1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Barry Thompson (Fairfax Football Academy): February 24th, 10am

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

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It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the Coppel Chevrolet GMC Studios, here is your host, Derek Pearson, presented by Beatrice Bakery, on 937 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. Welcome to one-on-one 402, 4685, Sartor-Hamming, text, line, Hanna, Lincoln Hotline, Sartor-Hameman, live, video, stream, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, those chat rooms are open.

So you can get through. I do want to take a nomination today for a Beatrice Bakery Care package. And what I'm going to do is this. I'll take nominations as well on the text line and on the website, the ticketfm.com, find the Beatrice Bakery banner. Click on it and tell us, and it's real simple. I don't care who you are. I don't care what your situation and circumstance is.

I want, I need for you to tell me somebody in your life that deserves a smile sent their way today. Just pause for a second and think of somebody that you want to see smile. Somebody that deserves a pat on the back and add a boy and a girl. Somebody's had a great week, bad week, and different.

Somebody that goes the extra mile and somebody that needs motivation to take a step forward we will put together a Beatrice Bakery Care package. But what I'm also going to do this weekend is something that's long overdue, and I will do that once we bring in our guests. So let's bring in today's guests. The autumn wind is a pirate, blustering in from sea with a rollicking song he sweeps along, swaggering boisterously his face is weather-beaten he wears a hooded sash with a silver

hat about his head and a bristling black mustache he growls as he storms the country a villain big and bold and the trees all shake and quiver and quake as he robs them of their go the autumn wind is a raider pillaging just for fun. He'll knock you round and upside down and laugh when he's conquered and won. Dung, doong, don't. Man, that is so good.

That is so good. Let's bring him in. QB coach extraordinaire Barry Thompson, Fairfax. What up, D.P. B.T. What's happening with you, baby? Not much, man. I always enjoy when I get to listen

a little bit in advance, so I heard about NFL realignment and eating habits and all kinds of stuff. You guys have too much fun. What say you to young Rico and his two cherry pop-tart Coca-Cola breakfast? There's a saying, I just read it recently, and it's going to alter some of my habits. It's a saying that says everybody would die for their kids.

kids, right? What would you live for them? Right? And that's kind of changed my perspective. So I'm getting on the exercise wagon and watching what I'm eating this morning not included. But because I we'll talk about what the food thing is later. But but that's an interesting thought. Everybody would die for the children, but would you live for them? Would you take care of your body in a way that you're going to be around? Interesting. So give them that to think about it. Right. And so there's couple of things in play. And I'm not sure Barry knows. I don't think I shared this information with him, but I... You did not. I think it is appropriate that we do do so. A couple of things. One, your wife, you and your wife are exceptional human beings. Top to bottom and sideways.

You both live lives of love, live life where love is important. It's at the forefront. You're caring, you're considerate, you're thoughtful about how you engage with folks. You folks are smile makers, your generators of good things and positive things. I've talked to you about Beatrice Baker, but what I want to do today is to actually be purposeful and say as a small way of saying thank you for the time and energy and love that you put into this space and on this station that I'm going to send you and your beautiful wife, Cindy, a care package from Beatrice's bakery, just to say thank you for caring enough to invest in Nebraska athletics, sharing your stories, your wisdom, your spirit, and your joy. I want to do that. If that is okay with you,

kind sir, we'll send you a care package. Yeah, man. Thanks a lot, DP. Thank you so much. It's there. what I didn't share and I want to say this to be clear about the positivity space, about the positive space of energy that you and I purposely try to work in.

We were introduced to a gentleman months ago and Barry met him for the first time at a book signing that I did there back in Virginia and where a bunch of friends and family got together to celebrate the impact of influence and its tour. And you were introduced to a gentleman who reached out.

He coached in some of the same circles we did. With that, he asked me to do a positive sports show every Tuesday morning. and before the change of schedule here, Barry, I would get on with Lee Bailey every Tuesday morning and we would talk about the good things in sports, the good things of coaching, the good things of community,

the good things about humanity. He was a man of God, and we spoke in that space as men of God. It was just week after week after week of just positive podcast conversation. And it was good. And you got to meet him at the book signing and you participated in several of these conversations.

Unfortunately, I got news yesterday that at 1 o'clock, Lee Bailey transitioned. And in a time where it's been a weird week where I lost a childhood friend and loved to Howard Cook, lost a legend in Charlie Taylor. We lost a godly man in Lee Bailey. I wanted to take a moment and pay tribute to Lee because he made our days better, he made our weeks better, he made our lives better by just simply being a wonderful human

being. And it is with a heavy heart that I broadcast today because Lee told me that his bucket list was short and what he had on it was actually coming on air with us. And we kept saying we put it off, we put it off, we put it off, that we're going to do it, we're going to do it. And I kept saying next week, there is no more next week. I don't have anymore next week's to give to Lee. And I'm depressed about it. But you met Lee Bailey.

Give the listeners a little bit about what you met in that kind, kind, gentle, giant of a man. Well, you're so good with words, D.P. It's tough to kind of add on to it. I don't know how I would kind of do it. But yeah, I mean, he was just authentic. He's, it doesn't sound like a lot, but to be really authentic to, to interact with somebody who is what you see, who is what comes out of their mouth. It's probably a thing that's too rare. And at least just one of those guys, just welcoming, just wanted to love sports to death.

And that's funny. I've been on the show a couple times. You guys had invited me in. I didn't know about the continuum of it. I had a sense. I knew you guys were going on and speak. He would just reach out. But that he was constantly talking about that.

I didn't know. So that was news to me. Just a good heart of guy. And it's funny how people like that tend to draw toward each other because Lee was drawn together. with John, who owns a 29 diner. Then, you know, I wind up there and you wind up there. And some other people that we know, they all wind up there.

And certainly Lee was part of that tribe. So sad to hear about his passing. Tough week for you. Tough week whenever we lose anybody that we love or look up to. It's just it's always tough, no matter the circumstances. You are in an interesting spot because you coach. everybody in life. You coach everybody. Amongst those things that when I left D.C., you became a head coach of the D.C. Divas football team, which is a women's professional football league,

and it does well, and if you don't know the name, Google DC Divas, folks like Jennifer King, who's now running back's coach for Washington football team or the Washington commanders, came from this league. There's several assistant coaches around the league who played for the Divas, several NFL referees who played for the divas and in that league. You got the opportunity to manage women. And there's a thing that's come up, and I wanted to ask your opinion on it, because it is a different,

as much as we say we like to coach people, for the sake of coaching people, we also have to acknowledge that in coaching women, there are different rules that are applied. Is that a fair statement or no? Yeah, I think it's a fair statement. Yes, it is different. The approach, and I learned, you know, that it is different.

I think, but I don't want to make it seem like it's alien different. Right. It is different. You have to acknowledge it it is different, but I want to, just for the viewers who maybe listeners who may be thinking about it, the way I see it is, yes, it's different, but it's different in a way that if I'm coaching a certain age group of people, that's different too than another age group of people. I'm not equivocating women to young people,

but if you were just in generic sense, your coaching, say, one age group of people, and then you move to another age group, that's different too. And so, yes, it's different. The group dynamics are a little bit different. The reactions and communicating is a little bit different. Absolutely.

What is the ultimate responsibility? And I know this is so wide-ranging, but you're the perfect person to ask this thing. what's the ultimate goal and responsibility of being a coach? That's a great question. You know, because I'm so present when I coach, but I think the ultimate goal is you're trying to take a person or a group of people and just move them forward.

The sport that you're teaching is just a vehicle, a vessel, a kind of organizing principle for a collection of people to get together. And then to do that as best you can, not only from the X&O standpoint, from the organization, the communication standpoint, but the interrelationship standpoint. And then that when it's done, there's some journey that has been transverse. And no matter what the results of when the losses are, the group can look behind and says, yeah, we were better off for doing that. We were better off not for doing it, but we were better off doing it together. that old Indian proverb that says if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.

That really relates to coaching, whether it's a team sport or it's an individual sport, right? It's still more than one person. And that's what you're trying to do. Try to go far, try to go forward, try to go up. As you have those discussions with athletes, whether it be on a 101 or as a group, How quickly do you need to establish boundary? From the beginning, from the beginning. And talk about coaching different age groups.

You know, sometimes in a day, yeah, literally in a day, I can go from dealing with 9 to 11-year-olds, this happens every Saturday. That's my first group that I work with. And then very quickly it will accelerate to working with guys that are going to college just finished your senior year or guys that are working. on and guys that have been the state championships. That's a wide spectrum.

And I'm always reminded by the nine-year-olds and the 10- and 11-year-olds that if the first thing I have to start with are the boundaries. And that if I don't start with those, I always catch myself, like getting ready to say something. I calm down and I say, I pull them all in. And the first thing I say, guys, I have to apologize to you. I have to apologize to you because I didn't tell you from the beginning that that that's not what we do or how we do it.

So they keep me sharp. And so the answer is you have to do that right from the beginning. How important is that? Extremium. It's everything. I mean, not everything. It is, it begins to state the purpose of how you're going to do things. They all know why they're there, right?

If it's a basketball team, they know they're there to win basketball games. but stating those boundaries, putting those out front, says to everybody, this is how we're going to go get this done. And then behind that, it takes a lot of integrity because you have to be consistent and you have to enforce everything. Yeah. So you mentioned the word apologize. That is an acknowledgement of either miscommunication, misdirection, or wrongdoing. How important is it for a coach to be able to apologize? I think it's real important.

I think it's also equally important that you don't put yourself as a coach in position to apologize. Right. You know, going back to that example with the nine-year-olds, like sometimes I get so anxious, I just want to get them started, and I forget that step. So it's really my fault that I forgot the step, right? They're coming to me for instruction and guidance, and when I have to apologize,

it's really my fault for not giving them to them up front. But I do it all the time, even with my training groups. The first thing we do when they come in is right in front of the parents. I said, you know, here's some things. And, you know, here's about hydration. And here's how I exactly want the water bottles to be placed. And I'll say to them, I also cover lost and found with them. I tell them essentially, sounds mean and I'll cut it short.

But essentially what I just say to them is if you leave it here, I'm going to assume you don't care about it. So since you don't care about it, I'm not going to care about it. Right. And you'd be surprised once I give that, as long as I give that, I have no problem with people leaving stuff behind. No problem with cleaning the facility. And everybody behaves. And I even have to give, you know, kind of instructions to the parents as to how they're supposed to behave and what they're supposed to do. Oh, now. Now you're in the wheelhouse, right? Because there has to be some meeting place at an apex. Not at the bottom, not in the middle. there has to be a meeting place for coaches and parents to agree on what the standards and the boundaries should be. How do you affect that in a way that's beneficial to the player?

Because ultimately, parent, coach have to be on the same page when it comes to player. Right. Well, you understand, I go through these different levels. So let's just take my indoor training or let's say that I'm running in the past, my past life, right. I was in charge of a youth football program. Oh, we're going to talk about that next. We really are. We're going to talk about that next. We really are. Okay. All right. Well, we want to step into it or?

No, no, go ahead. Give me the parents story because this is, it's all time. I think it's a broadest example. I would tell those parents that there's three things that I need it from them. Number one, I needed them the coach or not coach. And I kind of do that with my training parents too. And what I mean by that is that it's not that I know more football than they do. And that's not what I'm. I'm talking about. They have to realize that there's learning taking place and that when they are trying to be helpful by yelling things or guiding a kid as I'm out there with them, they're really placing

their child in conflict. They're forcing them to choose between the voice they have to listen to theirs and the one that they told them to listen to mine. And I said, you're trying to help, but you're being destructive. You know, you would never go into a classroom and sit on the side of the wall and during language arts as the teachers ask and tell me your question start yelling stuff they would kick you out of the school so coach or don't coach number two is i tell them that they have to be a special cheerleader for their child you know that when they need you the most is when they face adversity and something

doesn't come out right that's the time that they need you to remind them of the distance that they have traveled because young people are so zero to a hundred you know either they're completely happy or they're completely whatever the other emotion is. And that's when a parent, I think, needs to step in and say, hey, it's going to be all right. I have confidence in you. And the last thing that I tell them is you've got to walk the talk with it comes to sportsmanship. You know, if there's a call that's bad and it's really bad, what do you want your player to do in that moment? Do you want them to stand up to the referee and curse him out and tell him what a low life he is and get thrown out of the game or do you want your player to walk back to wherever it is

reorganize themselves and get ready for the next play well if you want that then you've got to do that in the stance and so those are the three things in a nutshell that I always guide my parents on and even in my training life right you know we run into it because we're indoors parents will sit right up there and I have to remind them I said while they're here they're mine we're talking to Barry Thompson, Fairfax Football Academy, developer, mentor, educator. You mentioned running an organization. Now, you had to come in,

and usually when you get those positions to come in and lead an entire organization when it comes to sports and athletics, there is some cleaning house required. There's a resetting of standard and GPS. So when you go in and you're going to have to figure out who's going to coach for you, right? If you've got eight teams under you,

and you've got to figure who who's going to coach, who can coach, who can lead. How do you choose that? What are the standards that are in play that you have to make sure that not only who's leading those teams, because you're leading the organization. Right. They have to follow you. Right. And the people that you choose to lead those teams have to honor you by following your rule, your standard, your guidance. and then the people that they choose, the assistants.

Right. They have to choose. How, what is the process for picking coaches who will engage in a way that meets your standard? Right. Well, remember, this was at the youth level, and it was a bad situation. It was. They usually are. Yeah, this was really bad.

It took me three years into it to find out how bad it was. And just to give your audience a little example, they had 94 players the season before. I said yes. And of those 94, I think there were 60, 64 of them would evaporate. They wouldn't show up the next fall. But through efforts, we actually went from 94 to 154, even though those 64 left. So yes, it was my first coaching gig ever, ever. And so I had to figure out some things very quickly. I was consistently told that these were the issues with the club. It was funny. It wasn't football-oriented, even though they were bad. It was communication.

It was organization. And then, of course, it had to do with football. So I focus on those three things, being organized, communicating, and trying to get the football in shape. As far as coaches, you kind of have to take who's around in that situation. But when it came to choosing, because we grew rapidly from 154 to 300. I did have to choose.

And what I put an emphasis on, I wanted men who I thought were good communicators, good teachers, and who would be willing to learn. In essence, I wanted men and women who I thought would be good to have the kids around. And I figured I could imbue them.

Say that again for me, coach. Say that again for me. Yeah, it's, I wanted to choose, men and women who I felt were good for the players to be around that would treat these players the way that I thought they should be treated in a sense if they were my kids would I want these men and women around them and so that was the high that was that was that was top because I did have people coming at me right hey we got money I can bring players there were shortcuts that were offered, but I didn't like, I didn't think that those people were good to have around,

in essence, my kids. And so I went the other way. It was a little bit of longer path, not much longer, but a little bit longer path. But I wound up with a bunch of really smart people who eventually I went from leading to follow them. But that was the first step. The other step, the organizing principle, you just kept drilling down on it. So there was a lot that they didn't know. I had to push them on practice planning. I had to push them on certain elements. I had a structure that I wanted. And I wanted them to follow.

And it got tough at times. And when we were going in a certain direction, if somebody got uncomfortable, they would leave, which would I found out very quickly. It always made us better. It wasn't because the person was bad. It was just because they weren't buying into the direction we were going. It's like you're trying to push a car that way.

and there's somebody on the bumper pulling back. You're better if they just let go of the bumper. So those are the things that made it work. And then like we talked about with Lee, once you start gathering certain people, other people start gathering around them and a snowball effect. Because, you know, people flock to good. We always said that. You know, kids and people in general, they run too good.

And so it really wasn't me so much. It was the people that I collected. Barry, can I ask you a favor? Yeah. Can you stay tuned and join us for the next segment. Sure, sure. Can today. I want to throw it to break.

We'll come back more with Barry Thompson, Fairfax Football Academy here on one-on-one. Download our app by searching 93.7.7, The Ticket in your app store. You're listening to One-on-One-on-one with DP on 93-7-the-ticket in the-ticketfm.com.