This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services.
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Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to I on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera and with me today is Jim Monico, former ad at PIMA.
How are you.
I'm great, Thank you.
Great to see you. I haven't seen you physically in a long time.
Yeah, well, lucky you. No, I'm sure that. I'm sure that retirement has been good.
It has been good. Think, Yeah, everything's being.
Well, great, great.
What have you been up here?
You've been retired maybe eleven months?
Nope.
So it was end of April, so I guess five five six, heading.
In Oh, Okay, so you went to the school year pretty much.
You know.
They asked me to stay to June.
Oh oh didn't.
I had written on the board and I said, you know what, this is the day I'm leaving. And they're like, why would you pick April twenty third? I say, because it just matched up with everything.
Because you go to like me right, or I guess after June at the end of the fistal Okay, okay, and have you had an itch? No, you probably won't.
You probably won't have an itch to come back.
You know, as of right now, I've just forty three years. There's a lot of well yeah, and you know, I'm having a great time. I'm really really trying to play golf, which is the I mean, I've played golf, but god, when you really try to play that game, it's it's stupid.
Why you frustrate yourself going out? And that's why I don't play it, because I'd be pissed all.
The time, and that's what I get yelled at. Yeah, you had a great game, No I didn't.
You can.
It's just that it's that coaching mentality. You're always looking to improve something in that sport. You just can play.
So let me ask you, because you are a former coach by a former athlete time ago, Uh, what do you got the juices going to keep that flow of being a competitor.
I don't know why you had to say a long time ago.
Well, because we're both old, we're both you're right, Yes, So you know you shoot pool, you play paint?
What do you what do I do?
I play a lot of golf.
Oh so, that's true.
It is, it is, and I work, I hit so many golf balls and they're telling me you need to slow down, you shouldn't hit so much. But it's just that stupid grind mentality. Yeah, but you know, I don't know. We'll see, we'll see if if after a year or so, I want to get back and doing some coaching.
Right, right, And you'll probably want to. Yeah, but you also probably don't want that frustration either.
You know what really kills you now and you can and you know, as you get older, I don't want to be doing them two and three hour bus.
Oh yeah, well see, and you're different because those bus rides do take.
It till oh your body's beat up from playing and coaching and everything else, and you're just getting older and sitting on a bus.
I would I would venture to guess, though, how many kids on a team high school or college college which you were doing.
I guess most used to keep about one hundred and twenty.
Well, see, there's my problem that I would think there would be your problem, or maybe not.
Oh you have one hundred and twenty kids.
You don't want to saying you have one hundred and twenty kids and you hope against hope that they don't get in trouble, that they're healthy, that they're happy, and you know, out of one hundred and twenty kids, there could be an issue there.
There will be an issue there. There's always an issue.
You know, when you have one hundred and twenty young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty one twenty two, it gets difficult because they're in that in between stage and they're not kids, and they're and if you consider them kids, they're very big or faster, strong kids, and sometimes they do just get themselves in a bad position and you do the best you can, but you have to be reliable enough that you take responsibility and you handle your business the right way.
Yeah, yeah, no question.
And I'm sure, uh not that we can get it all crazy with this, but I'm sure that sometimes it kept you up at night, you know, after big wins. That's a tough losses. And you've gone through years of it too. Yeah, that's mild that's that's putting it years of it. That's putting it mildly. Yeah, you're up a lot.
And you know, my wife always held uh you know, he held my nose to the Grindstone on that fact, because when you recruit a kid, yeah, you bring them here from Hawaii or just Phoenix. You know, you're telling that parent listen, I'm here, you know, and when that person calls you, they're very sick or something happened, and it's two o'clock in the morning. You know, she'd look at me and I'd be getting up slowly, but she said, you know you have to go. You promised, And I said,
you're right. I did, and and and you know, I was just blessed to have amazing coaches that worked with me, that that felt the same way, that took that same responsibility for their positions.
What's that. What's the thing you don't miss the most?
The administrative work.
Yeah, and that's what you did. It's terrible in your final six six years.
Yeah, you know, but see that is your job then, right, you can you can live with that because you take that position at your job. But when you're the head coach, and especially at a college, you know, you don't coach, you you do everything else. You're making sure schedules are right, and professors are calling you, and and and counselors are calling you, and the kids are calling you, and then you have to go to a meeting with this one and meet with your AD and be at the business office.
And but that's why when people say to me, why aren't you a coordinator? You know in high school you always coordinate a defense or offense or whatever it's it, because I just want to coach.
Yeah, well, let me say you were there for six years. You jumped in after the football program went down, right right? Uh So at some point did you say, God, do I miss football?
What the hell am I doing in this?
You know, I'll be dead serious with you. I was really kind of in my wheelhouse.
Oh okay, so you it was it was you didn't like that type of stuff, but you liked.
The B and the A D being the you know Kenny Hockemy, who's doing an amazing Kenny's doing an amazing job. And when when Edgar left it in good shape, we worked really hard to take it even in better shape. Right, the GPAs were high. We got things done, we got sponsorships, we got this, that and the other thing. Kenny Hockemy has that that name locally that he can continue to get that done. But he's a very analytical guy. So where I wasn't. I was more than people guy. I
was in the public and talking whatever. Ken can still do that, but he's very, very bright, and he's doing a lot of great things at the college right now, and he's continuing to improve on the great things we did.
Yeah, one of the.
Things that I don't think people know enough, and maybe that's just my philosophy, that the world is a people personal place that if you don't have that people's skill trait or whatever, it's hard to succeed on it. And you have it, you know, you just said you had it, and people know when people have it.
Do you agree? Disagree?
I agree completely, I think maybe because that's my strong suit.
But it's important. It's important.
You know.
I had an old boss, Bruce Moses, who is here, and I was kind of that guy that was our you know that screw him, We're going to do it our way. And he's like, oh, you know, you really need to make friends. And I got enough friends, but you.
Don't have enough.
You realize you need friends, that's right.
And the more I got into you know, just not being I guess a brace of with those that that you didn't want to really deal with and started to deal with him. You found that, you know what they actually said, you know, he's likable, this and and I got a lot more done.
Let's put it.
So, let me ask you, because we've talked about this before when you were a guest a time or two.
You're from the East Coast. How did I know?
Well, I'm sure that so the East coast New Jersey is I'm sorry, New York Ish where bos Oh? Yeah, sorry, I apologize. I'm gonna have to go to confession. What I'm thinking now, that's that's fine. And I might have to hope you go to confessions because I need you here. Okay, So you're in Boston. Uh, it's a different mentality out here.
It is.
It absolutely is, and you had to change it kind.
Of, you know, honestly, it was it was more people would come up and say, you know, you're not a jerk, and I'm like, why why am I jerk?
Well?
You're loud and and this, and and I'm like, guys, I'll give you the shirt off my back. I just that's just me. You know, God didn't give me a whisper gene. I'm loud. I guess it sounds abrasive and that's just me. But when when people and and you know, that was probably my best attribute in coaching was I had a player once come to me and he knocks on my door and he's like, coach, can I talk to you a minute?
Yeah?
And he was a D line kid from me and I won't say his name, but he's he's still local. Uh, he's coaching up in Phoenix, played at Memphis. Heck of a ballplayer.
We could we can deduce, We'll deduce from all that.
And he walks in.
He says, can I ask you a personal question? He said, absolutely, buddy. He goes, how do you take us out on the field and when everybody else is just kind of warming up, you're beating the.
Crap out of us?
And then you hard on practice and then you keep us extra and we work more.
And then we walk in the office and you're like, hug us and tell you say you love.
Us, And he goes, are you by poor? And I went, I don't think, But I said, that's the difference between those white lines. I need you to be a different human being than you are to the rest of the world.
That's so funny because I wanted one of the reasons I wanted to bring you in is because you have that experience. You were a former police officer, turn coach football and other sports.
Or just yeah, no, I coached. I actually coached high school baseball and football. Okay, majority I.
Don't if you saw clip over the weekend, it was with the LSU coach.
I think it was.
When he was getting on his player, yeah, quarterback, yeah. And then and then he was getting on him. And on TV you see everything, right, so you saw it yell and adam or getting into him, and then I guess later another player got into it with him with the quarterback.
I don't know this coach.
I don't know this gym that I would have remembered anybody, a former player or a player get into the face of a coach because those days never happened. And I'm not sure if and Il has created this monster or whatever, but you.
Know what I'm saying.
I see the coach going into the face of the quarterback or whomever because he's out teaching or yelling whatever whatever the discussion was, and then the play for another player get into the face of a coach.
I don't remember seeing that. I do not.
That happens a lot more now than it ever did before. And I think the majority of that was when I was playing ball in the seven he's an early eighties coach would punch you.
Sure, they couldn't do it.
They haven't done it for a long time. And it was that.
Frank Cush, the Woody the Woody, right.
I mean those old school coaches.
A lot of people say to me, now, you know, who'd you model your coaching style? After I said I did everything my high school did, coach did the opposite. Yeah, they punch in the ribs, They pulled you by your face mask, they twisted your head, and whether it's a mistake or not, you know, you miss a play, you miss this. It was always there was always that retribution coming back. And you, just as physical a person as
I am, you just you can't do that. So I also think that, you know, society has come a long way, you should do that.
Involved shouldn't be doing that to kids.
I think that that frees up a little bit more of that. But then again, you see it happening in classrooms. You haven't seen it with police officers. Just in general, kids don't talk to their parents the.
Way they should.
All the time now, So it's just it's just society as a whole.
Now.
Yeah, No, I'm not that I'm concerned about it whatever. I just don't remember ever that happening. And when you're and I've said this with a number of coaches, Jim, if you're getting paid one hundred and fifty two hundred half a million dollars now with an IL, who do you listen to?
Do you really have to coach? I got my money, So what are you gonna tell me? I'm good?
You're right?
These kids, there are some players that are never gonna get drafted, who they believe are gonna get drafted right, and they're making half.
A million, a million or more a year.
That kid walks out the door without ever stepping on an NFL practice facility.
He's already got three million dollars.
So the only person he should listen to then, I guess is his financial advisor, because I mean, there's no incentive. There's no incentive. And you know, I've I've never been a proponent. I don't think I'll ever be a proponent of ni L's. I'm not against guys getting something right for doing this, but I just I think it's gone insane.
Sure, shoot, and you and I've talked to the Kendres, the Lopuses, the the Rubios, all these guys, and they're happy to be out because they got out at the right time.
You bet.
People say to me all the time, you know, don't you wish he was still coaching. I said, no, God knows what he's doing. He got me out at the right time.
Right. Well, I've talked to you guys too, were your former guys, and they say, eventually it's gonna trickle down to the JC.
It is already.
It is already, and it's trickled down to high school.
Yeah. So I mean, if god, that's just that's insane.
Let me let me ask you, because we got about a minute or two. Uh So, if it's trickled down to high school, what's the importance of sports in today's world?
I played it, I loved it. I still watch it and enjoy it.
But if it's at that level, what's the importance of it when you're making when kids are making X amount of money.
You know, my legs are terrible.
My knees have been shot for thirty years, and that's one of the reasons after twenty one years. I had to retire as a police officer. But my wife has save me all the time. Don't you regret? Don't you regret doing that? And I said, no, you know what it taught me to do. Never laid down, keep going forward, keep moving you can still move forward. It teaches you some responsibility. It builds character. These kids today, I don't
believe that's what they're in it for anymore. You know, they're in it for whether their parents are pushing them hard, whether they think and that's what I believe Nil has done. Right, when you were a kid, you always wanted to be a pro football player, a pro baseball player, so and so I'd like to be him and that, but this is what you're going to do. And now they just want to try to get to college so they can
make money. And you're talking about millions of high school players, and what's that percentage that move on and play college ball less than a percent, So you're talking about putting ninety nine percent of these kids that are trying to do that, and whether their parents are pushing pushing them hard, or whether they're in it because they weren't good or you know, I think it's hard. I think there's a lot of life lessons that are lost. Yeah, now right, yeah, Hey,
we've got to go to commercial. We're going to get a whold of coach, your guy, Pat pe Okay, here we go.
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Streamy live on the iHeartRadio vib This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen.
Yeah, we ne me too, how about now?
Yeah? I got you?
Okay, so we should be on the except that we don't have we're not on the air, and I can't tell you, but here we go. I'm not sure why it's not working. But how are you doing?
Coach?
Doing well?
Okay?
You're you have a big game today this weekend. Right, we're on with coach Ryan. Right, your guys, your guys right?
How you doing? Brother?
Doing well?
Coach?
How are you?
I'm great?
Man? How long have you guys known each other?
About fifteen minutes? Goes all the way back when I was coaching at Sooro back in the and you were at CDO back in the in the nineties.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the late nineties, early two thousands.
Who learned from whom I learned from him?
Well?
I think we probably learned from each other. You know.
It's funny because he always says, you know that he coached for me, but we coached together, and obviously I coached for him, and then he did he coached for me, because even when he was the head coach, he was the d line coach. So but yeah, there's no doubt I've I've I've picked up a lot of what he did as a head coach and and uh, you know in my first year here at sou Point and you know it's, uh, he's been a great mentor to me.
So you've done a great job there, you're and you're continuing the job.
What's been the secret sauce?
Well, you know, at some point, I don't think there really is any secret sauce other than we have really good kids here, and we have a great administration and athletic department and a lot of really supportive people, and you know, we have a we have a strength program here that's just you know, done done wonders for us, I think as a program over the years, and so you know, there was a great foundation here, uh you know, going back to you know, probably Pat Welkert way back
and then uh, you know, obviously Dennis was here for about twenty years and then Eric the last four years.
So uh, you know, this pro has been stable for.
A long time and and uh, you know that's that's kind of my task is just to kind of carry on.
When you got the job, you know a few months ago, what did you think, you know, you would hit the hit the lottery for you personally or what were you thinking?
No, you know, I wouldn't say the lottery. It's you know, I was here for four years and and uh, you know when when the change occurred, Uh, you know, it wasn't something that I jumped at right away. It was something that uh, you know, I I had a lot of thought went into it, and uh you know, obviously discussions with my wife and uh you know, some of the other coaches and and uh but you know, I think this there's just a lot of pieces in place here that that allow you to be successful.
And so you know, obviously it's a it's a great job.
We have great kids and and uh so you know I decided to throw my name in.
It.
Rise.
I gotta ask you, is it all it's cracked up to be? Doing work?
Is it all cracked up to be?
What?
All that admin work? Don't you enjoy it? Dealing with parents? You know, grades, teachers.
Uh you know, it hasn't been as bad as you know, what what what I was told to prepare for, but uh, you know, the there's lots of times where I just sit back and go.
Man, it'd be nice if I could just coach football.
Am the the obviously, you know, as coaches, we get into it for the the x's and no's and the teaching on the field and and uh so that's kind of I haven't been able to do quite as much of that as I would like to, But I'm hoping, you know, down the road wants you know, everything's in place, and you know, as as time goes on, I can do a little bit more of that.
You know, let me ask you.
You've got the big game this week in against a team that's used to be very very tough kids, but this year pretty big, pretty strong. Uh what's your big Uh? What's your big preparation for this week?
You know they're they're you know you said that, you know, you know Mason Mountain View, I mean everybody knows that. You know, way back they were, you know, obviously probably one of the top teams, if not the top team year in the year out in Arizona. And and they've still got good kids. And I think, you know, coach Linton has done a great job just in his first year there, and he's really the culture there, I think, and they've got a lot of kids out.
They they've got a big team.
They're uh, you know, everybody says, oh, there's kind of those typical Mountain View kids and and you know a lot of a lot of five ten, one hundred and eighty five pound kids that are really good athletes.
Not real flashy, but they're really really.
Good on both sides of the ball and and physical and don't make a lot of mistakes. And so, you know, our preparation, though, is just really kind of just taking care of ourselves.
And obviously last week we struggled a little bit.
I think, you know, our kids probably were being told a little too much how good they were after beating Brokey, you know, and so you know, I think we just got to take care of ourselves and do what we do. And I think as long as we can do that and take care of the football and not commit a bunch of stupid penalties, I think will be okay.
That's one of the things that I love about the sport, because you could be as good an athlete as you are and still suffer from the the six inches between your brain and you know, the six inches, and it suffers at the high school level too, because I think that that people start believing what people are telling them. They're the best things in slice spread blah blah blah.
How do you guys try to come back that? Because success begets success, But then you have too much of it, You're thinking, Okay, guys, temperate, temperate.
I'll let you answer it, rites because I can't say that kind of stuff on the year.
Yeah, you know, it's it's hard. You know, you're dealing with you know.
Fifteen, yeah, sixteen, seventeen year old kids, you know, and you know a lot of what they a lot of what you tell them goes in one.
Ear and not the other. So you know, they have to experience that.
And I think once they experience it, they then they learned from it really fast. And so I'm looking forward to seeing, you know, how we come out on Friday, because you know, they experienced it last Friday, so you know, I know they don't want to play like they did again for you know, about two and a half quarters and but so you know, we'll see. It's last week. I think was a great learning experience for him.
So so you have this team that's obviously pretty darn good. Are you the team that beat Brophy like you did or or last week probably somewhere in the middle, you know. And what made you that good team against Brophy?
Well, you know, I think we just come out and we you know, we were fundamentally sound.
For one.
Uh you know, like I said, we took care of the football. Our offensive line right now is playing really really well, and it's you know, allowed us to run the ball with some consistency and then you know, opens up the passing game for you a little bit.
And and so you know.
The Brophy game was a was a team effort and our kids just came out and you know, it was homecoming, which you know, we had a huge crowd here and and a lot of old Lancers were back to watch our guys play.
And I know our kids didn't want to disappoint, so.
You know, it was a huge game and kids really stepped up. And uh, you know last week and again I think it was just more of a you know, they they had just a little bit of a letdown, which you know sometimes happens after those big wins.
And you're able to survive, which makes it even better, right and man, maybe more teaching moments too.
I'm just assuming.
That yeah, you know, being able to survive. And this team has done that before. We've gone down. We've never been down by twenty one points all year, but we've been behind and uh, you know, I know Agains Scott still Sooro. We got down eight eight nothing, and you know, none of our kids flinched, Our coaches didn't flinch.
You know, we just got to you know, do what we.
Do and and uh, you know, take care of the football and and uh, you know, at some point we're gonna we're gonna get it rolling. Well.
You know, I'll tell you Steve coach writing is a meticulous, uh coach, whether it's a position, whether it's as a head coach. So there's there's gonna be no way that he's going to leave any stone unturned, you know. And I think one of the big things that we've learned throughout your career is when you have a close game and you can win, that's a building block that you can tell the kids, Hey, look we've been down before,
we can come back from this. Pat you guys going up super early or are you going to just kind of take your time?
What's what's the game plan for Friday?
Yeah, we're gonna go up a little bit early. You know, it's uh, you know, at the south Point, it's one of those deals we don't uh you know, we it's.
Kind of hard to get our kids out of class.
So our kids are only going to miss one class on Friday, and uh, but we are going to leave a little bit early to to you never know what's going on with traffic on the Weddy Inning.
So I figured, being sell Point, you guys might fly.
Up charter, charter, charter, you know, so tell me coach real quick. So you have some you have some guys. You must have some guys. Who are your guys?
Yeah, we we've got guys.
And then again, that's the nice thing here at South Point is we're always going to have players. You know. It's it's you know, it's again just going back to the tradition here and and the education that kids get coming here. So you know, our big players are obviously Nate Spivey is our best player.
He's been in our program for four years now. He's done a great job. Very very talented kid. Uh plays both sides of the ball for us, not as much offense as he really he.
I mean, he could start for us anywhere probably offensively, and and you know we you know, as coach knows, I'm a defensive minded guy, and so he's gonna play defense first, and and so that's you know, what he's doing for us.
But you know.
Him and and Uh Roman Fina, uh left tackle, and really all our.
Offensive linemen have done just a tremendous job.
And we've got a couple of linebackers, Tom Regina, who has really been the hussle of our defense.
Oh yeah, really for two years now. He's he fits our scheme so well.
And Coach Monico knows, you know, our middle linebackers just a guy that has to be around the ball, figure out how to get there every play and not always perfect, but you know, if you can get to the ball, you can be a great mic linebacker and our system and Tom has done that for us. And and then uh, you know another kid defensively, Dinostrosos, who's going to get a you know, an opportunity at the next level.
He's he's a you know, a.
Big kid for linebacker that's real, real physical and it makes a lot of plays for us defensively. So but we've got a lot of kids, you know, We've got some young kids that you know R J. Gory that that took a fifty five yard you know, just a short pass and went fifty five yards for a touchdown to win the game for US last week. And you know he's only a sophomore and he's going to be really, really good down the road. And so yeah, we were a lot of really good kids.
I would assuming I've talking to you know, Paton Nugent.
And and some of the rest of the guys.
Uh, football in southern Arizona has become pretty good. I mean, you've got good kids. You've always said Something's always had good kids, veils getting some good kids north Northwest cdo all that stuff. How have you seen it kind of improve or get better?
Well, you know, I think one of the things that helps is to have some consistency.
In your coaching staff.
And I think if you look at a lot of the schools here in Tucson, they really struggled keeping a coach for you know, longer than a year, right, So you know, I know, you know down Tucson High, Zach who Zach Nevilith, who was here for a long long time and does a great job, and and you know he's kind of getting.
It rolling over there. So that's nice to see.
And but I think, you know, if you can get a guy that's going to stay there and be consistent, and you know, I think, you know, you got to build a program, as coach knows, it's it takes time.
Right right, And it's kind of goes back to both ways, administration and the coach wants to stay a success all that consistency, you know, all that.
Yeah, absolutely, you know I mentioned that earlier, and you know, you you want to be at a place where winning is important and doing things the right way is important, and and uh, you know, I'm again I knew it what South Point was all about before I you know, took the head job. So you know, there's, like I said, tremendous support here. And you know, it's kind of funny. I got a few phone calls after after that first game this year we lost the Rana and people are asking.
Me already they were ready to fire you yet you know I said, no, you know, I've had nothing but support here. So it's been really.
Good and it's been good since, right.
Good, and it matters.
You know, for our years at Pima, we felt like if we weren't putting a great product on the field and in the classroom. They were going to cut the program anytime. And Edgar's to tell us all the time, you guys are saving football. You save in football. It's miserable when the administration just leave it at that, doesn't care enough about those student athletes.
And you know, it is a big deal.
It's a big deal when people want you to succeed and give you the tools to do that. And uh and like Pat said, you know it's it's it's a blessing to be place where they actually care enough to try to give you what you need to win.
Well, coach, we appreciate your time, good luck this weekend.
Thanks, I appreciate it.
Yeah, they go get appreciated, appreciated, appreciate it, Thank you, Thank coach. So that was a stut point, coach pat Ryton. Yes, right, good, good, good coach. Very successful first year doesn't always happen.
No, yeah, no, And it's tough to follow in the shoes of people who win. You know, it's a if you look around the country, people take jobs and somebody else steps in and next thing you know, you're not having that same success.
Right now, we've seen that happen. You're smirking up me or whatever that you're doing. Let's take a break real quick and come back for the final segment.
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This is I on the ball.
I'm Fox Sports fourteenth finding I want to take part in the show. Call up Steve Now went five to two oh four one six seventy four forty.
Hey, welcome back to I'm the Ball Hero Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
I'm Steve Rivera.
In with me today is Jim Monico from PMA College, former ad what. Let me ask you a quick question because we cover them all the time, or at least I do.
What makes a good coach?
When you find out? Let me know, I honest, I couldn't even.
Tell you that because let me say, you're one you you've been a coach forever, You've had two direct or how did you what did you do? Say you're the athletic director. Do you direct the coaches or you let them do?
What the so?
What do you do you have cosgrow? Do you have peabody? You have all these people, so you say, hey, go just don't screw it up?
What do you do?
You know?
You give them the tools to be great? Which would be that? So, uh get what what do you need? That's the first question? What do you need?
When I took over my first goal and I said it in my interviews and everything else, we're going to be a family. We don't have a basketball program and a soccer program. We have a pemer athletic program and we have these teams within it, and you're gonna support each other, just like when we brought the tournament here right for the National Championship, all those coaches had their players working it. You know, we're going to do things
to make you as good as you can be. But you know we don't have an unlimited supply of money, So how do we do it. Let's let's get with what you need. Then if we have extra, it's what you want. And I did that every year. We were just very good. I won't say I'm the smartest guy on the planet. I just screw up poor. So you know how to do a budget. So we always had money at the end of the year and then to be like, hey, you want another uniform, you want another
of this. So my coach has had three and four and five uniforms and people are going, how do you do that?
Well, you save money where you can.
Are you taking a Peter Paul thing that Peter Paul?
No, because if you rob from Peter to pay Paul, you're just screwing somebody somewhere. It was here's what you need now. Granted when they walked in and said I want a dome and be like Okay, so next, you know, I mean, you have to get real. But when you're managing people in Jim Monico's mentality, Okay, I'm not writing a book. So when you're managing people, you have to
give them some guidelines. But if they're successful and their kids are going to class and their GPA is up, right, then then you let them go and you just kind of just keep an eye on the program and make sure things are.
It's funny because you talked about academics and GPA and stuff like that. That's something that we don't talk about anymore or much anymore. The kids are playing, they're making money, and I'm not sure they're going to classroom whatever. But I can't remember doing a story or hearing about a kid not doing well in school. Have tutors, right, blah blah blah. That had to be a big concern for you too, especially at that level. Or you need them to be eligible and you need them to be going to class.
So as a football program, we always had study hall and that was mandatory. What I did when I first came in was find any space I could because the college took everything we had right even though we still had the football program. They needed a classroom, they needed this, So we found anyway we could and we had study hall to get together and it was mandatory. Part of the best thing that happened when I took over and with our staff and our coaches and no short order,
it was because of the success they having. You know, our coaches weren't paid as full time employees. They were part time employees. They weren't making a living. Are they changed? That's changed? Oh, we changed that my second year. We got every coach a full time, full time so they were actually making a living. That also gave me the freedom as an administrator to say, okay, you know you're being paid now, and now we're going to do this, and nobody complained because they.
So you're doing that was up? There was a reason, well, of.
Course, Well, first of all, it was just really unfair. There were two coaches that were being paid, uh me as a head football coach and I think it was Todd wholehouse as as the other one. And nobody else was a full time coach, nobody, And so that was a big deal. By being able to build that foundation, right, GPA, they're working, they're doing this. The college then went and said Okay, we need to address this issue. And they did that, and so I have to take my hat
out to him. It took him a long time, but it got done. But once that happened, now you have that flexibility, you know, not to crack the whip, but to say, Okay, things have to change or I have to make a change. And I didn't have to do that very often. I had the most incredible group of coaches. They made me look amazing. And I've said that to you guys before, and I'll never not say it because it was a truth. They're incredible people and they did an amazing job.
Yeah, no, no, no, And that's probably in and aff the classroom because you did have some winning programs, you know, obviously the basketball programs, the soccer programs, golf programs under.
The kids who I forget his name, Marcus Smith, Marcus Smith a.
Track killed it right, volleyball this year, did things they have never done.
So I got here in eighty seven. And I've said this to you a number of times when you've been on to me. Pima was the sleepy dog, or it was the old Pueblo seventy two, you know kind you know, no one really Okay, you went in a pass from thro It's a past new town.
Pima was a pastoring school. Now you've kind of made it, made.
It a destination. And I may be over hyper believe or whatever, but it is.
Don't you think My phrase when I got to Pima with coach Scarrin who brought me on in two thousand was Pima is not a stepping stone, it's a launching pad. And I have said that for the last way to look at it, Well, it is.
You can go anywhere you want. I mean, we had soccer players go to Cornell.
Yeah, well the heck takes Ivy League schools don't take you, but they do from Pima.
So you know, it's it's up to that student.
And it doesn't matter if you're an athlete or you're in the dental hygiene program, you're in pre engineering. You get to go wherever you want to go. You make the choice because we give you the opportunity. Right, people open up doors. Sometimes there are only a crack. It's your job to kick them.
Open right, right, And that's kind of the mentality you have to give them when they're here. Take advantage of the situation. You bet so you don't have an answer for me about making a good coach. I guess we all have different traits of what makes it successful.
You know.
I for me, it was always about loving my coaches and players. I love them, I love them, and when when I had to chew them out, I think because I I did love my kids and I and I told my I mean I told my coaching staff, I told the coaches when I was a d I love you every day. I love you, coach Ry and just got off the phone and wrote back, I love your coach.
Right.
That's to me, that's why people go to war for you, no question for you, no question, because they fear you because they love you.
Right.
There's different levels of all that, right, And I totally agree with you. There was something I wanted to talk to you about, and now I just slept. Don't get old, so get old.
I'm already there.
About about coaching, and I lost it. It'll come back to me. Oh oh, I did it open as we have. I don't know if we talked about this honor off there. I had them on a week or so ago, and I just I think the highly of the man. He gave me some great stories of how are he recruits ones and threes?
Right?
Ones are the studs, and you got you know, gotta have ones. You gotta have ones. There's two's and there's threes. Threes want to be ones. Three want to be ones. And they'll do anything for you. They're pretty darn good, but they're not ones. But they'll do anything whatever they can and make it work and become a one. And you don't want twos. We don't want twos because twos thinks they're ones and deserve to be ones. They're not ones because they screwed things up because they want to
be ones. And I asked them, so, what's the forest is? I never recruited afore, so so tell me what did your what was your philosophy and recruiting? Because you had it tough. I mean, how do you recruit when they don't give you much.
We didn't have dorms, we didn't have food, we didn't have a practice facility, we didn't have anything. And and you know, first of all, it is believing in what it's selling, right, I mean, if they're not stupid, kids aren't stupid, and they know when you come at them, you know, i'd have kids.
Look at me all the time. Ago, Can I have number five?
No?
I thought, I was like your number one recruit? You are I can't have number five? No, somebody else has it. You might be number eighty seven. Make all the kids want to wear eighty seven. If we're worried about number five, I'm recruiting the run. Now, how did that fly over? I got almost every one of them. They would look at me and say, am I going to start for you? How do I know you've never played it a minute? I said, you know why I'm here because what you've
done in the past is incredible. Now the boards are raised, you've done nothing in college and believe and this is exactly how I was. And you can ask any kid I ever recruited, because I'm not going to lie to you. If you're going to be a star on this team, then the minute you get here, you better be in the way. You know, my thing was always with the guys.
If you're not five minutes earlier or late. So if you come in right on time, you're late every day and there weren't excuses because you got them in the rest of your life. You know, you have to teach these kids, and that's what I was trying to relate points to them. Look at when your son or daughter comes back to you and says, I would like to do this, and you don't have the money to do it. It's your job to go out and get the extra
hours to pay for that. Yeah, not them, not to do it right, find a way that I.
Don't know enough people know that. You know what I'm saying.
Everybody knows it.
I don't think a lot of people want to believe it because it's just it's work, right, a lot of work, and that's what life is. You get a lot of enjoyment out of your life, but you have to know that it's the battles you go through that makes you you.
Sure sure, and you have to go through those to make you.
You got to taste a whole lot of sour to really know what sweet tastes like.
Yeah, no, you're right, and then welcome to the film Donahue show right here. But it's true, I mean, honestly, without the hard times, you don't know what the good times feel like. Yeah, and a lot of do you know your record off the top of your head.
No clue. I've never want to get game. I've never won a game. The kids have won every game I've lost.
Their Okay, okay, how we got a couple of minutes, Well, we stay a couple of minutes here. So invariably we hear coaches saying the pain of loss is much tougher than the thrill of a victory.
Do you believe that? Does it make sense?
It does make sense. So how do you said that?
Well, I'll be honest with you, right, and you can talk to a couple of kids I coached in high school because they were telling a story at my retirement party and said, we didn't beat a team bad enough one day and coach beat the crap out of us.
Sad and.
Absolutely true, because we didn't play to our capabilities. And then there are times you've played teams that are just you know, oh my, okay.
When we lost to.
Arizona Western, it was right after we came off a bad loss at Snow. It was just it was just a bad, terrible, freezing cold day, and and anyway, kids, some of the kids started to fight, and I benched nine starters, and I benched them not only from the last game in Arizona Western, but also.
Our bowl game.
And we lost to Western in about the final, I don't know, six seven seconds and as bad as that Hurd, I could never have been as proud I had O Lineman playing.
You find stuff.
If you kids just stepped up, their tongues were dragon And yeah, you know that loss, as much as it's stunk, because we would have played for the conference title, you sat back and went, how much more could I have asked from the So you know, yes, to a certain extent, it does. But you have to find some areas because it's never as bad or as good
As it looks, and that we're going to end the hour and then come back on to the side