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Keep your ride or die alive at ebaymotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. It's so true when it comes to coaching and styles. I've played for so many different managers and so many different styles and some had that. Some were kind of, you know, F-bombs are flying and it was effective. And other managers I've played for, that wasn't their style. They had a different style, but they had a way of getting the same message across the players. And it's not about how you do it. It's about how effective is what you do, you know? And I beat this drum to death and I hate to, you know, when you feel like you repeat yourself all the time, because I really do feel this. Being a head coach, being a major league baseball manager, it's really, especially major league baseball, because there's not as many X and O's as you guys have. But it's about how you do, it's about managing people, it's about managing egos, it's about managing. I got to stick my foot in this guy's butt and I got to give this guy a hug to get the same reaction, to get the same. I got to put them in the frame of mind to be the best player they can be, to help the team as a whole. And there's a lot of different ways. I didn't understand that, Rex, as a young player, you know, I remember sitting there in a day, Davey Johnson, was my manager in Cincinnati, man, was he tough on me. But a teammate of mine, and I love him the death, Reggie Sanders, man, he treated him so good and with love, and I'm like, he's kissing Reggie's butt, he's on my ass. But he knew, and years later, he goes, booney, that was my job. I knew by treating you a certain way, I knew what I was going to get, and I knew by treating Reggie a certain way, I knew what I was going to get. It was really interesting, as you get some experience and move on through life, that he knew a lot more than this 25-year-old snotty-nose kid knew. You know, I thought I knew it all, but looking back, I'm like, was kind of genius. And to this day, Davey Johnson probably is the best manager I ever played for. My favorite is Lou Penelope. Right there with him was Bruce Bocey, but as far as handling personalities and pushing buttons, I never saw anybody do it like Davey Johnson. Well, you know, Brent, the one thing I know for sure, my dad taught myself this, my brother that said, you know, and I've taught my son this, you got to be yourself. A player will see through a phony in a second, and if all of a sudden, I was going to be like, you know, Bill Belichick, my players would know that s not me. And I think that s why a lot of his, his protegees are not successful. They try to go out and be Bill Belichick instead of trying to be themselves. Right. You know, I'm not trying to be buddy Ryan, you know, I wasn't near as tough as my dad. I was tough, but I wasn't near as tough as my dad. You know, he fought in the Korean War at 18 years old. He was a master sergeant in the Korean War. If I grew up that way, I probably would have been a lot tougher too. But I knew enough to be myself, and that s why I could reach players. And, and I also think it s, you re right. You talk about reaching players like different ways. There s some guys that, that perform a lot better when, when you, when you hug them around their neck and there s others you got to get after. You know, I ve never been harder on a player in my life than I was on Bart Scott and on, and on Mark Sanchez, yet those are two of the two of my favorite players of all time. But I had to be hard on them to get the most out of them. And if they mark to take it, all right. And that s why I love about Mark. He doesn t get any, anywhere close to the credit he deserves for us, you know, winning the games that we did when he was playing. He took all the bullets. You know, I took them, and he took them. We put it on two guys and was us, because he could handle it. Bart Scott was a guy who grew up with, with like, you know, five sisters or something like that. Man, he, you know, he had to be tough on him and, and he could handle it. He performed better when you, when you would get on him. And then there s other players that would sit down on you. I had a, I had a great player named Sam Adams, who came from Seattle as a great player. But if I ever got really pissed at Sam or really went on, you know, like, went off on Sam, he'd sit down. He ain t going to play. Yeah. That wasn t, that wasn t how you reach Sam. You'd reach Sam by, by putting your arm around him and say, I love you. And I need you. And Sam would play. And so each guy is a little different. You know, Sarah Goose, you could have done the exact opposite too. But you got to know your guys, know, know what, what is going to get the best out of them. But they also have to know that you love them. And I think that s, that s a big part of this game. I think it s missing in this game. I don t think you have those relationships that we used to have growing up that way. I think people are taking jobs for money. They re taking it for whatever. I don t see them reaching the players they used to. And, you know, but again, you know, I, I think it s important that way. You know, they, the player doesn t, doesn t care what you know until they know you care. And when you use that example, Davey Johnson getting after you, because he was just trying to get you to be your, be at your best. And if he thought that was, it would be by riding on you, that that would get the best out of you, then that s why he did it. And had nothing to do with respect or anything else. He respected. I know Davey Johnson, that was a tough dude, but his job is to get the best out of his players. But he always cared about his players. And that s what I know about Davey Johnson. That s what I know about myself as well. And the hard knocks, the one that stands out to me, and I remember this episode, you get to a point and you just go, let s go get a fucking snack. And that was your way of going, all right, let s go, let s go. I just ripped their ass, I was all over their asses, because you know, all that. But I would always end every meeting before a, you know, that night, like I would go into things. Like I'd rip the opponent, I'd say how we re going to be him, I re going to do whatever. But that was time I had to chew my guys out. But at the end of the day, all right, let s go get a freaking snack or whatever it was. It still tells them I love them, but the game I was pissed off, you know what I mean? But we re going to move on. And I think that s what it kind of is about. And yeah, that s just what we do, you know. It s like Saturdays before a game. That s what we say. Let s go get a freaking snack or whatever it was. And it just, the timing probably looked a little odd. But I also wanted a little bit, we re moving on, you know. Well, it was, it was a subtle way of saying, hey, I love you guys. But it s almost like raising a kid. I mean, I can t tell you, I still got two 20 year olds and they re knuckleheads, man. And they re great kids and I love them to death, but they frustrate me. You know, you ask them to do something, yeah, I ll do it tomorrow. And then tomorrow comes and you know they re not going to do it. So eventually you got to wear them out. And you know, you beat them down enough and you think they get the point, you take away what you got to take away from them. At the end of the day, you love them and you just say, listen, man, I don t want to get up your butt like this, but my responsibility as a dad is to teach you these things. So sometimes I got to be a little hard on you, but then it comes out the soft side. So you know, hey, I m just not this big mean guy that wants to ruin your life or let you have less fun in college. It s just my job is to not be your friend. My job is to make you a good young man that s doing the right things and building his life. So you re going to grow into a real man. So yeah, I think it s a lot. I think when it comes to dealing with young athletes, it s a lot like your kids. Okay, you got to be tough and you got to be tough and you got to know, you know, what the limits are, but then there s a soft side too, where you get my hug and just say, hey, man, I love you. But this is why I do it. If I didn t give a shit, I just walk away, but we do care. We do care as coaches, we do care as parents. Yeah, my, the worst day I would have in the year was when I had to cut somebody off. I hated that damn job and, but that s part of the job, but damn, I dreaded that thing because I d see good in every one of these kids. You know, I know if I had them, I tell people, I go, like colleges or in high schools, I might have to like play your entire roster. I would play my entire roster on the NFL, whoever I could have up for a game was damn sure going to play. And even if I had to pick this guy s going to play two snaps on defense, well, he s going to be the starter on the Spartan team. He s going to be the starter on Seminoles or whatever it was, you know, that package because I was going to get every single player involved. And the reason you do that is it galvanizes your team and it s when you, when you win everybody wins, you share in that victory together and you know what happens, Brett, your practices become a hell of a lot better and you become a better team. And it s not about the individual. So many people now, like all the kids are different. Oh crap, kids are the same. You know, yeah, they re on social media and all those types of things and, and you know, they want to do the more individual stuff, that s great, but it s still a team sport. And you still, if you re not trying to cultivate your team, then you re missing it. You re missing a point and, and you know, yeah, sure, do they have individual times more than we ever did? Absolutely. But it s never been about that. It s been about can you, can you get this team, those, those young individual players to care much about the team as they do their own success. If you can, you ve got a great chance to be successful in my opinion. Yeah. And you ve had, you ve had so many, you ve been around so long, you ve had so many different teams and I m see, I m sure you can contrast the great club houses, the great cohesiveness versus some teams you ve been on where it just ain t there. As a baseball player for a long time, for years, I thought, you know, you get the best talent and you steam roll your opponent. That s what I thought. I said, oh, this team camaraderie, the chemistry, I thought it was, ah, it s kind of BS, get the best team to win until I went to the Seattle in the early 2000s. And I became a believer because I was on a team that was different than I ve been on some really good teams. I ve been on some tough teams that weren t very good. But those early 2000 Seattle, we were so good and that clubhouse was unbelievable. You had every guy pulling on the same end of the rope. And we established that. I think it had something to do with the core group, ah, and, and Lou Panella at the helm, but it was something special that, that we had that for nine innings every night, man, we were in, we were in a fox hole and I had 24 legitimate guys with me. You know, you have a lot of teams where you, you can get some of the guys, but you always have, ah, this, this, this group isn t very good. They don t really mesh, ah, for the first time in my life in the early 2000s, I really had 24 guys with me that was, that it was unbelievable. And I couldn t explain it to people. I said, I used to think it was about talent. Yeah, you got to have talent. If you don t have the horses, ah, I don t care how great that clubhouse is over a long time. Ah, over a hundred sixty two, you re going to get your butt kicked, but if you ve got some talent and you got that chemistry in that clubhouse, there s something to be said for. I think it s a real thing. And I m sure with all your experience, all your years in the NFL, I m sure you ve seen the great chemistry teams versus the not so great. And if you don t have that overwhelming talent, you can t make up for bad chemistry. Yeah, Brett, you bring up a great point. I mean, I always said this, there s no coach can win without talent. You have to have talent. We understand that. But maximizing the talent, getting at that team to give a crap about each other, man, that s the beauty of it, that s like, ah, like, you know, always like coaching s not a science, coaching s an art. And that s part of it, man, it s trying to build that chemistry with your team and all that type of stuff. It s important. And, you know, Brett, you ve probably been on some teams where sometimes you have so much talent, you can overcome it. You can overcome it. And I used to say this, it s like a great group of guys can carry, like, you know, I say there s ants and roaches, all right? And the difference is ants, you can shake up adversity, throw them out there, and they get right back in line. Roaches, as soon as adversity comes, you flip that light up, then flip it back on. They re going in opposite directions. Yeah. But if you have enough ants, they can carry a roacher too. You just can t carry too many. And so you might have a bad apple. We can carry him. We might be able to carry too bad apples. We can t carry a whole mess up. And that s what I see when you ve got a whole team that s playing like ants that really give them that care about each other, man, you can overcome a ton of stuff. And you don t have to be the best team to win. And I think that s, again, the beauty of sports, the beauty of team sports in particular.
