The Grind-Cast “The Winners Manual 2.0”

Welcome to the Winners Manual, 2.0 with Jim Tressel and Simon Erie.

So today we're going to have the opportunity to interview a mentor of mind in Coach and President Jim Tressel.

And I think first I'd like to start out with the background on how even all of this came about.

You know years ago when I was starting this was almost over five years ago I think now.

I was trying to start help to bring inspiring minds to youngstown.

And one of the things that got in my mind and in my vision for whatever reason was to host a first fundraiser.

And I wanted to have Jim Tressel, I just didn't know how it was going to happen.

And I remember Mr. Lucaro saying that he would have been a long time friend of mine who was somebody that when I was in high school would kind of help me take me under his wing and we've always stayed in touch.

He mentioned he may be able to get me together with you.

What I ended up doing was just getting dropped off at Youngstown State one day.

So I had a Keelan Logan I think drive me.

I got dropped off to where I thought your office was and I knocked on the door and I asked for five minutes.

And I surprisingly let's me in.

And I think you had these rings or something something was over there with the rings.

And we sat down he gives me over 45 minutes.

And so I asked him to speak and he says let me check with my bride and see what's going on.

And he said well I'll let you know next week and I'm thinking I'm not expecting it to happen.

But you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Saturday I remember you texted me and sent me checked out one of the videos and said he would do it.

And he was down that he would do it.

So we opened up with with that and little did he know that I was going to latch on and not let go.

And so that I asked him to mentor me.

And again not expecting to get a yes answer you were driving back from.

I was sitting in my office at my house and you were driving back from meeting somebody politically.

Something was going on with the Senate or something in Ohio.

Something with the government and you were driving home and you called me back.

And I asked you to do it.

I said if it's not you, maybe you could give me somebody because at that point of my life I could attribute a lot of my success.

I can connect them back towards having the right mentors.

Fortunately, or unfortunately I hit a point where I started to look around and there wasn't really anybody that was further along than me or had one more than me that I can ask from because I was in my circle from my business and some people that I've met there.

And so it's not that I couldn't gain wisdom from other people because I do all the time.

But I didn't have a consistent source of somebody and leadership to help to navigate me and allow me to pick their brain.

And so he said that he would.

And so we start to meet and I think it's ironic as I roll into some of the questions.

You know, you've won everywhere you go.

So you get to win at Youngstown and within a couple years you win an already at Ohio State.

I mean you're at a major level and then you win again as a president of a university and you've just changed gears so many times and find a way to win.

And I think it's ironic, you know, for me that over the last couple years you start to spend time with me and we were winning but all of a sudden we're winning at a higher level.

And you know, for our company we won agency of the year last year which is very difficult to do.

It's almost like winning a national championship again after you've done it before.

And the longer you're around the harder it is to do because you're playing against some crazy numbers.

And we won it all last year and we've been growing at a pace that we hadn't grown in years.

And I think a lot of that has to do with the time that you spend with me and help to guide me and other people more than you think.

So, you know, when you knocked on my door I wasn't going to make the same mistake again when I didn't recruit you to play for me and you went on and did great things.

You know, you make mistakes.

I didn't end up having you playing for me back in the day so I wasn't going to make that mistake a second time. That's why I answered the door.

I love it. So let's roll into some of the questions and thank you.

So, I want to start off with your dad as I've spoken to you and read some of the book that you put out.

I start to see a lot of what I read about in your dad and then your mom with the heart that it seems like she has that you've explained in the books that I've read and stuff.

So, you know, I would say maybe what sticks out being a son of a coach because your coach was, you know, a son of a coach.

So, what did you grab from your dad and where did he coach and then maybe a little something from your mom?

You know, all of us that were blessed to have great parents. You know, you talk all the time. You can't pick your parents but you can make decisions beyond that and so forth.

So, when you're blessed like I was to have parents like I did shame on me if I didn't pay attention. You know, if I didn't listen, if I didn't really try to assess the impact they were having.

We lived on campus when I was growing up. My dad was the head coach at Baldwin Wallace College for 23 years.

Born, he was the head coach at Mentor High School in Ohio. Had 34 straight wins going left and became the head coach at Maslow in high school which back in those days, you know, that was a big deal.

That's Maslow's where when you're born as a boy to give you.

Give you a football. That's right. At the high school.

That's right. And then he went back to his alma mater which was Baldwin Wallace College and so really from the time I was five all the way through college, we lived on campus.

They didn't pay small college coaches very much but they did give them home and our home was next to the stadium.

So, you know, we always talk about that balance trying to find, make sure we do a good job as a husband, a parent, you know, but still have that passion to win.

He got to do all that with us next door and so I got to watch everything.

And what really struck me was the impact that he had on his student athletes and really all the students at the university.

He was the athletic director, he was the head of the health and physical education department.

It was an amazing impact. You could just see it.

And then my mom was that times 10. She was not the coach of anything, not no title whatsoever but she was extraordinary.

Every day she woke up, she was going to serve some people.

It didn't matter. The answer was always yes. If they called Eloise, the answer was yes. She would help.

So when you get a chance to see that, you've got an advantage. You've got a head start.

Now, one of the things that I really deal with in my mind right now is I look at our society and so forth.

There are some who have that great advantage and there are many that don't.

And we've got to be there for both. We've got to keep those that have that advantage with the proper perspective.

And those that don't have that advantage, we have to come up with a way to help them learn what impact they can have, what it's going to take to realize their dreams, what life is all about.

And that's why I love this chapter of being in education because I was in football for 38 years.

I'm going to just jump the gun. That was one of the things I was going to ask you is what things do you think you brought with you transitioning over from winning as a football coach to being a coach of a university?

You know, they call it the president. And so what things coincide to winning?

Well, if you're going to be successful, I believe it begins with relationships, relationships with your people, the relationships with your customers, the relationships with your community.

Life is about relationships, especially if you're going to be impactful.

The same is true as a coach and a president.

Also, life is about learning and I was going into a new arena. Now, granted I had been in higher education for 38 years in a very myopic area.

I was somewhat aware of the whole, but not, you know, I was certainly no expert on the whole.

And so that passion to learn about what's important to everyone, all of your colleges, all of your faculty, all of your students,

moving away from your, you know, small interest.

I think that gives you a chance if you learn and learn and learn and relearn.

And so if you take those relationship skills, if you take that communication skill, which I always say, the number one trait of a good communicator is they're a great listener.

They're an intentional listener. Some people you're talking with them and they may pretend that they're listening, but you know, they're peaking out to see who else is around or in their mind, they're thinking about something else.

Intentional listening is exhausting. We always talk about greatness is exhausting.

Well, to me, those are the two biggest things. And then I guess the third one would be I've been fortunate both in my coaching life.

And I'm trying to develop in this new career of having great people around you and developing them and being there for them, knowing what is important to them.

When you say developing them, what would you say are some techniques or strategies to develop people, you know, because it's one thing to have the people around you.

And then if it's in sports, but then it's another thing to develop them. And I think you'll see programs that get a lot of talent. Sometimes they can't win. I would have to assume that one of the things that maybe their missing is developing.

Because I know from a leadership standpoint in business, I've watched that it's not just a tracking talent, but you have to be able to develop that talent for what it is that they're looking to do.

You know, any strategies from you say we have to develop the people. What do you do to develop people?

Well, you and I have talked a lot about the fact that what's critical in your development of people is understanding what they're thinking, understanding what's important to them, understand why they're heading in the direction they're heading strategically and in their own development of their people and so forth.

We used to have a little acronym, W-A-Y-T. What are you thinking? I really want to know what you're thinking. And having as many opportunities as you can to listen, you know, we talk about our surveys and we talk about meetings for hours and hours and hours because we want to know what our people are thinking.

I think any time you get together and you have those conversations or those exercises of writing what you're thinking or whatever, two things can happen. And both of them are good.

One is you can get some great ideas. The people you're working with, my players gave me the best ideas. My students now at Youngstown State, they give, I have a group called the Presidential Mentors and once a month, they mentor me.

30 people, all grade levels, all majors, all that and this is all preferences, you name it. And I want to hear what they're thinking.

So the first thing that can happen when you get together like that is you come up with great ideas. And the second thing which may be equally as important is you can clarify why it is this is the plan.

I used to tell my guys all the time, I know you go back to the dorm after practice or after a workout and talk in the dorm like I can't believe we're not doing lunges or I can't believe we're not blitzing more.

They're always talking and they're always studying the game because they love it. So I want to know what they're thinking. Are they back there saying, I don't know why we're doing this.

I want you to say to me, why are we doing this? We want to know.

That's one of the big ones that I've gotten from you is trying to create an environment to where I'm always asking for people's opinion and not allowing myself to get offended or to feel like I have to come up with all the ideas without creating buy-in, from others which comes from listening to these people.

So I think that takes a level of humility when you say to ask them to mentor you.

We always want to be able to say at the end of the day when we had the plan made and we were going to go forward is, hey this is our plan.

Hey this was your idea. This wasn't my idea. I love the idea. Let them create the idea with you.

And the buy-in, if there is ownership in the plan, is extraordinary. And I think that is one of the critical. There's a lot of ways you can develop. I mean just like you do, I'm sure. You assign reading.

You push them. I've always felt or maybe have grown to believe that one of the key components of leadership is to help people understand what it's going to take for them to reach their dreams. That's critical.

So often guys, how do you go about that?

Let's just take the football side of things.

All my guys at Ohio State came in,

and they were gonna go to the NFL.

That's what they were, so my job is to say,

that's a very few.

Here's what it takes.

Let's study the people who have been successful at that.

What do they look like?

How fast are they?

How many reps on the 225 did they do?

What's their shuttle run?

What's their film look like?

What kind of team guy are they?

What's their production at their position, et cetera?

And put that out in front of them,

because the worst thing I think we could do is say,

oh, that's what you'd like to do.

And then let them try to figure it out on their own.

Right, so you find what it is that they really say

that they want, what they say that they want.

And then you go back and create a way to communicate

clearly what it's gonna take to achieve what they want.

And then you should be able to,

hopefully, either decide at that point

they want to pursue that type of greatness or they don't.

And if they do, then you can hold them accountable

to the vision.

In all the phases of their life,

because they have dreams other than the ones

that are professional.

Absolutely.

And that's so critical.

That's what you do with the Block O.

That was our Block O at Ohio State,

our Wheel of Life at Youngstown State.

I mean, it wasn't a 1.001A1A thing.

It was a real life thing.

But it began with them saying what they were interested in

in those areas.

And then helping them create the plan

for how do we accomplish that.

Short range, but also their dreams.

What are you dreaming about?

Okay, cool.

So that was, for people that haven't seen it,

what you're talking about, the Wheel of Success

or the Block O.

I created it for the agency.

I have it all written down.

I haven't do it at the end of the year going

into the next year that I even did it with my wife.

So in my office and in my house,

I have it framed with these different levels

of what the short term and what the long term is

in the Caring and Giving area,

which I believe was one of them.

The other area is family goals.

Spiritual.

That's your family.

There's family, Caring and Giving

and ethical and spiritual.

That's the top of the Block O, the top of the Wheel of Life.

And that really is who you are.

How many touchdowns you make or how much money you make?

That's what you do.

There's a difference between who you are and what you do.

Now, we didn't apologize for wanting to do.

So on the bottom three on our Block O and our Wheel

was football.

I knew that was our guy's favorite subject.

That's okay.

So what are your dreams?

What are your goals?

How are we going to do that?

The health and physical conditioning and strength.

To me, they felt as if that was important

because they knew it was important to football.

But it gave us an opportunity to say,

hey, that's what life's about.

I don't care how much money you make.

Standing good condition, watching out

after your exercise of physical fitness for life.

You're going to perform better as a, you know,

areas agencies or Youngstown State football.

The better strength, conditioning, health, sleep,

proper diet, keeping the wrong things out of your body.

That exercise, that is, we wanted to plant those seeds.

And remember, we were working with 18 year olds.

And they're focused.

They had a lot of different focuses, you know.

But if you plant the seeds and we used to tell our staff

all the time, don't get mad that the seeds

aren't sprouting right away or that maybe they don't

even sprout in the four years you have them.

What's important is will you have given them those seeds

to sprout for the rest of their lives

because as we talk all the time, when the tough times come,

you're going to have to have a tremendous foundation

to handle them and the tough times are going to come.

Yeah.

I remember asking you early on when I would bring my

list of questions.

And, you know, I started out at one of the early on things

I asked you, I know I asked because I remember the answer

pretty clearly.

How do you handle the stressful times?

How do you handle when life brings you, you know, stress?

And so what I've, you know, what I believe in

and what I've learned and what I've preached to others

and try to develop other people to do is, you know,

my body spirit, that's what we call a mom.

It's in my mission statement of my business.

So, you know, mentally, what I heard some of the things

outside of, you know, one of the non-physical things

was perspective that you talked about building

offence of line and how, you know, how grateful

that we are to just be in a situation

where there's some kid that's really messed up somewhere.

But, I remember you saying, well, exercise,

you know, I'll do, you know, this long of cardio,

you know, in the morning or I try to do this

and read in some scripture.

And here's some of my, you know, scriptures.

And basically in so many words, you tell me my body spirit,

which is, because I remember being all excited

about going back to the fundamentals.

You know, whenever we would have not as good a years,

we would like, we would always go back to the fundamentals.

The fundamentals was the wheel of life.

It was the block of life.

Sometimes you can get so excited about some of your goals

in what you do that you rob time away from working on

what you are and who you are.

And I remember one time at Youngstown State,

we had gone four straight years to the national championship

and I can't remember if I told you.

I'm talking fundamentals.

You're going to write up to talk about fundamentals.

I know, I'm with it.

And so we're rolling.

Well, we graduated a lot of guys

and we got a young bunch coming back

and we don't have a good year.

And so, so four years in a row.

Yep.

And then boom.

Boom.

So sometimes, you know, coaches or bosses,

like a related business.

Life.

They blame it on the players.

They say, you know, what we want to do

is go back and look internally and say, okay,

what did we not do as we look back?

Well, we took all of our practice schedules

and we did a data analysis.

And what happened during those four straight years

of national championships, we played 15 games each year.

And so you had to add little wrinkles to your game plan

because you were playing so much and so forth.

And we were stealing time away from individual period

and practice of working on our fundamentals.

So we found that the amount of minutes spent

on just fundamentals of good football

were went down and we were starting to do more gingerbread.

We started to do more gimmick outside the box.

Outside.

And so after that year, we said, hey, look,

that's on us because the practice schedule

we put out, they do.

And we were not developing fundamentals.

And so when adversity hits in life, in business,

in whatever your dreams are, fundamentals are the key.

Get back to the fundamentals.

So the fundamentals for life when you would say,

you know, you're dealing with stress,

dealing with adversities, what part of the fundamentals

for you?

Because you can't speak for everybody else

or we've talked about our beliefs

and how you don't think they're better or worse

than anybody or forced that upon anybody.

But for you, what is your fundamentals to get back to

when you're going through tough times?

You know, I think an overriding reminder for me,

as I would go back to my fundamentals would be

never losing sight of how grateful one needs to be.

And because when it starts going the other way,

you start blaming others, you blame God, you blame whatever,

and you lose that gratitude,

we called it the attitude of gratitude.

And so always kind of resetting back

regardless of what the situation is.

Seeing grateful for what you do.

Seeing grateful for all the blessings that you've had.

Then now it's time to dig into your fundamentals.

In my mind, those spiritual, those moral,

those ethical fundamentals of who you want to be,

because again, nobody's taken their rings with them.

When they die, no one's taken their money with them,

so forth, but you're taking your impact, you're taking,

did you care for others?

Did you follow God's plan?

Were you obedient?

You know, all of those things.

So going back to the fundamental spiritually,

I can remember a couple of different times,

several times, when it was,

it was some tough things going on.

Saying, you know what, I'm gonna go back

and I'm gonna study one of the Psalms each day.

And I'm gonna read and study and take in that Psalm each day.

And what was mind-boggling to me,

what there's 148 Psalms or something crazy.

And every day, the Psalm that I studied

over that five month period or whatever,

had everything to do with what was going on.

And it grounded and it re-centered and so forth.

Also, I think-

It's part of my daily scriptures, proverbs and Psalms.

Yep.

Wisdom, you know, wisdom.

You're- when times are tough, what do you need most?

Wisdom has to handle the situation.

And then, of course, when times are going tough,

not eliminating that time where you're helping others.

Because you know, so often if you're up against you,

so, man, I gotta go out and make more sales calls,

I gotta go out and watch more film.

I gotta go out and what will I eliminate,

I'll eliminate some time serving others

or I'll eliminate time with my family.

Because who is the one that always takes the brunt

of that lack of time?

It's the family.

I mean, there's, you know, many of us preach

that our faith and our family comes above our football

or our business.

Oftentimes, I've heard people say,

you can really tell what's important to someone

if you check their calendar and the checkbook.

And the checkbook, you know?

So, going back to those fundamentals,

and there's a sense of peace to that.

Does that mean you're gonna go out

and have a great sales year?

No.

Does that mean you're gonna go out

and have a great football year?

No, but you're gonna go out and have a great year.

And, or a great month, or a great six months.

And so, there's something liberating.

There's something peaceful about being grateful

regardless of the situation

and working on those fundamentals.

I had an athletic director,

remember Joe Malmiser?

He was the athletic director that hired me

at Youngest Town State.

And I remember I was 32 years old.

I had been a head coach, you know, and all that.

And here I am at YSU, and he called me in

like my first day or two.

He said, hey, look, I know you're gonna have a lot of ideas

and this and that.

He says, you don't come and see me

unless it has to do with blocking and tackling.

Unless it's fundamental to what's important

to those kids, important to your program.

You keep the fundamentals in mind.

Or don't come see me.

Love it.

Love it.

Well, I have, if we could switch gears a little bit,

one of the other questions I had was, you know,

how do you, when you start serving and helping people,

you know, how do you learn to balance

when to say no or that I can't?

Because, you know, I know your heart

and, you know, on a smaller scale, you know,

I can relate to some of the things

and can only imagine in the direction that you get pulled.

It's hard for me, you know, to, you know,

you talk about the balance and for me,

it's when they say you put your, you know,

God, family, then whatever.

I don't know if the hours, you know,

if I don't know if I'm doing it right or wrong,

but you know, I feel like I'm doing it right.

You know, I always, I try to go back and say,

you know, what do I think my kids would give me,

A to F, what I think my wife would give me A to F?

I think for sure I'd be on the honor roll, you know,

with them, I don't know if I get all A's,

but I think I got a couple B's in there, but some A's.

But if I look at that schedule, you know,

to build something special, you may need to put in

some 80 hour work weeks, 70 hour work weeks,

words impossible to, especially in season, you know,

I can imagine you got Penn State, Michigan State,

Michigan coming up, ain't gonna be not a grind

in some way to prepare for that.

And then you sleep 40, 50 hours, hopefully,

so you only got 30 hours left.

I don't know if the word balance does it right

for people at some times, I think, you know,

they think of balance, they think of a weighted,

weighted thing, you know, that's how you balance,

you put 50 pounds here, 50 pounds here.

I don't know if you could put the same amount of hours

in everything and move.

So what would you speak to that as far as, you know,

finding a way to balance, but you'll never be able to,

I don't think balance the hours.

Yeah, I'm probably the worst, you know,

person that could answer that question

because I'm 100 years old and still haven't figured that out.

But I do think this, there's a vicious battle

going on for your mind and there's a vicious battle

going on for your time.

How you handle those battles is gonna have everything

to do with what you're going to be able to become,

whether it's the husband you can become

or the father or the friend or the community servant

or the salesperson or the coach.

And I think that vicious battle is ongoing.

I don't think it ever stops.

I think you, people talk a lot about,

there's formulas for that, okay, go block out

one weekend a month, go block out whatever.

I've tried that but, you know, all of a sudden

that blocked out day.

One of my former players has got a crucial need.

Yeah, I'm probably gonna lose that block on that.

day. You don't want to get in the habit of that. You do want to have certain

standards that you try to set by. I've found it's a little bit easier to do it

by the day. So if I can block out that first two hours of the morning before

anything comes up, I've got a chance to work on some things that are beyond my

professional desires. But I'm not sure there are any harder battles that you

have than the ones for your mind and the one for your time.

Yep. And so you started out talking about saying no. How are you able to

gauge or how do you separate for somebody that's getting busy and I'm trying to

do it with business and trying to do it with family. I'm trying to do it with

service that I'm trying to and then you start having some success. And the more

success you have, the more people that are coming to pull something from it.

Whether it's money or wisdom or time or whatever. How do you do it? I think if you...

Because you can't say yes to everything. You can't.

And amazingly, I tell Ellen all the time, you know, for every one yes, I have 15

knows, but you know what adds up are all the yeses. And so yeah, there's times when I've

done a better job with it and others. Remember when I first got to Ohio State,

I remember talking with Lou Holtz and Joe Paternall. So they were kind of like, you know,

decades ahead of me and terms. We call them the OGs. Old guys.

OGs. No, not old guys. That's a good one though. Okay.

OGs, I think, for the most part, and for young folks, and you know, street people.

Original gangsters. Original gangsters. Okay, they're the OGs. I like that.

That's what I reckon. You know, I say you're an OG. OG, yeah, I thought you were calling.

Oh, guys. I thought you were calling an old guy all along.

The players never taught you the OGs. The older players you had, I ain't buying it.

No, but I remember both Lou and Joe asking me at different times. I said, how do you handle

what everyone wants you to do? And I remember getting a couple cute stories from them.

Bottom line was they said it's rough. I mean, some months, weeks, years I handled it okay,

some I don't. I remember in 1989 or so, I called up Joe Paternall when I was at YSU and I wanted

him to speak at the coaches clinic we had. And I knew it was a, you know, it was a long shot and so

forth, but I'll never forget his secretary's response to me. I really didn't talk with him.

She called me back and she said Coach Paternall would love to help out, but you know, he thinks

at this moment, his team needs his total attention. And he's not taking any

outside speaking this particular year. And that, you know, I've used that in my mind. Some,

I haven't done great, but I remember Lou Holt's telling me when he was at Notre Dame, he said,

you know, I tried to please everybody. I went everywhere and you know Notre Dame's in all over the

world place. And he said, by the end of it all, he said that he said they just chewed me up.

You know, I was just going every which way, but up. And I wasn't doing this good job with my

students right there on campus. And he said, I came to the conclusion that when I go somewhere to

speak or whatever, there's only one person happy. And he says, it's not me because I know I've

got some other work to do. And really he said it's not the audience because they're going to forget

within a day what I talked to him about. He said the only guy happy is the guy that got me to come

because he goes around for the next five years saying I got Lou Holt's the cup to this day.

And so, but you know, it was his cute way of saying, hey, I haven't figured it out either.

Coach Paterno was cute. I remember what he said. He said, oh, I got two things that I could help

you with. Now, remember, I'm a however old I was 40 some year old at Ohio State, new at that

level and all that. And he said, and the battle in the battle is not, you know, because you fight so hard

to stay humble. I think you and Jim Sarace represent two people that I try to emulate when it comes

to as soon as people try to make you a big deal, you're just living walking, walking proof of

how you focus on staying humble. And I know you try to do everything for the community and for

everybody. So, you know, I know that has to be a hard battle because when you do say no or you get

chance where you can't make it, I know you're thinking that I know these people probably think,

I don't want them to think that I don't care. I don't want it that I lost my humility. You know,

there goes JT's over the moon now. He's too big for us now. That's it now. I don't want to come to

Youngstown or whatever. So, Coach Paterno said, first of all, make your feet too high.

He said, sure, I'll be happy to come, but here's what it's going to cost in many laps. And he said,

the other one though that was even a little more pragmatic than that was I decided that if they wanted

me to be there, they have to send a plane to get me. I speak before the event, you know, before the

dinner, and I'm back home and stay college, Pennsylvania in time to get rest so I can be effective

for my people, which, you know, I never got to either of those. I never got to the high fees or the

private plane speaking before dinner because just think about it. It's the banquet for our

economics club or whatever, or for our, you know, our business college. And they say, well,

you know, you can just, you can just, yeah, you can just come and you can say hello and then leave.

I think, well, these moms and dads there, see their kid get an award, kid proud, he's done all this

work. To me, it doesn't look right. And now, sometimes, if you have three things in an evening,

like a college president does, sometimes you do have to bounce, but I don't like to make as a norm

that I'm just going to come and say hello and be gone because, you know, that's not what it's all

about. But again, this topic, you need to find a better expert because I have not figured it out.

And, but I'm battling. You just like being great. It's exhausting to be great. Well, but I want to

be great at being a dad too. I want to be great at, you know, being a friend. I want to be. So,

I'm just grateful that that I have that battle because you know, there's a lot of people that

that's not a problem. Truth, you know, they don't they don't have that opportunity to, you know,

to see if they can be as helpful, at least, or they haven't found it. But it is a tough one. And if

any of the viewers out there, the listeners have the answer man send an email to YSU and give me the

formula. Yes, yes. So, why don't we end on this? You know, I think as a good, you try to serve

people and help people and, you know, as a head coach and as the president of a university,

it's going to be impossible to make every player happy for playing time or, you know, whatever

what decisions that you make and saying I would assume with the running of university that nobody's

ever 100% happy. You got things that people don't agree with the decisions that you make.

How do you, well, end on this? How do you balance our, how have you tried to balance the sense of,

I want to care for people, serve people and be nice to people, but to win can spread out over

anything to whether it's raising children or running something or being a leader or whatever.

You're never going to be able to win and make decisions that are comfortable for people.

And so, how do you balance that because you've had to been able to balance making tough calls,

tough decisions that people don't like and balance in the heart of it all?

You know, I think if you can just give every effort to be as inclusive as you can to having people

aware of how the decision came to be, which means clear expectations, clear mission goals and so forth.

Lots of input throughout the course of it and the reality that, you know, not everyone is first

string, not everyone plays the role they want to play, but again, I'll go back to Coach paternal

learning from afar with him. I remember reading one time he said,

the best indication of the morale of your team is the morale of the person on the team with the

least perceived role. That last guy that might have a duplicate number and he only gets

addressed for the home games and he goes to practice and no one knows his name. If he's being treated

properly and he believes you care and you've done a good job of communicating what it's going to

take to get in the game, what you need to do and if you do your best with that and that person's

morale is solid, feels good about being part of that group. Chances are everyone else up the

ladder has a chance to have the right kind of morale. Good culture. But I'll say this,

your point about those decisions you have to make, that's probably the reason someone doesn't end

up being a CEO forever or the head coach forever or a college president forever. In fact, if you look

at major corporations or colleges this July 2019, Dr. Michael Drake and I will be the most senior

president of the public universities in the state of Ohio. I've only been there five years.

Michael's only been there five years. NFLd is three and a half years. If the average life spent

for players, they say, statistics. Head coaches now, I mean, they're firing them after three games

in the NBA, it's crazy. I can't keep track of who. So, you know, the reality is you do your best

to have that morale of everyone that everyone has got value, is cared about, is treated properly,

has input, is important. But you won't make everybody happy. But still, the reality is nothing's forever.

So, give me an example. Let's say you're not a coaching example, a business or a running a

university. Somebody's not performing. You want to have that conversation of, you know, at some

point you think you may need to put in the backup quarterback or draft somebody else.

How do you start it? Because you mentioned, well, you set clear expectations and then the whole

time you're bringing it up, or would evaluation walk me through that. To me, people ask all the time.

So, you would define what you want and what's not happening first. Here's what we expect. We're going

to evaluate you constantly. We evaluated our players every day. We graded them every day.

Every day. Every day. They had one of five grades. They either got an NC, which meant national champion

day, BT, which meant Big Ten Champion Day, which is pretty good, A, which is just average.

And if we want to be six and five, A was just average.

A was just average. Then we would have. Most people's A's are great. A's just, that's just

starting to be average for you. If you want to be great, we got to go two notches above an A.

That's right. I like that. And then the fourth one was an L, which was a losing day. Now, it didn't

mean you were a loser. We used to talk a lot about you evaluate the performance, not the performer,

not the person. Right. But if you got an L, if we put you in, we're not going to win.

With that performance. And then the fifth one, the worst one, oh my gosh, you can't have it.

It was an M B. Amazing blue. You did so poorly. Your performance was so poor. You were helping them.

Help a Michigan win. And Lord, Lord have mercy. We can't help Michigan.

I like it. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. One of the OGs. OG.

OG. OG. Holy shit.

Thanks, thanks for your time.