1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - How High Schools Differ in their Approach to Football - July 21st, 11:00am

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

How High Schools Differ in their Approach to Football Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation on 93-7 the ticket. 11 o'clock, Lincoln America. You got your boom, people. 424-645685. The Sarder Haman text line. You want to be a part of what we're doing? Come on in during the party.

Hit us with a what's up. And we will include your in the conversation, lots to talk about for the next course of the next hour. Appreciate you hanging out. You can follow on all the live video streams, Facebook, YouTube X, Allo Channel 961. If you have not

followed us on social media, on all of the social media, of all of the social media, please do so. Bach, you put the the Bach of the black shirt graphic. I know, I did. I hope nobody would notice, but it happens. It happens.

I'm used to it. It happens. You'll reload. I was like, wait a minute. Did I miss blackout and miss two hours of radio? You know, it's a thing. Black, how the heck are you, brother? Oh, not too bad. It's, uh, I guess it's going to be a little bit cooler today from a little bit of a break from how hot it was the last couple of days, especially yesterday. And then it's supposed to get cooler and cooler.

It's supposed to be 70 in the 70s, uh, the next three days. days and then back up to 95 on Saturday. So, you know, just hang on a minute. It's going to, it'll reach your preferred weather area eventually. I just can't wait for fall. I always, you know, you get to this part of the summer. It's July and August and it's the hottest. It's the hottest of the year.

I, you know, a part of the deciding to move from Texas. I mean, you just think, okay, some of this is just, you get used to it. because in Texas, you know, I'm coaching and I'm doing, you know, five-mile walks every morning. And I mean, in Texas, especially in Houston, man, that sun sits on your shoulder. It is right, it is walking with you. But it doesn't let you go anywhere by yourself. So, and then coaching, you know, now you're in two-day time,

like preparing for high school football season. and I know people talk about hot, but that's a different kind of hot, especially when you're talking about, you're coaching 60, 70 kids, and the sun is leaning on you for six hours of the day. Plus, there's other stuff you have to do. So there's time that you have to set up

and break down stuff and all those things. So it's an eight hour day in the roaster. And I just went, okay, I've officially learned that, yeah, I can't pay attention to it. Like, I can't pay attention to it. And the same was coaching high school sports in Utah where you're coaching football. And I mean, they had, you know, portable heaters on the sideline.

That's how bad it was. You know, you're coaching in snowstorms. And, you know, I would always complain until I would watch the people who, the field managers, who had to keep the yard markers clear. And I was like, yeah, Yeah, I'm okay. I'm okay.

We used to, I mean, even in Virginia, the first month of baseball season, I coached in a parka and with like mittens on. Like you, I had the big coat up. So, you know. Do you prefer coaching in extreme heat? If you had to choose one, extreme heat or extreme cold? No, I, part of the love of basketball season is that it's indoors. Look, it's indoors, bruh.

You know, I don't care what part of the country you're in. Hey man, basketball season, it is indoors. It is into. It's tough getting to it sometimes because, you know, it's the winner. And that's kind of how it plays. But having coached Carolina, Virginia, D.C., California, Utah, Texas, it, you know, I've dealt with it all. And you just bear down and go, okay, it is what it is.

It is what it is. And you, style of play comes into play sometimes where you're not going to throw the ball around, you know, in certain places because of what it is. Bunting in the early part of the season becomes a big part of it because you know that folks have cold hands and cold fingers and it's not exactly easy for them to, you know, grabbing the ball that's, you know,

rolling around on cold grass and to make a clean throw from it. You're getting different bounces on turf, that sort of. thing. And then the outdoor work, you know, pitching mouth. And you think on the high school level, Bach, the coaches maintain the field. So you've got to rake it. You've got to fill out, fill divvits and gaps and chalk it and all those things. And which is why when I got to Houston and we had a turf, everything was turf. We had a turf football field and a turf baseball field. Boy, listen to me. Once you've coached in not turf and then on turf, especially good turf, new turf. Bach. Man, let me tell you, the 6A school in Virginia loved it, Fairfax County.

Bach, our baseball and football fields were inhabited by geese all year out. A lot of goose poop everywhere. The amount of goose poop having to dealt with. And then you have to rake it, you know, move it, flatten it, roll it flat, right? And then as soon as you do, right, you plant your seeds, right? Because, okay, it's time to get it ready. Here they come. Thanks, D.P. Appreciate the bird, appreciate the goose food.

And then the number of times that you have to wash your hands. because what do you do in baseball and football football's in it's on the ground right you're catching and throwing and then what do you you know you're rub your chin you're rub your eyes no so when i got to texas and they turf field man i could hear the archangels man i they were singing at me they were singing at me and the fact that you don't have to fill in batters boxes and pitchers mounds and that sort of thing oh bob I loved it so much. I can ask you too, because I know you talk about the places that you've been.

I'm sure there were offers, too. I mean, did you go to places and say, you know, I'm sure you had multiple offers? Like, should I, you know, have you ever turned down a place because of the facilities or anything? Like, what was, what were you doing when you were, when you get the offer initially? Well, you're looking. Yeah. Here's the thing, though, what happened pretty early in my career was that I built enough resume that I didn't, I would get offers.

I didn't have to apply. Like I got offers, right? Mm-hmm. And quite frankly, then I would respond to the offers that intrigued me. And they're all different kind of schools in different kind of areas. So in Salt Lake City, I chose, so there were two places. One, I'd start coaching in the place that I lived in because it's just proximity. Kids in the neighborhood, you see them and you go, okay, I'm going to help them.

But then I got recruited by a Catholic school, a Christian school. Let me be clear, a Christian school, Christian Academy, a private Christian Academy, a few miles from the house. And they did not have the best facilities. Now, they did have a great landscape. Like the field is like your practice and the mountains. are staring at. Okay, yeah. Right, the mountains are staring at you, the snow capped, whether it's snow capped or whatever, right? And that was the thing, but they didn't have, so we had a blockings that, they had an old blocking sled. And they didn't spend a lot of money on the football

program. But they had a blocking sled. And the blocking sled in the offseason had a slit in, in one of the pads that had become infested by bees. Bees had moved in and built the nest. But we didn't know until you get down and move it. And the first time you hit it, oh, it's a dance party. Oh, Bach, it was a dance party, bro. Let me tell you. The thing, and you just, you're looking at the AD, like, bro, what do you do? Like, have your maintenance people check this stuff.

And then they're like, no, that's your job. No. No, that's your job. The baseball field was not exceptional, but baseball in Utah was terrible. because it's so cold. It's snow. Like, listen, it's not fun. A lot less kids go out then?

Yeah. I mean, it's just less fun. The universities do a pretty good job. But baseball in Texas, amazing. Amazing. Again, I told the story. The baseball facility in the Woodlands, Texas,

at the private school, they had so much money. And again, at $35,000 a kid, for 13,000. years. Bach. Yeah. But they only have 100 kids per

for grade. So. That's still I could add that up. That's pretty good money, right? The baseball field, I mean, padded walls, padded out filled walls and padder walls behind home plate. The player's locker room was attached to the dugout. And when I tell you this was a major league locker room, I'll put up John Cooper's,

locker room to Nebraska's. The players had their own screen. Wow. Digital screen. They had their own custom chairs and other. They had full custom gear. They had, we had water machines, electric water machines in the dugout. And everything that was served in the cafeteria on campus was grown on campus. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah, and the parents, the parents had so much money that, of course, they didn't want to sit with the normals, right, at baseball. So they purchased seats, padded seats from Camden Yards and the Baltimore Orioles and flew the seats down to put, so the 100 seats behind home plate that the parents set in were from Camden Yards, padded seats from Camden Yards. Oh, man. I mean, yeah, bruh.

It was like, so it's not all the same. Yeah. It's not all the same. They were 3A in Texas. Our stadium was epic. We had, we had, again, this was 10 years ago. And we still had, we had the first tackling robotics. We had our own drone team that filmed every practice, digitized it, put it online.

Like, we had all the stuff that they do now. We just had it 10 years ago. Like, we had it before. everybody else. Listen, I would send Barry Thompson and guys, I would send my friend's pictures and videos like, you guys don't even know.

Did you feel a lot more pressure to succeed there, I'm assuming, than other spots? There was less. So this was an academic powerhouse. So again, they only took 50 boys, 50 girls per grade, but you had to be able to afford to 35,000 a year. And

you did that with a wink because you also made donations for different projects. They had a rocks and science building at the high school. A rocks and science building. A new rocks and science building. So when I got there, and I wasn't going to coach there, I was going to coach at the big 6A, 7A public school,

which is one of the best programs in the country. but I met the coach, one of the coaches, at the private school. And I was just talking to it. And I'm looking because it wasn't on my list of schools. And Becky and I drove to it. We pull up and the guy's like, hey, you can't park here. Like he chased us down to say you can't park. I said, listen, I'm just moving here and I'm just looking around.

And he's like, oh, he goes, where are you moving from? We start talking. And he goes, oh, Woodson High School. He knew the school that I coached at. and he knew some of the players. And he's like, where are you going to coach down here? And I was like,

I don't know, maybe, probably. And he goes, give me your number. And again, 50 boys in each grade, not every kid plays football or basketball or baseball.

But you had a period each day for that sport. Oh, really? Yeah. And if you weren't playing a sport in the season, you worked out. Like you're in the training room. And the guy told me, he said, listen,

we have Ivy League kids and academic All-Americans. We don't win. So just for the record, do not focus on winning. And I'm like, but you have the smartest students in the country.

Yeah, we're going to win. Now, they weren't good. Fair deal. Football was They were one, nine and one the year before I got there. Basketball, they won 30% of their games. Baseball, they won 402% of their games. That freshman group that we took that year went to three straight state titles in each of those sports.

Wow. Because if you're a smart player, I can teach you. All the talent in the world, if you don't know how to work and you're a dumb, you don't study, it doesn't matter to you, you're not going to win. And the rule was that even in Virginia and Salt Lake and everywhere I've coached, the rule, I won 68% of my games as a coach, but I also had 68% of my student athletes achieve a 3.5 GPA or higher. I had a study program.

And that was, if it was a poor school and false church, bad facilities, not much talent. A lot of the kids didn't come out for sports because they did. and enjoy it, right? Because you weren't winning and they didn't feel like they were learning and they weren't, okay, that team won, that team finished its season. That may have been the best coaching job I did with the worst facilities, the least amount of talent, and we finished the season on a six-game win street. So sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn't.

But that's why a part of why when I got here, I was going to retire and not coach. like I didn't that that was the thing is that and my friend I mean Barry and all the you know why aren't you coaching Everick why aren't you coaching? Because I don't know how Lincoln works and quite frankly I'm not sure I want to to do that right like to rebuild a program that means that people will have to concede that they don't know everything and this is a small town everybody's an expert everybody in Lincoln is an expert. Everybody in the surrounding areas,

they're an expert on everything. So then you don't need me. If things are going the way you are, but then I ask the question, are Lincoln high schools having the sort of academic and athletic success that they want or that the kids deserve? And if the answers know,

why? And why haven't you reached out and tried to get better? 68% right you it's the thing but it's also why I get frustrated that the colleges that offer me jobs even now they want

the they want me for the off the field stuff right because college athletes have figured out how to go to class or some to go to class and handle the things that are there they want for the conversations they want me one I'm coaching coaches hey maybe you're missing something on the person profile, two, to the players being able, and you've seen it here, Harrison seen it here,

in that the Husker athletes that come here, a part of the bond is that I can reach them. Like, I see them, like I see them, and they can have conversations with me that they may not be able to have with their head coach. So there's value in that, and you have to do that. I have never said no to any school or coach that asked me to speak to their kids. I've never said no. Like some figure, well, we can't afford you. How do you know?

And what's it worth to you? Right? You try to get your head kicked it. Sometimes it's the coaches that need the conversation. A lot of times, it's not the kids. It's the coaches. Wrong philosophy, wrong scheme, to be able to look at it and look at it in a film and go,

okay, can I ask honestly, why do you do what you do? Why do you run this? do you have the people for it? How do you practice this? How do you prep this? And a lot of people don't want to be judged. They don't want to, coaches have big egos, man. They do not want somebody to come in and go,

you might want to try something else. But that's the difference between John Thompson, Joe Gibbs, Jerry Sloan, were all coaches that I was fortunate enough to sit next to and listen to and be taught by. and each of them did a thing so exceptionally well is that they listened to their assistance and their players. You want to know the difference between legendary coaches and those dudes who do okay?

Listen. Listening. And putting down your ego and saying, quite frankly, I need to know what I'm missing. It was more important for them to know what they're missing than to show what they know. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Right? And we think about it. Hoss and I talk about it on Sundays a lot. Imagine, again, this is a staff, me, Barry Thompson and Hoss Tiberisi. Outside of that market, it's not a big deal. But in that market, you got three dudes. You got a dude that currently has produced seven Big Ten quarterbacks.

Seven. And he's in Fairfax, Virginia, just hanging out chilling. Foster Breezy has built five division one, six division one basketball players. Just hang on. Imagine the head coach in that staff having three coaches under him that should have been head coaches in the programs around him. But his thing was, hey man, I'd rather coach with you than against you. Right? Because I could challenge you.

And this is a guy that had won 20 plus district titles. but in order for him to get the regional titles, he needed help. He needed a different voice. He needed different thoughts. He needed different schemes. So that's how he got to go and win two state titles for regional titles. So when we had these conversations about coaches and organization,

that sort of thing, I'm generally speaking about on the high school and team USA level, what works. because if in the management of the young people, it will work at that level, it'll work at the COBS law. It may not work at the pro level because those are the elite,

that's the top 1%, and then you have to have different conversations. I still think that applies at the University of Nebraska. It applies at Wesleyan. It applies at Dane. Because I know the kids who are playing against them. And when I see a Ridge Lovett, even before he had won the national title, I said, you're a national champion. You just don't know it yet.

The difference is being able to see the process. And sometimes that's a thing. Like from Europe, where did you go to high school? Lincoln Southeast. So in comparing Lincoln Southeast facilities then, not now. Yeah. Because there was a meeting of the minds in most Lincoln school. are working at the same level, yes?

I think for the most part, yeah. Right? That most of the Lincoln schools? I mean, there's some newer, nicer facilities. The two private schools or three? Yeah. What are there? Two or three?

There's at least three. Yeah, three. Right? That they work from a different financial budget and a different mindset, right? Different philosophy. Would you say that Lincoln Public Schools basketball facilities are as good as the private schools?

I wouldn't. I guess probably around, I haven't noticed too much of a difference, I suppose. Is it helpful that the majority of Lincoln High School public high school games are played at the same place? Does that help or does that hinder? In terms of your engagement, the game experience, practice facility, right? Because you're not practicing on those fields during the week. Yeah. So there's no home field advantage per se.

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it's, you know, it's out outside Likin' East backyard. So that's kind of interesting. I always kind of thought in any new way. But it's kind of cool and unique that it kind of gives you the feel of, hey, this is the big game in town this week. But it would also be cool if you had more home fields and some, you know, you know, some of the private schools have played at Westland, you know,

Pice has got their field. So, you know, Likin High has got their own field. So it's a right. Right. So you get some advantage. And knowing the field, nothing's new on game night, right, other than the game itself. Those things coming to play. Like those things coming to play that if you know, you know the locker room, right?

Not a big deal. All your stuff's there. You know where it is. You know how to get there. You know what the timetable is. Only half the game of bus rides. You know where to eat before the game. You know who's going to be where your parents generally sit.

You know where your girlfriend is. like all those things. That's a big part of it, because those things can be distractions unless you focus. If in basketball, everybody's playing at the same place, the reason why the state tournament is so wonderful that everybody's playing

in the big room, and there are people who shoot well in it, people who don't. It's balanced. It's fair. You know, it's a thing. We have this text. Texas is an LPS football coach. I can say it hinders playing at C. losses loses the hometown field.

Yeah, I mean, that's it. There are neighborhoods, even in Texas, where people play at the big stadium. So there's a big, huge stadium holds 20,000 people that the Woodlands high schools all play at. And they rotate and sure. But let me tell you, that's like playing at the University of Nebraska because it's got, you know, instant replay. It's got tailgate space for students. It's got inflatables. It's got its own TV network.

Like, it's a thing. Like, okay, but you're not playing at home. And that's a big part of this thing, especially in the high school level, to invite people to your campus and see how you do business, to see what your philosophies are. At Seacrest, it's everybody's home.

But if you played games at Lincoln or at Lincoln North Star, you get the purpose. personality of the culture. You get the identity. You get the familiarity. You get all those things. And so you coaches out there, I appreciate you.

I appreciate you. Thanks for reaching that in there. But there are things in the space that determine success. And so when we talk about Nebraska and Wesleyan and Big Ten and SEC and all those things, I tend to speak that culturally, regionally things are different. regionally things are different. So how Nebraska does things is how Nebraska does things. That's not necessarily how Ohio State's doing them.

We know that. You're doing business together, but you're not doing the same business. You think Nebraska's bank account looks like Ohio states? You think the number of outgoing transactions, the number of bills being paid out of Ohio State athletics is the same as Nebraska. Bach? No. Fair enough.

Fair enough, sir. Again, it's the thing, right? We asked the question, is the Big Ten too big? Is the Big Ten conference too big? Has it gotten too big? Or is it not big enough? text too big not big enough we'll get to that and the why when we come back