He's an old head.
Youngins are really starting to get on my damn nerves.
He's a pro-fair nonsense.
He's a total high school protein dog influencer.
His favorite Bible verse is Jesus Sweat.
He's the man of past and sorrow.
Chris, bam!
Yeah.
I'm a CACA clinic 24 years ago.
I've been best friends ever since.
I couldn't be more proud for somebody to finally got him one.
98% of the stories that I tell people that I've been involved with,
my alter ego that shows up at clinics and out of town dates,
was created with this guy.
I hope you enjoy our guest today,
Coach Stevenson.
Glad to have you on my guy.
Yeah, man, it's an honor to come on here
and be able to speak a little bit and talk about the world of coaching.
And what a lot of people don't understand is
they just see the final product on Fridays.
They don't see all the behind the scenes stuff that coaches do
and dealing with parents, administrators,
just the camaraderie that you have with other coaches
throughout the state and getting to know people.
I go back and think about from year one
of people that I met there and the relationships that I gained there
to where I am now.
I'll see somebody and say, oh man, I remember you used to work for so and so.
All that stuff like that.
I think coaching is a full circle.
It all comes around and comes back together.
But man, I tell you what, it's been good, good to me.
Like I said, we were fortunate enough to win a state championship this year.
It was even more special that my son, he plays on the team.
He's the kicker.
So I don't know who was more nervous, me or him, when he was doing the kicking
in the state championship game.
He had a chance to win it.
And they did a good job of getting penetration and blocking it.
But then I'm just sitting there thinking in the back of my mind like,
you better make every one of them extra points in overtime.
It's going to be over with.
First I may be looking for another job.
But anyway, he did good.
He's a year older.
Last year he panicked a little bit.
We got an overtime game last year against Dooley.
He missed some field goals and whatnot.
But he's been good this year.
I'm proud of him.
He's worked hard.
He's kicked a lot of them in the end zone this year.
He's getting better at that.
We need to get him next year.
We can kick them all in the end zone.
And whatnot.
But you know, that's a year older.
He'll get better.
So, my man, I'm just absolutely proud of this.
People do not understand winning a state championship.
All the things that goes into it, it's just,
everything's got the line up.
You've got to have good administration.
You've got to have good coaching staff.
You've got to have players that's going to do what you tell them to do.
You've got to have great community that stands behind you.
And I've been at a lot of places and here appears,
it's just like it was just different,
the parents, what they did for our kids.
The things we ask of our kids, they do everything we ask them to do.
We've got a good staff that works together.
You know, coach Aaron has just,
I fully enjoy working for him this year.
He is a heck of a dad-gum football coach.
You know, and I've worked for some good ones,
and he does a good job.
And I'm very blessed to be here and being able to work with him.
And it's just, you sit down and you have to pinch yourself like,
man, did you really win that thing?
You know, when I wake up, did it really occur?
It goes by fast too.
So, you know, I've been out of town a little bit.
I've been on what I've called my state championship.
Vacation tour.
California to go see my sister.
And then I went down to the Fernandino Beach for a little bit,
enjoyed my time there.
And man, I met some guys down there from up there around.
Gainesville, Georgia and I, oh my gosh,
we had, he had some really good story.
He had some great Mike Bogos stories.
And I said, yeah, I got a good one too from, you know,
one time when we were, we went with Bobo at the clinic one time,
he was identified as a tennis player.
So, but yeah, I remember that.
Anyway, he got, I told him that story and he got a laugh and he was like,
man, he said that was great.
But man, we go back to work tomorrow.
And so it's been, it's been real, you know, wow, man, you go,
go everywhere here in town and people said, man, good job, coach, you know,
and whatnot, but, you know, it takes effort from everybody.
And people just don't understand that, you know, we, we as coaches,
we talk about, you know, jobs that come open in places of coach at stuff like that.
You know, get some of these coaches, they go, oh man, I can win there.
What, you know, it's a little bit more than having good athletes to win games.
You got to have a whole variety of things that go into it to win it.
Well, I know when you first started, you started with the legendary Buddy Sorrow
at East Lawrence.
Oh man, look here, Buddy Sorrow, if you can survive coaching with Buddy Sorrow,
you are going to be a good season coach.
He is, his motto was work hard, play harder.
And that's what we did.
We worked hard, we enjoyed one another, you know, working with each other.
You know, you just, you got to, you know, you, you, it was, it was my first, you know,
varsity coaching job, my first year coaching.
You know, I went to the clinic with him and that's, of course, that's what me and you met each other.
You was over and worth.
You know, we watched the sun come up talking about football and stuff like that.
You know, just being around those guys and I was fortunate to be around some guys that been coaching for a while.
You know, like John Peacock and Bob Griffith and Milt Miller, you know, I did my student teaching in Lowndes County
and had a chance to meet Milt, you know, down there.
I did some student teaching at A Hire and just being around those guys, you know, Milt helped me get my first job
at East Lawrence because he worked with Buddy a long time ago at, you know, in Applin County when Griff was the head coach there.
So he's just, man, it's just working with him.
I learned a lot of stuff and he was very simple, you know, he was a two-tie wishbone guy, you know,
and you wasn't going to practice no longer than two hours and, you know, you get late in the year, an hour and a half.
And so we was at camp one time and Buddy goes out there and we're at the, we're down in Cuthbert, Georgia.
If anybody knows what Cuthbert, Georgia is, this is in the middle of nowhere.
They got a big old water tower in the middle of the road.
So when you pull up, you have to either go right or you go left, you know, you just, and there's people sitting all around the water tower there.
And so we was over at Andrew College and so my first trip, we went down there and Buddy said, we're taking our weights.
I mean, we loaded up our weight room and took it with us.
I've never seen that before.
That was old school right there, baby.
Oh man, we practiced four days, four times a day.
You know, we got up early in the morning, six o'clock practice.
Then we had, we ate breakfast and then we had special teams practice and then we lifted weights in the afternoon.
We practiced at night.
My favorite practice was the night practice because I felt like we got a lot of stuff done.
And that morning practice was okay.
The worst one was the midday practice.
I hated that practice.
I just, it was terrible.
It was hot and kids were miserable.
I was miserable everywhere I was miserable.
But anyway, we sitting down on the dummies and the guy for love joy was sitting there and he said, yeah, we got to go get our guys.
I got to get the computers.
We got to do our practice schedule.
But he said, hey, let me show you my practice schedule.
He reached up in the top of his hat and pulled out a index card that had like four lines on it.
He said, that's my practice schedule.
I thought that was pretty funny that that's just goes back to the old school old way of, you know, doing things and whatnot.
You know, you just, oh man, I sit here and think about how football has changed.
You know, we had VHS tapes.
And that's what we did.
That's what we met.
We watched those.
We had to double them up and all that stuff like that.
And, you know, it's, it was definitely, definitely quite interesting coaching back then, you know, cause, you know, technology has taken us a long way and made things a little bit easier.
I have to do a little bit more work with learn how to do all that stuff.
But it was, it was definitely different back then.
Well, going to the clinic with buddy was always a large time.
I remember we went to Athens and we ended up at the grill like two o'clock in the morning.
And I think it was like 2000 or 2001, 2002 and emo kids were a big deal and we're sitting in there and those emo kids come in and buddy's like, look at these guys.
Me and you were like, oh my God, we're going to have to fight our way out of here.
Cause buddy didn't care.
No, he did not.
He was like, I remember one time we went to, oh my gosh, we were, we were going to the huddle house and let's see, John Peacock and Jimmy Williams and all of us and Joel Watson.
We were, we were all in there.
He was like, I'm going to get a little bit of a drink and he'd always whistle.
That waitress came over and said, if you say that one more time, we're going to throw all y'all out.
And John Peacock said, oh, I'm about to lose my meal because I just got it.
He's fixing to say it again.
And I'm just sitting over there just to eat.
And sure enough, order up.
I got to go.
So, but oh man, and then we would, we would have, we went to one place and we had coach with us.
They didn't want to let him in.
And I think it was like 60, 70 head of coaches and they said, by gosh, if this place ain't good enough for him, ain't good enough for us.
Just get up and I'll walk out.
And I remember the get old van trip. There was, they had some, we had some people call a ride with us.
They were talking some trash in there.
I think I pulled out the Roy Mercer by gosh, how big of a girl are you up there?
Back when the cheerleading coaches would be at the clinic with us.
The worst thing in the world they could ever do is put them there. You know, just don't show up when no neck and shoulders are left.
If you have neck and shoulders, they will get bit.
I'm just going to leave that, I'm just going to leave that right there.
I'm not going to go any further than that with that conversation right there.
Well, going into vans, you ended up after East Lawrence.
Didn't you go to Brantley County with, with Sean Pender and that crew down there?
Yes, I went to Brantley County.
I had not a clue. I knew nothing about Brantley County.
Okay, so, you know, I knew a little bit about it.
The ass kicking ditch chickens.
Oh my Lord. So look here. So Sean, I went to college with Sean and I knew him when he played at the issue.
And he got his first head coaching job over there and he was looking for some coaches and stuff.
I was looking to get back to South Georgia, you know, and so, went down there and interviewed with him and, you know, took the job down there.
Went to spring practice and, oh my Lord, they had like a 28 game losing streak.
They had some, I mean, we had some decent sized kids and different players and stuff like that.
But some pretty good players. I knew we were in trouble when one of our best players got kicked.
He got put in all the school because he decided he was going to steal somebody's wallet, something while we were at practice or during PE or something.
I can't remember what it was, but he was like on a third strike type of thing.
So we lost him and we lost two other guys.
One guy went to camp and go play baseball. He transferred over there because his mama moved that way.
So, you know, we're at that first workout and we're sitting there and, you know, we're, you know, we go to workouts that morning.
And so we go out to the field and the guy that used to be strength conditioning coach at Georgia Southern Bobby Stina, he was playing there at the time.
And he came up to me and said, Coach, we got a problem. I said, what is it? Bobby said, Contrilo stuck.
I said, what was it? Got his car stuck in the mud. I mean, what? He said, no, coach. He stuck in the river on a stone and he won't get off.
I said, you're kidding me, right? I said, y'all just left him out there. He said, well, Coach, we had to come to practice.
We didn't want to be late. I said, you just left your guy there. So I got my car, went out there to the river and pulled up and sure enough, kind of.
He's sitting out there on the top of a stone. And he said, I said, what are you doing? He said, Coach, I can't swim.
I said, I said, well, why did you get out? He said, well, I was, I was, I was on a raft and I jumped on the stomp and they left me coach.
I said, okay, so I got out there in the river. I said, crap. I hope I don't get hit by an alligator. My coach could really be short and live real quick.
So I swam out there and I got to swim in and I was like, you got to be kidding. So I got up. I said, country, I don't know if we can make it.
And I stood up in the way. The water was waist high. I said, get off the stump. I said, you can walk into the shoulder.
Oh man, the water was dark. I couldn't see the bottom. And I was like, oh my Lord. So that was, oh my God. That was definitely.
We were, we were playing. I think, see, I'm trying to think who we were playing. Cook or Irwin.
And y'all had a staff. It was, we had Richard Lawson, Coach Lawson.
Richard Lawson, yes.
You had Vic Parker.
Well, no, Vic, Vic didn't come until oh six. He, we had Horville. He's over in Bainbridge with Jeff Lilton and then now we had Coach Goss.
He was our offensive line coach. We had Coach Walker was our running backs coach. He worked with me over here at Pierce's past year.
And was Mentir with y'all then?
No, Mentir. He, he wasn't, he didn't come in until like oh five, oh six, I believe is when he came in.
But we had, we were playing and you know, Coach Lawson was defense coordinator. I coached defense line.
So we were playing in a game and I was, I was up top and he called a stunt and young man blitzed.
And it was perfect. I mean, we had it set up perfect. It would have been tackle for loss. He runs right by the kid.
And Lawson called the kid over that to the sideline and said son, what, what are you doing? Why didn't you tackle the guy?
He looked at him and he said, well I blitzed coach. You, you wanted me to tackle him?
Right. The little come rich, he lost his face. His price. And she's like, yeah.
He said, you know, the purpose of playing football is to tackle the other team when they have the football.
So, I mean, there's a lot of times, I mean, we had to do a lot of work there. So he, I mean, it was just, it was, it was a joy.
And I, well, it's good folks there. I enjoyed my time.
What about the kid that went to go get the ball that time and he got, didn't he get bit or something?
Well, we had, we had this kid. Now my second now, believe this or not, I went through two tours of duty at Brantley County.
So the first time I was there, I left and went to Brunswick and worked with Coach Freeman.
And then I came back, which I got some great stories about Brunswick High. I came back to Brantley and that's when Dick and then was there.
And so Coach Pender would always take the offense down there and they were two minute drill stuff on that end.
And if you weren't playing, you weren't involved in the first offense. You come down there with us and we do condition.
And so me and Vic was down there and we had them conditioning back and forth, back and forth.
And the kid comes back and he says, Coach, I got bit by a rattlesnake. Vic said, man, there ain't no rattlesnake down there.
I mean, he asked another kid, he said, you see a rattlesnake down there?
And the kid said, I don't know. I don't see nothing coaching. So he takes off and he goes back and he comes back.
And he said, Coach, I got bit again. And I looked at him. I said, Vic, that kid's been bit by a snake.
I mean, that's a snake bite. So Vic goes down there and looks and sure enough, his dad going to pick me rattler was down there.
And so Vic was like, holy crap, we may need to call 911. So we called 911 and the boys daddy was out there in the truck watching practice.
He comes up there. So the amulet shows up and the daddy goes out and he gets the snake.
He wrangles up the snake and whatnot. So they put the kid in the back of the amulets.
They did whatever they had to do. He had to go to the emergency room and stuff like that.
And a couple of weeks later, you know, we got done with the season and stuff and kid comes up and he, well, not kid, but the daddy comes up, Coach Pender.
And he's got this plaque and he's tagged the snake that he had. He took it to a taxidermist and got him mounted on a plaque.
And he said, Coach, if you don't mind at the banquet, can you give this to my son, you know, for like, I don't know, maybe the toughest kid or we'll just call it the rattlesnake award.
So sure enough, his daddy gave him, I mean, we gave him the award at the banquet, the rattlesnake award.
So this is also the same daddy who was out there watching practice one day.
If you've ever been to Brantley County, it's like in the middle of a swamp, you know, there's swamp land all around it.
And I feel this, our football field was on what they, I guess was they used to call it an old oxidation pond that was there behind the school runoff pond.
They filled it up with dirt and they built the football field there, practice fields.
And so I sit over there with the offensive line and I'm working, you know, my drills and my reads and stuff like that.
And then all of a sudden, he comes to his dad, going big old hog with these tusks and he runs across the field.
I said, holy crap, you know, those things, they'll kill you.
So I started running, you know, immediately.
And then all of a sudden I looked up and these bloodhounds come rolling by me.
Well, this kid's daddy has brought his dogs to practice and he done went back there, let them dogs out.
And that's where that egg goes.
They went out in the woods and the swamp area and they chasing that dog and he reaches in the back of his tray, takes his gun and there he goes through the swamp out there.
And I look at him, I'm in tears and I said, you got to be kidding me.
Did I just, did I just see that right there?
I mean, did this guy, did a hog just come out of me with some big old tusks and these dogs go and chase this.
And so later on we finished practicing everything and we hear these gunshots back there.
The guy comes back and said, man, I got that hog.
He said, y'all better get ready.
Y'all gonna have some good lunch on Friday.
So he goes and kills a hog and cooks the hog and brings us meat on Friday.
That's what we ate for lunch on Friday.
So, you know, you just, I mean, people look at me when I tell these stories and they say, coach, you're making this.
No, I'm not.
I mean, you can't make this stuff up.
I mean, it's just, it's just absolutely unbelievable.
I mean, I just, I just,
And in between your stints at Bradley County, you went and worked for another legend, the hammer coach Maurice Freeman at Brunswick High School.
Yes, I did.
Now, I mean, I tell you what, I like Maurice.
He's a good football.
He's a great motivator.
You know, he, he, he knows how to get those kids to play.
He does a phenomenal job.
And, you know, it, you know, we always talk about fits of coaches at different places, you know, and what coach Freeman does at Brooks.
He's a great fit at Brooks.
He was, he's from there, he grew up there.
He knows everybody.
He went to school there.
Mamas and daddies.
He's starting to teach coach second generational kids.
He's got, you know, Chris Cole's son is coming through that now and whatnot.
And he came in to Brunswick and, you know, coach, the legend coach Willis, he'd been there forever.
And so anytime you follow a guy like that, it's always kind of hard because everybody's so used to coach Willis and what he did.
Freeman came in and I thought he did as good job as you could do there and to do it.
Because, you know, when you take jobs, you always want to follow the guy that followed the guy.
You don't want to be the guy that followed the guy, you know, you always want to be that second coach after.
You don't want to be the coach after because sometimes they don't, you know, the percentages of being successful is kind of hard.
So anyway, we, oh my goodness, we had a first year there.
We had, we had this young man, we called him the monkey foot and he was, every time he talked to you, he'd say, hey coach, how are you doing?
And he'd end every sentence with quotations.
And he would just talk and I was just like, oh my goodness, who is this kid right here?
And so one day we were taking pictures because what we did, this is back when we still have football camp and stuff.
So we stayed at the gym there and so about the, you know, on that Thursday we'd have football pictures and then we finished up Friday morning
and have like a little inner squad scrimmage and then Freeman would let everybody go.
And so Thursday we would take pictures and so we had all the kids in the gym and stuff like that.
So kind of fast forward a little bit.
Our trainer, Miss Linda, she was, oh man, she was great.
She would always did stuff for the kids and everything.
I mean, she was really good trainer.
And so she was out in the field house.
They just built a new field house at Wernher's High and she was in the new field house and she was in the training room and monkey foot comes through the locker room and she's thinking, all right, so pictures is over.
We got to start getting ready cause as soon as we finished pictures, we were going to go out and practice and whatnot.
And so she's getting her ice and stuff together.
So make a foot come up to her and say, can I borrow your phone for a second?
So he started talking to whoever on the phone and he gave her the phone back.
He says, you wouldn't happen to have a hammer around here, would you?
She said, Jofi, why do you need a hammer?
He said, I just need to use it for a minute.
She said, yeah, we got one in the equipment room in there.
So he goes and gets camera and so she got the thinking.
Why is this kid with a hammer?
And so he goes, she goes, he goes, she says, why are you using the hammer?
He says, well, we were in there, get ready to take pictures and Randall popped me in the back of the head and I ain't about to be disrespected like that.
And he said, so I came out here and I wasn't going to disrespect the bronze of high uniform.
And I took my uniform off, changed into my street clothes.
I'm going to take this hammer.
I'm going to go bust him in the back of the head.
So Linda, one thing you didn't know about Miss Linda, she's black.
She was a black belt karate and she hit him with the karate chop.
And she started wrestling the hammer from and it got they just they started wrestling out there and she hit him with the Judy chop and the Judy chop and they just hit.
Oh my goodness.
And then she wrestled it from when he takes off.
She gets on the phone and trying to call coach Freeman.
Then she gets then about that time, one of the other coaches pull up to the coaches pull up because they had to go home and go get their picture stuff for pictures.
And he's going across to the gym and he stops at the portable and gets a cement brick.
So he's not now we have resulted from a hammer to a brick.
Monkey foot was serious about getting that lick back.
This was a little much foot was going to get his back.
So basketball coach tackles him and wrestles the brick from gets him down.
And so coach Freeman comes out and he says, what are you doing much foot?
He's like, coach, I call my brother, corn.
He's gonna come up here and take care of business.
But he couldn't do it because he was babysitting and he told me to just get a hammer or brick and just take Randall out.
And he said, why are you doing that?
He said, because he just he disrespected me coach.
And oh my goodness.
So coach Freeman, he had to deal with that.
He ran monkey foot made him roll do some other stuff.
And he said, much foot, you do that again.
Now you got to go to the house.
You can't you can't be, you know, attacking other kids.
He's your teammate.
We had to deal with that.
Can't be going after people with hammers and bricks.
No, you know, so I don't know.
Maybe that's what coach for me got his hammer.
I don't know.
Maybe maybe monkey foot inspired him to use the hammer.
I don't know.
But anyway, oh my goodness, we had the first year.
We have some decent kids, but in the middle school, we have some kids that were coming and they were going to be good.
Because we watched employees and stuff like that.
So the next year, we had a very talented freshman group come up.
And so we were sitting in our football meeting and I told him, I said, this kid, I'm not going to name this kid because he's a pretty famous kid right now.
I'm not.
I don't want to throw out no hot copy rights or anything.
It'd be like an Aaron Rodgers or anything like that.
But anyway, they were sitting there and I told him, I said, look, this kid is going to be special.
I said, he's good.
He can run.
He can catch.
I said, he's going to be our running back force.
And they said, no, I mean, he's a freshman.
He's not going to be a plus.
I'm just telling.
So we're getting into about games four and he plays defense too.
I mean, he played, he played him at some corner and stuff.
So this kid, well, first of all, he would show up late to practice and I make him roll every day.
He'd come out there and I had a rule when when two freemen blew that whistle and because we go what we had, we call pre practice.
And so I'd always take running backs of that to the side. We work all our drills and ball handling skills and stuff like that.
I told him, I said, if you're not here on time, you roll.
And so he would be like the practice.
I'm making rolls from the fence where you entered the field at he'd get there.
And so I didn't intentionally I move.
I get to another area.
As soon as he get close to me, I move somewhere.
So I made him roll for, you know, he gets so mad at me.
And so anyway, we're playing in the middle of a game and we're playing, I believe it was playing wins the far.
So be know is beach house goal.
And so he had to run back got hurt.
So we moved in running back.
And then he had almost 180 some yards rushing.
He returned a interception for a touchdown.
He had a pump return for a touchdown.
They had a kickoff for a touchdown.
He's first kid I've ever seen.
We ran a top sweep with him and he reversed the field like five or six different times and he scored.
I was like, Holy crap.
So we get the full quarter.
And so granted, he's fresh when I got the only other two running backs I got behind him were refreshing too.
And cause I other two running backs, they were hurt.
And so we got, we go out on the field.
I got a looking back there.
Quarterbacks got his hands up and they want to know where the running backs at.
So I get a look at my babies up here getting water.
So I get searching the sideline and get a look in and, you know, get the scene, you know, where is that?
I don't see him.
I'm like, where did he go?
He didn't go back to the locker room.
You know, so I look over on the sideline and I looked underneath the bench and I saw some feet.
I said, what is that?
So I went over there and I got pulling away some.
We had trash bags that like the story of rain will put footballs and stuff in that.
Pulling that stuff.
And this young man was hiding underneath the bench.
I said, what are you doing, son?
He's like coach the moment's just too big.
I don't know if I can do this.
I said, son, you have scored a touchdown in every facet of the game.
What do you mean it's too big for you?
Coach, I just, I just can't do it.
And I was like, you got to be kidding me.
So, you know, this kid, phenomenal player, you know, he just goes to show you that freshman, sometimes it just gets too big for him.
And I was like, oh my goodness.
And so this, this young man today is just, he is making a lot of money.
And then it failed playing.
And, you know, he came and saw me one time and we got to talk about that story.
And he got to laugh.
And he's like, man, I remember times you used to make me roll every day.
I was like, yes.
But he was, he was definitely, man, I just, I knew he is, he is probably him and I got another kid.
And when, when he plays for the 49ers and Trey Jackson, he played for the Patriots and Dietrich Mills.
I had him over in Waycross and he played for a short period of time in the NFL.
So I've been blessed with some good players.
I've been around some good players and stuff and they, oh my goodness, every single one of them is different.
You know, Frank, Frank Stevens always used to have the great motto of, you know, you go on, you got three different types of players.
You got Lamborghinis, you got Camaras, you got pickup trucks and got Volkswagen's.
Those Lamborghinis look good.
They sound good.
A boy, they are high maintenance.
It takes a lot to change that oil every day.
You know, so those kids, they, you know, you got a good philosophy of you can't, you got to be fair, but you can't treat them the same because they all different, you know, because they all grow up different.
They, they, they come from different backgrounds and they're raised differently.
And, you know, so, you know, how you handle your kids is what's really, really important in coaching football.
You got, Ed Dilley said it best of anybody.
He had this thing above his office.
It said, a doctor of psychology, you know, is psychological.
Every day at football practice, got to be psychological warfare.
Sometimes you got to trick kids into being great, you know, and that's what you got to do.
So you headed back, you headed back to Brantley and Vick's there.
And I remember us being at the clinic riding through downtown Atlanta and the Brantley County van and Vic Parker about getting us killed.
Too fast, too furious in downtown Atlanta, Jack.
Well, we're, we're, we're going out to eat and Vic pulls up to this car.
And I'm pretty sure that these young men next to us were probably involved in some extracurricular activity that,
We didn't need to be involved in.
One of two words and we could have become a statistic in Atlanta.
And he looked so there and he says, Oh my gosh, who are you?
I'm like, Vic, we don't need to have this conversation.
I mean, we need to get, we need to get out of this thing unscathed.
And so he gets talking to these guys and I'm pretty sure they probably, they, they, they probably had a way to protect themselves.
And I'm just going to leave it at that.
And so I told, I told us a big game.
So he's wanting to write a play.
I said, Vic, you can't race people in this school van.
It's got Brantley County on that.
You don't get all of us fired.
So, but anyway, he, you know, he was, he was that and then, you know, another great story.
And, you know, it's, we were, we were at a camp, you know, and watching football down the issue.
And so Vic, Vic, they go, you know, we were leaving.
We were going to go over to another coach's buddy's house and, you know, hang out over there.
So Vic gets to driving the truck and he misses where he's going.
And I'm like, where is Vic and him going?
So Vic goes down to the end of the cul-de-sac and he goes down there and turns around down there.
He comes back.
There's like mud all over the truck and whatnot.
And I said, Vic, what in the heck did you do?
He said, man, I, I had forgotten there was a cul-de-sac down there.
So I turn around in this guy's yard down there and he's going to be pissed at me.
I missed all his landscaping stuff.
And I said, yeah, I said, I, I'd be a little upset too, you know.
So we go out at the next day and we watch the practice and stuff.
And, uh, uh, Hatcher, who is at Ace now, he was out there and he got to talking.
He's like, man, he said, I hate living in Ace.
You know, I love Valdos, except for these.
He said, man, these are tallest kids, man.
They just do anything today.
And so he got to talking a little bit.
You know, he said, man, I woke up this morning and went outside.
These taggum kids have done ran into my yard tour every bit of my landscape.
I spent thousands of dollars on my yard.
And so I said, I said, I said, coach, where do you live at?
He said, oh, I live down in Remerton down there.
He said, you go down past Todd Todd's house and go down to a cul-de-sac.
And I got a look at the pen and pen and looked at me and I just had to walk away.
Cause I'm pretty sure that I can neither confirm nor deny it.
Parker probably has something to do with turning around at that man's yard.
So, but awful coincidence.
Yeah, I'm just saying I can neither confirm nor deny that story.
But he is, you know, he's just, oh my goodness, we had, we had some good times.
I had some good times with them.
They were working with them cause I went to college with Vic.
You know, meant to hear he was, he's from up north and he's, you know, he, he's a pocket car type guy.
And he's, you know, he's a good, good football coach. I always liked, you know, working with him.
And he, but we all, I mean, we always had, had a good time.
And we, you know, we took, we went to the playoffs the first time in history down there in 06.
And, you know, you talk about this, everything's got a line up.
You know, we had to be out of counting the last game to, to get in, you know, to the playoffs and stuff.
And that gun, we beat them.
And we got to Jefferson County and play there.
You know, we beat them. They have some really good players.
Yeah, I went to that game.
And so, you know, I, you know, and then we go down to the great Blakely, Georgia and play ET.
And we were beating them at halftime.
And then all of a sudden he decided that he needed to start playing some football.
He had like 300 yards passing and 200 something yards.
Young man had like 500 something yards total offense.
It was just unbelievable. I knew the game was over with when he took off down the sideline and got the Scram on the round.
And he running to the end zone and he dove from the five yard line and turned the flip into the end zone.
And I was like, get the buses ready. It's time to get out of here.
But that was, that was pretty good there.
Well, some of our best times that we've ever had were at the clinic and I'll never forget the time that we left out of Cowboys
and got in the Camden County cheerleaders crown Vic.
And there was a collection.
I mean, we always found ourselves around people that like the next day we look at each other like how did we end up with those people?
And we get in the car with about 24 state championship rings.
You remember that?
Oh yeah. Yeah, we, we get ready to leave and some kind of way our ride has left us.
That, yeah, that happened.
I'm like, I'm like, how are we going to get back?
We, we saw, I believe it was part of one of them guys and said, Coach, can we catch a ride with y'all?
So we got in there, we were bodies on top of bodies in there.
We was in there like a bunch of solid aims.
And so one of the great legends was in there and we were driving.
One of them said, well, let's say pull us over.
We ain't got our seat belt on.
I said, by God, all you gotta do is show them the state championship rings.
I don't think they at all understand what we're just trying to get on.
We had Steve Pardoon, Lee Campbell, Larry Campbell.
Yep.
Well, I mean, that's, that's like, let's see, 12, 5, 2, 7, that's 19 right there.
Yep.
Crap. Somebody else was in there.
I don't, I'm trying to.
Might have been Raven Teague.
Yeah, Raven Teague was with us too.
And then us two jackasses in there.
Yeah, we were the odd man out there.
Well, you ain't now.
When I was walking off the field after the game, I saw Coach Pardoon and I was talking to him.
I told him, you know, we just talked.
He said, you look kind of familiar.
I said, yeah, I used to work buddy, sorrow life.
He said, oh yeah, yeah, I said, well, I guess I can join the, I guess I can join the circle of coaches that is one state championship.
So, but it's, you know, hanging out with, hanging out with those guys, man, just like your head pilters and all them guys, man.
They just sit down and talk to you about football and stuff like that.
So that's what I like about those guys.
They always treated us like regular guys.
I remember we were down at the bubble one time and me and you were kind of just doing our thing and it was late and Coach Pilser and them were like melting them.
Like, hey, Chris, Kevin, y'all come over here and sit with us and, you know, they were, why don't y'all ever come hang out with us?
And we were like, because y'all are y'all and y'all are legends.
And they're like, oh, no, we're just regular guys, man.
And they were, you know, they treated us like, you know, they just wanted people to hang out and, you know, we just sat until about three or four in the morning and learned that the GACA never ran out and they just, you know, told us stories and stuff.
And we sat and listened.
Yeah.
They, you know, the thing about listening to those guys is they would, you know, people go to clinics and they want to go and then sit.
And I'm not saying, you know, go on and listen to college coaches and stuff like that.
Good because you do learn stuff.
I listened to, I listened to Kirby Smart talk when he first got to Georgia and he talked about a special teams.
Like when I got to Georgia, we would got off on special teams and he talked about how he got an analyst with the Patriots and how they improved in special teams.
And I thought it was great.
I mean, he was a keep it real guy.
And that's the thing I like about Kirby Smart.
He's going to keep it real.
He's going to tell you like it is what you need to do to win and what you're going to do to lose if you lose and, you know, all that stuff like that.
And that's great going to listen to those guys because you do learn some stuff from, I think the most important thing is the things that you learn after, you know, sitting down there in the bubble and sitting down in the lobby and talking to those guys like you see rights and the mill millers and all them guys like that.
Because they tell you stuff that you just, you just don't know. I mean, as a young, younger coach at the time I was younger in my career and you just, you just don't know.
And they tell you about it. It's kind of like a fraternity of coaches, you know, and now you got some coaches, they go to clinics, they don't even talk to you.
They could care less about who you are and all that stuff like that.
You know, you got different branches of coaches. I call it trees of coaches, you know, you have your, you know, you different, your Hodges and your mill miller groups and your different ones, coaches up in the North Georgia area and stuff like that.
They have this, this involved in a different, I call it fraternity of coaches and you learn from them guys. They tell you, you know, this is what we did and all this stuff like that, you know, and that's, that's, that's, that's what I got the most.
And that's what I love about going to clinics and sitting there and talking to those guys. Even today, I mean, I've been coaching to 25 years and, you know, you're still learning, you're learning stuff new every single day about, you know, at every clinic about how to do things and what you can do and how to become a better coach.
So those are the things that I like the most and that's what I like about the off season is you get to sit on top of those guys and, you know, and they'll invite you. They'll tell you, hey, come to our school, just, you know, spend the day with us and stuff.
And I've done that, you know, when I was, when I was at Waycross, I was, you know, I went down to coach mill school football down there for eight years.
And, you know, I would go and go listen to different people and stuff like that. That's one thing I learned from Frank was Frank was that kind of guy.
He always go and he learned something from somebody else about what to do and how to do things and stuff like that.
So, you know, that's what I would do. You know, I'd go and talk to different people and find out things from them and stuff like that.
When you left Waycross, you went to Charlton?
Yes, I went down to the swamp down there. And I, my first year, I was, I was the linebacker's coach and then Coach Jones left.
He got, he went to Lowndes County to go coach and then Coach Murray had opportunity to be the offense coordinator there.
You know, my son, he was a freshman in the high school and, you know, we had some, we had some pretty good players.
We had a lower senior class and, you know, we had a last Williams.
He's in County, County playing football now, but I had him and he was on my goodness.
He, as a freshman, when I was at Waycross, I remember we played against him and I saw him.
I was like, man, that kid's going to be good. He just, it's kind of like a giraffe at the time.
You know, he just, he grew so much. His body was just, you know, it was like a baby deer.
You know, he's just all over the place and then his freshman year, he struggled a little bit, catching and stuff like that.
But he still a good player. I mean, play defense, he played outside linebacker's son for us.
And then the next year, he was even better, you know.
So, you know, I, I was sitting there and, you know, we lining, we played him at tight end and stuff like that.
And I was like, you know, we was playing against Clinch. I was like, you know, the heck with this, KS-67,
we're going to line him up wide. I'm going to throw the ball to him.
So, you know, we ended up being Clinch that year for the region championship, but he had some great catches in that game.
Super. I mean, he is probably one of the most down to earth, pure as kids I've coached.
Just very humble kid. You know, he could talk about how great he's just not like that.
He's just totally different kid.
Six, seven makes you a better offensive coordinator, doesn't it?
Yes, it does cause, you know, we, we, we call the time out and he come over there and I said,
Alias, we about to run the boogity boogity. He says, what's the boogity boogity?
I said, I mean, you run as fast as you can and we're going to throw it up and you just go get it.
And he, we, Jaylin threw it up in the air and he went and got it.
That was the difference in that game because he caught that touchdown pass and it kind of turned the whole dynamics of that game.
And we ended up winning, you know, we drove the ball down inside the 10, it was probably down to the 20 and we've been running power all game, all game.
And we've been working on it throughout the year and I told Jaylin, I said, that he ain't crash, he's, I said, you just pull it and go.
And so he, we had to go hand it off and thank goodness the official did, he didn't blow it, blow it dead.
He, he pulled it, he was out the back door and nobody knew he had the ball and he went scored.
And we ended up stopping them on defense, but that was great there just, you know, and that was the first one that Charlton won in a while.
You know, and it was, it was great. I mean, just being able to call plays and, you know, being able to get them guys and scheme up and all that stuff like that.
Well, didn't Charlton's got like weird geography, didn't y'all have like kids coming from all over the place?
Look here. So, all right. So you got different parts of Charlton County.
You've got a place called the BN. It's the furthest point of the state of Georgia.
Like, okay, you got to swamp. If you take the swamp away, then from Charlton, the clings would only be 30 minutes and you can go to Val d'Orson 45 minutes, you know, easily.
But you got to swamp down. You either have to go around the bottom of swamp or top after the swamp.
And so they got this place down there. You got Moniac and you got the BN.
When the BN goes down into Florida and back up, they have no cell phone service down in the BN.
I mean, you have to go, they have what they call a cell station. I mean, it's like being in an article somewhere like that.
You have a cell station and you know, I've been that way. You go that way to go to Val d'Orson.
I've been that way to go to Val d'Orson before. And the cell station they have there is probably one step away from being something like off the Texas Chainsaw Mask.
And I'm just like, I'm never stopping there. I mean, I'll just do smoke and screen. We'll start doing. We'll build a fire and send us a smoke screen.
I get some help that way. I mean, because you ain't getting in contact with nobody.
You could be down there for days for anybody to know what you're doing.
But those kids, we have kids. All right. So those kids.
The witness protection program.
It is definitely the witness protection program down there.
If you want to get off the map, go to the BN and nobody will ever find you.
And so you go down into past the BN and they're actually further to Baker County in Florida.
They could go to school there. Those kids have to ride a bus to St. George.
That's probably a good 20 minute ride.
And once they get to St. George, it's another 30 minutes to Charleston County High School.
So you got some kids that's on the bus for almost 50 something minutes.
And so when I was there, I worked in the old school and which that was definitely an experience for me.
I've never, you know, I've heard of all kind of different stuff, but I've heard we had this guy.
We had this girl who had this boyfriend named Pork Chop. He called him Pork Chop.
I don't. But anyway, that's a long story there. But anyway, those kids would have to ride the bus to Charleston County High School.
And they get off there and they wonder why those kids.
I mean, if you sit me on the bus for 55 minutes, I'm as a young kid, I'm probably gonna get a little crazy every once in a while too.
You know, that's a long ride. This is quite different there. But they're kind of spread out.
They're a little bit kind of somewhat like where where's the same way to where is in the middle of small.
And so you're you got all the way down from where is Burl. You go all the way down to the other end to where the river is.
What Pierce County is at. And, you know, there's some you can have some long bus rides there, especially kids that live on the main side.
You know, you got you got an egg can live deep up in the woods there. So there's definitely some some long bus rides down in that area.
And that's the thing about be living in the south. You know, there's it's not like Atlanta.
You can go to Atlanta and within a 10 mile radius, you got seven eight high schools.
Well, down here, high schools about 30, 30 to 40 minutes away from each other.
So, you know, it just all depends on where you live at.
Tell me about the time and waycross where county where you had to take the kid home.
And you had to, you know what I'm talking about?
Oh, yeah. Tell me when he took me home. Yeah.
To go home. Okay. Yeah. So I had this kid.
He is right. His mama was working or whatnot.
I told him, I said, look, I said, I'll take you home.
I said, I'm not going to sit up here for 45 minutes to wait for your mom when I can just take you home.
Probably would be better off waiting for mama to come get him.
Because the route he took me ended up being about a 35 minute drive.
So we left the school went down corridor Z.
I said, you go to school here.
He said, oh, no, no, you gotta get a hint.
Take a right. He took a right and went down there.
And next thing I know, I'm over there by the hospital.
I said, why, why are we about a why didn't you just tell me to go?
He's like, oh, it's just and so he said, just go down here and go this way and this way.
So about 30 minutes later, we pulled up at his house.
And I said, son, I could have just went down through the full way underneath the bridge took a right.
We've been at your house in five minutes.
Oh, well, I didn't know. I just took you.
I told you to go the way the bus takes me home in the afternoon.
I said, son, your mama can go get you from now on.
I said, oh, my lord, he just knew the way to bus.
He said, coach, this is the way the bus takes me home.
So I know it gets the word there is my very first year there.
I worked at Waycross. We had the mills kid and he played a Georgia Tech and we had balls and we had another kid named Lucius.
He's big old 6465 kid.
They look kid.
So coach Sharp, I mean, I love coach Sharp.
He's he's Shannon Sharpen.
He was cousin of him.
He's always got great stories to tell, you know, about them growing up and stuff like that.
So we were playing in Trenton County.
And so we got done with the game and everything.
So every would always drive his truck to the game to the to the game to with the water cow and all that stuff.
And so I rode the bus and so we had several other coaches and we had one coach he would drive.
We got on the bus and I asked one coach, I said, we got all our folks and he said, yeah, we got them all coach.
I was like, all right.
So, you know, we all that stuff like that.
So we got ready.
We pulled off and we get down to about Hoboken, which is halfway to Waycross.
And we get this phone call from every every said coach, you are y'all missing something.
I'm like, I know of I said, I got my bag and everything.
He said, well, do you think we might should have picked up Holloman bowls, mills and Lucius?
I said, what's your name?
He said, they're still here in Brantley County.
I said, yeah, we can't leave the four best players on the team at the opponent's house.
So we had to we had to go back and get them and turn around and get them because they were kind of important to our football program.
That's why when I was the next year, you know, when I coached with coach Dudley for a little bit and then I went down and coached middle school and did that.
And you know, my son, he was growing up.
I want to spend a little bit more time with them.
And so I was coaching at middle school and I always had a rule of thumb.
I said, you know, you always got to make sure you got certain players on the bus for your leave.
So when I had the Cosalino's kid, I'd say, Thomas, you're here.
I'm here, coach.
I said, all right, let's go.
Well, when did you cross paths with the great one of our favorite guys ever, Brian A. Watson?
Oh, my goodness.
By the way, Brian Watson is one of the best cooks that you've ever been around.
He would always at work with him at Brunswick.
We would coach Freeman on Sundays.
Oh, was it Brunswick that y'all hooked up?
Yeah.
So each coach would know cook would be responsible for picking Sunday.
You know, we would we would cook food up and stuff like that.
Watson, he could one Sunday and I was like, that's done, son.
Maybe you should have.
If coaching don't work out, you can always go in the culinary arts.
You know, he could, man, he could cook.
And so I had an opportunity to work with him there.
You know, he, oh man, you tell him he's probably one of the funniest man in the life.
He's got a story for everything.
He's just he's be a good one to get on your podcast here because he's definitely got a story.
You know, for everything.
Yeah, I love Brian.
And then I remember when I can't remember where you went to interview, but when you interviewed for the DC job somewhere, it was a good job.
It was a good place.
And you got the nickname from coach Lee Hamner, sticky fingers Stevenson.
Oh, okay.
All right.
So I went interviewed.
I believe it was.
I can't remember it was either.
Tatnol or somewhere like that.
I believe it was.
Yeah.
This was years ago.
Yeah.
So I go in the interview and we would go down.
I go in there and I interview and they offer me a job and everything.
So you have to go and get all your stuff done and whatnot.
And so I got a phone call and they said, coach, we got a problem.
We got, you know, and this is back in the day when you had to you had to do the role for the prince and all that stuff like that.
And so he said, you got to you, you got to come down and coach, we got a problem.
What are you talking about?
He said, well, we got your stuff has came back and I don't know if we can hire you.
I said, what you mean?
You can't hire me.
He said, man, you you're wanted in three states for all the robbery.
I said, and I was like, I've never robbed a thing before.
And I was like, so I went and went and I talked to the guys and they did it again and couldn't
find out there was another Kevin W. Stevenson that was wanted in Texas for several armed robbers.
And so apparently they have gotten our names and our stuff mixed up and cause my I guess when you put all your stuff in and your social security number, all that stuff like that, they put in the wrong number and it came up and his numbers was close to mine.
That's why I think God for technology today, you know, they just go in and they did the digital stuff and all that stuff comes up right now.
I was like, oh my Lord, I said, I'm about to never teach ever again because I'm only three states for armed robbery.
And hammer, hammer, sticky.
What are you doing stealing people's TVs out of the house?
So then he gave me the nickname sticky and he even got me a shirt as a place in Augusta.
Well, he would say disgust.
Disgust.
So we would and he got me a shirt.
He said, I got your shirt and it was called sticky thing.
So that's what they started.
He started calling me sticky thing right there.
I was like, holy crap.
That almost cost you right there.
Yeah, there's never, never a dull moment whatsoever in education. I can tell you that right there.
And you talked earlier about how coaching, you know, comes full circle and, you know, we hadn't seen each other in a while in this past year.
We hooked back up at the clinic again and, you know, where I'm at now, RDC is a young guy and you decided to take it upon yourself
to become his life coach.
Yes, you know, this young man right here, he, first of all, he, he, we were sitting there talking.
He didn't realize that the clinic is a marathon, not a sprint.
Yes, he tries to sprint on the first day and you can't sprint on the first day.
It's a marathon. You gotta, gotta go through and gotta pace yourself through.
You know, there's a lot of stuff you got to get, you know, you go to different meetings and stuff and you stay up late and all that stuff like that.
And so anyway, he's the first man I've ever known to spend as much money as he has on an Uber.
I mean, I said, son, that was probably, you spend as much money on an Uber as I got my first paycheck coach.
You know, I'm gonna teach you.
You know, and I said, I'm about to officially become your life coach. So I'll call him every once in a while and, and I'll tell him, you know, I'll have to give him advice on different stuff.
What number are we on now? Is it like 24, 25?
Oh my Lord, yeah, we got this a lot, a lot of different, a lot of stories, you know.
And I, you know, I used to, you know, I told me, you know, me and Watson, we always sitting down and we joke about this stuff.
And Watson said, man, I got to get me a couple credible, one more credible degrees so I could, you know, start my book.
And so I could probably write like three or four different books.
I could probably write Life of a Coach. I could write about the survival of a coach.
I could probably talk about watch out because the book watch out would be you better watch out because anything can happen.
You know, tsunami, you know, you got to watch out. So there's, there's all kind of different stuff.
Tackle.
Yeah. You know, and oh my gosh, I could go into different like dealing with parents.
You know, we got the only profession, the only profession that I know of where on Friday night you got folks that will get up there and tell you exactly how what you need to do.
I mean, you don't see me down at the medical center in central Georgia telling the heart surgeon how he needs to do bypass surgery.
Oh my gosh, I think that that order needs to go to the top of the heart instead of the bottom of the heart.
Or, you know, like behind my apartment area here, they're building a, they're building another section of apartments back here.
You know, I'm not going to go out and tell that guy how he needs to run his electricity out there.
Hey man, you need to, I don't think you're looking that thing up right.
You know, a couple of things could happen and ass whip could probably be one of them.
And you just, you can't, you know, or you don't, you don't see me going out to the local boutique down here and say, Hey, I think you need to, you're not ringing that stuff up right.
You need to get your iPad and that's how you can ring stuff up.
You know, I mean, you know, so there's just, oh my goodness, they're just, you know, it coaching is hard.
I mean, it's a hard, you know, like I had a girl, you know, she came in and observed me one day and she was talking.
She said, she said, she said, you got any words or wisdom for you?
And the girl I worked with, she just looked at me, you know, if you ever look at the man with the dog, gives you that look.
Yeah, that's the look she gave me.
I said, yeah, go be a nurse.
And I said, no, not really. I said, look, you just got to find your good school that fits you.
You know, you got to, you know, jobs are, you got to find the right fit.
You know, coaches go out and they go get jobs and they win at places.
They do stuff.
They win championships and whatnot.
Then all of a sudden they get contacted by these bigger schools or other schools and they offer money and stuff like that to work there.
And they'll go take it and they don't win.
And they, oh, he just won because he had a no, it's because he was good fit where he was at.
You know, it's, I tell y'all, you know, young coaches, I tell them, when you go interview for a job, there's a whole list of stuff you better go ask, you know.
Like you talk about looking at the hood, you better look under the hood.
You know, teams that are not winning, they're winning, they're not winning for a reason, because they just all of a sudden decide to get bad.
You know, there's a reason why they don't win anymore.
And it's, you know, it be a series of things to be change of administration.
It could be schools built in your area, you know, especially Metro Atlanta.
You know, I remember back in the day, you know, you had part of you was the, and they still have good, I mean, they're still got good teams and stuff, but they went on that long run there.
Then they started building all these different schools in Burnett County, you know, different stuff like that.
And I remember when Buford was just a class A school and, you know, now they're in the highest classification.
So, I mean, there's, there's all kind of things that you better look at when you go take a job.
And so, you know, like somebody asked me the other day, they said, Coach, you ever want to be a head coach?
I said, heck to the note where I'm at right now and what I'm doing.
I mean, I get up, I go coach, teach elementary kids every day.
I have the time of my life.
I work for a good head coach.
I have a time of my life working with him and I enjoy my time with them.
You know, I get to coach my son.
My son enjoys it here.
He has a great time here.
You know, you can't, the experience he had this year, I wouldn't give a million dollars for it.
It was one of the greatest things that he's had opportunity.
Luke Joker, he's probably one of the luckiest kids I've ever known because less than seven months ago, he won a state championship at Baseball at Charlton Count when he was down there.
So, he's going to get two rings in less than seven months.
So, but it was a great experience.
You know, it's a great experience.
You know, sometimes sitting in that seat and having head besides your name is not always the greatest thing.
I mean, somebody comes to me, I go, you need to go talk to the head coach.
Yeah, exactly.
You need to go talk to the head coach.
I can't help you with that right there.
You're looking for that guy over there.
You need to go talk to the coach here and over there.
He's the guy you need to go talk to.
You don't want to be that guy.
No, sometimes, you know, sometimes I always say, you better watch out what you wish for, you know, because what you wish for,
you may not lie.
I mean, I tell you right now, and this is for me from experience, like I was at Waycross Middle School,
so I was an athlete, record and a head football coach down there.
And coaching at that school was almost like coaching at a small class A school, you know,
because the dynamics of being an AD and handling money and doing budgeting and all that stuff like that
and raising money for your booster club and all that stuff is one thing.
Then you have the football aspect of it, you know, they want you to win.
You want to teach them kids how to win.
You got to run what you need to run at the high school and you got lift weights every day and make sure, you know,
I don't see, you know, when people take jobs and they say, oh, yeah, he's going to be the head coach and athlete throughout.
As soon as they say athlete director, that's a hot no go because it is almost impossible to be a good, efficient head football coach
and an athlete director unless you got a good assistant athlete director that can help you out, you know, during football season.
Football has become a 12, every sport now has become a 12 month cycle of doing stuff, baseball, basketball.
If you want to be good, you got to work year round. If you're not working year round, you're not going to be good.
You're going to get out of it, which put into it.
So, you know, and I tell coaches all the time when you go and interview for jobs, the first thing you better make sure you do is have a good middle school program
because if you don't have those kids ready to play when they go to high school and you're having to teach basic fundamental stuff
because and I learned this from Frank. When Frank came in and talked to me, he said, look, they need to learn how to lift weights, block, tackle, basic fundamental stuff.
And that's what I did. I go and find kids in the school that was not playing or had played or I got them involved.
You know, like Thomas, I tell this story all the time.
Thomas wasn't even my quarterback down there. He was a linebacker. I mean, he played linebacker and then in seventh grade, he was my running back.
He got hurt in spring. And so the guy that was going to be my quarterback didn't show up to practice one day during the summer.
And I asked Thomas, Thomas, can you throw the football? He's like, yeah, coach, I can do it.
So he went out and started the rest of his history. He's playing now on Saturday and he's a very good football player.
And he's a great kid. I mean, he bought into what we were doing down there. He used to work hard and whatnot.
He doesn't like, he lets better now. He did. He started out with him.
He didn't like to lift weights very much, but he finally decided that if I want to be good, this is what I got to do.
Well, none of them do when they're young. It takes a while.
The biggest thing is, and I tell people all the time, that weight ring makes a breakthrough program.
Looking at a young age, if they're lifting weights, like I tell you right now, we never saw a round ball going into a gym.
I mean, we were going to lift weights five days a week, every day, and that's what we were going to do.
And I get amazed. I look at on social media, these different little things. This one guy posted on this. I just don't agree with them lifting weights every single day.
Well, you know what? Maybe you don't agree with winning football games. How about that?
You know, any kid's got to lift weights. They got to be physically fit.
If you look at us in the state championship game, our kids, we work out six days a week, and he gets out to those kids and cramp it.
I mean, we didn't have any kids that cramped at all, and they work out.
And they know when they walk in that weight room, they're going to work out every single day.
And it's just, it's the grind, but you got to get them to buy into that. You know, every school is not like that.
They're going to walk, you're going to walk in there, and you don't have kids, it's going to buck the system.
And, you know, sometimes you got to cut kids loose if they don't want to work. You got to get rid of them because, and in the long run, if you keep them around, just to win games, they're going to kill your program in the long run.
You know, and I want these ones just kick the kid off just because I think football is an outlet for a lot of kids to get to another level, to be able to better themselves.
Whether they play football or not, you know, at the next level, it helps them in life because there's a lot of life lessons you learn in football.
Because trust me, when you're in real life and you got, you look in and over there, you got seven, eight, you got eight big little eyes looking at you, expecting you to get up and go to work every day.
You know, you take that football stuff that you learn, you know, from a physical aspect and from a spiritual aspect of I got to trust myself and good Lord, he's going to help provide for my family.
I just got to get up, I got to go to work, I got to do the things that's necessary.
You know, that's what makes him, you know, I've been fortunate enough, you know, I work with kids, I work with the people now that I've coached or taught in school and they've gone on to be lawyers, doppers, you know, police officers.
They've gone on to play college football, you know, when I was coaching basketball at Wayne County, those girls that I had, the one thing I did, I put them on a plan.
I said, look, you need to make sure whether you're going to play college basketball or you're going to find a trade school or something, you need to find something to do with your life.
You don't need to just not do nothing.
You need to find, you need to have a plan.
And so by my second year, those girls, when everyone in girls graduated, they ended up going to do something.
They had a trade school, two-year college, or four-year college, you know, and they did pretty well for themselves, you know.
So that's, you know, the things you get out of sports and athletics is it just goes above and beyond, you know.
We tell you hit old saying football ain't for everybody.
You got a school that has 1200 kids and you only have 80.
So there's only 80 kids in the school that's able to do that.
And that puts them in a fraternity amongst themselves, you know.
And that's the neat thing about coaching, watching kids grow and mature.
And, you know, I'm, oh my goodness, sometimes I get embarrassed because I go down to Walmart and a kid come up to me and say, hey coach, how you doing?
I'm just sitting there thinking, holy crap, where is that?
I mean, you know, I remember that kid but I can't remember the name and stuff like that.
And I'm now starting to teach kids, kids.
So, I mean, it's starting to come around to foal now.
So, and I look at them kids, I say, I remember when your mama, your dad was in school, they had it just like that.
They would come to me and they'd say, I just don't understand what's wrong with them.
I'm like, the devil is alive, you had it just like that in school.
Don't you tell me that.
You had it the same as that way.
I said, you know, you did. I said, caca, I said, you better, you better, you better stay on just like your mom and daddy stayed on you.
So, that's awesome.
It's fun to see.
It's fun to see that.
I mean, it's, you know, I'll see where is that at.
I was, I was sitting, I was in Fernandina this past week and I was talking to a guy and he asked me, he said,
do you ever thought you would do something else?
You know, would you ever go back and you having any regret?
I was like, you know, I go back and I think I like, you know, yeah, I probably could have went did something else, you know, because I started out as a biology major, all that stuff.
And, you know, but I just never, ever saw myself sitting in an office or sitting somewhere and just, you know, the same thing from eight to five every single day.
I said, I just can't with coaching is a challenge, you know, is how can you win that next game?
How can you get that next player to play at the level he needs to play at?
You know, that's, that's in just the relationships that you build with kids is just phenomenal, you know, in the relationships you build with coaches and stuff like that.
I mean, that's what's, that's what's so great about it is, you know, it's just at the end of the day, would I change anything?
No, I think everything that I did, you know, I do it.
If I had it to do all over again, I do it the same way.
And that's awesome, you've definitely built some great relationships with kids and coaches.
And I know, you know, your friendship means the world to me.
And I hope you know that.
And I couldn't be happier for you that I am watching you finally getting to experience state championship this year.
And I appreciate you being on and I definitely like to have you on again.
And I know we're going to get together at the clinic this year and celebrate again.
Yes, sir.
And, you know, I definitely man, I appreciate you and I appreciate what you do for football and coaches.
Because the information that you give and the knowledge that you get, you're even more embedded in the coaching community and what I am, you know, because you, you know, even more people you've gotten involved with Florida and stuff like that.
And I'm getting to know a lot of those guys down there. You know, I just, I wouldn't give anything in the world for it. I've been very blessed. Good Lord bless me tremendously tenfold, you know, to be able to coach and do the things I do.
And like I said, to be able to go and win one with your son is the most I just, unless you've been there, you know, like just talking some coaches where their sons is playing.
I mean, you just don't, you just don't know until you've been there. It's just unbelievable. It's real surreal.
I'll be sitting here a month from now saying, holy crap, did that really happen? Did I really, did we really do that?
Well, you really, y'all really did it. And hopefully y'all get to do it again before he graduates.
I hope so. You know, hopefully he'll bless us again. And, you know, we'll, we'll, we can get our, get back to work. You know, we got to, we'll get back to work next week and start getting things going together and everything like that.
Like I said, coach, coach Aaron does a phenomenal job and he's got to get staff. I enjoy working with them guys and he just, our staff reminds me of, you know, those, you know, Milton, you should always talk about having good staffs, you know, you got Seawright,
and Gipper and all them guys like that. People don't believe it. Head coaches are only going to be as good as his assistant coaches and what they do. Head coach being involved and doing the things that he needs to do.
That's why I enjoy here as much as I do. I can't be more blessed in the being the situation that I'm in.
Well, that's awesome, Kevin. I can't wait to see you again. I appreciate you being on and we'll talk to you later.
Yes, sir. And I appreciate it.
All right, man.