and I
had played some that summer, and then the season gets
there and I play. After we got through the season,

(07:47):
I decided basketball wasn't for me. I made a business decision,
this is not my sport, and.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
I moved on.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
That's not really quitting what that is you there's other
things in your life that you that are more important,
and you really don't need to put yourself into something
that you really don't see the value of what you're
want to get out of it. I was more of
a football player. I knew that my sport was probably
gonna be football. I may have had a you know,
you could have a job that's and that leads you

(08:13):
down the path that you think one of these days
you're going to be doing.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
So there's other there's other things that.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Can make you when the season's overquip. But I don't
think when you're on a team you should ever give
up and that that team in twenty twenty, I was
about two weeks away from starting it, and even that
spring when Reagan had quit, I could have said, you know,
I don't have to fire in my belly to coach
this year. I don't believe it's gonna be something I want.

(08:39):
I don't feel the same about this team, and I
don't right or even you get into closer to the
season two weeks out and I could have just said
I give up, or I never taught our kids to
do that. I never gave them opportunities. There's after running
that time mile and they got through about three laps,
they couldn't just start walking. You know, I didn't have

(09:00):
to do it. They were the ones doing it. But
the players I had coached, I never gave them my
opportunities to quit so or to give up. So I said,
I'm not going to give up either. And there was
a lot of blessings that came out from that season,
even from the things that occurred the you know, some
of the losses. And no one felt sorry for us,
I'll tell you that because we had wore people out

(09:21):
for thirty years, so it wasn't like anybody was gonna feel.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
Sorry for us.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
But it was kind of neat because coach Edmund Larry
Joe Emmon, who had coached in nineteen seventy seventeen, he
had retired from Eastern Kentucky. He had been the coach
at Middle Tennessee State University, and he was kind of
following our team and was around during the two years.
When we were at the state tournament and I said,
Coach Larry Joe Emman, I said, can you come and

(09:47):
help me?

Speaker 1 (09:47):
I need assistant. I need somebody to help me.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
So I got to know coach Edmund during that year
and we would ride back from the games with each other,
and both of us had won a state championship at
Manjued High School. Hearing his stories and talking to him,
that was just a lot of I really enjoyed that.
Now I'm a competitor, so winning is always gonna be important.

(10:10):
But I think some of my teams that played for
me and some of the girls, they probably thought winning
was all I cared about. That's all he cares about
is winning. But that's not true. What I did care
about is you not giving up and going into that season,
I could have quit and found a way not to coach,
but I think it's more important that you fight when

(10:34):
things aren't gonna be good, and we all are gonna
go through struggles. There's gonna be times and you a
lot of times you don't get to foresee them. They'll
happen and you're in the middle of it. So what
are you gonna give up when those times come, when
it's hard and it's difficulty, you're just gonna You're just
gonna quit because something bad happens to you. That never
was the example we were trying to be. So the

(10:55):
point wasn't winning had to happen for me to keep
my job. You know, you can get fired even in
high school and you're not making two point two melli.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
And we watched people get fired because yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Mean it could happen. And I've had a family and
I don't want to move to Pulaskiar Fatal for the
next coaching.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Job, Canon County. I like where I'm at, you know,
so we need to win.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
And then you also have kids who want to win
and they're at the top of their you know their
you know their abilities should be successful. So it can't
be a joke. You got to work to win and
be successful. So winning was important. So I did a
lot of preparation to try to win. My wife would
say during those years, I was driven to win, like

(11:39):
that's all I wanted to do too, so she I
don't know where the line is drawn between that being
a mister nice guy doesn't seem to keep you around
very long. You know, I wasn't really interested in, like
I said, moving around. This is my hometown, this is
where I grew up. So but anyway, just like that

(12:00):
team and going through that season, I didn't want to
give up, and I got to coach some great kids
those years. That year I coached, I had more grandparents
and parents come up to me while I was sitting
on the bench and put their arm on my shoulder
and say, hey, coach, I appreciate you staying and coaching

(12:20):
this team.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
You're doing a great job.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
We're sitting there like seven and twelve or something into
the I think we finished seven and seventeens. That was seventeen.
Like pieces of my heart, they were just brought. They
would say, year, we love it. You've done your best
coaching job. And I really appreciate that. And I had
teams that went thirty and two and nobody said anything.
I might even get an anonymous letter and telling me
that I wouldn't playing.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
The right kids.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
So there was a lot of blessings that came about that.
And just to show you it wasn't how crazy it
was the season. At the end, much more important things
happened than basket ball here Manji was hit by a
tornado and Savannah Sanders, who had played for me, who's
the softball coach at green Hill High School, just want

(13:08):
to stay. A couple of years ago her house she
was right across from Manji Junior High West Wilson, and her.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
House got leveled.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
So she's starting over, her family's starting over again. How
much tougher it is that? I mean, if you want
to give up, if I go home to Damn my
house is gone, I'm gonna be a lot. I'm gonna
be pretty upset about it, you know, So you can
you can lay around and cry about those kind of
things and just give up, or you can fight through them.
And I always thought our program the point was why

(13:39):
are they carrying a telephone pole outside and dragging it
from Charlie Daniels over to the high school? Or why
are they jumping on these boxes like crazy people on Fridays?
And it was really about trying to teach people not
to give up and wit when you when really you
would you want to.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
So no, that makes sense. I think the it's probably
all the people. I'm not sure that most of the
people at their reunion even knew kind of like the
end of your career. It's kind of like, oh, well
he got older, you know, God is pinching from Willson
County Schools and enough's enough. I had to go look
to kind of see what happened, and we went through it.

(14:15):
And obviously having a really good friend who's the principal
and what you do with Yeah, when you don't win
and you're a player's coach, you don't stay around real long, Yeah,
because you're not running the program to represent the principal
and the way they want to be represented, and then
you're you're gone. Yeah. Winning solves a lot of problems too.
I mean, when you lose a game, we.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Used to say, doctor death could enter the locker room
and back in the back, people start questioning what you're
doing as a coach or what. But when you're winning,
you're having success. He was, well, he might be crazy
and we might need to run another offense.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
But we're we're.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Twenty eight and three right now. I mean, what else
do you want?

Speaker 1 (14:53):
And I think you get There is a sense of
a lot of times people will stay in a vacuum
from when either they played for you or when the
glory days and they don't. They don't think that you've
evolved as a person, you know what I'm saying. And
I think that's kind of where I wanted to go next.
As you we started, we talked a lot about like
how you got into coaching, and then we spent a

(15:15):
lot of time on the two thousand and five team,
But from two thousand and five and then all the
way through towards the end, and you knowing that you
wanted what was if you can, if you can grab
onto it, what did you think you kind of learned
about yourself during that time, your involvement has a human being,
because I think that's kind of where you're at now.
I mean, I was talking to Ryan Hill about it.

(15:36):
He's like, did you did you have Friar on? I'm like, yeah,
I said, Man, he's loosey, goosey, he's having a good time.
You You wouldn't even know, I said. The only time
we saw Friar cutting it up is we were we
were we were all stuck in the NX during a
rain delay at a football game, and it was me,
you Ryan, I think Butterball was in there and coach
Purpose and we were just cutting it up. You know,

(15:58):
having a good time, And I was like, this is
the whole time I've ever seen any of these coaches
just hanging relaxed, relax I say, he walks in here,
he's in great shape. I mean, he looks like he's
just having time of his life. But what was what
was that maturation process? Like from winning the state to retirement,
because we pretty much covered everything, but from from the beginning,

(16:19):
what was that? Like what have you what have you noticed?
Or what is Generally your wife, who's the mirror of you,
would tell you like what is what have you seen
over that time of like here's how I've grown.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
She didn't always tell me what I want to hear,
that's for sure, because you sure think you I don't
know if it's any different though in your field of
work from from my field of work of coaching. You
just got to be careful that you're spending time with
your family, that you're spending time with your wife, and
you're not just completely all about yourself. I think you
get so deep into it and you're you're trying to

(16:52):
be successful and you're trying to be and it all
becomes about you. And I think as I'm matured and
got older, it really became more about the kids I
was coaching. It definitely became more about my own family,
being a better husband, being a better father to my kids.
But you know that the part of the competitive part

(17:14):
of you too, where you want to be successful and
not get fired, there's, you know, there's a fine line
when you're younger and you got you know, you're twenty
eight years old and you're trying to make a living,
you're trying to buy a house and support your family.
Then you realize you got to be going a lot
and you're not going to be around much. So as
I got older, I tried to involve my family more

(17:34):
into it. My wife became my ride home. After I
coached Brittany and all those girls, we would go to
games and Jennifer would be the one that took me
home and she would say, you know, when we lost
a game, they knew not to say anything.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
And everybody was real quiet in the car and go home.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
But when we won, you know, we got to be
around and experience things together and talk and do those things.
I think also as I got older, there was different
examples where I let things, I did things that I
didn't do for the kids when I first started, Like
I would have a kid who had trouble at home

(18:14):
or have they would have an issue. I even had
a few kids who would quit and I would go
get them and get them back. And I would have
never done that in two thousand and four or five.
If they would quit during the time of the season,
like in the middle of the season, something would happen
where they didn't want to play, I wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
So in some ways I jeopardize where we were as
a program to try to save individuals, and that became
more important than the program. So I do think I
you baughlld in that area.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
I wish I could have done a better job.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
To be honest, when you look back on it, you know,
you probably said things or did things that you regret
and that you know, I would say that probably happened
as well.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
They do.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Some people I should have chased after and tried to
keep around that that I didn't let me kind of
slide away.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah, we had like a whole other conversation afterwards back
in my office about my experience and you know, quitting
the baseball team my senior year and going in and
you know, mel Brown was like call me in. It
was office, What are you doing? What? What? What caused
I guess you to change into saying all right, I

(19:28):
need to I need to go get this person or
I think you mentioned it, this person needed the team
more than she needed to be off of it. Yeah,
and that was definitely my situation. I didn't I didn't
have that opportunity. But at the same time, what kind
of what changed for you in that, because because that
I think is important of an evolvement. Was it can

(19:49):
you point anything? Or was it just like did it
just feel right? Did somebody interjag? Did your wife say
something like obviously something had to have happened for you
to be like, okay, I've never done this before. I
can stick to my guns here. Or you know, it's
like the human end you came out, you know, the
winning coach versus the human outside. Those two those two

(20:11):
people met in the space that they you know, and
here we are.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
That's perfect well put it really, I think one part
of it is you mature and you get older and
you have your own kids and you have to start
thinking how would I want them treated or would I
want them to have an who would I what kind
of person do I want coaching them? You know, so
that kind of hits home with you some and and

(20:35):
just the my wife, she was involved in a lot
of these things too, where I would have a kid,
we'd have little Kids camp and one of the kids
wouldn't show up. I'd say, Jennifer, go pick her up.
She'd go get her. Well, in two thousand and three,
she would be getting her uniform.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
Turn back into her, she'd.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Be If you can't be where I ask you to be,
you don't need to be on the team. So it's
it's kind of a strange thing. But I believe the
success early helped me later on say, well, if they
if people know I can coach, now I've proven myself
as a coach. Now I need to prove myself as

(21:13):
kind of a human person that I do care about
these kids. And I did care about them even the
earlier years. When the seasons were over, most of the
girls didn't know. I would move on to the next season,
but I would go through like a two week depression
period where I really missed those girls that I had
coached the previous year, and people that weren't involved in it.

(21:36):
They don't realize how much time we spent together. I
mean I spend more time with them than I did
in my own family during those years, and I got
to really know them they as people, and it was
hard when it was over and they were just gone.
So I would try to move on to the next
group and get excited about the young kids that were
coming up. But it became like a cycle where you

(21:59):
was like, and where is this thing? Where does this
we're not spending?

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Get off this thing, you know. I totally, I totally
remember when some of those late nights. I remember we
didn't have phones that had but I remember watching the
Red Sox win the World Series. But we were scrimmaging
you guys at night. Ryan Hill had a little handheld TV,
so were we were. We were just trying to keep up.
And then her was like, come on, somebody cycle in.

(22:24):
I'm like, I'm watching the game, man. I just remember
we spent so much time doing that, and then we've
spent so much time on the field and so much
time doing this and this, and yeah, I kept us
out of trouble. But then you kind of look back
and you're just like, I remember that my growth is
a human being during those times. And to your point
on my my profession, Yeah, I was in tax for

(22:45):
ten years and once I started having kids, I was like, yeah,
I'm gonna be around. This is not going to be
good and so that's why I went out. And it's
more stressful to run your business than it is to
work for somebody else. But it's definitely worth it to
be home on Saturdays during the spring. Yeah, never working
at night. I get to do things my way. So
there's a there's a teeter tatter effect. But I do

(23:08):
think when you're young, you got to set the foundation
and then those who evolve, like we discussed, you figure out,
all right, what works for me and my family? And
are you are you mouldable enough, whether it's by the
creator or whatever you believe to be able to listen
to those signs and signals and be like all right,
because I bet I mean you mentioned the last last

(23:29):
episode the you know Son's sitting on the bench and
doing stuff like that. What a cool experience. I know
different people are doing a lot of that. Now, do
you want to be involved in this in any way? Yes? Okay,
not forcing them into it, but asking them and some
of your kids are like, huh no, I want to
play video game. I want to play Fortnite to night that. Yeah,
so you know, what was that like, kind of introducing

(23:50):
your family, getting a ride home from your wife? When
did that? I know you said when it started, But
what was the genesis of that? Was it just kind
of something that happened or was it part of your
part of your plan to just as you continue to evolve,
let's get the family involved in this because it was
a family business. Yeah, you were a pillar in the county.
Everybody in the state knew who you were. On the

(24:11):
girls basketball front. You guys were ranked every year and
it was like but then there's this whole ecosystem behind you.
Now you got kids maturing and going into puberty, and
you got to raise men in this world, which is crazy.
I don't endy that at all. I got girls, which
is something may says harder, but I feel more prepared
for that than I do raise the boys. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
You know my assistant coach who played for me, Anna Sharp,
she said she wrote me a letter when we won
the state championship that year and she said the work
ethic that you have rubs off on your players. They
see that, and that's the reason they work the way
they were. They work as hard as they do, they
put as much time into But as I'm mature and

(24:51):
I got older, I saw that I need to involve
my kids and be around them because I was spending
all my energy on everybody else's kids.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
That's important.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
It's one of the concerns I have today with the
coaches and what's going on. I have girls who played
for me that their kids are playing junior high ball
and they said, coach, the coach isn't even around. I mean,
they don't expect anything at them. It's chaos. It's this
and uh, and I feel.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Sorry for them.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
I said, well, you know, it's getting where people don't
want to coach. People don't want to do that. A
lot of them are getting abused by parents.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
A lot of them are.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Being told what to do and who to play and
they and people don't want to get in that field.
It's not like it pays enough money either.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
It's not like you're.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Making a fortune here yet you're barely making a living
and you've got, you know, a lot of stress, and
you're spending a lot of extra time doing it. It
was somewhere in my career. A couple of things happened.
After I won the state championship. I said, I'm not
putting up with no more bull crap. This is it,
and there's a lot and I didn't realize how blessed
I was to that point.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Here was a lot more bull crap coming.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
And and then I said, I'm going to make sure
that I spend as much time with my kids as
I can. But I was being a coach's son. There's
some worse field that your daddy can be doing than
being a coach, hanging around a gym or being out
on the football field. Cameron was our ball boy in
football too, so being around the football field or being

(26:17):
around the school building, it was just naturally, I'm going
to be there, So if they can be there, I
would want them to be and experience that too. And
and I just remember Jordan, my middle son. We got
beating the state tournament and he went into the media
room with me, and that meant a lot because they're
asking you questions about losing and how you handle this

(26:40):
or that, and Jordan.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Got to be involved in that and be around that.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
So all three of them sat on the bench and
we're involved in that. But if I had to do over again, though,
I would have involved in them even more. But getting
my career started off and getting going and having some
success and knowing, hey, this is what I'm going to do,
I don't I don't think I was necessarily a bad
person or a bad parent. I was trying to do

(27:05):
the best I could.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Of course, So I think that's uh. And that's kind
of where coaches can get bad raps sometimes if they
have bad relationships with their kids, which in your case,
your wife still likes she even after you retired. It's amazing.
She hasn't told you to go find something else to
do all day and night.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
She got pretty it was we were talking about this
the other night. She got a pretty upset by the
end of the season, and in fact, the year we
won the state, she I didn't know if I could
hold her together for that years. Listen, just one more
if you give me one more week, and we can
get this thing accomplished and get this done, it's going
to be better.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
And and it was. I was.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
I would always arrived back in the spring, although I
was gone most of the winter. And that's what's great
about now. Being retired, I'm around all the time.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
Which in some cases coaches wives are like, I want
them to go, coach, he needs to get out of here.
But that hadn't been your case. No, we've really enjoyed
due you settled into normal life. But I do. Yeah,
I think the thing about running and gunning for so
long and you kind of you look at life in
such a way and yeah, you didn't quit, you didn't

(28:13):
do this or that, but then sometimes you just kind
of missed the point and going back to parenting and
things of that nature. I think for the most part,
even if even my childhood was kind of weird, parents divorced,
living my dad he was gone all the time as
truck driver. Thank god, nobody ever found out and had
to move. And then in college did the same thing

(28:35):
at Trevecca convinced him that I had but I was
supposed to be living on campus because I didn't have
parental guidance and all this stuff, And people are like, well,
aren't you upset. You know, you didn't get to be
a teenager and grow up and whatever. I said, Oh man,
he did. He did the best he could. And I
think I think a lot of times what we lack
in the world today is grace. And this grace of like,

(28:57):
now I knew my parents loved me. They did the
best they could. They came from crazy situations, and I'm like,
we's gotta keep we's gotta keep pushing along here. Yeah,
I can't set it. I tell Britt all the time.
I'm like, we's got to change the family treat and
keep it moving. Like, you know, if they all got
incrementally better, then my personality is, well, we're going to

(29:18):
one hundred percent better than any of this because they
weren't good enough or whatever, but because of you know,
because I just it's just what I want to do. Yeah,
you know, I want to be so locked in.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
We had my my wife and I had this conversation
just yesterday. Yeah, she said, you know, I wish I
would have done a better job raising so and so
or doing this or then that. I said, the success
you had of being a parent really is showing up
right now. I said, your guys wake up every morning
and go to work. They all enjoy their jobs. They're
all very successful with what they're doing right now, and

(29:51):
they're fairly young doing it, and uh, and everybody thinks
they're great. They're great humans, I said, So, I mean,
I know that you might not have spent the kind
of time you thought you would, but you were making
an impression by just going to work every day and
doing and working hard and doing the things that we did,
and then we tried to do our best at what
we were doing.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
So I've always been giving the advice you capture your
child's heart. The rest of it doesn't matter. Yeah, and
that's a very broad statement. But I remember a couple
of years ago in I was starting this and I
was traveling a lot. Well, I ask my kids now
if they remember if I traveled. They don't remember me
being gone, you know, because when I was there, it's
so impactful and it was just like they just don't remember.

(30:30):
Now I don't have to travel as much, but it is.
It's one of those things where building relationships at home,
which is kind of the whole point of this podcast
in the face of it is, Yeah, success gets you
in the room with me and sitting down and stuff,
But it's like we were you as a human. How
have you evolved? And one of the I just I've
learned so much from just you know, stories from the

(30:51):
other night and then different people telling me different things,
and then obviously Britney's experience, and we were talking about that,
like I called him the four Horsemen. But you have
four girls that decided they were going to play junior
year and they were just kind of done. But they
finished that sophomore year, and we were talking about how
Britney's or shoulder was jacked up. Most of the time,
when I talk to people and they have a season

(31:12):
enduring injury, they're just kind of like, all right, I'm done.
Definitely in football, you're not around your rehab and you're
doing all that stuff. I remember we would do rehab,
but we would do it around practice, you know, because
I was still involved on the playing playing against you guys,
and we were talking about how that's just not a
that's just not a common thing. But they all, you know,
she stuck with it. Was at every was on the bench,

(31:33):
was at everything because she just wanted to be a
part of the team. And then at the end of
the year when she's like, yeah, I just don't have
my hearts in it not anymore, I don't want to
do it. Or you know, an injury, you were you
were respectful, and we're like Uh, yeah, wish you well,
I'm glad you you know whatever. So I want to
talk about that versus you know, your thoughts on that,

(31:56):
versus necessarily quitting or giving up on something, because I
think one of the things I've told brit is like
quitting the baseball team, which was out of my mind.
Wish I had better parental guidance and different things that
could have changed that, but the one thing it did
is set me up forever because I've never quit anything since.
And I think that is why I've been so successful

(32:19):
on the financial front and business and life in general
is because one thing that it's the CP exam thing.
It takes people eighteen months past I think two or
four years. It's like another degree and I don't even
use any and I'm just like, but I do my
continued education because I'm not ever getting rid of it.
But I want to go into that because we talked

(32:40):
about that a little bit through text and after the fact,
this never give up attitude. And I'm trying to figure
out if you have any advice for parents now who
are raising kids in a different world and we're trying
to teach resilience without shoving our kids through all this trauma.
You know what I mean, it's tough so on this

(33:02):
because I don't.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Know if I have the quiet answers, but I you know,
the two things when I reviewed thinking about these, going
back and thinking about my career and you bring me
in here and doing this podcast is the other day
I talked about toughness. That was like, number one, we
weren't tough enough. But number two, what was my other value?
Would have been not given up? And where did that
come from? I really believe it was not passing that

(33:26):
intermediate out of her class, because no one, first off,
nobody that I know, would have stuck with it and
did what I did. First off, it's not a college course.
It's a course to prepare you for college. Okay, So
you're already feeling self esteem is pretty love to begin
and then you take it and fell it. And then
the next time you take it and felt they kick

(33:46):
you out of school. So now you're going to vaul
State in the summer trying to finish, and you decide
to go back and do it again. You're gonna do
it for the third time. So that kind of comes
back to not giving up. I'm not sure. I guess
the way my will raised or my parents are just
that attitude that Right now, I'm in a CrossFit gym.
I've been doing this for eight years. There is not

(34:09):
a word I did a workout before I came in here.
Every workout I do, I think about giving up every time.
Every day we're running four hundred meters out and it
was thirty degrees this morning.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
We were jumping on boxes.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
I'm almost sixty years out and I was thinking, why
am I doing this? But something inside of me makes
me thrive off of like daily, I need something that
challenges me not to quit, not to give up on
what I'm doing. I don't know if everybody's built that way.
I think that we are, but I like to see
if you can handle the challenge. So when I'm coaching you,

(34:44):
I want to put you in those situations to see
if if you're gonna give up or you're gonna quit.
And you know, I can't. The girls that I coach,
I'm so proud of them all, but they they sucked
it up and got it done. And we didn't have
anybody really quitting until later in my career that the
last five years i'd have somebody is she walking is
she I would if you look on this said I'm.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Going to go get her. She's not. She's not. She's
not moving anymore. So those challenges became harder. So that's
what you're talking about today's kids.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Well, I'm talking about kids now that are twenty to
twenty five years old that I coach, and I'm worried
about did we do enough for them to prepare them
for when they have to take that class three times?
Are they going to give up? Are they going to
expect their mom and dad to do it for them?
Are they gonna are they going to be able to
get through the tough situations that occur? You know, I

(35:37):
talked to Dan Winford, who was coaching football probably when
you were a freshman, and we talked at this saying.
I called him and I said, hey, you know I was.
I told him myself, I've been talking to Casey and
we did this, and something came to my mind that
you told me back in two thousand. When did the
school split? Two thousand and one or two thousand? I said,
you know, you knew when all those kids were going

(36:00):
to Wilson Central that you weren't going to be very good.
He only had twenty eight players on a high school
football number. I said, you knew you weren't gonna be
very good and he said, I tell you, I sat
in our office with our coaches and we knew we
were we weren't having the depth to win any games.
I think they went one at night there, he said.
I told our coaches, there's some of these guys could

(36:21):
have went to Wilson Central, a few of them, and
they stayed here. He said, the one thing we're gonna
do is we're gonna love these kids. We're gonna care
about these kids. We're gonna love these kids. And he
told me that back during that time, he said, we
teach these kids not to quit and give up. And
what are we gonna get is that what we're gonna
show me an example of giving up.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
So I don't know. I hope kids can be taught.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
Those lessons today. I hope that there's someone that cares
enough about it. But I hope the parents allow the
coaches to do that. Are the teachers that challenge you.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
You know, we my son hadn't missed them.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
I think her name was miss Hagar at the middle school,
junior high and he, you know, he got a degree
in finance at ut and he credits her in junior
High of being the reason he was able to get
his finance A crew And all we had ever heard
about was don't.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
Take that teacher. She's terrible. She's so hard on you,
she doesn't like anybody, she's so tough.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
And he gives her the credit for what he was
able to do when he got through school because of
the challenges that she put on him. So I hope
there's teachers out there that still do that and that
parents don't drive them drive them on the crazy.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, I think the what was crazy about the Winfrey
situation is I think there's five guys that could have
gone to Wilson Central, so they would have had like
twenty two or three. And what was even crazier is
my sister is a couple of years older than me,
was dating one of those guys. Yeah, so I got
to walk through that season with that dude, and just
like the struggle, but that team was locked in for,

(37:54):
you know what they needed to be locked in for,
and what that school split costs coaches their jobs. Yeah,
it really did. I mean Deering got fired, Winfrey got
the same same day.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
In fact, I didn't tell you a story about that.
Deering got fired and Dan got fired, and he was
on a Friday, caught it black Friday. He was coming
down the hallway and I was going to the office
to get my mail. Is the end of the day
and I need to check my mail in the in
the office there. When Dan came by and he got fired,
I decided I didn't need to check my mail. I said,

(38:27):
I'm not gonna check my mail today.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
She might get three of us. We saw Deering. We
had workout that day, and we saw Deering in the
weight room and usually nobody was over nobody's in that
weight room on Fridays, and he was over there and
pumping iron, dumping iron and screaming and hollering, and I
mean he might have had some personal bests that day. Yeah,
screaming for you and this and that. We kind of
knew what was going on, and we all felt terrible

(38:51):
because we knew that the school split had caused a
lot of this. Yeah, and it was it was just
a and and all these coaches had sacrificed, knew they
were getting dealt a bad hand, but still stayed around.
This is what they got for it. Yeah, that's a
little tangent. I always always remember daring and like that
whole situation and being there and just staying out of
his way. That day. We all felt terrible for him.

(39:13):
And he was good friends with my stepdad, Joe or
you know, they knew each other, and it was just
seeing it through them of my stepdad, the whole situation
of just all of it. He's you know, he got
to a point where he's like, I can't even be
in coaching him. I mean, I can't even be in
this this business anymore because it's just gotten so crazy.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yeah, and he I think Keith was just like that
was his first year. I don't believe. I don't think
he coached maybe one or two years. So he didn't
you really get a chance. I mean, he didn't have
an opportunity to stay with him coach.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
Well. Going back to the hard stuff and the CrossFit,
I think one of the things that separated me from
a lot of people is exactly what you're talking about.
People will look at so I do. I do a
lot of ice plunges. I walk all the time, my
back's been jacked up. I got stem cells. I did
everything they told me to do, and it was very incremental,

(40:03):
and it stunk and it felt like you weren't doing
anything for months and then finally you know, but it's
building blocks, right. Can't just go out there and go
lift three hundred pounds. You gotta baby steps. But one
of the things that you know, I wanted to come
back to was doing the hard stuff. I figure, for you,
you get done with that CrossFit class, there's not really

(40:26):
much that's gonna happen that day. It's gonna be harder
than that same thing with the ice when it's twenty
six degrees outside and then I go and get in
forty five degree water and I sit there for five
to ten minutes thinking about what I'm doing. Or I
was on the Greenway this morning walking and running with
a buddy and it was twenty six degrees. I've just

(40:47):
found myself, you know. Sometimes I do feel like I'm crazy,
but I found myself just like, what is the most
uncomfortable path? Because when I'm not doing those things, I
just get depressed. Yeah, i feel like I'm not your
own anymore. And I don't know if that's if that's
normal or if that's but the reason I was asking
is obviously in you. How have you been able to

(41:09):
try to pass that along to your kids? How have
you tried to teach them You've you've said you've accredited
a lot of things to how you were raised. How
did you try to pass that on through you and
your wife's being a unit to raise your kids to
be tough or or resilient. Let's call it resilient.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
I guess doing some crazy things. I remember wanting my
my oldest son, Cameron, him and his buddy Aaron Simonis.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
Aaron came down.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
He went to school down here at NBA, and he
was eleven kid, and they grew up together as Southsea
And they're riding in the car. This is back when
I was coaching, and they were cutting up back and
I said, guys, y'all need to stop cut I can't
hardly drive. And I stopped at West Elementary because they
wouldn't they wouldn't stop doing I said, all right, guys,
you see that basketball going.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Down and try to run down here as fasts. You
can't run back at.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
My house, we would do some of the same things
I did with the girls. If they didn't mind her
act right, I say, you said, we have a barn,
and we have five acres in a barn. In mind
get I said, go touch the barn and come back,
and if you start walking, you're gonna.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Do it again.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
So I tried to do things, and I always thought
that punishment was better than beating them or slapping them around.
So I said, just you're just gonna run until you
stop acting like you stop tree or I come home.
Your mama's already mad at.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
You, and she's told me that.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
You won't listen to her, you won't picky toys up,
So run to the barn and run back. You know,
even my punishment for missing practice is one of the
crazy things. My punishment for missing practice for twenty two
years was twenty laps around the gym at the end
of practice. That is very easy for one of our

(42:51):
basketball girls to do because they run all the time.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
And I don't put a clock on them to run it.
I didn't.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
All they do was run twenty I didn't ask questions.
I can't count. I can count on one hand how
many times somebody missed practice, just that I had the
rule there made them responsible for being at practice, and
they showed up every day and they didn't miss I
didn't there. I killed them on a lot of things
we did. There were a lot of challenges, a lot

(43:17):
of running bleachers up and down and running doing other
things that we did, carrying medicine balls over your head
and those kind of things. But the punishment for missing
practice was pretty simple. And I told a few coaches
this and they would they say, well, we have our.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Kids do this or suicides, and we have them down
in backs and they're not ever gonna miss.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
And they had a lot more trouble with attendance than
I did. And I think just making having boundaries gave them.
They said, oh, I don't really want to run twenty
laps after practice. I want to be believed when it's over.
I thought that was pretty good. So I do that
with with my own kids at times too, where they
would have to do the same kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
Yeah, and that's you know, that's the tough part. I
like the creativeness of making run start doing that. My
youngest wi't like it, right, so I started. I literally,
they were acting a fool the other day and Brittany
had done all this stuff for them, and you know,
my youngest woman the allergies, doesn't get it out. She
will one day how much food prep Brittany does and

(44:18):
how many dishes her daddy washes, you know, and and
I was just had enough. So I was going to
have him start, you know, like I will listen to
my mommy and daddy. Just have him rite it down
a million times, just do it right the first time
I ever, because I'm like, I'm not I don't want
to raise my voice because I don't like that that
type of situation. Although I have in the past spanking them,

(44:40):
they just they don't they're confused by So it's just like,
you know, you got to get him thinking, and you
got to be able to take something away. And so
we're really trying and then we're really big almost I'm
almost crazy about it, but Brittany's on board with It's
like there is no quitting, so they'll want to. Like
my my oldest has had a lot of trouble with

(45:01):
her confidence and gymnastics. She don't knows something. She's really
good at everything, gymnastics she has to work at. So
she's seven and she's finally having to work and stuff.
And so we have these knockdown, drag out crying don't
want to do it, and you know she'll she'll learn
one day how much it triggers Brittany to go in
those situations. Because Brittany's like, if the best of we've got,

(45:25):
the best advice we've gotten from parents is don't let
your kids quit stuff, because you let them quit stuff.
I'm watching friends, like friends of mine that have grown
kids now, their kids just quit all the time. Some
gets hard, come back home, mom and daddy right back
in and they're like, we've created a monster. So the

(45:46):
fact that you guys have yeah, you're exactly righting what
you told your wife. You've done all the work. Yeah.
By the time they turn seventeen eighteen, you know if
you've done the worker. Yeah, and you don't.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
It's hard when they get that age, you still think
how respond we are. And sometimes my wife and you
might see this with Britain too, she is still involved
so much and I have to remind her say, you're
you know what you remember we were doing when we
were twenty years old, twenty one, and how that's how
they are now.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
I said, you got to let them go. They got
to make their own.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
Mistakes now and they and maybe they'll come back. You
raise them to this point and now that you've got
to see what happens where they go with it.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
So one of the things I wanted to hit on
too is we talked about going and getting the girls
and bringing them back. What was how did you handle
situations where you knew a kid had didn't have a
great home life, because, like in my situation, the team
in those situations were that That's what Like, I thrived

(46:45):
for practice because it meant I didn't have to go home.
I loved when Coach Purvis said We're going to start
doing practice on Sundays, Yeah, because I mean I didn't
have to sit at home by myself, you know that
sort of thing. And what was you know, what was
your thoughts on that? And when you knew kind of
what was going going on, did you do anything different
or did you just you know, what was your involvement
because you obviously as a coach, there's rules around all

(47:08):
this stuff. Right, you buy a kid a cheeseburger, you're
gonna get punished, you know, stupid stuff like that. What
was that? What was that? Like? What was your philosophy
towards those sybes of things?

Speaker 2 (47:18):
You know, the people might just gets a bad rap
about some certain things. One is everybody thinks might just
like Brentwood, all the kids are driving the nicest cars
and they have it easy at home, and they and
that's that's pretty far from the truth. Especially when I
first started the first team, I coached every kid it
was either in a divorced situation or was poor. They

(47:41):
were they didn't have anything. And this was in my
jot where people think they have everything, and some people do.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
There are there's a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
There's a lot of folks that have done very well
successful but I ran into those situations a.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
Lot of times, and and.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Most of them, like my first team, the I really
might have enjoyed coaching them as much as anybody because
they didn't have anything but me. That was the most
positive thing in their life, I'll be honest with you.
And we had a great relationship, and we won a
lot of ball games. And they had changed their fate
from what they were in seventh and eighth grade to
ninth grade. There were sixteen and three and seventh grade
they couldn't win a game. So they thought a lot

(48:17):
of me, and I thought a lot of them. And
they were hard nos and their parents were working, so
they weren't complaining they were they never came. You know,
they hardly got to see their kids. They get to
see them at the games maybe, but there, you know,
somebody else had to pick them up, or some of
them were walking home from mid junior high.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
To wherever they lived.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
So over the years we had different situations. And people
don't realize that my wife taught at south Side in
eleven and she has she went to my junior graduated,
but she had an opinion that magic thought there was
a little bit better than everybody else. And I say, Honey,
of the kids I dealt with, it wasn't like it.
And the ones that had a lot and were petted on,

(48:58):
I was the complete opposite to them. Like example, Taylor Hall,
who I love that kid.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
She was.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
She came in and she was the queen, she was
the prima donna, and I treated her as bad as
I could every day. You know, I was gonna be
the opposite of what she was getting at the house.
And then some kids their home life might be a
little worse.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
I'm not going to.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Use examples of the names of those kids, but I
would you know, I might have a kinder word to
say after practice or treat them a little different during
the during the practice scheme, people said, you know, coach
Fryer was he had his favorites, and I don't believe that.
Although my favorites were the ones that could help us
win and were our best players out there, they were

(49:39):
a favorite for a reason because they would get on
the floor for a loose ball or they would do
the things that would help us win. Alicia Clark was
a favorite, there is no doubt. And there were others
as I coached throughout my career, but I probably did
more for some kids that weren't necessarily what you consider
my favorites, because they needed that more so.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
I think I was opposite.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
When I realized where a kid was coming from, what
their home life was like, I tried to be different
from what that was. If it was too easy at home,
if everybody thought a lot of them, I was pretty
hard on, and if their life was rough in the
house and I had I mean I had a few
years where I had a few kids who were I'm

(50:20):
not sure they weren't homeless, and they didn't have anything
to go home to.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
Some of them that were at the gym so much.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
And we're getting the uber rides home that I thought
that I don't know where they're going. You know, I
was trying to figure out and investigate what was going
on with them. And in my latter years I went
after a few of them that had quit that you know,
in practice, they wouldn't do what I said, and I said,
just get your stuff and go, and they'd go, and
they might be a starter.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
They'd go out the door.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
They might be somebody that sitting on the bench. And
the next day I'd go home and say, well, someone
so quick today, and you can't let her quit.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
You gotta go back and get her.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
You can't let that happens at worse than anything, Chase,
she's at her home.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
Life is terrible.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
You know where they're living, you know what's going on.
And so I'd go to their first period class, knock
on the door, say so and so come out here,
say you don't need to quit, and it'd be a
crying session.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
And then because it all comes out, Yeah, there's so
much to them slowing down, could be hunger, tired. I mean,
I mean, I can't I can't stress enough how much
growing up in those situations affect how you think. I
remember just getting yelled at and I'm like, well, I'm
just trying to figure out what I'm going to eat

(51:36):
to night. Thankfully, and his mom fed me almost every
night once we started dating. But before that, it was
kind of like, Brittany makes fun of me, but I
used to eat catch up sandwiches all the time, and
it was like, but that's that's what I knew to get.
I only knew we had certain amount of money, and
that's kind of how we did it. But that was
that was just kind of But yeah, So I think
that that evolvement and there's this hard line approach there.

(51:59):
There is there is a line to where somebody's just disrespectful,
and then there's a line where there's a lot of
young people are carrying a lot of things that shouldn't
be carrying and they don't know how to carry them, and.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
It's become more difficult for coaches to deal with those
things and to understand everybody's different situations that they're under.
So do I have a lot of regrets. I don't
know if I have a lot, but I have several
where I could have been made a difference in somebody's
life that moved on or went to another school or

(52:32):
something happened. I thought I was really hard hitted during
that time. You know, I was thirty two years old
and we were having success, and we were winning, and
I didn't have to put up with that. But she
needed to be a part of that. She didn't need
to go over there and do that, And that shouldn't
have happened. I should have done a better job of
trying to make that situation better, and I didn't. So

(52:53):
I do have regrets, and sometimes that happened, but I tried.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
To mend most of those relationships.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
I've run into a lot of these kids over the years,
and as i've retired, I've wanted to be able to
do that one thing when you retire, you want to
see You don't realize because you're in the moment and
all these seasons are going by, and you're thinking, one day,
I'll get to see all those kids again. Well, it
ain't gonna happen. I mean, what happened the other night

(53:18):
seeing that five bunch. I got to see the eight
bunch or the twelve bunch or and I miss those
kids too. But unless I run into them at the store,
they don't even see each other. You think that you
think the team kind of stays together over.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
There, all over and even Nashville. Now, I mean, we've
been doing this on break. It would have taken you
an hour to get here just to get a girls
down these days, you know, to have everybody there like
it was, it was. It was like I went back
to I was talking to Ryan, I guess two days ago,
I'm like, the one thing I wish what I wish
there was even a game that night, so y'all could

(53:54):
have just sat around for hours, yes, and done your
thing and reminisced and talked. And but I will say
I was observing, and when those girls on that basketball
team saw all of them sit down, it's like they
weren't pantation. And then all of a sudden, like the
game was somewhat close, and then the game got out
of reach real quick.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
But I thought the five Bunch kind of gave that
group on the floor boosts. They were there because they
weren't expected to win that game, and they blew.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Them, blew them out. When we were When we first
you're like, hey, get over there and watch them. It
was like nine to nine to two or something. Central
was up, and then all of a sudden, it just
got out of hand and I was like, okay, well
there you go.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
That That was another you know, I think because I'm
a control freak about things, I wish and like you
said that we could have just stayed over in the cafeteria,
but I felt I felt guilty because they were doing
all this for us, that we wouldn't support the kids.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Everything it made. It made total sense, and with everybody's
scheduling kids, it was hard to get anybody there any sooner.
So it was it was definitely. I did tell I
was like, all right, when we get to twenty five,
we need to not do this on a basketball at night,
you know, get everybody there. It is have a good time.
But yeah, that and then going back to kind of

(55:13):
the just the thing with the income piece, Yeah, we
were looked at Mount Juliet's got all this money there.
What was crazy is I grew up when my parents
were married on the peninsula. We're talking about the Lakeview Crew,
where there was money everywhere. But on my bus route
halfway through, I was in the purse of the poor

(55:34):
on Eymore Lane over there. And I don't know what
it looks like now. They have been completely turned over.
But there were people living in unimaginable circumstances getting on
the same bus with me, going the same place and
doing and figuring out how they were gonna wearing the
same thing every day, and it just it's not it's
not what everybody thought it was.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
Yeah, I had people I graduated with in the same
situation was going on in the mid eighties. Some guys
I was great friends with when their mom and dad
were together, they lived in a you know, a nice
neighborhood out in wild Wood, the States, and on one
on nine and then then next thing, you know, they
would be a divorce happened. They'd be living in a
trailer on the Highway seventy with their dad mate with them.

(56:15):
So it's amazing how lifestyles change. And a lot of
those situations are going on in that high school there
and those and and happening while you're coaching. These kids
are going through these struggles.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
So it's tough. It's tough. And then one one thing,
just as an aside, because I thought about a million
things we could talk about today. But a lot of people,
you know, know, Alicia has the finished product, but they
don't realize how raw she was when she got there.
When she was talking to us. I remember when when
she first started playing and we became friends. She's like,

(56:49):
I'm a volleyball player. I'm not a basketball player.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
The only reason she became a basketball player is because
I found her first.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
If she would have been found by the track coach,
we would have a track program. Are the volleyball coach
at the time. She would have been excellent at though, right.
And the main thing is when she was out there
playing volleyball that senior year. She didn't play in the beginning,
and they were like two and fifteen, and then all
of a sudden she gets on the team and they
become twenty and fifteen and they're competing to go to
the stadium and the final.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
But when Alisha came.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
You almost hate to say this because it sounds like
you can really coach and you made her who she was,
or coach Sims made her who she was.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
The product was there. She was going to be who
she was. She was a winner.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
She was going to figure it out whatever she was doing.
She was smart. She was like a sponge when you
were coaching her. But I was going to ask you
this question too, when you came into Mount Juliet and
you were playing, say like baseball. How many kids could
come in too, mind you as a ninth grader and
never played baseball, maybe just rec league and made the

(57:51):
baseball team. Okay, Well, Alisia is one of the only
kids that really never really played. She was on in
a basket ketball team, but I'm not sure what they
were doing, you know what I'm saying, Like every kid
I had was more skilled than she was.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
The day she came into her gym basketball, I Q
you could tell that she was, you know, like I said,
just raw. So yes, it was it was her determination,
but it was also you guys, you built. She had
you molded the clay basically, I think she allowed you to. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Yeah, well she was smart in the way. If you
ever notice anything about Alesia, she she gets along with everybody.
Everybody when she's at MTSHU and they're interviewing her after game,
her and Chip the announcer guy, are like their best friends.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
She loves her. She's got a nickname for everybody, you know,
the white I always say, the white version of her
is my wife. My wife's got friends there quote unquote
geeks and from Queens and buddies over here and buddies
over there, and you you run across. So I just
happened to get the marry one. But you run across
people like that sometimes they just I mean, I'll have

(59:02):
my parents tell Brittany more stuff and they'll tell me,
Like you know, same with Alicia. People just they go
into a room and it's just like everything changes, the
mood changes. But back to that, Yes, I get the
credit being given to her and her hard work, but
you guys were doing some very sophisticated things with her

(59:28):
and that team that I think as as a byproduct
of it, all the girls that went through that, assuming
they marry guys that have the same philosophy. I mean,
we're like, we're just a bunch of power couples now.
So I think that was That's one of the biggest
things that you know, when I was reflecting with Brittany
after we talked, She's like, why to go? I said,

(59:50):
we just kept going. I mean, he was there for
three hours and now honestly didn't want to believe, but
I had to go yell at somebody at two thirty,
you know, somebody on my team. So I had to
get off. But I think, you know, regrets aside, because
I don't really think there should be any. You don't
get to where you're at today and to be able
to reflect like this if you were a knucklehead at
some point, everything was always easy. And here I am

(01:00:12):
talking to a guy, you know, twenty years old than
I am. But you know, you don't get somewhere by
not evolving, and you evolve from making a lot of
mistakes and failing and getting through those things. And what
was built through all that was hundreds of people that
would have been different had they not played the sport,

(01:00:32):
had they not done this, have they not done that.
I mean a lot of my OCD comes from coach
Purpose because of how detail oriented he was and you
had to know where you had to be all the time.
True story, I'm flunking freshman year of high school. I
finished with honors and had a I made straight a's
from sophomore year on one. Maybe moving in My dad

(01:00:56):
did something, but he wasn't really on me about anything,
but it was attention to detail that I was like, well,
if I have to do it here, I might as
well do it everywhere else. Yeah. Yeah, So through us
most is you just kind of morph. Yeah, that's a
great statement. Yeah, and you just kind of morph. So
don't you wish that for everyone you do? And now
you're like I said, I I racked my brain on

(01:01:17):
how do I do with that with my employees when
they come in here green it's can be and they're younger,
and I don't. I don't. I you know, imagine me
a thirty eight year old guy and now I'm coaching
a twenty one year old kid in accounting, and it's like,
how do I get this person up to snuff without
just making it hard on? You know, I don't know
how else to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
I don't know how to coach. Like that's why I'm
not in coaching exactly what you're saying. I'm not the
type that could coach today. I'm not sure how you
would do it. That would I'm tough, and I don't
know if you can be tough, and I don't think
be so safe and is coaching because of the same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Totally, it's moving down from college to high school. I've
shifted my whole workforce to people I work with a
long time ago that are either my age or a
little older. Because I'm I have the hardest time finding
people that I will allow me to mold them, and
if they just buy in, I can get them there.
And it's like, you know, it's just it's really hard.

(01:02:09):
I rack my brain and I'm like Brett I sometimes
they just rather just be by myself myself, But then
you can't do that either. So it's a wild thing.
But again, where hours goes by just like that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
Well, we want to keep a positive attitude about it.
Do you have to think today that these kids are
figuring it out? It's just going to be different when
you When I'm watching the game today this afternoon, I'll
see Georgia and Notre Dame playing. There's gonna be great
athletes out there playing who've worked their tail life. So
there's kids that are still doing that. And and even
it can't have changed that much. Maybe I'm just getting

(01:02:44):
older and that's why I think it can't be fixed.
But it probably can't. I just have to have a
different idea about how to do it, and it may age.
I'd rather be retired.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
I know. What was so crazy is you know I
was part of that gen Z millennial and they thought
we were going to ruin the world. And now you know,
eighty percent of all wealth has come from companies that
people in my generation run now, So we figured it out,
even though they thought we were going to be absolutely insane. Yeah,
and I think it's turning. I think things are coming
back because my generation, like literally, if you're I'm thirty eight,

(01:03:21):
if you were thirty eight or right in four years
under me or four years Facebook came out and you
had to be in college. And I was in college
when it came out. That was introduction MySpace into social media,
so we knew it was like without it. We also
knew it was like with our cell phones. So I
got to live in both worlds. There was people before

(01:03:41):
and being an adolescent and a multiple person and in college,
so I got this great weren't at this great time
to see both sides? Well, now all of us are
parents and we're like, we knew which one was better,
and it was the one without all the garbage and
out all the social media. So now you see this turn,
we're turning back. That's kind of the last question that

(01:04:02):
I had on my list was a social media and
things started becoming all these distractions started coming into play.
How were you able to adjust to still get your
teams into the state tournament. You know I was going to.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
We didn't the first ten years from two thousand and
twenty ten about to kill those kids. And we had success,
and we won a lot of games, and they were
they they achieved, There was no One of my goals
was to reach our potential, to achieve what was possible
for that team to achieve, and we won a lot
of games.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
Twenty ten to twenty twenty, I went to just as
many state championships, state tournaments, and I didn't do that
to them. I didn't treat the ten to twenty and
anything like I treated two thousand and twenty ten completely different.
I found a way to get this bunch to go
the same path. I don't know if we want as

(01:04:57):
many games when we the end result was where we
were before. The only difference was when we got to
the state tournament and we would get beat. I wouldn't
know exactly why. It's because I wasn't tough enough on
certain things, and we screwed up a sideline in bounds
or a baseline inundes and it got us beat.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
We just weren't pursue.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
We never had the best athletes at the state tournament.
We might have one of the best players at times,
but everybody else was kind of an average athlete and
a very skilled player, and repped in and worked at
But those ten years I look back on and I
said it was more I wouldn't say one was more
fun than the other, but I knew the first ten

(01:05:38):
years what we were capable of doing, and we did
what we were capable of doing. The next ten years,
I wasn't sure what I was going to get, if
that makes anse sense. So we practiced and we worked,
but we weren't addicted to it, and they weren't as
tied into it. But once we got to the playoffs,

(01:06:00):
the route I had figured out this is what's got
to happen. My last year, twenty nineteen was the only
year this happened. We did not win the regular season
district championship, and we won twelve out of twenty two
years we won the district twelve times. We didn't win anything.
Ye Okay, we didn't win the district tournament, we didn't

(01:06:22):
win the region tournament. Only thing we won that year
to get to the state tournament were the games that
were the elimination.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
Games that we could not lose to.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
Get were So I figured out a way to skate
through there, win twenty six games instead of thirty six games,
and get to the same end result. And now let's
see if we get a good draw and have a
chance to win a state championship. So really it was
me evolving into I don't really have to do this
the same way that I did it before. And poor

(01:06:51):
Alicia and those kids.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
That went there, if they were have called me the
next team, they might have.

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
But I do think I gave those first ten more
foundation for the that I gave the last ten.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
They don't care. I know for sure most of them
don't care. They are all grateful that they went through, guys,
And the fun part is they're raising their own kids. Now. There.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
You guys are the age I was when we won
the stay. I was thirty seven, and y'all have your
own kids. And I have so many girls that come
and tell me how things are and how disappointed they
are in the program that they're involved in, if it's
at Label Middle School or if it's at Magic Junior
High or West Wilson, how.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Things are going.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
And that makes me feel kind of good that we
and another thing. Tal was gonna say that every kid
that played for me, I wish could have been my
assistant coach and see what it was really like. Because
what you say you said, I feel like we graduated
about the same time. We both we have the same
kind of story.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
In a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
Magic really hadn't changed a lot from two thousand and
five to nineteen eighty five. And the the girls like
Lauren Hudson who came back and coached with me, or
Anna Sharp or Ryan Heell, they saw.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
A completely different side. This guy's normal.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
And if you were the head coach, how would you be?
You know, when you're when everything comes kind of back
to you, of course, how's.

Speaker 1 (01:08:17):
That going to be for you?

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
I've always thought I'd make a great assistant coach because
I would go home and sleep and if if we
didn't win, if we won or we lost, I wouldn't
take that to the house with me because there's a
guy that's probably making the call on that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
That's like these coordinators now, these guys Chip Kelly and somebody,
they're leaving head coaching positions go be coordinators, don't won't
deal with it anymore, and they make a lot of
money they still want to do it. No, I think
that's the that's the key to it all. But I
think the big thing that you know, I think we've
got out of this is that at the end of

(01:08:50):
the day, an involvement of a human is you're either
going to have a life well spent or a life wasted.
And I think in your case, it's been an evolution
of you did you did the things you need to
do at the times you needed to do them, and
then you you adjusted and life is all about adjustments.
And you find the right person to help to live

(01:09:12):
your life with that can adjust with you and all
that stuff, and it's a blessing.

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
And she and she and she will say that that
she felt like I had a calling to do this,
and I've told you that before, and I'm blessed that
I had somebody like that, because there's a lot of
these coaching situations always and it's.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Not always, but a lot, and some of that's on
the coach and some of it's on just the not
not aligning goals with your your family and your spouse
and what you got to do. And I've I've had
friends who have been, you know, climbing the ranks of
college coachings, but their kids needed them early on behavioral
problem stuff like that quick coaching altogether when you sold

(01:09:51):
insurance just because it was like got to do. It's
the family, you know, and I love seeing that. But yeah,
I don't think there's anything to I don't think any
of those girls. They laugh about it now, but I
watch my wife with my kids on how she teaches things.
And because we were so muldible by the coaches we

(01:10:13):
had and you guys were so detailed, we just expect
nothing less, you know where, and sometimes we're just as
ornery as you guys were that. Yeah, we do a
lot more apologizing, but we're Yeah, and because the coaches.
Sometimes I'll see the coaches and I'm like, Brittany's like
getting all frustrated stuff. She's like, you just need a coach.

(01:10:34):
I'm like, we can't do that our whole life. You know,
you can't just take over and or can't Sunday school
ministry at church. She's like, well, you can organize, you
take over. I'm like, sometimes you just got to be
the assistant coach. And yeah, one of the best things
that I've and you alluded to it being an assistant coach.
I had somebody tell me one time several years ago,
because I was always either a control freaker, had to

(01:10:56):
be running running the show. And I remember kind of
getting passed up on an opportunity and I asked him,
I said, what was what happened? He's like, Casey, you're
all about hitting home runs and I needed a guy
to play small ball and I didn't think you'd do it. Yeah,
And that dude you want to talk about hitting me, Yeah,
just smoked my ego. And I think my ego died

(01:11:19):
that day. Yeah. I was like, I've really got to
look at things from a more holistic view, that there's
more than just me and my agenda and how I
want to do things. And I gotta I gotta work
with the ecosystem. Yeah. And it's so less stressful in
somebody else. Yeah, you have to.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
And one thing I wanted to touch on her the mentorship
of who taught me how to coach. Somebody showed me
how you're supposed to coach, and it's my responsibility to
show others the way that I believe you should coach.
And some of the years the way I was coaching
is not the way I would recommend somebody doing. I
would not want my own kid putting his self in

(01:11:58):
his career at jeopardy like I had done. But I
had good and my wife reminded me of this too.
I was lucky to be around Mark Madley, tremendous coach,
good Christian man, Randall Huttel, the mayor of Wilson County.
Being around Randall Hutte these people made a difference for

(01:12:19):
me as a coach, and then therefore I always felt
like it needed to be shared with other coaches too.
Kind of you, there's really I would look at a
coach and what they were doing, and I would say,
why are they doing that? Crazy well, and then I'd say,
I know why they're doing that because whoever was teaching them,
that's what they saw. That was the example of being
a coach to them. So we talked about coach purpose.

(01:12:41):
It's probably mentored by Woody Hunt, and he's doing a
lot of the same things that wood he taught him.
If you're not around good people, you just can't come
into coaching and be around kids and all of a sudden,
think that you can know you know what you're doing,
You're gonna make a lot of mistakes doing that, and
I think I probably did, But I was lucky I
was around. I was around a lot better people than

(01:13:02):
I was, But that always helped me to refer to
the good people. When I first started, I was coaching football.
Football coaches would coach football, and then you go out
and eat potato chips and drink beer on and then
you're not with your family, and that's what's causing people
to get divorced. I realized really early on that was
one of the things that kind of pushed me away

(01:13:23):
from football. The people I was around at one point
that ain't the kind of life that I could live,
and that's the way that was being done at that
time period. So that changed for me. So I think
that mentorship and who who's around you is a big
indicator of what you're going to become.

Speaker 1 (01:13:40):
I think you got to find the mentors to invest in.
You got to be multiple, and then you're you are
what you hang out with. Yeah, and that's that's you
can change that, yeah exactly. I mean you can. Career wise,
it just takes a lot of foresight, takes some guts,
and you just got to figure figure it out. But
I'd say you know, knowing you and watching the whole situation,

(01:14:04):
seeing behind because we never got yelled at, you know,
except for when I was acting like an idiot, which
some of the girls reminded me of when we're at
the reunion and I was like, guys, you know, I
think I walked off the court that day and Brittany
reminded me what I said, and I go, yeah, that
was pretty dumb. That's a pretty dumb thing to say.
But I think as I've as I've tried to evolve,

(01:14:27):
you're sitting there looking at things and you're like, it's
a sum greater than its parts, and in your case,
it definitely has become that. And like I said, people
seeing you now, they're like, you just set up hundreds
of families, you know, And that's what That's what coaches
have the ability to do, and they set up a
hundred And that's a lot of why I like to

(01:14:48):
do podcasts with people because a lot of times, a
lot of this stuff's not going to come out to
you die. People are just not going to give you
what the young people call you, Just do your recognition,
your flower. And I think that's said because you know,
you always you always want to, you know, look at
things like that, and just like I was talking to

(01:15:09):
somebody in one of these episodes. It was after the episode,
and I was like, I used to just care so
much about what people thought, you know, what I did
to him in high school, or I was too mean
or this or that. And then you go meet them
and half of them don't even remember, you know, they
remember what issues they had during that time. Yeah, and
what we what we all really are just concerned about

(01:15:32):
ourselves and how we survived this life and we don't
have to. I just don't have to worry about it,
you know. But I think I mean, it was fun,
you know, reminiscing with everybody at the reunion and seeing
everybody and not a not a bad word was.

Speaker 2 (01:15:47):
Said, you know they you know they I say, I've
told put somebody today we were just talking about this.
I don't think today, in twenty twenty five, I would
get the degree in education and I would have went
into the field today and do this again. But I'll
say I have no regrets about the thirty years that
I did do it and the memories that I made

(01:16:08):
from it. I told my wife, you know, I could
have started my own business and been successful doing that.
But I wouldn't have had built any relationships. I mean,
people wouldn't know who I was. I would just made
money in our house would have grown, and we would
have had to I don't know if I could have
lived that kind of life, and looking back, the people
that I was around and the experiences I got to experience.

(01:16:31):
Every season except one ended in a loss and then
we're that was devastating. It was like gut wrenching to
somebody who's a competitor. And I put up with that
and that was very stressful. But I wouldn't take anything
for it back.

Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
And it is tough because you got a lot of
bright minds out there that would be great teachers and
the system just burns them out now, so it's going
to be tougher and tougher I think to find great coaching,
and I think a lot of it where people who
came from broken homes could rely on their coaching. It's
it's just gonna be I told Britt, you know, like

(01:17:07):
it's going to be so important for us as we
grow up and our kids get into sports and stuff
to look for other people to mentor and shield and
you know, take under our wings because I still know
if it's gonna be there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
I came from a generation we were out playing football
where they didn't believe in giving you water. So this
may have been another thing that the girls got the experience.
I did give them water maybe once, very often, but I.

Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
Remember you give it to them, but then it was
the wrong time to give it to them, maybe puking
all over the place. Yeah, probably.

Speaker 2 (01:17:38):
But they made us suck on ice in football, so
we'd suck on ice and it'd be muddy from your
hand and then you put it on your head and
put your helmet out.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
And go out there.

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
And some of those three days and doing that develop
some of that toughness that I carried on probably to
some to the to the girls, because there were some
times when we were in summer camp.

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
See back in these.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
Days, they didn't have a heat watch, so it could
be one hundred and twenty and we're out running just
feeling today. Kids today would just fall over and pass
out maybe done, be over.

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
So man, well, thanks, I really appreciate you. Is we
covered everything? Yes, Yes, that was that was good.

Speaker 2 (01:18:14):
I appreciate you doing this. I had a good time,
and like I said, talking to a magic guy and
talking about the experiences in the same city during those
time periods.

Speaker 1 (01:18:25):
It was great time. Its good memories. It was good memories.
It was it was like, you know, every time I
go back, I I don't know if you if you
put a lot. I felt like I put a lot
into the community through baseball, through girls basketball, and I
just you know, there's just a sense of pride and
you kind of understand and it's not because of the
wins and the losses. It's because you put everything you

(01:18:46):
had into it. Yeah, and you gave it everything you
got and then you know, it's it's just it's hometown price. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:53):
Yeah, and it's great seeing it's great seeing the success
of you and also seeing the success and a lot
of them, my JOD alumni who were out there doing
great thing.

Speaker 1 (01:19:01):
Yeah, we were having a conversation. We won't name d all,
but yeah, it was. It's just crazy that that group
of that four years, like you know, the wall behind
me and those are just sports, you know, that's not
all the business owners and people that have done great stuff, doctors, surgeons, whatever.
It's there was a lot of people coming out of

(01:19:23):
there and I think it was a credit to all
the coaching and because a lot of it didn't play sports. Afterwards,
we all got on with our lives.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
Yeah yeah, And I remember when the school split and
then Wilson. You know, the school was kind of crazy
when it had all of us together. There was a
lot of nutty things going on down there. When the
school split, we lost a lot of athletes, but I
thought we gained a better school and it wasn't just
the basketball team. I was really proud of all the kids.
I mean, I remember the cheerleaders being really involved in

(01:19:53):
our basketball team and what we were doing, and I
loved those kids. They were great kids. Like my history class,
we you know, we beat chilled With one night and
I came into the history classroom and got a standing
ovation from from the class. Who even knows today, there's
a game that occurred or happened. So it was like
the whole school knew what was going on and it

(01:20:13):
was wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:20:14):
Brittany was literally like in shock that we were going
to a Wilson Central memj game. The place wasn't even
half full and nobody was even cheering, and we didn't
know what side we were on, and she was just
like dumbfounded. She's been talking about it ever since. And
when people ask her how was reunion? Because we I

(01:20:34):
told a bunch of friends it was like, you know,
Brittany's getting honored, and they just like cause she's like this,
stay out of the way, and and so they're all
asked her how was She goes, I just can't believe
that much has changed. These people just don't care anymore.
I just can't believe it. It was blah blah blah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
So but hopefully Ryan gets things back.

Speaker 1 (01:20:53):
We make we make a lot of jokes with him
about his uh hiring and firing techniques, and we're like,
how are you? How are you Ryan Hill? Mister I
don't talk very much, mister Shay guy because our friendship
it was the dynamic duo, and I was always running
my mouth and he was always like back in the back,
you know, bulked up. Yeah, can to Hamburger about it

(01:21:16):
all the time. But now we're like, how do you
how do you how do you fire people these days?
He goes, I just tell him we're going in a
different direction, so you don't elaborate.

Speaker 3 (01:21:23):
He goes, no, learn you don't elaborate. He learned from Yes,
he did. Don't talk too much. I'd write. He'd say
I need you to make a statement about this, and
I'd write it out. He'd be about a you know,
paragraph halfway down the page and he has a change
it to a sentence. And then that's how you am.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
You don't want to say too much. You don't say
too much, you don't want to incriminate. So but yeah,
I'm grateful that he took the reins. I know it's
not an easy, easy job. Probably could have stayed of
Watertown and lived a nice life and kind of thing.
My purpose is retreated to there, which I'm happy for
him because that's a that's a good, good spot to
be county. That's kind of like the only like last

(01:22:03):
piece that you know, it's not gonna get crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:22:05):
Yeah, that's true. We had a girl and and I
was you know, I've spent my last two years at Watertown.
I don't want this to dragon this one girl was
being recruited by some schools that was playing basketball.

Speaker 1 (01:22:17):
And I got to know those girls at Watertown. But
I wasn't gonna coach.

Speaker 2 (01:22:20):
I was like that assistant. They thought I was grandpa.
They loved me, but I wouldn't staying for the games
very much.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
I'd see my son playing. But she came.

Speaker 2 (01:22:29):
She said, Coach Fryer, I met a girl that played
for you. She's the head coach at Welch. And I said, well,
I knew it was because Katie Brian had played for
me and she went to Welch and was there coaching.
Katie was someone who came off the bench and played
someone she never started. Probably I think she may have
quit her junior year I because she realized people behind
her were going to play. But she said, you won't
guess what she said. And I said, what'd she say?

(01:22:51):
And she says, Coach Frier told me when I was
playing for him that I would never do anything in
my life harder than playing for him.

Speaker 1 (01:22:59):
And he was right. You don't know how to take that. Hey,
you never know who you're gonna be. I'll finish it
up with this. I remember going into the dentist office
and I think it was Rebecca Vantrix was in there,
and she found out. I went to Mount Juliet, found
out my wife and she's like, I wouldn't have got
through hiking school fan to play for coach fr Like,

(01:23:21):
you know, so it's just, you know, a work. I
think you set them up. You set them up. So
if you if you leave with anything, know that you
did ride by all of us, and whether it could
have been done different or not, it was done the
way it was done. And I think I think you
know the I think you're winning percentage amongst those people
was just like you're winning mascientage on the floor. It

(01:23:43):
was very high. So I appreciate you coming in and
baring it all and give me, give me the time,
and thank you. Just a lot of fun and yeah,
I wish you well as you as you go three
star every day. It's like people know where you're gonna
be you all the time now golf course during the summer,
got his got his got his class, and maybe cut

(01:24:04):
some grass that you can still find him and very
still accessible, which I think is awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
Yeah, I'm told kids, anytime they need me, holler at me,
I would let I have no thing going on, I'd
love to spend some with them.

Speaker 1 (01:24:16):
I needed you for this and you came running, so
here we go. I appreciate you, thank you, thank you
absolutely all right, guys, that's another episode. We thank you
for the support and we'll see you on the next one.

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Ep.37: Coach Chris Fryer, Part 2

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