The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 360: Kirk Herbstreit - How To Prepare Like The Best Broadcaster In The Business

Episode Date: April 12, 2020

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Text LEARNERS to 44222 Full show notes found at www.LearningLeader.com Episode #360: Kirk Herbstreit - How To Prepare Like The Best Broadcaster In The Business Notes: "Because of what you have to do to be part of that program... You do things you didn't think you would ever fathom you could get through. It develops you as a person." -- Kirk on what it's like to play football at Centerville High School. "Nothing has impacted me more than the time and what I learned from Bob Gregg and Ron Ullery. It's with me every single day. That's why we take so much pride in it. Because of the impact it has on our entire life." Learning resilience and how to persevere, and how to prepare for big moments. Kirk's preparation process: There's nobody more prepared than Kirk each week. "It's the only thing I know. It's not an option for me to not be prepared." "Nobody knew who I was back in 1996 when I first started. Instead of hiding from that, I said 'I'm going to be the hardest working analyst in sports. That became my calling card. I had to earn people's respect. The only way I knew how to do that was through my work ethic and preparation. It's the only way I know how." The importance of relationships - "I've never in 25 years burned a coach. I never will. They are a lifeline for me. It's one thing to read an article. For you to really get information, you have to go directly to the sources... The coaches." "I feel I'm the most prepared person covering the sport every week when I do Gameday and when I go into the booth Saturday night." "If I'm awake I'm either with my kids or I'm preparing for the games." Building relationships with powerful people... How? "Trust. That's the most important thing. In my job, you sometimes have to be critical. What I've always said to myself is, if this person was sitting next to me, he might disagree, but he's not going to be offended." "I'll call them the next week to make sure they understood what I said. I go out of my way to promote people." Sustaining Excellence -- "I look at it like... I don't do this for money, I don't do this for fame, I do this for love, for passion. There's nothing that makes me more happy than watching football. I love it. It never gets old, I'm constantly trying to improve, to get better. I feel like here I am 25 years into this business and I'm just scratching the surface..." "You gotta keep working, you gotta keep learning." "It's such a fun challenge to broadcast games now with how much has changed..." Working with a partner (for him it is Chris Fowler)... The keys to working well with a partner: Developing a relationship with that person - Make sure you go to dinners, do things away from work. Get to know that person. Become friends. Then earn your stripe through your preparation and your work. Working with a broadcasting team - It takes amazing, constant, communication. Keys to great quarterback play and how that translate to being a great leader in the business world: The ability to process a lot of information and make sense of it quickly (Joe Burrow is the best he's seen) Accuracy - Throw the ball where you want it to go Make great decisions Mental toughness Being the type of person that others want to follow... How to do that? Play-making ability is a must - people are drawn to you because they believe in you You can do it differently, but "it's very hard to think of successful quarterbacks that aren't well liked by all members of the team." People are drawn to them.  -- Cannot be selfish. The quarterback gets a lot of attention. Need to deflect that and talk about the linemen, the defense, your teammates. Would Kirk take the Monday Night Football broadcasting job? "I've talked with my agent about it. That's in play. It's being talked about. It would have to be in addition. I'll never leave college." "I love watching the NFL... Watching guys that I've covered. The college game is leaking more and more into the NFL. The prep would be pretty extreme, but I could do it." Life advice: "I was raised to be an unselfish person. I've never felt like I was more important than anyone else. I'll never put myself above anybody in any regard." -- Be the hardest working person, have an awareness about you to help others, never think you're more important than others."

For me, it never gets old. I'm constantly trying to improve. I'm constantly trying to keep taking steps in a direction to make me better. I feel like here I am 25 years into this business. I feel like I'm just scratching the surface of where I'm trying to go. So I guess I feel like to sustain excellence is it never gets old. You just you wake up every day hard charging. Like you want more. You want to get better without even trying to like necessarily think about, boy, how can I get better? It's more of just I love what I do and I can keep getting better. I can keep doing more work. I can keep talking to more people. I can keep learning. Over the past nine months, I've been developing a new online learning tool called the Learning Leader Academy.

It's been carefully designed to help you become a more effective leader. The content is a combination of what I've learned for the past five years worth of conversations with more than 350 of the world's most effective leaders as well as lessons learned from my own experience leading teams. With that said, the content will not be the best part. We are building an online community of learning leaders who will have access to the following. The initial 30 lessons, I sat side by side with my dad, my greatest mentor in my life, and we spoke through 30 different leadership topics in addition to seeing all of the videos, you will receive a playbook, a manual to take what you've learned via the videos and put it into action.

Additionally, we'll have live calls on Zoom with me and other members of the Academy. There'll also be a private forum for members only for you to discuss the challenges of your personal leadership journey with the other growth-oriented leaders to lean on for advice, feedback, and general conversation. And every once in a while, there will be a special live session, via Zoom where I will bring on a guest, a previous podcast guest that I've had on my show that you can speak to directly. The initial people who sign up for the first cohort will receive a number of benefits that later adopters will not get.

For more details, go to Ryanhawk. That's Ryanhawk.me. That's Ryanhawk. Dot me and sign up today. Welcome to the learning. leader show presented by Brixie and Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text Learners to 4-4-2-2-2. In order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world, receive mindful Monday updates what I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Also give you more

details about my book, Welcome to Management. Text, learners to 4-4-2-2. Now on tonight's feature leader the great Kirk Herbstreet, the voice of college football for the past 25 years. He's been on ESPN's College Game Day as the lead analyst. And then at night, ABC's college football game of the week, Kirk is the lead color commentary along with Chris Fowler. In addition to that, Kirk and I both played quarterback at Centerville High School. And my relationship and friendship began with him when I was in eighth grade. grade and so it was really great to catch up with him on this one tonight. A few of the topics we discussed. The key to building great relationships, how Kirk has done this, why it's benefited him in

college football and how you can do it too. And then his prep process and why that has been so impactful and the primary reason that he's become the best in the business and only improved since that point. Then the number one skill and a great quarterback and how that relates two leaders in the business world. And at the end, I asked him if he would take the Monday night football job if offered. His answer might surprise you. Ladies and gentlemen, so good with the great Kirk Herb Street. All right.

I've been looking forward to this one for a while, Kirk. I remember when I first met you, I was an eighth grader going into my freshman year. I don't know if you remember this. It was at a passing league going. those we did those in July, you shook my hand and you said, man, you've got big hands. I've never forgot as an eighth grader going into my freshman year. It oddly gave me this confidence. Like, maybe I can play on the varsity level.

I don't know. Kirk Hurd Street told me I got big hands and he's a guy who knows everything about college football. So I vividly remember that. I know you probably don't, but it was an interesting moment. I don't remember that, but I do remember meeting you once you got into high school at a very young age. you had an opportunity to play early and play really, really well. I remember Coach Alry would have me come over and talk to some of you guys and just try to offer some kind of perspective and motivation.

You guys had, I told your brother a week or two ago, you guys had a team your senior year that I'd put up there. Not always one of the best teams at Centerville ever, but one of the best high school teams I ever saw. I can't remember you guys, did you beat Elder that year? or how did that season end for you guys that year? Yeah, so that's a sore subject. I'm sure.

So we win the first 11. The 10th game was Coach Greg's 300th win. Wow. I think, you know, they did those rankings. We led the state in scoring for the second year in a row. And we go to play Elder in round two of the playoffs. Okay. And would you beat in round one?

We beat Mason. And then we lost to Elder 49 to 14. in the second round. But the crazy thing is, Kirk, they then, the following round, played Wayne, a team that we had already crushed earlier in the year. And Wayne killed

them and then went on to the state championship game. It was killer. I know it was like high school glories, but Elk Pry, that's, we both come in the same place, you know? Dude, I'm just telling you, I mean, not to be Polk High here and talk about high school football, but I'm telling you, I don't know if it's still

the way. I've been back in Ohio or around Centerville in a long time. But I mean, I think it's because of what you have to do to be a part of that program. It's probably like being, you know, the Marines kind of. I mean, it's like when you sacrifice and you get up at five in the morning before anybody got up at five in the morning and you do things that you didn't think you were ever would ever fathom going through that you had the ability to get through, especially your 10th grade year when you're really introduced to it.

I don't know, man. It just, it develops you as a person to this day. I mean, here I am. I've been at ESPN. It's be 25 years this fall. And I'm telling you, nothing has impacted me more than my time and what I learned. Yeah, the wins and losses go away. But what I learned from Bob Gregg and Coach Alrey and all those guys, it's with me every single day.

So that's why you take pride and we kind of kid about high school football. but man, it's because of what the impact it has in the rest of your life. It's so true, man. I think about the reason why it's so important and meaningful to me is because that's where I truly learned how to work. That's where I learned resilience and how to persevere and the importance of preparation because that preparation built the confidence to go out there on Friday nights and beat guys who were better athletes than us.

You know what I mean? Playing Springfield South and Wayne. and they're faster than us. They're scoring in one play and it's taking us 12 plays, but we knew everything that we, you know how it is, everything though that we did in January, what we did in June,

gave us the confidence to be successful on Friday nights. And the reason I want to say this, too, is because you're known in your industry. So you're the best, you're the voice of college football. That's not really, that's just what it is. But part of the reason why,

I had Maria Taylor on, she talked about this as well, is there's nobody more prepared than you. Still to this day, and I bet you could easily mail it in with no preparation and still crush it on game day in games. Yet you never do it. And I have a sense that part of that preparation you might have been learned early in your life. Dude, it's 100% accurate. It's the only thing I know.

I probably could do what you're saying. I would feel so vulnerable. I would feel so, I don't know, like it's just not an option for me. I don't even know how I would handle myself. And the reason is kind of like when I watched that Tom Brady special that's on and he talks about being drafted, I think it's Brady 6. And when he talks about being drafted and how hard it was the day that he got drafted, and here he is he won four or five Super Bowls at the time they did this interview.

And he starts crying talking about, he took a walk and his dad was with him. and he just talked about how hard it was. And here he is reliving it and getting emotional. And you're like, dude, you've won four Super Bowls. Why is this still so hard? Because when he looks in the mirror, even after all these Super Bowls, he still feels that pain. Well, for me, I can really relate to that.

I didn't ever win a Super Bowl. But for me, I had to fill the shoes of Craig James. I had to feel the wrath of nobody knows who I am. Nobody at Florida or Texas or USC knows who Kirk Herbstre. it is back in 1996 when I first started. So I, instead of hiding from that, I looked at it like, I'm going to go back to El Cried. I'm going to go back. I'm going to be the hardest working analyst on TV. And they may not know my name back in 1995 or 96, but they're going to say, man, that guy seemed to be, you know what he's talking about. And so that became my calling card,

really, was now, of course, I built a name after 25 years. But when I was first starting, I didn't, other than the Big Ten region, I didn't really have that. So I had to earn people's respect. And the only way I knew to do that was through my work ethic and my preparation. So since that works so well for me, it's just my way of doing it. And it's the only way I know how. What does that look like? Like, what is your prep?

I'd be fascinated by the, you know, you do the games on Saturday nights. You do game day on Saturday mornings. But what's like Sunday and Monday and Tuesday? because you can sense that you've built some incredible relationships. And I would venture to guess that a big part of your prep is that you've built true friendships with Brent Venables or Ryan Day and these guys. And so they trust you. And they'll tell you some things that you can't repeat all those things,

but you get some great background information. You have great knowledge because you've gone directly to the sources themselves. So what's a week like of preparation leading up to game day and then actually doing the games on Saturday? nights. Yeah, you're exactly right. The relationships, I've never in 25 years burned any assistant coach or head coach. I never will. That's a lifeline to me because it's one thing to read an article, but it's like, you know, if you read an article, you're not necessarily always getting what's truth, you know, from being a player, you know, the SID, they're going to spin things a certain way. But for you to really get information, you've got to go to those sources.

to the coordinators especially. And so, yeah, Saturday night I'll get done with the game. Sunday for me is kind of like I need to catch up and almost recover from the week. So then Monday morning is when I really start cranking. And I'll just kind of deal with, I've got two different avenues. I've got game day and a game day producer

that will be reaching out to me on Monday. Then I've got the game side where I got a producer who will be reaching out to me for the game that I'm calling. And right away, I kind of, I kind of, after these many years, kind of know my Monday, know my Tuesday, know my Wednesday, travel on Thursday. You know, you get on site. If you're doing a game, you get a chance to sit down with the coordinators. And I always try to get them as much as I can one-on-one because the more people that are around you, the more they're protected and the more they really won't divulge what's really on their mind, they're a little bit safer. So I'm telling you, by the time I go on the air Saturday on college game day, the amount of prep that I've done,

in my mind, I feel I'm the most prepared person covering the sport every single week when I do game day. And the same when I go into a booth when I call a game on Saturday night. I've talked with everybody. I've talked to both coordinators on both sides, offensive and defensive. I've talked with players. I've talked with the head coaches. And now we've just got to let it play and see how it goes and just react to it. But yeah, that's something like a guy like you and me that's amazing.

they pay you to do it. And I'm not complaining about how much work it is. But if I'm awake, I'm pretty much, you know, either with my kids, my wife, or I'm preparing for the upcoming games of the weekend. What do you think has been a key to you and try not to be humble here for a second? But what do you think is the key to you being so good at developing relationships with powerful people? Because, right, you're talking, you develop real relationships with, college head coaches. They're the highest paid people in their states by those, those plays college football coaches.

And I've seen you interact with some of them. We've been on the Buckeye crews together. I've seen how you interact and obviously just very likable and kind and giving and thoughtful, all of that. But I'm curious how these guys are on a different level, the Nick Sabins of the world, the Urban Myers of the world when he was in it. Right, Dabo, where your kids are playing now. What do you think has been part? part of the key to you building such good relationships with these people. Trust. I think that's the most important thing. You know, I've never, like I said earlier, in my job, you know, you sometimes have to be critical.

And what I've always said to myself is if this person that I'm about to talk about and everything's not always perfect, everything's not always great, sometimes you have to be critical. But I feel like my tone, especially in this era of media, where everybody beating on a desk and yelling and trying to become the story themselves, I don't really try to do that. So if the person, let's say I'm talking about, I don't know, Nick Saven, if I'm going to say something about Alabama that's critical or Nick Saven, if he were sitting on the desk next to me, he might disagree with what I'm saying,

but he's not going to be offended by what I'm saying. And I think that's always been the way I'm going to. I've just conducted business. And so I think when you do that year after year after year, and a lot of times I'll call them the next week and make sure they understood why I said what I said. And I don't know. I think when you do that year after year after year and you don't go out of your way to punish people and you do go out of your way to promote people,

I think people feel comfortable with you and realize that they can trust you and don't feel like they need to hide things. and I think that's just been kind of my MO my entire career. You have certainly been a person who has sustained excellence for many years consistently. And I love that phrase.

It's meaningful. I remember Jay Bill has said it to be years ago on this podcast. And it's always stuck with me because it's not just having a brief bit of success, but it's the sustainability and this constant improvement. Because I think as good as you were 10 years ago,

you're better at your job now than you were 10 years ago. And that's incredible saying because you were the best in the business 10 years ago, and yet you're still better. So I'm curious from your perspective, when you look around and you're surrounded by, you talk to the best quarterbacks in the game, you talk to the best coaches in the game, you are surrounded by people who sustain excellence. What have you found to be some of the commonalities amongst the people or the leaders

who have been able to sustain excellence over an extended period of time? Well, it's a great question because I think everybody would probably answer it a little bit differently. for me, I can only speak for me. And I'm flattered that you think that I've been able to sustain excellence. I look at it like I have, I don't do this for money. I don't do this for fame. I do this for love, for passion. I love what I do.

And you know me from going way back. Your brother knows me. Like I, there's nothing that makes me more happy. You know, we're kidding about Centerville High School. Like watching Centerville High School. watching Centerville play Wayne, I don't even know who's on the rosters, but if I were there in Dayton on a Friday night, like that gives me pleasure to be able to watch something like that.

And so imagine calling Ohio State Michigan or SEC championship or national championship or Rose Bulls. I mean, I love it. You know, so for me, it never gets old. I'm constantly trying to improve. I'm constantly trying to keep taking steps in a direction to make me better. I feel like here I am 25 years into this business.

I feel like I'm just scratching the surface of where I'm trying to go. So I guess I feel like to sustain excellence is it never gets old. You just, you wake up every day, hard charging. Like you want more. You want to get better without even trying to like necessarily think about, boy, how can I get better? It's more of just I love what I do and I can keep getting better. I can keep doing more work.

I can keep talking to more people. I can keep learning because the game's, evolving. You know, it's, it's, when you played, when I played to 10 years ago, your brother played to now, I mean, look at the NFL. Look at Patrick Mahomes playing in the NFL. I mean, the days of seven-step drops and quarterbacks being six, five, and 240 pounds and sitting in a pocket like a Carson Palmer, they're almost over, right? So you have to stay up with the game and evolve with the game. And just the novelty and the thought of that fires me up because it's a challenge. You can't just rest on what you did a year ago or two or three or four years ago, you got to keep working. You got to

keep learning. And to me, that's exciting. It's not like a chore. It's, I get to do it. I don't have to do it. When they come back from commercial and they show the shot of you and Chris Fowler in the booth, I oftentimes see you holding a clicker in your hand. And when I watch other games, I rarely see Tony Romo or anybody else holding the actual clicker in their hand. Why is that? What is your setup like? maybe is different from other people who do the same job that you do? You know, I don't know. I think everybody has different things. For me, that little clicker is almost like a blanket.

I don't know. I don't even know. It's in my hand. Some people like to hold a pen. I just have this clicker in my hand. And I have the ability in the old days before you had that technology, you would rely on somebody in the truck that would kind of rewind something or make sure did 93 tip that pass or did 82 or whoever it was or whatever it might be.

And now you have the ability with technology. You can just rewind it real quick just to make sure that if your eyes were exactly on what you thought you saw. So it's almost more confirmation. That's what I've been able to use. And it's amazing. The game is so different. The college game is so different than the NFL game. And especially in the last probably seven to eight years because of tempo.

You know, RPO's and tempo. And it's just such a different game. So you imagine you're up in the booth. Fowler's to my left. I spotted Darren Brown's to my right, who's a former elk, by the way. And we're up there. And, you know, the play goes.

It's, let's say it takes five seconds to run to play. You're watching the play. You have five seconds to see what just happened. You have five seconds to think of what you want to say because your job is to tell how and why something happened. So you have five seconds to think about it. And usually if they're going no huddle, 10 to 12 seconds to say what you just thought of in five seconds that's relevant of what just

happened. And you do that for three and a half to four hours. And it's really changed the game for analysts, for game analysts. It's such a fun challenge to at the same time have a feel and stay out of the way of the game because it's not just about you and your knowledge or the sport. it's also about a feel and the vibe of the passion of college football and laying out and let the crowd and the band come in. So I don't know, man. You should come out sometime and watch a game like next time we're at Ohio State and watch the booth and how it works out.

It's pretty interesting. If that's an invite, then consider my response is yes. Next time you're around the area or even somewhere else, I'm going to shoot you a text and say, remember we talked, man. Let's do it. I appreciate that. One of the things that I think relates to the entire business world, Kirk,

beyond just what you do, is working with a partner, whether it's a business partner or business partners. In your case, you have Chris Fowler there who's on TV, but in addition to Chris, who, by the way, is one of my favorites. I love him at Wimbledon. He's great at everything. He's fantastic at just his job. But in addition to Chris,

as you have a team of people that none of us ever see. So let's first start with just your one partner that we do see before we get to the rest of the team. What's it like? How have you and Chris built such amazing rapport so that you can sense it feels like two friends. One of them has one role, one of them has a different role,

but it sounds like you guys truly enjoy or feel like you enjoy watching a game together and talking about it. And I'm curious how you've built that with him. Yeah, that's probably the greatest compliment you can give a broadcasting team is it sounds like you guys are like to be with each other and enjoying the game together. I get really get that feeling with Al and Chris on Sunday night as well.

And I think that comes just from developing of a relationship. I'm very big on when I first started working with Brent Musburger because I grew up watching Brent Musburger and yet I looked at him as a, you know, a guy that you admired. And I didn't really know him. And so I really told the producer, I said, man, we got to make sure we go to dinners on Friday night. We do things away from the booth so I can get to really know him and he can get to know me and we can become friends. And I think hopefully that'll come across on camera. And with Chris, it was just when I came up in 1996 on college game day.

And he was almost like a big brother teaching me the ropes of the business. And again, I kind of had my hat in my hand and just. out of just my personality, always admired him, respected him. He was like our quarterback, and I was just responding to how he led the team and just kind of earned my stripes in production meetings and things of that nature. And just, I think, like, you build relationships and friendships with folks. That's just kind of naturally happens over the years. We just happen to be on TV talking in front of millions of people about college football.

But he's a perfectionist, you know, whether it's, tennis. Think about all the different sports he's covered over the years and a great job that he's done. So he's now at this point in his career just doing tennis and college football. But he's a great friend. And the fact that you can feel that and recognize that, I think like I said, I take that as a great compliment. What about the rest of the team, the guys in the truck, right, the people in your ear? Because I think that's the one thing people don't understand fully is that you have people talking into your ear constantly while and you hear the crowd, right? That's very loud. especially the games you do.

And so you're having to then, you describe, which was beautifully, like the five seconds, and the five seconds, and then maybe 10 seconds. Amongst that, you have someone talking in your ear. You have your partner here. You have your spotter here. You're trying to say something. How does that work with all of the whole team working together?

It's a, if the viewer knew all that was going on when they watched the average football game, especially the bigger high profile games that you're talking about, it's amazing the amount of communication that happens it's kind of like if fans knew how much communication was going on at the line of scrimmage with the linemen making out luckier ring go call or whatever they're doing and de linemen and linebackers all the constant communication that goes on on the field average fan just sees the ball snapped and a guy scores a touchdown but they don't realize everything that's happened it's kind of how it is with

a broad all all analysts all play by playman they have a button upstairs. So you have your mic, your headphones, and as you're calling, if you see a certain angle that you really want, let's say you saw safety that got out of position with live with your own eyes, and it's a 50-yard touchdown while they're celebrating and the band's going off. You'll notice sometimes analysts get quiet as the play-by-play man says, and it's a touchdown or whatever he's saying. And then you lay out for the band and the crowd shots. Well, what I'm doing is I'm hitting that button saying to Bill Binell or a producer, hey, Bill, is there any way that you can give me that, show me that safety that was out

of position? He came up and bit on the play action. Like, I'm actually having a verbal conversation. He's like, all right, hurry, yeah, you got it, you got it. So within a second or two, you know, boom, here comes a shot. I know that the shot that's coming up because I requested it. And that doesn't happen all the time. Sometimes he'll just know me and know that the angle and the look that I want based on

what I'm talking about. But the team that you have in the truck, it's like your offensive linemen. It's, it's, they're invaluable to you. The guys that are upstairs in the, in the booth with you, you have spotters and statisticians. And I have bear down in the truck who is really good with, hey, the last four third downs, they've been at, uh, or the last, uh, four or five third downs, they've been at third and eight or more and they've converted every one of them. Like, he has bizarre numbers, or things that you'll trust him and say, as soon as he says that, I say it instantly on the air. So, yeah, those guys are invaluable and a big, big part of what makes a production, what it is.

We've both played quarterback, different levels. You played Ohio State. I played in the Mac. Both big Elk Pride guys played at Centerville. For a moment, I just have to ask you, you study great quarterback play, right? I've seen the interview with Joe Burrow, and you've talked to all the best quarterbacks every year in college. Justin Fields, Joe Burrow, Tua, whoever it may be. And I'm curious after many years of studying quarterback play, of being a quarterback, because

the one thing that I think people who haven't played quarterback don't understand is the feeling of a 300-pound defensive lineman who's probably faster than you, right in your face, and you have to step into it, into it, and make a shot right down the field while looking off the safety. And that just, you can't, can't understand. understand what that's like if you haven't done it with live bullets in an actual game. So you have done it and you study them and you watch them. When you think about great quarterback play, what does it take? What are the traits, the characters, the behaviors of an excellent quarterback?

The first word to me, especially in today's game, is the ability to process. The ability to process coverage to me and make sense of it quickly. Joe Burrow this year was as good as I've ever seen at having full field progressions. In college a lot of times, as you know, Ryan, they'll have a half-field read. You're reading the corner if he, you know, maybe the linebacker in the middle.

It's kind of a high-low read. Joe Burrow, man, he was a master this year at understanding safety play and how it affected the corners, understood leverage. And because these receivers are running so many routes of theirs, were almost option routes where they could go inside or go outside, depending on the coverage.

And so the quarterbacks that can recognize that and move quickly through those reeds go boom, boom, boom, and ball is out. And then the second thing would be the accuracy. So if you can process, you can make decisions consistently and then have the ability to throw accurately, anything beyond that is just extra. Like he is a big arm. He's fast. He's mobile. I think you need to be mentally and physically tough.

I think those things are also huge. But ability to process, reading coverage consistently, making great decisions, and then having that accuracy to go with it. That's why Joe Burrow and Tua with the hip injury, it looks like he's fully recovered from that, from all the video that they've been putting out, those two guys are as good as we've seen in a long time at being able to do all those things.

What about the leadership part of it? the part of being the type of person that others want to commit to, that others want to follow. Yeah. How about that that aspect that's not as physical, although there are physical aspects, meaning you got to get it. Like, we know how it is. Like, the quickest way to earn respect is to make plays, right? It's to help your team win.

I learned that as a freshman. And I remember, like, when I started making plays, the older guys, they started liking having me around. Yeah. Right? You know, so like, what about the leadership part of, of quarterback? play. Well, and I think that's a great point. Playmaking ability right away allows you to have better leadership because guys are drawn towards you because they believe in you. You know,

the defense feels like they can play better, maybe take a few more chances because they know Ryan's going to be able to lead them down and get some touchdowns. They're going to score points. So I think that helps you. Different guys lead differently. You know, like Trevor Lawrence right now, people are talking about if he came out this year, he'd go ahead of all these other quarterbacks. I think he's still in the process of developing, to be honest. as a quarterback. But he's a very different kind of leader. You know, he's, he's naturally kind of an introverted guy. So I think when he first burst onto the scene, he beat Kelly Brian out at about week five, who was an established returning starter, and Christian Wilkins,

who was like the alpha, the team, this is a team that went on to do great things, won a national title. Christian Wilkins took him out to launch, put his arm around him and said, hey, you're our guy, man. We believe in you. And Trevor was very quiet, let other guys. lead and yet he was very successful led him to a national championship that year and his second year last year came out of his shell a little bit more was opening up and and so i think you can do it differently um you don't have to be a guy that's like tom brady you don't have to it's it's it's great if you are but um to me at the end of the day you've been in locker rooms it's very hard to think of successful quarterbacks that in that locker room they're not part of the guys you know the linemen

enjoy them, the skill guys enjoy them, the defensive guys enjoy them, the team trainer enjoys them, the assistant coaches enjoy being around them, you know, they sit down at a training table and people are drawn towards them because of that personality. That typically is the kind of guy that ends up becoming a great quarterback. Is it possible to not have some of those traits and still be good? Yeah, because at the end of the day, you just make plays. But I think the guys that go to a whole different level, they draw people towards him and people want to, they believe in that guy and they want him to be their leader. Yeah, a high level of like the emotional intelligence aspect of how to understand people, be compassionate, a good listener, care. Yeah.

I feel like those are, those are parts of it too. And not being selfish because I think today it's easy to get social media and all the attention being put on the quarterback. I think the quarterback has to be really aware of how much attention he's receiving and deflect, deflect, deflect. Talk about the linemen. Talk about the receivers. Talk about the defense. Talk about the offensive coordinator.

Talk about anybody but yourself to me because there's just so much attention, even so much more than when you played, because of social media and all the coverage is out there now. Yeah, it's so true. Hey, I know there's some stuff going on broadcast-wise at ESPN. Monday night football and I remember like three years ago I was in a group text with my brother and a few other guys and I've said Kirk and Fowler should do both they should do both do do the college games because I know you love college so much I know it's your love and and and try to

to then it'd be crazy schedule but try to go the Monday night football games too and now that's that's out there like that's that talk is out there what's what do you think about that I mean I I've talked with my agent I'm obviously we're in extreme circumstances right now now with this quarantine and business is not normal right now. And so it's a little bit different as far as trying to get information or trying to figure out what's happening. That's evidently that's in play. I mean, that's something that's being talked about.

For me, it would have to be in addition. I told your brother and Pat, it'd have to be in addition. I'll never leave college. Like, it's just, I'm not a guy that's wired. It's like, there are a lot of guys in my business. They just want to keep climbing a ladder. One day I'll be in the NFL. I don't really care.

I just, I'm a college football guy. I'm more of a high school football guy than I would be an NFL guy. Now, don't get me wrong. I love watching the NFL. I love watching guys that I covered, watching them grow up from being an 18-year-old to a 21, 22-year-old, and now they're in the NFL. I really get a kick out of watching these guys play. And I've covered them all, you know, most of them anyway.

It's a higher level of college football. And the college game now seems to be. leaking more and more into the NFL. We just talked about Mahomes, we think about the Rams, all these teams are running some version of college football. You know, their offense is most of them anyway. So I think I could physically do it.

I think the prep would be pretty extreme as far as getting ready for something like that. But I think I could pull it off. I could do, it would be game day and Saturday night. And then right after Saturday night's game, you'd have to fly to the Monday night game and give you all day Sunday and all Monday to really put yourself in a position to be ready.

to go. But I could do it, but I, right now, man, I'm 100% locked in on on doing what I've been doing and not really changing unless they really, really want that to happen. Yeah, man. Well, I personally love to see it. But I have one last question. I got to go. You're with your kids. So I'm really appreciative. But I'm curious for the, if you can remember what it was like right after you were a fresh newly graduated from Ohio State. And let's say there's a 23-year-old who recently graduated from Ohio State. And they said, Kirk, I want to, you know, I want to leave a positive contribution on the world. I want to leave my mark.

I want to do good things to help other people. And I certainly, I think that's obviously what you do. What's like general basic life advice for that 23-year-old who was asking you, what can I do in order to do good things in the world, whether it's in broadcasting or not? I'm curious what you'd say to them. Well, it's just, there's so many options out. there to just help people to just have an awareness of wanting to be able to contribute to society in some positive way you get to be my age you realize that

you know when I was 23 years old I was hard charging and just worried about what am I going to do with my life how am I going to pay my mortgage how am I gonna you know take care of my family you know that that that's that's a big motivation for a lot of people and and it should be and it's then you get to a point like you are at my age and you've you've accomplished some things and you look back on on life at being 23 all over again and you realize that I wouldn't change a lot because I was a very unselfish person the way I was raised. I was raised blue collar. You know, my parents divorced. I can relate to a lot of people.

My parents divorced when I was about eight or nine years old. Went through a lot of stuff, you know, on a personal side with my family just growing up. And it made me really appreciate just never feeling like I was more important than anybody. else. I don't care what I ever accomplished. I'll never put myself above anybody in any regard just because I shouldn't. And I was very fortunate to be raised in a way. I never really have had a problem doing that, whether it's been in sports where, you know, you play at Centerville, people know who you are, and then you get to Ohio State and people know who you are. I just never had a problem remaining grounded. And I think if I were giving it,

vice to a 23-year-old. That's what I would tell them is be the hardest working person, but have an awareness to you to see how you can help other people along your path and along your journey and never be too prideful that you think you're more important than other people that you can't contribute, can't help out. Love it, man. Kirk, thanks so much, man.

It's so good to see you and talk to you. You too, buddy. It's been a while, but I'll, I hope we got football games going on in the fall. We have no idea what's going to happen. I hope we do. And if so, I'll, I'm going to catch you. up with you. Yes, and you better come.

Next time we do a Buckeye game, come on. It doesn't have to be a Buckeye game. Come on out anytime you want and come up into the booth. I think you'd get a great kick out of all. Man, I love it. I love it. All right, man. Well, appreciate.

Great talking with you and look forward to the next one, man. All right, you got everybody. Take care. See you. See you. All right, man. Bye. Wow, I absolutely loved the opportunity to catch up with Kirk.

It's been some time since we had a chance to talk. and I really enjoyed all aspects of him. I'm just really proud of the fact of considering we come from the same place of what he's become and how humble he is despite all the massive amount of success he's achieved and how he's still so motivated to continuously get better. A few of the points that really stood out to me just the love he has for what he does. I think it's because of that love that it helps him prepare so hard. Like each week is his first time doing it. And it's evident when you watch him perform on TV.

And then the ability to process and make the right decision on a consistent basis. When Kirk was describing what makes a great quarterback, I also thought, that's what makes a great leader. The ability to quickly process, analyze, deconstruct, synthesize the information, and then make the right decision quickly. That's what we need to do as leaders. And then finally, trust. His relationships are built on trust. And he will never break those.

And everyone within his life knows that. And that is partially why he's been so successful in what he does because he's built fantastic relationships with the foundation of trust. You can tell he's a value-driven person. If you enjoyed this one as much as I did, I would love it if you would tell a friend or two, perhaps one that has never listened to the Learning Leaders Show. This one with Kirk Herbstreet was so enjoyable and useful.

Just to hear how he operates. It's fascinating. Because you continue to do that, it gives me the opportunity. You give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk with you soon. Can't wait.