An Army of Normal Folks - If It Weren’t for Lane Kiffin, I Wouldn’t Have Won An Oscar

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

For our "Shop Talk" series, Coach Bill Courtney shares the behind-the-scenes story of the Oscar-winning documentary Undefeated. It’s on Amazon Prime and Esquire named it one of the top 20 sports films of all-time.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to our special Friday episodes of Shop Talk. Coming to you now is Shop Talk number four. And I'm going to answer a question I get asked all the time, which is how in the world undefeated actually ever happened. It's actually a pretty humor story, and it's got a really valuable lesson to it. So, let's talk shop about the genesis of Undefeated right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Okay, new year, fresh start. And honestly, I'm starting with dinner.

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Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff.

I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman. There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person, a billion-dollar company, which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company. with a real product run by fake people.

Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses. Listen to Shell Game on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, everybody, shop talk number four, undefeated. I get asked all the time about this, so I thought I'd share the story with you and share with you the lesson that I'll learn. I'm running a lumber company and coaching football in Memphis, which is all I've ever did and really wanted to do. And Lane Kiffin was hired as the head football coach at the University of Tennessee.

And a guy named Rich Middlemess, who was a budding fledgling producer in Hollywood, actually graduated from the University of Tennessee. And when Lane Kiffin was hired, there was a lot of, you know, excitement around that hire at the University of University of Tennessee. at Tennessee. And so, Rich was reading online about Lane. And he'd had one of his first interviews. He was asked what his first order of business was. And he said he was going to get down to Memphis to do some recruiting and named O.C. Brown, one of my players that if you've watched undefeated, you know, intimately, as one of the guys that Lane was going to recruit. And so Rich read that and he's like, that's interesting. Who's this O.C. Brown guy? So he Googles O.C. Brown Memphis and finds out a story that was in the Memphis local newspaper called the Commercial Appeal that was a story about him living with Mike Ray, my neighbor and friend who coached the offensive line with me. And was the guy, frankly, who really started the entire recruiting process for O.C.

He put a grainy YouTube video up and said, is this the fastest? 300-pound kid in high school football, you tell me, with a bunch of his clips. And it led to this unbelievable start of recruiting. And we had to get OC's grades right. So he lived with Mike. And then, of course, I would pick him up in the mornings and take him to school because my business is right near Manassas. And so this story in the commercial pill told that story. Rich found it interesting, called up Mike first, then me, and said, hey, I'd like to come down. And, hear more about it, thinking that he might do a short documentary on that story. And once Rich got here, he learned about all the other kids, the six years of work that have been going on

at Manassas, our 501c3 that we used because Manassas had no booster club called Man Rise and all of it and decided, nope, I want to make a movie out of this. And so he leaves. So Mike and I look at ourselves and say, well, there's a 31-year-old kid we've never met who says he wants to make a movie. I doubt we'll ever see him again. And about a month later, he shows up with Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin, who are 29, 30-year-old budding filmmakers, much like Rich Mildermus, this budding producer. I think it's important to note that at this time, they had one credit to their name and it was a heartfelt thought-provoking documentary

on the World Series of Beer Pong. That's it. That's all they'd ever done. I don't know that it was particularly good or bad, but that's it. And so these guys show up and start following us around with cameras. They leave Memphis nine months later with 550 hours of film and they say they're going to make a movie that we think we might see Unchamination. 522 on Wednesday at 2 in the morning.

Really did not think there was much to it. About a year and a half later, they've told us they have the movie completed and we get a call and they say, Bill, you got to get to Austin, Texas. Why do I have to go to Austin, Texas? And as I said, because the South by Southwest Film Festival has picked us up, and we're going to have a, undefeated is going to be shown there. And you have to be there for the Q&A and all this. And my first question was, what's a film festival? And they said, well, and now everybody knows what a film festival is, but I was clueless.

And they told me to date. And I said, sorry, no can do. You see, I started my business in 2001. And we were on a wing in a prayer and didn't have a lot of money. And I never really was able to take leasing the kids on a real vacation. And it just so happened to be the South by Southwest Film Festival was happening dead in the middle of my kids' spring break. And we'd saved up. And we were doing the Disney World extravaganza.

We had the place rented at Disney and the car and the air player and the fast pass and everything else for Lisa and the four kids. And they were all jazzed up about it. And it was really our first big family vacation. And there was no way I could interrupt it. it and not go and go this goofy film festival in Austin. But they said, you got to come, you got to come. And I said, look, man, I can't. And so they called me back the next day and said, how about this?

We'll pay for you to extend your vacation at Disney two days. And we'll pay for you to leave Orlando, fly to Austin, do the film festival, and then fly you back to Orlando. And I was like, no, no, no. And I thought, hold it. I like to be king. dad. I mean, I'm going to get to give my kids a vacation inside a vacation and extend it two days. And talked to Lisa and she said, why not? So we said, okay. So that Tuesday or Wednesday rolls

around and we're in Orlando doing the whole Mickey Mouse affair and we're about to go. Oh, it's a Sunday. And we're about to fly to Austin to do the South by Southwest and then fly back to Orlando and continue our Mickey Mouse endeavors. And we show up to the airport. And we show up to the airport. And I'm like really proud because I got my wife and all my kids in their own vacation. And we're showing up to the airport actually. Instead of an hour early, we're an hour and 40 minutes early. And as we're pulling up, Molly says, dad, doesn't the flight leave at 1030? And I'm like, yeah.

And she says it's 950. And I like, no, it's 8.50. And everybody scrambles around. And then we realize it's day like savings time. And we lost an hour and didn't know because we were mesmerized by the mouth. and goofy. So we run in, we park the car, run into the airport, and it's too late. And now everybody's expecting us at this Austin South by Southwest Film Festival for this grand

showing of this movie we think nobody's ever going to really want to see anyway. And it's a Sunday. Well, the closest I could get was Houston. So we quickly change the tickets. I ran to a Southwest flight in Orlando, flew to Houston, got there late, and then I had to rent a car. And the only car that I could rent in Houston and return in Austin was a purple Ford Crown Victoria. So he loaded up the kids, me driving, leasing the past receipt, one of the kids between us, the other three kids across the back. They're screaming, we're hungry.

I go to Sonic. I just tell the girl to bring us pretty much two of everything they got. We fill the car up with food and kids and luggage and this purple crown vick, and we roll from Houston to Austin. And we pull into town about an hour and a half before the movie starts that we're supposed to be at. So my grand entrance to the movie world, my triumphant red carpet first experience of the movie world was sonic rappers flying around the inside of a car on spring break with four screaming children in a purple crown. Vic. Nonetheless, we go to the show and they show it and the most surreal experience of the world. The kids and Lisa and I are sitting in this auditorium full of about, I think it was 1,400 people. And in the movie, people are crying and laughing and standing up and cheering.

And all I can think about when I'm watching is, my God, I'm fat. I didn't really realize I was that fat and I talked funny. It was surreal. And when it's over, the lights are. come up and Dan and T.J. and Rinch, you know, they have their triumphant appearance in front of the crowd and they start the Q&A. And one of the first question is, where's Coach Bill now? And Rich says, well, there he is right there up there with his family. And everybody looks and weird. That night, there was an all-night bidding war for the Wright's done defeated. I can't remember who

all was involved, but it was Merrimax and Paramount and whatever. And I think, that night when it was bought, it actually set the record for the most money paid for a documentary at a film festival. And I remember Lisa and I were sitting there at this bar that they were having kind of an afterparty in, having a glass of beer or something before we were about to leave and get on a plane and fly back to Orlando and resume our spring break. And a woman and a man who we didn't know at the time, but ended up being Ari Emanuel. and his wife, who owned WME, walked up and said,

you know your life's never going to be the same. And Lisa and I were like, ah, whatever, 10 minutes of fame. We go back to the Mickey Mouse World, have a blast, go home, and then we get another call, and we're told, hey, guess what, you're coming to L.A.? Undefeated has been nominated for an Oscar. When things couldn't get we're worried, we thought, no way. And then we find ourselves walking down the red carpet with George Clooney.

And that night it won the Academy Award. And all this is to say, we were minding our own business in Memphis, running a lumber company coaching football. And we weren't looking for any of this stuff. But for one reason or another, the only difference in me and thousands of other people doing amazing things in our world is my story got told. But as a result of my story getting told, I was blessed with a platform. And so Lisa and I decided we're going to use the blessing of this platform to talk about stuff that matters. So I wrote a book against the grain filled with tenants and fundamentals that I think are

really tantamount to a meaningful, professional, personal, and societal life. And that book did great. And I do speeches all over the country. And then Alex interviewed me one day and said, hey, I want to be. want you to do this podcast and now this podcast is going bonkers and all of it I still truly don't fully understand but see it as a blessing to use that platform that I've unwittingly been blessed with and didn't look for to talk about the stuff that matters race, creed, um, faith. All of the things that were so afraid to talk about.

that cancel us, that may put us in trouble, that may put us at odds with one group or another. I run headlong into now because I just don't know how we improve our society unless we're willing to discuss and talk about in civil, non-threatening open ways, the things that do both define us and divide us. Because I think those divisions can be broken down with that type of conversation. Y'all, undefeated is not about wins and losses on a football field. It's about not being defeated by your circumstances. And the circumstances we found ourselves in in the United States today,

and some corners of the world might be called dire. We are divided. We do have issues. We do have problems. And one day, three guys that have only told one story about beer, Gyrtong showed up in my life and did a beautiful job telling a story and we won awards. And because of those awards, I've been given a platform and a book and speeches and now a podcast to try to have conversations about the things that I think matter.

And in large part, I refuse to be defeated by what divides us. I refuse to be defeated by what we may think is bad or good public policy, depending on side of the aisle we're on. I refuse to be defeated by folks who are throwing their hands up saying we can't fix it anymore. And I refuse to be defeated by this notion that America has seen her better days. I think as an army of normal folks, we can refuse to be defeated by all those divisive, self-inflicted wound prophecies. And we can fix what what else is serving one another leading one another for the service being inspired by one another service to one another and remembering that it doesn't matter who you love how you vote what you

look like or who you worship if you're serving somebody of need in your community I can celebrate you and if I'm doing the same you can celebrate me and that is a basis from which we can all grow and improve our society and our culture and remember that this country's always been about we the people. And therefore, it will take an army of normal folks to write this ship. But I am encouraged by all the stories we get to tell every week that show that there are still people out there pulling on the worse. So, guys, I wasn't looking for it, and it came my way.

And as a result of a movie called Undefeated, I remain undefeated by the inspirational stories I get to tell every week. And I encourage you to think about the stories you hear on an Army of Normal Folks. And hopefully you're inspired to do something and you too will remain undefeated by the naysayers and just get involved and become a part of the Army of Normal Folks that have the power to fix and shape our country. That's Shop Talk for this week. I'll see you next week. I'm John Polk. For years, I was the poster boy of the conversion therapy movement. The ex-gay who married an ex-lesbian

and traveled the world telling my story of how I changed my sexuality from gay to straight. You might have heard my story, but you've never heard the real story. John has never been anything but gay, but he really tried hard not to be. Listen to a tone. The John Polk story on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And the winner of the IHeart Podcast Award is,

you can decide who takes home the 26 IHeart Podcast Awards podcast of the year by voting at iHeartPodcastawards.com now through February 22nd. See all the nominees and place your vote at Iheartpodcastawards.com. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com.

Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan.

I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AIA. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast, Shell Game, on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.