Shaun Newman Podcast - #20 - Murray McDonnell

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

This one was pretty cool. Murray and I did this episode live at the Lashburn Elementary School in front of different classes who sat and watched throughout the interview. Murray is retired from teaching (30years) and now is a full time painter. He taught himself rugby by reading a book and went on to coach the Lashburn High School to 5 provincial championship. He has a lot of insight on coaching kids and how to approach life in general.  You don’t want to miss this one.

Welcome to the podcast. First off, I want to give a shout out to Harlan Lessig and his team at the Weekly Bean. They continue to publish the upcoming guests in the weekly bean. So thanks, guys. You can see a copy of it or pick up a copy of it and Kindersley, Lloyd Minster, and Moose Jaw. Just appreciate them continuing to publish my stories

as we bring you guys a new episode each week. If you're looking, find me on social media, you can find me at Facebook, Sean Newman Podcast. There's a group set up there. Instagram, Sean Newman Podcast, or Twitter, S. Newman Podcast. And please leave me some feedback. I always love hearing from you guys. I just wanted to give a shout out first off to Chris and Jason Ross. They're the ones who put me on to Murray McDonnell.

And he was, like, he was unreal to interview. It was a great time. I want to say thank you to Susan Plant and my wife, Melissa, they lined up me going out to Lashburn Elementary School. And honestly, it was a ton of fun to be out there surrounded by all the kids. It was the first time I've ever had an audience to sit and see what I do. And I think they enjoyed it. At times, I wondered because, you know, your kids get quiet and you go, like, are they enjoying this?

Or do they get bored or who knows, right? but I think they enjoyed having us out there. It was a pleasure to be out at the school. I just want to say thank you very much to Lashburn once again for having me out there. It was an absolute thrill to set it up and do a podcast in front of all of you. Today's guest is Murray McDonnell. Murray is a retired teacher he taught for 30 years in Lashburn at the high school. Originally from Toronto, he moved out here.

He'd never played rugby before, decided to start coaching it, so he read a book on it, and then would go on to win five provincial titles with the Lashburn High School. His knowledge and philosophies on coaching and life is just so cool. I think you guys are really going to enjoy it. The episode begins and ends with about five minutes of questions from a couple of the classes at Lashburn Elementary. So without further ado. Why'd you make one? So why did I start a podcast?

Yeah. So I started a podcast. I've always been interested in radio. But when I came back from hockey, you can go ahead and sit down if you want. When I played hockey all over the United States and Europe. And so when I came back, I started listening to podcasts, and they just really appealed to me. I like being on the radio. I like talking to people.

And it's a very cost-effective way. It doesn't cost a lot of money. start it just takes your time and effort i am certainly recording right now planning a podcast okay so first thing i did was i got gear because you can't record anything without anything although in saying that you can just use a phone and just record it that way anchor which you guys i believe are using it's as simple as that right um i like quality so i want it to sound really good that's why i went with this setup um and then the next is you got to find good people to talk to. And so I want people that are interesting for me personally, because if you're going to tune

into my podcast, if it's interesting to me, chances are it's going to be interesting to you. And then, obviously, you record it. And I'm, I heard somebody here say earlier, it takes a lot of editing. I don't do any editing, so I don't edit anything, minus trim up the ends when I'm walking to turn it off, that kind of thing. I like having the whole conversation. I don't like it clipped. and so I add a little bit of music at the start and I have a little bit of an intro of just introducing the guest and other than that it's just a long wind conversation. What types of things do you talk about on the podcast?

So I have three different areas that I'm really interested in. First and foremost, I'm a hockey player. I love hockey, so it is about 80% hockey. But I also biked across Canada when I was 19 and so I like a little bit of adventure, so I try and find adventurous people, and then I graduated from college with a degree in history, so I try and find a lot of history as well. How much podcasts have you done?

This will be number 20. Who is the special guest? Today's guest is Murray McDonnell. Do you guys know who that is? No, no. You don't know whose field at the high school. They have the rugby field named McDonnell Field. That's who it's named after he taught here for.

taught at the high school for 30 years. Coach Rugby in Lashburn here for almost 30 years. And there he is right there. Give him a wave, Murray. No, no. That adds to the, that adds to the, absolutely. Any other questions from you guys before we start? What was your first podcast?

My first podcast was Ken Rutherford. Does that name ring a bell with anyone? Of course he is. So Ken Rutherford was a volleyball player in Paradise Hill that coached me senior hockey in Hillmond And so we talked a little bit about those two things But Ken Rutherford also helped me get this going So that was why I had him on as my first guest

Why did you start playing hockey? Oh, that's a dangerous question Why did I start playing hockey? Well, I come from a family of three other brothers and an older sister, I'm the youngest. And so we pretty much lived at the rink. That's pretty much my first memory. And so I don't know if I had much of a choice in it.

I got on skates probably as I started to walk, and after that, I could probably skate better than I can walk. I'm surprised nobody's asked about my missing teeth yet. I thought for sure that would come. Why are you missing teeth? I lost my front teeth. oh man, this is 2004, I believe. So about 15 years ago, I played junior hockey out in Ontario,

and I took a slap shot to the face, and it knocked out my top teeth. And so as I continue to play competitive hockey, they told me I could get work done on it, but if I got hit again, it could really screw some things up. So as long as I continue to play hockey, they don't want me to get my teeth completely. completely fixed just yet. Oh yeah? Yeah. Pretty cool.

Pretty not cool. It's a bad child. It's a bad child. Any others before we start, guys? What was the hardest hockey team you went up against? Well, your Lashburn Flyers are pretty tough. And do you guys all know who Tyson Getsinger is? No.

No? Yeah. Well, he'd be the captain of the Lashburn Flyers. He's a pretty nice guy. I think he just finished having his first kid. But the Wainwright wrestlers did win our league three years in a row. And St. Walberg won it this year, and they're pretty good. And Dewberry won it seven years in a row before we won it.

So they were pretty good, too. They have Kurt Benz Miller, who is a CPCA champ and Chuck Wagoning. Okay. Any more? Sorry? I don't know. I bumped up against the chalkboard, I guess. Does that look like chalk to you?

Yeah. Thanks for letting me know. But I don't think it's coming out. Well, should we begin? Sure. My level's good. Yep. It certainly looks like it.

I tested them all out with the kids before, Marie. So welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined in the Lashburn Elementary School. I got the grade five class watching us as we do this, but I'm sitting across from Marie McDonnell. How are you today, sir? I'm well, Sean and you? Yeah, I'm really good, actually. This is a new for me.

I can't say I've ever had an audience quite like this. It's a really cool thing. Yes, it is, yeah. So when I usually start out with these, I like to go to what I call the beginning. You're originally from Toronto. Originally, yeah. So did you grow up there? I grew up there, yes.

Went to university there and then got a job here. So I'm always curious. What brought you to come out west? So the year I graduated from Teachers College, there were 5,000 graduates that year. There were 4,000 from the year before who didn't get a job. There were 1,700 teachers laid off across the province, and there were 900 jobs available. So we applied, my wife and I applied everywhere, and Lashburn was job application number, 68 out of 83.

And I got a phone call from Doug of Rosemoff, a great guy, and he offered me the job, and I said, can I have a couple days to think about it? He said, yes, and I went down to the University Library, got out a map of the area, saw hills and trees, figured I could handle that, and then we loaded up the car and headed west. And road tripped it this way. Yeah. And were you with your wife at the time then? Yes.

She was one of the 1700 teachers laid off. She had a job in Peterborough and then was hired two out of three French teachers and they dropped in order. So two out of three went down. Oh, wow. I assume that was an interesting car ride coming this way. It was a good car ride. loaded up the car and a trailer with our furniture and stopped off at a friend in Manitoba en route and then came up here and we got into Lashburn at quarter after midnight.

I got up early in the morning. I went to the, this is a cool story. I got up, went to the post office to get a post office box. And the postmistress at the time was Millie Waldron and she'd never seen me before. I said, I'd like a post box, please. And she said, what's your first name? I said, Murray. And then I watched her write my last name. I didn't say my last name. She wrote it out. And I thought, welcome to a small town. No kidding. No kidding. For the kids sitting here, what's changed in Lashburn since you first arrived? Has it grown? Has it shrunk? What's your thoughts compared to when you first got here. So in terms of the town changing, it's a little larger. There's new homes. The population sizes at the schools have been very consistent over the years, and I think they're

still about the same as when I came. I remember at the high school, we went from a high of about 210 down to about 170 at the lowest, and that was over a 30-year period. Yeah. So, I don't think things have changed very much. Kids are still the same fine kids that their parents and grandparents were. You do have a subway now. That is relatively new, I think. That is. And I mean, there's a golf course, a track, a beautiful arena. Yeah, beautiful arena. Yeah. All those things, right? Yeah. My son grew up playing in the old arena. I coached a lot in the old arena. So the new arena is a really nice thing. Yeah. I spent a lot of time. Hard to believe. I'm originally from Hillmont. but my brother played for the Lashburn Flyers once upon a time.

And actually my older, well, two of my older brothers both played for the Midwest Red Wings. And then my oldest brother won national championships with the Lashburn Spurs. Oh, really? Or the Midwest Spurs. Lashburn Spurs? I think Midwest. Midwest, yeah. We spent a lot of days at the ball diamonds here, which you guys have always had super nice ball diamonds.

It's a funny thing. Lashburn, if you look at all the provincial championships that have come out, of this town it's astonishing how many provincial championships in softball rugby wrestling like it's it's been a great sports town over the years and has a history of excellent coaching and excellent athletic ability on behalf of the participants so when you first get here murray you never look back because you you essentially start teaching at lashburn high school correct and then continue to do that for 30 straight years until your last day. So you just fell in love with the place as soon as you were here.

I really liked it, yeah. Yeah, I love Western Canada. I just love it. I was a vice principal for eight years and a principal for another eight years, and I worked with great people. And when I say I worked with great people, I'm talking both staff and students over the years, and it was just a pleasure to continue doing that.

And great people, going to work with people that you get along with is a huge part of life. It is. And, like, I thought we built something that was very special at the school there. And it was just nice to continue doing that. So why rugby? Okay, why rugby? That's a really good question. My brother-in-law, Ralph Kester,

played rugby. He grew up in South Africa. He was a vascular surgeon, very, very, very good vascular surgeon in England. He continued to play in England, but he also worked with the Yorkshire Terriers back in the day, which was the representative side under 18 men for Yorkshire. He was their doctor and physio. So every weekend he would show up and he would take care of players on either side who needed medical care. And he did this for, goodness me, 40, 50 years to the point where he just received the British Empire Medal from the Queen for his volunteer services. He toured with that team.

And back in about 85, I think, or 80s. my daughter would have been about four, my son, 86, my son would have been one. He brought a team over, Yorkshire representative side, and they played Alberta. And I went on tour, my daughter and myself, and we followed the team. And the first game was in St. Albert, which has a beautiful clubhouse and stunning fields. And they played Alberta there. and I'm watching this game and I see the Alberta Scrum half come running straight across the field. This English back had the ball.

Big, big kid. He's running like a freight train straight down the sideline. This scrum half comes, tackles him. They both go flying out of bounds. They both jump up with grins on their faces and run back into the game. And as soon as I saw that, I thought, this is an awesome game. I just thought this is wonderful, and I want to bring this to my school. So we followed them, my daughter and I, to Calgary, where they played a rep side,

and then we watched them in Camloops and Colonna before they went on to the coast. And I got made friends with the coach. She gave me some materials. It came back, I said to the principal, I'd like to try this sport for the senior boys. there's certain advantages that the sport had for a rural school. The first one is that, like, they used to play football in Lashburn, and then they stopped because they had injury issues. To start up a football team back in the day was extremely expensive.

The cost of the travel, the cost of the equipment. it was prohibitively expensive. To play rugby, you need a pair of boots and a pair of shorts. And a jersey helps. No or any head gear? No, no, no, no, nothing. And you should ask me about concussions later on because I've got some insights into that whole thing.

The other nice thing about the sport was that everyone can play. So there's a place for your short, stocky heavyweight guy, there's a place for a tall skinny guy, there's a place for athletes of normal build. Everyone can play because there's a position that takes advantage of all those body types. And not every sport is like that, right? Basketball helps if you're tall, right?

Hockey. Helps if you're tall. It helps if you're tall. It helps if you're big and strong and fast. Yeah. But if you're a little guy, and little guys can play rugby if they're fast

so there was that advantage to it as well and then over and above that Sean the advantage of the sport is that it gives something to the players because it's a contact sport and there's no pads

and it's full-on contact because it is that it builds character. Anyone who steps on the field doesn't need to tell someone they have courage because it's obvious to any spectator that to play the sport, you need courage and you need determination, you need a good work ethic

and you need to be able to get up after you've been hit and carry right on with it. So it was inexpensive, it appealed to all body sizes and it built character. It struck me, and it struck my principal at the time that it was a perfect sport for high school. So what was your first season like? How was it like, did you just put out a flyer saying, hey, we're going to start a rugby team if you're interested in joining?

So the first couple seasons started a rugby team, we got some invitational games against Unity. It wasn't that big a deal. And then I asked the boys if they wanted to do it. seriously and they said yes so I arranged some games against St. Albert high school's up in St. Albert and I remember the first game really really clearly because it was like there were our guys in their green jerseys it was like they were getting rolled over by a big tidal wave and we lost that game 85 to 5 and then the next The next season...

Don't bind me, I'm just checking to make sure I turn off the right mic. The next season, there was a moment. We were playing a team out of Saskatoon, the Crems in North Battleford. And there was this moment when I realized that we had the makings of a superb team. This was a city club team that drew from... that drew from three high schools or two high schools i forget and uh we beat them we beat them i don't know 21 17 and it was amazing like in order for that to happen you saw the guys change you could i could see the change in their demeanor on the field collectively and i've seen

I've seen people change playing the game. I've seen boys turn into men right before my eyes, which is a really... Cool thing. It's a privilege to see that transformation, but on that game, I saw the whole team change. And from that point, we just carried on. Just because they walked into,

they knew what they were walking into. Is that what you mean? They changed right in front of it? Was it the... No. the other team was putting up a fairly strong defense. They weren't used to being pushed around by a little country school, and they started beaking,

and then the game got a little rough, spirited. I guess it's better way to put it. And then in that spirited moment, it was like I watched these guys grow a foot and gain 40 pounds, and they just tore into them. And it was wonderful. Now, I'm trying to put myself in this situation here. You told me that you started it because essentially it was cost effective.

You'd watched a few games of it. It looked really appealing to you. But you've never played this sport. No, I never played it. So you just go to the local library and grab a rugby book? and learn it? Yeah, I basically learned it out of a book. Because I'd like to point out to all the kids listening, if there are.

And this time there's no internet to go YouTube how to rugby. You're reading it and then having to describe that to how many 15 on the field? You know, I've been asked a lot about that question. Like, you never played it, but you coached it at a fairly high level. How did that happen? and a lot of people can't wrap their heads around it, but the way to think about it is like this. I play a pretty reasonable game of chess.

I've never been a chess piece. That's pretty good, yes. To coach any sport, you need to learn it. You can learn it by having been taught it by others, or you can just learn it. You need to have, you need to be able to analyze, You need to be able to look at what your players need in terms of skill development, and then you have to find a way to teach them what they need. You have to learn to assess each player's strengths and weaknesses based on their body size, then you have to find a role for that person on the team that they can fulfill.

And get them all pulling the same direction. Yep. It's not that complex, right? You learn the rules of the game. You learn the skills the game requires. And then you learn how to teach the skills. And in learning how to teach the skills, it's a pretty simple thing. You break it down to its basic components.

You teach all those components, and then you put it together. And then there, of course, after that, there's tactics, and then there's strategy. And there's the whole fitness thing. But you can learn all those things and communicate them. And if your audience knows nothing, if the people you're coaching know nothing about it. it's a blank slate it's a blank slate right you just start and

and you go from now I'm thinking to myself you wouldn't have any angry parents yelling from the stands because they don't know what heck is going on anyways they have no clue like the difference between a rugby parent and a hockey parent

is night and day the hockey parent thinks they know what's going on rugby parent knows they don't have a clue the rugby parent sounds like me in this interview I'm going I have no idea where this is going yeah yeah So how was your first game then?

Like you, yeah. The first games were horrible. They were horrible. They looked terrible. They didn't have the skill set. But, you know, as you keep playing, that first game in St. Albert, when I said it looked like a title wave was knocking my boys down. That's what it was. That's what it looked like.

There's like 15 guys lined up across the field and they go down, one, two, three, four, five, six all the way to 15. the ball still gets past but boom they get knocked down that that team had a phenomenal defense but we learned from it you learn from it so we took two tours in the early days we won our first provincial championship in like 1990 and that was a skin of the teeth win that was a beautiful thing I had a player named Alan Tario and he kicked the ball. We were awarded a penalty and he kicked the ball from the sideline about 35, 40 meters out, sailed through to give us a three-point win. And then I had another player make a tackle to preserve that win.

You went across the field like a torpedo and knocked this kid out of bounds and the game ended and we won by the three points from the kick. After that, we went to England, to Yorkshire, and we toured there. We had five games. And when you play those teams, well, you can imagine if an English hockey team came to Canada, made up of English schoolboys who had just learned how to play hockey, what would the results be if they played a B-level team? They could probably get thumped.

They would get thumped. So when we take kids to England, they get them. thumped and they get thumped and they get thumped but they learn they learn right every game they learn and they absorb it um one of the things i found about coaching was that uh you can teach young very young people complex systems if you do it right and they'll learn them you can you can teach things that people wouldn't think you can teach kids and they'll learn it and do it because they're It's just one of those cool things about human beings. You know Morgan Mann quite well.

I know Morgan really well, yeah. The first hockey school I ever ran, I had Morgan helping me. And I remember putting up a drill and about to scratch it off because it was first one I had a whole lot of self-confidence in what I was doing. Let's leave it at that. And I wrote it up and I went, ah, it's too complex. And he went, oh no, no, they'll learn it. and what you're saying right there is where he got,

I can't be 100% sure, but you two have come from the same school of thought or he learned that off of you because what you're talking about is why we left that drill in there and by day two they were doing this complex drill that little kids probably would have never got to until about midget hockey.

Well, that's the thing. You can teach young kids, high level skills and there's benefits. Like, one of the nice things about not having been brought up in a sport and then going on to coach it is you have a clean slate in your own head and you can analyze things like to use a hockey example how many coaches have you seen teach their kids when they want to do a breakout that they should ring the puck around the boards to a forward is going to be waiting at the hash marks lots i can go from my own time in hockey

that's happened to me several times, yeah. And how many times do you see young kids screw that up? All the time. All the time. Yeah. So why do they do it? They do it because that was what they have seen being done, and that's what they did. And they never look at it and say, this is a really ineffective system.

It's a really good way to lose possession of the puck inside your own zone and have your forward get his clock clean standing at the hash marks, waiting for a pass coming up the board. So then you think outside the box and you think, well, what's a better way to break out of my end zone? And then you find a complex thing when you teach it to the kids. And all of a sudden the kids who had struggled with the previous thing get it and they like it. It's human nature, right? Yes, but I think Lashburn hit the gold mine when you moved here and then you stumble upon a sport and you have this unique way of looking at it.

I bet you if there was a hundred other people that stumbled upon rugby and brought it to Lashburn at that time, they didn't have the same outlook. You just said, I'm not sure they could have pulled off what you've done. I don't know. I think any thinking person, any intelligent thinking person who wants to succeed, I'll take a step back. Success in sports, it's just going to happen. if you do the right things, if you analyze the skills the kids need, if you give them the skills,

you give them drills to improve their skill set, right, and you concentrate on the other three aspects of sport, and by the other three aspects I'm talking, educating the mind, educating the heart and educating the body. You know, you make them fit, you make them love what they're doing, and you get them to think about what they're doing. The kid is going to have fun. The player is going to have fun. Well, that sounds like fun. And the team is going to be successful.

It will be successful. Well, if you put those three ingredients into pretty much anything, it'll be successful. It should be. And, I mean, success in sport, it's not about winning and losing. Because who remembers the score of a hockey game? They were in the 14th game of your 16th winter. Who remembers that score? Nobody.

But you remember the good times. Remember being with your friends? You remember the road trips? You remember the fitness you gained? You don't remember the score. You're making me smile right now because as you're talking at, you remember all the good times and the people around. Those are still the friendships you still have.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a sport is like sports about building character. It's about giving kids life skills. That stuff I said about the head, the heart, and the body. If you teach a kid that every time you're knocked down, your job is to get back up and go in just as hard, you're giving them a life skill. Because getting knocked down on a playing field or a rink

doesn't compare to the knockdowns they're going to, take in life, but that attitude of getting back up and going at it hard is going to help them down the road. That's what it's about. I think coaching, you give gifts. You give gifts to the community, you give gifts to your players, and it's just a wonderful thing to do. I find the Mine, the fascinating, all three parts I find really fascinating. But getting the athlete to think is difficult. Difficult. So I used to say when I was putting a rugby team together, I wanted three types of players.

I wanted guys who could move pianos. I wanted guys who could play pianos, you know, the dancers. That's right. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And then I wanted one or two guys who could invent the piano. Because there are positions that require thinking.

But notwithstanding that, everybody has to know the team tactics and the team's strategy. And that makes every player, I think. I feel like everything you talk about, that the way you break down rugby translates to more than rugby. Oh, of course it does. Yeah. That pretty much translates to any sport. want to put it into, any workplace you want to put it into, right? Yeah.

The management of people. One of the things my dad used to tell me, and he was talking about tools. He said, if it cuts, keep it sharp. If it moves, keep it oiled. And that's a really useful thing to remember. Because apart from the fact that you're going to have knives that cut really well, sliced tomatoes, and you're going to have machines that function really well, if you apply that to human beings and the management of human beings,

and even if that human being is only yourself, it's a valuable lesson. If it cuts, keep it sharp. So if you have a team and you educate them mentally, you teach them about the strategy of the game so they can see it unfolding in front of them, you're letting them cut like a knife, right? Because the mind cuts. And if you empower them, if you put them in positions where they can perform a role really well,

you're keeping that machine oiled. And the oil is happiness and satisfaction with a job well done, right? And it's just, it's a really good way to think about managing humans, If it cuts, keep it sharp. If it moves, keep it oiled. Did you grow up playing sports? No. I grew up in a big high school,

and if you were going to make a team in a big high school, you had to be a decent athlete, and I was tall and skinny and awkward. The things I grew up doing as a young person were solitary outdoor pursuits. So I learned how to paddle a canoe, and by 16, I was, doing extended wilderness trips, and I always liked messing around with ropes and cliffs and things,

and I would just go off on my own long bicycle rides. It was that kind of stuff that I did as a kid. You would have loved where I went to college, and where me and my wife went to college. We went to college in Northern Wisconsin, Ashland, Wisconsin, at Northland College, and that's part of your curriculum to graduate is you need to do an outdoor education class or trip. And so my wife, I think, She did, I want to say, like a seven-day backpacking, canoeing trip. And that was the first thing she did when she came to school. And she'd never done anything like that. We had a very, very good, I think best in the province, good outdoor education program at the high school in Lashburn.

Really? Yeah, kids in grade 10 were taken downhill skiing in the mountains. Kids in grade 11, we took them on a five, ten. fly-in canoe trip on the Churchill River. Oh, wow, yeah. Flew him in 120K, and then they paddled out over five days. And we did that for every year for 30 years. And then in grade 12, we took them mountaineering, introductory mountaineering.

They would hike into a backcountry hut, and then we would typically do two summits. Often there was glacier travel involved, and then hike out on the fourth day. So we had a very profound outdoor ed program. And just like sport, those programs change students. They change people. They show them what they're capable of in life-altering ways. If you perceive risk, whether there's actual risk or not, and usually there wasn't, but if there was a perception of risk

and a student does it, they've just done something profound. That changes them because they know they have courage. They know they have tools in their toolkit that they didn't think they had. That's the same with any contact sport, of course, right? Because there's a lot of risk in contact sport, as you know, as a hockey player. Well, actually, you're talking about changing people, and I got a podcast with one of my brothers and a girl, Lori Mercier, coming up in June,

and I guess it is June, in about three weeks' time. And we biked across Canada when we were, when I was 19. And I remember Lori specifically had never done anything remotely. Well, not that any of us had. I'd never done anything like that either. I'd never, we bought the bikes before, like two weeks before we left. And I remember getting in arguments with people because they didn't think he'd finish. and I just, I remember that vividly.

It taught me one variable, a very valuable lesson. You can do anything. You can't. If you just set your mind to it. People who say you're not going to finish. Like I think there's people who are no people. You can't. No, you can't, you can't.

That's right. And then there's people who are yes people. Yes, I can. I can do that. And I think you want to be. You want to be a yes person. You want to be a yes person in life. Yeah.

You were talking about your dad, and I know I'd asked you, You ask me about mentors. Mentors, yes. So I have... Because this philosophy you're talking about is like... I have four mentors. Really interesting.

And so I'd like to hear who mentored you along on this. So my dad taught me, you know, parents, they teach you things just by you look at what your parents are doing. My dad taught me the value of hard work. And he taught me that if buddy needs the shirt off your back, you give a little. buddy the shirt off your back. Doug a Brossamoff, my principal and Lashburn, huge mentor, taught me that teaching is about serving, taught me that you serve every person, the difficult ones, the easy ones, you serve them all, you help them all, you give them opportunities. As a professional mentor in my career, without parallel. Then there's two other guys,

my brother-in-law Ralph, the fellow that took me on that first rugby tour, the fellow we talked about earlier who spent 40 years every weekend, he'd be, it didn't matter the weather. And the weather in England, Northern England, in the winter, can be just very damn. Terrible. He was out every weekend. When we took our teams over, he toured with us. He came to Scotland. He kept our team on the field with his skills, with his physio skills.

So he got the medal, but I'll give you one story about Ralph, and I could give you hundreds of stories about Ralph. We got no time constraints. You give me as many as you want. Three, four years ago, he's had vision problems. He's had to have his knees replaced, and his hips are rotten. He has a cabin cottage in the Lake District of England where there's mountains. And they look like mountains.

They're not the Rockies, but they're still big. He asks my daughter and my son-in-law to come with him because he wants to climb old man Coniston, which is about, I don't know, 900 meters. But he can't see, and he can barely walk. He mistakes sheep for hikers. when they're about 300 meters from the top, his condition is so worrisome that my son-in-law turns to him and says,

maybe we should head down Ralph. And Ralph turns and he looks at Adam and he says, Weave, anything less than the summit would be a total failure. And on he goes. Nobody was telling him. And he makes it. He gets to the top, and he gets back down again, but helped. But that's Ralph. The fourth one is my father-in-law, John Kester. My wife was born in South Africa. Came to Canada when she was 14. I remember I was delivering papers in Toronto at that time,

in 1965 or 66, 66, I think. I remember reading an article about New Zealand. The New Zealand rugby team was going to tour South Africa, but there were riots in New Zealand because nobody there wanted them to go, because South Africa was a country that practiced apartheid and the system was just vicious and racist, and they didn't want the New Zealand rugby team

to support that system. So my father, John Kester is the president of the South African Rugby Union. There's two rugby unions in South Africa. There's the white one, and there's the colored one. He's president of Saru, South African Rugby Union. The colored side is like 15 teams. It's major stuff.

He's been president for 20 years, right? He gets called into a meeting. At the meeting is the Minister for Education. because my wife's dad was a principal of a high school and a teacher training college. He was very high up. So the Minister of Education is at this meeting. The Minister for Sport is at this meeting. And we're talking Minister for the country, like National Government Minister.

And a guy named Danny Craven is at this meeting. Now, Danny Craven is the South African rugby equivalent of Gordy Howe or Sid Crosby. Okay. He's big. Big. These three guys are sitting there, right? They say to him, the New Zealand rugby team's coming over. We would like your union, your rugby union, to play the Māori's,

and our union will play the white guys from New Zealand. What do you think of this, John? He says to them, I have to consult with my board. They say, fine, we'll set up a meeting for two weeks. Bad enough time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Off he goes, he tells the board, his rugby board, the proposal. The board asks him, well, John, what is your opinion?

He looks at them, he says, I won't support their system. They go, fine, John, we agree with you. So he gets to go back and tell those three people, I will not support your system. Because of that, he gets followed by the, secret police. He doesn't get paid for four or five months. They just don't deliver checks to him anymore. They put all kinds of pressure on him. Political pressure, all the rest of it. But he doesn't bend. He doesn't bend. And then he realizes that by taking

that stand, he's endangered not just his future but his family's future. So he emigrates to South Africa to Canada. That's why your wife lives in Canada? Yeah. That's how I got married. Like I saw her, she walked into my grade 10 class. I just fell totally in love and been in love ever since. That's why she came. Back in the day in South Africa, if you defy the government, it's huge trouble.

It was huge trouble. Have you ever seen that picture? of that one Chinese guy in Tiananmen Square. Yes. He's a classic photograph. Yes. Buddy is standing with two partsal in each hand. He's standing in front of the tanks.

That's right. That was my wife's dad. Wow. He's not tanks, but it's the same thing. Right? I will not support your system. So there's form mentors for you. I don't even know what to say to that.

I mean, that's like, It's a lesson in life He came At the age of 55 When most people are thinking of retiring He came to Canada and started his life again Gave up everything Because you couldn't

You couldn't take any money out of the country They had these currency laws You couldn't take your stuff with you So you come with nothing And he did that It's unbelievable And his wife Absolutely yeah his family

his family, but still. Yeah, he got a job teaching, worked his way up to vice principal, and then retired, and then worked in real estate, and then decided he liked teaching and went back to subbing. When he was like 86 or 87, he subbed for 180 days. He loved it. He rebuilt his life. And like, you talk mentoring.

There's mentoring where people teach you things, and then there's mentoring where they just do, and you watch what they do. And you do it, yeah. Wow, that's really cool. Yeah. Like, unbelievably cool. Yeah. I want to take a quick little break.

Sure. Okay, we're back. I just wanted to make sure that mics were picking up everything, and I wasn't too quiet. You asked while we're off if I've ever thought of writing a book or anything like that. I've always dreamed of writing a book. I don't know why, but I'm not a great writer. not saying I've told myself I can't write, but I'm better at conversing and talking and whatever.

And to me, this is a form of a book. This is on my podcast. You get every chapter. And every chapter is a different person. And I always said that you can go a long time, especially now, where you don't get to sit across from somebody and have a good, meaningful conversation. Right. Too much of this. And by this for people can't see.

I'm talking about phone, right? It's become a really big part of our life. Everybody sits on the phone and people over time are having a harder time sit and just having a gold-fashioned conversation with owner interruptions. And now I found a way to do it once a week. You're very lucky. I'm very lucky. And I get to sit across and hear these stories that you were not the first person to put my jaw on the floor.

It's just like, but you're hand-picked. You got picked. The Ross Boys were the first ones, suggest. Yeah, I had Mervyn Morg Man on. They found out you were coming on. They started talking about. So Jason Ross. You know Jason?

Yes, absolutely. Coach me and senior this last year. And actually, I played with Jason my first year back from Finland. Jason had amazing hands. Jason could catch a ball, a kicked ball. I played him at fullback. He could catch a kicked ball at his boot tops on a dead run. He was that good.

Like our team was Lashburn. Over the years, we had guys from Hillmond and Maidstone and Nealberg, and a couple guys came down from Lloyd. And I was blessed. That's the word to use by the people I was able to coach. And I think I probably coached over 750 boys in my rugby coaching career. Well, they all speak. I can't speak for all of them, but from the guys I've talked to,

which is closing in on 10 now. They have so many high things to say to you. I would say of you. Well, that's nice, but here's the point. The reason I'm talking about Jason Ross. Sure. I was asked in Regina after we won like our third provincials, something like that. They said, how does a small school like yours,

because it was 170 kids from grade 7 to 12, The reporter asked, how does a small school like yours come in and win a provincial championship against big high schools? And I looked at him and I said, we had a guy from Hillbond playing with us. And it struck me at the time, that was a perfect answer, right? We had one guy from Hillman. And what did he say to that? He probably didn't even know how to pronounce it. Well, he just shook his head and carried on with his next question.

What do I mind ask you about that? What was it like taking Lashburn, we talked about it, small town, up against these giant places? The guys just, like, fired up? Or was that just standard operation? Well, they played lots of big schools. So, yeah, on the one hand, it's standard operation. But on the other hand, if you want to climb Mount Everest, you're a little guy against a big mountain, right? you just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

You follow? Yes, I do. Yeah, so if you're going up against a big high school, same thing. Now, there's things as a coach you can do to mitigate the numbers effect. And by the numbers effect, a school of 2000 is going to have a higher percentage of better athletes than a school of 170 from grade 7 to 12, right? So what can you do to mitigate that? Well, you can start your kids playing in grade seven. So by the time they get to grade 10, they have four years more experience than an equivalent high school player in grade 10.

So you're giving them skills and you're giving them smarts that the other team doesn't have. And then you can work their physical fitness to a higher level. Rugby is one of those wonderful sports that you have to get fit to play. You don't play it to get fit. You have to be fit to play it. So you can work their fitness level to a higher level. And that's a good thing. And then the third thing you do is you just give them tactics and strategies

that are way above what your opposition is going to bring to the field. And if you do all three of those things, you're going to have success. You know, on any given day there's always going to be a better team. But if you put those three things on the field, it doesn't matter how big the school you're playing. You're talking to an illiterate when it comes to rugby. How long are rugby games? How many people on a side? I should have asked this right from the beginning.

Yeah, it's fine. If you're talking an international game, an international game is 80 minutes, and there's 15 guys on the field at a time. Back in the day, we talked about my father. in-law, John. Back when he played rugby, it was 15 guys, 80 minutes, and no subs. No subs. So buddy broke a leg, buddy bust the collarbone.

You played with 14 or 15. And on that same topic, I had one team once. The number of boys who were in the program varied from a high of like 75 one year, where I had two junior teams and a senior team, down to the, lowest number was 15. So one season, I had 15 guys come out. I remember talking to them in the gymnasium because we started practicing back in March. And I said, this is, this is going to be rugby like my father-in-law played. And they were all sitting looking at me. I said, do you want to play? And they all went, yes, one voice, yes. I said, okay, point to your sub. And they got this

confused look on their face. Confused look on their faces. And finally one kid looked me. in the eyes and pointed at his head, and then all of them pointed at themselves. And they got it. We won silver that year. With 15 people? I think two guys came from Nielberg, so we were like 17 by the end of the season. And when you would, the teams you play, like the team you lost to that year in provincials, what would they have for a roster then?

Oh, they would have 22 easy, 22, 23. There were three, all the years I was coaching, there were three schools, four, that did really well in the province. Tom, collegiate, coached by my friend Arnie Meyer, and I coached provincial rugby, Sask Provincial Rugby with Arnie for three years. I coached provincially for four years. And then Notre Dame, Nottsredame Wilcox. Yeah. They always had a really good team. Doug Branchflower was their coach.

and Doug's an excellent coach and he had he didn't have numbers he had athletes because parents sent their athletic kids to that school to that school yeah and then the wild

oats in Saskatoon a rugby club had a very good team and they drew from a couple three high schools to put their team on the field so 15 guys and you have to be fit

the nice thing about rugby is the rules are designed to reward courage so if you want to move the ball down the field you have to carry it and anyone can hit you and as soon as you're hit and brought to the ground you have to release the ball and then play just continues there's no stoppages the only time there's stoppages is when there's a score or if the ball goes out of bounds and then it's the games restarted, but you're hit, you have to release the ball. Just leave it on the field for someone else to pick up and carry on. But if you want to move the ball down the field, you have to carry it. You can kick it down the field, but then you're kicking away possession. But then

you know, you can play a kind of game where kicks are strategic and attacking. Because there's no, you know, the Canadian football five meter rule, five-yard rule. There's none of that in rugby. So you can kick a ball up really high, like toweringly high. Ball goes up and up and up and up, and then it comes down, and there's going to be a guy waiting for it on the ground. And you can absolutely just. And then there's going to be four monstrous big guys thundering down on him who are going to hit him at the moment he catches that ball. So let's talk about concussions then, because you'd said you'd wanted to, you had your theory on it, or you had some statistics on it.

Yeah. I don't know if you followed the Nova Scotia controversy. I can't say I did. Enlighten me. Nova Scotia schools, athletic association in the middle of the season banned rugby. They said there'll be no more games. No more games allowed at high school level because there had been some concussion. and they had the statistics.

And then the minister of education got so much pressure from parents and students that he reversed that decision. I think there are a lot of concussions in rugby. There are a lot of concussions in football and hockey. I tend to think, and this is not supported by any form of scientific fact. You know, this is just my own feelings on the matter. I think in athletics, concussions, and injuries tend to be underreported in football and hockey and more or less correctly reported in rugby. And I think there are reasons for that.

And I think there are typically three reasons for the underreporting of it. One reason is when there's equipment, people view things differently. If you see two rugby players collide head to head on the field, that's really obvious. If you see a kid being tackled and his head whips into the ground, that's really obvious. If you see two hockey players collide along the board and their helmets click, that's not so obvious because the helmet makes it seem like something that happens all the time because you see it quite often, right? It's not as blindingly obvious as two foreheads going clunk, right?

The other factors for underreporting, I think, typically are the fact that the player doesn't want to let down the team so they don't say anything. If it hasn't been noticed, they keep it to themselves. And the third thing, I think, as human beings, were taught from very early on. Get up, get back, get going. You know, you got the flu. You can go to school. You can go to work. I did it.

Do your parents ever tell you that, kids? It's a cultural thing, right? So I think the equipment plus the other two things, it tends to be underreported in those sports, whereas in rugby it tends to be really obvious. And on that same topic, I think in any contact sport, it's very important to teach contact correctly and to teach it early. Because the more you're knocked down, the better you get at being knocked down, i.e., you can be knocked down safely. The more you knock another person down, the better you get at doing that.

So, you know, in hockey, there's been a move lately to eliminate contact at B and C level hockey. And it's eliminated now in Pee Wee, so you don't start contact until Bantam, I believe. I actually think that eliminating it from a game is neither here nor there, but it should be taught in practice. It should be taught in practice before a kid ever gets to a contact situation. So, yes, this is what it's like to hit. This is how you hit safely. This is how you hit. And you can teach contact safely.

I mean, at football and rugby, there's crash bags. It's one thing to hit someone without a crash bag, where all of a sudden you're looking at knees and elbows and shoulders. We always used to say put your hard bits into their soft bits because that hurts you less. Right? Absolutely. You can teach it with crash bags.

Okay, you want to hit me? Here's a crash bag. Hit this bag as hard as you can. The kid hits the bag. They are not hurt, but they're learning the techniques. The same thing should be done in hockey at a very early age to get the kid used to. Because the more you fall, the better you are at falling. The more you hit, the better you are at hitting, and the safer you can do it.

And then you see concussions coming down. in rugby the most dangerous teams to play were the teams that hadn't been trained and lacked experience because then you get people doing things that your team doesn't expect whip tackles or

I would argue that in hockey it's the same way the most dangerous players on the ice are the ones with the least experience or the least technique don't know how to control their stuff stick. Don't understand proper hitting technique, as you would say, right? They're unpredictable. All of a sudden there's a stick up at your eye level.

Absolutely. And what's it doing there? Yeah. So, like, my thoughts on contact are teach it early, teach it often, and teach it in a safe way so that when they actually do get to play in a

contact game, they have all that experience. That's going to make it safer for them. The coach I coached hockey for like 12 years, 13 years, and I coached rugby for 22. And both sports are wonderful sports to coach and to play. But you still prefer rugby over hockey then? I don't prefer either one. As a coach, coaching rugby, I think, is more interesting simply because there are,

more positions that require different skill sets. In hockey, you're looking at winger's, centers, defensemen, and a goalie. Right? So, four positions to coach. And how many positions would you say are in rugby then? Well, there's 15 players on the field. There's tighthead prop, loose head prop, hooker, lock. That's four.

Flankers. There's two of them. That's five, number eight, six. Scrum half, seven, fly half eight. Two centers, similar. So that's nine positions, wingers, ten positions, and fullback. There's 11 different positions. With 11 different skill sets.

11 different skill sets. You make rugby seem so fascinating. It's something I never grew up watching or playing. It's a great game to play. It's a great game to coach. You see a lot of sevens rugby on TV. You know, Sevens Rugby is the same game played with seven guys on a big field. They have the same thing for football as well now.

Yeah. The problem with Sevens Rugby, and it's not a problem, it's a wonderful game to watch, the players tend to be very similar in size and build. Whereas in 15-person rugby, you get Buddy built like a fire hydrant. and you get Jason Ross Huge guys And you get

Fast little guys And you get You get all kinds of sizes We talked about this before Body shapes Yeah Yeah And sizes

I was talking to Was it Chris and Scott Yes And I didn't realize It you guys start them at Preschool Playing rugby Yeah they start them now

You guys play Yeah Yeah Yeah And that's one of the huge advantages. You start a child young, you've got a big advantage of it. By the time, you know... They hit high school.

Yeah, you're in your fifth year of rugby. You're playing against the guy who's in his first year of rugby. But, you know, other teams and other cities have picked up on this, so they're doing it too. Well, what you're talking about is a feeder program, essentially. Yes. And building it around your school. And as they grow, you're not. program, girls.

That takes vision. It does. Takes an awful lot of vision to see that come up together. When you talk vision and you're talking coaching, you've got to build depth. And the only way you're going to build depth is by playing everybody. Play them all. Play them all and you build depth. And you also create character and heart.

I think I struggle with the concept of tiered sports. Because, yes, on the one hand, tearing ensures that a good athlete will always be going against good competition and they will have to play harder. But you're leaving people behind. And one of the things I've noticed over the years, when you look at a small town that has two or three excellent athletes and a bunch of middle-of-the-road athletes and a couple of not-so-good athletes, the great athletes bring the others up with them. Because you've got to keep up. Because when your great athlete isn't on the ice or on the field, you have to do more.

And it's just a good thing. Quebec did away with tiering, I think, years ago. In all sports? I know in hockey they did away with tiering. Really? Yeah. And they're still producing. And they're still producing.

Pretty good athletes. Didn't they win? The Memorial Cup? Memorial Cup this year. It was them in Halifax in the final. And I'm trying to remember I'm spacing right now and who won that. I think you're right. I think it was cool.

Ruan? Yeah, I think so. I'm not sure. I was really pleased to be able to take my nephew. My nephew is a rugby player. He's played since he was like five years of age. And he just graduated as a chemical engineer in England. And he came over to spend a year.

at Whistler. I think the year might stretch into two years because he likes to snowboard. Anyway, we met him and we skied together for a week. And he had never seen a hockey game. So we took him to two. We took him to Cranbrook versus the Brandon Wheat Kings. Okay. Major Jr. Not a great game. It was 7-0 for Brandon. But he got to see hockey at a pretty high level. then we took him to the Kimberly Dynamiters versus the Fernie Ghost Riders, which is... What would that be? Junior B? Junior B.C. Junior B.C. Jr. A. I forget. I think Junior B. I honestly, I don't recognize either of those teams. That doesn't say much because there's a lot of teams out there.

So it could be either or... Yeah, this was in the final. So it was like game two of the final. Kimberly versus Fernie. And it was great hockey. And it costs... like six bucks to get in to get in and you're sitting three seats up from the boards and it was just wonderful hockey it blew him away. He'd never realized how skilled

those players are and how fast the game is. It was an education for him. It was a real pleasure to be able to do that. So you asked which sports I like coaching better? I like them both. You like coaching? I like coaching

yeah. Yeah. It's like chest. And you remind me of my brother Dustin, that's what he likes. He likes coaching. It doesn't matter what it is. He likes coaching. Well, you give gifts.

You give gifts to communities. You give gifts to your players, and you get to use your mind all the time. You're always thinking about it. And that's a wonderful thing. And if you do the drills with the players, you get fit. Like, I used to tell my players, don't drop the ball. Think of the ball as a baby. And if you drop that baby, I will punish you.

So we would have a drill. And if they missed the pass and dropped, I just multiplied. And after a certain time, they found themselves doing 60 push-ups. And I would do the push-ups with them. Because if you're going to, you're going to, right? Yeah. Because that's, you're all a team together. So as a coach, you get to get fit and you get to use your mind and you get to give gifts.

It's a sweet thing, John. Who are some of the best players you ever coached? Oh, God. That's a question. Yeah, we got all day. Well, we got until 3 o'clock, right, kids? Something like that? 315.

And the bus has taken us home, Murray. I coached a lot of great players over the years. and I coached over 700 kids in rugby, and that includes at least 100 players at the provincial level. I coached Hubert Bidens, who was playing for Canada last year. I think he might be this year. Great player. That's provincial level.

Provincial level. I got to coach Gareth Rowlands. So you can see his Canada jersey at the high school in Lashburn. He played for Canada in the 1995 World Cup, the one that was held in South Africa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I got to work with his dad. His dad came across.

And he's from Lashburn? No, he was from Kalonzee. Colonsie. Yeah, but. Where is that? Colonsie is east of Saskatoon. East of Saskatoon. East of Saskatoon, okay.

His dad was a minor from Wales, played rugby at a high level. in Wales, played for Neith. High-level team's dad came to Canada, emigrated with the family, and he was working in Colonsie as a minor, because he was a minor in Wales, and he coached rugby. And I met Brian quite early on at a, I think, a clinic in Saskatoon. I got talking to him. We talked about how I'd like to

tour England, but I didn't know anything about touring and he knew a lot. So I said, well, you should come, Brian, and bring both your boys because why not? So he brought Gareth and he brought Maddie, his two sons, and they played with us. And then they played with us at provincials and played with us. I remember one of the, one of these happy memories were playing in Edmonton at the Ross Shepard Invitational. big high schools and we're playing against Harry Aynley Harry Aynley is a school of about 2000

and I have both Gareth and Maddie and my team is pretty good and I'm standing beside a guy named Dutch who was one of those people who coached forever coached basketball and coached rugby great guy he passed away a few years ago but he was one of those people who just give gifts right

and I'm coaching him and we've moved the game from one field to another because one of my players, I think Kevin Ryle, who weighed like maybe a buck 35, had taken the ball and was belting down the sidelines. And we used to teach players there's four ways to beat a man. You can swerve. you can sidestep you can beat him with a change of pace i.e. go slow and then speed up and get by him

or you can go through him or you can do an all black swerve which is to go straight through it well there's this poor well this kid probably weighed 170 pounds he's all braced to tackle Kevin Kevin just puts his shoulder bust buddy's collarbone buddies down in the field lying there

and the ambulance has to come and everyone's looking at him, and then the referee waves, and we all trot over to the next field to continue the game. Leaving this guy all alone on the field with one physio to nurse him while the ambulance is on. The game keeps going. I'm standing beside Dutch, and he's watching the game at 0-0, and he says to me, how many kids in your school, in that tone of voice? And I go, well, I think we got 175.

You go, huh, I have 2,000. I go, our 175 are from grade 7 to grade 12. He didn't want to hear that. And at that moment, Gareth Rowland scores. Boom, ball down under the post. We won that game like 14-0. And it was just sweet. Anyway, Gareth went on, as I said, to play for Canada,

and Maddie played with us for years. It was just a pleasure knowing both those boys and their dad. I don't like to talk about, well, I do like to talk. I could talk for hours about great players I've seen, but there have been so many over the years. I'll make it a little more specific then for you. Has there been any to, you talk about the World Cup, has it been any to come out of Lashburn to play for Team Canada?

Yeah, well, Gareth Rollins did. Monty Tchkowski played, I coached Monty for one or two years. He played, I think, for Canada at under 18 level, maybe under 20 level. I coached a guy for a week and a half. D.T. Vandermerville played for Canada. He was supposed to play for the under 18 men's team for the province of Saskatchewan. But he was so good that the men's team. picked him up and he did something to his knee or bust the collarbone.

So I coached him for like a full week and a half, which means I didn't coach him at all, basically. But, you know, he has gone on to play for Canada for multiple years. Is there a team that sticks out when you look back through your years of coaching that was like, that was a fun year? I know they're all fun, but is there one that just rises to the top? We won the provincial championship four years in a row. Four years in a row?

Yeah, yeah, four consecutive years. And that's playing the biggest schools in all of Saskatchewan? Yes, yes. And those teams were wonderful teams to play. Wonderful teams to play. It's a coach and watch. But the fifth provincial championship, I think Scott Jakubowski played for that team. That was a great team.

That was a great team because to win that provincial championship took exceptional character. We played the round robin, played the Wild Oates team. This was all in Saskatoon, beat them. In the semifinals, we came up against Tom Collegiate. That was a great game. We won it at the very end. My fullback, a young man named Aisle Davis, who since passed away, caught the ball,

deep in our end, ran straight. And those words are on his gravestone. He ran straight. Like if I was going to talk about the principles of the game, that one is very important. Run straight. And what does run straight mean? I know you had written that down on your sheet. Yeah, run straight. So if Buddy is waiting to tackle you, an ordinary person's inclination is to veer over to the side.

And you can keep going all the way across the field. But if you have players who will just run straight, just clench their teeth, stick their jaw out, and run straight, it works. It takes heart, it takes courage, and it's the sweetest thing in the world when you get guys that'll do that. Don't avoid the contact. Go into it and go into it hard.

And enjoy the contact. And enjoy it, yeah? Because you've been taught the skills, now you do it. When I say run straight, it means throwing out all those things that humans are occurring. custom to do because humans don't like pain. You know?

It means throwing all those things aside for the sake of a greater principle. So Aesel catches the ball, runs straight, and then boots it. And one of the Tom Collegiate Boys

goes to pick it up and it skirts between his legs and my fly half zips around, picks up the ball on the run and touches it down, we win the game. So we're in the provincial championship against the Wild Oates.

The team that we'd beaten before, when we get on the field for the final, I look around, and none of these players are the same as the players we played earlier. They picked up all kinds of guys for the final, including provincial players, who hadn't set foot on the grass in the tournament before that, all of a sudden all these guys are on the field.

They crossed our line twice. They never touched the ball down. The thing about rugby is you have to actually physically touch the ball down. You can't just break the plane. You have to touch the ball to the ground. So they carried the ball across our goal line twice, and we stood them up and pushed them back into the field twice. And that was a sweet thing to see.

Like that's defense. And we won by a single try with seven points. I had a guy named Warren Knapper. And Warren Knapper, like there's penalties in rugby. And the way a penalty works in rugby back in those days, there was no sin-bending, no sitting a man off. You get to kick the ball. That's your reward.

So they do the dirty on you. You get to kick the ball. Now you can kick the ball by just tapping it with your foot and then picking it up and running with it, or you can kick it out of bounds and get a line out further down the field, or you can kick it at goal for three points. You know, you can just kick it. It's a reward. So we're given a penalty.

My scrum half pops the ball, and the penalty was about 10 meters out, and Warren was a big, rangy, big bone kid. My scrum half taps the ball, pops it to Warren, who runs straight at all these guys waiting for him on the goal line, and about a meter and a half before he hits them, he throws his body at their legs, like just full-on sideways dive straight at their legs. He hits their legs.

They go down like bowling pins, but there's two or three guys right behind Warren, who at the moment he hits their legs, they just hit these guys and knock them up and over and backwards, and the ball's laying there like an egg on Easter Sunday. And this player of mine, I think it was Ian Watt, picks the ball up and dives over this mass of bodies and touches it down softly.

Game over. It was great. the ask for memories there's a memory do you have many fans watching that fans at rugby games are like a typical fan base at a

rugby game that isn't at home is two guys one of whom is walking a dog that's that's just what it's like I mean high school rugby you get parents coming out but if you're on the road and we were

on the road a lot we would take our guys to Lethbridge and Calgary and Edmonton and Camloops and Colonna one year and Regina and Saskatoon. So everybody gets on a bus and there's very few parents there. And, you know, there'll be like 10 parents for the other team watching you. That's how it was. Because we started leagues here. Like we would play against Kid Scotty and then Lloyd would field teams. And that was the germs that started the stuff that's happening now.

But for the most part, we were a traveling team, and kids would fundraise to travel and pay for the expenses. Curious, how much did you guys do for fun, how much did you have to fundraise to travel around like that? We would raise between $10,000 and $15,000 a year. And that would cover the cost of the bus and everything. Yeah, for a lot of years, we just traveled in parent vehicles, and that was a cheap way of traveling, right? Everyone pile into...

Yeah, mama's minivan, and away you go. Yeah, away you go. And then we worked bingoes for years. Good old bingo hall. Yeah, the rugby players would work the bingo. Like the rugby players, not their parents, the players themselves worked those bingos for years to fundraise. and it was that fundraising that took us to Scotland and to England and what a special thing for them to be a part of it was it was good you know just a good thing the tour to Scotland was wonderful tour to Yorkshire was

wonderful yeah well oh man that's uh I'm uh I was thinking back on the fan thing I've always asked pretty much every hockey guy I've had on here. I've always asked, would you rather play in the sun or play with lots of fans? I'm a fan guy. I like playing in front of people. And at the senior hockey stage, it doesn't happen too often anymore. The one guy walking the dog, well, you usually get the slow clap as you come on the ice. I don't know how many times have you come to the Lashburn.

I shouldn't say Lashburn. I've gone to a Hylmon game. I'll throw a Hylmon under the bus. And you get the slow clap or the one mom going, whew, right? And you're like, hey, there's two people on the stats tonight. But every once in a while, you go to like a metal lake in the playoffs this year. And there was like over a thousand people watching. That's something special.

That's something that just doesn't come around every year or every game. And I really enjoy that. Is there a place in rugby that when you guys showed up, and maybe it was in your two tours across seas, Was there a spot where all of a sudden there's just like a ton of people watching or that just doesn't happen? That just doesn't happen. But on our first tour, the Yorkshire tour, we played four or five games in the north of England. So we played in Hull and Geisly and we got, it was just wonderful.

We came down south at the end of that tour. We played a town called Bishop Stortford. And that game was actually pretty close. After the game, we got to see a county match where one county is playing another. And the team that hosted us at Bishop Stortford, we went to a town a few miles away, their county team was playing. And the boys were there to watch that match. And there was a lot of people, a lot of people watching that game.

And it was one of those moments that when you see it, it changes you slightly as a person. The home team had come on to the field. They were all local guys. The other team was about to enter the field. I hadn't set foot on the field yet. And they had a bunch of imports playing for their county, like a lot of imports. And the hush fell over the field. All you could hear was a ball being passed by the home side.

This hush falls over the field. And you can see the other team preparing to run on. And this voice in the crowd goes, Bring on your ringers. Except there was an adjective in front of the word ringers. And every head of the guys on the home team turned and stared down the field. And it was like you watched those guys grow a foot and a half as the other team took the field. And they killed them.

They just destroyed them. The ringers didn't have a chance. It was that one voice that did it right from the get-go. And there was probably 3,000, 4,000 people there to watch that game. And the roar that came up was amazing. Like the hair rose on the back of your neck. That's something. It is.

You've probably experienced that in hockey, playing against teams with ringers who then get beaten. Well, it's been proven time and time again. You can have the best team on paper. That doesn't mean you're going to win anything. That's right. It's more than just talent. It's the will to win.

There was a very famous game a few years ago, Scotland versus England, Calcutta match, and the England were heavy, heavy, heavy favorites. And they could. came on the field, England did, like an American football team comes on the field in the finals, you know, high stepping, prancing one at a time, out they come. Game was happening in Scotland. So they come on, they're doing, you know, bouncing around. The Scottish team came out. Their captain had the ball tucked under his arm.

They walked slow. Heads down. They line up for the national anthem. And it's the flower of scot. And all the heads are down. Music starts. Heads come up and tears. They killed them.

It was an unbelievable game. The heavy favorites got trashed. Just like you said. It was just the sweetest. thing to watch. Character, heart, and physical fitness. Character and heart.

It's the gift of sport. You educate the mind, you educate the heart, you educate the body. You're educating me right now. The heart? I think that's the important bit. I mean, we talk about building character

and all that stuff. That's heart. Contact sports, I think, should be in every school in the country. And it should be coached and taught safely. And it should be practiced. But the life lessons kids get. Kids get from it are wonderful. You know, you were asking me about rugby.

There's a whole ethos that involves referee in rugby. That's really cool. like in rugby the referee and it says this in the rule book the referee is the sole judge of fact and law which means he can make stuff up if he wants i am the sole judge of fact that didn't happen and law right and one of the things i'm the thing I used to tell my players, is the only thing you say to a referee is thank you, sir, at the end of the game. So there's never any beaking. And some teams don't have that ethos.

And it's the cool, not cool, it's just funny. You'll see the referee blow his whistle for a penalty. If buddy is being penalized does the big shrug or says what or says anything? you'll see the referee walk 10 meters down the field, signal another penalty. And he can just keep walking down the field with every complaint. So, you know, it's a neat thing. The only thing you say to the ref is thank you, sir, at the end of the game. And that teaches a lesson in life to those boys.

It's one of the tough things about hockey these, not even these days, I think, for a long time. His refs always are lack of respect. You have to respect a referee. It's not like he's getting paid a lot. And he has to make judgment decisions on blink of the eye stuff. Yeah. And, well, there's two of them these days. Are there two of them at junior games?

Oh, man, there's four refs on the ice now, I think, for most junior games and higher. So two stripes and then two linesmen. Yeah. But even with that, there's stuff you won't see. You already said it as judgment too, right? High speed, was it a hit to the head? Was it just a clean check? Yeah, like it's so, even like with video replay in the NHL, for example, or any other sport, I mean, you can analyze the video. And I don't think that's a bad thing in terms of taking away an advantage.

It shouldn't be an advantage, right? But a referee at a small town hockey game, it's a difficult job. And that referee deserves respect. Every human deserves respect. That's one of the things, you know, you asked about mentoring. Respect to everyone. I learned that for my old man Try to be like the people you admire

And help the weak So the referee isn't that good Help him Don't make his job worse It's a lesson I've been slowly trying to learn I inherited a hot temper And so at times I can say stupid things And have to go apologize for it at the end of the day

Yeah, as long as you apologize As long as anyone apologizes for it, that's a good thing. The thing about refereeing is you will never hear a player credit the referee for their team winning the game, but you will hear lots of players blame the ref for the loss. That's right. Okay, so it's a two-way street, right? Yeah. We won because of the referee.

You'll never hear that. We lost because they're ever here at all the time, and it's just so feeble. I honestly don't know where to go. I've really enjoyed this. We covered a lot of places. We covered a lot of places. You no longer coach now? No.

You're retired from coaching. Yeah, when I retired from school, I retired from coaching, and I did that deliberately, Sean. I did that because, you know, I could have, I got a lot of joy out of coaching rugby, and I would have kept getting joy. But I felt two things. I felt that if the program was going to carry on, someone had to pick it up and run with it. Someone had to run with that ball. So by retiring from the coaching happened as well, people, good people.

picked up the ball and ran with it. That's why those two fields are out there. That's why there's still teams. I heard they're hosting provincials next year. That would be a sweet thing. So that was one of the reasons for my decision to retire from coaching rugby. Yeah. To let other people get the joy out of it and to carry the program on.

Yeah. And the other reason was I hadn't had a free spring in 22 years. Yeah, it was time. I wanted to see what spring was like. Spring's pretty sweet. I hear you stay busy, though, with other things now. I hear you're in bands. Yeah.

I hear you paint. I play a lot of music. Is there any, like, is it, like, do you actually do shows then? Yeah, we're playing, I play, I'm in two bands, basically. I play with Ross Ulmer, and we do a jazz gig about six times a year. and we have a gig coming up on the 18th of June. And what instrument do you play? I play guitar.

Guitar? Yeah. And then I used to paint and sell through galleries in Saskatoon and Regina. When I became a principal, I had to stop that because as a principal of a high school, you're basically a one-arm juggler with fleas. Throw three-valed scratch. North Revol scratch. You just busy, busy, busy.

So I had to stop. And then when I retired, I had a bunch of kids in university for what seemed like ever. So I, you know, I worked and did jobs. And then about six years ago, five years ago, I decided to go back to the painting and drawing because I loved it. I always wanted to be an artist. and I spent two years putting a portfolio together and painting and painting full-time.

Yeah. I stopped subbing and just did the art. And I've been doing it full-time now for, I don't know, four years, five years. And by full-time, I mean I get up, I work out, I have breakfast, and I paint. I start painting about 10, 10.30, and I paint until 6, unless I have errands to run. And I'm selling through a gallery in Banff now, and it's going well, and I'm loving it. Say that again. You get up, you work out. Yeah, have breakfast.

Yeah, and then you paint for how long? Six to eight hours. It depends if I'm... Every day? Or just like a couple days a week? Monday to Friday. Monday to Friday. Yeah, I treat it like a full-time job. Wow.

Yeah. I'm, I don't think I told you this. I have an interview come up with Brandy Hofer out of Lloyd. She's an artist in time. Yeah, she's really good. Yeah, she's fantastic. I graduated high school with her. Did you?

Yes, and so... That mural she did on the small of that building. Absolutely gorgeous. It's beautiful, yeah. Yes. And I have one of her paintings sitting in my bathroom. Nice. And so when she becomes ridiculously famous,

hopefully I got one piece of art of her that goes for. That's right. That's right. Do it now while the prices are low. While the prices are low. Yeah, she's coming on. We're going to talk. She's got some, well, she's just a fascinating person, right?

Much like yourself, just a different walk of life, similar walk, but not the sporting. rugby national championship or provincial championships that you've had. But yeah, she comes on. I didn't realize you were doing it full time. That's, man, that's... Like, if you want to do something well, you have to put in the time. Absolutely.

And putting in the time is important. The old Malcolm Gladwell, 10,000 hour roll. I just said that. I interviewed a couple of boys. boys earlier this week and we were talking about getting good at skills and I didn't say Malcolm Gladwell but I said the old saying went you need 10,000 hours to get to master a skill and we were talking about hockey if you're if you are five foot two ten thousand hours of basketball might not mugsy boggs was five

foot something yeah I mean you can do it You're trying to tell me I'm not going to be that superstar basketball? Oh, wow. That's all you? You can just scroll, yeah. It's a pleasant thing to do. Which grade are we looking at here now? You like turtles.

How many? You like it? You like it a lot. Wow. It's a great game. For the listeners who can't see what I'm looking at, Murray just showed me about 20 of his paintings on his phone. And they're very impressive. And where can people go look at that?

They have to go to Banff, Willick and Sacks. Is there a spot online to look at it? Yeah, yeah, Mactanellart.com. Or just Google my name and something will pop up. It'll take you to the website. Wow. So realistically, you retired to become a full-time painter. Yeah, pretty much.

And you wanted to experience a spring and then you essentially now work full-time, so you're not really experiencing a spring. Well, I still experience spring because I have a lot of gardens that require you to work. So these days, once spring hits, I get up, I work out, I have breakfast, I go out, and I work in the garden for two hours, and then I come back in and I paint. So my painting is gone less hours. What do you do for workouts in the morning? I'm curious.

Oh. Is it weights or is it cardio or is it a little bit of everything? It's a little bit of everything. I do core and I do weights. If I'm doing my standard workout, I do, you know, 50 push-ups, 50 sit-ups, 50 lat dips, 50 supermans, and then I do curls, and I do upright rowing, and I do flies. Is that something that you started after retirement or you've always had that? I've always worked out.

I've always worked out Yeah And the workouts have changed over the years But like I tried to do a A workout that It typically takes me 40 minutes And then I wrecked my leg last year So I used to run as well

So I finished my workout and run And Because I'm trying to get the leg back into shape now Instead of running, I'll ride for ride a bike for 45, 50 minutes in addition to the workouts. And every second day I still do the cardio bike ride, but I'll do yoga because the older you get, the more inflexible you get. I started doing yoga when I found I couldn't sit cross-legged anymore.

And has it helped? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it gives you your body back. All of a sudden you can do things. you. You know, like when you do a lot of athletics, athletics tends to shape a body in certain ways. So if all you ever do is walk on level ground or run on level ground, you lose flexibility in your hips because it's all a straight line motion. Like humans evolved to move in multiple. Like, you know, I told you we used to take kids to the mountains. I would have to teach kids how to walk. I would have to teach kids how to walk.

because people are used to walking on flat surfaces. They're not used to walking up and down trails that twist or side hill stuff. They're not used to steep ground. They're not used to moving their legs outside of that straight line thing. You know, hips aren't, human hips aren't made to make you move like you're a train on a track. They evolve so that your legs can go to the side and up and down and backwards and, you know, all those things. And the more you live your life, the less flexible you get.

Again, if you do a lot of weights and core, all those contractions are going to decrease your flexibility as well. So, yeah, the yoga gave me my body back. It's all good for... I don't think about bending down to pick up something anymore. Yeah. I just bend down and pick it up, right? It's also good for your mind, I bet, as well.

I don't know about that. I don't think a lot. I concentrate on breathing, and you concentrate on holding the stretch, and then you concentrate on the next thing. I guess I was thinking... The quietness? No, and the physical exertion is good for your mind. It's very good for your mind.

It's very good for your emotional health, too. Yes, emotional health. That's where I was going with that. Yeah, like if you go for a run, that troubles you were worried about? They're gone. They're gone. You're not thinking about that stuff.

That's a form of therapy. Yeah, you're thinking about if you're going to be able to carry on. It takes it out of you. We climbed, that reminds me my brother turned 40 this year and we climbed the grouse grind. Oh, you did the grouse grind.

Holy moly. I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I mean, we climbed it. I've done a modern amount of mountaineering in my day. Yeah. And I still like it. I'm guiding a friend in the rock.

He's coming up in two or three weeks here. Not climbing anything, but I'm going to take them up high. Basically, I'm acting as a hiking guide. But I've done a moderate amount of mountaineering, and I've climbed with some guys when I've been guided. Yeah. That their fitness levels are unbelievable. Like out of this world,

I mean, there's different kinds of fitness. There's the fitness that requires strength. There's the fitness that gives you power and acceleration. But in terms of just pure legs and lungs, those guys were unreal, like unreal capacities at altitude. I thought maybe we'd finish with a fun question I always asked. most of my guess. If you had a time machine and could go anywhere to see witness anything, and usually I stick to sports, but with you I'm going to open it up to anything. If you could go any place in time, where would you go?

I would like to go to Western Canada around about 1700. I'd like to, I'd like to be with Henry Kelsey when he first. first saw the sea of flowers that was the prairies, when he saw those buffalo herds, when he saw the First Nations doing their thing when he lived with them, when I'd like to be with David Thompson when he moved through the mountains and see those things for the first time when the world is still a pristine place. You know, that's what I'd like. I'll give you one more because I'm curious. If you could recommend one book, what would it be? Oh. Oh, one book.

That's a very difficult one. That's a very difficult one because there's so many amazing books. If it was for a person who was struggling with life for health reasons, I'd recommend Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius, yeah? Because Stoicism is a help to someone who's undergoing those things. If I was going to recommend one work of fiction, it would be a book by John Irving, a great book. What the heck is the title now?

In praise of Owen Meaney. In praise of Owen Meaney? In praise of Owen Meaney. The book is funny, really and truly funny. But the theme of the book is about sacrifice. greater love. Great book. I'll have to look that up.

Great, great book. And after that, I don't know. You know, I've always really liked poetry. I think in terms of an art form, poetry where you take words and you condense them on a page until you get these moments of pure clarity. So, you know, probably the Oxford Book of Verse would be a third one, because it's got some of the finest things that humans have done in it, or any really good anthology of poetry.

That would probably be the, I'd probably do that one before Marcus, I'd do that one before the other two, yeah. Because the human mind, like in a poem, it's not just intellect, It's the heart, you know, there, condensed, pure. It's just wonderful stuff. Oh, cool. Well, thanks for coming on with me. Thanks for having me, show us.

Yeah, this has been a lot of fun, yeah. It's been a great. Now we've got a classroom sitting watching us. Do you guys have any questions that you were wanting to ask? Yeah, fire away. Do I like... Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss.

Is wonderful. Green eggs and ham. Have you guys ever seen green eggs? Yeah. Like actually seen green eggs? My mom made some before. Well, you know, there are chickens that actually lay green eggs. Really? And if you ever buy eggs from a family that has chickens, you get to see green eggs.

And you open that box and there's one green egg and you just think you have won the lottery. because it's the coolest thing in the world. And yes, I think Dr. Seuss was great. Dr. Seuss, you know, if you look at the contribution of a human to the world, how much joy did Dr. Seuss give people? Tons of joy. Children have been enjoying his books for 50, 60 years now. Read them to my kids.

Yeah, and what a gift to give to the world, hey? Question? What are some of your art pieces called? Called? Well, I give them names depending on the... I mean, most of the names are pretty prosaic, like the Winds of March or Evening Fulford Harbor. And that's specific to the painting.

Some of them, though, if the piece of work is a visual metaphor, and I'll explain what I mean by visual metaphor in a second. I'll give them a title that relates to the metaphor. So I did a painting of apple blossoms against the blue sky. And I called that Looking Past the Promises. And I titled it that because the promise, an apple blossom, is a promise of something, right? you know, that blossom is promising you an apple down the road, but as with so many things in life,

not all promises get fulfilled. Maybe a wind blows the blossom off. Maybe your daughter's dog, Labrador, hungry Labrador, leaps up and grabs that apple off the tree and eats it because that's what that dog used to do. It drove me crazy. anyway so it depends on the painting itself anything else guys yeah far away what's your favorite art piece my favorite art piece that you've done that that i've done or that other people have done i don't have one um i just do them and then i send them away to the gallery

and the gallery sells them and i guess my favorite piece is the one i'm working on now And that's always the one I'm working on now because it gives me joy. My favorite piece in the world, if you ever get a chance, in Barcelona, Spain, there's a cathedral called La Sagrada Familia, which means the Holy Family. And the first time I walked into it, I walked into it and I stopped. and the moment was so powerful I had to back up and lean against the wall. It was like I'd been punched in the stomach. It was so beautiful and beautiful in a sense that it kept me standing up against that wall, weeping for 20 minutes.

I'd never seen anything like it. So if you get a chance, go to Barcelona and Spain and go to that cathedral. Because you won't. it's unreal anything else guys there you go thanks Sean yeah thank you

that was a pleasure yes it was absolutely thank you hey guys that was a lot of fun just first off I want to thank Murray for coming out and sitting with me just

had a lot of good things to say and I got to thank listeners, you know, the Ross brothers, Chris and Jason for suggesting them to me. I didn't know about Murray until I started doing this and then he gets suggested and I interview him and he just had a blast. Like he was really cool. So thanks to those two guys and thanks to Murray for coming out. I hope you guys enjoyed that.

Then thanks to Lashburn Elementary School for having me out. I've never had a live audience before. And I think the kids enjoy it. I know I certainly did. I know Murray did having them around. sitting there and asking a few questions and just really cool atmosphere. So thank you very much to Susan and the rest of the staff there at Lashburn Elementary for having me out.

Next week coming up, I have Jansen Leslie and T.J. Lloyd. Jansen Leslie was a 15th overall draft pick in the Bannum draft. He played four years in the W.HL and now is at Reddier College. So we're going to talk to him a little bit about his time and the ups and downs of playing in the W.H. and T.J. Lloyd was undrafted in the band of draft actually, and he ends up in Spruce Grove playing for the Saints in the AJHL and becomes the defenseman of the year for the CJHL

and now is going to head off to Bowling Green playing Division I. So we're going to talk to him a little bit about that and his time in the AJHL and those two playing together and growing up in Lloyd Minster. So next week, Wednesday, Jansen Leslie and T.J. Lloyd. Until then.