--:-- Ryan Hanley: And her father told me, and I will try not to get emotional saying this, but her father told me, you know, Bill, if she had one friend, she'd be alive today. Let's go. Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy.
--:-- [Intro music plays]
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The Ryan Hanley Show shares the original ideas, habits, and mindsets of world-class original thinkers you can use to produce extraordinary results in your life and business. This is The Way.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. You are about to hear one of the most emotional, the most engaging, compassionate, connected, powerful conversations that I've ever had on this show.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney is well known for his time as a head coach in Memphis at a local high school that was documented in the Oscar-winning movie *Undefeated*, which came out back in the early 2010s. Now, Coach Bill has created a podcast, a community, a not-for-profit around the idea of this, an army of normal folks in which Bill tells stories of everyday people doing the work on the ground to help their communities improve.
--:-- He's connecting individuals from around the country and around the world who want to support these types of organizations and making real progress. And the stories he tells, guys, I had tears streaming down my face during the show. You'll see it if you watch on YouTube. It is incredible. It is powerful. And these are the kind of messages that we need to spread.
--:-- So if you're not someone who normally hits that share button, do so. If you don't want to share this episode or the show, go to Bill's work, go directly to his podcast and share his work. This is powerful. This is the kind of stuff that changes lives. It was such an honor, such a pleasure to have coach Bill on the show. And I know you are going to enjoy this conversation.
--:-- This is your first time here. Would love for you to subscribe wherever you listen or watch. And if you have thoughts, if you have comments, if you want to connect with Bill, I highly encourage you to do so. I appreciate you for listening to the show. I love you for listening to the show. Let's get on to Coach Bill.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Bill, I am so excited to have you on the show. I knew who you were from the movie *Undefeated*, and I knew a little bit of your story. But I'll be honest with you, when I dug into what you're doing now with Army of Normal Folks, that's what really lit me up. I have a million different things to ask you, but I love this idea. So maybe just give me the moment when this first hit you in the head and you were like, "Oh, there's something here." What was that moment?
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: Honestly, it didn't hit me in the head. If you want to know the truth, it hit my producer, Alex Cortez, in the head. Here's how it went. I do a lot of interviews and a lot of speeches from the movie and my book *Against the Grain*. Alex was just a dude who was interviewing me.
--:-- About close to two years ago, he was doing an interview for his radio show called *Our American Stories*. It was one of those days where something happened in the news cycle that was really obvious. But if you watched Fox report on it and then you watched CNN report on it, it was like two completely different things actually happened. Then the GOP people in D.C. started having their conversations about it and the Democrats started. Again, it was obviously what — and I wish I could remember what it was, but I don't. It was just one more of the infuriating misinformation and how an obvious situation could be completely tilted 19 different ways to satisfy a certain narrative, regardless of the obvious situation. It just was bothering me.
--:-- Alex is interviewing me, not about that, but just about *Undefeated*, *Against the Grain*, some other current events. In the middle of it, I said this to the question, "What do you think is going to fix the division?" I said, "There are areas in every city in our country where you drive over a viaduct or down the street. When you peer over the edge of that viaduct and you see all the poverty and the disenfranchisement and the despair and the loss, you think, 'Good Lord, don't let me have a flat tire here.' Because that's the place you don't want your car to break down. But then as you safely pass by and you're past your fear of that area and your recognition of what that area is, you think to yourself, 'Man, somebody ought to do something about that down there one day.' As if that sentiment matters, and it doesn't.
--:-- My suggestion is we tilt that rearview mirror to the left about 15 degrees, look ourselves in the face and say, 'You know what, maybe I can do something about that one day.' Because the government has proven woefully inadequate. The people on Fox and CNN, using big words that nobody understands, aren't fixing anything. If we want to be truly honest with ourselves, there is an enormous amount of power and wealth as a result of that power garnered by people in D.C. and New York who garnered that power and wealth by fashioning narratives about obvious stuff that divides us. I'm just sick of all of it.
--:-- In answer to your question, Alex, I think it's going to take an army of normal folks. Just us guys like you and me that see areas of need and quit relying on 'them' to do something about it, and maybe get our hands dirty and jump in."
--:-- I said that in the interview. Six months went by, didn't think about it. Alex calls me back and says, "Hey Bill, I can't quit thinking about what you said in our interview." I was like, "Oh gosh, did I cuss? What's he talking about?" He reminded me of what I just told you and said, "Do you really feel that way?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "I want to start a national show where we will do the work finding normal people all over the country doing the very things you're talking about. Let's highlight them since the national media won't. In doing that, let's grow an audience that is the army of normal folks. Use these stories not only to entertain and bring light to great stories, but also to literally grow the army inspired by one another's story. Cross these divides, cross these narratives, and tell the government in New York, 'We don't need you. We can fix this without all your BS.'"
--:-- I was like, "That sounds cool. Okay." That was a year ago. Within four weeks we were in the top 10 or 20 in the nation on podcasts, and we've done nothing but grow since then. Iron Light Labs up in Chicago with Alex is the producer. They do all the artwork and music. iHeart picked us up and started distributing us. We've been doing this for a year now. Our goal is just to inspire everyday average normal people to put aside all the preconceived notions they have about one another. Let's see if we can't change the country and quit waiting on 'them' who are purposely anchored by enormous power and wealth dividing us.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I love that. I couldn't agree with your sentiment and the foundational idea behind that more. Frankly, I have a core of other podcasters that are just friends, and we share ideas. The reason we all do it is for that exact reason. The reason I do this show — it's not the same mission, but the idea behind it is trying to tell people's stories in a way that doesn't divide us.
--:-- The podcast episode that actually kicked my show off and sent me to the next level was an episode I did with a dear friend. I tend to skew a little more conservative. He's a little more liberal Democrat, but we're like best buds. I love this guy to death. I'd run down and give him my shirt down in New Orleans if I could run that far. We did a podcast episode called "How to Disagree with a Friend About Politics and Still Love Each Other." That show just went crazy because what we were trying to show everyone is that we can discuss things and we can disagree. Ultimately, and this was my hope, though it ended up happening, we're trying to solve the same problems. We all see the same things, and we can learn from each other how to get there. But we can't learn from each other if we're following the politicians and the mainstream media that you just outlined because it is not in their best interest to do that. They do not get reelected. They do not get campaign dollars. They do not get clicks and advertising if they're not hyper intentional about creating fear and anger and dissent and division. You just cannot trust the stories that come out of them any longer. This is why the podcast movement in general has taken off so much, in my opinion, in the last five years. I couldn't be happier that you guys are doing this.
--:-- So my question out of that little diatribe is: What does it mean to be part of that army? You hear that message and you say, "Oh my God, I need to do something. I need to get involved." What are the first steps someone can take? What does it look like being part of this army of normal folks?
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: If you listen to the show, you will hear this at least twice a month, maybe more, and you will certainly hear it on Shop Talk. Army of Normal Folks releases every Tuesday, which is a guest interview long format, usually broken into two or three episodes on that one guest. Then on Friday we release Shop Talk, which is a quick 15-minute snippet about a current event. If you listen, you will in one of those two things each week hear me say this: "The magic happens when passion and discipline — and when I mean discipline, I don't mean following the rules. I mean ability. When passion and discipline intersect with opportunity."
--:-- You do not have to be part of some massive 501c3. You do not have to be part of the smart, pretty people. You do not have to be elected. You do not have to be part of some NGO to have massive effect on another person's life or another group of people's life. You simply have to be passionate about a discipline and have that passion and discipline intersect opportunity.
--:-- I just interviewed a guy who was suicidal and dealt with addiction and got over it. He ended up putting a quick YouTube video out of him dancing, and it got three and a half million views. Now he has 1.2 million followers on Instagram and 1.6 million on TikTok. He is a UPS driver, and he is called the Dancing UPS Man. He goes around and finds people who look down, and he dances and puts a smile on their face because he knows when he was sitting on the edge of his bed with a loaded gun in his hand about to put in his mouth, a smile would have saved his life that day. His goal in the world is to put smiles on people's faces. He's not part of anything. He's just a normal dude that has a passion for dancing and is really good at it and sees opportunity every day when he sees down people. When he's delivering a package and he sees a down person, he'll put on some "Ice Ice Baby" and do some stuff you wouldn't believe. You can look him up on Instagram and TikTok: The Dancing UPS Man.
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--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: There was a girl who was dealing with bulimia and all kinds of issues. Her father had lost everything gambling. She'd just gotten a job in Philly. She ran past a homeless shelter because her therapy was jogging. She ran past a homeless shelter for a couple of weeks. One time they yelled down at her, "Hey, is all you do all day is run around?" She screamed back up, "Is all you do is sit on your ass on the front porch all day?" Then they started kind of barbing, but friendly barbing. When she looked up on that porch, she saw her father in her mind's eye. She decided, "Those people need some exercise."
--:-- So she went up there one day, knocked on the door and said, "I want all your homeless people. I want to start a running club." The curator said, "Homeless people don't jog. They don't run." She said, "Give me a chance." She got six guys, made rules about not being late and all of this. She said, "If they can learn the discipline of being on time, getting off their rear end, fighting through because running — you can't cheat."
--:-- Anyway, she started a thing called Back on My Feet that has 20 chapters now all over the country, which is running clubs for the unhoused. They have gotten over 6,000 people back on their feet — not literally running, but back on their feet with full-time jobs and full-time housing. All because she had a discipline and a passion for running and saw an opportunity. Every single story is like that.
--:-- So what does it mean to be part of an army? Figure out what you're passionate about, what you're good at, find an opportunity, and fill the hole.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Why do we not take action in this way? Fear. Will people think I'm weird? Will people think I'm stupid? Is this part of the world unsafe to go in? But the big one is this: Who am I? What can I do? What can I really make in terms of change? And the answer is absolutely.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: Plato said, "The penalty for not involving yourself in politics is you end up being governed by your inferiors." Likewise, I would say the penalty for not involving yourself in culture and society is you end up losing it. We are afraid of a culture that we are unwilling to fix. Then we get what we deserve.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Where does that fear come from? Is that intuitive? Is that human nature, do you think? Or has that been instilled in us?
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: We're clannish people. We've been clannish people since the advent of humanity. If you look and think and vote and act like me, you're safe. If you don't, I'm a little fearful of that. Then we exacerbate that fear by CNN and Fox and the divided government.
--:-- Pew Research — I'm going to mess these numbers up a little, but you'll get the idea. Pew Research reported that about 80% of us recognize that depending on which news station we watch, we know the content we're getting is slanted toward our political view. Pew also found out that about the same percentage of us know that the information coming out of politicians' mouths is tainted. We also know about the same amount that the information we get on social media is tainted. So we know we're being divided. We don't trust the news source and we know social media is not to be trusted. Yet the same people admit to spending over three hours per day either on social media, on TV, or listening to the same stuff on the radio.
--:-- Here's the paradigm: We know it's crap and we know it divides us, but we feed ourselves with it three hours a day. If you stay awake normally about 12 hours a day, 25% of our waking hours we're feeding ourselves with the stuff that we know divides us. It's like we're addicted to it.
--:-- So one, I do think we're born in it. I think human beings have an innate clan mentality. But then to the second part of your question, I think we're also feeding ourselves with this clan mentality even when we know it's bad for us.
--:-- My belief set is this: I don't know much about you. I don't know how you vote. I don't know how you worship. I don't know how you love. I don't know who you love. I know what color you are, so okay. But does it really matter who you love, what your sexuality is, how you vote, who you worship, what you look like, or what you come from if you're doing something extraordinary for other people in your community? If you're doing something extraordinary to serve people in your community that aren't as fortunate as you, regardless of what you look like, how you vote, who you love, or any of that other stuff, I can celebrate you. Likewise, if I'm doing the same thing, regardless of all that about me, you can celebrate me because we can celebrate one another's humanity.
--:-- If that creates a foundation where I can buy into you because of what you're doing and you can buy into me from what I'm doing, now we have a foundation of mutual respect and admiration and trust. We can now have non-threatening civil conversations about the stuff that matters, and we will find commonality. An army of normal folks using their discipline and their passion where it meets opportunity, finding out about one another, celebrating one another, and joining one another in community around the stuff that matters, creates a foundation that we can break down all these stereotypical crap that's dividing us. There's the goal.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I coach a lot of entrepreneurs, and one of the first exercises I do with them, whether in person or virtual, is I have them open up their Instagram and just start slowly scrolling through it.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: That's great. I love that.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Knowing how social media works, everyone says social media feeds you negative stuff. No, social media wants you to stay on the app so they can feed you ads that people pay for. The only reason they would feed you some negative story or political story or combative story is because you're spending time on it. If you look at my Instagram, it has two things: motivational business stuff because I'm a sucker for a good Michael Jordan quote, and how to coach 10-year-olds baseball because I love baseball. I played in college a little, and now I coach my sons. If you look through my Instagram, there's literally two things that come through. None of it is political stuff. Half the time I don't even know what's going on. I didn't even find out that Trump got shot until the next day. I woke up to a text message: "Hey, did you see this crazy shit about Trump?" I didn't even know because it doesn't come through for me because of what I spend my time on and where I put my focus.
--:-- What I just heard you say is what you focus on is who you become. If you focus on your family, if you focus on your community, if you focus on positive change, then that's what comes back to you. What I try to combat so much in the work I do on this podcast and the stories I try to share is moving away from this cultural self-orientation that has been baked into our interactions in a way that says, "If I don't go get mine, then everything's going to be taken from me." What I hear you describing is a path to start to break that cultural virus down. It's going to take a million, 10 million, 100 million touch points, interactions that change that.
--:-- I don't mean to Bogart here because I'm supposed to be interviewing you, but I had this really interesting interaction with my son the other day. He's 10 years old. He's a very inquisitive little kid. The little one could give a shit what I'm doing, but the older one watches literally every move I do. We were at a gas station or whatever. I smiled to the woman when I held the door, then I walked in and said hello to the person getting a drink out of the cooler next to us. Then I was chatting up the person who checked us out and walked out. My son was like, "Why did you smile at every single person?" I was like, "Yeah, why would I not do that? I don't want them to have a bad day. What if that smile means something to them? Maybe it means nothing. But what did it cost me? It cost me nothing."
--:-- That's the part I struggle with: What are the words, actions — and this is really the question back to you — that get us in a mind frame where we can get out of ourselves a little bit and be more intentional in our interactions with people? Is there something you recommend or someone you know that has a good philosophy around this or a quote that can help? We're just so wrapped up in our day-to-day lives that we forget that a smile from you through this screen could change my entire day. The more we do that, it spreads a positive virus throughout versus this negativity we feel all the time.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: I don't know, man. Maybe it's a little old school and hokey, but I think the golden rule still applies. Do unto others as you would like done unto you. How hard is that? That is so old school, time tested, and applicable today as it was whenever it was written. I love what you're saying.
--:-- If you have a child with autism that's being bullied at school, think about — for those of you listening who have children — think about how your basic instinct, your most primal basic instinct, is to love and protect your child. Imagine the gut-wrenching feeling you have sending your kid away from your protective cocoon every day to a place called a school where you know they're about to live in agony because of the bullying. Imagine the difficulty.
--:-- We had a guest whose beautiful teenage autistic kid was ostracized and bullied and not included in anything. At 17 years old, she killed herself. Her name was Aaron. Her father told me — and I will try not to get emotional saying this — but her father told me, "You know, Bill, if she had one friend, she'd be alive today." One.
--:-- Two days later, they're sitting in Aaron's bedroom because they've got to clean all this stuff out now. Their daughter's dead. They're sobbing and holding each other, trying to figure out how to get through the next day. In that moment of despair, their passion and their discipline overtook them. They said, "We don't ever want this to happen to any more parents like us. If she only had one friend." So they started an organization in honor of their daughter called Erin's Hope for Friends. The first time it was eight kids in their community. All they did was reach out to parents who had children with autism, picked out a night, brought them together, and had Cokes and snacks and video games and music. They said, "Hey, have a blast. We're leaving." The parents got the hell out of there and let these kids do what kids want to do: hang out, be buddies.
--:-- Then they started these things called e-houses or whatever. Now there are thousands of autistic kids who have places to go twice a week all over the country as a result of this. This is just another one of our stories: Erin's Hope for Friends. If somebody in the middle of the most desperate time in their life — losing their child to suicide, who they knew was getting bullied and they just desperately couldn't do anything to help her — can find a way to help other people, we all can.
--:-- It simply is: How would I have liked to have been helped? How would my daughter have liked to have been helped? To me, it is that simple. It is just having the temerity to get out of your comfort zone and out of your bubble. We see opportunity every day. We also know what we're good at and what we like to do. It's just having the temerity to spend a little time and employ that passionate ability where need is.
--:-- If we had a hundred million people — a third of our country — doing that, what would our culture look like today versus what it does? Because we can't wait. There is no waiting. Who is going to come save us? The government, CNN, and Fox? We know that's not going to happen. We all sit around hand-wringing about the division, the disintegration of culture, where our society's going. Well, here's what's going to become of us: We were started by "We the People." We can be fixed by "We the People." It's just, do we have the same courage and foresight that our forefathers did? They were fighting the British. We're fighting ourselves. All we've got to do is break it down and understand that we still have all the power, liberty, ability, passion, energy, and opportunity today that we did two and a half centuries ago. We just have to have the willingness and the temerity to address it.
--:-- I believe with everything I am that a literal army of normal folks engaging in culture, breaking down stereotypes, working hard for one another, using passion and discipline to employ it in areas of opportunity, genuinely fixes this country.
--:-- How do we inspire those messages? We tell them every week. Every single guest leaves their personal information. If you're in Scottsdale, Arizona, and you hear a story about a guy in Memphis who's working to properly help grow the black middle class, you like that? Connect with each other. Then bring that guy to Scottsdale and do it in Scottsdale. That happened this month. It's connectivity. It's inspiration. There's always safety in numbers. It's encouragement and it's taking back our culture and our narrative from the people who are incented by power and wealth to divide us.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I wrote this article called "How to Keep America the Greatest Country on Earth." The crux of my argument is that while most people quote "We the People" — and this is not any context on what you said — to me, the most brilliant part and the core message of that document is actually this, paraphrasing: "To form a more perfect union." What our founding fathers gave us was our mission in that sentence. "We the people," yes, it's about the people. However, they gave us our mission: the continual improvement of the union. It is through these micro actions that we take on an individual basis — as your term, common folk, everyday folk — that these actions are so important.
--:-- To me, this is a difficult thing because life is tough. It is complicated. The world does seem more confusing and faster paced than ever before. Obviously, I've only lived since 1981, so I can't say beforehand whether life was more hectic or not. But my understanding from reading and talking to people is this is most likely the most hectic, most fast-paced, most confusing time in the existence of our species. The only way to break through that is through these little micro actions, through these little positive touch points.
--:-- This is the part where I think people get hung up, and I'd really like your opinion on it. When I talk to people about these things, oftentimes they feel like if they were to do something and it doesn't create some massive improvement, then what's the use?
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And, you know, I give a portion of what I make through my business and the various ways that we generate revenue. I give it to this small veterans charity. I didn't serve. I wish I did. I almost did. I didn't. I ended up getting a baseball scholarship and chose that life instead. But these guys have a store where basically veterans in our community get to come down, and they get allocated a certain amount of credits every month. They can come down and shop for what they need. They sign up for the program, and there are certain stipulations. As long as you fit whatever the criteria is — a lot of these people are homeless or near homeless — they get to come in and shop for stuff and they don't have to pay for it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The amount I give them doesn't make their year, but I said to my friends, "Why do you do this?" I just said, "I don't know. What if one person is going to be hungry this month and my $2,500 allows somebody to eat?" I'm not trying to say I'm perfect because I'm certainly not. I could do more. But I guess I'm looking for — and maybe we just don't have the answer, and maybe the answer is in the various episodes of your show — what is that statement that someone like me can use? I finished this show with you. I started crying about the story. I'm completely inspired by you, your mission, and Alex and what you guys are doing. When I get pushback from someone who doesn't understand this concept, or maybe is just caught up in themselves, I'm looking for the words or the concept that I can give to them to crack them open, to turn their brain a little bit. If someone's listening and they're like, "Yeah, I hear Bill. He sounds like a great guy and I love what he's doing," what's that word, that concept, that idea that we can put in front of them to crack them open a little bit and maybe get them to do something?
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: First, tell Aaron's family that one person would have made a difference. Just hear that. Second, to your initial thought that if it doesn't make some huge, big splash, it's not worth getting involved in the first place — tell Aaron's family that. I know this sounds like a shameless plug, but I dare you to listen to any three episodes of *An Army of Normal Folks* and not see the answer to your question. I dare you. A double dog dare you. Triple dog. I'll make a bet. Because honestly, your question is a really fair one. I was asking that of myself when this started.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: Please remember, I don't find the guest. I don't do the production. I don't add the music. I don't do the artwork. I don't run the social media. I'm the host. I'm the host because something rolled out of my mouth that sounded interesting and they built a show around it. But I got to be honest with you, I was also on the fence. Does this really make a difference? Alex, can you give me the thing we just did for Shop Talk? [To producer] Does this really make a difference? Ironically, before we got on, I just recorded next Friday's Shop Talk.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: So I'm going to give you some stuff. I wondered, right? So here you go. Two listeners have joined CASA, where they advocate for foster children in the legal system. A Haitian orphanage called A Place of Hope is now adopting the model of another show we did called Sleep in Heavenly Peace, whose volunteers have built 140,000 beds for kids without them in the United States. This Haitian orphanage has a woodworking shop. So now Haitian orphans without families are building beds for Haitian children who have families but no beds. That orphanage's pump went out — it's the only pump to provide clean drinking water for an entire area of Haiti. We put a call out to the Army. Within two days, $27,000 was raised. This whole place has lights and clean drinking water because people just listened in.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: A member of the Army — someone who subscribes — started running with the homeless through the Atlanta chapter of Back on My Feet, which I told you about. He reached out to Sleep in Heavenly Peace to volunteer. He donated to meet several requests on Care Portal, another thing we had. He is now supporting a future superhero in Friends, which is another episode. Tommy Norman, one of our first guests, is considered the Michael Jordan of community policing in North Little Rock. A listener wrote: "Bill, just want to say thanks for the hope. I reached out to your guest, Officer Tommy Norman, after your episode. To my amazement, he called me back like you said he would. We talked about my daughter who's facing addiction and I almost lost her. I genuinely think he saved her."
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: An Oklahoma listener named Jim Pina is replicating the model of another guest, Big Al Holden's Secret Families. They will now give 10,000 gifts to 2,000 kids whose families can't afford Christmas on Christmas Eve. Premium member Pastor Donald Fry has talked about several episodes in his sermons. As a result, his church is involved in a number of activities highlighted on our show. He even preached on a thing called "Don't Be a Turkey Christian" based on a billboard we had in Times Square and my appearance on Kelly Clarkson's show. It goes on and on and on. None of this is big. Did you hear everything I said? Nobody here started some massive organization. But these are touch points all over our country. What if we had 100 million of them? Think of what our culture looks like, how differently we approach and think about and appreciate one another.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: *Army of Normal Folks* — we the people making differences every day where we can. Your passion, your discipline, your ability at areas of opportunity — not in massive ways, but in small ways with massive volume — changes all of it. This is proof. We've been on there 10 months, dude. Love spreads. It's contagious. I didn't even mean to have that list. The timing happened to be that we did that today, but there you go.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I appreciate it. I'm moved and inspired. It's funny — you hear these stories and you start questioning your own contributions.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: You should. I do. It is so true. When I interview somebody and they go through their whole thing, I find myself inspired every interview. Then I think to myself, "Damn Bill, you could do more here." This thing is costing me money because every other week I'm donating to something I never heard of because the guest inspires me. But I don't miss it.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: Now I'm going to brag. Two of my kids work in D.C. There's a kid up there who is really bright and has an internship in D.C. He goes to the University of Alabama. I don't know the exact word for what he has, but he slurs and drools a little when he speaks and he doesn't walk particularly well. When he was a baby, he was afflicted with something that causes motor function issues, but his cerebrum is 100% there. This guy is in D.C. on an internship by himself. Do you think he's making many friends? Do you think people are really engaging with him? One of my daughter's friends noticed this guy walking in the rain, pulled up next to him, shared her umbrella, walked with him, and got to know him. Yesterday he celebrated his birthday in D.C. with my daughter, her friend, and 17 other people all around him. They threw him a birthday party. He said it was the first birthday party anybody ever threw for him.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: That's not an organization. That's not anything. It's just normal folks being passionate about someone not as advantaged as they are, seeing an opportunity of need and filling it, and changing this kid's life. He doesn't even want to go back. He's going to stay in D.C. now and work for a nonprofit serving people, writing grant requests — because one person was simply kind to him. We can change this country if an army of normal folks will break through all the noise, use our passion and discipline in areas of need, and fill them. We're telling those stories and through those stories, trying to inspire more and more people to do the same.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: What I hope you hear in the stories Bill is telling — because this is what I'm hearing — is it's one moment. You can change the course of someone's life right now. Today. Where do you live?
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: Upstate New York. Albany area.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Okay. I guarantee you — I don't know how big Albany is, I can guess — I guarantee you there are 5,000 people right now in your town in serious distress.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: Many more, but yes.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: It would not take much to change one person's life today.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: 100%.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I want to change topics slightly, same vein, slightly different question as we get towards the end. Something very near and dear to my heart is sports and the coaching of sports. As I've gotten involved in coaching youth sports, I have been very disenfranchised by how I was coached as a youth compared to how kids today are coached. I did an episode on it.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: Yeah.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: My kids play travel baseball. They love baseball. They play other sports too. The younger one plays football and basketball. The older one plays basketball and baseball and does all kinds of camps. I do coach both of them as an assistant. But I have seen things that I just don't remember seeing when I was a kid. I was a pretty aware kid. My dad coached me. I had all kinds of different coaches. It was a different era. My high school football coach once shoulder-pressed me by my face mask for getting a 15-yard late hit penalty.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: You deserved it.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: That's the funny thing. I tell these stories to my kids because I want them to understand where I come from. My whole message to them is outcomes don't matter. Attitude and effort is all that matters. There will be a time in your career if you continue down this path where outcomes matter. But today, it's attitude and effort.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I played for an American Legion post when I was coming up. It was the best travel ball in the area. I loved being part of that community. The guys would come in, they would come to our games. It was a wonderful experience. My third base coach would be smoking a cigar. My first base coach would be ripping heaters down at first base as he's giving signs with his other hand. It was very direct, honest, sincere, and caring, but gruff and direct and to the point.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I shared a story with them about when I was younger. We were losing to this team. They were talking trash. I came up with two guys on, I hit a home run, and I pimped the home run. I shouldn't have. I'm not advocating for that. But I did. The moment my foot hit home plate, I expected my teammates to be there. It was the head coach who picked me up, threw me over his shoulder, walked me to the dugout, and threw me into the dugout. I sat there and looked at him. I was like, "Yeah, I deserve that." That was my mentality.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Today it's completely different. If you look at them wrong, they start crying. My question to you is about what I have seen today. The parents have taken over in a way that feels like so much of these sports have been corrupted by adults — by parents off the field, by coaches who are either hell-bent on winning or hell-bent on making their kid the starting shortstop. I struggle with this so much. I'd love for you to talk about it with all your experience, what you see, and what may be a solution or a path to break free of this. Or even very personally, how I can continue to coach my own kids and the kids on my teams to love the game, appreciate it, enjoy it, and be the best versions of themselves. Wherever you want to take that.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: It's revolting. It makes me want to throw up. Alex, what's the episode? I think we did a Shop Talk on parents and kids and sports. About a month and a half ago, we did a Shop Talk episode on this very thing. I'll find it and have it linked in the show notes for everybody. It's revolting and it's gross. Ultimately, we're robbing the kids of what the experience should be. Long after the days of playing football and baseball are over, what you learn on the baseball field should serve you in your family, your business, in society, and the way you approach life. If pimping a home run is the basis of who you are, you're going to suffer those consequences one day. In my opinion, your coach was easy on you.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: On May 23rd, there is an episode titled "Flagging Parents for Parental Interference." That will give you my real take, and I've got a few stats in there that might be helpful. The bottom line is helicopter parents, people who want to relive their high school hero days through their kids, people who didn't have high school hero days who want to live vicariously through their kids — all of them make me want to vomit.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: So what do I do as a coach? I have a preseason meeting. Look, I am one of the most competitive human beings you've ever met. I expect to win every game and want to win every championship. In travel ball, you're recruiting kids a lot. I think coaches are often afraid they may lose their two or three best players if they put their foot down. If that is the case, you as the coach are part of the problem too. I would rather coach a bunch of five or six-level talent kids that are nine or ten character kids than the exact opposite. That goes along with parents.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: I have preseason meetings and I lay it out there. If parents don't like it, I invite them to understand that the door was not locked when you walked in. You're welcome to get the hell out, but do it now because I'm not playing. If you stay, your kids will learn the value of character, commitment, integrity, discipline, teamwork, leadership, and most importantly, grace. If they stay, they're going to learn those things. Along the way, they're also going to become better at this particular discipline, whether it's basketball, football, or baseball.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: My leading mantra: I have never seen a coach hit a home run. I've never seen a first base coach throw a no-hitter. I've never seen a coach turn a double play. They're in the dugout. Players win games. Not coaches. Not parents. Players. Players win games. Coaches win players. How does a coach win a player? Does he care about me? Is he holding me accountable because he's an asshole, or because he wants me to be a better human being? Do I have a clear understanding of where I am on this team and why I'm on this team and how to improve? What are these fundamentals of character and commitment and integrity about?
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: I tell all of my teams and all of my parents: we can be progressive — and I don't mean politically progressive. We can be a progressing, evolving, growing society without abandoning the core principles that got us here in the first place. Long after the days of playing the game are over, it is those core principles and that foundation that will lead to a meaningful life with your family, your spouse, your children, in your business, and in your society. I am far more concerned with your kid being a productive member of society than a productive member of this football team. So I'm going to coach that stuff. I'm going to win my players. Along the way, we're going to teach the X's and O's. Then I'm going to go let the players win the football games because that's what they do. Now you stay the hell out of my way.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: If I lose some good kids and some good families, I lose them. I'll coach up what I got. I believe so strongly in that coaching ethos that I've let many walk before. But I'll tell you something else that happens. Charles Barkley was being ribbed by Shaquille O'Neal when Barkley's daughter turned 16. They were like, "Hey man, you have guys coming over." They were ribbing Barkley about having a daughter about to be taken out. Chuck said, "I've got the answer. I ain't worried about it." They said, "What?" He said, "The first one that comes over, I'm going to invite him into the living room. I'm going to sit him down right there with a glass of tea while she's getting dressed and be very polite. Then when he stands up to shake my hand, I'm going to beat his ass to a pulp before he ever even sees my daughter." They said, "Why?" He said, "Because when he gets back to school, word will get around. Ain't nobody going to call my daughter."
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: It's a funny metaphor, but the truth is word does get around. If you set this foundation as a coach for your program, you may lose people the first year or so. But what happens is people start talking up the difference. The kids you lost or the parents you lost because you're not putting up with that crap — there are umpteen hundreds more that want their kid to be part of it. What you end up doing is creating the proper culture. You start attracting the proper kids and the proper parents. Then it's not a problem. Word will get around.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Bill, this has been an absolute pleasure. I couldn't thank you enough for sharing all the stories and your insights. I appreciate the hell out of you. We are going to be pushing what you guys are doing a lot — not just through the release of your episode, but through our other channels as well. I think you're doing God's work. Whether the people listening believe in God or not, I do. I think this is incredibly important to the culture of our country. Thank you so much.
--:-- Coach Bill Courtney: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the support. Let's keep in touch. Let's go. Make it look easy.
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