FM Talk 1065 Podcasts

(PSR) Prep Sports Report 8.10.2024 Topics: Hoover esginations, FCA Knight Of Champions Guests : Offical Shawn Kelly, and Coach Bart Sessions

#fairhopealabama #mobilealabama #sports #prepsportsnation #highschoolathlete #highschoolsports #football #basketball #youthsports #highschoolathletes #sportsvideos #champion #playerempowerment #athlete #atheletes #atheletics #studentathlete #support #morethananathlete #youthdevelopment #recruitment #promote #encourage #encouragement #teams #sportstraining #sportsmanship #ballislife #football #sports #sportsradio #sportspodcast #podcast #sportstalk #espn #broadcast #radioshow #basketball #baseball #motivation #athlete #bhfyp #radio #follow #peronsaltraining #fitness #thelockerroom #fellowshipofchristianathletes #thankyouforyoursupport

Duration:: 1h 9m
Broadcast on:: 10 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Coming to you live from the Eastern Shore Toyota and Hyundai Studios. The Thompson Tractor Prep Sports Report. Here's your host Randy Bergen with Coach Rick Cleveland and Coach Mark Leseter. Good morning and welcome to the Thompson Tractor Prep Sports Report. And we are coming to you as live as we can come to you on a Friday afternoon right here in Mobile, Alabama. Good afternoon, Mark. Good morning, Rick. I mean, good afternoon, Rick. Now I'm so confused. I don't even know what time it is. Yeah, we're taping the show today. Steve Stanley is kind enough to come in and tape us. I've got responsibilities across state lines and gives you a little break and gives Randy a little break. Hopefully Randy can plan a little golf tournament that they got going on tomorrow. He doesn't know that yet. He's coming in from down around Tampa, I think, later tonight. But we've got a lot of stuff going on, Mark. I'm telling you the newsprint has been hot this week. And I think the best way for us to start off our show today is to, first of all, thank our sponsors. And we appreciate our sponsors. They're phenomenal companies that do a great job for us and we'll talk a little bit about them a little later on. But second of all, everybody wants to talk about Hoover. And it's a very sad situation to me in a lot of ways. Drew Gilmer has been a very successful high school football coach. He's been at Clay Chalkville for about 14 years and has won the last two 6A state championships for this team there at Clay Chalkville. And some unfortunate video came out and Drew and his defensive coordinator have resigned from their positions there at Hoover High School. And that is the every bit of the conversation that I've gotten from friends today. And I spent a lot of my day on the golf course, but even Clay has called and said, "Dad, what's going on over at Hoover?" And I kind of want to get your take on it because you've seen the videos just like I have and we're going to talk more about it a little later on in our leadership segment. But just kind of give us your take on it. First of all, it breaks my heart for those kids that play football there. That's the first and foremost thing is that those kids had to be around that kind of thing or a victim of that type. That's right. And it has no place in football or any athletic. Anything you do with young people has no place. It has no place. Right. I'm sorry. Everybody wants to coach kids hard and make them tough because football is a tough game and it's always kind of been that way. You know, go back through history about the hard-nosed type football coaches and boy, they coach them tough and you want it to be tough because ball games are tough. When you play your opponent, I remember Coach Savari says, you know, when he was talking to him, he was never anything like this, but he would talk about, you know, he's going to get on to him for making a mistake or for not hustling. That was the biggest thing. But I learned from him that he would tell him, you know, if you can't beat me, then you won't be able to beat your opponent. Right. Whatever that may be with that be, you know, questioning, do you not know what to do on this play? Why? Have you not studied your playbook? Have you not done the things we've asked you to do? Those sorts of things, you know, a part of that, but not going to kid down and putting your hands on them and doing the things that we saw in that videotape is completely out of bounds. Yeah. I feel for those kids, because now they're going to go through a, you got strife amongst the players. Some of the players are, you know, they're going to love their headcoats and their defense coordinator. And that didn't happen to them, so it wasn't that big a deal. Right. You know, and so they're kind of, I've heard there's some animosity between some of the kids about what took place. And that's a problem. And now there's going to be lawsuits and there could be some arrests made. And there's problems all originated because of the behavior of two adults. That's right. And that's what is the sad part of this thing, you know. And everybody makes mistakes and none of us are without blame or sin. And every one of us has done something we regret. Right. You know. And this is a bad thing. And I think that they've taken the right Hoover City Schools has taken the right steps. You know, from what I can tell. Right. They've done their due diligence and saying, "Okay, this is not going to happen." Right. Administrative leave and called for their resignation. Both coaches, as far as I know, have both resigned. They have resigned. From their position, effective immediately. Right. Just think about the cost of all of that. Not just the kids. What about their own families, those coaches' families? The reputation is now shot. Yeah. And their finances. Yeah. And that's a different deal. So my first and my heart is broken for those kids. Right. All of them. Not just the ones who were actually manhandled, but all the kids on the team who witnessed that. Adults shouldn't behave like that in front. I don't care. There is no capacity for it. There is none. We're going to discuss this more in the leadership segment. Because this is about leadership. This is all about leadership. And so you folks listening, you'll want to hear the leadership segment because I'm going to go a little deeper into it than we're talking about now. But I think the first thing that hit me was our children have played sports and played football. And there were some tough times. I can remember I had to go to school one day when something happened with clay. And I was pretty upset with one of the coaches. And I'm a coach myself. And I had some not so kind words for the head coach at the time. And he said, "I understand. I understand." And if it were my child, I'd feel the same way. Well, you know, something needed to be done about it. And something was done. And so from a parent standpoint, I understand completely. I do understand completely. But at the same time, what you're talking about is the division among the players. And this is where a new coach has been appointed, an interim coach. But he'll be the head coach for the entire year. His name is Chip English. Chip English is well respected around the state of Alabama as a football coach. He was a head coach at one of the schools that I think is almost impossible to win at. I'm not going to mention that school, but he was a head coach there. He had coach over in Georgia and did a good job there. He was hired by Wade Waldrum, who I think is a man of extreme integrity. And he was a former coach at Hoover. And he hired Chip to be his offensive coordinator. And when Drew took the job at Hoover, he kept Chip. So that tells you that Drew really thought a lot of Chip too. So I think they're in great hands with Chip English. He's a seasoned head coach. He knows how to handle assistant coaches. And I think they'll just keep moving. Matter of fact, they're planning a big kickoff classic down in Florida. And I don't think they'll miss a beat. I really don't. It's unfortunate. The unfortunate thing is the families that are involved. Now, all of us are hurting for the players. My real pain is for the wives of these two coaches and their children. Matter of fact, I sent Drew a scripture note today and told him it was heavy on my heart and praying for their family. He's been a guest on another show that I've done in the past, high school sports today. A very affable guy and a very successful football coach. Where does this lead? I mean, this is a narrow, narrow lane that he's traveling. And I had a guy tell me today that he was a pretty high guy in the state of Alabama that those folks at Clay Chobble would welcome him back with open arms. So, you know, some people is just not a good fit. I had another guy who does radio over in East Alabama who said he was told a long time ago it's going to be a tough fit for this head coach because he does things his own way. And maybe the fit just wasn't there. And maybe it wasn't. And maybe he was trying to make it a little bit better situation for the way they want to have things turn out. I don't know. But I think in closing this segment, I think what we're saying is I hope that the people will pray for the families of the children. Yes. And at the same time, those of us in coaching, I understand, heck, I've been fired. I understand what that's like. I understand what it's like for my family. And I deserved to be fired. I wasn't prepared to be a head coach when I was named a head coach. But thank goodness we have a super intended to really good care. That's right. I'm lucky for that. And I'm thankful. But we do pray for the family. Yes, sir. How you listening to Press Sports Report? Thank you for being here. Thompson Tractor brings you Press Sports Report every Saturday morning. We'll be right back with another segment talking high school sports right here on FM Talk 1065. Welcome back to the Thompson Tractor Prep Sports Report. The Pops Market communication lines are open at 251-343-0106. Here's your host, Randy Bergen with Coach Rick Cleveland and Coach Mark Leseter. Yeah, I love you. You can adjust the helmet on a Saturday minute. There's a bigger Tennessee football fan. I don't know it. I sure love these high school sports, particularly high school football. I tell you guys, it really loves high school football and some of the people he works with or we wouldn't have this game if it weren't for these guys. Sean Kelly is what we call him a white hat. And the first thing I want to do, and Mark, I know you probably want to do this too. Sean, first of all, welcome to Press Sports Report. I want to apologize publicly to you if I ever did anything that I shouldn't have done and said anything that I shouldn't have done. Dido. And I know that, you know, I'm not proud of the way that I handled officials early in my career and you were one of the guys that I have a great deal of respect for. So know that there's a public apology and you can buy me a do drop hot dog when I see you. Well, thank you, Coach. Yeah, I mean, we want to talk about you early days. This is my opportunity. Yeah, it really is. And I appreciate it. You're always good to me, always good. You're always on the really good staff and great teams and always enjoying calling your ball games. Well, we appreciate that. And we appreciate what you guys are about to embark on because it's another season now. How many seasons is this for you, Sean? This makes 32 years. Good gosh. Great days. Sean, I know that as you, now will you have a crew of your own or will you all be filtered in kind of mixed crews as the season goes on? Well, normally with the veteran crews, we have, I have an umpire that's with me every week. Scott Cooley, I don't know if you've got. Scott Cooley, yeah. Yeah, that's my umpire has been for some years. And then I have a Jason Sullivan who's my wing and those guys stay with me. And then we'll kind of feed some other veterans in. And then every now and then, we'll get a younger guy put into our crew. Usually the top four or five crews is pretty much veteran in our crew. And it helps, you know, having Scott in there in the middle with me is crucial. You know, because if not, if you don't have that voice in there in the center, you know, kids sometimes tend to stray. And, you know, as long as you have somebody in there with a good voice and, you know, kind of keep the wheels on, everything goes pretty smooth. You know, Scott, what's one of the things I've always wanted to ask an official? What's one of the things that, let's say, if you're the umpire, the hardest thing to call or not call during a ball, everybody's going to say holding. You know, because they're sitting right there and they see it every single play. Kind of give you an idea of what y'all feel like you determine what is holding or when it's holding or when it's not because it can be a little gray sometimes. Sure, sure. So basically in the middle, also me as well, the way that my crew that I preach is we officiate the whole field, of course. But we also, if you have them running through, say, the two gaps, you know, so that's where your ball's going in. So that's where your eyes, the umpire concentrates in on that area. Kind of let the backside go. And, you know, you're going to get some hands up in the chest, which is fine. As long as they don't get on the shoulders, there's not, you know, if you get up on the shoulders, you're going to call it or if you turn them. That's a big indicator that they're being held. So we basically, we don't like to call any of the, what we call fender vendors. We like to call train rats. There you go. That's all the stuff that, you know, we're the contact that more of the ball is coming. And everything else is safety is kind of how our crew goes about doing it. I hope Bobby Pannoni heard that in heaven. I hope he heard that. Oh, my goodness gracious love. Yeah. So that's kind of always been my philosophy. I mean, you can call exactly. You can call holding on every single player at every level. And I've been at a ball and everybody's holding. But it's all in the way. It's a, you know, it's all in the way about the holding is. You know, if it's inside, it's fine. If it's on the shoulders, it's not. If you turn them, it's not. And then, of course, where the ball is. If it's opposite side of the field, you shouldn't be calling anything backside holding wise. That should be safety wise. Good. Good. We're talking to Sean Kelly and you're talking about one of the white hats. That's what us coaches call them. And as a commentator, that's what I call them. And I'm going to tell you right now, starting this 30-second season. Talk just a little bit about our numbers. How are we looking numbers wise? Because that's been a big thing here at PSR, trying to get more and more officials into our game that we love so dearly. Yeah. You know, so when the COVID hit, it got really scary for us. And we didn't have a whole lot of officials. But since then, we've been building on our numbers. And this year, we're at 180. And we've got 29 new people. Wow. That's fantastic. That's good. That's really good. Yeah. Talk a little bit about the new rule that we've got. We've got one new rule this year, Mark. And everything else is pretty much the way of Smith has been. Yeah. So basically, since I've been calling this the first time, we've only had like one rule change in the season, which is very basic, which is about the mouthpiece. So they only want you to have one mouthpiece on the headgear. A lot of kids were starting to get where they were going with two mouthpieces. One plugged in the helmet or the side of the helmet and one off the face mask. So they're no longer allowed to do that. Sean, one of the things that really bothers me is I'm seeing these kids now, even in high school, their pants go to the top of the knees and they don't have anything covered on them. They don't have knee pants. They don't have anything. Yep. We're on that. That's crazy. Well, you're a white hat. You can do something about it. Well, we do. We do. And the problem is, you know, they come out there for warm-ups and everybody's knee pads are buggling these. Of course, coaches say when they come back, they'll be legally. They come back out and as the game progresses, they start coming up. A funny story is when I was calling back in the day, we had Julio Jones and he was probably one of the world's worst about doing that. Yeah. He is me and was following them. I went up to them and I said, Julio, I said, if you don't get those knees covered up, I'm going to put you out of here. We're going to have to get you out of here because you're not going to embarrass me on TV. He said, yes, sir. He come back. They duct tape his pants down around the knee. So I was pretty proud of that. You made a difference in that kid's life and imported that. Absolutely. And I told him, I said, Julio, one helmet to your kneecap, your career is over. That's right. That's right. You're right. That's good for you for saying that. Another thing that I think a lot of people don't understand is past interference. So I'm sure that you guys, you white hats, and I'm saying that complimentary. I want you to know that. That must be a discussion that y'all talk about in pregame. Just a little bit about the past interference. We got about three minutes here, and then I want to go one other place, but talk a little bit about past interference. Well, past interference, of course, it's a little different in high school. The rule, if you read it, it's a ball in the air. Any kind of grab, pull, it turns, really, you could call it. We don't, they're going to grab and pull and tug. The way that I always tell them, if it impedes him on touching the football, then absolutely call it. If feet get tangled, leave them alone, make them really pull on them, or make them cut them off, or cut their route off, then we need to be picking that up. So our biggest goal is, of course, is to get in there and y'all know, not even notice we were there. We walk off the field, that's a great ball game. Now we kicked the season off, what, in two weeks more, right? Yeah. But you guys, tell the folks out here listening, how long you guys have been working together to get ready for this season, y'all started meeting when? In June. Okay. So we started in June, and in the way our meetings work for new guys out there, is you come in, we sit down, we have a general meeting, for probably about 35, 40 minutes, and then we have breakout sessions. So all the referees doing one room, umpires another room, your back judges in one room, side and line judges going to another room, and they school, and then new people going there on class, right? And so, and then we just kind of go through, and everybody's on the same lesson plan. And then as a couple of weeks go on, then we bring everybody together as a general to go through everything that everybody's been hitting on in their own separate groups and kind of brings it all together. So we got about a minute here, talk just a little bit about, in 20 seconds or so, a little bit about if there's a young man or woman who wants to become involved in officiating high school football, what do they need to do? Yeah, basically they can go online and look at Metromobile, and we've got a website out there, or John Henderson is our president. I can pass that phone number on, I don't have it off the cuff, and we would love to have you. We've had a lot of young ladies start coming in, and they're doing real well, you know, we've got probably three on the field now that do a bang up job. Well, that's awesome, that is awesome, and we appreciate, Sean, I want to tell you how much I appreciate what you've done for so many years, and thank you for your leadership with the officials and your tutoring and mentoring young officials, and we appreciate you taking some time out on Friday night when you could go out and be eating dinner somewhere. Instead, you're yapping with Mark, and I appreciate that panel. Yes, sir. Well, I enjoy it, Coach. It's good to hear from y'all. Anytime. We'll see you soon, Pat. Thank you, man. Take care. He's a good one. I'm going to tell you right now. Any game, any ice cream game, you see, Sean Kelly at, you can, I can tell you this. This is going to be well efficient. It is. I promise you that. We'll be right back with the leadership segment right here on FM taught 1065 and the Thompson Tractor Prep Sports Report. Welcome back to the Thompson Tractor Prep Sports Report. PSR is live every Saturday from 8 until 10 a.m. Now, back to the show. Look out behind you, Joe just got me down. He wouldn't mean to, but you know he likes his phone. All right, Mark. You can sit down then. Yes, sir. That dancing is, I've never seen a man slow dance by himself. I've never seen that, Steve, I don't know if you have, but this, I'm telling you, that's scary. That's scary. That's exactly right. Now we appreciate 68 ventures and Nathan Cox and those guys for sponsoring this segment. It's our leadership segment and we're going to kind of go in a different direction today. And I want to share, we, we've talked about this situation at Hoover and I want to be real clear about this situation. I really do. And I want people to hear us and understand where two coaches back in the day know what back in the day was. Mark I'm disgusted. I really am disgusted about this situation and let's get this straight right up front. This is not football. This is just not football. See what football is is an offensive line and defensive line coming together and going one on one, putting a little running back there and maybe a linebacker back there and maybe a, a full back in front of that running back and quarterback gives them to ball and that old line and D line guy go at it hand to hand and that full back tries to block it, line back there and let's see what happens. That's football. That's football. It's never easy. It's not always fun. It's not for everyone. This is not high school coaching and I want all of our listeners to know this high school coaching is not what we see in these videos. I've been blessed just like you have more. We've coached with some great, great high school coaches. I go all the way back to a old country boy from out in Seattle, Alabama named Glenn Woodruff. He'd get on those kids. I mean he'd get on them and I'm a young guy just coming in. He'd get on them but you know what he'd do every day. He'd be waiting down there when they'd be headed in, he'd hug every one of them. Every single one of them and you know coaches are, we're trying, we're trying to correct mistakes and we're loud and there's not a lot of nonsense going on and sometimes we do get close, pretty close, face to face with kids when we keep telling them one thing after another time and time again. We don't grab them, we don't shove them, we don't push them down, we don't go sprinting to them and we sure don't get on the ground and do the things that we saw in those videos. This ain't Junction City, it's not 1954 when Coach Stallings was, I'm sorry when Coach Bryant took Coach Stallings and all those players out to Junction at Texas A&M and Coach Bryant's first year. What we saw on those videos was not instruction, it was not correction, it wasn't discipline, it certainly was not leadership that we talk about here every Saturday. This was physical abuse, that's what it was. And we've been real clear about how we feel about coaches, you know, if you work with a guy like David Cutcliffe, you work with a guy like Harry Wayne Parish, you work with a guy like Steve Saverie, he says we both have, you work with a guy like Phil Lazenby or Terry Curtis, you work with a guy like Steve Masc, you may see him getting on him and golly mollies, but you won't see what we saw in those videos, that was physical abuse. And I don't want to hear these people say, well back in the day that would have just been, people would turn their head and look the other way, boo molloney, that's not true. Back in the day, if you played for Tom Calvin at Silicaga, you folks in Silicaga know this well, we practiced in a dust bowl, we never got water, never ever got water. In this kind of heat, in this kind of heat, they may come by and drop a piece of ice on our tongue, one time out of the week, one day of the week, we didn't know what water was, we, John Blackman drank water out of a cheerleader's sign that was trying to pep us up, and it rained and there was still water in those signs, and John Black was over at the opportunity, he was eating the paper off that they had written on, so that dust bowl wasn't fun either, don't tell me anything. Nothing about back in the day, this wasn't back in the day, this was physical abuse. You see, there's a line between discipline and abuse, there's a line between motivation and humiliation, even in our game, in our game of football that demands physical and mental toughness, there's a lot of tough love, but there's not assaults, this was an assault. Any act of physical abuse must have consequences, I'm proud of the leaders of the Hoover City school system to do what they did, and they demanded that resignation of those coaches, they either had a choice, they could resign or they could probably be fired, I'm sure. So they spoke loud and clearly with their decision, and here, I'm speaking for me, but I would think I'm speaking for you too, Mark, that this decision to accept the resignation of these two was abundantly made clear when they saw those videos, I'm disappointed in those two coaches, but I'll tell you one thing, I'm still going to pray for them, and I'm going to pray for those children. And our prayer here is that, like you said earlier, is that they can come together as a team and be the Hoover under-chipped English, who's got a tough, tough job there to be the very best they can be and to try to bring that Hoover tradition back to where it was under Josh and Rush, and that's what we hope and pray for. Absolutely. We'll look forward to seeing how Hoover responds to what's happened at that school, and we're pulling for them to be honest with you. We'll be right back with more, right here, on the Thompson tractor press portion forward. Coming to you live, the Thompson tractor prep sports report, pre-sitted by Alpha. Here's your host, Randy Bergen with Coach Rick Cleveland and Coach Mark Leseter. Hi, welcome back to the Thompson tractor press sports report, and with time flies when you're having fun, Mark, I guess a couple of program notes here, right following our show. You can see southern sports today, I think. Randy Bergen is a new name of that, and he and southern fairways sports radio, and that's a lot for me, tell him. I couldn't get all that. No, that's, but Randy and Bobby Hall or Golf Pro out at Quail Creek do a fabulous job with that show, and you sure don't want to miss that, and then this afternoon at four o'clock, you can catch our buddy Jolene Roxbury, and I'm going to tell you right now, she is the funniest lady in radio, and she keeps us in stitches. I can tell you, she's just a lady that absolutely has a gift from the Heavenly Father that is special. I'm telling you, she's just funny, and she's serious funny, and have you listened to that? You've got to listen to that more. At four o'clock, you've got to turn Jolene on, and she is something special, I mean that. We so much appreciate our sponsors here, and we've all three. We've all dealt with Premier Collision, Chris Garris, and Tyler, and Kim over at Premier Collision. They have taken great care of our automobiles for many, many, many years, and Premier Collision is, it's your local auto body repair shop. It's owned and operated locally here in Mobile, Alabama. Auto body services include painting, bodywork, they'll do anything in the world to help you get your car where you want it to be, just like Brandon. As a matter of fact, more or less, they're probably better than anybody. Can tell you about a vehicle that's really old, and when you picked it up. It looked brand new, I was telling you. I drove it up, it's a 2009 Hyundai Sonata, we bought brand new, back in those days, and it has gone through every one of us, and I drove it for a little bit, Michelle drove it for a little bit. All three boys have driven it, Bryant still driving it, but it looked rough. I mean it looked rough, it looked like it was 15 years old, but it took it over to Chris and his crew out there, and I got it back home and I said, "Okay, let me just take this for a ride." So Michelle and I drove the Birmingham, and we drove in it, got there, my dad comes walking out and he goes, "When did you buy a new car?" He just rolled back, "When did you buy a new car?" And I said, "Dad, it's not new, but that's the kind of work they do, and Chris wasn't going to let it come back to the house until it was right." And that's what he did, he kept me informed every step of the way, and you just can't beat that kind of service. And you really can't, and just great people too, I mean when you go in there, I mean they're working left and right and top to bottom, and just going at it and trying to get everything done, and it comes over there just as calm as a cucumber, and Chris and Tyler are going back and forth, checking cars out, and doing this, and then you go back in the shop, and those guys are working, you got fans going, and they are just doing a super job. They stop, they speak to you, and I'm probably violating some kind of laws there by going back in that body shop, but I always like to do that, but just great people. And if you have any kind of problems with your automobile, you have any kind of fender bender anything, give our buddies at Premier Collision a call, 2-5-1, 4-7-8, 4-5-100. They're open Monday through Friday, they take the weekend off, but Monday when they get there, when the sun rises, they're there, and they'll be, you'll want to chat with them. They got one new location out at Premier Collision West at 101 North Schillinger, and so boy, they're doing everything they can to accommodate all the vehicles that they've got, and we certainly appreciate everything that they do. Not only for us, but for so many people here in the metro-mobile area. We're not able to get in touch with Dennis Aford, and Dennis is the director of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes here in southwest Alabama, and Dennis, as a matter of fact, Mark, you didn't know this, but we're going to sponsor a table that was going to happen over in Daphne. It's that time of year again, and the FCA is making preparations for the 2024 annual FCA night of champions banquet, and you're going to love who's going to be speaking at this mark. It will be held Monday, September the 9th at the Daphne Civic Center from 638. They don't keep you out all night. They go from 638, and it's a great, great night. They feed you. Last year, PSR sponsored a table, and we're going to do that again. All of these have been sell-outs there in Daphne, and this year, the special guest is Coach Joe Kennedy. Do you have any idea who that is? I didn't either. I really didn't either. Coach Kennedy, he was the coach who was fired for praying at the 50-yard line. Yes. Yes. I've read that story, yes. Well, you're going to have to sit at the table with us. Yes, I'd be glad to. Good, Michelle are going to be there with us, and Randy, we'll get Randy and Boom there, and we'll just have a PSR reunion that night. But he is the coach who was fired for praying at the 50-yard line just recently. His case was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. He has a great victory story, and we certainly hope to see as many people there at the Daphne Civic Center on September the 9th from 638 p.m., and tickets are going fast. I can tell you that, so you can get in touch with Dennis Heyford or anybody at the FCA, and they will be glad to help you. So I hope that everybody will come out and support the FCA. You know, FCA Mark is such a great institution. They do such a great job. They come into our schools. They lead Bible studies. They share testimonies, and it's just a wonderful, wonderful organization that is on the cutting edge of life. It really is. You know, I take FCA all the way back to my high school days. Art Hill was one of our coaches there at Afton High School when I was living in St. Louis, Missouri. And so he was our FCA director, and he knew my dad, he was preacher, and so he said, "All right now, Mark, we're going to have to," and back then, FCA met at people's houses. So we would go meet at the house, and everybody, all the players would come, and coaches would come to your house and have dinner, you'd eat, and so he said, "Now, we're going to have to have one thing when we get there." I said, "Well, I need your mama to cook me some grits. I've never had grits." I said, "Okay." I told mom, so mom, she cooked up lasagna, and a big bowl of grits for coach Hill. And he said, "I can't," he ate them, and he goes, "Ooh, that's off." But anyway, I said, "Well, coach, you got to put butter and sugar on them if you don't like them." Now, I like my salt and pepper. He liked his, but he did like it with sugar on it really, anyway, but we had FCA back in our homes then, and everybody with all the players that had come, all different sports would come. So that was how far it goes back in my life, and then this year at the high school conference in Montgomery, I got to go to the FCA luncheon, and the place was packed. And so I'm sitting there, and I noticed a guy come up to hand out some awards, his name was Ryan Limbal, and I was like, "Wait a minute now, I know this guy. It's Malley Limbal's oldest boy, Ryan, who is a regional director of the FCA. Now his younger brother, I coached at Jildersburg in football, and Scott is the head golf coach at Vanderbilt. Anyway, I got to see him after the ceremony, and it was just wonderful how God moves us and plays and plays, that we find each other, and Ryan and I re-contacted, got to talking about stuff, swap phone numbers, and are going to try to get together some and get back up and visit. I hadn't seen Malley since I left Jildersburg. Well, let me tell you this. I love to go see him. Malley Limbal is one of the nicest men that you'll ever meet. Let me tell you this about Malley. That's in my growing up days in Jildersburg, Alabama. Malley Limbal was a heck of a baseball catcher. He called for Rudy Abbott at Jacksonville State, and they play some baseball now, I'm telling you, but Malley is such a wonderful, wonderful guy, and of course this is another name from the past. His brother is Tommy Limbal, and Tommy Limbal was one of Steve Sloane's best friends, was an assistant coach with Steve all over the place. He's now an agent for many of the golfers, Tommy Limbal played baseball at the University of Alabama, as well. I don't know if you knew that. I did know that. But boy, just a great family. The Limbal family has done so much for so many in Jildersburg, Alabama, and well, thank you for mentioning that name. Good folks. That's good, good stuff. Good folks. And you folks in Jildersburg, man, what a great, great family that represents your team, and I'm telling you, they do, and they do a great job, Rudy. That's good stuff. Hey, we'll be back. Man, we got a good one now. We're coming up. We're going to talk to Bart Sessions, the head football coach, over at Alma Bryant High School. Last coach to win there. He's sitting right there, smart lasseter. Welcome back to the Thompson Tractor Prep Sports Report. Call or text the Prep Sports Report at 251-343-0106 on the Pumps Market Community. All right, welcome back to the Thompson Tractor Prep Sports Report. Mark, I look forward to every time we get this guy on because Bart Sessions is, first of all, he's the head coach at Alma Bryant High School, and I think the world of Bart, I'm going to tell you why. I have kind of followed his career and the people he's worked with and coached with, and it's always positive. Everything's positive. What a great football coach he is. But the thing that I love about him is how he loves the school that he's coaching at right now because it's home, and I mean, his community is all about pride, and I'm just excited to hear what he's got to say about his football team. Coach, welcome to PSR, and I know JP is in there with you, and I'm excited about that. But welcome back, and we're glad to have you on tonight. Hey, thank you all so much for having us and for what you all do and support and promote high school football. It's a passion of ours as it is for you, and I know that it's been tough, Bart. It's been tough coming back home because you have experienced success everywhere you've been, and talk just a little bit about where you are in the building of this program back to where you really want it to be. You're right, it has been if you judge everything by a result on a school board, and certainly you have to judge yourself by that in our profession, and we want more wins to improve in that area, but we have a lot of pride in kind of where we've grown as a program already. I went to media day the other day and I didn't even realize it, but a guy asked a question and had told some data and said, "Hey, you scored eight more points per game last year, and you reduced your points allowed for the fourth consecutive year, or the third consecutive year." Each team has gotten a little bit better, and we're very proud of things that don't show up on a school board. We did not have a returning athlete at Alma Bront High School that had to take a summer school course, and you and I both done this for a long time. I don't know that I've ever been able to say that. Our kids are buying into the kind of whole person approach that we're taking, and we're stronger, we're faster. There still aren't a bunch of us, you know, our most seven-day programs need 100-plus athletes, and we'll probably be low 70s when we dress out, but those kids are committed to what we're doing, and really doing a great job, so we're super proud of the progress those guys might have a couple of kids that are going to be four-year starters this year will be the fourth year to start, and so obviously they're better football players now than they were four years ago, but they're also better young men, just, you know, to see the growth in those young men is really, really rewarding for our coaching staff. You know, Bart, one of the things I'm really excited about, I was looking at some things about y'all for this year, you got a big, big freshman class, and it looks like the numbers that you're talking about are beginning to go up and amount of kids that are playing in your program. How big is that for you looking forward down the next couple of years? Now, I'll tell you, and y'all kind of know that the climate of high school sports has really gained, the transfers are rampant, and kids are coming in and going out, and you know, and we've consistently said, as a seven-day program, that we feel like you need 50 to 60 freshmen each year. Now, you're one, I think we had 22 years, year three, we snuck up into the 30s, I think, and I've looked at our role before I left today, and there are 54 freshmen in our freshman weightlifting class. Wow, that's awesome. So each year that number's gotten bigger and bigger, and hey, it's a credit to our coaches, our entire faculty, I mean, our principals involved, and we bring those middle schoolers that are zoned for us, on to our campus, we go to our, fortunately, we have two middle schools that are really just zoned for our high school. So our coaching staff, whether it be football or basketball or baseball, we invest time on those campuses, getting to know those kids and those families, and you're really starting to see the fruits of that labor, so it's a whole staff thing, I mean, our coaches are at those middle school functions, and games, and practices, and even school-based sometimes, and so, you know, it's good to see that staff starting to pay off, and hey, our incoming group, I mean, I've applied for the championship last year in the middle school division and Grand Bay went right down to the wire with the team that ultimately won the championship for a spot in the playoffs, so those two teams are very successful, and that group being merged together, we're very excited about that incoming ninth grade class. We're talking to Bart Sessions, head football coach at Alma Bryant, and Bart, one of the things that I've noticed is that you've hired Connor Young, who you coast with at Macadore to come in and run your offense, it's got to be a good feeling for you that you've got someone that you know that you have utmost confidence in to run that side of the ball for you. Yes, without a doubt, Connor and I had a great relationship at Macadore, and he's a rising star in this business, you know, he's got a great pedigree when you talk about his father Royce that was in the profession for so many years and impacted so many people, and Connor has that servant heart that you're looking for, you know, he comes in and he's gonna score a lot of points and be innovative with his offense and do those type of things, but he's also there to serve the kids, you know, and that's fun to see, you know, his wages mashed in with our staff and, you know, people love him and the kids love him already and he's already impacted kids on a daily basis, so that's fun to see. Well, knowing you the way we know you, I can imagine that defensively you're gonna be pretty stout. I know you've got a bunch of juniors coming in, Carl Jackson runs outside of the ball, but I would imagine the head coach is pretty heavily involved defensively as well. We've got about a minute in this segment, so I wanted to put you on one in there, Kyle. I'm gonna tell you now, I got to give Carl all the credit, I mean, he's taking the bull by the horns and ran away with it because Coach Sessions has been a construction supervisor for most of this year, but you're right, our defense is pretty salty and they're doing a great job, Carl's, we've got some coaches back and got some new coaches in and that group of kids is really a talented group. Well, and you know, I think you've got to keep people from scoring before you can win a lot of games. I think if somebody, Terry and I used to talk about that a lot, you know, and Don Jennings was always, I'm talking about, you're talking about somebody that was, man, salty as salty can get as a defender and I still believe you've got to win football games and defense. I do, I still believe that and I know you believe that, Bart, so it's got to be a great working relationship with you and Carl, but when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more about some outside stuff because I think it's important that we talk about it. We're talking to Bart Sessions, a head football coach at Alma Bryant and that guy you're here in the background, that's JP and he's two and a half years old. And I'm telling you right now, he is the master of the home. Yes, sir. I can tell you that. Yes, sir. We'll be right back with Bart Sessions. Welcome back to the Thompson Tractor Prep Sports Report brought to you by Alpha Insurance. Now back to your host, Randy Bergen. [MUSIC] The baby's into running round, hanging in the crowd, putting your business in the state, talking loud loud. He's got somebody asking me the other day, so what kind of business is more putting in this piece? That's where I've been waiting to hear. I don't want to hear it anymore. That guy has me said, coach, what is the business more putting in this piece? I said, it's all about football. It's all about football. I said, yeah. Come on, man. [LAUGH] All right, we're visiting with Bart Sessions, a head football coach at Alma Bryant. And Bart, the thing that, let me just come right up now, are you keeping everybody at home now? Are we keeping all of our players at Alma Bryant where they're supposed to be? You know, I think that we got everyone the past two years. Right. You know, there's probably someone that slipped through the crack somewhere, but yes, I mean, and that's been a, you know, trust me, there were some players, some very good football players on those two teams this year, that a lot of people came after if I'm being honest. Yeah. And they're out there wearing the hurricanes, practice stairs in, and that's fun to see. You know, Bart, that community I read an article about, that's all you were talking about, one thing that I know, I know from being there, that there's a great deal of pride from those folks who live in that area, whether they went to Alba or Grand Bay and, and they kind of merged those schools together, that school became one, those days have kind of gotten themselves to where now you don't hear some except for the middle school stuff and how they come together now, they all become hurricanes. Tell us a little bit about the pride that it's been instilled in that program and one of the things that you're, the culture you tried to change, you got there and have changed it now as it's evident by the number of players you got, tell us about that, about that pride in that program and the culture you tried to provide to those kids. Yeah, you know, it's two communities that are, that are built on just work ethic, just hard work. That's right. And that's what our community expects and it's what they respect. So, you know, when you, when you have those types of people that, that grow up just knowing how to work and still embracing hard work, then they do take pride at things and, and you know, there, there have been some things throughout the years, um, just still be wise and um, um, up keep up some things that maybe had slipped and I think there were some people in the community that were not very happy about that because they, they've, you know, invested a lot into the facilities and the programs there and, and I want to see it taken care of and maintained and upgraded and so, you know, I think we've, we've tried to step in and do a lot of those things and our, our kids will get right in there and help us do those things and our parents will, um, and that pride, I think, you know, I can't wait to, to finish what we're doing within our facilities and debut it, I guess to our community because I think they are going to feel that pride that we take in it and certainly I think they appreciate that. So, you know, I'm going to grab a weather there historically where there'd been 10 when teams or two when teams, they've always played hard. Yes. And, you know, and I know your time down there, you know that, those kids went out and fought and that's, that's the kind of the feeling that I'm getting back with some of the kids that are filtering through our program now, um, you know, and I can't answer for things before me, but it just seemed to me like our self-confidence maybe wasn't where it needed to be as a program and so we've tried hard to address that to, to just let our kids know that you can be successful here in any area of life, you know, and Mr. Sprankle is very instrumental in that our principal, our school has rocketed to the top of the local county public school system and all of our report card data numbers, our test taking and all the metrics that they judge the school on. So it's a, it's a big picture thing that we're all working towards. We're talking to Bart Sessions, the head football coach at Alma Bryant and, uh, you know, Bart, when, when we talk about high school football today, it's a completely different game than what you and I and Mark knew of it years ago and I want to publicly say this, I am so proud of your wife, Simone, who has been on the cutting edge of making us a wire and presenting to the public the issues that are out there and I know you probably catch some flat from that from some of your buddies, but she does her job and does it as well as anybody in this state and she's been recognized by her, uh, all of her comrades that have awarded her for her work. But I know that this has got to really stick in your crawl, the things that we see going on in high school football when we have schools that have anywhere from 30 to 40 transfers. Where do we go with this? You know, I think that's the million dollar question and, uh, you know, let me first off by, by say, I am extremely proud of my wife and how courageous she's been because she has caught a lot of flack and been attacked and threatened and everything else for simply doing her job and doing her job at a very high level. Unfortunately, her peers and Alabama broadcasters association and a few other things have recognized just what it took to stick your neck out there and be truthful about a couple of things and I'm not talking about one specific story, um, but she's, she's really, uh, went against the grain in today's day and age where people just kind of accept that that's the way things are. You know, my hope is that some leadership in Montgomery, Alabama that's changed will, um, open the rule book and the rule books written in black and white, you know, there's not gray areas in that rule book. And if we enforce things as they're written, that clears up a lot of problems. Um, now they're still going to be transverse and as long as you do it the right way and it's a parent driven decision and we don't have third party entities or coaches with, with two cell phones, calling kids and all the other shenanigans that are clearly outlined in the book as illegal and you're not providing extra inducements to get someone to come which again is doesn't matter, doesn't matter who's paying it or who's paying for the rent. None of that matters according to our rule book. The bylaws simply say, if you are giving extra incentives, you are ineligible. That's true. So that's, that's easy. That's a black and white. That is. And I always have been in my career. So, uh, as long as the parent, you know, if a parent decides that, that our program is not where they want to be and they want to be at the program across town, we're going to shake their hand and usually we're going to smile at them and tell them we'll see in a couple of years and that kind of works us out to where they do make their way back or they go somewhere and they're happy. Yeah. But, but the kind of problems that I have is, and I'm not sure as a coach, hey, if a great player walks in our place, we're not going to turn him away. But I'm not sure as a coach, how you can take pride in a junior or a senior or multiple junior or seniors moving in that are already developed by some other coach, to me, that's not coaching. No. What I enjoy about coaching is that we take the four pictures when I freshman come in. Yeah. Years later, we take a picture in the same wall and show the kids before, after, you know, the kids growing up. There's no great stuff right there. Yeah. And the picture, the picture shows the physical part, but we talked to the kid about, hey, do you remember freshman year when, you know, you could put yourself on up in class and the pictures was fussing about you and then here you are a senior and you're about to go off to college and, you know, you made a great ACT score and your GPA is great now. Just the growth of the person. To me, that's coach, player development. I don't have a lot of respect, to be honest with some of these hall of famers that take someone else's development and go win blue maps off of it. All right, that might not make me very popular, but that's okay. Well, I second that as a coach here, I second that. I know more it does too and thank you for saying that. Bart, thank you for taking time out tonight. This is the night, I mean, Simone's working, you got JP and y'all are having the time of your life and this is- Oh, yeah. We're having a blast. I love that. Look, he's running laps right now. I know the entrainer. They're the men that are getting me down on the ground to practice tackle. There you go. Well, Bart, thanks a bunch, pal. Take care. God bless. I know you don't play until the second week or the really whatever week it is, the 30th, I think you open up with Baker, you're going to go over and play Phillip Rivers and that slingshot of an arm. His son's got it. I'm telling you. Boy, you're going to- Man, it's not exciting, man. It is. What a great player that kid is. And just to see his development. That's right. We saw him a couple of years ago, man, he's growing up a lot and will be a good one. It is. He's going to be a good one and I know y'all will have fun out there with you and Phillip and y'all will do great things but we're really looking forward to this season. We'll talk to you along the way but we appreciate what you do and please give some on a hug for us and tell you how much we appreciate her. Hey, I'll do it. Thank y'all so much. Thank you, pal. That's Bart Sessions and I'm going to tell you, Mark, I really pull for that guy. I really do. He's a guy that he's experienced a lot of success where he's been and he's gone home and he wants to do what you did and what Rush did there. Boy, that was big time football too. I'm telling you. That was big time football. Hey, we'll be back. Mark will have the Camp Grace segment right here on the Thompson Tractor Prep Sports Report. This segment of the Thompson Tractor Prep Sports Report brought to you by Camp Grace. Now back to coach Rick Cleveland. Camp Grace is located in West Mobile as the summer home of Camp Rappahope, Camp Mash, Camp Smile and Camp Sugar Falls as well as the home of Outback Mobile and is shared by many other community organizations throughout the mobile area. Camp Grace is a place where God's love is bestowed freely upon others. The true definition of God's grace. Each one of us in our lives, we don't even realize sometimes what we're blessed with. And we've been talking about some horrific things that took place at Hoover this week. We talked a bard about what great things he's got going on down in Alma Bryant building and that programming and changing that culture and he's got it. He figured that, I mean, he knew it when he came there, what it was going to take and he took what he knew about those two communities and he said it. And it's the same thing, I mean, I believed it, I learned it when I got there, those communities believe in hard work, period, end of story. And you know, doing that, he figured that and he took it in there and he's figured it out and then his kids are figuring it out and look what's happened. And they're beginning to grow, the program is growing and that's exactly what he wanted to do. But when he started thinking about those kind of things and things that took place and why you want it to go in that manner, he can't do it by himself. He's got a higher staff that'll do it right. And what Chip English has got to do now is pull that staff together and get everybody to work towards building that program to what Josh Niblet had it as, you know, to where he had it. And that's where they got to go and he's got it, but he can't do it by himself. So I was reading a little something and I was thinking about this the other day and it's by Helen Keller. Now, Helen Keller kind of got a special place and our families are going with my sister. My sister being deaf, of course, I learned about Helen Keller back in the sixties, you know, when, when I was growing up and mama was trying to explain to me about, about my sister Ginger and how she couldn't hear. And so she told my mom told me about Helen Keller about she couldn't hear, she couldn't see, and she couldn't talk, how in the world did that human being learn how to do anything? Somebody had to teach, not just one person, a lot of people. And so I was reading this thing as a quote that she had, which I thought was so spot-on where she said alone, we can do so little together, we can do so much. Wow, teamwork is the key to achieving great things. We work together our potential for success expands exponentially. No matter how talented or skilled an individual may be, their achievements will always be limited to comparison of what a team can compete can do collectively. One of the things that I've always thought was that as a coach, and if I did a good job and taught that our team collectively, collectively as a group could be anybody we played on any given night, didn't matter who it was, I don't care if we could do that. And they believed in that, and that was our culture that we had a chance every Friday night. That was the chance that we had, but we had to do it collectively. And you can't build that collective attitude by tearing one another down, or hazing one another or bullying another, because I'm a senior and I had to do this, you're going to do it. No, show them how to do it. Our athletic director spoken to coaches meeting today about how what he believes, the way you build a program is that everybody helps to teach everybody how to do it correctly. Whatever that is, whatever it is, how to do it, not you say you do it because I did it. No, you do it because this is the way to do it, and this is how we go about doing it. Let me show you how I did it. Let me show you how to do it. It's the same thing with a coaching staff. A coaching staff's head coach needs to be able to say, this is how we do it. Let's watch and see. I learned this from, because all of us in coaching are nothing but copycats. We put our own stick on it somewhere. We put our little ideas and our plans together, but we take ideas from other people and we implement it into our program. It's the same thing. If you can do that, then your coaching staff gets better, and your team gets better, and your team, your seniors, teach it to the juniors, freshman, middle school, all the way down to your YDL programs. That's program building. Ellen Keller said it a long time ago, alone we can't do a whole lot, but together we can do anything. That's what teamwork is all about. When you've worked with people like we've worked with, and you've seen the success that they've had, I mean, you look at what Terry Curtis has done. You look at what Steve Saverice did. You look at what Buddy Anderson did at Vestavia. They know all about teamwork, because each individual is an important part of that team. It doesn't matter if he's a fourth string, nose tackle, or he is the backup punter. They're all important. They're all important because they play a role in the team, and that's such a great segue into what we're going into this week, Mark, because, you know, the next seven eight practices, that's the intense point, and that's where your team comes in, and those guys on the sideline, Mark, are so important. So important. So important. Every one of those kids in that uniform, and I love what Bart Sessions just said, you know, they haven't won a whole lot of ball games, but they're getting better. The program's building, nobody had to go to summer school this summer. That's awesome. I remember when I was there, Coach. We sat there on that David school, let out, said, all right, we've got to get all these kids' contact. They've got to go to summer school. What a great program that is, and what a great job he's doing there. Well that's good people doing good work with a lot of good kids, and that's great for that community, because, Mark, that was a tough, tough time when Alba and Grand Bay had to say, you know, we're going to, we're going to, and who could have been a better principal to come in and head like that? He had to figure it out. Man, I'm telling you, he did want an awesome, awesome job he did. Mark, thank you. This is great. Steve Stanley, you're the best in the business, and we appreciate you so much, pal. I mean, you are, you're the goat. Take it the way you want to. Remember this, no matter what you do, no matter where you go, he is always with you. God bless you. See you here same place, same time, next week. [music]