C101P S01E00 Introductions (Audio Only)
Daniel Chamberlain: [00:00:00] Football made simple. Become great at your craft by finding ways to make it simple for those around you. This is the Coaching 101 Podcast hosted by Findaway Productions with your co host,
Daniel Chamberlain and Kenny Simpson. Hello, coaches.
Welcome to the very first, the premiere episode of Coaching one on one podcast.
It's with myself, Daniel Chamberlain and Kenny Simpson. Coach, how are things going for you today?
Kenny Simpson: Man, excited, excited to do something new, Daniel, you know, and I know you're the expert in the podcast world, so thank you so much for kind of giving me some, some guidelines as we go. And I'm excited to kind of try this new venture and connect with coaches in a new way.
Daniel Chamberlain: Yeah, I'm no, no way, shape or form my professional at this. I mean, I guess I do get paid to podcast. So that's fine. I guess I'm a [00:01:00] professional, just not that great. I'm, I'm just, I appreciate you reaching out to me and giving me the opportunity one, just talk more football because I have learned so much in the last couple of years of doing this.
And I just look forward to, man, it's that much more branching out and that many more ideas to learn and. More places to share, you know, it's just, it's going to be great. I'm super thankful that you thought of me when, whenever you had the idea of a podcast. So thank you for that.
Kenny Simpson: No, man, of course, to me, I think it's just a way that we can maybe bring some guys on here down the road and let them share their ideas.
And maybe the ramblings of an old coach like myself will make sense to somebody if they get something out of this, at least it didn't cost them anything. So I'm sure they appreciate that part.
Daniel Chamberlain: Free, free football information is never bad. Even clinics you gotta pay to go to, right? Like, you go to the the one, you know, Oklahoma always has the big one in, usually in Tulsa.
I think it's always there. I don't know, it's been there for the last three years, as long as I've been coaching, so. But you still got to pay to get over there to get that info. So podcasts make it nice. Just yeah. [00:02:00]
Kenny Simpson: Yeah. Hopefully the guy can just listen to this whenever, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of a YouTube video type guy.
So obviously we'll have that available, but if you're listening to just our voices, you're probably you're probably winning. If you're just hearing my voice instead of seeing my face with it.
Daniel Chamberlain: Yeah, there's a I'm a podcast watcher. I like the Joe Rogan podcast because I can just sit and watch them talk.
I don't know what it is. I'm sure a lot of people are that way, but listening is fun to you driving or whatever. It makes it a lot easier. Well you know, we're here tonight to talk simplicity. We're just gonna do some introductions. I'm gonna have coach Simpson introduce himself first and just run through who he is, his background as a family and a coach and what he's doing nowadays.
And then and I'll talk about myself for a little while. We'll probably run long because talking about yourself usually can, you know, it's especially in the football world. It seems like that's a fun thing to do. But before we get started, coach, why don't you share some ways that people can simplify what they're doing in football?
Kenny Simpson: Yeah, I appreciate it. Well, this is this podcast me sponsored by find a way productions [00:03:00] find a way productions has the offensive coordinator academy dot com, which is where a coach can go to learn more offense. Lots of materials over there for a coach who wants to run any style of offense, kind of a build your own with some guidance.
It's also. producing the defensive coordinator Academy, which is in the same vein. Defensive coordinators can go over to defensivecoordinatoracademy. com, where they can learn to run their own defense, find some materials that might be able to help them in their way. And of course, a lot of people who know me know that I also produce FB coach Simpson.
Dot com which is going to have multiple materials for all football coaches, whether they want to run the gun to you, the best offense ever invented or the three, four swarm defense. Both of those are available there, but it's also got a lot of other materials, including a lot of free materials, headsets, magazine, and other types of those those types of materials for them.
Daniel Chamberlain: That headsets magazine, by the way, I will write an article and be at, you will be my first publication at [00:04:00] some point. I love those things, man. It's just, I feel like it's the common guy can, you know, you don't have to be Bill Belichick and write a, an article, but you probably have something to put out there.
You wouldn't take the time to write the article. So yeah, we,
Kenny Simpson: we, we, we reached out to a lot of guys that, you know, when you don't pay anybody, anything is all free. You kind of take what you can get, but we've lucked out and we've got some, the age range on our writers, the brand new to football guys that are so excited to share what, what they've learned.
And then we've got guys on there like Kevin Swift and Chip Siegel, who've been coaching probably for 30, 40 years. And so you have both ends of the spectrum. It's been really, really cool to produce. My wife is the one if you're watching it, you can see the covers behind me, she's the brains behind a lot of the graphic design and all that kind of stuff, making the magazine look good.
But the coaches that. Come in there and produce it, man. It's been really, really cool to get to offer that. And if you are listening to this and you do want to dip your toe in the water of producing some type of [00:05:00] article, we're always looking for writers that want to give back to the football coaching world.
Daniel Chamberlain: And you just heard it. You can be brand new and just talk about how you just learned. Gap scheme blocking, that's fine, right? You can pretty much put anything in an article.
Kenny Simpson: Yeah. We want it to be everything. And the goal is we cover everything special teams, D line, O line wing T spread coverage stuff.
And then of course you've got the older coaches that you can tell. The maturity level of coaches when they start talking about things that aren't scheme related. When they start talking about how to relate to your kids, how to relate to your coaching staff. We've even got a whole series of articles about how to get a job.
So if you're looking to get a coaching job, there's how to improve your resume, how to get ready for that stuff. So it's been a really, really cool venture. Best of all, like you mentioned multiple times, it is free. Anything that's free and pretty decent is always worth checking out.
Daniel Chamberlain: Yes, free, free and good.
Sometimes hard to find, but that's a, that, that is one of the products that is [00:06:00] free and definitely good. So, well, coach, we appreciate you putting that out and, and and you're getting all those articles together and produced and thank your wife for the sweet covers. I think they're all pretty awesome.
So she's done a heck of a
Kenny Simpson: job. Yeah, she doesn't. She's starting to have some critics in our house because I've got a 10 year old now that is giving her guidelines, not, not a critic, maybe, but maybe somebody who's offering suggestions on what he wants. She took one of his suggestions on the most recent ones, get a little lightning bolt in it.
And that's courtesy of my 10 year old son, Bennett. He thought that we needed to kind of up our game with our covers.
Daniel Chamberlain: Well, my five year old loves lightning and anything lightning based. So he will, he'll be a fan of that cover for sure. Oh, yeah.
Kenny Simpson: Yeah. It's been pretty cool. Do you want to find them by the way, guys are listening is over at fbcoachsins.
com backslash headsets. And again, all free go over there and read through. I think we've got about probably about 21 issues now with over three years worth of magazines.
Daniel Chamberlain: Well, coach, it seems like you're kind of talking about things you've done for the [00:07:00] community already. So that's an excellent segue to just get into your introduction.
So who is Kenny Simpson and why are you in a podcast? Why are people listening to you?
Kenny Simpson: I never know why they're listening to me. So we'll start there. But you know, a lot of guys that have maybe never heard me get to talk before, you know, my goal has been to give back to coaches and it came from a long line of learning the hard way.
And so that's kind of where my story starts. I was a military kid. My father's in the Air Force. We moved all over the place. I went to 3 different high schools, my junior and senior year. So we moved. Often early and often, and what it allowed me to do those experience athletics in multiple states with multiple different coaches, multiple personalities.
And I played four sports through high school. So I was always trying to be active. And that really has kind of turned me into who I am now because I learned the things that I liked that coaches did and the things that obviously. But I did not prefer as a player and things that I wanted to change.
And so that's [00:08:00] my background as an athlete. And then I went to Harding University. I met my wife there back in 20 2003, I graduated. So not, not too long ago, but 20 years has gone by. I'm starting to get really old now. Graduated there. We were married at Harding, left Harding. If you, you know, When you graduate and you're a coach, you just kind of go to where the job is.
And the state of Alabama looked like a state that could teach me a lot of football. So we leave Harding and go take a job at Madison Academy. So Madison Academy is in Huntsville, Alabama. Right now, they're really good at football. When I first came into Madison Academy, they were decent. They were probably a little bit above, under 500 team.
And I was able to kind of watch as a young coach, the culture start to change. And the program started to make big strides, maybe started making the playoffs. Unfortunately for me, I left right before they started going to the state championship games. So, but I got to watch it as a head junior high coach, you know, at 25 years [00:09:00] old, you're just learning whatever you can learn.
Go take a defensive coordinator job in Montgomery, Alabama, Alabama Christian Academy. And I was there for two years as a D. C. We were not very good. But fortunately for me the head coach took a job elsewhere, which opened up a door for me to be a head coach at 27 years old. And then fortunately, or 27, you know, which now looking back, I was a baby, you know, but then, you know, I kind of thought I had arrived and I knew what I was doing.
And then the worst thing in the world that could happen to any young coach happened to me. We won a bunch of games early. You know, because we had a whole lot of talent and the coach before me had not won games, you know, never mind the fact that all those kids were freshmen and sophomores and I got them as juniors and seniors.
And so we were successful, had a pretty good run ended up leaving Alabama about 3 years later. To get back towards where we went to college. So I'm back in Batesville, Arkansas [00:10:00] area. So I took a job in Arkansas. I don't know if you know this, but when you transfer states, you get the worst job available at the state you're going into.
And so we were a 4A school. Playing with about 25 kids grass field, no facilities. We were lifting weights that were by the metric thing. So I had to throw those out and actually get weights in there that made sense. You know, try to live like a 3. 8 pound, whatever. There's a lot of, I gave a whole lot of stories and I'm sure through this podcast, I'll probably give a lot of stories.
Joke first day and kids are wearing boots and jeans, you know, to lift. So lots of. Lots of issues, but a great place to be. And so it took a long time to turn that around. While that's going on I thought I kind of had arrived and, you know, God kind of finds a way to humble you. And so we, we struggled.
It took a long time. It wasn't a quick instant turnaround. It was a go through O and 10, go through some really tough times and then come out on the end. Having learned all these different lessons about what not to do, [00:11:00] what worked, you know, as a coach, I'm going to try everything to see what works. And so did a lot of that and then COVID hits.
So COVID hits, I started producing materials. So that's where a lot of people know me now is from headsets or from writing books. We've written now 20. I say we, because my wife tells me 28 different books that are meant to help coaches all over the place. And so that started during COVID because I didn't sit well in the basement, had to do something.
So I started producing things, started putting things out there. And then it was humbling and really, really cool the reception I got from the coaching world where it became where I was connecting with the guys across the globe. And it was really, really cool, very fulfilling. Well, in the middle of that, I took a big job from Southside to a 6A school in Searcy.
Which is not very far down the road, but it was a big jump. It was a good school, still a good school, big place to go. And so head over [00:12:00] there, spend about a year there and all this coaching material stuff starts blowing up. So I have to go into the administration that had taken a chance to hire me and tell them that I'm thinking I'm taking a different path.
To produce coaching materials and kind of step back from coaching a little bit and connect with coaches everywhere else. So that was not a very fun conversation for me to have with them. They were very gracious. They understood. So, I moved back to Southside where I had left as a head coach and just going to call football plays there.
You know, that's an easier job than being a head coach. Believe me, the difference from OC to head coach is ginormous. I'm sure we'll talk about that probably in a future episode, but anyway, leave. Certainly Cersei for Southside going to call plays have a nice easy season. We have some success and then our head coach that government leaves me goes to another school.
His alma mater can't blame him, but our school came to me and said, hey, will you take over as head coach again until we can kind [00:13:00] of figure out what we're going to do. And that brings us to kind of where we are now career wise. I'm producing coaching materials and I'm a head coach. So a lot of my plate couldn't do it without the people most important to me.
So I'm gonna give them a quick shout out. I've already mentioned Jamie graphic designer does basically all of my materials, my books, she's our shipping, she's our accounting, she not only does my graphics, but she does probably 20 or 30 schools across the nation handles all their graphics for them.
And so she's able to work from home, which is how we can. Do both of those things, be a head coach and have kind of a coaching materials business. And then I have three children. I have a girl, Avery, who's a junior. A three sport athlete. Very proud of her. Scored a 20 on her ACT. We're waiting to hear back, hoping we'll get to 30.
So very proud of that. Let's go! She's a lot smarter than her daddy. Daddy is a son who's already bigger and stronger than me. He's a 15 year old freshman. And so 25, 25, 26 touchdowns. He'll correct me. I'm sure when he hears this [00:14:00] 25, 26 touchdowns junior high ball last year, excited to get him up in senior high ball, get to actually coach him at that level three sport athlete, basketball, or.
Soccer. He's a starting goalie. He's a ninth grader. So does really, really well athletically. His name is Brayden. He comes with me in a lot of clinics. So if you've been to one of my clinics, you might have met Avery or Brayden, they kind of go with me. One of the cool parts about this business, you can take them with you.
And then we have the 10 year old. I mentioned he was the, I think going to be a graphic designer. He was, he's extremely talented. It has a great eye for that stuff. Really, really sharp kid. His name is Bennett. So that's a very long, I won't do this to you guys every episode, but a long background of who I am.
So Daniel, let's flip that thing to you. It's absolutely
Daniel Chamberlain: okay, man. You have to set the, like, I appreciate it because I just learned some stuff. I've known you for going on two years or so. And, and I didn't know all this. That's awesome. I always wondered why you left Searcy and came back and I didn't know.
I didn't know it was just for the business, but I was laughing when you talked about that. And it's not because [00:15:00] it's funny you had to have that conversation, but because I knew you came back to not head coach. And then what was it? One season? Did you OC for a whole season? I got, I
Kenny Simpson: got a whole eight months worth of not being a head coach.
All my hair grew back. I lost all that weight and then dab gum and I'm right back to where I was. Oh, that's
Daniel Chamberlain: hilarious. Okay. So a little about me, I suppose. My name is Daniel Chamberlain. I am. Military guy is probably my first and foremost. I am a football coach. I've been coaching for a few years, but military is really what started me down that road.
I grew up in Southern Oklahoma, a little town called Lone Grove. Wasn't the best at football. My family wasn't one of these send your kids out. My mom. My mom raised four boys, so she could not afford to send us all to the how to learn football type things, right? So you just got the coaching you got.
Luckily, when I got into the high school level, I had some excellent coaches and I still talk to those guys as much as I can. But um, joined the military because my older brother was in, he did the push into Iraq in [00:16:00] 2003 and I kind of vowed I would never let him go back by himself. It was very scary for us as kids, as a family.
For him to be over in that time. So I joined in Oh six, when I got out when I graduated high school, went to basic training, came back immediately, got deployed, we went to Iraq. I did get to go with him that time. And then we came home from that deployment and the heck of he doesn't get out and leave me in there.
And I've done two more deployments since without him. So I've I've repaid his debt of going without me. And then I added one just for good measure, just so I can rub it in his face. So the military kind of set me up that I needed to do college. I would not have been able to afford college without the military.
So it's been a wonderful thing. Just the National Guard. I never was active duty minus the time we spent deployed, but National Guard was a wonderful tool for my success in life. And it ended up at University of Oklahoma and I graduated there back in 2016, got a biology degree because I was supposed to be pre med, I was supposed to be a doctor at some point, and I sucked it up on my first MCAT.
As you can imagine, if you took every two years, [00:17:00] You just had to shut down your life and go deploy for a year and get no schooling. Like it makes it impossible to take your core classes and memorize all that stuff, you know, for four years. So it took me 10 years to graduate college. Trying to take an MCAT after that was pretty difficult, but probably still should have stuck with it.
But I didn't do so hot the first time and I just called it quits. Came home from my last deployment. So I got married right before I left. I met my wife Samantha when I was at OU. She was up at Langston University and she was in I think she was first year for physical therapy school. First or second year when we met.
So she graduated that when I was gone. We came home, we moved to Broken Arrow area and she's just blown up as a physical therapist. She is amazing at what she does. She's opening her own clinic now, so it's going to be a lot of fun. But I came home that last time and I talked to my mentor, Kenny Ridley, and he's a very well known coach here in Oklahoma.
More for the guy he is than the coach he is. He's just an absolute wonderful person. Everyone you talk to about him, they talk, that's, he's the standard for like how to be a [00:18:00] human. And so that was my mentor and I've kind of tried to take what he taught me, not even like sitting and having a conversation, just what I've watched him do.
He reached out to me when I got home from my last deployment was to Kuwait and he was like, I think you need to try this coaching thing. You've kind of got that like, you know, you want to give to people and you believe in kids and make people's lives better. And, um, obviously leadership is kind of baked in when you become a soldier.
And I started, you know, gaining some rank. All right, I'll give it a shot. And so I used a um, a federal program and it's called troops to teachers. So if you're a national guardsman out there, anyone in the military, and you have a degree. You can use this and it gives you a teaching degree and I know we're super shorthanded with teachers pretty much everywhere You're not signing up for a life of fame or money, but you do work long hours.
So there's that so I use troops teachers. I got my teaching degree and that got me into football I started up at wine dot as a I mean I walked I applied they said come interview that day hired me that first day. [00:19:00] I think the next day we started practice. Of course, the new guy was just an assistant for three days.
And coach Dylan Terry was my head coach. And he was like, I think I'm going to make you the DC. Are you okay with that? Sure. Let's do it, man. I'm okay with learning by fire. So I spent my first year as a DC, we went four and five probably gave up. I don't know, 25 or 30 points per game. We won our first one though and I thought I was the best thing that ever happened to high school football.
And then I think we lost two or three in a row or something. So, you know, I was quickly humbled. I left I left Wyandotte. I live in Jay and Jay called. I, we had not reached out about a job or anything. Their athletic director just called me out of the blue and was like, we've heard a lot of good things about what you're doing.
And we'd like to have you on the staff. During that time we had taken a kid in, whose family had run off and left him. He was basically living in a trailer house by himself with some other random guy that was a friend of a friend or some crap, I don't know. So we'd taken him into our house and we had just, you [00:20:00] know, showed him what right looks like and gotten his life back on track.
He stayed with us about a year. He had that itch to get back to that lifestyle and we promised him we'd never stop him. It had to be a mutual thing or it would never work out and he decided to go on. But, during that time he was with us, Jay came knocking. And I was driving 45 minutes in one direction every day to go to school, summer practice, all this stuff.
And I was like, yeah, I will gladly get rid of that drive. I took the job at J. Didn't go so hot. I didn't get along with the head coach. We obviously didn't know that in the interviews or I would have just canceled it then. So I was there for about half the season and we parted ways. That led me to still well this past season, so the 22 season.
And Bo Collins, my head coach there, I can never speak enough good about that guy. He really. I will probably bring him on the podcast sometime as a, as a guest because he loves the gun tea stuff. We ran the gun tea there that, that Kenny's very well known for selling. And, um, but he's another one who's got just good guys.
And [00:21:00] anyway, he gave me a chance and it worked really well. I think that we are the future Batman and Robin if we can just find a school to take us both in. Just gotta find somebody that'll take both of us. So got still well, we'd had a year there. We went five and five this year. Still just an assistant, a kind of an analyst position.
I really got to help a new, a first year DC, and then. You know, coach Collins was the first year head coach and basically became their lean on man and let them, you know, here's what I need to take things off their plate. Like I took over the graphics. I took over the social media. We wrote the newspaper articles like we wanted to put still well in a good light.
So I took on writing newspaper articles every week and just whatever I could do to make head coaches job easier because I've heard so many horror stories about what you just said. You had finally grow your hair back, right? And it's here it comes. You got pulled all out again. So. Anyway, so we've had this last year.
Great turnaround. I think they've won three games in three years or something, and we went five and five this year. Missed the playoffs by one win. anD they're, they're ready to reload and go again next year. [00:22:00] Looking like I'll probably move into a different school this year which I hope is not the pattern for the rest of my career.
I do not like being in a new school. I'm tired of being the new guy on staff. But, you know, just sometimes situations create that. And. Where I'm all for just moving forward at this point. So family wise, like I said, I have my wife, Samantha, she's a PT. We will be opening a clinic in Grove, Oklahoma.
I think we're two weeks away from our soft opening. So that's getting pretty crazy. We'll be real business owners. I do the podcast with, if you listen to the football coaching podcast, that'll be the other place you can hear my. Beautiful pipes. I've been doing that for about two years. So Joe's another one of those guys that just took a chance and brought me on.
And my interview was an email and then we recorded some episodes. So it was pretty fun. So that's where, you know, I've Kenny and I have been on there several times together and been doing that for almost two years now, two kids. I wanted the third wife said no. So I'm a, I'm a little bit jealous of you, Kenny getting, getting to have a third one, but [00:23:00] we do have two beautiful little boys.
Beckett is almost five and may he'll turn five and Liam turns 18 months in like five days or something. So. We've spaced them out just enough that they don't ever get to play football together. And I don't know if that's good or bad. If they're both great athletes, some head coach somewhere, maybe me will be glad that they had a good talent for eight years.
But if not, they're going to be like, why is there another Chamberlain on my team? I don't get it. yEah, man. So that's kind of my, my life in a, in a nutshell, three years of coaching. It's not, not a lot of experience, but the, the networking I've done and podcasting and. And using Joe's products and using your products and clinics, man, it's been a great way to network and just I call it experience multipliers and I have used everyone I possibly can.
And I imagine this will be another one. Well,
Kenny Simpson: I know personally, like I've. When I hire guys, I like outside the box guys, like my DC, the guy that I'm not real happy with because he left me to be a head coach somewhere [00:24:00] else. But he was a pipeliner for a long time and didn't get into coaching and teaching until his thirties.
And then my old line guy, coach Gould, who does a lot of things with me, I got him out of Home Depot. You know, and so those guys I think that have been in the real world can offer things to kids. My current junior high OC was a, was a minister for a while. And so those guys are able to offer, you know, your experiences.
I think I find those valuable. To me, I'd rather have a. Second, third year guy who's in his thirties and has had some life experience. No offense than the younger ones. I was one of the younger ones, so I took the traditional route, but I found a lot of value in bringing in those guys, at least two or three of those kind of outside the box hires.
Daniel Chamberlain: I think there's a lot to, I mean, resilience is the first thing that. That I think hiring outside the box brings because resiliency is different to everyone. But if every one of your coaches went to college and, and G. A. played and then G. A. 'd and then now they're coaches, [00:25:00] your resiliency is the same thing.
It's how do you handle a loss on the football field, right? Or, or maybe an injury throughout the season or something. But when you've, when you hire someone from Home Depot or like, how did you handle the latest theft attempt or right? Like the paycheck was bad or just whatever hours were cut short, you know, military, of course we have resiliency out the wazoo.
There's a lot of stuff we face that the normal everyday person doesn't, but man. Yeah, you're right. That life experiences resiliency is where I see it the most. Cause we're probably not going to do much for X's nose generally. So no, but I can get outside the box
Kenny Simpson: on and a lot of it's passion, you know, a guy that has had a career.
Is leaving that career because he feels, feels led to work with kids. Those guys have like a burning passion. Like they haven't been a guy who's been around for 10, 15 years. And that's all they've ever done. They literally have tried something else, given it up, you know, now they're moving in this direction.
So those are to me, and I'm sure we'll talk about this. I know we've got an episode coming [00:26:00] up. We're going to talk about like. Coaching staffs and stuff, but you hit on it, you know, I think as a head coach, if I was listening as a head coach is diversity and your staff doesn't just mean skin color. I mean, it definitely does mean that, like, you need diversity as far as ethnicity, you need, but you also need diversity as far as age, you need diversity as far as experience, you need diversity as far as personality types and a lot of coaches, unfortunately, are scared.
That if you bring too much diversity in what any of those that you're going to have arguments, which is exactly what you're going to have. And that's good. Right?
Daniel Chamberlain: No, I, I a hundred percent agree. The, the arguments are sometimes the best part, like, because. You're going to walk away and shake hands at the day.
If you're any kind of a human being yourself. Like if you're, I guess I can say a man. Most coaches I assume are men. Yeah, you got to be able to at the day just shake the hand and say, Hey, we all learned something. Like whatever it was. Even if it's chalkboard wars, right? Like that's, you learn a lot there.
A ton of [00:27:00] stuff. So, well, we will push on past our introductions and I just want to kind of introduce the podcast and where it's going and why it's here. And so we'll just start there. Like, why, why are we here today? Kenny?
Kenny Simpson: Well, to me, you know, one of my goals has always been to give back to coaches. You know, I'm, I'm now getting at the, the, I can see the back end of my career where I'm hoping there's a lot of guys that are in here that are maybe at the beginning.
Of their career or wherever you are in it there's not enough support. I don't think for coaches in general. There's not enough coaching education materials. That's why some guy who lives in Arkansas is able to have a whole business producing coaching materials because there's such a void in that world of quality materials that are going to help a coach accomplish what they want to, to accomplish.
And so. This is just another branch, in my opinion, of a way we can reach more people. To me, I've kind of taken this venture on, and about 2021, when I stepped away from being a head coach at a school I really had worked hard to have a job at [00:28:00] I kind of took a dive into this world of a leap of faith, almost, you could say.
And again, a lot of that was because the passion of reaching out to coaches across the country, across the world, you know, it's really cool. I got an email today from a guy, they're playing football apparently in Europe right now. And so he emailed me today. He's running my offense. They won their first game.
He was telling me all about it, man. That's really, really cool. You know, and for us, you know, a guy from Oklahoma, a guy from Arkansas to be able to get on here and maybe connect with somebody. Halfway across the globe, or even just somebody in our backyard, you know, that's the reason where I want to do this podcast and, you know, of course, our theme this year is going to be basically keeping it simple.
I think too many times as a coach, you go look for help and you have people that want to sound smart. And I've done a lot of research. I'm not trying to negate my intelligence. I've done a whole lot of research. I understand the game and I understand a lot of things, but I also understand the one rule that matters the most.
It's the only thing that [00:29:00] matters is what your players know. And if you can't relate to a 16 year old, a 15 year old, 17 year old, or maybe even an IEP and have him play well then no one cares how smart you are is how can you relate to other people? And that's what this whole podcast, this whole season is going to be about is coaching one on one, keeping things simple.
It doesn't mean we want to explore difficult topics, but I think the goal of any good leader. Is to take hard things and make them simple for the people you're working with.
Daniel Chamberlain: Yeah. You described that as a funnel at one point. And and, and that, and I, I remember that in a clinic and then we've mentioned it since we were kind of, you know, obviously Kenny and I have been bouncing ideas about each other, how to get this thing started and, and what all should be a part of it.
And that funnel analogy is like. That's perfect, right? Because you have to handle all the big stuff, but down at the bottom, it can't be big. Like your Jimmy's and Joe's can't, they, they don't know all that. So man has a really good analogy and I like it. And that's, that's kind of how I [00:30:00] think those episodes will, you know, even if we talk about the broad thing, we still got to talk about how Jimmy and Joe can receive it and put that stuff on the field on Friday nights.
Right. And that's,
Kenny Simpson: that's the goal. And like you mentioned, the idea of a funnel is if you're at the top, you have to, you know, Daniel mentioned it, you are paid to, and you have dedicated your life towards this. You want to take that in and, and somewhere in that chain is the different people you've surrounded yourself with.
I think that's going to be our second episode, but the different people you've surrounded yourself with. And so you're going to delegate out different things for them so they can showcase their talents. You can give them the information that they need. And then down at the bottom is your 16 year old quarterback who likes Snapchat, TikTok, and Madden.
And you have to understand what he can take. What he wants to take. And there's a whole range of people in between that, that you've got to recognize as a, as a leader, what can they do? How can I allow this person to showcase their ability and their talent and serve our team or organization the [00:31:00] best.
And that's where, that's where coaching becomes difficult. It's not just on a whiteboard. It's not just a scheme. It's how do you relate to people? How do you motivate people? How do you educate people?
Daniel Chamberlain: It's awesome. Well last part here, before we get out, we want to talk about lessons, what not to do as a head coach.
And you know, I'm sure this will be an entire episode at some point. So I imagine you have a couple of them highlighted. So if you would like to to start there, so what are the lessons you've learned of not to do as a head coach?
Kenny Simpson: Yeah, my thought was we'll do one of these each episode. I'm sure I get at least however many episodes we're going to do this season of things that I've done screwing up.
So today's lesson is on what not to do is on sarcasm. And this is pointed 1000 percent back at me, Daniel. You may not struggle with this. I do, I do. Some guys are listening. They may not struggle with it. I sure do. Like, it's just natural for me to be sarcastic [00:32:00] with people that I, that I love, that I care for.
Like, it, I make fun of myself. I make fun of everything. But, If you're a coach, beware, because this is not something you need to be practicing. To me, multiple times have I made a, just a off handed snide comment to a kid meaning it in love, thinking I had a good relationship with the kid. And most of the time, you kind of get away with it because you do have a good relationship with that kid.
But, there's been multiple occasions where that little comment has made that kid upset. And now I've created a situation where there shouldn't be a situation. You know, our job as coaches, we have to discipline, we have to take care of things and everything we have to do. Our job as coaches shouldn't be creating situations for ourselves that we have to now go clean up.
Quick example, kid does something on the football field, you make some snide comment about maybe he's not giving effort or he did something [00:33:00] wrong or whatever it is. I'm not just talking about coaching. We coach our kids. I love my kids. Kind of sidebar here. I tell my kids I love them so much that I'm going to coach them hard.
And that part is true. I'm talking about that sarcastic kind of tease a kid in front of somebody else. So that kid is naturally going to do what? They're probably going to bow up right back at you and now you've painted yourself into whatever corner because now how do you handle that situation? Do you discipline the kid for the situation you created or do you somehow try to ignore that situation?
And now you have to explain that to everyone else is watching the situation. So that was our lesson for today. I'll have multiple of these kind of small lessons throughout there, but think about a time if you're listening here or Daniel may have one too, but. Where you said that sarcastic thing that lit that fire and you created this whole cluster that now you're having to deal with.
So I would be very, very careful being [00:34:00] sarcastic with those you coach. And one last caveat here for head coaches, the same thing for assistant coaches. I'd be very, very careful with them. When you made the move from assistant coach. To head coach, it does not mean you can't have a relationship with your assistant coaches or your players.
It does, however, mean that relationship has to change a little bit. And sometimes that's not a very fun transition. I'm not saying you can't be a friend with your assistant coaches. I am saying that It's different. When you go from being one of the, one of the boys to the guy in charge of the boys, when you walk in a room and it gets quiet, you'll know what I'm talking about.
So just understand there's a transition time there that you have to be able to separate yourself from that.
Daniel Chamberlain: That's perfect. All right, Kenny, one more time, why don't you tell us where we can go to find easy football, ways to make football easy. Yeah, the podcast is
Kenny Simpson: sponsored by Findaway Productions. So, Findaway Productions has the [00:35:00] offensivecoordinatoracademy.
com, which has all things offense from a workbook where you can fill out your entire offense, to a full academy, to single products that can help any offensive coordinator, offensivecoordinatoracademy. com. Also the defensivecoordinatoracademy. com, so defensivecoordinatoracademy. com. All things defense from a workbook to an academy, to single courses, to single products, anything for any coach who coaches defense.
And finally, it's also sponsored by FBCoachSimpson. So FBCoachSimpson. com is where you can find multiple materials, including we've mentioned the free magazine headsets. There's also other resources there for coaches, including 28 different books that coaches can get ranging from offensive scheme To defensive scheme, to coaching 101, to 10 mistakes that coach Simpson made in a whole book.
So there's lots of materials there you can get. So all three of those are under Findaway Productions. So very, very proud to [00:36:00] sponsor this podcast. Perfect.
Daniel Chamberlain: All right, man. We'll close out with the last couple of things here. Social media wise, I am once again, Daniel Chamberlain, I'm at coach Chambo.
Okay. That's C H A M B O. Okay. And then chamberlainfootballconsultingatgmail. com. If you just want to email out, ask questions about, ask about the podcast. If you want to be a guest on the podcast we're always looking to add to that. I call it a Rolodex. It's actually a Google sheet now. So the role of sheet, I guess.
But that's where we're at. If you, if you guys want to come on and talk football, shoot out an email to me and let's talk, let's connect and we'll see if we can get you scheduled. Coach, where can we find you at on social media?
Kenny Simpson: Everything with me is pretty simple. It's FBCoachSimpson. Gmail is my email address.
FBCoachSimpson is on Twitter. If you do Facebook, there's multiple Facebook groups that I run. Shotgun Wing T, Facebook group. Offensive Coordinator Academy, Facebook group. Defensive Coordinator Academy, Facebook group. And finally, Head coaching [00:37:00] Academy Facebook group as well. So lots of different places to find me on social media, if that's how you want, or you can just email me at FB coach Simpson at gmail.
Daniel Chamberlain: com. Perfect. We want to thank you for being a listener of football coaching 101 podcast. tUne in back next week to listen to Kenny and I discuss, next week we are discussing building your surroundings, right? How did, how did we title that?
Kenny Simpson: Basically it's a way to build a coaching structure. So how are you going to build all that support system?
Daniel Chamberlain: Building your support. That was the word I couldn't, I couldn't remember. Building your support system. We'll leave you with this. It's hard to beat someone who never gives up no matter the situation. Find a way.