November 11, 2025 • 23 mins
TrulySignificant.com presents Tom Osborne, one of our favorite leaders of all time discussing Beyond the Final Score.
Learn about Tom's parents and his Grandfather that was tragically killed by a bolt of lightning.
Hear about Midwestern values...don't spend money if you don't have it, you can't count on prosperity and affluence lasting forever, be married through thick and thin.
Tom Osborne is more than a Coach, Congressman and friend. He is a mentor for life.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/success-made-to-last-legends--4302039/support.
Learn about Tom's parents and his Grandfather that was tragically killed by a bolt of lightning.
Hear about Midwestern values...don't spend money if you don't have it, you can't count on prosperity and affluence lasting forever, be married through thick and thin.
Tom Osborne is more than a Coach, Congressman and friend. He is a mentor for life.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/success-made-to-last-legends--4302039/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
And welcome back to success made the last and our
very important CEO and ten Legends series. Our very special
guest today is Tom Osborne, the football coach of the
Decade in the nineteen nineties, and he is a noted author,
(00:29):
and today he's talking about his fourth book that he
had written. For Tom Osborne as coach of the decade
in college football, he led the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers
to three national championships and what we love most about
him today though, is that he is a noted author
and leaving a legacy of words. Tom. Welcome to our
(00:50):
show and we thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
It's nice to be on with you.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Tom. How is this particular book different from the previous ones.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, the book I wrote a year ago was called
Beyond the Final Score and was somewhat a reflection compilation
of things that have happened, primarily since I got out
of coaching in nineteen ninety seven. As you mentioned, I've
done some teaching. I've been in Congress for six years
(01:20):
and did some reflecting on that experience and what seems
to make government work, what doesn't seem to work. And
part of that book was about leadership, and of course
I'm now the athletic director at the University of Nebraska.
So I've worn quite a few different hats that have
entailed leadership in one way or another. And this most
(01:44):
recent book is really an excerpt of the book I
wrote a year ago and deals primarily with leadership. Now,
obviously we've added to it, we've refined it, we've done
some things. But it's not a very big book. It's
about eighty pages, but it simply discusses the things that
(02:07):
I've found to be significant regarding all of the different
roles that I've had, and particularly those issues that involve leadership.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
When you reflect back on your career, how did your
parents influence your leadership style?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, your parents always influenced who you are what you are,
and I was very fortunate to have a two very
solid people, good people of good character as parents. They
were children of the Depression. I know they were engaged
(02:46):
to be married for about four or five years because
they couldn't afford to get married. And then I was
born in nineteen thirty seven, which was along towards the
tail end of the depression. But I think some of
those values that people held as a result of that
experience in depression years has stayed with me, and that
(03:09):
would be that you don't spend money if you don't
have it. You try to make sure that what you
spend your money on is worthwhile, and that you can't
count on prosperity and affluence lasting forever. And then beneath
(03:31):
all of that was a very sound value system of honesty, integrity,
a solid family that stuck together through thicker and thin.
Had a difficult time because my dad was gone from
nineteen forty one to nineteen forty five. He was overseas
(03:54):
in World War Two in the European theater. I was
in the Battle of the My mom and I didn't
hear from him for a period of about three months,
and that was, of course very nerve racking. And so
they laid a good foundation. And when my dad came back,
(04:16):
I didn't know him very well. You know, I was
five when he left and I was about ten when
he came back. And one thing that I discovered was
that he had a great love of athletics, and I
wanted to please him, and so I threw myself into athletics,
and so we had that in common. And of course
(04:38):
athletics has been a pretty dominant theme throughout my lifetime,
both as a player and then as a coach, and
I was an athletic director.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Was your mom the guy post in your family relative
to faith.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Well, my mom and dad were both solid Christian people,
and during that time in World War Two that I
I've alluded to, my mother worked in an ammunition plant
in a city about twenty miles away, and she commuted
back and forth every day, so I saw her every evening.
(05:13):
Of course, my dad was overseas. I had a grandmother
who was a person of very strong faith, and we
went to church every week, and I think I absorbed
a great deal in terms of a spiritual background from her.
I had a grandfather on my dad's side who lived
(05:35):
out in western Nebraska, and he was a Presbyterian minister,
and I guess if I had a role model in
my life, it was maybe most influential was my grandfather.
His name was Tom and his last name was Osborne,
and he spoke six languages. He was in the state
(05:58):
legislature for a while. He was a fairly prominent minister
in the western part of the state, and so he
was three hundred miles removed from where I was when
I grew up, which was Hastings, Nebraska, and during World
War Two, I lived in Saint Paul, Nebraska, which is
about fifty miles north of Hastings, and so I didn't
(06:21):
see him very much. I probably was not in his
presence more than five or six times during my lifetime
his lifetime because he was killed by lightning in about
nineteen forty six. But I think the type of man
he was and my image of him was very powerful
(06:43):
in my life. And sometimes when I was growing up,
I would wonder what my grandfather would think, you know,
about how I was conducting my life. And so he
was also a very powerful influence. It's a great man
of faith, even though I was not around him a
(07:04):
whole lot.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
There's a pattern of strong men in your life. I
would suspect that you have coached many players that were fatherless.
What advice would you give to those who are missing
their fathers?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Well, sadly, you're right on track. There are roughly twenty
five million fatherless young people in our country today. And
when you think about it, back in nineteen sixty two
when I started coaching, the out of wedlock birth rate
was about five percent. Today is thirty nine percent. So
(07:42):
we've seen a huge change in the family structure and
it has led to a great deal of fatherlessness. And
you're right. I did coach a lot of young men
who did not have fathers and some who did not
have mothers. And so this is why I think the
coaching profession, why the teaching profession is so important today,
(08:06):
because many times, for many of these young people, coaches
teachers are maybe the only adult figure they have in
their life that they can turn to. And so it
certainly impacted the way I coached, and my wife and
I seeing the changes back in nineteen ninety one, my
(08:30):
wife asked me, is there anything we could do? And
I said, well, we have a pretty good resource here.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
We have a.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Football team that young people look up to. And so
in a team meeting the next day, I asked players
to raise their hand if they'd be willing to spend
some time with a young person seventh or eighth grade
boy in the Lincoln Public schools, and many of these
were fatherless kids, and twenty two hands went up, and
(09:02):
we matched twenty two football players with twenty two seventh
and eighth grade boys in Lincoln Public schools, and that
grew and matured, and finally when it came time for graduation,
we were gratified that of the twenty two twenty one
did graduate and of the twenty two eighteen went on
(09:24):
to college. And so from that we were encouraged and
we expanded the program, and today we have a mentoring
program called Teammates, and we mentor forty three hundred kids
across Nebraska into Iowa and even one chapter out in
San Diego, and we hoped to hit five thousand this year.
(09:48):
So a mentor can certainly phill avoid can be that
person that provides the ability and direction and affirmation in
a young person's life. Of course, we've expanded and changed
the program and that we now are mentoring not just
young men, but young men and young women. And we've
gone from football players primarily to adults who do the mattering,
(10:13):
both men and women. Men, some are nineteen or twenty
years old and some of them are in their eighties,
and we found that it has made a profound difference
in the lives of most of these kids.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
That is profound. I bet that your mentors in nineteen
ninety one became better fathers, and because of that, your
coaching actually was training for fatherhood.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Well, you know, we've been gratified by those first players
that were involved that some of them. Will Shields would
be an example, who was later played about thirteen fourteen
years with Kansas City Chiefs and was an All Pro
football player. Started some work with youth groups done in
(11:08):
Kansas City. It was somewhat patterned off of what we
did here, and we have some of those early mentees,
those first twenty two young men are now mentors. And
so as a result, it has come full circle to
some degree.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Now, why is it that we're both surrounded by very
vocal wives that know how to ask the right questions
at the right time.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Well, I guess we're just fortunate. But and so Nancy
has been a catalyst and has worked very hard on
the teammates organization, and she's been a great partner. And
of course we've had to have a lot of good
people help us as it has grown to the number
of forty three hundred right now.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And to that end, let's mentor young married couples out
there sharing insight on why yours and Nancy's relationship has succeeded.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Well, I think that one thing that we were both
cognizant of was we wanted to marry somebody that had
a common spiritual worldview, and so when Nancy came from
a strong Christian family, I did. And even when you
(12:25):
come from families that are fairly similar and outlooks that
are similar and common spiritual values, there are still going
to be differences.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
But we.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Continue to go to church together every week, we pray
together at meals, and I think that common bond has
been very important to us, and I feel for some
people who are what we might call unequally low yoked.
And doesn't mean that you couldn't marry a non Christian
(13:03):
and have a great marriage, but it certainly helps if
you come from a similar spiritual background and a similar worldview.
And of course Nancy has a good sense of humor.
I think I've got a reasonably good sense of humor
and that doesn't hurt. And we've been blessed with three
(13:23):
children that we love very much and are very proud of,
and then we have four grandkids, and so Nancy and
I both are quite involved in their lives because all
four of them live here in Lincoln's were very fortunate.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Back to your book, we notice the forward was written
by one of your favorites of all time, John Wooden.
Tell us about your relationship with one of the greatest
coaches to ever live.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Well, I first met John, I don't know, it had
been late seventies, early eighties. He had gotten out of coaching,
I'd think in nineteen seventy six, and I think he
was in Chicago to speak or something, and so I
(14:12):
met him there and ran into him a couple other times,
and talked to him on the phone on occasion, and
then Nancy and I were able to go out and
have lunch with him last January, and of course he
subsequently died about four months later. But John, the last
time I saw him was ninety nine, still very sharp,
(14:35):
and probably of all the coaches that I've known, I
admired him the most because he only was very successful,
he knew why he did things. He had a very
strong philosophical base, was a very spiritual person, and I
(14:58):
think had a great influence on those who played for him.
And so anyway, I've always admired him. He's written several books.
I think I've read almost everything that he's written, and
he had a great influence on me as a young coach.
Because I read him read a book written by him.
(15:18):
I think he might have been called they call me coach,
or something like that. And in the book he mentioned
that he never talked about winning to his players, and
I thought that was kind of unique, because here was
an individual who won more than anyone in basketball or football,
and I think in a twelve year span he won
(15:38):
ten national championships in basketball and at one point had
won eighty seven eighty eight straight games home and away,
and yet he never talked about winning. And he said
that what he really emphasized was the process, and he
quoted Servantes, and Servantes said something like this, the journey
is more important than the end. And so what I
(16:02):
took that to mean was that so often in coaching
we focus on winds and we focus on the final score,
but the most important thing is really the journey, the
relationships that are formed, the values that are taught, the
daily grind, the work ethic, what you do in practice,
(16:27):
how well you master the fundamentals. And so I took
that as a great lesson and didn't talk to our
players about winning. I never said, well, we have to
win this game. And what we did we talk about
what we needed to do on Monday and Tuesday and
Wednesday and talked about team chemistry and as time went on,
(16:51):
of course we did win quite a few games, but
it was always the focus was on the process.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
This philosophy must have influenced your life as dad. If
we had your oldest son on the show today, what
would he say is the greatest life lesson that you
have taught him?
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Well, I really don't know. You know, you think you
have impacted your kids in certain ways, but you really
don't know until you hear the words from their mouth.
He's never told me exactly what the greatest life lesson
was that. I think he knew that I worked very hard.
(17:30):
There's no way you can be a coach and be
diligent and perform your duties without spending a lot of time.
I think he also realized that I tried to operate
with integrity. Never wouldn't been the rules, would not tell
a player or something that wasn't true when I recruited him.
(17:54):
I think that would be one thing he would say.
And out of that, I tried to carve out sufficient
family time, and that was always difficult. And probably if
I have one regret, it would be that coaching was
so demanding in terms of time and effort. That didn't
(18:18):
mean that we didn't spend time together, but it wasn't
as much as I would have liked.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Well Well said, do you make me think about one
of the most pervasive issues that we face today? And
I think it's about balancing priorities. What advice can you
lend to us about balancing priorities?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Well? I was struck by something that Archie Griffin wrote
several years ago. I think it was a book that
he had written, and he talked about the fact that
his dad worked two jobs, worked sixteen eighteen hours a day,
and he very seldom solve his dad because his dad
(19:00):
was gone before he got up in the morning, and
he was in bed at night when his dad came home.
And he said that it was really too bad that
he didn't see more of his dad. But yet his
dad was a very powerful influence in his life because
(19:21):
he realized the reason he was working those two jobs
was for Archie and his family, that he loved him
and he cared about him. And I contrast that with
the large number of young people whose fathers abandoned them,
who don't care enough to even see what they look like.
(19:42):
And so Archie, I think even though his dad was gone,
worked very hard, still considered himself to have had good parenting.
And so I think it's important that fathers realized that
as long as their children know that they do care
(20:03):
about them, that they love them, that they're willing to
sacrifice for them, it's very powerful. Now, on the other hand,
if you're a workaholic and you're simply working to build
your career, to get a promotion, to make more money,
(20:23):
and this is totally at the expense of your family,
then I would say that that probably will not bear
good fruit. So I think it is possible to be
in a demanding profession, I e. May be a doctor,
somebody that has long hours, and as long as the
(20:44):
young people know that what you're doing is working hard
for the family and for other people as well, and
you're engaged in a noble activity and that you really
do care about those kids, that you still can be
a very effective parent.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Thank you, Tom, And for our final question, Tom, what
was the greatest lesson that you learn from being a congressman.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Well, you know, Congress has a very low approval rating
right now. People don't think there could be anything good
coming out of Congress. But what I did find was
that there are really more good people in Congress and
what people think. There are more people who are there
for the right reasons, really care about serving the country. Now,
(21:33):
the ones who aren't and the ones who get in
trouble and the ones who are terribly partisan and self
serving get most of the headlines. But I found a
very strong spiritual presence on Capitol Hill. I went to
a weekly bipartisan prayer breakfast Republicans and Democrats that was
(21:54):
led entirely by members of Congress, and we had about
thirty to forty people every week that Matt Braid and
had a speaker. Speaker was always a member of Congress,
and that was and then there were one or two
other Bible studies that went to And so there are
a lot of people of phase in Congress. There are
(22:15):
a lot of people who are there for the right reasons.
And it is a very difficult job because you do
a lot of traveling, and anytime you take a vote,
there's going to be somebody that disagrees with you, and
so you're going to get some grief in some heat
no matter what you do.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Tom, thank you so much for being on Success Made
to Last. You are truly an inspiration.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Okay, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Thank you until next time. As we always say, keep talking,
but listen more intently. Have great week. This show is
brought to you by Success Made to Last. Success Made
the Last is a multimedia company with a focus on
you in releasing your full potential. If you want to
find out more information about all the programs associated with
(23:02):
this company, go to Success Made to Last dot com.
And welcome back to success made the last and our
very important CEO and ten Legends series. Our very special
guest today is Tom Osborne, the football coach of the
Decade in the nineteen nineties, and he is a noted author,
(00:29):
and today he's talking about his fourth book that he
had written. For Tom Osborne as coach of the decade
in college football, he led the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers
to three national championships and what we love most about
him today though, is that he is a noted author
and leaving a legacy of words. Tom. Welcome to our
(00:50):
show and we thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
It's nice to be on with you.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Tom. How is this particular book different from the previous ones.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, the book I wrote a year ago was called
Beyond the Final Score and was somewhat a reflection compilation
of things that have happened, primarily since I got out
of coaching in nineteen ninety seven. As you mentioned, I've
done some teaching. I've been in Congress for six years
(01:20):
and did some reflecting on that experience and what seems
to make government work, what doesn't seem to work. And
part of that book was about leadership, and of course
I'm now the athletic director at the University of Nebraska.
So I've worn quite a few different hats that have
entailed leadership in one way or another. And this most
(01:44):
recent book is really an excerpt of the book I
wrote a year ago and deals primarily with leadership. Now,
obviously we've added to it, we've refined it, we've done
some things. But it's not a very big book. It's
about eighty pages, but it simply discusses the things that
(02:07):
I've found to be significant regarding all of the different
roles that I've had, and particularly those issues that involve leadership.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
When you reflect back on your career, how did your
parents influence your leadership style?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, your parents always influenced who you are what you are,
and I was very fortunate to have a two very
solid people, good people of good character as parents. They
were children of the Depression. I know they were engaged
(02:46):
to be married for about four or five years because
they couldn't afford to get married. And then I was
born in nineteen thirty seven, which was along towards the
tail end of the depression. But I think some of
those values that people held as a result of that
experience in depression years has stayed with me, and that
(03:09):
would be that you don't spend money if you don't
have it. You try to make sure that what you
spend your money on is worthwhile, and that you can't
count on prosperity and affluence lasting forever. And then beneath
(03:31):
all of that was a very sound value system of honesty, integrity,
a solid family that stuck together through thicker and thin.
Had a difficult time because my dad was gone from
nineteen forty one to nineteen forty five. He was overseas
(03:54):
in World War Two in the European theater. I was
in the Battle of the My mom and I didn't
hear from him for a period of about three months,
and that was, of course very nerve racking. And so
they laid a good foundation. And when my dad came back,
(04:16):
I didn't know him very well. You know, I was
five when he left and I was about ten when
he came back. And one thing that I discovered was
that he had a great love of athletics, and I
wanted to please him, and so I threw myself into athletics,
and so we had that in common. And of course
(04:38):
athletics has been a pretty dominant theme throughout my lifetime,
both as a player and then as a coach, and
I was an athletic director.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Was your mom the guy post in your family relative
to faith.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Well, my mom and dad were both solid Christian people,
and during that time in World War Two that I
I've alluded to, my mother worked in an ammunition plant
in a city about twenty miles away, and she commuted
back and forth every day, so I saw her every evening.
(05:13):
Of course, my dad was overseas. I had a grandmother
who was a person of very strong faith, and we
went to church every week, and I think I absorbed
a great deal in terms of a spiritual background from her.
I had a grandfather on my dad's side who lived
(05:35):
out in western Nebraska, and he was a Presbyterian minister,
and I guess if I had a role model in
my life, it was maybe most influential was my grandfather.
His name was Tom and his last name was Osborne,
and he spoke six languages. He was in the state
(05:58):
legislature for a while. He was a fairly prominent minister
in the western part of the state, and so he
was three hundred miles removed from where I was when
I grew up, which was Hastings, Nebraska, and during World
War Two, I lived in Saint Paul, Nebraska, which is
about fifty miles north of Hastings, and so I didn't
(06:21):
see him very much. I probably was not in his
presence more than five or six times during my lifetime
his lifetime because he was killed by lightning in about
nineteen forty six. But I think the type of man
he was and my image of him was very powerful
(06:43):
in my life. And sometimes when I was growing up,
I would wonder what my grandfather would think, you know,
about how I was conducting my life. And so he
was also a very powerful influence. It's a great man
of faith, even though I was not around him a
(07:04):
whole lot.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
There's a pattern of strong men in your life. I
would suspect that you have coached many players that were fatherless.
What advice would you give to those who are missing
their fathers?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Well, sadly, you're right on track. There are roughly twenty
five million fatherless young people in our country today. And
when you think about it, back in nineteen sixty two
when I started coaching, the out of wedlock birth rate
was about five percent. Today is thirty nine percent. So
(07:42):
we've seen a huge change in the family structure and
it has led to a great deal of fatherlessness. And
you're right. I did coach a lot of young men
who did not have fathers and some who did not
have mothers. And so this is why I think the
coaching profession, why the teaching profession is so important today,
(08:06):
because many times, for many of these young people, coaches
teachers are maybe the only adult figure they have in
their life that they can turn to. And so it
certainly impacted the way I coached, and my wife and
I seeing the changes back in nineteen ninety one, my
(08:30):
wife asked me, is there anything we could do? And
I said, well, we have a pretty good resource here.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
We have a.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Football team that young people look up to. And so
in a team meeting the next day, I asked players
to raise their hand if they'd be willing to spend
some time with a young person seventh or eighth grade
boy in the Lincoln Public schools, and many of these
were fatherless kids, and twenty two hands went up, and
(09:02):
we matched twenty two football players with twenty two seventh
and eighth grade boys in Lincoln Public schools, and that
grew and matured, and finally when it came time for graduation,
we were gratified that of the twenty two twenty one
did graduate and of the twenty two eighteen went on
(09:24):
to college. And so from that we were encouraged and
we expanded the program, and today we have a mentoring
program called Teammates, and we mentor forty three hundred kids
across Nebraska into Iowa and even one chapter out in
San Diego, and we hoped to hit five thousand this year.
(09:48):
So a mentor can certainly phill avoid can be that
person that provides the ability and direction and affirmation in
a young person's life. Of course, we've expanded and changed
the program and that we now are mentoring not just
young men, but young men and young women. And we've
gone from football players primarily to adults who do the mattering,
(10:13):
both men and women. Men, some are nineteen or twenty
years old and some of them are in their eighties,
and we found that it has made a profound difference
in the lives of most of these kids.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
That is profound. I bet that your mentors in nineteen
ninety one became better fathers, and because of that, your
coaching actually was training for fatherhood.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Well, you know, we've been gratified by those first players
that were involved that some of them. Will Shields would
be an example, who was later played about thirteen fourteen
years with Kansas City Chiefs and was an All Pro
football player. Started some work with youth groups done in
(11:08):
Kansas City. It was somewhat patterned off of what we
did here, and we have some of those early mentees,
those first twenty two young men are now mentors. And
so as a result, it has come full circle to
some degree.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Now, why is it that we're both surrounded by very
vocal wives that know how to ask the right questions
at the right time.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Well, I guess we're just fortunate. But and so Nancy
has been a catalyst and has worked very hard on
the teammates organization, and she's been a great partner. And
of course we've had to have a lot of good
people help us as it has grown to the number
of forty three hundred right now.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And to that end, let's mentor young married couples out
there sharing insight on why yours and Nancy's relationship has succeeded.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Well, I think that one thing that we were both
cognizant of was we wanted to marry somebody that had
a common spiritual worldview, and so when Nancy came from
a strong Christian family, I did. And even when you
(12:25):
come from families that are fairly similar and outlooks that
are similar and common spiritual values, there are still going
to be differences.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
But we.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Continue to go to church together every week, we pray
together at meals, and I think that common bond has
been very important to us, and I feel for some
people who are what we might call unequally low yoked.
And doesn't mean that you couldn't marry a non Christian
(13:03):
and have a great marriage, but it certainly helps if
you come from a similar spiritual background and a similar worldview.
And of course Nancy has a good sense of humor.
I think I've got a reasonably good sense of humor
and that doesn't hurt. And we've been blessed with three
(13:23):
children that we love very much and are very proud of,
and then we have four grandkids, and so Nancy and
I both are quite involved in their lives because all
four of them live here in Lincoln's were very fortunate.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Back to your book, we notice the forward was written
by one of your favorites of all time, John Wooden.
Tell us about your relationship with one of the greatest
coaches to ever live.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Well, I first met John, I don't know, it had
been late seventies, early eighties. He had gotten out of coaching,
I'd think in nineteen seventy six, and I think he
was in Chicago to speak or something, and so I
(14:12):
met him there and ran into him a couple other times,
and talked to him on the phone on occasion, and
then Nancy and I were able to go out and
have lunch with him last January, and of course he
subsequently died about four months later. But John, the last
time I saw him was ninety nine, still very sharp,
(14:35):
and probably of all the coaches that I've known, I
admired him the most because he only was very successful,
he knew why he did things. He had a very
strong philosophical base, was a very spiritual person, and I
(14:58):
think had a great influence on those who played for him.
And so anyway, I've always admired him. He's written several books.
I think I've read almost everything that he's written, and
he had a great influence on me as a young coach.
Because I read him read a book written by him.
(15:18):
I think he might have been called they call me coach,
or something like that. And in the book he mentioned
that he never talked about winning to his players, and
I thought that was kind of unique, because here was
an individual who won more than anyone in basketball or football,
and I think in a twelve year span he won
(15:38):
ten national championships in basketball and at one point had
won eighty seven eighty eight straight games home and away,
and yet he never talked about winning. And he said
that what he really emphasized was the process, and he
quoted Servantes, and Servantes said something like this, the journey
is more important than the end. And so what I
(16:02):
took that to mean was that so often in coaching
we focus on winds and we focus on the final score,
but the most important thing is really the journey, the
relationships that are formed, the values that are taught, the
daily grind, the work ethic, what you do in practice,
(16:27):
how well you master the fundamentals. And so I took
that as a great lesson and didn't talk to our
players about winning. I never said, well, we have to
win this game. And what we did we talk about
what we needed to do on Monday and Tuesday and
Wednesday and talked about team chemistry and as time went on,
(16:51):
of course we did win quite a few games, but
it was always the focus was on the process.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
This philosophy must have influenced your life as dad. If
we had your oldest son on the show today, what
would he say is the greatest life lesson that you
have taught him?
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Well, I really don't know. You know, you think you
have impacted your kids in certain ways, but you really
don't know until you hear the words from their mouth.
He's never told me exactly what the greatest life lesson
was that. I think he knew that I worked very hard.
(17:30):
There's no way you can be a coach and be
diligent and perform your duties without spending a lot of time.
I think he also realized that I tried to operate
with integrity. Never wouldn't been the rules, would not tell
a player or something that wasn't true when I recruited him.
(17:54):
I think that would be one thing he would say.
And out of that, I tried to carve out sufficient
family time, and that was always difficult. And probably if
I have one regret, it would be that coaching was
so demanding in terms of time and effort. That didn't
(18:18):
mean that we didn't spend time together, but it wasn't
as much as I would have liked.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Well Well said, do you make me think about one
of the most pervasive issues that we face today? And
I think it's about balancing priorities. What advice can you
lend to us about balancing priorities?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Well? I was struck by something that Archie Griffin wrote
several years ago. I think it was a book that
he had written, and he talked about the fact that
his dad worked two jobs, worked sixteen eighteen hours a day,
and he very seldom solve his dad because his dad
(19:00):
was gone before he got up in the morning, and
he was in bed at night when his dad came home.
And he said that it was really too bad that
he didn't see more of his dad. But yet his
dad was a very powerful influence in his life because
(19:21):
he realized the reason he was working those two jobs
was for Archie and his family, that he loved him
and he cared about him. And I contrast that with
the large number of young people whose fathers abandoned them,
who don't care enough to even see what they look like.
(19:42):
And so Archie, I think even though his dad was gone,
worked very hard, still considered himself to have had good parenting.
And so I think it's important that fathers realized that
as long as their children know that they do care
(20:03):
about them, that they love them, that they're willing to
sacrifice for them, it's very powerful. Now, on the other hand,
if you're a workaholic and you're simply working to build
your career, to get a promotion, to make more money,
(20:23):
and this is totally at the expense of your family,
then I would say that that probably will not bear
good fruit. So I think it is possible to be
in a demanding profession, I e. May be a doctor,
somebody that has long hours, and as long as the
(20:44):
young people know that what you're doing is working hard
for the family and for other people as well, and
you're engaged in a noble activity and that you really
do care about those kids, that you still can be
a very effective parent.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Thank you, Tom, And for our final question, Tom, what
was the greatest lesson that you learn from being a congressman.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Well, you know, Congress has a very low approval rating
right now. People don't think there could be anything good
coming out of Congress. But what I did find was
that there are really more good people in Congress and
what people think. There are more people who are there
for the right reasons, really care about serving the country. Now,
(21:33):
the ones who aren't and the ones who get in
trouble and the ones who are terribly partisan and self
serving get most of the headlines. But I found a
very strong spiritual presence on Capitol Hill. I went to
a weekly bipartisan prayer breakfast Republicans and Democrats that was
(21:54):
led entirely by members of Congress, and we had about
thirty to forty people every week that Matt Braid and
had a speaker. Speaker was always a member of Congress,
and that was and then there were one or two
other Bible studies that went to And so there are
a lot of people of phase in Congress. There are
(22:15):
a lot of people who are there for the right reasons.
And it is a very difficult job because you do
a lot of traveling, and anytime you take a vote,
there's going to be somebody that disagrees with you, and
so you're going to get some grief in some heat
no matter what you do.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Tom, thank you so much for being on Success Made
to Last. You are truly an inspiration.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Okay, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Thank you until next time. As we always say, keep talking,
but listen more intently. Have great week. This show is
brought to you by Success Made to Last. Success Made
the Last is a multimedia company with a focus on
you in releasing your full potential. If you want to
find out more information about all the programs associated with
(23:02):
this company, go to Success Made to Last dot com.
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