Tim Tyrrell, Head Coach at Hoban

count money, man, money, that gritches.

I'm trying to talk, trying to talk to my beast, but

what's up gang?

Welcome back to another episode of the grind cast.

Get ready.

It's a new day and we have living legend, coach,

Timmy Terrell out of the Akron,

Hoban, also as a native of Youngstown, Ohio.

I believe the North side,

North side Ohio played at my alma mater at,

at Urslin was a tight end at Urslin.

And then also at Youngstown State under trestle in the 90s.

And now has currently has played or has coached in,

was it eight stittles and has five state titles at Akron,

Akron, Hoban.

So in the last nine years, you've been to eight state title games.

Is that right?

That is correct.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

Well, congratulations on a journey that I haven't heard

many people that have been able to emulate that level of success

and leadership and coaching.

So why don't we start out?

Could you give us a little snapshot of how did you get into coaching?

What made you get into coaching?

And what does that journey look like for you?

You know, I think people see the outcome of eight state championships.

But I know there's had to been a process journey.

There's definitely better process.

I started, I mean, played at Youngstown and then right out of college.

Coach Tress, I guess, saw something in me and really talked to me,

really a lot my whole senior year about coaching.

I think I just enjoyed the stuff that coaches enjoy, like film study and the back end of things.

The players necessarily don't like.

So started coaching right out of college.

Was blessed that he hired me on his staff as a GA kind of moved myself up

to the tight end stackels position.

When coach Tress left to go to a house state, I moved on.

I really wasn't looking to get into being a head coach in high school.

I kind of just wanted to make a little bit of money and I became an AD in the

canned area at St Thomas Aquinas and the coach left at a nowhere in July.

And the principal looked at me and said, you're going to be the coach and AD.

So it was my first experience at high school.

I really liked it was not the most successful coach in the world.

Still, you know, a lot of college coaches I've learned over the time,

you know, the transition from college to high schools harder than people think.

I thought I knew everything because I learned under one of the best of all time.

And just thought that's how things work.

And really wasn't a player's coach was kind of more of a dictator at a young age.

25 years old as a head coach.

I, you know, wasn't the greatest coach in the world.

I still apologize to all the coach, all the players I had my first three years of coaching.

I hire them.

I take them to dinner as I do all the kind of stuff.

I'm still still apologizing for that.

But kind of learned as I went, you know, spent five years there.

Went down to South Florida because I knew a little bit of the

area from recruiting when I was a young style.

Got into a good situation at Shaman, I'm Adana, who's obviously, you know, top five in the country right now.

Much kids, they send to Ohio State and all over the country.

Went into there at a low point for them.

So I was able to rebuild it the way I wanted to.

In the school, I had my bet.

What's that?

How long were you there?

I was there for five and a half years, almost six seasons.

I had a great experience.

Learn probably the most I've ever learned about coaching down in South Florida.

Anybody that's ever played football, you always play with someone from South Florida.

So you know, it's a different way of thinking and, you know,

it's a, you know, they're not producing always the number one offense alignment or defense alignment all the time.

They got skill out the wazoo.

So you kind of learn that dog mentality a little bit with the skill players down there.

Learn how to coach really, really high profile kids.

I've got some kids in NFL and it's gone pretty far.

So I learned a lot.

I learned how to become a very disciplined coach, but more of a player coach when I was down there and then just had an opportunity.

You know, it was married when I was down there to a to a canton girl.

My wife wanted to have kids and kind of agreed she wanted to be around her mom when that happens.

So I was trying to buy as much time as possible because we were loaded at Chaminade.

So, but coach stress, as he does kind of inserted himself into my life again at that point and knew some people up in Akron.

So it kind of talked me into, you know, coming up a year earlier that kind of wanted to.

And hoping really, you know, reached out to me and really wanted to be good in football.

So, took a shot.

You know, they were they were down to a little bit at the time.

Ralph or Sini who's an unbelievable man.

Great coach was retiring at the time.

But they're a little bit of a low point too.

So I like restarting programs.

And you know, everyone loves to go into an automatic situation where they already have great players and doing things.

I like to restart side of things kind of making your own.

So then came here and, you know, I've had some great administrations.

It's changed over the years.

You know, they've moved on to better jobs, but they seem to keep hiring great people here at Hobern.

How long have you been at Hobern?

Just finished my 11th year.

Okay.

Been here.

11 years, along this I've ever been anywhere.

So.

So, took you a couple years then to.

Yeah, third year, third year.

We won our first state championship in school history in the third year.

I kind of I think that's your kind of your aiming point as a coach, a new coach.

If you can't get it by year three, you probably shouldn't be at that school.

If they want to be good at football, you know, and so I told him, if we ain't good by.

I didn't think state championship don't give me wrong.

I wasn't like betting on myself for a state championship year three, but.

And it worked out.

The kids bought into the what kind of what I wanted to do philosophy wise and build the culture that way.

So put some great coaches around me, great assistance.

And the core of them have been with me ever since.

So we've got it going pretty good at Hobern and it's become a very popular place and.

Become a kind of a national brand now.

So we're part of the Nike elite group, which is your top 40 high schools in the country.

And Nike's eyes. So it's gone.

It's gone really well since I've been here.

I got to come to I got to try to get down to a game this year.

Yeah, we play a play Tuskeh as well.

We're not we're independent.

So we play a lot of national teams and.

There's some teams next year where I get some TV games and some different things like that.

It's a it's an interesting thing not being a huge school. We're only got you know 800 kids in the school or.

You know,

What's smaller side of our division, the division to so, but it's been successful.

So you know, I got a couple tips from coach Trest before I was going to have you on here.

I should give me a couple of bullet points. He said, well, he said that you already had leadership ability while you were playing there.

He said you are a great leader even while you were we're at Youngstown State.

And and what was that 97 was my senior year won the national championship my senior year.

Okay. So you so you're starting to see these winning traits.

You know, you're on a championship team and now you're you're coming out and and winning titles.

You know like this one of the things that that you mentioned was that you turned into more of a player's coach.

That in the beginning, you were more of a dictator and then you transitioned into a more of a player's coach explained it to me or other young coaches.

What do you mean by that? How do you how do you do that?

So the term players coach kind of gets used the wrong way. You know, I think you know when people hear player coach, they think of buddy or you know someone that's really in with the players that player coach to me means that.

That is a trust and there's a respect back and forth. It's just not one person talking and doing and it's always their way their way their way.

So I put a lot of leadership. You know, I learned a lot from obviously coach stress and he always did that.

You know, in my first years, I again, I thought I knew more than everybody because I was coming out of a great program and you know, you everyone got to listen to me and I was doing a couple years before.

I was I was I was kind of doing the opposite of what I was taught. So as I started to go along, you know, just I always have lots of the happy players when they're happy and they're in their playing the position they want to play and they they have the the chance to play.

You know, at young ages, then, you know, the player works a little bit harder for you. So you know, they all want to run through that wall for you. But you know, when they know you have their back.

Well, still keeping everything very, very disciplined and you know, on time for everything. Obviously that's something we all learn. If you ever been around Jim Tresil, is you know, you know, if it's meaning starts at 10 o'clock and you get there at 10, you're late.

So the discipline is there. It really helps the kids future wise. But you know, they have to have a voice with the coach. They have to be able to walk in your in your office and talk to Tim Teral, not coach T.

So, you know, when they're coming in, I always ask them, are you talking to Tim, talking to Timmy, you're talking to coach.

And this is it. This is it. This is a Tim Teral talk. So I you got to you got to be man to man with some of these kids and you're all coming from the balance. How do you make the balance of, you know, having the discipline and authority.

But also that relationship to where, you know, you're you have that players coach.

They just know the standard. So we have roles. So anytime it's a work area, for example, for underfield. I say in between the lines, you're never dealing with Tim Teral as a man.

Your coach, this is coach T time. So you got to leave everything behind. I'm leaving any problems. I got it.

And my personal life behind where we're on the field, we're on a field. You know, when we walked over the track, all of a sudden I become Tim Teral again. And my arm goes around you.

And we'll talk about issues you have at home. We talk about, you know, the Jeep breakfast this morning, you know, he's a family not having enough money.

You know, his parents gone away on vacation. All the different things. I just go to go to right now.

Social media issues, all that kind of stuff. We talk about outside lines. Same thing with the weight room in an off season. Like you, you're there to work.

You're there to be the best you possibly can be. And to teach him the hardest thing for kids to realize nowadays and the parents to trust you.

To not be the nicest individual world to your kid is is everybody has that ceiling. You know, we all we all went through it as players that you know you come out of practice and thinking, OK, I did all right. I did a good practice.

And for them to realize good is not good enough. You know, our goal is not, you know, we lost the state championship this year in a very close game.

You know, we a lot of programs would celebrate that. Like you got to the state championship. Our kids didn't even get a t-shirt. And it ain't good enough. You know, we're not we're not celebrating second.

So in the kids realize that, you know, they were more mad. You know, the juniors were coming back and, you know, you have to have a certain amount of days off before you hit the weight room again.

For health reasons and the state grows and stuff. They wanted to fight our strength coach and me as a coach and when they can't lift on Monday after they just played the state championship on Thursday.

Because they were so mad they got second. You know, 77 to two game. Yeah, we lose in the last 50. We could have won a game last 53 seconds. And it was already moved on. So, but they understand that the ceiling they think they have my job and my staff's job is to punch them through about 10 more ceilings.

Because their goals, you know, when they come to hope and to play football, they want to play college football. Whatever level I did could be John Carroll, could be Ohio State, could be USC, could be Florida, wherever it is.

They have to be we want them to be college ready. So, we're not getting redshirted. They're physically good and more importantly, they're mentally good.

So, that's always a hot topic nowadays, you know, how do you treat kids because of the mental with that I've learned something that like nothing has changed with kids when you get when it's strictly just the kids you're dealing with.

But when I was with you in 1998, compared to, you know, when I was playing in the early 90s, kids are saying, this kids are the same thing.

When you break them down and they want what they want, you know, I said goals and you got to say attainable goals with them. They're no different.

Everyone's always saying they're soft now. Kids aren't soft. Kids are tough as they always always have been. You just got it.

There's different ways to break it down now because of social media and how the world works right now. But kids are still kids in a weight room on a football field and doing all that type of stuff.

So, you mentioned you enjoy the process of building from the ground up versus taking over a successful program. Walk me through what your thought process would be or coach somebody through what the steps would be to build a culture, a winning culture from the ground up, you know, going into a losing situation to a winning situation, you know, much like I've seen happen with with Ursula.

Yeah, for sure, you know, obviously coach Rearland knows what he's doing. You know, we all kind of came from the same clock, obviously, and have different philosophies how to call a play, but it's still the same way of doing things.

So, when I always tell young coaches now, there's a lot of them come and talk to me, a lot of them come to watch practices and the playoffs and doing things.

And they always ask me that question, like, well, so how did you do it? You know, how do you do this? You know, and they're always talking to me about trying to get the best players.

And I always tell you, players come, the good players come to you because of your atmosphere.

fear and because of your culture. You don't go get them to create your culture.

So you know the first thing I do is is everybody wants to have the PlayStation type coach.

They can call a play and the gurus of football. You see it in college and the NFL, especially

NFL like some of those guys can't coach the way out of a paper bag and an individual but

they can call a play. So you know I try everywhere I've been that I've restarted last you know

three schools I've been at to restart and kind of build is I try to surround myself with the

with great men in the community and different parts of the community. That are faith based.

I don't care what faith but they're faith based. They've been a dad. Some of them are older,

some are very younger. They have kids and they're well known inside of their own community.

You know that they're good men. They know the game of football but they realize they don't know

everything. So I start with my staff and I surround the school and different guys from different

sides of towns and different things and I base it upon you know I'll coach you on the plays and

individual and what to do on things like that but your players have got to trust you. Your

players have got to buy into you. So you're going to that kid's going to come back in 20 years and

give you a hug and tell stories and do all those types of things you know good bad ugly stories

and being tough on them and everything else I said but they know they could call you a midnight

when something bad happens. So I don't need a bunch of coaches that can think they know everything.

You know I sprinkled those young coaches in every year and they're usually ones the last two,

three years and they want to be a coordinator somewhere else but that's how I first do it and then

the second thing I always do is you know at every school I've been at is concentrate on the offseason.

How is teaching these kids how hard they actually have to work outside of just the season and what

that takes to be known as the greatest and you want to be able to compete with the class that came

before you they were the greatest team in the school history and it's just a constant competition

and getting the competition out of kids because that is what is different nowadays from when we grew

up is is you know we had we had the little video games and stuff like that but it wasn't the

the aspect it is now is getting them at work ethic that you have to be training harder than the person

next to you so we I learned one of the greatest quotes I've ever heard you know that when I was

with Trestle I wasn't one of his quotes it was zig-zagged where he used to you know make us all read

books and different things like that it wasn't just all football and kids hate hearing me say it but

I say it all the time whether we want to stay championship year before we were one of nine

to be 16 it's no good matter if it ain't broke break it I hate to say if it ain't broke

don't fix it that means all that does is that if someone catch you so I'm we're just constantly you

know I remember when I started here we were five and five my first year at Hoagin and I thought

that was the greatest coaching job anybody has done in my 23 years of coaching because

I don't know how we won five games and it was smoking mirrors it was but the kids bought into the

work ethic and I always look back at that 2013 class and I they don't have a ring like a lot of

the other classes but I tell them they're the reason that 15 16 17 18 20 all those runner-ups

you know all those teams want is because they bought in to the work ethic side of things where

and when people aren't looking you have to work when when when someone thinks and wants to celebrate

you we're nice the parents celebrate and during I'll say that but we want to stay championship

we have a banquet in January the minute that banquet's over we're not allowed to talk about the

stay championship so we're breaking things we did the year before and the coaches and kids get

ahead they're like but this work last year I don't care work we're changing we're changing something

someone is chasing you someone is trying to beat you and they're sitting in a weight room saying

we're doing this and we're all working hoagin because we're gonna beat him next year and it's

just my wife thinks it's a sickness but like she thinks something's wrong with me sometimes

there is you got to make like that in order to win at the level that you're winning at

right now consistently you know I was gonna ask you how how do you maintain you know as a mentor

of mine you know trustee was to always tell me that it was easier to get people to buy into the

work that it required coming off of a losing season which I think he told you guys did you had a

season or two where it wasn't the standard and that set up the the the championship mind and he

was always telling me it's it's easier because success can be a bad teacher so I think it's a it's a

huge challenge you know when when you've already won and you've been winning that it how do you keep

that level so high and keep that level of consistency you know I think the biggest thing that

we try to do is a staff and the kids of again they got the hardest thing is you every coach can do

what they want and say what they want but if you don't and this is what I was trying to tell young

coaches because they they always come back to me and all this didn't work I said but you don't

you say it but you don't practice it so you know it's one thing to say something to a kid you know as

well as it the neighborhood's we grew up in I mean the young sounds infamous but I grew up off

on the street on the Sarah and I moved and I got rich and moved three streak down to Brookline like

I was joking with I we got rich and moved three straight straight close to the gypsy like yep the

mindset that you have to kid see through the face so you just preaching something and doing something

you know my players think something's wrong with me because they'll come out of a workout and I'm

like that wasn't good enough you know that's not good enough so you know and they're like the coach

this but I practice what I'm preaching so I I try and unless I have the biggest meeting in the world

I don't miss less I have a strength coach but I'm at the lifts too we're constantly you know when

we're having meetings I'm in the defensive meetings I have the greatest defense court in the state of Ohio

I he's awesome we're always in the top two and you know but I want the defensive players I'm calling

the offensive plays but I sit in the defensive meetings because I want those players to understand

I believe that the only way we want to say championship is if your defense is the best

in the whole state of Ohio so I give the defense the best players I'm the offensive guy so if I'm

not practicing if I'm not practicing what I preach then they don't buy kids don't buy in so

you know we just live by that philosophy of constantly changing and and really living by the saying

this is that how you keep going I think you know and again this isn't me running by the wheel no one does

that but I've heard Nick Saban say over and over and over again when it whether he's an LSU or Alabama

was you have to become very comfortable being uncomfortable so you know I constantly

preach out with the kids you can think you just have the greatest practice to the greatest work

out in the world and all of a sudden the head coach is in your ear ripping you about the smallest

footstep or you didn't get low enough on a squad or you know where I want your hands on the inside

you know you let the linebacker let the kid block you too long yeah yeah it was it should have been

a negative play but you know you got him in the line of scrimmaging you think you did well and it

was pat you on the head so the more you keep them uncomfortable to me the more you challenge them

in the off season um they believe in what you're saying because you're you're actually doing it instead

of just getting up in a pregame you know preseason talking talking about it you didn't do it for the last

you know 200 some days in a workout situation you just came in and showed up and all of a sudden you

gonna call some plays you can think it's gonna work right I think the good young coaches now

the days that are coming up and doing it are really practicing what they preach no matter what the

philosophy is kids buy into what you're saying if you do it so I think that's how you maintain that

is you never let them feel comfortable um I think it sticks out to me just saying that you're present

in the weight room sessions I think a lot of people would delegate you know that it but just you

being present shows how important that it is and how hands on you know that that you are I know how

taxing you know it could be to win you know at at that level you know if you're if you're teaching

during the day or if you got it you know then right after that you got practice you know during the

season you know what what do you think you know give me an example of what your schedule would look

like you know during in season uh you know why why your coach in in season what does that schedule look

like these well number one you gotta have a great honestly and this is a problem with a lot of

young coaches this is the right moment you gotta have the right white you have got to have the great

you gotta have a great wife and you you have to have if you don't have that then you don't I got a lot

of young coaches that come in and they want to be this and want to be that and they're talking about

being a head coach and I always tell them you know I'll train you to be a head coach you want to be

a coach and the first thing I do I just did it with a young offense alignment the coach that's

gonna be my own line coach this year and uh it's great he played for me he want to stay chairmanship

2015 and he's all excited how much what he's gonna do and I said I don't need to talk to you I

didn't talk to your wife just got married and I'm like we're having a meeting not with you and he's

like what do you mean I'm like she has to buy in to what you have to do if she does not do and she

doesn't understand that you're never gonna be good so I am lucky you know I I was a coach before

I met my wife and that was one of the things that she was a competitor so that's you know I'm

married up and I don't lie people see my wife like damn Timmy Tee what up like I'm like she she

was a competitor so she has she understands what I do so you know we brought up two kids understanding

you're not gonna see daddy so like a normal game week before in season you know um I I learned

this from coach Harbaugh even though I'm a Ohio guy I love the guy I learned a lot from him spend a

lot of time with him you know he taught me one thing you know way back when he was at Stanford I

think he was at Stanford he he came one of my practices and I'm Florida and said coach

for he didn't ask about a player he goes what are you doing the morning I really like your

practice I think you're a great coach what are you doing the mornings and I'm like coach I'm here

earlier earlier and I know and he's like you need to take your kids to school you need to take

your kids to school because you ain't gonna see them at night you need to learn how to take your kids to

school get them ready get them breakfast wake them up let your wife sleep in you know take care of

your wife like that you know you she's gonna have all evening she's gonna have weekends just take

care of your kids in the morning so I do that I get them up do all that type of stuff you know

and my kids the football players know that and and I think it helps because they they they love my

kids because they know I'm a part of their life so wake them up take them to school get them fed

get them out the door and then that's when the whole day starts so you know I'm 24-7 minded you

know every high school coach has a day job but I'm blessed I have a great administration so you

know I they trust me to get my my job done and I get results for them inside of a school so I

raise money for I do those types of things and they don't bother me as long as I'm doing my job

they trust me so I do a lot of football throughout the day I get a lot of things done for my

assistants so they can be family men so I try to take on that's why I don't lose assistance my

core group of assistants because I don't overwork them I do a lot of work for an assistant coach

so when they can have a family so they're their wives you know like me actually I'm not the

guy going home I'm there first and I'm leaving last so we we do all those things and we work well

as a team but you know the seasons long we've played you know 2019 it was the only year we haven't

been in the state championship in the last nine years but we went to the state semi-finals so

you know we it was just one of those situations where you know you know we're the game before

the state championship so we played 15 weeks to set a 16 weeks wow 16 weeks now so you know the

the thing you got to be able to do is is those coaches and you know

you're going to be late on Sundays you're going to be late on Monday you know Monday you're not

going to see your family it's been time with them in the mornings two days or later when's

they I'll get you home after practice and Thursday's your typical walk-through type situation

little different than it was back in the day but you know you're home early

um in Fridays game day and you know you're back at it you know Saturday I'll wake my kids up

and I'm I'm out of school by 8 a.m. and it just starts all over again so you have to have a great

wife how you win yeah you you if you don't have a great wife and you don't have great assistance

that have wives that understand yes same as this is same in the business world everything

yes right now it's like man I I can relate same thing over here I had a mentor of mine I won't

mention his name but he also was a was a high level football coach and I was asking him about he was

giving me the schedule and he had him coming in for film his coaches on Sunday and I said well what

you know how do you handle with you know the family or the spouses or you know challenges and

he said you know I do the best I can the game requires what the game requires to win and I would

tell him respectfully either you got the wrong job or you might have the wrong wife and I don't know

which one it is that that's up

for you side. I don't know. But very true. That's what the game is.

Good advice. Good advice right there. So so so crazy schedule, crazy, you know, a lot

of work that's like when you look at that schedule back up Saturday morning after Friday

night lights, you know, all of the things that that you're talking about, that makes sense

as to, you know, what it takes in order to win. You mentioned Harbaugh, uh, Tress, you know,

as is there a couple things that you could point out from maybe mentors or coaches that

you've had that you've adopted. Can you give a couple people? Yeah, I tried to, I tried

to, you know, Tress is the ultimate mentor. Everyone knows that, you know, every time I'm

talking to someone, I mean, obviously, you know, you talked to Tress about me. So, you

know, he's, Tress is, you know, the closest thing to a second father, you know, love my

dad and have it. He's my best friend. He's the greatest relationship in the world. You

know, he's up in heaven now. But, you know, Tress was that second guy that you, I did have

done anything, you know, he wasn't always football. Um, when it comes to the football side of

things, you know, there's been so many guys that I try to just go and listen. Good coaches

listen more than they talk. So what's the college coaches that I try to talk to, I just

try to go and listen. You know, I've, I've grown really, really close with Ryan Day. Um,

and it's not because I don't even pay attention to the, is, is everyone goes down there for

offense and learning all this different stuff. I don't even pay attention to that. I,

like to just go into the staff meetings and watch how he manages and watches, you know,

he gets some really, really high profile kids. They get the best receivers in the country.

I watched how he handles high profile kids because we have high profile kids. So it's just

one of those situations where I, I marked stoop down in Kentucky is another one. When

he was a assistant at Florida State, I used to go, I used to go up to him when I was in

Florida. He was at Florida State. And those kind of guys, you know, Nardews, you over a pit,

you know, he had a rough year. But Pat was, you know, I grew up with his sister in young

sound before, before they moved away after his dad, you know, left young sound state. So

I've known Pat since I've a little kid riding my bike around the North side of young sound.

I love just going and, and listening into different philosophies on how you do things.

How they, because everyone can go nowadays and get on and find the greatest plays and

different things like that. You want to put yourself around great men. You want, you

want to put people, you put yourself around people that, you know, stick to the grind

and just don't look for the easy answers. So those kind of guys, I try to like emulate

a little bit more and more. In some of them, I find myself that the longer I'm coaching

is, I'm older than some of them. And, you know, some people have too big of an ego where,

you know, I'll go listen, you know, to a good young coach that has great philosophy and

he's learning for some great people. So to me, it's, you know, put your ego aside and

be able to listen and learn more than talking and doing those things. Speaking of egos

and high profile players, how do you, how have you been able to manage that, how, what

advice would you give to people on managing the balance of, you know, we have a team, but

then you got high profile players, you know, not just them, but just in a lot of times,

especially at that age comes with big egos. Yeah. How do you manage and coach something

like that? So here's the biggest problem with young coaches, or can be an older coach

that never had a high profile kid. There's a reason they're that good. They want to be

coached harder than everybody else. They do. There's a reason, you know, Calvin really

was one of my kids, you know, he's unbelievable wide receiver in the NFL right now. When

Calvin was a sophomore, he was really, really good, but he was really, really good for a

reason. The amount they trained him is to start in tail back this year. Kentucky. Unbelievable

football player, Renable for I'll say last year, you know, there's a reason they're that

good. They want more than the average kid. The problem is coaches think they're going to

lose a kid like that, if they don't give them what they want. And reality is that kid

wants discipline more than the average kid. They want it. They just have to trust you.

It's all about a trust thing. So if they know that you have their best interests in mind,

you're going to guide them through nowadays, NIL, portal recruiting, and you're going

to be the voice in their ear that's that's going to be tough, but you're going to hold

them to a standard higher than then other people are. They'll trust you. And once they

trust you, you can do basically anything. I mean, you could be 1980, 70s hard on your best

bite. I mean, you could be hard porkers. They want it. They do. And in too many young coaches

and too many coaches that haven't been in that situation are afraid because they're afraid,

oh, if I say the wrong thing, they're going to leave or they're going to go find a coach

who's not that that is a 100% complete opposite when it comes to your best players. They

want to be better than everybody in the state of California or Florida. There's a, you know,

Ohio kids that are the greatest in the country. They want the same thing. They want to be saying,

I'm better corner than the kid in Miami. And they want you to push them. They want those types

of things. They're kids. So if you're going to be nice and you're going to pat them on the back

and you're going to give them extra cleats and extra gloves and you're going to do and not make

them run, give them excuses so the whole team can see it. Yeah, then they're going to take advantage

of you. They're smart kids. You know, there's a thing, you know, you grew up the same way.

You know, I'd rather be street smart than smart book smart. So it's usually your best football players

or street smart. They grew up a different way. And so they'll take advantage of a young guy or

someone that's, you know, doing that type of thing, but they really don't want that. They don't

respect that coach in the end. You know, we have some really good players obviously at Hoven

and have gone on to big time, power five and great. And got a couple kids up getting drafted

this year and they come back and they tell the stories about when you dog cuss them out and you were

the hardest on them. They appreciate those things. They really do. And those are the ones that

you get. Yeah. And if you're soft on them, that's probably and they don't respond the right way.

They're not a dog. They're not someone that was going to be that high and they someone pumped

them up a little bit too much on the internet. Yeah, they can't even feel it already. They ain't

going to be able to handle it down. No. And then they're never going to win you that game anyways.

Love it. So, you know, here when I hear you say this stuff, I'm thinking, man, what great.

I bet you a lot of your players are killing it just in business right now and in life period.

Because that mindset that you're instilling in them, not only will it help them on the football

field, but it'll help them off the football field. And what I've found here, you know, is we end up

having a ton of athletes in my business and we're sales based and, you know, leadership,

we build teams and stuff like that. A lot of former athletes crush it, you know, in our business.

And it's not even on purpose, you know, some people, well, you only recruit athletes. That's not

the truth. I think I just build it and it attracts that and the athletes end up doing doing the best.

Why do you think athletes transition so well into business?

Oh, this is a conversation, me and because trust have all the time. So, this is what really drives

me crazy. And it's one of my teachers listening to some of them. We'll love it and some of them

will get really mad at me. There's a reason athletes, you know, with the right people around them

do exactly what you're saying is is they understand that you have to do things when people aren't

watching. And it's not just about going nine to five. And it's about the extra things. It's about

the extra work you have to put in when they get that discipline inside of them as a young age,

as a high school level. Some of them even are even earlier with great parents have come through

athletes know what it takes to do more. So, especially when they're really, really successful. And

they understand that, you know, good is not good enough. You know, they have that mindset.

Like we talked about, it would be a little bit sick in the mind that you just constantly want to

be better than the next person. You have that competition. And you that's what athletes do. So,

you know, I'm always talking to, you know, our administration and different things like that.

And you know, me and Tress have talked about this and you know, he gets upset when people are like,

well, you know, you don't want to hold too many athletes because then you're you don't have the

academic side of things. No, if you have good teachers and you just say you have good coaches,

you're going to draw that athlete and teach him what he needs to know and be competitive with him

in math class. And you will see the kid in math class with a really good teacher who was the

C student all of a sudden an A student because that teacher knew how to get the competitive

out of him when it comes to the classroom too. So, when he's sitting there taking a test,

he comes back with a B feeling a little bit good about himself. He looks over and the kid next

to him as an A, he gets mad. He's like, no, I'm better than him. And you see that. And that's what

you go through in the real world that, you know, when you're trying to get the best people

possible, it's not necessarily the resume that, you know, I'm looking at this, you know,

this kid's transcripts and, you know, he's a he's this and this. But then all of a sudden,

I'm looking at another kid, the grades might not be as well, you know, he's still a smart kid.

But, you know, he just has been taught correctly, but boy, he's doing this. He does this in the

community. He does this. He's not just doing what he's told of him, doing 10 times more,

that kid's going to be that much more successful for you. He might not graduate with a 4.0,

but he's going to outwork everybody and he's going to do everything he possibly can to learn

what he needs to learn to be successful. And that's why, you know, in your line of work,

in my line of work, when I see, you know, I always, we have an unbelievable home reg nameless,

you know, he's an athlete, college athlete, young guy, and he came into our special ed program.

And within three years, they're so afraid to lose them because he's just such a hard working guy.

And he attributes to that what he'd learn playing college football and high school football. So, the kids

are drawn to him because they know he's going to be there early. So, the kids can come in early and

get extra help. They know after school when other people are leaving because that's the time

their contract says they can leave. He's there for two more hours with a family, a young wife that

understands coaching and his what his philosophy's are. But all of a sudden he's the favorite guy,

you know, everybody that kids that aren't athletes, well, I want to go to him for tutoring and I want

it's because it's because of that work ethic you get from being successful in a good coach

or we have some unbelievable teachers at home and that I pat on the back every single time I see him

because they understand that. They understand that, you know, it's not good just to get a B.

The year in A student, they're going to mad at you and they'll come to me and say, he's not working

to his potential and the kids are looking at me on coach, I got to be blunt. And I'm like, you

don't understand what she's saying. Say when you're in the center trying to downblock on somebody,

like we scored but that wasn't good. You understand that but you don't understand that she's trying to

make you understand your in A. So, I just think the same way you would.

Great analogy you're giving them, you know, your coaching people to their potential instead of just

what that immediate result is. Yeah, because say, you know, some kids, they have deficiencies and

they're born that way. God, that's between them and God, where, you know, there's some kids,

I will celebrate because a teacher will come to me and go, coach, it's unbelievable. He got to see

plus. He got to see plus and when he walked in the door, he was, he didn't know anything and

make sure each other whole team out of heart, he's working. And you know, and the other kids are like,

well, I got to be plus you're yelling at me. I'm like, because he's, he's, he should be a D.

You know, that's what God gave him. But he's working so already. You got to see plus. He's almost

had a B right now. You're lazy. God gave you the ability. You could walk into a classroom and get

a B without any work. You should be the A kid sitting in the front of the classroom.

How have you been able to adapt to coaching different personalities and skill sets? You know,

do you treat everybody the same? Do you think you got to coach people differently based on their

personalities? You have to. I mean, I, I, I was. So it's not like, you know, a lot of the coaches will

say, well, yeah, you have to nowadays. Jim Trestle church talked to me different than he talked to

Jake Andrew. They're running back. You know, Adrian Brown was treated different, you know, than I was.

So, you know, you have to be able to do that, but you can't do that. That's what I was,

when we talked earlier about the players coach. But if you don't know the kids and you're not

putting in the time, you don't, you don't know. So you don't know that kids home situation where,

you know, he's rolling in. You know, you say a meeting starts at this time. You know, I had two

great kids in Florida, unbelievable kids. And sometimes they'd come in and lay it on Saturday mornings.

And now the kids could figure out why I wasn't making them do bear calls and do anything to say that,

you know, a meeting started nine o'clock. They were rolling at a night. They weren't. They weren't

905 right. They were night.

But everyone else, you had to be there in 8.50.

And they couldn't figure out what I was yelling at them.

And finally, I remember telling them,

they didn't get it until the bank,

where we had an unbelievable year down there.

And I went through what they did in the morning.

They took three different public buses,

which spanned over two hour period.

They were up before any one of those kids

were even closer being up.

Ada Breakfast got on three different connections

just to be there at nine o'clock in the morning

and got dropped off on a public bus right before him.

Why would I be yelling at those two kids?

They're putting in more work for 6am,

when the kids that were there 10 minutes earlier

can play the wide model.

I didn't ask you to buy in from the others

on the team unless they didn't know that.

But you were hard on them about time

and not those couple.

How did you keep that synergy?

The biggest thing that you got to be able to do is

when you're dealing with kids is everybody's an individual.

And when you preach that from the very beginning,

the trust is the biggest thing.

So those kids trusted,

either was a reason I was not doing that

because they all have their own situation.

If you don't know your kids

and you don't know them individually as kids

because they know there's certain things

that coaches doing for me,

you could be the richest kid in the world

but your parents are gone in six months

or you have no parental guidance.

You have money but you're in the same boat

as the kid that grew up in the ghetto.

You still don't have a parent.

So they know I'm doing it for them.

They trust the fact that he ain't yelling at them.

There gotta be a reason

because he does it for me, maybe in a different way.

But does that trust?

And if you don't have the trust of the kids,

that's what it all comes back to.

That if you just show up on August 1st

when two of the day start,

you start to start coaching

and you're starting to try to be hard with these kids

and do different things.

They don't trust you.

They haven't seen you at workouts.

They haven't seen you.

You know, you haven't been checking on their grades.

We got, I got an unbelievable staff.

We don't coach a position

that every single week check on grades.

Assistant principals are called a players in

and they know we care.

So then you can do that.

You can do that because there's a trust.

Gotcha.

Can you, do you think you can,

you mentioned kids aren't,

it's not that kids are getting soft

that you think kids are still tough.

Do you think you can teach toughness?

You know, you can't, the only thing you can,

it's just that you can't teach hard.

That's the only thing that you can't teach.

If they don't have it in their heart

to want to be good, you can teach toughness.

To drills, to more than drills

that the mental warfare you have to be able to go through.

So, you know, Jim Trusswell is a lot of things.

He is, he's a great coach and he has a great,

you know, everything he does.

But his staff, and whether he was a young son,

I don't know how to say it,

and he'll never take credit for it.

He coached mental toughness

and mental warfare from coaches to players

better than anybody I've ever seen

on the same likes of Nick Sabin.

You know, if you ever been to a Nick Sabin practice

and you ever watched what he does in meetings

and there's a rhyme and reason for everything he's doing.

He's not doing it to be me.

So, with a mental toughness you can coach,

the kid will become tougher on a football field.

But if he doesn't have the heart

to want to put in the work and to go through and to understand,

it's never gonna work.

And kids that have the heart that want to be great,

they separate themselves because the only difference

between 19, you know, 98 when you were playing

and, you know, 2024 are parents.

That's the only difference.

You know, they, they're the ones saying,

you don't be mean to my, don't be mean to Johnny.

Right.

Why are you yelling at him?

He looked good to me.

And when you separate kid from parent,

and they, again, it's a trust thing,

when the kid can know, you're not gonna say it out loud

because we don't want him to be disrespectful to parent,

but so when they get in the car

and, you know, saw something in practice,

what was he yelling at you about?

Well, you know, what, what, you know,

I'm gonna talk to him and the kid looked at his mom

and says, no, you ain't, I was wrong.

Yeah.

Then you got, then you got that kid.

That kid's going to look at his parents and say,

everything's okay.

You stay clapped in the stands.

I'll handle me and coach.

And you, when you have that trust, the kids do that.

That's always a fun thing to do.

One of my favorites.

I love watching Sabin's stuff, clips and stuff.

I saw Sabin define toughness and he gave an example.

He said, you know, down in the south and Florida

where you're near the, the water,

they have, they, they have the price of windows

to protect you from hurricanes.

Yeah.

Those that the price of it is based off the toughness

of the window and the toughness of the window

is determined by how much can you handle without breaking.

Yeah.

And that's the value of, of the window.

And that's how he would describe toughness is,

how much can you handle without what,

what does it take to break you?

You know, I mean, what, what does it take to break you?

What advice would you give to young players,

you know, listening, coming up, you know, nowadays,

if they want to be a great player,

if they want to make it to the next level and anything,

what advice would you give to them, you know,

in a sense of hard work versus talent, you know,

I think talent can only get you so far.

What advice would you give to young aspiring players?

Yeah. I always say to the, to the young kids coming up

is, you know, I heard someone say this,

I don't know who said it, but I,

I try to tell the kids this all the time,

is when young kids come into the building,

is is you are, you are not the main character in this story.

You have to understand that you're a part of it,

but you're not the, you're not the main one.

And no matter how good you think you are,

when an eighth grader walks in here,

I tell them all the same thing.

There is no such thing as a great eighth grader

in the, in the history of football.

The greatest of all time, we're not great in eighth grade.

You know, no, no one's gonna ask that question.

Savin says that all the time.

No one asks about, the NFL coaches never want to him

and said, hey, how was this freshman year?

Right.

How was he as a freshman?

Yeah, I'll come.

Everyone asks that question.

So I always tell kids, you know, when they're coming in,

you're not as good as you think.

I'll let you know when you're good.

And your goal is it as close to great as possible,

because when you become great, that's college.

That's, that's the college coaches job is to make you great.

And if you're blessed to ever become elite,

whether you're on a practice, the squad,

or you're the backup or the main guy

playing for the Browns of the Steelers, it don't matter.

You're elite at that point.

But you're not elite in eighth grade.

Too many people are telling kids that.

So I, we try to just bring their head down a little bit.

And, you know, I, I, I, it's out of all young kids

is is don't believe the height.

Don't believe what people are telling you, you know,

you're always, always can be better the next day.

Whatever you do, you better tomorrow than you were today.

And if kids, if young kids get that in their mind

and start to believe that, that's when you get the kids

you ask me about those kids, we always joke and hoping

because we have kids that come in as freshmen

and are backups is on our freshman team.

And then by the time they're seniors,

some other coach at another school is going on,

come on man, how hard is it to coach?

He's an all-star.

He's an all-star.

I'm like, he's an all-star.

He came from your community.

You didn't even know who he was because he was a backup.

He wasn't good enough.

You didn't even know who he was.

He came to us as a backup, but he believed in his head.

He could be great.

And he worked as if he was great.

And now all of a sudden you're calling an all-star.

So I always laugh about that.

Like, so if that's all we tell young kids coming in is

whatever someone told you, mommy and daddy,

grandpa, grandma, son, you have great, you are.

You ain't there yet.

You can be.

And we're going to help you get there.

The teachers are going to help you get there academically.

But as long as the adults in the world stop

doing what they're doing with these seventh-naked graders

and oh man, this is the greatest,

this is great, great, great, great, great.

Come on.

I mean, I remember Lamar Jackson.

I was down in Florida when he was playing seventh-naked grade

football.

Now I'm going to watch him.

I do it was good.

He wasn't great.

Lamar Jackson, MVP in the end.

He was, he wasn't great.

And I don't know him personally and never met him.

But I guarantee you he had the mindset

when he was in seventh grade, when people were telling him

how great he was, he didn't believe one damn thing they said.

He was going to prove he was going to be the greatest

one day.

But we just try to, any young kid we try to talk to,

all the coaches say the same thing.

All young coaches have to understand if you're a head coach,

your your assistance better be on the same page as you

and saying the same thing to the young kids walking in the door

and everything will end up all right.

You ain't going to scare anybody away.

They want hard work.

Man, I got to, I got to tell you just to be respectful of your

time.

You know, this time is as flown by almost an hour.

I could talk to you like this for another, for another hour.

That's a good, it's a good old days, buddy.

It's real easy to see why you've been so successful.

The more that I hear you talk and I hear your philosophies

and I hear the foundation, you know, I would have loved to

play for you and I was blessed to have great, great coach.

Yeah.

But just to play for a coach like that, I'm sure they all

realize how lucky and how blessed they are.

This, this me calling you and reaching out to you,

you know, it happened through a through an argument,

a debate that I had with some friends, some former Steelers

players and we were at dinner and we were talking about

Youngstown football versus Akron football and I was telling

them about Ursula and they start bragging about Hoban

and all these state championships and stuff.

And I'm like, wait a minute, let me look this.

I'm pretty sure that's my guy.

I said, don't why you guys are that good down there

is you had to get a Youngstown.

You had to get a Youngstown.

So I took credit for you and that reminded me that I had

to get you on the podcast with.

And hey, the biggest thing is listening,

it's been a long time since the man you talked

and your listeners got to realize something.

So I was a young guy with me and you man, I was, you know,

22 years old.

I'm out of college.

You and I could name I won't but I could name about three

other of your teammates.

You knew we knew back then you were going to be successful.

I still remember me and the Twiggy that's who we were talking

about a year ago.

You were going to be successful anything you did.

Because when we walked into the locker room,

you knew we more knew more than you.

You were a sponge.

The reason you're successful now is because you were

that way as a high school kid.

You listen to us.

You ask us a thousand questions.

What about this?

What about this?

I don't know, are you coming to me?

Hey, to me too.

Hey, why what about this?

What about this?

What about this?

And there was a bunch of kids.

I haven't followed them.

But my guess is they're not as successful as you.

They probably had a little bit more hype in your era

of playing at Ursula.

And anytime I said something or did something,

they're like, oh man, I could do a better met.

And it was all I already have everything.

And the people that listen like yourself

and a couple of your classmates are very successful nowadays.

They do follow some of you.

And we talk about you.

That's why you're successful.

That's why you're doing what you're doing.

Thank you.

The blessing I think, and that was

I was never big enough and never, never good

and not being coachable and outworked people.

That was the gift.

It's not being big enough and not being white,

the best, but always being good made me push to,

you had to be coachable and you had to outwork people.

And that was the only way to get through.

But I want to come check you out this year, man.

I'm going to try to get a whole of a schedule.

Yeah, hope you got my number.

Give me a call.

All right.

Well, I appreciate you.

Congratulations on all your success and keep the standards high.

I know you will.

Let's get it.

All right, brother.

Keep doing what you're doing.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Grindcast.

Coach Timmy T. Timmy Terrell, Akron Hoban.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of Grindcast.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

Thanks.