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- [00:02]
A
Dive into the dynamic world of high school sports. Whether you're a seasoned athletic director, a newcomer to the field, or simply curious to learn more about this exciting profession, this podcast is your go to resource for inspiration, education, and a deeper understanding of the game. Changing decisions that shape the world of high school athletics. Welcome back to AD360. I'm Greg Vandermay joined as always by, by Scott Rosenberg. Scott, we got a great topic today and a guest as well. How are you doing today, my friend?
- [00:33]
B
Good. I'm excited to, to hear from Brandon. And we're getting anywhere from 0 to 36 inches of snow here this weekend and so just trying to figure out that. But that'll be fun too, so we're excited.
- [00:47]
A
So it sounds like you got some shoveling in your future. Does that sound an accurate statement on that one?
- [00:52]
B
Yeah, I'm a believer in shoveling. I think it's good for you.
- [00:55]
A
It builds character. Well, Scott, you, you definitely alluded to it, but we're extremely excited today. And being that we're an AD focused podcast, most of our guests traditionally have been athletic directors, but we thought it would be a really cool perspective to speak with a coach on a variety of topics. And with that said, we're extremely thrilled to have Brandon Derek, head football coach at Frederica Academy in Georgia, joining us today. Brandon's going to shed some light on the importance of the athletic director and coach relationships and also different trends that you might have been seeing throughout the coaching space, how the jobs evolved over the years and, you know, the role of analytics and coaching, you know. So with that said, Brandon, how are you doing today? And thank you for joining us.
- [01:40]
C
I'm, I'm glad to be here. I'm glad I'm not shoveling snow. I'm down here on the beach where it's like 66, 68 degrees. So you all are expecting all this snow and just going to get a little rain, but, you know, glad to be here. And yeah, there's, there's a lot of importance with what you guys have done for us, especially with a small school like we are, time is, time is valuable all the time. So it's been, it's been very beneficial for us.
- [02:10]
A
Really appreciate you taking the time today. And if you've, if you feel up to it, we'd certainly love to ask you some questions and, and pick your brain and I'll kind of start things off. Let's focus first on the foundation. You know, from your perspective as a coach, what exactly does a great working relationship with your athletic director look like. And how important is that relationship as it relates to your program?
- [02:35]
C
I think it's very important for us. Coach Nash is our ad, and he's been here, I think, eight, nine years now. And so he, he and I have a great relationship. We pretty much meet every morning and it's not about anything. It's just checking in on each other, see how everybody's doing and what we need, if we need something. And he's always asking, if he doesn't see me during the day, he's going to pop in the next morning and he's checking in to see what's going on. I think for us, the great working relationship is just having an open dialogue all the time and necessities and understanding, you know, what your parameters are as a coach and been doing it for 28 years. Like you said earlier, it has, it has evolved tremendously. But having him there, he's a former college basketball coach. He's a former. He was in the NBA, overseas in the NBA. So, you know, he's, he's seen a lot of things. He's got some experience. And then when he first came here, his experiences, he hadn't really dealt with the high school very much. So he relied on me, I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing at times to try to give him my experience. But, you know, we've had a great relationship and he and I, he, He's going to always ask your opinion, and he values the coach's opinion in the hallways. And, you know, that's very big.
- [03:57]
A
That's always great when you have the commonality of an athletic director that's had some coaching experience too, because they certainly have at least walked some, some miles in your shoes and can relate to it. But that's phenomenal insight. Scott, you got thoughts on that?
- [04:12]
B
I mean, the first thing that Brandon said was like, kind of check in. They meet every day. It's a check in. We talk about it all the time, right? Like just having that sort of time. Even if you're just around each other, it may not be for anything specific, but stuff just comes up, right? Like the water cooler. You're around each other. It's like, oh, by the way, as opposed to, we really have to talk about this right now. And so I just think from athletic directors and coaches listening, just be around each other, just touch base. Say hi is really, really important. I mean, I can tell you as an ad, like, I was doing welfare checks on coaches, if I didn't See them like my head football coach almost daily. Right. Like, how come we're not seeing each other? What's going on? Are you okay? Kind of thing. Interestingly, though, I wondered, Brandon, like, do you guys put up any sort of guardrails on your time? Meaning, like, hey, unless it's something really important, do me a favor, like, I want to have my own time. After 7 o' clock at night, is there anything sort of defined between the two of you or is it just understood?
- [05:15]
C
I think it's more understood, you know, emergency wise, if something comes up, you know, we have that open line, but most of the time we're not, we're not really communicating much. Like you said, After 7 o', clock, we kind of, kind of value going home, you know, and having that home time. And as you get older in the coaching world, you really. Time is the essence and it's very important. It's valuable in every aspect, how you get through your day and what you do. And people make fun of me about my organization because I do a lot of different things, but I try to stay as organized as possible on all fronts. Most of the time I wake up at 4 o' clock in the morning worried about my organizational skills. But, you know, those are the things I think there. It's just kind of understood. But if something comes up and you need to call, you know, if we needed to call one another, it's, it's going to happen and it does every now and then. I live right by the school, so if something tears up at the school and he finds out about it, I run over here and try to fix it or whatever real quick. And he's the same way. So it's just a great working relationship with Coach Nash.
- [06:20]
A
I really like where you just kind of touched on the time perspective and being mindful of that. That's something Scott and I have talked about in numerous episodes of preventing burnout from, from the AD perspective, but essentially the exact same thing from a coaching perspective too, because you're on all the time and being able to set up, you know, some polite parameters, if you will, where it's, hey, after this time, unless it's emergency, something's on fire, leave it be. But that, that sounds like a great working relationship that you've developed.
- [06:50]
C
Well, as a coach, you have to do that even with your kids, because now today they stay up at all hours playing with their phone and playing games or watching TikTok and you're like, listen, don't send me anything after 9:30. You know, if you're in trouble or whatever, call me. But you know, I'm probably not reading my phone at 9 after 9:30 because it's set up somewhere. So the parameter thing with, with our AD and everything and all the other assistant coaches, you know, we all need our time alone from each other. We spend, we spend eight to 10 hours, sometimes 12 hours during football season together. And so when you get that break, you want to get that break.
- [07:30]
B
I can't believe you don't want them at 11 o' clock at night giving you the gadget play that they built on, that they built on Madden. Coach, we got this gadget play ready for weekend, right?
- [07:39]
C
Hey listen, when I first started, I think my first head coaching gig, I had a defense coordinator. He'd call you at any time of the night and we'd be like, hey, I got an idea. And I'm like, dude, it's two o' clock in the morning. Your idea can wait till we get to school at 8. You know, he's like, well, I've been setting up and I mean, I'm like this just, you know, hey, get with me in the morning at 8 o'. Clock. It's going to be fine. I'm not going to tell you no unless it's just crazy. But you know, I think that like you said, when you get older, time becomes very valuable during the day, younger, you don't think about it because you're just thinking that's the rigor of the sport. But you know, I think Kurt Signetti said it best. They what, spent an hour and a half at practice and I think when you're doing that, you try to get everything, everything in, in a practice, as much as you can and do those things even every day at, at school is the same way.
- [08:29]
B
Yeah, I would agree. I think we talk often about like time from an athletic director's standpoint, but coaches too, like that is literally the most important commodity that people have. There's money, there's other things, but like time, if you can value that and save that, you, you have a shot in this world, in this business for sure. In terms of. You mentioned like Coach Nash, I like him, already values your opinion. How important is you as a coach to have assistant coaches that are also willing to give you their opinion and not necessarily be, yes, mental.
- [09:13]
C
To me, I don't want to, yes man. I want somebody that's going to be like coach, we need to be doing this, we need to be doing that. My guys know that they have that platform and if they Come in and they say, coach, I've seen this. We need to add this into the weight room. We need to add this in the practice. We need to put this in our regiment. You know, the biggest thing that I've. I've learned in coaching is you better evolve with change or you're going to get left behind. And so, so, you know, you can. You can have your values, you can have your core, you can have, you know, all what you want, but you better evolve with change and you better be, like you said, as efficient as possible with your time at the same time. And my coaches understand that they. The door is always open and they always have. Their opinion will be valued and will probably be implemented. You know, and they come in and it's. Sometimes it's playbook, it's place, or it's fronts, formation, stuff like that, but it's weight room. Like I said, it could be conditioning. You know, I even, I even have the kids come in and say, coach, what if we. What if we run more long distance on Mondays to get our stamina and then we do sprints and stuff? Listen, I don't know it all. You know, I know a lot of people think that coaches know it all, but for me, it's a learning experience for my kids. And ours is a different dynamic because we only have about 30, 35 kids. I played with 19 before. And so. Yeah, and so when you're trying to figure out the dynamic of keeping kids healthy and getting through a season with small numbers, I'm open to any suggestions, you know, but also, we play a sport. It's football. It's physical, so you have to go out and hit each other, and you have to do that somewhat during the week. You can't just go out and hit dummies and things, but you have to be physical. So there's a fine line in what we do with that. But like you said, you know, I think for us, what my coaches bring to me is all of their ideas, and we can. We kind of filter through all of them and if they, if they really, really think it's a great idea. I mean, even my athletic trainer right now, like, this is important part of the year that people think, oh, well, football's off. No, this is the important part where we have to feed them the right thing and be in the weight room and being. Being kind of regimented. And kids probably don't have that discipline right now. They just eat whatever they eat. And so we're trying to load them with protein and get them and you know, and make after workouts and all that stuff. So my trainers and the same, he's the same thing, my athletic trainer. He provides me insight daily on what we should do. And so, so like I said, everyone's valued in my, in my group.
- [11:48]
B
I love that. Greg.
- [11:50]
A
No, I think it's fantastic, you know, because you're, you're, you're giving everyone ownership within the program, you know, so then you have vested interests, you know, you, you're, you're taking it to heart, you're listening to, you know, concerns. And what I really heard from that was you're, you're a student still, you know, you're still learning even 28 plus years on the job. And the other piece that I thought was a big takeaway was evolve, you know, because I think that that, that pertains to anyone in athletics, regardless of your position. Because as new, whether it's technology philosophies, whatever it may be, there's always going to be an evolution of the game at sport or the position. So those are, those are two pretty big takeaways for me on that front.
- [12:37]
C
Yeah, I think the evolution part falls with the relationship part. Not just relationship with your coaches, but the relationship with your kids because you don't ever know exactly what one kid's going through something and another kid could be going through something totally different. So you can't treat them all the same across the board. And I know a lot of people say, well, this is, we're doing this and this is how it's going to be done. That's really good if you've got a bunch of kids that are all falling in that same thing, but we don't have that. So the relationship part in coaching is huge. You have to create them, you have to work at them. You know, one of the things, I spend time in the hallway talking to kids, I'm sitting at lunch with them, you know, down there and watching them and monitoring them and talking to them, checking on their day. You know, you try to get a feel for them because, because they're not all in the same situation at home. And like I said, the evolution part goes for the relationship part and it kind of, kind of got to get your feel, you know, and we always talk about the standard at our place. You know, excellence is the standard. It doesn't matter what you're doing. We want you to do it at the best of your ability. That means, which may not mean you're, you're bench pressing as much as the next guy, but you know, I want you to do it the best your ability and I want it to be as good as possible. We want to maximize our time, you know, every time we walk in here and I think our kids, our kids have done a good job with it. I think our coaches do a good job with it. We're not going to be standing around like we come in the weight room at 7 o' clock in the morning and we blow the whistle at 7, 7 o' clock in one second. We're going to work and we're trying to get done, you know, at 7:45 for everybody to get showers and get to class and get their protein and everything else. So, you know, yeah, it does it put a little pressure sometimes on us coaches, but I think the having the schedule, having the relationships, being around the kids, it helps you evolve to what you can and can't do. And when you have small numbers, you know, I love to run a hurry up offense, but if you've only got 19 kids, you better be in the huddle taking all 40 seconds before you snap it the next time. So you evolve in that. You get. And I've been around coaches that say, we're going to run this, we're going to run that. Not me, I, I'm a flexible dude. There's times that we'll go to a four man front on defense. Be times we're in a three man front on defense. If I've got three monsters, then we're going to put three down there. But if I've got a bunch of small kids, we're going to put four down there, we're going to go to work. So that's the game aspect of it. But all the other stuff is, like I said, relationships, you got to build relationships.
- [15:12]
A
Absolutely love it. You know, as you, as you're talking through something that stick sticks out to me. I mean, first of all, how you went through a season with 19 guys blows my mind. So kudos to you on that. I think you might know a thing or two about keeping kids healthy. When you got 19 guys on a football team, you were able to go throughout the entire season. But that kind of sparks a question in my mind of like, in terms of resources and support, you know, when, when you're thinking about your athletic director, what resources or support have been the most helpful in assisting you building and sustaining a successful program?
- [15:50]
C
Well, I think everybody's got to be on the same page, resource wise. Everything here. When we started, you know, football, I took it over after it had only been in existence One and a half years. So they had started out as a JV team. They played as a single A team their first year and won the state championship, which is a blessing and a curse. But. But they were supposed to be a 3A school, so they got to play down with 3A numbers in single A. When I took over, we moved up to AAA right away. And so, you know, you had to come in. You have to create a culture.
- [16:28]
B
And.
- [16:28]
C
And I've been blessed with both Coach Wilson and Coach Nash's athletic directors that they allowed us establish a culture which was a lot different than, I think, a lot of people at Frederica Academy, small private school on an island. The mentality, a little bit different than, you know, I was probably a lot different than they were expecting. I think the coach before me was kind of quiet and would pull everybody aside and talk to them quietly, whereas I'm yelling at you on the sideline to, you know, we got to be going. We got to do this. And I think, you know, that's probably a little bit different culture. But now, I think with the resources, we've. We've revamped our entire stadium. We built pavilions. When you. When you talk about resources and you go in and talk to our parents, they're going to. They're going to give you what you need. Kind of like the resources right now when you're talking about, we need protein, so we got to get these protein shakes, we got to get these uncrustables that the kids all want, these peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So, you know, I'm like, hey, we're going to spend $15,000 on food, you know, to feed these guys for the next 25 weeks and make sure that they're getting a certain amount of protein. Most time, they're like, okay, let's. Let's get it all figured up. Get us a thing, and we'll get it all divided up amongst ourselves, and then we'll get you the money, however we got to do it. And, you know, our ad, when I go to Coach Nash and say, this is what we got to do, you know, we lost last year in the Final Four. And I said, listen, the team that beat us, they're going to be playing for it again. So you saw what they look like. What do we got to do to catch them? And, you know, he's like, whatever you got to do, find a way, you know, and. But at the same time, you know, you got to keep it within the parameters of everybody in the program, because football benefits the Whole athletic program, it's the one that, you know, football and basketball usually take care of everybody else. And I understand that. I've done it for years. I've been a track coach, I've been a basketball coach, I've done all those baseball coach. So I understand that football helps take care of everybody else. And I try to help take care of all of our sports in some way to make sure that we're all going in that same direction. You know, my biggest thing is I, I stay on people about the weight room. You know, be in the weight room, get your kids in weight room. That's where the culture develops is in your locker room and your weight room. The time outside the sport, when they work, when it's hot and it's miserable and they have to get up early. And the investment, we talk about the investment process. What you put into it's what you're going to get out of it. And I think our kids understand that. And our administration has done a great job with us. They've revamped the baseball facility. They're about to build a brand new $7.5 million gym back here. They've raised the money to put in. We've just revamped the football field and put pavilion in, put new bleachers in. So when it comes to resources, they're going to find a way to try to take care of our programs.
- [19:21]
B
That's amazing. First of all, raspberry uncrustable, highly recommended. That's the right one. Forget the strawberry, the grape, the raspberry ridiculous.
- [19:34]
A
Scott and I are going to have a very heart to heart conversation because I'm going to convince him that the peanut butter and honey is number one. But I digress. You know, there you go.
- [19:48]
B
You know what's interesting, you said like and certainly recognize football, basketball, sort of carrying the other programs. It makes me think about budgeting. And you know, budget conversations can be tough. For sure. My, my question for you would be like, how do you talk to your ad about budget from a football coach's perspective? Maybe who, you know, like what we do may help drive what the other programs can do. And any advice you might give to either fellow football coaches or non football coaches about how to approach ads when it comes to like the budget time.
- [20:22]
C
Well, I think your budget is driven by success, which is at any school, if you're successful in athletics, the budget gets expanded because the more you're winning, the more people are going to dump money into it. You know, if you have a down year or two People, you know, get away from it or they feel like maybe they should invest in something else. But if you're successful and we've been, knock on wood. We've. We've. We have sustained success here. I've been here 13 years, and we've won six region championships. We played for the state championship twice. We've won it once. You know, in 14 years of football, they. They played. They've won two state championships in a very young time period. So success. And of course, where we're at in. In South Georgia, football's king. I mean, when you're in the south sec, it's. It's just everybody. It's. It's football, skiing, they want to be that way. But I think as. As a football coach going in to talk with Coach Nash about the budget, I just say, hey, what do we got? You know, what. What's your budget for us? And he's very open about it. He's like, hey, we got this much right here, you know, and so if that's the budget, you know, the parameters, probably here at Frederica, a little bit different than they are at public schools. Whereas here you got people that will come in and be like, you know, I think Coach Derek, I'm just going to give him $5,000, just earmark five grand, send it to me. Or I earmarked you 25,000. Then I know you're probably all going to be like, well, yeah, but I've been earmarked, like $25,000 two or three times in the past two years. So, you know, I. Instead of putting things on our athletic budget, if they earmark the money for our football program, I use our money to take care of our program, but I also help take care of other programs, like track. Right now needs hurdles and things. So if I've got my money and my restricted money, I go down and buy the hurdles or I go buy stuff for which I had to get club. We got. We got softball started. I helped buy their uniforms with my restricted money because, you know, you don't want to put. You don't want to put the budget or put our athletic department in a bind over budgets. You know, when you've got money, there's no need to set for me to sit over there on $50,000 when I can help another program get. And what it's going to do is going to help me. I'm not. I'm not a stupid guy. Girls softball generates. Guys want to come to the school because there's girls coming to the school. You know, it's one of those things that you look at it and you're like, okay, how can I help everyone else? In a way? And I'm sure you don't get that same. I don't get that same thing at a lot of schools. Football coaches, probably, this is what we're doing. I'm doing this. But I've always felt that the more you can help the whole school, the better it's going to make your program. And athletically, I think it drives our school, you know, if we're successful. Our girls soccer program has won three state championships in a row here recently. You know, our girls basketball teams, number one team in the state right now in their classification here. So, you know, we made it the final four. Our boys baseball team won the state championship last year. I think that really boosts the morale not of the. Not only, you know, the kids, but everyone else around it, our community. We live on an island, you know, we got. It's four miles wide and 11 miles long. So we got 44 square miles. And we get to ride around with all of our FA stickers and be proud of. Of what we've done. And you got two big schools in our county that, that have like 2, 000 kids in each school. And here we are with a total of 500 kids total from K through 12. And we're over here, you know, winning some, winning state championships and competing at a high level. And I think, I think as a football program, you just, you help everyone else. And I've been at the public schools. I mean, I remember my first head coaching job. The ad told me, said, you got $13,000. I was like, I don't know if you went down and looked at the shoulder pads and helmets down in there. But he was like, yeah, I have. It's bad. And I inherited a program that, you know, had won eight games or 22 games in eight years. And so we went about it and we got some success. I went talk to people and raised money, and we had a great booster club at that time. And about the third year, I went in, I said, what's my budget? You can spend whatever you want. You've made that much money in the last two years. And I was like. I said, so we don't have a. We don't have like a budget. He said, you can't spend what you've made in the last two or three years. So I was like, okay. But I think at the same time, you have to be fiscally responsible with all of it, you know, and I think people appreciate that for what we do here or how we go about our business.
- [25:09]
B
Great perspective. Number one, winning breeds winning. I really believe that. So as one program wins and you get the championship rings, everybody else looks at you and is like, I want one of those too. That helps for sure. Greg and I talk all the time about budgeting and how different it is across the country, how different it is between public schools and private schools and fundraising and all that kind of stuff. But love like the altruistic perspective, also understanding that like if the track program is doing better, maybe the 40 yard times decrease, our decrease on your team. So like it, it kind of pays dividends to be altruistic and look at the big picture. Greg, any thoughts?
- [25:49]
A
Well, I don't know what's more impressive, the completing a season with 19 guys or when you told, when you said the part of the $13,000 football budget, you got an audible laugh out of me because I just sit there and think how yeah, yeah, you guys are going to be sharing helmets and pads throughout the game. But no, I, I like the, the holistic view that you take towards the athletic program. You know, and obviously it's, it's not just full on philanthropic that you're doing. It's also a little help to the program too. You know, you're seeing the, I guess a better way of framing it is you see the best interest of the entire department and you help out where you can because you're in the position to do so. And I also like Scott' where it's winning breeds winning.
- [26:35]
C
Right?
- [26:35]
A
You know, I worked with a coach when I was an ad and that was one of the things that he said because I had asked him many times like, hey, this kid's really good. Why aren't you pulling up to varsity? He's like, want him to dominate in freshman level. Winning breeds winning, you know, so like I, I really like those points. You know, as, as we're talking through some of this and we're analyzing budget, there's other areas too when, when analytics come into play. You know, we've talked on this podcast multiple times about analytics and data from the AD perspective. As a coach, how are you using analytics and digital tools in your program? What's actually making a difference on the field for you?
- [27:14]
C
Well, I think for us, you know, we got, we got small numbers. So I don't have a huge staff. I've got one full time staff member. He's my offensive coordinator. He does a great job. So I got one Full time staff member. All my other guys are community coaches. So they come in in the afternoons. So we film practice every day. I've got a filming tower, I got a kid that runs out and we download it immediately and then we do the cut ups. And we correct, we correct because we ain't got, we don't have guys that play offense and play defense. They play both sides of the ball all the time. So you know, we're, we're trying to get them in and out. And so for us, you know, our, our day in the afternoon is school gets out at 3:20, they have study hall 350. We're on the practice field at 4:00', clock, we're done by 7:15, you know, that's, and that's our long day. Everything else is usually by 6:30 we're out. But so when we come back in, everybody's kind of, everybody kind of laughs because I've got like three computer program, I got three monitors up in here and everybody's downloading the film. And then I got, Coach Jurgen and Coach Gibson are on laptops and they're chopping up the film, filling it out, sending it in and getting, getting the comments to the kids because the kids are going to be at home in another hour. And so what they do then they send out texts, say, hey, look at the, look at the film. Boom. Get it corrected. So we get back here tomorrow. So as an analytics part there, I think for us again, efficiency time with that. Like you guys have been great. One of the biggest perks that I think that we've had is the storage with MaxPress advantage over Huddle is you have to buy storage for Huddle. So you're limited here. We're able to store everything. We're able to look through five years worth of films against teams and then you do all your charts, your printouts and be like, okay, what are the tendencies? Coach Jurgen, my offense coordinator, he's worried to death about his own tendencies most of the time. Am I running the ball too much on first down? Am I, am I doing this, am I doing that? And what do we do when we got the ball on the right hash to the left hash? So we go through all of that stuff with analytics and game day stuff. So for us, practice being efficient, using analytics for game to game and just taking, you know, I could go back and download all the films from us in Pinewood and I would have 13 years worth of data to look at. But we usually go back and look at three years and I know that sounds crazy. Probably both are. Like, what? We will look at three years worth of film on somebody if that coach has been there for three years. We're going to take every film that we've got. We're going to take that data and see. We're going to pinpoint tendencies. Our offense coordinator does the same thing. My defense coordinator. I think defensive guys love it a whole lot more than the offensive guys because they like to reinvent the wheel, the offense does the defensive guys, like, what's this guy doing every time on second down and four? You know, so that's the analytic part. I think what saves me the most time is the stats getting done. You know, I'm not having to go through and watch film and see who's done all, made all the tackles or what yards or all that stuff. So saves me a ton of time. Whereas I can go through and we can break down film and send it to kids and be much more efficiency. So I often say this time is money. So. And with what we've been able to do with the software that we've been given is we've saved a lot of time. And I think everyone else is doing the same thing. I think Coach Gabe with the girls soccer and boys soccer, and all of them do the same thing. They watch their films, they've got everything downloaded. They've got their tendencies on everybody else. I know Coach Wilson does. And so we've. We've used it as much as possible because we have a small staff. It's not like we've got 12 guys on the football staff. You know, somebody probably say, coach, you got more coaches. You got kids, you got 12 coaches out there. So we've got our five, six coaches, and we were as efficient as possible. And it makes it efficient because the coaches can. If they can't see it here in the office, they go home, they sit down, they do their notes, and they send it to the kids, too. They log in, and it makes it very good. I've even got. I don't know how many people signed in to mine that have coached for me or have been former coaches. And they watch the film and they'll call me during the week and say, man, you got to get your outside linebacker doing this. He's not driving, he's not getting where he's. And we laugh about it, but I've got eyes from, I don't know, 15, 20 guys that watch it, you know, And I got one guy, he's a former college coach that he don't want to Coach anymore on the field. But he going to call me every Monday and he's going to be like, listen, I'm watching film. We got to get this fixed. You know, and, and you said there and you. And so I think it's good for all of us. The what? The system that we've been able to do has just been very efficient for us.
- [32:04]
B
I love that. I mean, it's amazing how much like the technology has trickled down to the high school level from what used to be limited to like pro teams to power four, right. All the way down now to a small private school in Georgia or here in New Jersey. You mentioned Max Preps Advantage. So just the storage piece. Can you just remind me that it's unlimited storage through that? So are you able to get the analytics to through that from the past like three years? Is that something you're doing on your own?
- [32:37]
C
When we plug it in, it prints out the charts. When you go back and fill them in, it'll print out the charts for you and you get all your analytics. So if we play, if we've got game films and we download them, we plug in all of the formations and the down and distance and what the play was a result, it tabulates everything back up for us. And so like, like I said, we've played Pinewood for 13 years, so anything I've got on them, practice our previous game films. Not just our game films, but the other opponent game films that we've saved. Because you have unlimited storage. You put all that into a thing and then you go over and you click on, you click on them and add them all up and it gives you all your analytics and it just, it actually, you can, we can figure out all kinds of tendencies on certain people, especially these option guys, the guys that love to run the option. You can, you can start, you can start. And people always are like, coach, how do you know how to stop the option? I said, man, just, just get out of the way. I ain't gonna tell you all my secrets, but we do a lot of analytics when it's option time.
- [33:39]
B
So that, that, that's true. But that unlimited storage piece I know when I taught to schools has really been a game changer for people and really brought some equity to schools in terms of like the size of schools not making such a difference in budget. But hey, the smallest school can also have 10 years of storage just like the larger school. So I like, I appreciate that about Max Prep's advantage for sure. Greg, any thoughts there?
- [34:07]
A
Yeah, you know, I mean, Echoing what Scott said, you know, the, that element of it is huge in itself. But then the other piece is when you're talking about, you know, your soccer programs, there are looking to utilize and leverage this. And it's, I think when we look back, it's pretty impressive to see how rapid the growth has been from a digital analytic tool across all sports, you know, because it used to be many years ago, like, who did you hear that was actually going and doing film study for games for the most part was your football program, your basketball programs, you know, soccer's occasionally and things like that. But you're seeing it more widespread now. There's more time dedicated to it. There's a heck of a lot more information that's going there. I mean, it's beyond insane to think that you can look at 13 years of film and have things broken down. The former college coach in me is sitting there thinking there's a lot of gas that are probably since long retired going, where was this when I was young, man? But really, it's really great to hear that it provides you one, the ability to, to really analyze what you're doing, what your opponents are doing. Love hearing how like your, your OC is just thinking, well, am I doing too much on first down? Like, what should I be doing? But also too, going back to what we talked about earlier and respectful of time and efficiencies, that truly is a game changer for coaches because now you have means and tools to expedite processes that historically took hours and hours, which is awesome to hear.
- [35:48]
B
I love Greg too. I'm sorry, Coach, to interrupt. I was going to say I love too, what you said about like, with the software opening up to other people, like an unlimited number of sort of people to view it, being able to get that perspective, some from some real experts, not just the people in the top row of the bleachers who are criticizing or evaluating everything you do, but people like that you really believe in and letting them have access to, they can give you their opinions. I think that's, I hadn't thought about that, but that's wildly cool.
- [36:18]
C
Yeah, I think the nfhs, the cameras and, and you know, when y', all, when y', all, when that took off, that was great. Like, I don't have to take a camera, I don't have to have a camera guy at home. All that set up. It's. And I mean the one that we have is top notch. Like, it's, it's unbelievable. Like, you can see the specific, A blade of Grass on somebody's jersey down there, like you can see anything. But I think, like, what you're talking about, we've got away from pen and paper a lot. You know, used to, it was an Excel spreadsheet and you watched every play and you wrote down what hash, you know, everything. And we're not that we don't do that anymore because, man, the stuff that we do now is so much quicker. I love it because when I go, I can. You'll see that it's logging on Friday night. At the end of the night after the game, you can still go back and watch it, but they're going to log all of it. When you wake up Saturday morning, there's the stats, there's everything you want in it. And you know, then you're like, oh, well, I don't have to do that. So I'm going to go ahead and start putting all this other stuff in, feed it in. And by time, it's college kickoff around 12 o', clock, you've already got all your stuff done between 8 and 12, and then the coaches are already breaking down and printing out their analytic logs of what they want and what their tendencies are and, and creating. So those Saturday mornings of doing stats for the first four hours and then holding your laptop in your lap while you tried to watch 12 hours of college football at the same time. Because 12 hour, I'm a college football junkie most of the time. But, you know, you don't have to do that anymore. I can sit there and actually have a drink and watch college football and not be like, oh, I need to go get laptop and be breaking this down. You get the analytics and everybody's already making their notes and, and I don't know about anybody else's Sunday meetings. Mine lasts about three and a half hours because we have our notes, we have our ideas, we've already seen our fronts, we've been breaking it down. Sometimes we start breaking it down, I start breaking stuff down because everything's calculated so quickly. I start breaking down the opponent sometimes during the week before we even play the other guy, you know, the guy that we're scheduled to play, I know that's probably somebody superstitious and doesn't do that. But like I said, if I've got the time, we're going to get it broke down and get it put together. And I think that's been very beneficial for our kids, the kids being able to see it. I think they, once they see it, they start to understand it too. They look at the analytics, because we'll hand them the analytical sheets too and say, these are some of their tendencies. My inside linebacker this year could call the plays sometimes before they even ran them. And you'd be seeing them and their kids be like, how does he know what we're doing? And, well, we've printed out a lot of sheets and so your kids will get very involved with it as well, and they do a good job.
- [39:01]
A
That's awesome to hear. Love, love the insights, especially from a coach. Want to pick your brain a little bit too, just about trends in coaching. You know, how is coaching evolved since you first got into the profession? And what would you say has been the. Probably hard to pinpoint. But what would you say is the biggest change you've seen during your, during your career?
- [39:28]
C
I think it's the approach. When I was playing high school football, you could grab somebody over the face mask and, you know, chew somebody out. And, you know, I think it's the approach. You know, today I think kids love the instant gratification of this Instagram and all of these things, X or whatever that is. I don't even. That tells you how I, I pay attention to those things. I don't even, I think it was Twitter. Now it's X. I don't even know. But Instagram, you know, they, I think kids love that instant gratification. They see that aspect of it. But, you know, I think the thing that you have to do, and I tell my kids this all the time, is you have to work there. There's no substitute for work. And, you know, I tell them all the time, success only comes before the word work in the dictionary. You know, I said, because if, if you're not working hard, we're not going to be able to compete. And, you know, that's one of the things that has to stay consistent is hard work. And you have to show up and you have to do your job every day. And I mean, that's. And I tell them, you know, they're like, okay, but you have to relate it to. Down the road. It's like you guys. And they, if you don't show up, do your job really well, you're not going to keep your job. And I think coaching wise, sometimes that gets lost, you know, And I think for us coaches, it's a challenge every day because the kids got a lot of different things pulling from them. And where I'm at, we live down here on an island where, you know, golf, golf is king down here. We probably got nine golf courses and got all These things. And there's a ton of things to do besides go run wind sprints at 7 o' clock in the morning in June, you know, so the challenge is, is to convince the parents why they need to play, why they need to play football. Because the parents have all heard in the last 10, 15 years that football's. It's not healthy, it's not good for kids, but it is, it teaches kids discipline, you know, and it gets them. It gets them, it gives them the closest thing they can get to what real life's going to be like. Because you're going to get challenged daily, you know, and it's going to be a challenge and you're going to have to rely on other people around you to be successful at times. And that's the team part of it. That's the aspect. And you're not always going to win. And you got to learn from the lessons when you lose and apply them down the road. And I think, I think sometimes that gets lost. And so in that, I think society looks at coaches as, are you winning or are you losing? You know, and, and I don't think, I don't think in coaching sometimes it needs to be measured in a different. It needs to be measured differently. And I tell my kids and I tell my parents, my job is not to go win a state championship. My job is to make you a better young man down the road, that you become a community leader. You're a great father to your kids and you're a great husband. That's my job. That's what I'm trying to teach you to do. With the lessons that we learn out here in football, if we win a state championship in the process, great. But at the same time, you're going to learn how you fit into society, your role. Some of you are going to be great leaders, some of you are going to be great workers, you know, And I think for that, that's where the kids get that understanding when they come through our program, that that's where we're different than a lot of other people. I don't, I don't look at kids for their name and the number and how many want or what can I get out of them to win. Mine is how can I help that kid get better, not just at football, but in every facet of life. You know, down here we, we have a very rigorous academic program. So you've got to be on top of your studies here at our school. And that's one of the reasons I'm in hall in at lunch, I get to check their grades. I get their grades every Friday. I know exactly who's doing what they're not doing, and they don't know about it on Monday morning when they come into the weight room right away. And, you know, so. But I think for me, and I think for coaches, sometimes, you know, I think people put way too much on the wins and losses, and my school here has not done that. I mean, I've only had one losing season, but other than that, you know, I think they, we value what we're trying to get that kid. That, that. And it's funny, I got to say, I have to say I'm trying to get that, that, that, that. Male or female? Because my kicker last year was a, my kicker has been a female for the last four years, and she's probably one of the best kickers I've ever had. But, you know, she's going to go on and she plays like, for the US national team somewhere in soccer and all this other stuff. So she's an outstanding person. But at the same time, you've got, got to teach all the lessons. And I think she's benefited from it, understanding what, what's come from it. And I've, I've thoroughly enjoyed it, being around the kids and trying to coach kids, not just coach them, but teach them life lessons and, and give them some experiences, you know, and ain't always been good ones. It's like I tell my seniors all the time, you know, I tell my seniors all the time the same thing. You know, if you drive this bus, it's going to be a lot better ride than if I drive this bus. So, you know, seniors, you got to lead. And that's one of the things that our culture has adopted, that our seniors are leaders. And it starts from the top down. And so if you don't like how it's going to go and you've got the hand, you've got your hand on the wheel, then you better get it fixed, or if I have to put my hands on the wheel, you ain't going to like to ride. So, and, and they've done a good job. And that's just been my, it's been my take to it. And I, I would like to say I've been pretty successful, but I've enjoyed the process, let's put it that way.
- [45:10]
A
That's fantastic. You know, I really love the, the viewpoint on it. You know, Scott and I talk many times on this podcast that when we're talking about, like, evaluations of Coaches, like wins and losses were the last thing that we looked at is athletic directors. We were looking for, like, what was the development of the, the student, you know, that young, that young person. How did you help them get prepared for life? I think that it's, it's pretty awesome to, to see your perspective on it because it's, it's refreshing to hear that that's still how long tenured coaches view it. You know, you're teaching people how to deal with adversity because that's what life is going to be filled with. And you remind me a lot of my college O line coach, you know, just in your approach and the way you're teaching people. And he used to always tell us, it's never as good or as bad as you thought it was on Saturday night. You know, it's exactly the truth. And it's, it kind of, it kind of prepares you a little bit for life, you know, but really appreciate the insights on that one. Scott, what are your thoughts?
- [46:13]
B
Yeah, I mean, I just like love the holistic approach, right? It's, it's every little bit combined together holistically is what makes a difference. I even thought a little bit about coach, that instant gratification piece that you mentioned, right? And it's like 100% attention spans are less. I love like the, even like the highlights that we can produce from our system because that's what the kids want to see, right? They want to see like the quick highlight and the quick short form video and stuff like that. Like that's what they gravitate to and I don't know, Snapchat and tick tock and Snapchat disappears in 15 seconds or something. And like, you know, it just has to be quick hitting and there's value in everything that I hear you doing. So I absolutely love it. As we wrap up, would you be able to give us maybe one piece of advice that you as a coach would give to athletic directors, how they could best support their staffs?
- [47:16]
C
I think they listen to them. You know, I think that's a big thing. Value their opinion and what you're going into, because every, every sport has their own trials and tribulations and we got our own challenges. You know, it's going to be different every year for every sport with the number of kids you got playing to the number of good players you've got compared to, you know, another sport, I think with that for an ad is how can you, how can you support your group? And one of the biggest things I think that coach Nash does really well is he is the time factor that we talked about at the beginning. How do we save your time and value your time? Because we are a small staff. So as an adult, listen to the opinions and value their time, you know, and help them as much as possible to get everything in. And I think with you all, with, with this platform, with what we've got, with my Express advantage right now, it's a time saver for all of us because I get. Not only do I get to use it, but my basketball coach is using it, or, you know, the soccer guys are using it. Baseball's got the ability to use all of it. They can plug it all in. And I think that that's huge for all of us across the board because you can break it all down, you can scout everybody, you can do all those things. And like I said, time is money. And we've got it on our wall out here right now. Time. How do you spell love? T, I, M, E. How much time do you want to spend with somebody and how much time do you do? You do. And it's on our wall right out here, the wall of fame when you walk in right here. So that's one of those things.
- [49:02]
A
Absolutely love it. You know, Coach, cannot thank you enough for the time today. You know, it's been a pleasure learning more about how you operate, your program, challenges you've seen, and really just giving insight from a different perspective to our listeners of the importance of athletic director relationships, the importance of coaches being able to have tools at their disposal to be more efficient, to give that much needed time back to their personal lives and families. So cannot thank you enough. This has been very insightful and I appreciate the conversation today.
- [49:38]
C
I thank you. And anytime y' all need me to speak or talk or whatever, I've. I got 28 years of experience. Some of it's good, some of it's bad.
- [49:49]
A
Some of it's going to be a good bus ride. Some of it's not.
- [49:52]
C
There we go.
- [49:55]
B
I love that. Well, thanks for your time today, coach. Sounds like maybe you can get around to golfing in the 60 degree weather. You won't need an orange golf. You don't need an orange golf ball out there today, like up here.
- [50:07]
C
I have lived here 16 years and you know what? I've never played one round of golf.
- [50:14]
A
That's funny.
- [50:15]
C
Yeah. So we got nine golf courses and coach Derek doesn't play golf, so sounds.
- [50:19]
B
Like it sounds like a football coach.
- [50:20]
C
Yep. Yep. There you go. Thank you, guys.
- [50:25]
A
No, thank you very much. And to our listeners, if you liked what you heard today, please make sure you follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast from so you don't miss any new episodes. Again, a big thank you to Coach for joining us today. It's been fantastic, Brandon. Really appreciate that. And in closing, from A.D. 360, I'm Greg Vandermee.
- [50:46]
B
Scott Rosenberg, until next time.