Streamy Live on the Ihearts Radio, while this is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox sportsporteen fifty.
Hey, welcome back to Trying the Ball here Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. I'm Steve Rovera, and today with me is Jim Monco. Great talking to everybody. Great talking to you. Coach Ryan was very good. Yeah, very good. He already texted you same thing.
Yeah.
Yeah. We were talking about something and again I need to write my stuff down. We're talking about coaching philosophies and things like that. Oh I know, how long did you coach?
A total of thirty five years?
Okay, So I'm gonna ask an honest question or a serious question, but you know your honesty will be depending. Did you know when you were playing in season that a team or players.
Had given up on you? Absolutely?
What did you How did you find out or how did you sense it? And what did you do?
Realistically?
You you can see it body language, how they're working in the weight room. You never have so much teams give up. It's it's players and usually it's the guys you count on the most right, right, How I handled it as I played somebody else?
And how did that fix it didn't fix it.
It didn't always. It didn't always.
A lot of times you had a parent knocking on your door the next time saying, why isn't Billy Joe playing? And it's like, because his attitude stinks, and and if I'm gonna lose a game, I'm gonna lose a game with a kid that's gonna work his tail off for me, and not only that, but maybe get better so that I.
Can count on him.
Right, So didn't so if it did, indeed, fact turn how was he the next time?
Sometimes it turned out for the better they understood. I think sometimes athletes want to push their code right. You have to be as consistent as possible with your words. If you say you're five minutes, If you're not here on time, and then the star quarterback comes in at at you know, five oh three, he better be rolling or everybody else is going to be like, so why can he get away?
Right? Right?
So you have to be consistent.
I see that a lot. I see that a lot. Well, I shouldn't say I see that anymore, but I used to see that a lot. And you're thinking, oh, that's not a good move because you look for this guy for that guy, YadA YadA, and the kids remember that, they remember that they do, they do, and they turn That's when they turn on you.
Yeah, you know, I've said that to a bunch of times. Kids aren't stupid.
They get it and they understand that if you if you love them and you punish them, that that you're not just doing it to be the ross.
So this is the thing that I had an issue with with then I would I would tell Jenny this all the time, and he brought it up to me all the time because I brought it up so much. Jim Monico is the quarterback. He's getting fifty thousand dollars every half, half season or whatever. Steve Rivera's is blocking fromm at the center, I'm getting ten. How do you think that would sit because I'm creating holes for you, Jim.
I was a center, so I'd be pissed off right now.
No, No, you know what I'm saying. Yes, it's not equitable, and I know life isn't fair, and I'll be the first to admit that. I don't even use the word because I don't believe in it. But how do you how do you figure that out?
Steve? I don't know. I wish I knew. It's not fair.
And that guy who takes Hey, listen, we all understand, right, the quarterbacks, the guy he leads, you know. And I've had a couple that you just go, they'll come in and lift with the offensive linemen because they've got to love you, right.
Yeah.
My middle son, Jimmy, played for Phil Longo at LaSalle University.
Was his head coach.
Now we'll see a Wisconsin but he always said that when when Jimmy got on his trip, he's like the old lion's picking him up. Yeah, because they've got to want to bust their necks for this kid. And I think it becomes very, very jaded when you have a kid up front that's just taking an absolute beaten and this guy's in the pocket that he's creating, right, and he's not making close to what he makes. I don't, Honest to god, I couldn't tell you because I just
think it's unfair. I couldn't run a team like that. That's maybe why I wouldn't get the top quarterback in the country.
Right right, No, it's very difficult. I'm sure in a lot of the well you saw Tony Bennett right, he quit. I mean, come on, he's fifty four years old. Whatever party has more money than he needs. But you don't get to do what you want to do because of the situation.
Absolutely.
I mean, I don't know of a man who's been more or fair to himself than that. How can you say, I don't think I'm gonna be good at this. I got to get out absolutely right. And I know I wouldn't have been good like I told you earlier.
Right, God knows what he's doing, because I could never re recruit, forget the nil. I could never re recruit my kids, right, and I go here I'm talking about. I think it's a better situation. Wow, I mean, I just I couldn't do that. So that that's why I got out of the right place.
So I asked you about a coach, about what makes a good coach, what makes a good.
Player, somebody who has character, work, ethic.
See, I you know the kids, you said say to me all the time, I'm gonna I'm gonna run four four next year.
I say, you know, I'm Jim, not Jesus.
Let's let's try to help you out right, I said, But I can't make you six four if you're five eleven, but I can make you better at your craft. That player that has that work ethic and character has credibility. You know, when we would rec fruit kids, it was very, very difficult at the JC level because you just didn't have the budget that some JC is like like at Western and Eastern and Snow had right and they would fly all over the country.
We had it. We did it on our own dime.
And you know, we would recruit kids and you want to see how they interact with your parents. You want to see how the coach talks about him. And I would even sit down and after a coach would tell me all about this kid who is the greatest kid he's ever coached in his life. I said, then why is he coming to Pima?
Yeah?
You know, and I wanted to hear that. Sure was it because you felt he wasn't developed enough. It was his his grades weren't where they should be. Did he not get the offers? But you're telling me this kid's unbelievable, So why am I getting them?
You know, how is he is?
He?
And I would even talk to the teammates, you know, how is he in the weight room with you?
Well?
He doesn't lift half the time, right, you got that Booby Miles thing.
Sure, right, the kid doesn't lift. So it happens.
And I won't I won't say a name, but we were recruiting a young man out of Louisiana who was absolutely the best running back I have ever seen in my life. And in the state championship games three games he played, he ran for over nine hundred yards in those three games. And it was between US and Kansas, And really, I asked, I said, so I want to know, and I'll go one step further. He had pro NFL players looking no kind of run managing him. So I said, look,
here's deal. Why did he pick Kansas because they were the first school that came in off him, just like you guys are the second school that came out. And he'll come to you if he can't get in. Well, while that was going on, a pro ballplayer who's going to be in the Hall of Fame said to one of my coaches, you know, look at he he takes a couple of days off every now and then because he runs so hard and stuff, and went that ain't gonna sit well with coach Monica. And he goes, well, no, no,
you don't understand. This is ready. And they said, you don't understand. If he takes a rest, everybody else has to get arrest. But he ain't gonna do that, so he needs to be It waits at five a m. And they were like, well, he'll be there, but you know, you just got to understand who you're dealing with. He said, no, we love him, we love him, and we want him. And he was going to come to us, but Kansas snuck him into some summer school and got him in and actually he went to the Cincinnati Bengals.
Okay, so he did did him out to Oh.
My goodness, but he uh and he got caught because it just he left after his sophomore year. Was just foolish. But anyway, the kid was phenomenal. But they just said, you know, he doesn't care who he is. You know, it's the team.
Is it's an extra.
It's not an extra, it's what what makes you your You're no doubt when get tough.
So we got a few minutes here before we go to We're going to talk to the a U A champion triathlete coach.
That was insane. I didn't know they even had college triathletes.
I was going to go there with you because because you you guys lose a football program. How now you can talk about it more than you did. How devastating was that? Oh my god, do I want to bring that up?
It was horrible.
I mean, here we are playing incredible going to a bowl game and knowing it's it. But what gave what gave me some solace our kids that were recruited, we gave them the option to leave. They hit that to me before the season, and we knew it was coming. So I called every single person. Not one person left the program. I can't say that might be one of the highlights of my coaching career is just knowing that every kid that said he'd come wanted to come and this staff and it was phenomenal.
Right, And we went to a bowl game with.
Minus nine starters and those kids played two ways, and we had kids that had four or five carries during the season and they were in the just they gave everything they had.
This is a dumb question because I should know this answer. Uh scurring, he's written a book or two. Has anybody written about this rag tag group of people? For your final year? There's not a story there.
Oh, they'd probably a great story. I couldn't write it because they'd have to X ray it too many cuss words and stuff, and the movie would be bad. But I mean, these kids are They're amazing. They're amazing. My staff didn't leave, the kids didn't leave. I mean, it was just it was a tremendous year, and then finishing it off in that Bowl game was great. But I'll tell you what I didn't. I didn't pout all year.
I didn't whine about it all year. But when we got that runner up trophy and I went to my rental car to drive it back, that was a tough ride.
Now, now you've been out for a year, you were not coming back. Now you can be honest. Do you think it would have ever could have come back? You said no, no, because money money. You have to understand.
Right, A helmet now, and I haven't bought them for a while, but they were over three hundred when I bought them each, and you're talking one hundred and fifty hundred and sixty helmets, or even if you only want to have one hundred kids, you've got to have extra.
Was that the number one cost was the number one reason.
Well, they were saying cost and you know, I'll, i'll heck, I don't have to worry about anything now, And I well, I really didn't even when I was working there. But you know, we didn't even have a line budget. I'd say, well, how do you know what my budget is? Well, this is what it is from last year.
The hell do you know what to spend on?
So realistically, we didn't even have We weren't even funded.
They were just making ways to pay for athletics, not just football.
So and of course football is very expensive, and supposedly this new chancel they have in there now is just phenomena.
He's just a great supporter of athletics.
And I mean, how can you down athletics when twelve of thirteen teams are going to nationals every year and you're putting out seventy eighty one hundred academic All Americans. It didn't make sense to me. But when people say that to me now, I'm like, look, when I got in,
I made our practice field the soccer field. We run out of time, No, we're good, Okay, we made it the soccer field, right, we got lights, we did this, We got a new scoreboard from Chapman and all that other stuff, And they say, well, what if you brought back football? So where do we practice? We can't tear up that soccer field. It's our game field. The reason I stopped going down to Keino Stadium it was running fifty sixty seventy thousand dollars a year to play games,
and that was five six games. So it was a ton of money. It didn't make sense. And so where do you play? How do you get that? They sold everything we had, right, They sold all the equipment, They sold all the dummies, the sleds, they sold everything. So if you were going to start a program again, you're talking easily three quarters to a million dollars to try to get us off the ground, right right, yeah, you know, and then we had good sponsorship.
So so we're going to have the coach from the triathlon from you? They right? Uh? Did you were you? Because you lost it? Was there ever time to maybe get a sport like bring one on?
Yes? And college said no, College said no, What could you say?
What it was?
Anything I want? I said anything I wanted when I was still working there. Yeah, we uh so the and I got in trouble for it too. Because I wrote a grant to the NFL to get women's flag football. Oh ye, and it's moving now and we got it, okay. And all they said was is, we'll give you the money to start it. You just have to promise you'll keep it for three years or you have to pay back the funding. And it wasn't that much money, like twenty grand a year.
Oh yeah, yeah.
So I'm like, awesome, I'm in. My boss said, awesome, We're in. We brought it up to the powers that be and they went, what are you doing right in a grant? We have a grant department, so me be and me I said, well, obviously the grant department is not that great because I got it, so can we have it?
No? Then I tried for volleyball, sand volleyball. No.
And of course, you know, in my tenure we lost tennis and golf, and we weren't fielding teams that not only were GPA good, which you expect from those sports, sure they, we weren't fielding enough players and we weren't keeping them eligible. So it was just I didn't want to. That was probably the biggest you know, pay Peter from Paul.
But yeah, well I didn't know that. And obviously, uh, and I don't know why I didn't know about golf, although I know that the kid, right, that's why he left, wouldn't.
Know no job.
Yeah, and realistically I was trying to keep golf. We couldn't get a coach they did. We couldn't pay them enough money. They wouldn't give me any money to pay them. Well, you know, golf's bougie. You need to drink. Fine, you know, they're the fancy money, you know, but it was costing one hundred thousand bucks.
You could have done it.
Now that you're a golfer, I can teach it. I just can't show them. Oh yeah, I know how to tell them how to do it. I just can't.
These guys are probably much better than you much. Yeah. Yeah.
They were driving the greens over at Randolph North hosted tournaments.
We gotta go. We're gonna come back with the coach from the from the Tramplin one. Yeah, yeah, met Champs. Yeah, Wes Johnson looking forward to this, so we'll come right back.
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This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeartRadio just search I on the Ball.
Thanks, Key, Hey, welcome back to you. I'm the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, Your Jim Monico, who is my co host here?
Today?
You joined yourself coach, I haven't agreed time. Yes, yes, coach, how are you now? We have on the phone, we have Wes Johnson, the Arizona t alon coach, the national champion, trianthlont coach. Coach, how are you doing well?
Doing well?
Thanks for having me two years in and you win the title. I think you're making everybody feel bad at you.
Obey.
Well, you know that was that was always the goal. It was your two so we made it happen.
So what what I asked the coaches all the time? What was your secret sauce? Athletes coaching, all of the above.
Yeah, I think that, you know, the secret sauce was.
Just having the right culture and the foundation starting in year one that that was the priority, just building the.
Right culture and bringing the right people. And I think we did that.
And you know, the athletes really trust them what they're doing, and we have a great relationship and they're they're confident and trust what they're doing. And I think when that happens, like anything as possible.
Hey, coach Jim Monico here listen is a is a former had football coach in college in an ad. Now's the time to ask for that new contract. Yeah, it was an amazing job. But hey, that's an amazing job. How oh my goodness said two years And I saw that on the news and I got to be honest with you. The first thing I did I look at my wife and I said, they have college triathlon and I never knew that.
But to do that in two years, man, I'll tell you what.
Let me ask you, because they keep asking me about all this coaching stuff. Do you think you had the best athletes for the best people that you coached?
I mean, I would say best people, because you know what, there was some There was one girl.
On the team that switched from swimming at the UFA swim team, so like she hasn't been in Tratholic for a year and she was second in the Like she's she's one of those special people, this unicorns, you know, that you that you find.
But she We've just really put a lot of time into development. We have some amazing athletes as well, some of you know. We have the number one athlete out of Europe last year that joined the team. So obviously we have some really good talent, but we also are just really developing these people and they're just amazing, amazing people.
So we've got something special going on for sure here?
No, definitely, and you set that and you set the tone. So take some credit yourself. You set the tone and that's what people follow is a great leader.
No, thank you.
So you talked to you mentioned the word development. I think that some of the best coaches are that, right. You bring in talented players who still need seasoning. How do you do it here? You got three genres to get through. And I understand you have a lot of international or a few international players or athletes.
Yeah, the majority is actually international, and then we've got some of the best Americans that are from the US also on the team. You know, It's just it's it's a really big sport in Europe.
It's it's like a mainstream sport.
When I was at the Junior World Championships, there was half a million spectators on the streets that all know the sport and just going crazy, and so it's it's like it's mainstream out there, just like football and basketball is here. So it's it's huge. So, yeah, we've got really international squad. But I think I missed that. I forgot the first question you asked, So.
Did I because I'd be too old. But let me tell you something, so you win the national title, and the things I hear are okay, he was a national title, but we beat the issue.
You this them off.
That's I mean, that was that was like frushing on the cake.
It was you know, they've they've won.
Actually, so it's been an ensibly sport now for I think nine years or eight some of somewhere around there, and as U has won the last seven years.
How did they think so well, how did they get to be that power?
You know with starting when when they first started like eight years ago, you know, they were the first big, big school to announce, and so everybody wanted to go there, right it was the it was.
The place to it was the place to go.
So they had, you know, all the best athletes go there, and so ever since every that's been the place that people have always wanted to go. The best athletes go there, and that's just how it is. And so now you know, we're coming in and we're challenging that. And there's there's another school, Queen's, which of which a lot of people don't know of, but they're really they've been in the sports from the beginning as well, so they've they were
third in Nationals. So they were second last year. So they've always been there and they're they're really established program and they have they have a good program that a s U has been the coveted place for people athletes all over the world have wanted to go. And so
now we've we've were really challenging that. And and you know, I came in that first year, even the first day on the job, I remember sitting in the athletic Director's office saying, we're going to win a year two and and I text that text that person, you know, the day we won, and it was like we both remember that conversation.
You know, so it was incredible.
Were you sitting here kind of like with a chess Shire cat, you know, kind of I got a plan. I got a plan, and I know what that plan is, go to Europe, go to do all these things. You must have had a plan to get this stump work.
Yeah, yeah, you know.
I before this job, Ian, I was working more on the Olympic side, like getting athletes to Olympics and for a lot of different countries. I was really pretty well connected all over the world with a lot of the coaches and the national federations, and you know, I've been a part of that, so I've already kind of proven that I can do that and developed those athletes. So you know, being able to talk that talk helped. But now I think we're showing that we're walking the walk
as well. We're proving it that we can do it. And now we want to prove that athletes coming through ency to BLA can also get to the Olympic Games. And so that's what I want to show in LA twenty twenty eight and beyond.
Is the athletes.
This is the pipeline towards the top, and that's that's my big goal.
So you know, coach, I was going to ask you if you basically answered it, but I was going to ask you if where golf has become such an international sport here in college? Right a lot of guys, yeah, and ladies are coming from Europe. Does that help to have a lot of international students in other sports? But you're very connected to begin with, but does it help
to build that culture to make them feel welcome? That I mean, when I would recruit kids from Hawaii, you know, you took a bunch of them because they're like US Italians. We travel all over together. And you know it made them feel more comfortable. Did that help at all having a good international feel on campus?
Yeah, I think it does.
They've got a good culture here at the university for for international students and athletes, you know, the whole committee that welcomes you know, diversity and and and so so I think they feel really well connected here for that and really well supported.
That helps us great.
Yeah, it does help me.
Yeah, yeah, you know, and a lot of the athletes within the whole athletics department, there's I think every one of them have at least another athlete from their country, right, you know, from another team, and so so that I think that's really fun and that helps a lot.
You know, coach, we live in a world where you win one uh you know, you sell, you sell, you sell eight cars one month, you know what's expected the next month, ten cars. So you win one national title. Uh, they're already talking about dos probably.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, you know, the sighting thing is that everybody that that scored in this last race, because you score the top five and all five of them after this year, they still have two years of eligibility. So and then we're only bringing in more and even just as good or better talent moving forward. So that's yeah, that that expectation is definitely felt. But I feel like it's.
Very realistic and reasonable to continue this.
So you make this promise to the former probably a d who we all know what is, mister Hecketh. That's the case. You don't have to say yes or no. But but what gave you that, what gave you that confidence or whatever that that who's spot or whatever the word is, because that's a pretty good claim.
I've been coaching for a long time and and you know, travelin is just a sport I'm really passionate about and understand well. And I you know, I followed n C double A and I can see I could see.
What it would take. And you know, and I knew if we brought you the right athlete and you know.
Really supported them and all the resources that we have here at the University of Arizona and really built that foundational strong culture, I was, I'm like, there's no reason why we can't win in here two. And I've I've been you know that my whole career. I've kind of like before in twenty eleven, I think it.
Was I used a long time ago.
I lived in Brazil for a few years, and when it was announced Olympics we're going to be in Rio, I was like, oh, I'm going to be there, but as an athlete or a coach.
And then you know, I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna get there, but let gonna get there.
And then I ended up being a national team coach for the Paralympics actually in Rio and sept for a triathlon.
So I was like, I can. I liked having these.
Visions and then I just go after that goal and after that vision, after that dream, and like relentlessly go for it. And it was high integrity and that's just you know, how I do things and operate. And if I just really believe that it's possible, I think it is. You know, I think we we have we have to believe it's possible. And so that's after the first couple of weeks of the season, it was like, man, this
team is special. So we started a mantra with the team of what we said every day we had cheers every day was why not me? Why not us? You know, this is our second year. People wouldn't expect us, but why not us? And so every day we we you know, one person yelled why not mean then the whole team yelled why not us?
And we did that all the way through.
So the national morning of the right day, we did that and then you know, finish the race, we all did it again and we did it.
You know, so.
It all it's just amazing that it all came together. We're just we're just still riding that high right now.
How did how did had you led up to that? Because I'm sure you just didn't come on the scene and win the thing. You must have had some meets where you said, oh this, or they must have said no, Arizona, look at Arizona, Look how they're doing, and then they eventually one.
Thing I think just seeing them in training and just you know, we started the year with a training camp at the Olympic Training Center in California in Chula Vista, and so just see and that was like the like the first week after they all arrived, and I was like, and just seeing how they all got along together, It's like it's just like they already knew each other their entire lives.
It was, you know, wow.
And then just seeing them train and we did a lot of physiological testing and seeing where they're at, I'm like, oh my gosh, if we can develop this even a little more, this this is going to be incredible.
And and then.
Like why not, Like there's no reason why we shouldn't win this year, you know, right, And so see I've really just seen them the first couple of weeks. I'm like, wow, this is this is really possible.
Yeah, so maybe last question, Uh so you have a one of course, what makes a good translete because you have to be good at all three or maybe two or three? Or how does one become pretty good at this?
Yeah, you know, to be the best at it, you really have to be pretty good at all three. You know, it's normal to have one of them a little stronger than the other two. But yeah, I mean you have to you have to develop all of them. But you know, we look at the beginning of the year where the strengths and weaknesses are. And it's really a team sport, you know, because unlike there's a big drafting component on
the swimming and the biking, so they're drafting. So we have you know, we can have a lot of team strategy of like we want you to stay on this person's seat in the water, that person's faster than you, so you need to draft up them in the swim.
And then getting out of the water, we want, you know, you to stay on this athlete bike on the wheel, so you're drafting behind them because you can probably run faster than the person in front of you, to let them do more of the work and then get off the bike and with a little fresher.
Legs and go for the for the wind, you know.
And so there's there's a lot of team tactics and and so it's it's all about you know, thinking through starting the season, like where where can we develop the most, you know, And and with running, you know, you can only do so much, you know without getting injured and doing it right.
So we're you know, taking them in August.
We know we we don't have a lot of time to develop their running, so you know, we can really develop their swimming and making sure they're without without as much injury risk. So we put that time into the swim and some of them that are already amazing on the swim, you know, we focused.
On drills and mechanics and all that on.
The run to get the most out of the running, and so it's just all of it's like kind of just the uh are you know art piece that we just have to get to put it together, you know, and it's it's like, okay, with swim, bike run, we have this amount of hours in the week to train, we want to use it this way and spend it in so we're really customizing each individual's programming and training to get the most out of that, you know.
Nice.
So yeah, yeah, well, thank you coach Wes Johnson, he's the triathlon whisperer. Appreciate your time. I know you're meeting with the media tomorrow. Good luck and hope to you talk to you again.
Yeah, felt good. I appreciate much. Wow, Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you.
We're going to come right back and take our final break here on the other side. You're an Arizona Man's basketball fan. You know, it's been successful for nearly forty years now. Take a look back at the Ludelsen era. In my new book, Lessons from Loot, it was a labor of love through the eyes of twenty five former players, coaches and friends to give insight to the coach and the man who led them, competed against them, and inspired them twenty five chapters for his twenty five years as
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Breaking down all the xys and ohs. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Box Sports fourteen fifty.
Hey, welcome back to win the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty Scar and Jim Monico. It was good to talk to mister west Johnson.
Yeah, he was good.
Yeah, you know, he's good. You know why it doesn't happen You don't that you don't fall upon stuffing like that. You It takes time. And he mentioned development a few times, at least two or three times. And that's where coaching is. Yes, coaching is is that you're only as good as your weak as link, so you have to develop. And he talked about that, right, how to improve other people. If I'm a bad swimmer or you know, the second swimmer, you get the guy in front of you to help
you out, and YadA YadA. So there's always tricks to stuff, you know.
There's there's always a method, a method. Everybody has their own methods. Of how to get the best out of the Let.
Me ask us, so I have you another from maybe fourteen twelve minutes. What do you remember your earliest memories of sports?
Sure?
What year? What?
How?
How old you mean playing or going?
No? No, no, becoming a sports fan as.
A kid nineteen sixty five atle Pilots Red Sox.
Okay, yeah, you grew up in Boston. Yeah, and who's playing the Seattle Pilots No so playing on the field, Oh god, at Dick Schofield's father hit a home run. Jim Longborg was pitching your stremski yea, Oh god, George Scott, it was just.
It was awesome.
Your dad took you my mother, your mother?
Wow, my mom was a jock.
Oh wow, okay, my dad wasn't a real sports guy. Matter of fact, he used tell me it was a waste of time. Oh wow, immigrant families, Yeah.
You go to work, right.
So she was your sports good person.
Amazing, amazing. She was a hell of an athlete. If she'd have grown up in this day and age, she'd be playing at softball to u of a. Oh wow, yeah, you know, my daughter was doing one of those dumb reveal things. I threw a ball to my my grandson, and he hit it, and all my cousins wrote back and say, hey, he still got a good arm gym, but not as good as Auntie Teresa.
My mother had a cannon and she could throw a cup across the.
Kitchen pretty so she'd take you to the games.
She did. Never missed a ball game, never missed an really used to bum rides. We only had one car. She used to bum rides wherever I played. Yeah, and she never missed anything.
Wow, cool, cool? And did you go Did you play ball? I did?
Had I did baseball, baseball, football?
Okay, I ran track.
I actually swam for one year and in high school to try to loosen up my shoulders a little bit.
Please tell me you were I played ball too, so I was a short stop, second basement. To me, you were maybe a third baseman. I played third base because you were built like a third basement Bob Horner, like a Bob Horner guy.
Didn't hit like him.
But you say sturdy, tough, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I went on played and then uh uh when I got to college and was going my legs were just trashed. Or did you did you try to play in college in the University have and okay, recruited me there and then couldn't play, so I was my legs were just gone.
So you just become Joe Schmoeer. What do you call it? The Jose?
I when I was a sophomore year, I said, I'm done with college right now, and I became a police officer in Houston.
I was twenty years old and I was a cop in Houston.
In Houston, so you moved from there to there?
Yeah?
What brought you there?
A woman? They know they were up there.
Now my wife is she's she's a rich kid, but she's from the next city above.
Okay, they just came up and recruiting.
Back in Boston, they had a proposition that didn't allow to hire and they were actually going to lay off cops that had seventy eight years on and Houston was begging for cops because everybody was getting killed down there. So I went down there and went to the police academy and I worked in the fifth Ward for a couple of years before I came home and inst.
So how many years were you the cop?
Just over twenty?
Oh? Just yeah, that's I'm sure those days were weird, not weird.
Crazy, different different. It was a different, different time. You could do a little bit more.
And can you can you talk can you talk about maybe a scary time you I'm sure you had a few loads of them. Yeah, yeah, just you know that you didn't know if you're gonna make it home that day.
Well, in Houston, I got stuck in the chest with an ice pick.
That hurt, but I.
I had it.
Well, I was only they wanted you to wear a vest. So you know, I had a couple of kids in the academy with me that didn't make it out of their first year. They got killed. And but so every time I wore a vest, something happened. Guy unloaded at forty five in my car. One night, I got in an accident and broke my rib cage. I was like, screw that, I'm not wearing a vest anymore. There were jinks.
Well, and you didn't after I didn't, nothing else happened.
A lot of stuff happened.
But like, uh, I'm sure I said this all the time. You know, uh Climber's remorse and this is definitely doesn't apply to being a cop. But you know you're half you're climbing Mount Everest and you're halfway there and he said, what the hell am I doing here doing that? And you get up there and you say, God, I can't wait to do it again. So were you as a cop thinking what the hell am I doing it?
Yeah?
One night of me and my partner were driving and we before the call came out, we pulled up on this, for lack of a better term, it's probably like a brownstone, which you gotta think of, right, one of those three floors, but it had a bunch of apartments in it, and it was fire shooting out of it, so we couldn't. Back in those days, a lot of the doors they would lock, and you know you had a pass key or something to get in. Well, we smashed the window.
We run in and we're just banging on doors telling people to get out. Well, the fire department gets there and they kick in a door, but they kick in the door where the fire started, and it was a bunch of mattresses and the smoke just drills us. And I'm trying to get air and I'm out a window and this guy jumps right past me and falls three
floors and he's in the hospital. Anyway, it was we almost pass out and they drag us out and We're laying in a snow bank, and I'm thinking I was talking like Mickey Mouse for about a week and a half smoke, and uh it was I thought, man, I don't think I ever want to do that again.
So twenty years in and then you said, okay, I've had enough.
No, they told me I had enough.
I told you then then on and then I just went back to school and and I had got my bachelor's degree, and I just said, you know what, I've always been coaching. I've always coached. So I've always coached as a police officer. I started here and I was at Catalina High School in ninety when I got here, and so I so I'd always coached football and baseball.
High school.
That's when they started it, right, didn't Catlina?
No, No, that's that's Catalina High schoolthills a. Catalina High School was being torn down and Chuck McCollum game me my first job over there, and he was awesome. And uh, we had no kids. We had no kids, and those kids they didn't come from anything. My god, it was sure. I used to call a little Bay route over there, because there were shootings behind the school all the time.
Wo and uh.
But I'd always done that, so I said, you know what they they had said, here's your retirement and if you want, you can never work again, and we give you this much money. Or you scored so high on your test, you go back to school. So I went back and got two master's degrees and.
Started. Coach Scurring brought me.
On, how did that? How did that first meeting go? And how did that's?
We only have a few minutes, all right, so I'll give you this. I'll tell you truth, all right, but I'll keep it g rated. You know, Coach Karrn had a lot of ballplayers at Sabino, and you know we played them and I got I couldn't stand Jeff, right, I'm like playing Sabino. They got nineteen freaking Division one athletes and I got one hundred and fifty two pound guard,
and so yeah, it got crazy. But on his staff he had another coach, Jeff Green, who always coached with them, who was an amazing, amazing offensive line coach and coach with Bo Scham Beckler and and just Jim Young and the whole gambit and he kind of talked to Jeff and and Jeff brought me on and that that's really where I started to learn how to run a college program. Before I have it became a high school head coach.
Because when coach brings you on, just like with players, when he brings you on, he expects you to do a job. You know, he's not gonna hold you in. Sure, he's going to help you out, but do your job.
And uh, I got an opportunity to learn an incredible amount about coaching.
You and you guys obviously are very close, or I would assume so. Uh, it's a little nice older fraternity.
He's coach Scurren's tree, right, he don't have a tree. You got a forest?
Yeah, you know, And uh, he's turned out a lot of head coaches and and it's kind of cool because a lot of the people that I had at Pima now head coaches. Kind Of I get a little feel like I might be a small bush. You know, maybe I'm an oly end. He's a he's a tree.
Can you can?
And this is a this is a bias question from your end. And how many coaches, maybe you've had a number, who are the good ones? And they're going to tell me all of you mean that I've worked for, Yeah, I worked with or whatever. You know, you you could say Nugents. We know about Nugent's diligence and his you know, preparation.
Chuck McCullum was one of the best film breakers I've ever worked with. So I took you know, as a cop, I learned as a young twenty year old cop, don't model yourself after a police officer a person. Model yourself after a bunch of them. Find out what each person does well, and try to do what they do right. So I did that, and you know, Chuck was one of I mean, he could break film with the best of them, right. And then I worked with NeiMa Hassee and Hassee was an offensive guy him and Ethan Hurley
and worked with them. And then when I get over to to work with with Coach Scurrin, you know he had Yeah, Mike Sangster, who is a defensive coordinator who's it was a genius at stuff, and Keith Graham at defensive secondary.
So what you lacked in knowledge, Yeah, I was alignment. I've always been aligned.
Coach I had to expand in order to become that head coach, so I would sit in defensive back meetings when I at the time, you have to learn your weaknesses.
Right, you have to.
We're talking about and and you know nuge was the same way Pat brought me back in and and did I mean, I've just I've learned from everybody I've and I've learned from my assistant coaches, you know, because when when you know it all, you know nothing right, So you're right, you've got to be open to ideas.
Now now that you talk about it. Because we talked about Screw and he was on the show a while back, and I've known him for a long time, not not closely, but you know, we've know who doesn't know Jeff. But the thing that I think that made him a success is he knows how to manage you guys, and you know and and he he can convince you to do what you don't think you're capable of.
Do I have it?
Do I have it? You do without really knowing who is But I noticed that when he was in the show here people gave me so long I guess the Jeff Skurrin Show. But he has these ideas. You're thinking, what does this guy come up with this crap and then it's like, then you go home, that's pretty good crap.
Look, I've said to him a couple of times, I said, you know, it's uh, it gets hard as you get older to admit you were wrong. And there's been several things he has said that. When I was a young coach with him right going back, I wasn't that young, but you know, twenty five years ago, he would say me all the time, jim Jimmy. He calls me Jimmy. Him and my mother and my wife the only ones who call me Jimmy. Hey, Jimmy, you're going to be a really good coach someday when you learn how to
be a teacher. I used to walk out there, and I know what he's saying. He's right, until you learn how to teach, not everybody can learn the same way. And I would say to them all the time, you know, coach, I was wrong and I just was. You know, you get you get too caught up in yourself sometimes. Ago I need to take a little bit deeper look inside.
Right, right, Jim. It was appreciated, very very happy to have you here. Appreciate you very much. You got to come back.
I we'll think about it gets better.
Everybody talks about that page. That's why, Jay lest.
I'm on a fixed income. Now, I gotta figure out.
I'm sure it's fixed nicely now.
Thank you.
You guys have always been amazing to me, and and and Pima and then the places we've worked in, our coaches and athletes.
I can't thank you.
And well, thank you. We appreciate you. And thanks guys. We got through this. We did okay.