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136. Leaving a Legacy: Lessons from Alex and Brian Zettler
2 Plays2 months ago
In episode #136 of the Especially for Athletes Podcast, we’re joined by Alex Zettler, former Texas A&M football player and current Georgia Southern coach, and his father Brian Zettler, a legendary athletic trainer who’s worked with the Dallas Cowboys, Utah Jazz, and Dallas Mavericks. Together, they share profound insights into what it takes to leave a lasting legacy in sports—not through stats or accolades, but through perseverance, character, and service.
The Zettlers reflect on their individual journeys, from Alex’s experience as a college athlete to Brian’s remarkable career in the sports world. They discuss the true meaning of success, emphasizing how it’s not just about winning games, but about the impact you have on others. Whether you’re a player, coach, or support staff, the lesson is clear: great athletes and professionals are those who uplift others and leave a mark that goes beyond the field or court.
Key takeaways from this episode:
- Perseverance is key: Success isn’t about immediate results; it’s about staying focused and pushing forward despite challenges.
- Character over recognition: True greatness is built on strong character, not just statistics or awards.
- Service to others: The legacy of those who serve others—whether through coaching, training, or supporting teammates—leaves the most lasting impact.
This conversation is a testament to the power of service, hard work, and the importance of setting an example for others in the sports world and beyond. Tune in to learn from the Zettlers about what it means to leave a legacy that truly matters.
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Credits:
Hosted by Shad Martin
Produced by IMAGINATE STUDIO
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Support the show: https://especiallyforathletes.com/podcast/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Introduction to Especially for Athletes Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Especially for Athletes podcast, where we explore essential principles that empower athletes to learn life's most valuable lessons through sports.
00:00:16
Speaker
Welcome to the Especially for Athletes podcast.
Meet the Zettlers
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm Dustin Smith here with Shad Martin again, and we've got
00:00:23
Speaker
Two of my most favorite people in the world on today, sitting in their ranch out in Texas, Brian Zettler and Alex Zettler.
00:00:32
Speaker
Guys, thanks for joining us.
00:00:35
Speaker
Absolutely, thanks for having us.
00:00:36
Speaker
Thanks, guys.
00:00:37
Speaker
Thanks for having us.
00:00:38
Speaker
Miss you guys.
00:00:39
Speaker
Yeah, it was good catching up before we hopped on this.
00:00:43
Speaker
I'm surprised it took us so long to
00:00:46
Speaker
when we've kind of kept in touch, but I apologize for it not being more, Brian.
Brian Zettler's Career Journey
00:00:50
Speaker
So the listeners know, I met Brian, we figured this out, we think about 13 or so years ago.
00:00:58
Speaker
Brian at the time was the head trainer.
00:01:02
Speaker
What's the exact position with the Jazz?
00:01:05
Speaker
So I think when we first met, I was the assistant athletic trainer and the head equipment manager, and also helped out with the strength conditioning portion of it as well.
00:01:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:01:17
Speaker
And you were with the Jazz from what years?
00:01:19
Speaker
This is the Utah Jazz.
00:01:20
Speaker
I met you about halfway into that, right?
00:01:23
Speaker
Correct.
00:01:24
Speaker
I believe I started in 2004 and my final year was 2017.
00:01:32
Speaker
Okay.
Alex Zettler's Early Years in Sports
00:01:33
Speaker
And before that, I was with the Dallas Mavericks for seven years and with the Dallas Cowboys off and on a little bit.
00:01:43
Speaker
And then you had a boy there who was sitting next to you named Alex that was a quarterback.
00:01:50
Speaker
And we met through my other program, quarterback elite.
00:01:54
Speaker
Alex started training with me when he was, we think, seventh, eighth grade.
00:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, somewhere around that age, yeah.
00:02:02
Speaker
Yeah, somewhere 12, 13
Alex's Touchdown Story
00:02:04
Speaker
years.
00:02:04
Speaker
So that was about 12 or so years ago.
00:02:09
Speaker
And we became real good friends.
00:02:11
Speaker
And it's been fun to watch both of your careers develop.
00:02:15
Speaker
But Alex, yours has been really extra, extra cool to kind of watch because I know
00:02:23
Speaker
I know a lot of what was going on behind the scenes as you were kind of, and just so you know, Alex, when I speak to schools and to teams and things, I talk about you all the time.
00:02:36
Speaker
I tell this story about this.
00:02:38
Speaker
How many of you watched SportsCenter a couple of years ago when you saw the Texas A&M kickoff team go down and make a fun?
00:02:45
Speaker
And then I say, well, the kid who scored that touchdown, and then I tell the whole backstory.
00:02:51
Speaker
So it's been pretty cool to do that.
00:02:53
Speaker
So you're becoming pretty popular, at least up here in the mountains.
00:02:58
Speaker
I'm glad.
00:03:01
Speaker
But Chad's also met Brian and Alex back when you guys lived up here in Utah.
00:03:06
Speaker
And so we know you really
Commitment to E4A Principles
00:03:07
Speaker
well.
00:03:07
Speaker
And it's, Alex, I'm putting you on the spot here.
00:03:12
Speaker
It's OK if you don't.
00:03:13
Speaker
But I'm just curious, because it's been 12 or 13 years.
00:03:17
Speaker
Do you still have an eyes up, do the work, Chris fam?
00:03:20
Speaker
I do and I'm wearing it right now.
00:03:22
Speaker
I don't know if the camera can see it, but wear it every single day next to my Apple watch.
00:03:30
Speaker
You know, Dustin, he wore it all during his A&M football playing career.
00:03:36
Speaker
Wore it on game days.
00:03:38
Speaker
That was on Kyle Field.
00:03:39
Speaker
That was at Bama.
00:03:40
Speaker
That was, you know.
00:03:42
Speaker
Never played at Georgia, but you know, it was in the bowl games.
00:03:45
Speaker
Yeah, he wore that sucker off.
00:03:47
Speaker
I'm surprised it held up.
00:03:48
Speaker
So I think- I had two.
00:03:50
Speaker
I was about to say, I had two or three of them.
00:03:52
Speaker
So one of them probably didn't survive along the path, but he's been a faithful soldier for the E4A movement.
00:04:04
Speaker
Well, when the games were on, I would always watch them and look for you, and I'd pause it, and I'd take pictures and stuff of it and look for you.
Support and Influence of Brian Zettler
00:04:15
Speaker
So I know you have been wearing.
00:04:16
Speaker
I was just curious, now that you're done playing, if you still had it on.
00:04:19
Speaker
I appreciate you.
00:04:20
Speaker
Appreciate you wearing that.
00:04:21
Speaker
But Brian, you were also super supportive, especially for athletes when we first got started, helped us introduce it.
00:04:30
Speaker
It was at your event that you were putting on to raise money for leukemia, right?
00:04:36
Speaker
Kids with struggling with leukemia that I met Paul Millsap and Gordon Hayward.
00:04:41
Speaker
I came down there to support you in that event.
00:04:44
Speaker
And while I was there, I saw Gordon and just went over and introduced myself to him and
00:04:50
Speaker
Gordon was just a young, kind of sloppy haired, nerdy looking kid out of Butler trying to make it in the NBA.
00:04:58
Speaker
And four or five years later, he was an NBA All-Star.
00:05:03
Speaker
And he wore our wristband.
00:05:06
Speaker
in almost every game that he played in, you know, for the Jazz.
00:05:10
Speaker
I gave him it at that event and talked to him a little bit about the program.
00:05:14
Speaker
And then the next night they had a game and I was watching the game at home and I remember him shooting a free throw or something.
00:05:20
Speaker
And I was like, wait a minute, he's wearing the wristband.
00:05:23
Speaker
I didn't think he'd wear it.
00:05:24
Speaker
Like he still has it on.
00:05:26
Speaker
And then anyway, that led to a...
00:05:29
Speaker
Gordon doing quite a bit with us, speaking with us, doing some things.
00:05:32
Speaker
And so we appreciate your help with that, Brian.
00:05:36
Speaker
And Alex, you know, I'm going to tell your story here in a second, but I haven't let Shad say anything yet.
Acts of Generosity
00:05:43
Speaker
Shad, do you want to start with a question and kind of get us going?
00:05:47
Speaker
Or should I tell the story of Alex first?
00:05:49
Speaker
What do you think?
00:05:50
Speaker
Do you mind?
00:05:51
Speaker
Let me just tell one story to tell you what kind of guys we have on here.
00:05:57
Speaker
I have a cousin whose daughter was in primary children's hospital a lot.
00:06:03
Speaker
She had a heart, ended up having a heart transplant.
00:06:06
Speaker
And he had a son, you know, when a family's going through that, the whole family goes through it.
00:06:11
Speaker
Right.
00:06:12
Speaker
And he would come down all the time, loves basketball, ended up being a great high school basketball player, this kid.
00:06:18
Speaker
But when he was a young kid, would have to come down all the time to support his sister and to be there because she would be there for long stints.
00:06:26
Speaker
And I remember calling up Brian one time.
00:06:29
Speaker
Dustin texted me Brian's number and said, hey, call Brian.
00:06:33
Speaker
And I called you one time and said, hey, I have this nephew who's here.
00:06:38
Speaker
I would love...
00:06:39
Speaker
to bring a little bit of joy to what he's going through.
00:06:42
Speaker
Is there any chance we can get some tickets to watch the Jazz tonight?
00:06:48
Speaker
Brian sent me the best tickets I've ever had at a Jazz game in my entire life for this kid.
00:06:55
Speaker
We got to go underneath and eat the
00:06:58
Speaker
spread there.
00:07:00
Speaker
One of the best life memories I've ever had was being able to do that for my nephew and Brian, you made that possible.
00:07:07
Speaker
And I, I always just have this warm spot in my heart.
00:07:11
Speaker
It was a game day.
00:07:12
Speaker
It was day of, I texted and said, Hey, I figured out that they're down here.
00:07:17
Speaker
I knew that was the only way I could get any tickets and, and Brian took care of us.
00:07:22
Speaker
And he was just that kind of guy who always used his position and
00:07:26
Speaker
to do what he could for other people.
00:07:27
Speaker
And so perfect person to have on this podcast.
00:07:31
Speaker
And I'll forever remember that because it, those little things have such a huge impact.
00:07:38
Speaker
I have never got together with my cousin and his son since that day where we haven't talked about that memory for him, sitting that close to the court, meeting the players after eating underneath, uh,
00:07:52
Speaker
it was just something that probably a little thing for someone like you and it became a huge thing for a kid that made a huge impression.
00:08:02
Speaker
And so I just, we have the perfect guys on here to talk about what we're going to talk about dust.
00:08:06
Speaker
And that's why I wanted to share that from the beginning.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:09
Speaker
Brian, thank you for, from both of us for all you did when we were first getting this thing launched, you were super helpful for us.
Emotional Reflections on Impact
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah, no fellows.
00:08:17
Speaker
I mean, it's a, it's an honor, you know, it's,
00:08:20
Speaker
It's a privilege and it's a blessing, right?
00:08:25
Speaker
So I'm getting a little emotional about it.
00:08:31
Speaker
But you know, that's why God puts us in certain situations.
00:08:37
Speaker
Puts us in different places.
00:08:38
Speaker
I'm a Waxahachie, Texas boy, graduated from Texas A&M and
00:08:44
Speaker
Here I am, you know, at the time working for the Utah Jazz, you know, completely sticking out like a sore thumb, you know.
00:08:52
Speaker
But, you know, God just used me to kind of help spread the love a little bit and make life a little bit more enjoyable, you know, for some people.
00:09:03
Speaker
And, you know, whenever you're used as a tool for God like that, you can't help but get a little emotional, you know.
00:09:11
Speaker
It was a complete...
00:09:12
Speaker
Blessing.
00:09:13
Speaker
I'm glad that worked out.
00:09:15
Speaker
You know, I'm glad it was a positive experience, you know, instead of some of the players saying, forget these guys, who are they?
00:09:22
Speaker
Well, it's, you know, players have bad days too.
00:09:25
Speaker
And sometimes that happens.
00:09:27
Speaker
But I'm glad it was a good, memorable experience for you guys.
00:09:30
Speaker
And yeah, I'm glad, I'm blessed to have been a part of it.
00:09:35
Speaker
Well, Brian, let's kind of go into how Alex fits into this piece.
Alex's Journey to Texas A&M
00:09:40
Speaker
So Alex started coming to me for quarterback training.
00:09:43
Speaker
And I have a picture, as you showed you guys one earlier of you on the field there at Texas A&M.
00:09:49
Speaker
But before that, you know, I have a picture of you at one of my camps.
00:09:53
Speaker
And at that camp,
00:09:55
Speaker
are currently two NFL quarterbacks from Utah and another one who will be drafted here in the next month, probably a first or second round draft pick out of Ole Miss, Jackson Dart.
00:10:08
Speaker
And also at that camp were quarterbacks who are now at
00:10:12
Speaker
Utah State, Utah, one was at USC, BYU.
00:10:17
Speaker
We got guys all over that were at that same camp.
00:10:20
Speaker
And Alex, you were a little bit of a late bloomer, which happened.
00:10:24
Speaker
My son, the same thing happened to him.
00:10:25
Speaker
What I mean by late bloomer is just physically, you weren't as tall and as built at 15, 16 as you were at 17, 18.
00:10:35
Speaker
And everything that this, so people know, everything that Alex did
00:10:40
Speaker
was earned.
00:10:41
Speaker
There wasn't one thing given to him.
00:10:43
Speaker
And he just put his head down like no other kid I've ever worked with.
00:10:47
Speaker
And I've worked with a lot of athletes.
00:10:50
Speaker
I mean, I've said this on this podcast before that there's not a kid who's worked nearly as hard.
00:10:55
Speaker
In the case of Alex, there's not a kid I know that's worked harder than Alex and who has earned more everything that he's gained in his life from just
00:11:05
Speaker
living with his eyes up and doing the work.
00:11:07
Speaker
So Alex finishes high school football, has a good career, but nothing great.
00:11:12
Speaker
Doesn't have people knocking down his door to go play anywhere and didn't get a bunch of awards and wasn't all over, you know, social media, getting all the love and stuff that kids get nowadays when they play football.
00:11:23
Speaker
you know, quarterback ends up walking on at Texas A&M later on.
00:11:29
Speaker
I don't know what year it was, Alex.
00:11:30
Speaker
Maybe you can.
00:11:31
Speaker
In fact, I'll tee this up for you.
00:11:33
Speaker
Tell us about your high school.
00:11:35
Speaker
Tell us about, especially for athletes, kind of how that played in your life.
00:11:39
Speaker
And then kind of what happened when you went to Texas A&M up until you made, you scored your touchdown.
00:11:47
Speaker
Yeah, I obviously was a quarterback at Brighton High School, played baseball too, was kind of
00:11:54
Speaker
Those are my two sports I completely focused on.
00:11:57
Speaker
And working with you from a quarterback perspective gave me the skills necessary for playing QB at a high school level and also for help strengthen my arm for pitching, to be honest with you.
00:12:11
Speaker
I never really thanked you for that, but that one ended up helping me out.
00:12:16
Speaker
I mean, E4A was just super impactful in my life as I just being around my dad,
00:12:24
Speaker
I mean, we've already determined as a pretty good person.
00:12:30
Speaker
You know, you kind of see how he treats people.
00:12:33
Speaker
And, you know, the sport light was really something that hit on me growing up.
00:12:39
Speaker
It's just, you know, being the starting QB, being the starting center fielder, starting pitcher, starting coach.
00:12:47
Speaker
you know, everything there at Brighton, you have a certain spotlight on you.
00:12:51
Speaker
And you can either treat that spotlight as in everyone look at me, or you can kind of be reflective of eyes up and God and saying, hey, people eyes are on me.
00:13:03
Speaker
Let me lead their eyes towards you.
00:13:06
Speaker
And then you treat people how you believe God wanted them to be treated.
00:13:09
Speaker
That sport light was the first time I really understood what, 14, 13, 14, when you first told me that.
00:13:17
Speaker
And that was kind of something that just stuck.
00:13:20
Speaker
And that stuck all the way through, all the way through high school, all the way from Copper Hills High School, where I started to Brighton High School, where I finished.
00:13:27
Speaker
And then
00:13:28
Speaker
going to A&M, you kind of have a little bit more of a spotlight on you, being as, I mean, I don't know how much I know about A&M, but the entire city is there for the football program.
00:13:41
Speaker
And they know guys that, I would walk in Walmart and someone would know who I am.
00:13:47
Speaker
And I'm just like,
00:13:48
Speaker
You're not supposed to know who I am.
00:13:50
Speaker
I'm
Walk-On Experience and Scholarship
00:13:51
Speaker
just somebody else.
00:13:52
Speaker
But being able to be a reflection of, you know, when people look at you, you reflect what you believe in.
00:13:59
Speaker
You reflect how you want people to be treated.
00:14:01
Speaker
I think that was kind of the biggest thing I learned from Sportlight.
00:14:04
Speaker
And just I carried that with me from ever since I learned it when I was 14 to still doing it now as a coach at Georgia Southern.
00:14:13
Speaker
So you get to Texas A&M and you, I remember finding out that you made the team.
00:14:17
Speaker
You walk on, you're on the team.
00:14:19
Speaker
And I know, and whether or not our listeners know or not, but when you're a walk-on on a Division I football team, you just get your butt kicked every day for as long as you decide to do it until you probably quit, right?
00:14:32
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:14:34
Speaker
So tell me how that was and where they, and you didn't, they didn't, they moved you quick from quarterback to another position where you could get your butt kicked even harder.
00:14:43
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:14:44
Speaker
Spring ball under Jimbo's first year, 2018.
00:14:46
Speaker
They called me, Coach Elko and Coach Mark Robinson called me, brought me on a visit to A&M.
00:14:55
Speaker
They offered me a preferred walk-on, but they said, hey,
00:14:58
Speaker
We're going to move you to safety.
00:15:00
Speaker
And I was kind of like, OK, that's fine.
00:15:03
Speaker
They said it was going to be for about a year.
00:15:06
Speaker
And they're going to be back to quarterback.
00:15:07
Speaker
And they just kind of wanted me to help out with numbers because of my athleticism or whatever.
00:15:12
Speaker
And so I was like, yes, sir, absolutely.
00:15:14
Speaker
And then first fall camp, I get there for playing safety.
00:15:20
Speaker
We didn't call our coverages, cover one, two, and three.
00:15:24
Speaker
We had certain terms for them.
00:15:25
Speaker
So I was like, I don't know what's going on.
00:15:29
Speaker
I was just trying to figure it out.
00:15:31
Speaker
And first play, I have a running back who is a big four-star running back from Louisiana.
00:15:39
Speaker
Comes running right at me.
00:15:40
Speaker
And I haven't really experienced that one before.
00:15:43
Speaker
Considering I was the one that was supposed to be the aggressor.
00:15:47
Speaker
Safe to say I was not the aggressor in that situation.
00:15:51
Speaker
But you learn real quick.
00:15:52
Speaker
You're either going to let the circumstances break you or build you.
00:15:57
Speaker
And I let them build me and quickly learn that it's a lot easier to tackle people when you're running at them, not running away from them.
00:16:06
Speaker
And figured that out and just kind of let all the being the practice guy who took 74 reps while the starters took 20.
00:16:15
Speaker
just to keep them healthy got me better.
00:16:19
Speaker
I let that build me, not break me.
00:16:21
Speaker
And then being on special teams is one of the most important things I would tell any guy who wants to go to college football, make yourself as important on special teams as possible.
00:16:31
Speaker
Love special teams.
00:16:34
Speaker
A lot of people don't like it, but to me, special teams is the best part of football because everything you love in football, the running, the tackling, the hitting, the fierceness of it, I mean, that's what special teams is.
00:16:47
Speaker
And so love special teams as much as you can if you're a newcomer, whether you're in high school or college or wherever.
00:16:54
Speaker
The circumstances that happen, don't let them break.
00:16:56
Speaker
You will choose to let them build you up.
00:16:59
Speaker
I'm going to ask you one more quick question.
00:17:00
Speaker
And I know Chad has one who wants to fire out.
00:17:03
Speaker
But you said something there that might be a good pivot point.
00:17:06
Speaker
You said run at the tackle.
00:17:08
Speaker
Don't run away from it.
00:17:09
Speaker
It's the best way to approach it.
00:17:10
Speaker
So I would say that there's a life lesson in that too, right?
00:17:15
Speaker
To...
00:17:16
Speaker
to run at your fears or run at your weaknesses.
00:17:19
Speaker
Don't run away from them.
00:17:20
Speaker
And you did.
00:17:21
Speaker
You wanted to be a college football player, and it didn't play out like you'd hoped coming out of high school.
00:17:26
Speaker
You didn't, you know, you had to go really earn it at a big-time school, too, by the way, Alex.
00:17:31
Speaker
You could have done this at an easier place.
00:17:32
Speaker
You didn't have to go to –
00:17:34
Speaker
a top 10 program in the country like Texas A&M.
00:17:37
Speaker
But you did.
00:17:39
Speaker
And you make it and you get a chance to be on the team.
00:17:42
Speaker
But you continue to run at it every year because most guys don't stick around for as long as you did.
00:17:48
Speaker
And tell us what happened.
00:17:50
Speaker
I have a picture somewhere of Jimbo Fisher, Coach Fisher, shaking your hand.
00:17:56
Speaker
What happened at the end of your three or four years as a walk-on?
Tradition of the 12th Man
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah, it was the fall camp of my junior year.
00:18:05
Speaker
I mean, A&M, as you know, has a very history of 12th man.
00:18:10
Speaker
And there was a couple of guys in competition for the 12th man that year.
00:18:16
Speaker
And I was one of the guys in competition.
00:18:20
Speaker
Hello, everybody.
00:18:20
Speaker
Alex, just remind anybody that doesn't know what's the 12th man at Texas A&M.
00:18:25
Speaker
So the 12th man is, the legend has it, it dates all the way back to early 1900s.
00:18:30
Speaker
I know he'll probably know the exact day.
00:18:34
Speaker
Hey, hey, hey, wait a minute, that's rude.
00:18:36
Speaker
Are you trying to imply that he was alive back then?
00:18:39
Speaker
No, no, I'm saying he knows everything about A&M history a little more than I do.
00:18:44
Speaker
Me and my T-Rex.
00:18:45
Speaker
I run my T-Rex into work every day.
00:18:49
Speaker
Yeah, no, but we had a kid, a student by the name of E. King Gill was at the Cotton Bowl and he was a student at Texas A&M.
00:19:02
Speaker
A&M had had a lot of players get injured and E. King Gill stood in the student section with the entire first half of the game.
00:19:10
Speaker
And then at halftime, the head coach, I believe it was Dana Bible?
00:19:14
Speaker
Correct.
00:19:15
Speaker
Dana Bible went to E. King Gill and saw him standing the whole game.
00:19:20
Speaker
And said, I want you to come stand on the sideline for us and play in case anybody else gets hurt.
00:19:25
Speaker
Cuz we were, A&M had nobody left to play.
00:19:28
Speaker
And since that moment, the Texas A&M student section has donned themselves as the 12th man because they're always standing ready to go, ready to get in the game, even though realistically they're not going to get in the game.
00:19:44
Speaker
But then from a football perspective, R.C.
00:19:47
Speaker
Slocum, I believe, was the first one to...
00:19:50
Speaker
implement having a former walk-on be the 12th man.
00:19:54
Speaker
And so he would name a walk-on of the week or day or whatever it was to be the 12th man.
00:20:01
Speaker
And it was a guy who started as a walk-on, played mostly special teams and represented all the A&M values.
00:20:08
Speaker
And then over the course of time, it just kind of took path.
00:20:13
Speaker
That was kind of the thing I was on my goals.
00:20:16
Speaker
That's what I'm shooting for.
00:20:18
Speaker
I think one of the important things, you know, about the legend of E. King Gill was he was, I believe, a baseball player, but he also served as a manager on the football team.
00:20:28
Speaker
So he was there with him every day, you know, sweating it, you know, going through practice and doing all that.
00:20:35
Speaker
But he wasn't reaping the benefits, you know, of baseball.
00:20:38
Speaker
putting your feet on the grass and hitting somebody or throwing to somebody or catching.
00:20:44
Speaker
So, you know, I think that that resiliency that he displayed then is kind of what made him so legendary and made him the honorable figure that he is today, such that, you know, they have named the 12th man, you know, kind of in his honor, not only to, you know,
00:21:04
Speaker
stand as he did, even though he never got in the game and similar to what the student body does now.
00:21:10
Speaker
But, you know, just that his willingness to be there and to help out, if ever called upon, that's what makes him so legendary.
00:21:19
Speaker
Well, Alex, you're, you sit, it's your junior year.
00:21:22
Speaker
Everyone's fighting for this 12th man recognition or award or something.
00:21:27
Speaker
And what is it, what happened and what was the, other than being named the 12th man, what else came with that?
Perseverance in Adversity
00:21:33
Speaker
So our starting long snapper, he was a senior.
00:21:37
Speaker
He got named the 12th man.
00:21:39
Speaker
And there's no real anything that comes with it other than being named as the representative of the university, kind of in a way.
00:21:49
Speaker
Representative of the student body.
00:21:50
Speaker
The student body, yeah.
00:21:52
Speaker
But the long snapper, Connor Chope, got named 12th man.
00:21:55
Speaker
I was pretty frustrated and bummed or whatever just because I was competing for it.
00:22:00
Speaker
And then...
00:22:01
Speaker
That was during the team meeting and then after the team meeting with our position meetings and then you go to walk through and during walk through Coach Fisher calls me up and he looks me and just says, hey, you've done a great job here.
00:22:14
Speaker
We're going to offer you a scholarship.
00:22:15
Speaker
We're going to put you on scholarship.
00:22:17
Speaker
I kind of, mine kind of went blank.
00:22:19
Speaker
Knees kind of a week.
00:22:20
Speaker
I was like, oh, okay.
00:22:22
Speaker
That's an awesome, awesome thing to do and
00:22:25
Speaker
Told me that right before practice.
00:22:27
Speaker
Honestly, can't even tell you how the practice went.
00:22:31
Speaker
I was just kind of excited to go talk to my dad afterwards.
00:22:34
Speaker
But yeah, it was a fun time.
00:22:36
Speaker
It was a cool experience.
00:22:38
Speaker
I felt lucky to be given that opportunity.
00:22:43
Speaker
I have one thing to add about Alex's scholarship experience.
00:22:46
Speaker
So it was about, you know, he played six years.
00:22:51
Speaker
played six years at A&M, registered his first year.
00:22:54
Speaker
Second year was the COVID year.
00:22:56
Speaker
So that was a sophomore year, it didn't really count.
00:22:58
Speaker
As all that went, everybody could kind of skip over their COVID year and have an extra year of eligibility.
00:23:06
Speaker
So then he had his junior year, which was the year that they awarded him the scholarship.
00:23:11
Speaker
So played well, did everything he was supposed to.
00:23:15
Speaker
And then the very next summer, we receive a registered letter in the mail.
00:23:23
Speaker
And we were like, hey, what's this about?
00:23:25
Speaker
Came from Texas A&M Athletics.
00:23:29
Speaker
And I was like, hey, Alex, is it okay if I open this up?
00:23:32
Speaker
He goes, sure.
00:23:33
Speaker
We open it up and it says that they revoked his scholarship.
00:23:39
Speaker
And so we were kind of taken aback by that.
00:23:42
Speaker
We didn't really know what was going on.
00:23:45
Speaker
Alex didn't have a clue what was going on with that.
00:23:49
Speaker
So he checked in with everybody.
00:23:52
Speaker
And the kind of frustrating thing is no one from the coaching staff or anybody reached out to say anything about why it was getting revoked.
00:24:02
Speaker
And so, you know, he did his homework and was respectful and went and talked to everybody, the appropriate people, if they had time for him, because, you know, he was still kind of seen as a walk-on, even though he had done his job.
00:24:17
Speaker
And they basically said, well, it's just a numbers game.
00:24:20
Speaker
They had to use that to go towards a five-star that they were bringing in, and he was just the next man on the chopping block.
00:24:28
Speaker
So I'm going to give him some credit here because it would have been very easy for him to say, screw this, I'm out.
00:24:35
Speaker
Or for him to say, you know what, I'm going into the portal.
00:24:38
Speaker
Or for him to even say, this is such a bad taste in my mouth, I'm going to quit.
00:24:44
Speaker
I'm going to leave.
00:24:45
Speaker
I'm done with this.
00:24:46
Speaker
But he didn't.
00:24:47
Speaker
You know, he stuck it out and kept playing that was his senior year.
00:24:52
Speaker
And he lettered.
00:24:53
Speaker
He played so much, kind of used that to fuel his fire a little bit, I think.
00:24:58
Speaker
And then continued playing as a graduate student for those two years.
00:25:02
Speaker
He lettered those two years as well.
00:25:04
Speaker
So, you know, half his time there, played enough where he lettered.
00:25:08
Speaker
Academic, all SEC, you know, those last three years after that was revoked.
00:25:14
Speaker
And playing time skyrocketed and everything was...
00:25:17
Speaker
was great.
00:25:18
Speaker
So it's one of those situations where it's easy to have that kind of be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
00:25:26
Speaker
Or if you're an ant, you're gonna use that straw to get from one side of the gorge to the other.
00:25:32
Speaker
And that's exactly what he did.
00:25:34
Speaker
And I think he used that to kind of piss himself off a little bit and fuel this fire and to make the most of the situation.
00:25:44
Speaker
And it worked out for him because,
00:25:47
Speaker
Not only does he understand, and he's starting to understand it now, I think, as I talk in front of him, because it was a situation where, yes, it showed his resiliency and his fortitude, if you want to put it that way, as a player.
00:26:06
Speaker
And it displayed his love for the game.
00:26:08
Speaker
It promoted him more as who he is as a person.
00:26:12
Speaker
and how he handles adversity and how he handles the sport life.
00:26:17
Speaker
And that's really boded well for him here as he's going into his budding coaching career.
00:26:23
Speaker
You know, he was getting ready to go be a graduate assistant for Mike Helco at Duke.
00:26:28
Speaker
And then Mike Helco calls and says, Alex, how about you
Coaching Opportunities and Reputation
00:26:32
Speaker
stay put?
00:26:32
Speaker
I'm coming back to A&M.
00:26:34
Speaker
So that's kind of how it opened up his coaching career, just because he's made a good name for himself
00:26:41
Speaker
in instances similar to that, you know, and in that very instance.
00:26:44
Speaker
That's kind of grown from there where his old position coaches knew how he got screwed over, but knew the kind of person he was and how he persevered.
00:26:54
Speaker
And that's how he got his job at Georgia Southern as an assistant safety coach.
00:26:58
Speaker
You know, and the progression is you start off as a student coach and then as a GA coach,
00:27:06
Speaker
and then maybe he has an analyst, and then maybe he has an assistant position coach, and a position coach, offensive coordinator, head coach, or something of that nature.
00:27:17
Speaker
So this opportunity that he has now, just from the coaches who know him and know what he does, he's been able to jump quite a few spots there.
00:27:26
Speaker
So, I mean, his second year out of college, he's already a
00:27:32
Speaker
I think that it's just a testament to his perseverance and to his love of the game.
00:27:39
Speaker
You know, I love that story so much.
Resilience and Hard Work in Sports
00:27:44
Speaker
19 quotes come to mind that you're living.
00:27:46
Speaker
You know, life is 10% what happens to you, 90% how you respond.
00:27:53
Speaker
Last week, Dustin and I talked on our podcast about the importance of accepting your role, but not settling for your role.
00:28:02
Speaker
Those are two very different things.
00:28:04
Speaker
And I see that in your story.
00:28:07
Speaker
My question for you, Alex, I would love you to speak to this.
00:28:11
Speaker
And then sometimes, Brian, it's easier for you to say, well, let me tell you what he would say if he wasn't humble.
00:28:18
Speaker
You know, you could speak to it too, but.
00:28:23
Speaker
Take me into the heart of an individual that responds that way.
00:28:29
Speaker
Alex, I'm really interested in the inner thinking of someone who responds in a resilient way to a setback like that.
00:28:43
Speaker
Tell us about your inner thoughts.
00:28:45
Speaker
What did you tell yourself that allowed you to respond so positively that have opened up all these doors of opportunity, whereas another person may have let that just destroy them?
00:28:57
Speaker
I think it would be beneficial for people to know what was going on.
00:29:01
Speaker
Why did you stay?
00:29:03
Speaker
And what did you tell yourself to respond the way that you did?
00:29:07
Speaker
Initially, the thought was more chip on the shoulder like, okay, this is what you're gonna do to me like, watch what happens.
00:29:17
Speaker
And then it's healthy.
00:29:18
Speaker
Right.
00:29:19
Speaker
And that's it's 100% healthy.
00:29:20
Speaker
I think it's
00:29:22
Speaker
very healthy mindset for whatever.
00:29:25
Speaker
I mean, there's a lot of, I mean, in life, you know, a lot of negative, bad things can happen to you.
00:29:31
Speaker
A lot of people can do you dirty, but it's kind of just like, okay, cool.
00:29:36
Speaker
Watch this.
00:29:37
Speaker
It's something that I always love saying that I've got, I'm not gonna lie to you.
00:29:41
Speaker
Got that from Dustin a little bit.
00:29:43
Speaker
Like he, we would be working out and
00:29:45
Speaker
Someone else would have a good throw that was a little bit more of a line than my throw and probably Zach Wilson is in the NFL now, but whatever.
00:29:54
Speaker
And I would be mad, I was like, all right, Dustin, watch this.
00:29:57
Speaker
And I would just go and hum it as hard as I could and he would say, standing to me.
00:30:01
Speaker
And so that just kind of progresses where it's just like,
00:30:05
Speaker
It's just that inner competitor in me where I'm just like, you don't think I'm going to be something?
00:30:10
Speaker
You don't think I'm going to do something?
00:30:12
Speaker
Just watch me prove it to you.
00:30:15
Speaker
And then another thing I think that kind of, after that initial angry emotions came on, I'm just, I've always been a guy who loves to, you know, look at the blessings and not the problems.
00:30:29
Speaker
And, you know, when you kind of look at it with the,
00:30:31
Speaker
glass halfway full, not empty mindset, you start to enjoy where you're at a little bit more.
00:30:37
Speaker
And so it took me some time to, like I said, get over the angry emotions, but then I sat there and I was like, okay, well, I'm playing football, which not a lot of people do at my age.
00:30:48
Speaker
And I love that, thankful for that.
00:30:50
Speaker
Playing at the school I grew up loving, not a lot of people can do that.
00:30:54
Speaker
So I'm thankful for that, love that.
00:30:57
Speaker
And I'm doing it for maybe not the head coach that I love, but the position coach and the GAs I love and also with the teammates that I loved.
00:31:06
Speaker
And it was just, you know, when you fill your, I filled my,
00:31:12
Speaker
unfortunate circumstance, there's positive emotions and positive thoughts.
00:31:18
Speaker
You know, it makes that negative kind of go away and you just begin to have fun with what you do.
00:31:25
Speaker
I'm a big believer in having fun and everything.
00:31:27
Speaker
And the way to have fun is to focus on the positive side of life.
00:31:32
Speaker
And that's just kind of what I...
00:31:35
Speaker
And, you know, after that, I kind of quit stressing so much about football.
00:31:39
Speaker
I just wanted to enjoy my time there with who I was with and be a competitor at it still.
00:31:48
Speaker
But, yeah, I just had fun with it and it ended up being my best three years there and most enjoyable three years there I had.
00:31:57
Speaker
And I think one of the biggest mottos, I guess, you know, that we've adopted as a family, just from all of our family experiences with this being one of them, is that the best revenge is unprecedented success.
00:32:12
Speaker
So, you know, it's been said before, you know, the best revenge is success, but we like to say unprecedented because it's one thing to be successful and that's great.
00:32:22
Speaker
but to do something that's unprecedented, to do something that's never been done before, well that kinda makes that little march of success
00:32:32
Speaker
puts an asterisk on it, you know, for us, and it makes it a little bit more special.
00:32:36
Speaker
And that's what he did.
00:32:37
Speaker
And, you know, and the play that Dustin, you referred to, you know, with the 12th man kickoff team and Alex went down and made the tackle and bumble recovery and all the good stuff that, you know, that ESPN played after the fact, you know, that was incredible.
00:32:51
Speaker
And then,
00:32:53
Speaker
You know, that was his last year.
00:32:55
Speaker
And then also his last year, the team awarded him the 12th Man Brotherhood Award just for him being such a good teammate.
00:33:04
Speaker
And I think those things absolutely fall into great revenge being set by unprecedented success.
Life Lessons from Sports
00:33:12
Speaker
Yeah, well, and I can tell you that, and Shad, I'm sure you're thinking similar thoughts here because we just talked about several of these principles as Shad alluded to earlier in an episode we did recently about your role in different things.
00:33:27
Speaker
And one thing that we discussed is that when you don't have everything going your way and you're not maybe getting the playing time or getting the respect or whatever it is that you feel like you deserve,
00:33:38
Speaker
And I think everybody feels that, whether or not we're actually correct in that or not.
00:33:43
Speaker
I know now as a coach, Alex, you'll be dealing with that, where you'll have a kid who does work harder than everybody, but you've got to decide between him and the other kid who doesn't work as hard, but runs faster and is, right?
00:33:57
Speaker
And you have to, it's hard as a coach, right?
00:33:59
Speaker
But what does not get forgotten, and it's the case with what, Brian, you said about this coach that came back from Duke,
00:34:07
Speaker
is that one year, two years, 10, 20 years after you're done playing, the kid who was...
00:34:14
Speaker
just a good player and he played because he was super athletic.
00:34:18
Speaker
He's not remembered and sought out after five years after.
00:34:22
Speaker
It's the kid who worked really hard that is.
00:34:24
Speaker
It's the kid who was the Brotherhood teammate award winner.
00:34:26
Speaker
That's the kid who people want to continue to do business with, so to speak, right?
00:34:30
Speaker
As a coach, I'd be more willing to reach out to that kid later and say, hey, what are you doing?
00:34:36
Speaker
You want to come back and coach?
00:34:37
Speaker
Or if I, you know, with my business, hey, this is the kind of kid I'd hire.
00:34:41
Speaker
The other kid ran faster.
00:34:43
Speaker
He was taller.
00:34:44
Speaker
He could catch the ball maybe better, but he had nowhere near the understanding of team and of brotherhood and of knowing your role and working hard and being respectful and loyal and all the things.
00:34:55
Speaker
So later on in your life, it's hard to see at the moment because it's real easy, and you didn't, Alex.
00:35:00
Speaker
It's real easy to just see that I'm getting screwed.
00:35:03
Speaker
This isn't fair, right?
00:35:05
Speaker
And so in response to that,
00:35:08
Speaker
I don't owe you anything to heck with you.
00:35:10
Speaker
I'm out of here.
00:35:11
Speaker
And then what ends up happening is you don't play football anymore.
00:35:14
Speaker
Right.
00:35:15
Speaker
You don't get a chance to be the number one play on SportsCenter.
00:35:19
Speaker
Right.
00:35:19
Speaker
You don't have those opportunities because you let your anger and spite and ego, so to speak, which is hard.
00:35:25
Speaker
Like I would have been I would have walked, man.
00:35:27
Speaker
Like I what you did is, you know, I think I would have been like, no, especially after all you've done to my body and all that.
00:35:35
Speaker
This is hard.
00:35:35
Speaker
It's hard.
00:35:36
Speaker
You know,
00:35:37
Speaker
playing football for six years and as a walk on like playing 74 reps when the other guys are getting 20 at practice.
00:35:44
Speaker
That's 74 collisions, right?
00:35:46
Speaker
And sprints.
00:35:47
Speaker
And so that's why Alex, what you're doing now has panned out and that's the big picture.
00:35:53
Speaker
I would say that's eyes up, do the work, right?
00:35:55
Speaker
Chad.
00:35:56
Speaker
I mean, that's eyes up.
00:35:58
Speaker
And we've, you've heard us say this before, Alex and Brian in that moment, Alex, my guess is when, when your dad read that letter,
00:36:06
Speaker
that your initial reaction, if we could go back in time and watch you in that moment, your initial reaction would have been your eyes went down because you were disappointed.
00:36:16
Speaker
Maybe you went by yourself in your room for a second and were kind of shocked by it, taken back for it, right?
00:36:22
Speaker
And that's when we have to make the decision to keep our eyes down and feel sorry for ourself or to get our eyes up and get back to work, right?
00:36:31
Speaker
Realize it is what it is
00:36:34
Speaker
Now it's time to get back to work and what's next, right?
00:36:38
Speaker
And what you did was get your eyes up and get back to work and then look what came after that.
00:36:44
Speaker
All the success and even now is coaching because you kept your eyes up.
00:36:48
Speaker
You looked at what was most important, your family, your teammates who still loved you and wanted you there, your love for the game, God, all those things that your eyes were up, that was your compass, right?
00:36:59
Speaker
That's your Northern Star, those people and those...
00:37:02
Speaker
And then you said, I'm going to keep working.
00:37:04
Speaker
And that, in my mind, is the definition of grit and resiliency.
00:37:09
Speaker
I mean, Shad, would you agree?
00:37:11
Speaker
I mean, that is probably the greatest.
00:37:13
Speaker
It's your bit, because resilience is the ability to bounce back or
Personal Development Beyond Stardom
00:37:17
Speaker
recover.
00:37:17
Speaker
It's an object's ability to regain its shape or its form after being traumatized.
00:37:24
Speaker
And that's exactly what Alex did.
00:37:27
Speaker
Right, Chef?
00:37:28
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:37:28
Speaker
And I just feel like something you said there, Dustin, is really important.
00:37:33
Speaker
Oftentimes, sports podcasts and other things focus on, they try to go out and get those stars that are going to bring a lot of attention, you know, to a podcast or whatever.
00:37:48
Speaker
Our approach is different because, you know,
00:37:51
Speaker
The intro to our podcast says we aim at learning life's lessons through sports.
00:37:58
Speaker
And for me, the lessons of sports are available to everyone who participates in.
00:38:06
Speaker
You do not have to be a star at Texas A&M
00:38:09
Speaker
to have life-changing lessons that will impact the way you view the world, the way you view other people, the impact that you have on the world.
00:38:23
Speaker
I personally love these stories.
00:38:27
Speaker
I've heard all the others.
00:38:29
Speaker
I've heard all the other stories, but we often don't hear these stories, the stories of the resilient people
00:38:37
Speaker
football player who walks on to Texas A&M, who responds to disappointment, who takes beating after beating to do his part to make his team better.
00:38:49
Speaker
I love those stories and they so often go untold.
00:38:54
Speaker
But the reason why we love them so much is I don't care how far down the road you go.
00:39:00
Speaker
There are Alex Zettlers on high school football teams right now.
00:39:06
Speaker
that will never sniff a college football field.
00:39:09
Speaker
They'll probably not even appear on a high school football field, but they can draw the lessons from being a football player that you drew from Texas A&M.
00:39:20
Speaker
I love sports so much, and that's why I'm like a geek for sports.
00:39:25
Speaker
I love this stuff so
00:39:28
Speaker
And if we'll stop acting like everything beneficial that happens on a football field to the coaches and parents who are listening, that the only life lessons are learned on Friday nights under the light, that is not true.
00:39:43
Speaker
And if coaches were more intentional about
00:39:46
Speaker
helping young people learn those lessons like you've shared, Alex, and then we can use sports to grow people.
00:39:54
Speaker
And for 99% of the people who play sports, that's what it's all about.
00:39:59
Speaker
For 100%.
00:40:00
Speaker
For 1% or 2%, it's also about making money, having fame, getting NIL deals and all that stuff too.
00:40:06
Speaker
That's great.
00:40:07
Speaker
But for the majority of parents who are passionate about sports, I hope this is the stuff they're passionate about and the way they respond to it.
00:40:17
Speaker
will in large measure determine whether it's an Alex Zettler story or a story of someone who quits and moves on.
00:40:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:26
Speaker
And that, that, that, that isn't even a story, right?
00:40:29
Speaker
I mean, that's so tired and dry and so uninteresting that, well, yeah, he quit and he moved on.
00:40:34
Speaker
Well, okay, we'll end the story, right?
00:40:35
Speaker
Like we're not going to, we're not going to talk to that kid, right?
00:40:38
Speaker
I mean, we don't want to interview that kid.
00:40:40
Speaker
And Chad, I'm going to pick up on something you said about Alex in that it,
00:40:45
Speaker
Chad said at the beginning there, guys, he said, you don't have to be a star on the field to learn the lesson of sports.
Legacy of Legendary Coaching
00:40:52
Speaker
Right.
00:40:52
Speaker
And I would also add to that.
00:40:54
Speaker
And I think you're a perfect example of it, Alex.
00:40:56
Speaker
And I'm thinking of some other kids that I've coached that I feel the same for.
00:41:01
Speaker
And I believe to be true.
00:41:02
Speaker
You don't have to be a star on the field to be a legend at your school.
00:41:07
Speaker
Right.
00:41:08
Speaker
And what I mean by that is that, Alex, you didn't have a million touchdowns and earn a bunch of awards and, you know, and play an entire, you know, every play.
00:41:17
Speaker
But you're a legend at Texas A&M.
00:41:20
Speaker
I mean, what you did there will be played forever.
00:41:23
Speaker
Your reputation at Texas will be talked about by coaches and players forever.
00:41:29
Speaker
And you weren't a star on the football field.
00:41:32
Speaker
You know, where there have been other stars who are on that field, there's one probably the biggest in the last 20 years who you never even hear about him anymore.
00:41:40
Speaker
Right.
00:41:41
Speaker
I mean, he's done nothing with since football ended.
00:41:44
Speaker
I don't know what he's up to.
00:41:46
Speaker
It's and everyone remembers him for all of his performance and all the electric plays.
00:41:52
Speaker
But when it comes down to like, hey, who do I want to have in the boxhole with me in a battle?
00:41:57
Speaker
It's going to be the guy like Alex Zettler.
00:41:59
Speaker
And so you've become a legend because you acted like a star as a teammate and your example.
00:42:07
Speaker
And I would say the same for any high school kid, that if you want to be a legend in your coach's eyes or in your teammates' eyes or in your school's eyes, you don't have to go out and be the very best player.
00:42:16
Speaker
You should try to be.
00:42:18
Speaker
But if you are the very best teammate and you're coachable and you're loyal and you come to work every day, ready to go to work.
00:42:23
Speaker
And Brian, maybe that tees up my question I wanted to ask you, because I was just saying that I thought of somebody when I said, bring your lunch, pal.
00:42:30
Speaker
I thought of your experience with with Jerry Sloan.
00:42:33
Speaker
You know, Jerry Sloan didn't win an NBA championship.
00:42:37
Speaker
All those years, he did everything to win one.
00:42:40
Speaker
Didn't get it.
00:42:41
Speaker
But my guess is, is that you would attest to this, is that that was a guy who coached for however many 20, 30 years or whatever in the NBA, who came to work every day and respected the players who did the same, right?
00:42:56
Speaker
And those on the bench with them that did the same.
00:42:58
Speaker
Do you have anything about Coach Sloan?
00:43:01
Speaker
Is he still the second or third all-time winning as coach?
00:43:05
Speaker
Do you know?
00:43:07
Speaker
You know, I'm not sure where he is in the coaching ranks, but he's top three for sure.
00:43:13
Speaker
He's 12 to three.
00:43:15
Speaker
But I don't know, I'll be honest with you, since I left the NBA, I don't know if Doc Rivers has caught him or if anyone else has caught him or what that situation is or where he stands.
00:43:26
Speaker
But I just know, you know, like you said, you know, and Alex, you know,
00:43:33
Speaker
and I'm not promoting him, but I'm not promoting him at the same time.
00:43:37
Speaker
You know, one of the things it's about, you know, showing up for work every day.
00:43:41
Speaker
That was one thing that coach Sloan was huge on.
00:43:44
Speaker
And that was a lesson that even Alex as a ball boy picked up on.
00:43:50
Speaker
When he went to Texas A&M, he was there for six years.
00:43:53
Speaker
There are some days where you get tired, you don't want to work, you know, my hamstrings a little sore, my ankles a little tweaky.
00:44:01
Speaker
I just don't think I'm gonna practice today, I'm gonna take it easy and sit out.
00:44:05
Speaker
So for six years that he was a part of the team, he was there every day.
00:44:10
Speaker
He missed 12 days and that was only because he had mono going into his senior year and he missed 12 days in a row.
00:44:19
Speaker
But I mean, I forgot it was like 1700 and something days that we had figured out that he had made in a row.
00:44:26
Speaker
that the team had a requirement for him.
00:44:30
Speaker
And he fulfilled all that until he was a slacker and caught mono.
00:44:35
Speaker
Good job, dude.
00:44:36
Speaker
You know how you get mono, right, Alex, at Texas A&M?
00:44:41
Speaker
Wasn't my case.
00:44:42
Speaker
I have no idea.
00:44:48
Speaker
I know how dudes get mono, Alex.
00:44:50
Speaker
You're not getting anything by me.
00:44:52
Speaker
Exactly.
00:44:53
Speaker
Mr. Football star, Texas A&M, Mr. Twelfth man.
00:44:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:01
Speaker
No, but Coach Sloan was, Coach Sloan, he was, he was great.
00:45:06
Speaker
You know, and one of the things that,
00:45:07
Speaker
you alluded to with Alex's and with Coach Sloan is the word legend.
00:45:16
Speaker
And I think in all of our careers, you kinda have to decide.
00:45:26
Speaker
It goes one or two ways, you can either be a legend or you can leave the legacy.
00:45:33
Speaker
And I think your hard work, your discipline,
00:45:37
Speaker
your resiliency, your persistence, your perseverance.
00:45:42
Speaker
I think that shows to be a good example to your peers, to your other coaches, to your teammates, if you're a coach to your players.
00:45:53
Speaker
And that helps leave that legacy, you know, to carry that torch on and to follow in that footstep.
00:46:02
Speaker
You know, and in doing that, I think you inadvertently become a legend.
00:46:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:08
Speaker
But if you seek out, you know, to be a legend, if you seek out, well, I want to do this for me, I'm the greatest of all time.
00:46:18
Speaker
I'm going to be all time, whatever it may be.
00:46:21
Speaker
I think that a lot of times you see those people who are in search of being a legend will fail or they will fall because the bar they've set for themselves, they've never been able to attain it.
00:46:35
Speaker
But I think that the people who
00:46:38
Speaker
are in it to develop a legacy, those are the ones who truly become the legends.
00:46:46
Speaker
Because they never see the bar, just because they're always setting it higher for themselves.
00:46:52
Speaker
I forgot there was a quote that I shared with my girls, maybe you don't always notice your progress because you're always raising your bar.
00:47:00
Speaker
You know, and I think that's part of leaving your legacy.
00:47:04
Speaker
I think those, again, you know, who are in it for selfish reasons and they want to be a legend are not as successful as those who are in it to leave the legacy, setting the bar higher for themselves and for everybody else.
00:47:18
Speaker
Just so...
00:47:20
Speaker
you know, that can be a change somehow.
00:47:22
Speaker
I talked to him one time on the phone and you may have set it up.
00:47:26
Speaker
It was one of my favorite conversations ever, but it was after coach Sloan is retired and I got him on a phone call.
00:47:32
Speaker
We, we talked for,
00:47:34
Speaker
I don't know, 20 minutes or so.
00:47:35
Speaker
And I was trying to get him to do some stuff with, with especially for athletes, but that wasn't really a coach Sloan's MO at the time or thing.
00:47:44
Speaker
And, but man, I just love talking to him.
00:47:46
Speaker
Just, just, I mean, this is one of the greatest coaches to ever coach, but what I love the most about him, and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this or you have any stories or anything, but I love the fact that he was a, if you weren't here to work,
00:48:00
Speaker
if you had practice or whatever it was, if you weren't grateful for the opportunity that you had, because he seemed extremely grateful to be able to coach and be in the professional sports world, coming for the farmer from, you know, from a small town to have that, he never seemed to let that get too far away from him.
00:48:19
Speaker
Right.
00:48:19
Speaker
That, but if you didn't come ready to like knuckle up and get after it and bleed and sweat and fight, if you had to, then you didn't take very long for him to be done with you.
00:48:29
Speaker
Right.
00:48:29
Speaker
He couldn't be around you.
00:48:31
Speaker
Correct, correct.
00:48:32
Speaker
Yeah, and that's, you know, one of the stories I've got of Coach Sloan.
00:48:38
Speaker
He was such an incredible man.
00:48:41
Speaker
You know, I've been blessed to meet a lot of
00:48:45
Speaker
what some would call important people, I guess, around the world, around the globe.
00:48:51
Speaker
And Coach Sloan's easily in my top five, just because of the way he acted as you alluded to, and the way he treated people.
00:49:03
Speaker
It goes back to like I was saying about leaving the legacy.
00:49:06
Speaker
Yeah, he's a legend because as a player, he was hard as nails.
00:49:10
Speaker
And as a coach, you know, his work ethic was unmatched.
00:49:14
Speaker
So it'd be easy to be a legend just for that.
00:49:16
Speaker
But to me, he's a legend because of the legacy.
00:49:18
Speaker
And again, one of the stories that comes to mind is we're getting down towards the end of his coaching career and we're all eating dinner one night and we're in Los Angeles.
00:49:29
Speaker
And, you know, he's coming to the realization, you know, that things are slowing down, I guess.
00:49:36
Speaker
And that he's starting to sense that it might be time for him to leave.
00:49:42
Speaker
And he left voluntarily.
00:49:43
Speaker
One of the questions came up about, what do you think about some of these new coaches and stuff that are coming up, that are nipping at the heels of these older coaches and trying to move them out and take their job and steal their job and take their livelihood.
00:49:59
Speaker
And I can't tell you the exact words he used.
00:50:04
Speaker
But basically he was like, well, forget that because our job is to help those young guys out.
00:50:12
Speaker
Our job is to promote these young guys and to teach these young guys and to give them the torch, give them the torch so that they can go on and carry on the traditions and the lessons and the right way to do things.
00:50:26
Speaker
So in that, I mean, he's telling you,
00:50:30
Speaker
Hey, it's all about legacy.
00:50:32
Speaker
It's not about legend.
00:50:34
Speaker
It's all about legacy and passing it on and teaching others.
00:50:38
Speaker
And that's one lesson that I'll always remember about Coach Sloan.
00:50:45
Speaker
I'll tell you that and his humility, because here he was, I mean, Hall of Famer, the guy is sitting in Springfield, just Hall of Famer, legend, legacy, everything.
00:50:58
Speaker
One Saturday, we were living in West Jordan, Utah, and he had an old white van.
00:51:05
Speaker
And I'm out working in the yard.
00:51:07
Speaker
You know, it's in the summer.
00:51:08
Speaker
There's not much going on basketball-wise.
00:51:11
Speaker
And I see this white van coming down the road.
00:51:14
Speaker
You know, my girls and Alex are playing in the front yard and everything.
00:51:18
Speaker
And as the van comes closer, I realize it's Coach Sloan.
00:51:22
Speaker
And so he pulls up and stops and he's waving and all of my kids are waving because he was great with them.
00:51:29
Speaker
And I said, Hey coach, what's going on today?
00:51:32
Speaker
And he said, well, I just went to this garage sale.
00:51:34
Speaker
He loved garage sales, huge on garage sales.
00:51:37
Speaker
He's legendary for garage sales.
00:51:40
Speaker
I went to this garage sale and I found something and I thought about your girls and I thought you may want it.
00:51:47
Speaker
And so it was just a little bitty,
00:51:50
Speaker
table with two chairs, you know, toddler size and the girls, they had been two, three, four years old.
00:51:57
Speaker
He said, Hey, you know, I thought you might want this for the girls.
00:52:01
Speaker
And I said, coach, this is great.
00:52:03
Speaker
This is awesome.
00:52:04
Speaker
This will go perfect in their playroom.
00:52:07
Speaker
They'll love this.
00:52:08
Speaker
I said, what do I owe you?
00:52:10
Speaker
And he said, oh, nothing.
00:52:11
Speaker
This is my gift to you.
00:52:13
Speaker
So he got out and he played with Alex and played with the girls for a little bit.
00:52:17
Speaker
Then he looked at his watch and goes, oh, I got another garage sale I got to hit.
00:52:20
Speaker
I'll come back later.
00:52:22
Speaker
But I mean, just somebody with that humility, that level of caring about your people, that's where the word loyalty comes to mind.
00:52:31
Speaker
And I was forever loyal to that man, and I will be.
00:52:35
Speaker
And it's just because of the legend that he is and the stature that he is, that he was able to, in my eyes, stoop down to my level and help me out.
00:52:48
Speaker
that's forever been a good influence and an imprint on my mind.
00:52:52
Speaker
So, and that's where when you talk about the sport life, when you talk about eyes up doing the work, that's exactly the lessons that E4A teaches.
00:53:01
Speaker
And that's the same stuff that Alex has learned from E4A.
00:53:05
Speaker
because that's the stuff as a player at Texas A&M, you know, whenever it came to him helping out the Boys and Girls Club or going on a mission trip or something like that.
00:53:15
Speaker
Not thinking of yourself as being better than someone else and lower than himself.
00:53:18
Speaker
It's just about, hey, we're all equal.
00:53:20
Speaker
We're all teammates.
00:53:21
Speaker
We're all here together.
00:53:22
Speaker
Let's just help each other out.
00:53:24
Speaker
And I think those are all just great lessons, not really in sports life, but in real life.
00:53:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:33
Speaker
Well, I can tell you, too, Brian and Alex, as you're going into it, I don't know if you noticed this, but you will now that you're coaching.
00:53:41
Speaker
Right.
00:53:41
Speaker
Alex is now coaching at Georgia Southern coaching football.
Advice on Coaching and Personal Connections
00:53:45
Speaker
Your dad referred to he didn't say Jerry Sloan.
00:53:48
Speaker
He said Coach Sloan.
00:53:50
Speaker
There's something about when you get into coaching, being referred to as coach, at least for me, I think it's a pretty cool kind of honor, right?
00:54:01
Speaker
When your players call you coach long after assistant coaches call you coach.
00:54:05
Speaker
I know when I talk to you, I don't think you've ever said, Dustin, it's always coach.
00:54:11
Speaker
And I didn't even coach on the field.
00:54:13
Speaker
I just, you know, coach you in the evenings and Saturday mornings and stuff.
00:54:17
Speaker
A little bit of advice to you, Alex, as you go into this coaching world is make sure you take that coaching title
00:54:23
Speaker
And remember, like your dad just said, it goes beyond what you teach on the grass.
00:54:29
Speaker
Little things like taking somebody's kids a gift, right?
00:54:33
Speaker
Checking on your players' parents or their siblings, getting to know them deeper than just how well they can tackle and stuff.
00:54:40
Speaker
That's how you earn, I think, how you earn the name coach.
00:54:44
Speaker
Not by all the wins and losses.
00:54:46
Speaker
And, you know, a lot of coaches with a lot of wins are not respected by their players.
00:54:51
Speaker
And a lot of coaches who didn't have a lot of wins or championships have the forever loyalty of their assistant coaches like your dad does and of their players.
00:55:00
Speaker
So remember that.
00:55:02
Speaker
I'm sure you will.
00:55:03
Speaker
I'm not at all worried about that with you.
00:55:06
Speaker
you know, as you transition into the next thing, the other thing will be when you get to be a dad, that'll be the next thing that you'll have to make sure you earn that one, brother.
00:55:15
Speaker
Especially daddy, your daddy to your girls, your dad or, you know, your boys, but, and sir to your boys, but to your girls, your daddy, that's a different kind of, different kind of heartstrings that get pulled there.
00:55:27
Speaker
Right, Brian?
00:55:28
Speaker
Shad?
00:55:29
Speaker
I wouldn't know anything about sons, Dustin.
00:55:32
Speaker
That's true.
00:55:33
Speaker
You only know daddy.
00:55:35
Speaker
I've never been called sir in my entire life.
00:55:38
Speaker
I have been called daddy a lot.
00:55:42
Speaker
Dustin, can I ask a question here?
00:55:44
Speaker
Picturing that story from Coach Sloan, I think we could say a lot of things about Coach Sloan, why he was so great and had the success he had, and maybe some of the things that would naturally be said
00:55:59
Speaker
other places might not capture what you just captured.
00:56:03
Speaker
To care about your people that much, I think is just a remarkable, wonderful story.
00:56:11
Speaker
I appreciate you sharing that.
00:56:13
Speaker
That's really, really cool.
Maximizing Athletic Potential
00:56:15
Speaker
Both of you have, like you've said, first of all, I wanna point out both of you are incredible and great people.
00:56:23
Speaker
So this question is in no way diminishing that.
00:56:27
Speaker
You've also been around people who have accomplished incredible things.
00:56:32
Speaker
And I bet, you know, Brian, you've watched the Jazz as draft pick has come in and some have been successful, some haven't panned out.
00:56:41
Speaker
You know, Alex, you've watched as five-star recruits come and some pan out, some don't.
00:56:48
Speaker
So maybe this is where we can move in, Dustin, if that's okay, to some of those rapid fire questions.
00:56:53
Speaker
But here's the question, and I wrote these quickly.
00:56:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:56:57
Speaker
Okay.
00:56:59
Speaker
In both professional basketball, college football and professional football, athletes have to maximize every moment.
00:57:08
Speaker
What habits, routines have you seen in elite athletes that allow them to make the most of every hour and get the most out of their athletic abilities?
00:57:20
Speaker
Their ability to mentally focus on being where they're at and being in the present, not in the future or in the past.
00:57:28
Speaker
And that's just not worrying about the potentials of what can happen and not worrying about the past of what has happened, but just controlling and being able to determine what will happen in the right now being where you're at.
00:57:47
Speaker
For me, I would say self-discipline.
00:57:50
Speaker
I think one of the best quotes that embodies that is from Jerry Rice, where he says, today I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I can do what others can't.
00:58:01
Speaker
It's just self-discipline of keeping your eyes up and doing the work when you don't want to.
00:58:07
Speaker
Here's another rapid fire on our principle of competing without contempt.
00:58:13
Speaker
Sports can be intense and emotions can run high.
00:58:17
Speaker
How have you seen athletes successfully balance fierce competition with respect for their opponents?
00:58:24
Speaker
And how can young athletes develop that mindset?
00:58:28
Speaker
The thing that I've always done and what we teach our players at Georgia Southern and we do at A&M or we did at A&M as well is
00:58:35
Speaker
You celebrate with your teammates.
00:58:38
Speaker
You celebrate with yourself.
00:58:39
Speaker
That is, whenever you make a play, you don't go taunting.
00:58:43
Speaker
You don't go disrespecting your opponents.
00:58:45
Speaker
Sports, there are so many high, high emotions in every sport and everything.
Sportsmanship and Respect
00:58:52
Speaker
And so when you have those high emotional moments, you celebrate within your team and yourself.
00:58:58
Speaker
You don't cross the barrier celebrating or talking to anybody on the other team.
00:59:04
Speaker
And Chad, for me, I think it's the eyes up component of E4A, you know, and that's just having the spiritual awareness, you know, of why you're all there together and that you may not be on the same team, but at the same time, you're on the same team.
00:59:22
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:59:23
Speaker
To remember that is really important, that brotherhood of man kind of a thing.
00:59:30
Speaker
That's a wonderful part.
00:59:32
Speaker
If we remember, we often say, Dustin and I, to the kids, that if you lived in the same boundary as those kids, if you went to the same school as those kids, they would be your best friends.
00:59:43
Speaker
So treat them like that.
00:59:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:46
Speaker
Great.
00:59:46
Speaker
Okay, one more.
00:59:49
Speaker
Athletes are often put on a pedestal, but the best ones use their influence for
Athletes' Influence Beyond Sports
00:59:54
Speaker
good.
00:59:54
Speaker
Can you share a story of an athlete who embodied this principle and made a real impact beyond the game with the people that you've interacted with?
01:00:04
Speaker
I would say just being in college, we had another one of my friends, another walk-in of my friend.
01:00:10
Speaker
His name was Will Smoot.
01:00:12
Speaker
He was very activist in his community.
01:00:16
Speaker
He worked with the Boys and Girls Club at Bryan College Station and kind of showed, as we were talking about earlier with Jerry Salone, he didn't necessarily lower himself down, but he treated everybody like they were on the same level.
01:00:30
Speaker
He went on a bunch of mission trips and he was just
01:00:32
Speaker
He was a really good example of being a person before he was an athlete.
01:00:38
Speaker
And I think that's a very important thing to do.
01:00:43
Speaker
And for me, I guess my answer might be a little more high profile.
01:00:48
Speaker
And I would say Dikembe Mutombo.
01:00:50
Speaker
I was blessed to, my wife and I traveled with the NBA to a program called Basketball Without Borders.
01:00:57
Speaker
And we were over in South Africa.
01:01:00
Speaker
One of the projects we had was working with Habitat for Humanity, you know, and building some houses or some shelters, if you want to call it that, in the ghettos of Soweto, which is the poor portion, if you will, of Johannesburg.
01:01:22
Speaker
And to see
01:01:24
Speaker
somebody like Dikembe Mutombo out there with a hammer, with the mortar, with the bricks and to walk around knowing that, hey, this guy is a guy who has built schools for these kids, who's built hospitals for these kids.
Perseverance and Hope
01:01:40
Speaker
The pedestal that he's been put on there and just to show his humility and how he interacts with everybody on a daily basis was just incredible.
01:01:52
Speaker
I don't have words for it.
01:01:53
Speaker
It was to see the kids walk down a dirt road and just to see the people hover around him, you know, and him take the time to try to talk and meet with everybody was just beyond phenomenal.
01:02:08
Speaker
You both have had many, many opportunities in sports.
01:02:12
Speaker
If you reflect back on your time and think the greatest lesson that sports has taught me is how would you finish that sentence?
01:02:23
Speaker
The greatest lesson sports has taught me is just, I would say, perseverance and pushing through the troubles that come in sports and in life.
01:02:35
Speaker
And within that perseverance, you have self-discipline, you have mental focus, you have positive mindsets towards everything.
01:02:46
Speaker
I think that perseverance is kind of the big word, but there's a lot of
01:02:51
Speaker
little building blocks that create being a very perseverant person.
01:02:57
Speaker
Is that a word?
01:02:58
Speaker
Perseverance?
01:02:59
Speaker
Sounds good.
01:03:00
Speaker
Perseverance person.
01:03:01
Speaker
We're going to go with that.
01:03:03
Speaker
Awesome.
01:03:04
Speaker
You know, I'm going to mirror that.
01:03:07
Speaker
Perseverance, you know, is my answer.
01:03:10
Speaker
That and then just, you know, one of my favorite Bible verses that kind of embodies perseverance is Isaiah 40, 31.
01:03:19
Speaker
For those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings of eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
01:03:27
Speaker
So bad times, they happen.
01:03:29
Speaker
It's life.
01:03:31
Speaker
but you don't have to steal over them.
01:03:33
Speaker
You know, just have faith and get over it.
01:03:36
Speaker
Have hope in the Lord because things don't get better.
01:03:39
Speaker
Just persevere.
01:03:40
Speaker
Just ride the wave.
01:03:41
Speaker
Just ride the wave.
01:03:42
Speaker
Persevere.
01:03:43
Speaker
Guys, I love it.
01:03:44
Speaker
That's a great one to end on, Brian.
01:03:46
Speaker
Just ride the wave.
01:03:47
Speaker
Just keep on one play at a time, right?
01:03:49
Speaker
One play and clear.
01:03:51
Speaker
Play the next play.
01:03:51
Speaker
Play the next hour.
01:03:52
Speaker
Play the next day.
01:03:55
Speaker
and just persevere.
01:03:57
Speaker
And if you do, you'll eventually the light will come back and you'll get through whatever it was and look back and realize that what we thought was really bad and really sucky and really miserable actually turned out to
01:04:10
Speaker
lead us somewhere that we had no idea we would have been and turn out to a lot of times being something we're thankful for later.
01:04:18
Speaker
I don't think you'd be coaching right now, Alex.
01:04:21
Speaker
I shouldn't say this.
01:04:22
Speaker
Maybe you would be, but you wouldn't be as good a coach.
01:04:25
Speaker
Let me put it this way.
01:04:26
Speaker
If you didn't go through what you went through coming out of high school, all the walking on, all the not sure, having to grind and fight and persevere, I don't think you'd be where you're at or I know you wouldn't be the type of coach that you're going to be.
Reflections on Perseverance in Coaching
01:04:41
Speaker
No, I agree with that statement completely.
01:04:43
Speaker
I think that the hard times kind of molded me into the kind of person I am, the kind of coach I want to be.
01:04:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's kind of the, that's kind of looking at things, trusting to look at things through God's eyes that sees much more than right now versus our eyes that just sees right now, right?
01:05:05
Speaker
That we look back later and say, oh, okay, God, I was so upset at you.
01:05:09
Speaker
I thought you were being so mean and unfair to me.
01:05:12
Speaker
And now I look back at it and you were just preparing me for this other thing that's way better than that.
01:05:17
Speaker
So my bad, you know, I'm sorry.
01:05:20
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:21
Speaker
You do know what you're doing.
01:05:23
Speaker
Yeah, you know, sit back and just enjoy the ride.
01:05:26
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
01:05:27
Speaker
He's for sure the ultimate coach.
01:05:30
Speaker
Well, guys, thanks for joining us.
01:05:32
Speaker
Appreciate you hopping on.
01:05:33
Speaker
It's good to catch up.
01:05:34
Speaker
Everybody keep your eyes up and do the work.
01:05:37
Speaker
Thank you for joining the Especially for Athletes podcast.
01:05:40
Speaker
To learn more about Especially for Athletes organization, get a copy of our book, The Sportlight, or to bring our program to your team, school, business, or organization, visit us at especiallyforathletes.org.