SPEAKER_00 0:12

The last time we did this was in your office. No offense, but you had more hair. Yeah. Yeah. Now I can say that because I literally have no hair now. And I had hair. So you've maintained hair. I haven't. And uh it was so much fun then. But uh I just in front of everybody, thank you for uh keeping me around as the as long as you did through the ups and the downs and everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

I was telling Comp when I was sitting next to him, after that last game of the season, we beat Colorado, and you said, we gotta come up to the office and and have a drink, because I think you knew where my heart was at. And my two kids came up there, two of my three, my other one's coaching football at North Dakota State, and my wife and I, and two kids, and you're there, and you can't keep it together. And Ron and I were like, we're kind of glad we're done. I hope Ben's not crying because he doesn't want to be done because she's like, I want my husband back. Enough's enough. And uh that was a that was a special moment, I just gotta tell you, between uh the climans minus Dev and you, uh some of the things we shared that uh kind of encapsulated the 11 years we spent together right there. It's another reason why we said enough's enough right there.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

So when when you think back to everything you've been able to accomplish and kind of always sticking to the same message in a world that really doesn't welcome that, why were why why were you always able to do that? Why was that so important to you?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Boy, I I think it was the way I was raised um by by my parents of uh put other people first and um always wanted to try to have an impact on people. I think the one thing that that I'm challenging myself with now, especially being done, but every day when I went into that office, and I don't care if that was an assistant and a head coach at Division III Lores College to Northern Iowa to North Dakota State to Kansas State, every day going in there saying, okay, who can I impact today? I gotta find somebody else to impact today. And you got around to the lot of the people uh that were at both those places of North Dakota State and Kansas State, and oftentimes it may not have been a player, may have been an athletic trainer, may have been a nutritionist, may have been somebody in the strength of conditioning. But all the people that work with you, not for you, but work with you, and I see how you handle the people that work with you. They don't work for you, they work with you. Uh, those people, you need to give them your time and your best every day too. And so I just I've always wanted to make an impact on a daily basis. And uh even on your worst day, because there's days that I know that I'm struggling and having a tough day uh for whatever reason. And so I gotta go do it to uplift myself a little bit. And so uh it's just something that I always been ingrained into me since I was a young person is um you know, have an impact on people daily.

Pressure, Silence, And Staying Steady

Humility, The Unrequired, Everyone Watching

SPEAKER_00 3:20

So let's get real about something, and you all see this, and and and many people know you can feel like the changes and the expectation and the pressure that comes with coaching at that level and having a job like that. And you know, I I was incredibly blessed 148 times to be on the sideline with this man, 148. And uh there was a time, we're gonna go back to COVID. Everybody remembers COVID, right? I mean, talk about having to do the unrequired and figure things out like during during COVID. And I'll never forget there was a time we started that year, I think we were 3-0 or 4-0 and ranked 14th in the country, and everything's great. And then all of a sudden, COVID hits. And the amazing thing about the pressure that that you had to live with, and college coaches live with, and coaches in any sport, coach White could tell you the same thing is that like people never care to actually evaluate like what's actually happening. It's just like, no, you're supposed to win. And so, here with COVID, we start getting hit with COVID, which numbers that were like, I mean, you talk compared to other people in the country. I mean, we should not have been playing games. And so, as a result of that, we lose a few games, and the next thing you know, his phone goes silent. And you're not getting the text messages you used to. And I remember I walked into your office one day and I could just see the emotion in his face. He's sitting behind his desk, and normally he jumps up and I get one of those bear hugs, and something was off that day, and you just kind of paused, and you said, It's amazing what happens and how quiet it gets when you don't win. And he says, I'm gonna remember this. And he says, There's three people who continue to check on me every day my wife, you, and my agent. And I just I share that to say that um, and there's so many stories like that for us where we've been there for each other, but I think for all of you, I just I wanted to bring that up because winning is not easy. And pay attention to the people who are always there for you. Always there for you. Because everybody wants to be around you when you're winning. Everybody wants in your business when you're making money, everybody wants to be around you. And uh it was just it was amazing that day. But even through times like that, you never changed. You were you were you you were you were gracious, you were caring, you were love, you never changed. How are you able to do that with that type of pressure? You always stayed the same. That lady right there.

Sponsor Message: Q Logics

SPEAKER_01 6:00

She's my rock, and she's kept me grounded. Um, and I've been a big believer in um, you know, we said it at North Dakota State, uh, stay humble and eat crumbs. Stay humble and eat crumbs, right? You you've heard that a lot when we were at North Dakota State, and um we'd win a national championship, and nobody could wear anything of the national champion stuff around the office. Wear it at the mall, wear it at the movie theater, restaurant, but what you did yesterday pales into comparison of what you can do today. And I kind of always lived by that of okay, that was great, what we did yesterday or whatever, now it's the next day, and we got to go attack it again. And um it you it's the unrequired. I've kind of I've kind of changed that thought in my mind. And for all leaders out there, and and everybody here uh is at the highest in their profession. For me to talk to a player about the unrequired, hey, what are you doing when no when no one's watching? Are you doing the extra lifting? Are you doing the extra film study? Are you doing the extra nutrition? What are you doing? And I look at us as leaders and say, from an unrequired, we're doing all that. The difference is everybody's watching. That's the difference. Everybody's watching. We started staff meetings at 6 15 or 6 a.m. every morning, and I was there at 5 05, 5 10 getting the day started, getting getting my notes, getting everything done. Same thing at the end of practice. I'm walking out with the last kid to talk to that kid because maybe the linebacker coach got on that kid, and I'm gonna grab that kid as he's as he's the last gaffe. To say, oh man, how how are we gonna handle that situation that just happened in practice? Well, I was gonna handle it, but I knew people were watching. I knew people were watching when there was an outburst uh in our weight room, and I'd have to I'd try to handle it and make sure that I was um out front. And you have to be. You don't want to be, but you have to be out front. But as leaders, everybody's watching us. It's like I always tell the guys if you've ever been to Manhattan, Kansas, it's kind of a hidden gem. There's 50,000 people there, but there's a place, I'm sure Comp's been there, called Aggieville, and it is the bar scene. It is the place. And of course, I never went there. Um, and I went there one time in my seven years. I think I've told you this. I went there one time in my seven years. My daughter turns 21 as a junior in college at K-State, and she says, Dad, will you come out with my friends and I? And I'm like, oh boy. And she's in a sorority, so I'm like, okay, honey, where are we gonna meet? And she says this bar's name, and I'm like, oh god. It's where everybody's at. And I said, and it was luckily in the spring, she's an April birthday, so it was daylight savings time. Started. I said, How about this? We're gonna go and I'll meet you from six to eight because once it gets dark, I'm go, I'm out. So we meet there at six o'clock. Rhonda came Rhonda came. Well, we had to have Rhonda because we had to have somebody pay the bill, right? So we get there, and there's 10 girls there, all beautiful girls, and Haley's got all their stuff on. And the amount of people that walk by the front, of course, our table is right at the front of the door, front door. All these people are walking by, and I wonder what they're thinking. Hey, coach, heck of a job. Look who you're hanging out with today, or what in gosh name is he doing there? But that was the only time I was ever there because everybody's watching what we do, and I was never gonna put myself in a position where somebody would have to question my character and integrity. Because that's something anybody can ever take away from you is your character and integrity. And it's something that um when I when I think about that, I know everybody's watching, and they'd say, I I hope somebody that spent a lot of time with me would say, as a man of integrity, and he's a man of character.

COVID Football And Character Choices

SPEAKER_00 10:09

This episode of The Burn is brought to you by our dear friends and partners at Q Logics. Now, you know I don't co-sign things I don't believe in, and I believe in John Chiarando and the team at Q Logics. He's built multiple nine figure businesses, real integrity, real character, the kind of guy you want in your corner. But here's what happened All that expertise, all that knowledge, it was just his. Locked in his head, his decisions, his team, you couldn't access it. So John created Q Logics. He basically said, How do I make everything I've built available to people who actually need it? Here's what that looks like. Q Logic helps you see the blind spots in your business, the gaps you don't even know you have. You don't know what you don't know. They're your tour guide through that. Q Logics helps you build systems that make your business work better, or they ask better questions so you're approaching it in the most effective way. And Q Logic has access to a network of businesses and resources, real connection, real synergies that can accelerate what you're building. If any of that resonates, go to QPLogics, L-O-G-I-X.com forward slash Ben. Fill out a form, their team will research your situation personally, then they'll tell you straight can they actually help? Thank you to our friends and partners at Q Logics. Make sure you find out more about Q Logics and your opportunity to win more with them today. So I'm I'll I'll bring up it just as it's an incredible memory for me about character and integrity. And I will not name names or other football teams, but back to COVID. This has made me think of it with what you're saying. So for COVID, you know, a lot of what people didn't see was that, you know, players multiple times a week, you're getting tested, right? So imagine that just the pressure of going through the act of preparing for a game, going to class, taking on all the, and then you're getting tested all the time. The coaches are getting tested. Well, I would show up on Fridays, and when I show up on Friday, then I have to get tested. And if I would have popped a positive, like before I'm even exposed, like they're sending me home, and you know, thankfully I never did. But you got to imagine, like, you're gonna have a roster that every week is gonna be depleted. And there were teams in the country where coaches, if they didn't have their first or second string team, they weren't playing. Now it was kind of the unknown rule, like, hey, if you can feel the team, we have a responsibility to these kids. Like, we're gonna play. That's what we've signed up to do, character and integrity. And you'd literally, you'd hear these stories, and you'd be like, Well, this coach is just missing his two starting middle linebackers, so like he's out, he's he's not, they're not playing, they're not showing up to this place to play. And you run and you just knew what was going on. And I remember we sat and the test had we're we had everybody had just gotten tested, and we are in the staff meeting, and coach is always down at the bottom, kind of team room is kind of like this, and coach said, if one defensive tackle pops a positive, we we cannot play. We don't have enough defensive tackles. But as long as all the defensive tackles are clean, we're going to play a football game because that's what we signed up to do. And it wasn't just defensive tackles. I mean, we our roster was I mean so terrible that day.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

If you if you under if you've been around the game of football, um we are going to play Baylor in Waco. It was, it was after Matt left a random's first year. And before we get on the bus, trainer comes up and goes, we got some bad news. And we we have to play games because we need that television money and stuff. So both starting guards, starting center out, both DNs, three linebackers are all out. And I go to Gene Taylor and we're like, well, let's get on, let's get on the plane and go. So we and we're luckily we don't play till a night game. So Connor Riley's our offensive line coach, and he doesn't have either starting guard or starting center, and our only center that we have there is a true freshman, never played college football game. So we get there on Friday night and we go through a long walk through in the parking lot, and Ryles doesn't like the way it's going. So on Saturday morning, we put pads on in that parking lot and have inside run. We go through an inside run drill, had everybody stay up, but it goes in through an inside, so he knew the fits and stuff. And I'm like, I'm looking at this going, oh my gosh, we're we're we're we're just gonna get killed tonight. But we got to play this game, and we're playing true freshmen all over the place. And if you remember, we got beat on a last second field goal uh down there. Kids played their tails off. That true freshman that ended up playing was Taylor Poitiers. Wow, I know it. And because this is another thing with college athletics, why it's so jacked up. That was in that was 20, that was 2020. He just finished his seventh year with us. You know, and and and I'm like, how does the guy get seven years? So he got so he and I were on the same uh same contract, so to speak. We both got done after after seven years.

Finding An Edge In Details

SPEAKER_00 15:09

But you know, I mean, those are the things you did. We we always played, but you always found, and I'm gonna show you guys something. Coach always paid attention to the details, and um probably the one of the one of the greatest lessons, because there's so many, I don't know if I could say that there's just one, but you know, you would always tell us you have to find your edge in the details, which really the kind of the opening and talking about the unrequired. What are we talking about? Like figure out what you need to do, do it every day, then find the extra. It's like find your edge in the details. And a lot of people don't know this, but uh, there was a whole process that uh Coach Kleiman and I went through in in preparing for games. And so a few of you I've I've shared this with, but I would show up on Friday mornings, and the first place I would go was straight to Coach's office. This goes all the way back to the North Dakota State days. And essentially he would say, because I was not allowed to talk about anything football related, it was actually NCAA compliance. Like I wasn't allowed to coach anybody on technique. Now he wouldn't have let me coach anybody on technique anyway. He would have thrown me out of there because I was a basketball player. But I was not allowed to NCAA rules. It was only mindset, keep your head right. So essentially I would show up and I would have these notes that I would take. And so I always had the exact same process. And it was amazing I learned this from Coach, but he would always like carry around these notes. So this is something that I took from him. So then I realized, like, well, I'm gonna carry around my notes. So then every time I'd get there, I'd fold up a piece of paper and then I'd write down who are we playing and some ideas that I had leading up to it, and then he would say, Okay, I need you to speak to this player, this player, this. And I learned so much from you on how to actually slow down, take an old school pen with an old school piece of paper, and like take notes and care. And we would sit in your office, and sometimes it would be, you know, this individual, um, mom is is struggling with cancer. Can you please take care of this guy over the next couple of days? Or, you know, we're down a couple of individuals. Can you please make sure that this guy's ready to go? And throughout the game, can you please make sure? And I would just learn what you wanted me to do when I was there leading up to playing it until we saw zeros on the clock. But you know, this is I think it's about 50 games worth. You know, there's there's way more at home, but like I held on to all of this because of how much this meant to me. And I know you also held on to your notes. Why were details so important? Why did you take such copious notes? Like, and and and just before he answers, like he would carry this around. Like, he already had all his notes when I got there, and then I would watch you. We'd sit, we always literally back for 11 years, we had game day meal together right next to each other with the specialist for 11 years. Like, there's so many things that uh Rhonda, I may come to the house and you know, we're gonna like pretend like there's specialists, right? It's be like, what are you guys doing? We're just having team meal here, Rhonda, before before we watch a game on TV. But you know, for 11 years we would sit in the same place and you would do the same things, and I would always sit to his right. But you would still be taking notes. Why were the notes and the details so important?

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Because the game of football is not scripted. The emotion of you, the emotion of me is not scripted, and I would just find things that would little details that would trigger our football team. Maybe it was something that happened the week before, maybe it was something that happened last year, and I kind of went back to notes of what we were where we were at within our season. Um and I that's the the difference between winning and losing tight games is the edge and the details, and how how we can teach kids to find those edge and the details. And um, you're right, I have a stack of every three by five card that I've ever had for a head coach as a game, and and you sat right with me in the front row with those. That's the other thing. As a head coach, nobody eats with a specialist. I eat with a specialist every meal because somebody's gotta give those guys some love. And I I sat with those guys every time. But so my son, who's uh my oldest son, is 28 and he's the defensive back coach at North Dakota State. Not a bad job for a first-time hire. A kid to go to a place that wins national championships about every year, and they've he's got one in his first two years. But I'm gonna give them to him one day when he becomes head coach. And I'm gonna give him that stack. He may, I don't know what he'll but he's seen me. He always will say, What do you got today, Dad? What do you got today? Because he was with me as a student coach at North Dakota State, came to Kansas State, uh, went from uh student coach to a graduate assistant to kind of uh uh an analyst, and now he's at North Dakota State. But I'm gonna give him all those things because hey, that's my legacy to him. But I I just think the details are what win wins games, and the details, the last for me in football, for us in football, a lot of times it's the last 36, 48 hours where you're not practicing anymore, and the kids feel like, hey, the hay's in the barn, we've got all the game plans and stuff in. That's when you have to dominate. Those are the that's the finding those last edge in the details, whether it's a walkthrough, whether it's a meeting, uh, whether it's the pregame meal, our pregame meal was unlike a lot of people, it was a pregame meal that constitute a player meeting. So each coach sat with their five guys, ten guys, fifteen guys, whatever their position was, and went over every detail one last time of the game plan. And I just felt like the more you could cram into an 18 to 22 year old, especially the last 24, 36, 48 hours, they were gonna retain a lot better. And as a coach, you didn't like to play the night games as much because you'd get home at 4, 5 in the morning on Sunday morning, and then you're back up there by 10 in the morning. But it allowed us a full day where I thought we were beating our opponent. I thought we were winning against our opponent because I knew what we were doing from walkthroughs to going to stadiums to extra meetings time meeting times and so forth, that I didn't think a lot of other schools were doing. And uh our kids more most importantly bought into it. Our kids bought into we're dominating and we're finding our edge in these details in this last 24 to 36 hours, and other schools aren't. And um it's you know, the power of belief as a leader to your to your team, to your employees, to your players, um, is critical. And if you show those kids how much this is gonna help and how much the belief is gonna have, and the belief you have in them that if you get these last details, it's gonna put us over the edge. I think it won us a lot of games.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

You know, I I just want to kind of pull. Something from this, that's not a football lesson.

unknown 22:03

Right?

Discipline Builds Confidence And Belief

SPEAKER_00 22:03

So think about the next big meeting that you have coming up, the next big proposal, the next time you're gonna be in front of your employees and your team and the individuals, your sales team, your business development, your marketing team, and you expect these big things up. It's this that's a life lesson. Find your edge in the details. Find your edge in the details speaks to what I shared, which was confidence does not come from talent, confidence comes from discipline. And I will tell you the level of confidence because of discipline that this man would instill in players is like nothing I have ever seen. And no knock against Coach Saban. And I was I was very blessed. I mean, I literally was blessed in a doctrine of leadership from the two winningest college football coaches over a 15-year period of time. I mean, literally working for Coach Saban and Coach Kleiman at the same time. They were the two winningest coaches. I mean, winning national championships, Kansas State still winning. And no knock against Saban. Saban was doing it with talent. Now, he would bring out the most discipline. That was extraordinary. But let me just give you some highlights for me. We go into Iowa. We were 24-point underdogs. This is a man who was born in the state of Iowa. Every time we play at Iowa school, we would we would beat Iowa schools. But we were at 24, this is when we were at North Dakota State, we're at 24-point underdog. Iowa was 10th in the country. They hadn't lost at home in two years, and they were coming off of playing in the Rose Bowl. 24-point underdogs. When he got done at walkthrough the day before the game, now obviously we can never bet on sports, but like I got done, I'm like, I will bet my house we are beating Iowa tomorrow. I would literally, I would bet my, we are, there is no way that we're losing this football game. And it was every single, and it had nothing to do with talent. Because you put roster to roster, you saw us warm up, the bodies of the players completely different. And we went in and we beat them. I remember, you know, four times we got to play Oklahoma before they went to the SEC. Three upset victories. I mean, we we'd go in, I remember, I mean, just the way, and it was never, you know, it's not veins popping out of the neck like me and screaming and yelling, like the power of his voice speaking to discipline and details was amazing how he would just instill belief in players. And you would say things to us like, who wouldn't, who wouldn't want to have a hundred of us going against 110,000 when you're playing in Oklahoma? And you'd be like, damn right, coach, let's go. But it was just like those simple statements because he knew, like, think about that. Right? He'd make you think, how special is that? There's gonna be 110,000 people. The light show for one game was more than our budget at Kansas State. I mean, that's not a joke. I mean, you would win, like they would try to intimidate you with their lights, let alone the size of their roster. Three times we upset them. I think they were like fourth in the country or third in the country, and we would ruin their season. I remember when we when we beat them at home when Jalen hurt, so I got to work with Jalen at Alabama, and then I got to coach against Jalen with Kansas State when he played at Oklahoma. And I remember I hugged Jalen before the game, and he wanted no part of me after that game. And I saw I saw him down, uh it was actually for a Super Bowl. I was down in Miami, and I was at one of the Dolphins' houses, and Jalen came over to the house before the game because they were both Alabama players. And Jalen walks into the house and he goes, I still can't, this is like years after the game. I still can't believe you beat us in that damn football game. I mean, still carrying a grudge. And like it wasn't supposed to happen. And so if you don't mind speaking like to the details, but like how I've studied and read, but really learned from you, like it wasn't about talent. It was the discipline to know, I believe we can do that.

Player Ownership And Sustaining Culture

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Yeah, it was the discipline, and then it's just the belief in getting those kids and uh visualizing, visualizing you making those plays, visualizing you being a great teammate, visualize you being a guy on the sideline that is leading. Uh I think, you know, the visual visualization, the the power of belief, and then seeing a detail and then stressing it as the game went on to say, I told you this is what they were gonna do on third and long, and they did it, and we made them pay. Didn't that feel great? And the kids, yeah, yeah, it does. We're gonna get them again. And you know, I just you gotta instill that belief in in 18 to 22 year olds, especially, um, because everybody's trying to tear them down. And every day you're building them back up. Every day you're building them back up. And you know, I'm I'm I'm a big believer in short, concise messaging and not long. You you know me after practice, we're not spending more than a minute or two minutes, me talking. I'm not talking for 20 minutes, they're gonna check out and stuff. But if you're repetitive in your quick, short messaging as a leader, it's gonna stick, it's gonna stick over and over and over again with um your players, your employees, whatever it may be. And that's why I always thought it was so fun for me when we have our captains meetings. So we would have captains-only meetings uh on Friday night before a game at the hotel, and two guys other than the captains, got to be there. One was our strength coach, and the other one was that guy. And I wanted to, because the strength coach is with him all week, so he hears everything of everything I'm saying, or everything the players are saying, and and specifically the players are saying, in reiterating the message that myself or the assistant coaches are giving them, and then to hear it from you who just got there on Friday to say, okay, what was the messaging like? And you know, I'd say 90% of the time you'd call me that night and say, Clyde, we're spot on. Everything you told me on Monday when we talked, you can tell the guys listened to it Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, because the captains and then the other kids that were the leaders just kept repetitive on that messaging. And you get those kids to explain it to another one and say, This is how we're gonna be successful, this is how we're going to win together, it's hard to stop. As opposed to it just coming from us as the leader, you've got to give and empower those young people. If you don't empower those young people, they'll help and get their peers to rise up and play to that next level.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

And that's probably another lesson that I think was so profound that I learned from you was that the greatest teams, or when you know you have a team where you're going to be successful, is when the teams become player-led because the players take ownership. And I remember the example all the way back to North Dakota State when you were teaching me some of these philosophies. You're like, hey, one of the things we need to focus on, because he would help me with messaging, right? It was the first college football team I ever worked with. So pay attention to these things. Here's what we need to do. Our goal for the year is that we get to a point as fast as we possibly can. Once again, this is not a football lesson. Imagine this with your teams. We need to get to the point as fast as we can in the season. Hopefully, we can make it happen in training camp. To where the defensive backs, when a mistake is made, they are correcting and coaching and fixing the problem before a coach even can get to the problem. And that type of ownership, like you knew, that gave you your confidence, like, oh, we're there. And that's where, you know, that came to messaging, it came to football, it came to the weight room, it came to every detail. Like we had to be spot on because we didn't have the talent. Even at K-State, we didn't have the talent. The winning that happened at K-State, you can't even really explain. If you really understand the variables, the money, what we had, you can't explain it other than these players took ownership. Why is player ownership so important?

SPEAKER_01 30:07

I think that's the way you sustain the culture. You know, it starts the culture. You gotta, you gotta get like when I came to North Scota State, when I came to Kansas State, you you survey the room, you build relationships, and you find out, okay, people are gonna gravitate to this guy, they're gonna gravitate to this guy, they're gonna gravitate to, and I always tried to find one in each position that became part of the leadership council. That leadership council then spent some time with myself, spent some time with you, the strength coach, and we got that same messaging across where then, hey guys, at the end of a meeting, let's remember to talk about how we're gonna dominate the details on this Friday and Saturday as we lead into the game. And I I thought it was imperative that those leaders of each position um were able to galvanize the guys in their group. And I I'm I'm a firm believer that um to sustain success, it can't just be you. If you think it's if you're gonna do it and it's just, hey, I can handle this and do all this stuff, you're gonna get crushed. You've gotta have people that share your vision, know your vision, and then can express it and explain it. And a lot of times that's easier coming from a peer. Sometimes it's better coming from a peer. And, you know, I mean, we were we were blessed, you know, we had Carson Wentz to Easton Stick to Trey Lance to Skyler Thompson to Will Howard to Avery Johnson. I mean, we had guys at the quarterback position that uh were alpha guys, and those alpha guys um were able to kind of control the locker room, so to speak. And that's the biggest thing as coaches, you you uh you want the players to handle the locker room. And if you've got the right kids in there, you can tell quickly if you don't, because it's gonna go downhill if you don't. You better have the right people in that locker room that can handle some of the conflict.

Caring For Players Beyond Football

SPEAKER_00 32:04

So I I know the answer to this question, and I know the easier answer is because it's just how you are, but I think it's important to address it. When I would come in and I would, you know, take my notes. I mean, it was literally like if there was somebody's like the reason why I said a mom with cancer is because I can literally picture the player because we had that conversation. I know who it was. I ended up reaching out to the mom and to the player. I mean, it's just that's the way that we operated. I mean, we I feel like you taught me to do things that we focused on things that most coaches just didn't do. We did things in a program that just weren't done because that was the unrequired piece we had to do. But why was that so important to you? Because I've been around plenty of coaches and you have as well. Like, they're not even asking the questions to understand what mom and dad even have going on in their lives, much less like mom is sick, and we need to take care of making sure this kid's okay. And hey, should this kid even be suiting up to play in a football game or should he not play? And you always knew what was going on with the players.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Well, I had a I had a group of people we called our optimal performance team. There was about seven of us that you know we went through every kid on the team every Monday and we talked about the academics, we talked about their mental health, we talked about physical health, we talked about issues going on, and so we had a group of about seven of us that always kind of had a pulse uh on the guys. And then I just thought it was really important if we had a situation like that that they heard from the head coach, they didn't hear from a position coach. And it was interesting because when I retired, obviously I heard from a lot of former players, even some current players. The current players were calling or texting to say, hey, should I stay at K-State or should I go make a million dollars at this place? You know, but the amount of parents that reached out and just said, I saw my kid when I dropped him off, and I see this grown man coming home at Christmas, and I can't thank you enough for helping me raise my son as a single mom. And that was more satisfactory and satisfying than anything that happened between the lines with those guys. And and uh um it's gonna be an emotional time for me because on April 25th, um they're having their player barbecue, and there's probably 40 parents that I haven't gotten a chance to see since I retired. And and I I it's important for me to go back and see those people because they entrusted their child with me. They entrusted their child with Rhonda and I. And and to make sure that um I I'd helped those kids grow up to be great husbands, great fathers, great community members, great leaders, um, but most importantly, great great people that could that would spread that messaging, but also do it with uh do it with love. And and there's a difference between doing it with love and doing it as a condesc condescending person that people don't really want to be around. So I'm looking forward to that. You want to come back to that with me?

SPEAKER_00 35:03

You know, um there's a question I've always wanted to ask, and I've never asked it. Oh boy. Was there ever a time? Well, let me let me before I ask this question. I know Ronda knew I had screws loose when I'd wake up at like 3:30 in the morning when I was doing 75 hard and I'd be working out outside their bedroom around the pool, like doing the unrequired workout. It was like, what in the world? Like when Ben made this reservation at the house, right? Like, workouts weren't part of it. So they would always tease me, like, my gosh, he's out there again. So Ronda knows I'm crazy, you know I'm a little bit crazy, but then I was there ever a speech or a time I did something you're just like, Ben has completely lost it?

Betting Big On The Vision

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Like this is Well, there's a lot of times where I think you've completely lost it. Um the the easiest one for me, and okay, so when I took the job before I met you at at North Dakota State, I was the defensive coordinator and we'd won three national championships. And the head coach, Craig Bull, great friend of mine. Uh, Craig's going to Wyoming. And he asked me to go be his defensive coordinator. And I go home and I say, Rhonda, we're moving to Laramie, Wyoming. And her exact words were, Over my dead body, we're moving to Laramie, Wyoming. So she said, You need to go talk to that A D and see if you can be the head coach. And he says, Are you sure you want to follow Craig? He just won three in a row. And I'm like, Yeah, we, yeah, well, I'm hey, you bet. Well, I'm not going to Laramie, so this is kind of what I'm doing. So then we stayed stayed there for five years, and then when uh I got the call to be asked if I wanted to be the head coach at at Kansas State, that was the next question. Are you sure you want to follow Bill Snyder? And I'm like, I don't, this is my opportunity. This is my opportunity, and I just followed a guy that won three in a row, and I know Bill had a lot of success. Um and so we take that chance and go there, and in the back of my mind, I I knew we could be successful, but I knew that the outside noise was like this guy's an FCS coach, he doesn't know what he's doing, um, can they can they win there? Whatever it may be. So I'm I'm gonna get this out, Ben. He's gonna cry, guys. Because that's the most outlandish thing I thought when you said to me We're gonna go we're gonna go eight and five and go to our first bowl game in 2019. This is right when I took the job at K-State in 2018. We were playing, which you never think about this now. You can't even have this can't happen anymore. I got hired on December 13th, and I'm not starting until January 6th. And everybody stays, right? I mean that doesn't happen anymore. So I'm not with K-State for three and a half, four weeks. I'm staying to try to win a national championship because I owed it to those kids. And I would have done it all over again because those kids were so great, too. Because at North Dakota State, they knew that I was going to uh the Big 12 and having a chance to do something that you know they were so excited for me because of what we had done at North Dakota State. And so Ben has kept this bookmark with him wherever he has gone for a long time. You probably still have it with you. I I mean, I hate to say it, you're probably reading a book and it's right there.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

But hold on. It's in this pouch because I'll never forget it.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

And I'm like, I said to Ron, I said to my wife, and I said, okay, here's what Ben's saying is gonna happen to us. We need to get started there. This guy's off his friggin' rocker. He's off his rocker. First year, we're gonna go to a bowl game, go eight and five. Went to bowl game, went eight and five. We'll build and win a Big 12 championship in 2021. The only reason it wasn't 2021 beat was because COVID. So we won the thing in 2022. And a different era. Go to a college football playoff. We'd have been in the college football playoff had had it been rather than four teams. Get climbing to a second contract. And I'm like, I'm just trying to survive the first year. I'm just trying to survive the first year, the first day. And you have down, we're gonna get you to a second contract. And I'm like, boy, Ben wants to be with me a long friggin' time, man. And we did that to a third contract. You you knew something, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

You know, it um the day that I met him and we sat in his office, like you know when something is special about somebody. And the fact that he didn't talk about winning, he didn't say, hey, wait till you meet these we we've won four straight national championships. Do you know that? Like it was all for the right reasons. I you could have told me we were we were going anywhere, and I would have been like, damn right we're going to win. Yep. I mean, it could have been the most you could have told us we were going to play the New England Patriots with Brady in the heyday, and I would have been like, absolutely, we're gonna take it to him, coach. I just, I just, I, I believed in you, and you instilled that belief in all of us. Um so I'm gonna I'm gonna have some fun with this. Rhonda can uh attest to this. So when the second contract happened, and and I really learned like that goal for me was something I learned from Aeneas Williams, who, for those of you that were here last year for the summit, Aeneas spoke, and Aeneas taught me about selfless goals. Like, have goals that have nothing to do with you, it's goals that elevate somebody else to the things that can be huge for their life and their legacies. And so he always talks about how he wrote that down, and five of his coaches went on to become head coaches because he wrote down, I want to play in such a way that my coaches can get promoted to better jobs. So I I wanted to serve Coach Kleiman and all these players in such a way that their life would change. And you know, as a blessing, we we did go eight and five, and you know, the messaging was sticking, and there was winning, which drove the additional contracts. But I remember we were sitting in the in the house and you said something to me, like, hey Ben, I got a question with you. There's a there's like a in this new contract, you know, there's a car deal, and you're like, do I pay cash for the car? Do I take the do I take the the um you know the budget that they give me, like the university car? I'm like, coach, like, do you know how much money is on that contract? Like, do whatever the hell you want when it comes to your car. Like, it was just it was incredible seeing like it was never about money. Like, I joke with you to this day. I mean, I don't even know if he could ever spend the money they paid him the first year at Kansas State. I mean, just the attention to just detail and living life the right way for the right reasons, and how the two of you parent, and I see the love for the kids and life changes now, and the way Devin has taken ownership. I mean, Devin like earned the opportunity. It wasn't dad giving it to him. He sent Devin away down to Texas to Abilene Christian, where he was like, hey, I could give you a job today, but we're not doing that. And I remember that's I mean, you guys both wanted that. Like, you're gonna go learn to own it in a world where how easy is it to be like, yes, son, I have a job for you. Like, he earned that job at North Dakota State. He earned that room. And the reason why you know it is because he's now received awards, which is a credit to the two of you, awards for his coaching for one of the top coaches in the country under 30 years old. So I just think like for me, those were the things that I thought about. Like getting the second contract just meant the lives that would be touched, and and the kids. And so when we sat in your office that day with Colby and Haley, and we tried to call Devin, but we couldn't get him on the phone. He's preparing for a game. But it was it was just so emotional because you guys have been such a great example for Amy and I of you know longevity of marriage and the things that it takes, and there are ups and downs, and there's sacrifices that you have to make. But he's is the same guy that I met 11 years ago. Money never changed, like none of it. Like he probably still doesn't know what to do with the damn car and go buy whatever you want, right? I mean, it's just it was never about those things. And that's why I knew that we could win wherever we wanted.

Taking Care Of Staff And Giving Away A Raise

SPEAKER_01 44:02

That's cool. We um one so the last year, you know, now all the all the money goes to the revenue sharing and and um NIL and stuff, and when end of twenty-four we went at the rate bowl, right? And going into twenty-five, um, they're like, hey, there's there's because every coach's like, hey, we want a bowl game, let's get a raise and all this stuff. And I went to the athletic director after I talked to you and I said, Hey, look, I know that there's not money for assistance and stuff like that, and and those guys make a good salary, but we have to take care of our support staff because it's impossible to keep the nutritionists, the strength guys, the athletic trainers, the uh recruiting people. I mean we just gotta do it. So we got set aside a chunk of money to take care of those people. And probably the most gratifying time I've had to bring an athletic trainer who's become a dear friend of mine, Mindy, and say, Mindy, we're getting you a raise. And she's weeping and crying. She and Rhonda have become best friends because she hadn't had a raise in like 11 years. And so now, some of you guys know this that were there last night. Um, Monday I'm going through reconstructive ankle surgery. That's why I wasn't here this morning at 545. I got I got a reprieve. I'm having reconstructive ankle surgery on Monday morning, and the head athletic trainer at Kansas State said, I'm doing your rehab. I'll be over on Monday after the surgery, and then on Tuesday, you're you're coming to the training room and we're getting after this thing, so we're gonna get you back. They don't need to do that. The nutritionist, Scott Troush, said, I've got product for you, I'm bringing over a bunch of stuff for you because we've helped those people and we've made an impact on those people so that they could stay and earn somewhat a competitive salary because they were gonna get paid so much more at other places, but they always wanted to stay because they I think the most important thing that that Rhonda and I tried to give all the support people was a voice. Because that's what they want, they want to be heard and they want to be appreciated, and that's part of that crew that became my optimal performance team, our OPT team, because they they shouldn't be just here's what you're doing, here's no, they're the experts. Let the experts be the experts, and I I you help me learn about that. Um, I I've you know, why am I gonna tell the strength coach here's what we need to do? That's the strength coach. Why am I gonna tell him to the nutritionist, hey, we need to get that guy more weight on him? Yeah, no kidding. I'll handle that. You stay out of it, coach. Great, that's that's your job. But when you give those guys ownership, you give them a voice, you you empower those people, uh, I think they then will pay it forward. And I and it's been cool because we've kind of seen that as well. Is um those people, even though I'm retired, pretty active part of our life still.

Retirement, Next Chapter, Final Challenge

SPEAKER_00 47:18

So you you may get mad at me, but I'm I'm gonna take a risk because I I think it's this important of a lesson for life. Um and it's just the the humble nature of who you are, but it was one of the most amazing things that I've seen, especially in the time that we live in today. Um what Coach Kleiman just shared, he referenced he went and got a pool of money for that those staff. The pool of money was his raise. He gave away his raise. And uh you can be mad at me for saying that, but those are things that need to be heard because that doesn't happen in this world. He gave away his entire race. So they actually went, they try to give so here he that's the world we live in. Like, they're trying to, he's trying to fight for these individuals who help create the winning, and they're like, no, we have money for you. And he's like, you're not listening, like I don't want the money. And then there's like, you know, an approval process to get that because things get approved, and and it was just that was another one of those signs where I'm like, I am so blessed that for 11 years you kept me around to have a relationship with you because it's lessons like that that you learn, like in this world where everybody's focused on money, and how can I make more money, and how can I drive more revenue? That like there were all these lessons over 11 years. I can pick so many stories like that that just always came back to, like I've shared with you guys, it's on the back of your t-shirts, long obedience in the same direction with aggressive patience. Like anybody can go chase down a quick dollar, or you can chase down a lifetime of doing the right thing. And when when you and Rhonda made that choice, and he would tell you it was a choice that they made together. I mean, you talk about the rock and the two of you. I mean, what what what you all did at Kansas State University is is is absolutely incredible, but I I don't know how many coaches in in today's world would do that. So I know you're not gonna comment on that because I know you well. So rather than letting you comment, you can yell at me later for bringing that up. You know, when you retire, you have an opportunity to either just retire, but it isn't about the money. You can retire and you can just go live in Naples, they have a beautiful new home, or you can say, hey, I'm committed to doing something else. And one part I didn't read intentionally, intentionally, was in his quote that I read earlier. If you go underneath it, he challenged the 2026 team. So here he's challenging the next team that to stay in the 1%, to do things at the highest level, you gotta stay committed to all the things, and we gotta find new things. When, and so now his new 1%, he's still seeking it. Well, I know the type of leader that you are, so just so you guys know, he's retired, he's available, you want to bring him in to speak, you want to bring him in to consult, call this guy because his mindset, I'll tell you. Um, I I shared a book title with him yesterday, I shared it with uh Kelly Garrett, who's a dear friend who's here with us, and it's called The Trillion Dollar Coach. And reading that book is like how Coach Kleiman is like the the wealth of knowledge. I can't wait. And we're gonna be uh a part of it because it's just fun. And I just I want him to be able to go and share his amazing mind, but his ability to do the right things for others with the world. So that's important to me that uh that I just I'm excited to help you attack that uh that that 1% again. But uh final thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 50:55

No, that's my challenge, is I I knew every day what my structure was. Every day I had a plan uh and and who I was gonna impact. And that's what uh I've talked to Rhonda about when we've had a little bit of a break is uh I'm not ready to be done done. I don't know things that have to change in college athletics for me to get back into the coaching realm of it, at least as a head coach, but how can I have an impact on people? How can I still uh make sure that each day I'm impacting someone? And and right now for me it's it's reaching out to coaches that have contacted me to pick my brain about how we do spring ball, to to how we to my notes, to all the things that I write down and stuff. And so um that's kind of my next phase right now, once I get this dang ankle healthy, uh, that uh we're gonna go attack the world and and excited about what the next chapter is.

SPEAKER_00 51:47

How about a round of applause for this Hall of Famer?