1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Coach Barry Thompson - June 3rd, 2024

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

Coach Barry Thompson - June 3rd, 2024Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 gold. The autumn win is a raider, pillaging just for fun. He'll knock you round and upside down and laugh when he's conquered and won. That's the proper introduction for Barry Thompson. That is the proper standard to be set.

that is the so Barry's a Raiders fan and so whatever he would come on we would play that and we have to bring that back. That's pretty legendary. Yeah, we have to bring that back to set the table.

Barry Thompson, Fairfax Football Academy joins us on one-on-one. We're talking about some of the philosophy and some of the things that happened behind this, but that, as Barry said, he could ask me for anything

and the answer is yes. And Barry, that's a short, list of people in this world that if they ask, the answer is yes. And they've invested and they've got the resume and the trail for it. But through this, so at this school, I jumped into basketball. And I said, Barry, I need you because he came up with a study program that is a big part of what Love Prince is.

And Barry, I'd like for you to explain the importance of academics and why you came up with this program for us to use to help athletes be the greatest version of themselves. Right. Well, the original motive was kind of selfish, to be honest with you. I was the commissioner of a youth club. Just to help you listen to, I got started coaching late. I didn't coached in my 20s and 30s. Coaching has been the biggest surprise of my adult life.

So I got involved with this youth club trying to turn around and growing it. And I remember at one point, there was kids that I can't come to practice because I have homework. And I'm like, okay, like something's not right here. So by the time I got to Woodson, I had formulate this plan because I just started thinking about how people allocate their time and how could a kid that's in fourth grade tell me that he can't make a Wednesday practice because he has homework. You know, there's something not right there. And so the essence of it is just to get the player and the parents to understand that the student is going to put down exactly how they spend their 168 hours during the week. And to be brutally honest about it, and when we've given the

assignment, we give very little instruction, which causes some consternation. But what happens is, DP kind of picked this up, you get brain typing because of what they turn into you, you can begin to understand your players on a different level. But here's the major point. If a hot, typical high school student subtracts all the things that they have to do, sleep, go to school, eat, shower, all those types of things, they are typically left with, I think, 60 to 50 hours, somewhere in that range of time now to what is it I can do. And we ask them to include their games in that 168 when they subtracted. So when you look at the 50 hours, you have to make them understand, like a lot of them don't know what that means. And that's, I would always say,

well, that means you go in the library on Monday at 8 o'clock and you stay there till 6 o'clock, and you do that Monday through Friday. They begin to pick up what that is. Now, from that 50 or 55, the typical guy that's going to do 3.5 or better will spend anywhere from 15 to 35-hour studying. So then you start subtracting that out. And you start saying, okay, how much homework does that mean each night. And when you go through the exercise and you talk about their free time during the day that they're chatting so they're getting your work done, the whole idea is to define education first in a way that puts it in the right priority slot, which is after faith and family, it's education. If they do that, then it leaves ample time to be good at what they say they want

to be good at. The issue is that most parents have grown up forever saying, hey, if you don't get your grades I'm taking the sport away. The sport isn't the problem. It's all the other things that they're putting ahead of their education. And so this clearly defines it for them. And it's just been a wonderful thing. Now the parents know that we mean what we say. Now the players don't have conflicts during the season because if they do, they know the coaches know, hey, you're, you didn't follow the plan that we talked to that. And by the way, our plan includes them getting their behind parts in bed by 930 at night. which is, right?

And then eight hours of sleep is 5.30. And you go, okay, what do you know between 5.30 and 7? And they start to think, oh. And I said, well, here's the thing. You're doing something right now between 930 and 12. You have to decide is that more important than what you say you want to do. It's just a huge clarification thing. And it puts school right where it needs to be.

Can I tell a funny story about the thing? No, we have several. DP went so far as he told the basketball. team that when they were in school, they were to have their books at. So this locker room situation was just, it can lead to a lot of stuff. They had to be there for a while before we could pick them up. So DP didn't want any nonsense. So he told them, you're in the locker in your dress, have your books out.

So one day I walked in, I see 15 guys sitting there on the bench with their books out. So one day, the biggest player on a team, he is there in the room and he doesn't have his book. and D.P. says, did you bring a coat? He goes, why don't you get your coat? You have a phone? He says, yeah, it's in my coat. Why don't you put your coat on?

Get your phone out and call your mom to tell her to come pick you up. Now, where we practice is way at the other end and they have a small little door. So we're in there practicing. We hear this tap, tap, tap, tap, tap at the door. And he had this kid's about six, five. probably about $2.60. He had the saddest look on his face. And GP says, that didn't work out too well

before you didn't. He goes, no. No. It was like simple things like that. And we never had problems academically. No. And the kids played and it just went on from there. 78% of our student athletes achieved a 3.5 GPA or higher.

We also won 78% of our games. Like, they're the same. and we pointed out one that we were adults who and in this world there aren't enough adults who mean what they say yeah right to say that listen I'm going to walk in here no matter what time I walk into the locker room the books have to be open as a matter of fact it took them a matter of days to figure out that I would ask okay eyes up what's on that page what are you reading what did you just learn and it meant something And then the other part of it, and Barry was profound in it, to say that, listen, of that 168, I get you for an hour and a half a day.

I never promised what we're going to prioritize in that hour and a half. And if you've done everything that you promised, committed to do, we can play football. We can play basketball. But if you haven't, that hour and a half goes back to the academic priority. Yeah. And he would pull players from practice. Yeah. And that the same kid who did the tap on the door, it came up with him when I coached that JV team. I picked the team and I went down the registrar to look at the grades.

And for anybody's ever done this before, when you look at the grades, you can kind of tell how you need to coach your team. Like, and I always divided into thirds. If you have a team of 15, five of them are going to do what they're supposed to do all the time just because you said it. There's going to be a five or kind of agnostic. They'll go either way. And you got this bottom five. They're leaders too, but they're often will lead the wrong way. If you say go left, they're going to go right, that type of thing.

So I picked the roster up, and I had a glaring thing. There was some terrible grades from the same kid that we're talking about. They were terrible. And his mom was an educator at one of the top magnet schools. It made no sense. So I brought, I got permission from the varsity coach, and I told his mom what I was going to do. And I brought him in. and I made him explain to me every one of them.

I said, don't lie to me. Tell me about every one of these grades. And after that, I said, tell me what's going to take them up, that type of thing. And he did. And I said, well, here's a deal. You're coming to practice every day. But you're going to bring your books. You're sitting next to the managers.

If you need help, they're there to help you. If I need someone else to get you out. But that's what you're doing. You're not dribbling the basketball when you have grades like this. And to his word, when he got. the grade moved up to where it needed to be, I would give him 10 minutes of individual time. And it kind of went like that. By the time we got into the first part of January, he had cleared everything up.

So now instead of losing a kid, right, in the middle part of January, now I've gained a kid. And it reinforced everything with the team because anything else I said to any of the other guys, they knew I met what I said. And I think that's so important when you're around young people because they'll sniff it out right away. Yeah, there were no problems. with academics for the rest of this team. And as a matter of fact, I mean,

that team almost went undefeated because of the rules of play. And, and quiet as quiet kept, that's the group that won that school's first state title. That's right. That's the group because of that sort of discipline. And you try to explain to people,

you can make excuses or you can make a way. And Barry Thompson was just profound in saying, hey, this is what we're going to do and how we're going to do it. And I said I needed him as a part of the basketball. to tell you that Barry Thompson had not coached basketball. Right. And I'm pulling him into this thing. I'm like, first of all, you come with me,

you'll run whatever offense you want, because defensively, I'm like, listen, I'm going to get him ready to win a title defensively. Right. Whatever you run offensively is going to be good. And year two, and we didn't have the highest level of success in year one. Year two,

Haas was the JV coach. Hoss moved up to focus on varsity. And Barry's thing was, okay, I'll take a refresher. I'm like, no, you're going to move up to JV. I'm going to get the young guns and set the boundary. I need for you to color in the lines and to give them the creative and the intelligence IQ to win in North of Virginia.

And they went 15 and 1. Yeah, and another DB point. When he asked me that, I said, I'll do it, but you've got to help me pick the team. And true to the wise ones, I was looking around. There was somebody at the back end of the roster, which you always have to pay attention to. And I was about to make a left-hand turn what I should have going right. And he just, his eyes got bigger.

No, no, no, no, no. You need to take this one. And it made all the difference in the world. You don't think about it. But that back end of the roster is every bit as important as the front of the roster. And so those two things coming together really helped those kids. them on their way. And again, this is the group that won back-to-back regions and one state title in 6A in Virginia. And not for record. I mean, the folks who are listening,

they know Haas-Tabrese well enough now, no. Again, to think that Barry Thompson, D.P., Haas-Tabrese, are coaching at a high school in Virginia. And none of them were the program heads. Right. Right. That's how standard. And that's why when we watch Nebraska, When we watch schools here, everything I need to know is right in front of them. I know what it looks like. I know what it's supposed to look like. I know what it's supposed to sound like. And if it doesn't, I say so.

Now, we'll go to break. Barry will come back. Dylan Raola. Okay. I need for you to spend seven minutes letting people know what you see from the young QB here at Nebraska. You're Barry Thompson, DP, one-on-one, 93-7, The Ticket. You're listening to One-on-One with DP, sponsored by Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul, on 93-7 The Ticket and the Ticket FM.com.

Welcome back to one-on-one with Fairfax Football Academy's. Barry Thompson, QB coach, extraordinary. I was telling Harrison on the break that in that group that we were talking about in a three-year run, three-year run, that not only did you go over to Flint Hill and win state titles, plural, consecutively, but in that just core group from Woodson High School, that if we just said the names Peter Murray, Pat, they went to the Air Force Academy, became officers, Pat Riley, who went to West Point, Kyle Hamrock Academy, like we were, I mean, Dean Rye, Ed Naval Academy,

Andres Fidel, Air Force Academy, fighter jet pilot. We've got Rangers all in the same cluster of high school students in this little town in Fairfax, Virginia, who were all under this same window. Right. And you're forgetting great things Jacob, yeah, I know you're not forgetting, but the great things Jacob O'Holli is off doing.

And Will Cogan, if you didn't know it, has, I think, two state titles as a coach. he's coaching back all in the same little pocket and you just go okay so we caught lightning in a bottle by making academics and having standards

which is why when we watch when we watch I made me laugh just the way that came off right like when we watch it we just go wow you know what works and what doesn't work you have also up to you've been developing division one quarterbacks

all up and down the coast and I asked you to look at Dylan Rayola with clean eye. So it's not the Nebraska vision. It's not from the local vision. It is from a quarterback guru position. What do you see in Dylan Raola?

Well, I see everything everybody else sees. Very, very talented. And I think the most exciting part for me watching quarterbacks as immature is there's a lot of things about him that we can't see, that we won't know. Right. So how do those tools get deployed? what's going to be his maturation process. You know, he seems to be a lean forward type of guy,

but, you know, how quickly will he grow into the team leader and that be his team? You've got, and you also have to be very careful about what's put around him. I was, you know, doing a little work. It seems a lot of talk about the run game. The defense is fairly stout. Those are things that you want to hear for a young quarterback to be successful. Hey, we're going to make a commitment to running the ball.

and we're going to make sure that defense is going to be tough, giving up points. Those two things are very, very necessary for young quarterbacks to get off and have a lot of success. When you look at the spring game and you look at his efficiency and you look how things are done, not everything was fantastic. There was a lot of screen passes, short things.

Those are the things that make up a football game and how consistently a guy can do that is really going to determine how successful the team is, and he is. And then you have the moments that come up, right? He doesn't seem like this guy that shies away from everything. But again, I'm talking about a lot of things that we can't see. We don't know. I'm taking a guess.

One thing that stands out to me about him, and I'm willing to guess, is he's a quarterback who wants to be great. Right? And so then how does that premise get worked out is going to be a lot of fun. But it seems like these organizations sometimes when they get a good quarterback, there are organizations from college to high school to pros. All of a sudden it seems like they make a lot of smart decisions. And a lot of them are based on how can we help this quarterback be successful. And it seems like that's kind of coalescing around him.

And it will just be interesting to see how, you know, know how he handles everything here on out. I'm excited to watch him play. Barry, what are the things that you have to do? If there's three things that you have to do to help a young quarterback develop, especially in a vacuum like Nebraska and the Big Ten conference. Well, one, give him a defense and run the game. And the third thing is make sure that he completely understands the game, how to prepare, right? He can throw the ball and do all that stuff, but how does he prepare? I don't know how he does it. I know he comes from a coaching family, but how is he prepare?

What is his understanding of everything that's going on, down distance time and score? I've said this before. The quarterback job is unique in that the better that you get at, the bigger the job becomes. Well, he's really good, and his job has become bigger, not in terms of the fans, but in terms of now what does he need to do on a consistent basis

to be great like I think he wants to be. And then is he willing to do it? Now everybody's willing to do it. Yeah, he's putting in the work, and I think it's fascinating to watch. Again, you like to talk about the 15 throws. Dylan can make all 15 throws. Yeah, he can make all of them. That's not a question.

So now how do, you know, if you give me the biggest, shiniest set of tools in the world, right, and they're all lined up, they're steel, whatever you like, and give me the John Deer Tract and all stuff, then the question becomes, am I a carpenter? You know, and if I am a carpenter, what am I going to build with all these tools? And so that's, I think, going to be an exciting part of watching them.

I'm excited to watch them play. It's going to be a full year. And Barry, to have you back in the fold and to have you break down some of what you see. And then to help you kind of expand and grow into what you're doing, you kind of, I say it again publicly. Thank you for being who you are and a lifetime of being able to ride shotgun with you, brough. Greatly appreciate you, baby.

That's mutual. Thank you, D.P. All right, that'll be it. Hey, speaking of North Virginia and the DMV, DeMorne-Piercone-Pierce up next here on 93-7 the ticket. Hey, one, next week, Barry,

we'll talk about D-P in high school. We're going to get some of those stories because we got plenty. Yeah, yeah. He's something else. All right, DP up next on the ticket.