All About Change - Bill Courtney - Undefeated Football Coach's Guide to Building a Better Community

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

Bill Courtney first became widely known as the volunteer coach who transformed an underprivileged high school football team into champions in the Oscar-winning documentary “Undefeated.” But going from a traumatic childhood to becoming an inspiring community leader was a hard-fought victory.    Bill joined host Jay Ruderman to talk about how overcoming a difficult upbringing led to his success in business, his community, and on the field. They discuss how Bill’s challenging journey that led him to becoming a beloved coach instilled in him empathy, integrity, and resilience,  and how change can be affected by “an army of normal folks” leveraging their skills, passions, and opportunities.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I want to tell you about an awesome podcast called an Army of Normal Folks. It's hosted by coach Bill Courtney, the subject of the Oscar winning documentary, Undefeated. And it's based on his powerful vision that our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits, talking big words on CNN and Fox, but an Army of Normal Folks just deciding I can help. I hope you'll check out an army of normal folks wherever you listen to your podcasts. You don't have to be part of the media and you don't have to hold a public office

and you don't have to be the CEO of some multinational corporation to affect change in your world and your community. And I think the remedy is an army of normal folks. Bill Courtney is perhaps best known for his work on the football field. Coaching the Manassas Tigers in Memphis, Tennessee, earned him a claim in the Oscar-winning documentary, Undefeated. But for Bill, coaching is more about what happens off the field.

We are all bruised in this life, and it requires persistence, courage, and integrity to keep getting off the ground and keep facing the day. Not only for yourself, but the people around you. That is what is character to me. It is not about the numbers on the scoreboard at the end of the game. Bill's own character was forged in the fire of a rough childhood. I experienced unconditional love for my mother, but I also experienced an enormous amount of trauma. And so I grew up and became a very young man with a whole lot of insecurities. And it took me a long time in the love of my wife and my four children to start understanding

the value of fatherhood from being a father, having never experienced the value of fatherhood from having a father. Understanding that value made Bill keen to pass it on to others. It is a blessing, Jay, because it also serves to help me really understand the plight of fatherless kids in the inner cities that I coached, broken men that come to me in my business looking for a job after having spent the first 30 years of their life screwing up. All of Bill's lived experiences serve to solidify

his guiding philosophy that the only thing any of us normal folks need to do to affect change is to find the opportunity to do so. You do not have to be part of an NGO. You do not have to be part of a faith-based organization. You do not have to be part of some foundation or anything else. You have to look at yourself and say, I'm blessed. I want to give back, this is what I'm good at, this is what I'm passionate about, and there's an opportunity. And stick your head in it like filling a hole in a dike. That is it.

Thank you, Bill, so much for being my guest on All About Change. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. So let me start off by asking you, there's a through line in your life about helping people. And where does that value come from? Yeah, you know, Jay, that's a fair question. And I don't think any of us are exactly alike, but I think we are parts of a number of people that mentored us coming up, and those parts

make up our own whole. Despite the fact that my dad left when I was young, and mom was married and divorced five times, and I grew up with a lot of trauma, there were a lot of people along my life, my grandfathers, one of my grandmothers, coaches, teachers, people along the way who always showed me kindness and service that I think really impacted my life. And so bits and pieces of each of those experiences, I think, have culminated into what is my ethos regarding service. Well, for those who have not seen Undefeated, I'd suggest that they see it. But there's something in it that really stuck with me, But there's something in it that really stuck with me, where you talk about your dad not being there when you were growing up.

That you would leave the football games and you'd see all the other dads carrying their sons shoulder pads and helmets and helping them off the field and you were walking by yourself. And it's poignant because towards the end of the movie, you're carrying your son's pads and helmet. So what was it like growing up without your dad? I had a mother who worked hard and loved me unequivocally. She did her best.

My father left when I was young and mom was married and divorced five times. My fourth dad took out a 38 caliber pistol one night after drinking a half gallon of usher scotch and shot the house up. I had to dive out a window that night to live. Wow. So what was it like growing up? I experienced unconditional love for my

mother, but I also experienced an enormous amount of, um, of trauma really. Um, and what happens along the way after your dad doesn't have anything to do with you and then more men come in your life and you leave your life. What you start to do is a young strapping 14, 15, 16 year old guy lettered in six sports in high school and you know tried to keep decent grades and despite all of that nobody stuck around And so what you do is you develop this odd sense of something must be wrong with you. So how I grew up, I grew up with a loving mother who tried really hard and worked hard to keep me straight. I grew up with a lot of trauma and a revolving door of people in and out of my life.

And so I grew up and became, as a very young man, with a whole lot of insecurities as a result of that stuff. And it took me a long time, and the love of my wife and my four children, to start understanding the value of fatherhood from being a father, having never experienced the value of fatherhood from having a father. But it is a blessing, Jay, because it also serves to help me really understand the plight of fatherless kids in their cities that I coached, broken men that come to me in my business looking for a job after having spent the first 30 years of their life screwing up? You know you would think that growing up as

you did and and feeling like as you said worthless that you'd be angry that you you'd be angry at the world but when you see you when I see you on film, I've never seen someone so loving. To kids from a very different background, who are going through some really tough stuff in life, and you're there for them. To the extent that you're giving up time that you could have with your own family to be with them, not just for football, but to help them through their problems in life. time that you could have with your own family to be with them, not just for football, but

to help them through their problems in life. How does someone who basically felt that they were worthless become such a loving person? First of all, that's really kind. Second of all, I was really angry for many, many, many years, until my 40s. And that anger went away when I started to understand the value of grace and forgiveness. And the fact is, in my opinion, it's more important for the forgiver than the forgiving. But it took me four decades to figure that out. But I always had a sense that even though I didn't have an

earthly father, I had a heavenly father. And I felt that love even among those desperate times. And whether you're Jewish or Christian or Hindu or Muslim or whatever, and even agnostic. I am what I am and you are what you are, you plural. And I am not a person who says, believe like me or you're doomed. I think faith is a very personal thing and I have many friends of many different religions and some with no religion and I respect them equally. So I don't want to evoke some type of moral superiority

when I say what I say, because there's nothing about me that is morally superior. But I will tell you, my sense of love, I really do think comes from my belief that despite all of my transgressions and despite all of the problems I've had, I've always experienced love from a father, even though I didn't have one on Earth. That's beautiful. I think spirituality plays a very strong role in many of our lives,

and yet we live in a world where we're afraid to talk about that. Like, in civil society, we don're afraid to talk about that. Like in civil society, we don't want to talk about that, but it is a big part of many people's lives. You know, I think not wanting to talk about it's part of the problem. I mean, the truth is, I don't care what you look like, I don't care who you love, Jay. I don't care who you worship. I don't care how you vote. None of that stuff ultimately matters. But the problem is we've become so polarized in our categories that seem to define groups of people as who they are based on those categories.

And we've started villainizing and canceling one another if we didn't belong in the right groups or categories for particular conversation. That now we've started to be afraid to actually have conversations about the stuff that matters. And I think it's high time that we drop our egos and sensibilities at the door and start having civil, non-threatening conversations about the stuff that matters. I think one of the things that's hurting us the most is the unwillingness to talk about it. And so I think when you the things that's hurting us the most is the unwillingness to talk about it. And so I think when you operate in a vacuum, when you surround yourself with people that look like you, think like you, vote like you, love like you, worship like you, every conversation

you have is just going to be circular and there's no growth. So I think we got to get out of that vacuum of thought, get out of that place and experience a little discomfort, but trust another human being's ability for discernment and have civil non-threatening conversations outside of that vacuum about the stuff that matters so that we can grow. I really love the way you're approaching the world, but it seems like our world is so broken. Our politics are broken, our civil discourse is broken, and yet I believe in the American people. I believe in that people are good at heart. I know this is a big macro question, but why are we such a broken society made up of people

who are basically good people? What the hell happened here? What that? Jay, do we have a four-hour podcast? I read a ton. I mean, I read a lot. I read too much. It drives my wife nuts. And history is a very interesting indicator of the future. And I will share with you something I was just reading this morning. When our culture starts questioning one another's belief systems, that's a good thing, because

you start to learn why somebody believes and thinks the way they do, and nobody is 100% wrong and nobody is 100% right, absent, associopath. So if you're willing to listen and hear another person's perspectives and thoughts on an idea, and you're willing to be open to it, and then the person that's speaking is willing to be that open to you, you're gonna find common ground,

you're gonna find conciliation. And my son is the chief of staff in Washington, D.C. for a sitting member of Congress. And I was with that member of Congress and my son at a dinner about a year ago, and he repeated something that we've all lamented on, which is 30 years ago, politics has always been a full contact sport, but 30 years ago, people would hammer it out till five o'clock, but those two, that Democrat and Republican at 5.30 would be at the pub having a beer together. And more importantly, their wives would have drinks and dinner together.

And a Democrat and his wife, and a Republican and his wife, would go out to eat. And so what happened is, even though you had different policy beliefs as, you respected one another's people, and you understood the decency behind one another. And then that dynamic started breaking down as a result of our political discourse, because if I was running against you in a primary,

I could use the fact that you'd have printed somebody across the aisle against you to try to beat you in a primary. So you started withdrawing from that. And so little by little, we've disintegrated politically this willingness to reach across the aisle to save our own political lives. And then the media and social media get involved. We start polarizing and surrounding ourselves with only people that like us and only get

on our information from the people that are like us. And little by little, we start pulling more and more apart. And then people's lives start getting destroyed. We start attacking people personally. We start attacking people about their children or about who they love or how they worship or whatever. And more and more we start beating them up. And so then about 15 years ago, some really quality people started saying, you know what, I would really like to do some good for my city on the school board or the county commission or be the mayor or work as the county trustee

or I would like to be a state representative or a state senator or governor or a house. Pick any level of municipal state or federal elections. I would like to do that and I think I could do a good job, but I'm not willing to drive my kids and wife through what it takes to get the job and I don't want to play that gross game because it's gotten so divided. Well, all of this is to say that I don't think this is anything new. Plato said, one of the major penalties for refusing to participate in politics is you end up being governed by your infirs. Well, Plato said that. So clearly this has been going on since the beginning of time. And the reason is, in my belief side, is that human beings are clannish. We always have been.

And I would like to think a progressive, developed, evolved society of people would have the temerity and the wisdom to break from their clan in order for the greater good. And I do think our country did that for many, many years. And I think the advent of social media, the advent of CNN and Fox, and a vulturistic attitude toward covering politics and society and social issues has started to revert us. And I think it's dangerous. And I think the remedy is an army of normal votes. People like you and me, regardless,

I think you're Jewish, aren't you? Yes. So you're Jewish, I'm Christian, you're from up in Boston or the Northeast, I'm from Memphis and the Southeast. I mean, our demographics are pretty different, but I absolutely love the work you've done for folks who are disabled or have challenges.

I celebrate that. I think that is phenomenal. Thank you. And so you obviously appreciate what I've done for coaching kids and some of the other stuff. Well, here we are, two guys from two completely different walks of life that can celebrate one another. That can't happen when the media is destroying one another and our politics is destroying one another. So fine. What we need is just an army of normal folks, hundreds of thousands of people in this country, like you and me,

coming from different walks of life and different people, coming together to celebrate one another and having civil non-threatening chats about the stuff that matters, and we need to retake the narrative. So I want to dive into that a little bit more, but I'll tell you a quick story. First of all, when I was in high school, going way back into the 80s, I do remember the times of Republicans and Democrats sitting down together, socializing together. But fairly recently, I was on Capitol Hill meeting with a Democrat from Massachusetts on disability issues and a Republican literally across the hall from Mississippi, also working on disability issues, both great people,

both had done so much for the cause. And I asked each of them, hey, do you know your colleague across the hall? And like, no, I've never met him. Literally, like you could walk 12 feet across the hall. And I just left there saying, something is terribly wrong to have good people, just because they're from different parties, don't even say hello to each other. But how does this army of good people break through the ossified political system, the

terrible social media that's like a garbage dump. How does that happen? I own a business I started in 2001. I started with $17,000. I now have 135 employees. I do business in 42 different countries. We'll do about 80 million in sales this year. Not saying that to brag, I'm saying to make a point.

I am a very realistic, pragmatic human being, and I have to be. Any business you run, it is what it is, all right? Data, analytics, all of that. It really is an idealism that I have, okay? But I don't want somebody to hear that and say, Oh, he's just an idealistic idiot. He doesn't understand how the real world works.

I know how the real world works. I'm, I live in it and working it every day. But in answer to your question, even though I do realize it's a little bit idealistic, I also think it's workable is so simple to me. We have got to have the courage to just have conversations and celebrate the things that we can all agree on. Because if you create a basis and a foundation of celebration and respect around the things we can agree on

that opens the door for us to discuss the things we don't agree on, but in a respectful, learning, understanding way. So when a Jewish gay father of two, surrogated by a lady who lived in Washington who is a TV producer living in Beverly Hills and his partner and my wife and I who are Christian southern people, you can't come from two different walks of life than that. When those two couples come together around a simple philanthropic project that we both agree we see a place that needs help, and then we become friends around that basis and that foundation, now we do talk about LGBTQ rights.

We talk about my faith, and we talk about those things. And all of a sudden, it's not threatening and scary and it's not a place that you recoil and it doesn't turn into an argument. It turns into a discussion, an open honest discussion to learn. And I've learned so much from them and they've learned so much from us and one of them when he heard the word Christian or Jesus would immediately run because he just thought it was the most horrible thing on the face of the planet. And now he embraces people from my faith because he understands a different viewpoint. He doesn't embrace the faith, but he embraces people from the faith. And that's all that really matters.

So that's a microcosm of what I have seen over the last year of literally tens of thousands of people coming around, rallying around a certain project or societal ill or issue that they can agree on and work together to fix that then creates a foundation of basis to have the conversations about other stuff and grow together. It seems simple and it seems idealistic but in a very pragmatic sense. I've just watched it work for the last year and I believe with everything I am that it is just normal, average, you don't have to be part of the media and you don't have to hold a public office and you don't have to

be the CEO of some multinational corporation to affect change in your world and your community. And people that do that together, grow together, learn together, and it breaks down barriers. These barriers that we've created for ourselves these last 30 or 40 years, and I've watched them crumble. Yeah, well that's beautiful. Bill, I wanna bring you back to football. Talk about your love for football and your love for coaching. And what do you think sets your coaching style apart?

What I love about football is there's one guy that scores, but there's 10 others that are bleeding, sweating, and beating themselves up and their name will never be in the paper and nobody's celebrating them, but if they don't do their job, that one guy can't score. That is quintessentially teamwork. I also love football because it teaches you the difference of being hurt and being injured. If you're hurt, get your ass up. If you were injured, go to the hospital, but don't be a victim of a bruise.

We are all bruised in this life. And it requires persistence, courage, and integrity to keep getting off the ground and keep facing the day. People say tough times build character. Football builds character. This stuff builds character. I think that's crap. I think the character is revealed during the tough times. I think the work you do in preparation of the tough times is what builds character. And then when the tough times hit you, it reveals whether or not you've done a good enough job, given yourself the proper foundation and principles to handle those tough times. And that's when your character is revealed. And I think football is just a game,

is a microcosm of life in that regard. And that you're always, no matter how well you coach, no matter how well you practice, no matter how well you plan, no matter how well you scheme, something's gonna happen to test your resolve. And you have the character to continue on in the face of all of those obstacles not only for yourself, but the people around you.

That is what is character to me. The second part of your question about my coaching philosophy is this. Players win games. I have never seen a coach score a touchdown. I've never seen a coach make a tackle. It just doesn't happen. Players win games. Coaches win players. And I believe if you teach that fundamental ethos and the tenets of commitment, integrity, perseverance, the

value of showing up on time, civility, dignity, forgiveness, grace. If you coach that, it's the paramount building blocks of your program. I think you win your kids because they understand they're playing for something bigger than themselves and they're growing for something bigger than the win on a Friday night. That's great. Talk to us about how you became the coach of Manassas in Memphis.

How did that come about? When I started my business in 2001 in a really dilapidated, crappy area of Memphis, because that was the only property I could afford, there was a school called Manassas that was about a mile from my property that had won four games in 10 years. I had 19 kids on the team and their equipment was dilapidated and their facility was crap. And they needed a coach and they knew I coached, they knew I was, and they reached out to me. And I was really only going to go over there for a couple of weeks during the spring practice to try to just get them started.

And I fell in love because what I saw in those kids, even though they were from the hood and even though they were from a different part of the city that I grew up in, I saw me. I saw kids without dads, I saw brokenness, I saw a very, very tough, hard outer shell with an enormous amount of insecurity in the middle. And I could feel where a lot of it came from. So I fell in love with them. And so I stayed.

And the reason I went there is because it was convenient. It was only a mile from work. I could make work and coaching happen because of the proximity. And then when I fell in the kids, I stayed and that turned into a seven year bit of work there at Manassas. Let's talk about some of your challenges there. I'm thinking about a young man, Chavis, who came, had a tough background and you developed a very strong connection with him. Chavis was a freak athlete and was good looking, big when he was young, so he was the in-crowd

guy. And because he was an in-crowd guy coming up in an area of the city that in-crowd guys tend to get in a lot of trouble, he was in it. And he was angry at the world and a very good football player. And again, I saw me in him. I saw insecurity masked by aggression. I saw toughness manifest itself in a way that was meant to elicit fear among his peers. And I saw when nobody else was around, an immature, self-conscious, hurt boy. That's what I saw.

And I identified with it. And so I started having conversations with him about that and called him on it. And he didn't like it at first, but he knew I was right. And we developed a relationship and he grew to trust me because he trusted that I understood who he was and he spent some time in jail. But little by little, we started breaking some of that stuff down, held him accountable. I mean, every time he screwed up, he was not playing that week. And by the end of his junior year, he was not only a leader on the field, he was a leader

inside because he grew to understand that he did have value. And his value was not in his street toughness and his willing to fight, but his value was in his ability to lead. His value was in his ability to lead his value was in his ability to make it great. It's about that value was in his ability to have a positive measure of change on the people around him and he started to embrace that. And, um, incidentally, he's a grown man now.

Well, he's 29, but about five years ago, he started a thing called the North Memphis Steelers Youth Mentoring Program where he had 80 or 90 boys and 80 and 90 girls playing on three or four football teams and three or four cheerleading squads, one of which won the national championship. And on the back of all the uniforms with the word school first. So even in a youth thing, he made all the kids bring their report cards. And if they didn't have C's B's and A's, he didn't get them off the team. And he made him practice, but they could not play in games or cheer on the sideline until their grades were C's B's and A's.

And this is in an area where an 18 year old male is three times more likely to be dead or in jail by his 21st birthday than is to have a job. And he took in 180 kids over four years and had them concentrate on school first, held them accountable and got their young lives headed in the right direction. And that's the very guy that you were introduced to in a movie that you saw as a gangbanging, fighting jackass. Right. We as humans have the ability to change, to learn, and to redeem ourselves.

And Chavis Daniels' living embodiment of that. How did you get these kids to understand the character and building character was central to their success, their future success beyond football? The first year and a half, the character stuff wasn't sticking. I was just another dude with another program giving away more stuff and eventually I'd be gone. And so, yes or no, sir,

I'll take what you got and we'll see you when we see you kind of thing. But over the course of time, being consistent on a daily basis, continuing to come back despite any difficulties or obstruction, talking the same stuff consistently over and over again and illustrating it in your own life, eventually it starts to take hold. But it takes, it's very simple. It's just time. It's time, commitment, effort, consistency, and accountability. I want to talk a little bit, Bill, about your podcast, An Army of Normal Folks. First of all, what are some ways that normal folks can get involved? How can they have a positive impact on their community?

And what are some of the first steps they need to take? Shameless plug. Listen to the people on my podcast. That's first. Every week we highlight a story of someone who is really very normal. Their beginnings, Jay. I'm talking about people who don't come from any wealth, anything. And the magic is this.

When discipline and passion, and I don't mean discipline doing the right thing, I mean discipline is in your discipline. I think you're an attorney, that's your discipline. I'm a lumberman and a football coach, that's my discipline. When your discipline, when what you're good at and your passion meet at opportunity, amazing things can happen. And what I mean by that is I'm a football coach okay so my opportunity my discipline as a football coach or my

passion about football met at an opportunity analysis and amazing things happened okay I think the symphony is gorgeous I love going to the symphony Lisa dragged me the first time I thought I'd hate it and I love it. I can't play a musical instrument and I can't carry a tune in a in a pail, okay? So I will never ever teach anybody or mentor to young upcoming poverty kids that are interested in that stuff. I just will never do it because I may be passionate about it and I may see the opportunity, but I don't have that.

So the first thing we got to do is ask ourselves, what are we good at? What are we passionate about? And where's an opportunity in my clinical world to use that passion and that discipline to affect some measure of change? That's it. You do not have to join something.

You do not have to be part of an NGO. You do not have to be part of an NGO. You do not have to be part of a faith-based organization. You do not have to be part of some foundation or anything else. You have to look at yourself and say, I'm blessed. I wanna give back. This is what I'm good at.

This is what I'm passionate about. And there's an opportunity and stick your head in it like a like a fill in a hole in a dike. That is it. I had a guest on the show probably four or five months ago, I guess. Her name is Stacey Horst. Her daughter was autistic, loving, loved to cook, loved animals. Her daughter's name was Erin.

She was unmercifully bullied and ostracized. She once had a birthday party that no kids came to, which means parents of fifth graders wouldn't take their children to another little girl's birthday party. When she was 17, she killed herself because of her disability, because of her bully, because of her being ostracized. And as Stacey and her husband Darren sat in Aaron's bedroom, bawling three days later, four days later, trying to figure out how are we going to summon the courage to clean our

daughters' ream out? What are we going to do? They decided that no other parent should feel the helplessness and the gut wrenching loss they felt. And so they just said, there's other kids around the world, like Aaron, in our community, and there's other parents like us who are worried sick about their kids. If Aaron had just had one friend, she would be alive today, just one. So they started Aaron's Hope for Friends. That's what they called it. And the very first weekend, they found other parents of kids with autism

and other disabilities, and simply met in a room and let these eight kids that first showed up hang out. Video games, pizza, whatever. And the parents left the left the room said y'all be kids you know like all your friends are all the things that you want to be doing with the people that ostracizing y'all do and from their pain and from their passion for your daughter and their discipline gained by understanding what autism is by raising a by understanding what autism is by raising a 17 year old girl. And they saw a need, they now have E-clubs and Aaron Hopes for Friends chapters all over the place.

And there are thousands of kids every single week in our country with autism. They get to go sit down with other kids and go bowling and play and have friends because their passion and discipline met an opportunity even it's one of the most gut-wrenching times of their life and through it they are saving lives and changing both parents and children's lives. Nobody invited them to do that. Nobody asked them to go do that. They saw need

and they filled it with their discipline and passion. Every single week we highlight a story like that. I'll only tell you that story because I know that disability and children is something near and dear to your heart, so I'm just sharing it with you. But it's so simple. What am I good at? What am I passionate about? Where's my opportunity? I'm not going to wait to be invited. I'm going to have to temerity to go do something. And here's the thing, Jay, back to what we just first started talking about. In that situation, do you give a crap who I voted for president for? Not really.

Do you give two doodas about whether or not I'm gay or straight? No. Do you care about any of that? No. No. It's above it. It's greater than that.

It is our humanity. And then when in that world we grow to love and respect one another as a virtue of the work we're doing, now we can talk about that stuff and come together over it because we're joined by a much bigger thing. That's beautiful. Bill, first of all, I appreciate you and what you're doing to make our world a better place. And I'm going to give you a blessing that comes from the Jewish religion that may you go from strength to strength. And I'm going to give you a blessing that comes from the Jewish religion that may you go from strength to strength.

So thank you, Bill Courtney, so much for being my guest on All About Change. I really enjoyed this discussion. I think people get a lot out of listening to you. Jay, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. And one last shameless blog. I hope people keep listening to you because I know you do good work, but I hope some of your listeners will check out an Army of Normal Folks and maybe get inspired to do something

in their world. Thank you. I hope so too. Many, many thanks to Bill Courtney for joining All About Change. His commitment to change at every level for everyone is admirable. That's it for today's episode. Join us two weeks from today for my conversation with environmental activist, Aaron Brockovich. Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Shasson with story editing by Yochai Meytal and Mijan

Zulu. To check out more episodes or to learn more about the show, you can visit our website allaboutchangepodcast.com. If you like our show, spread the word, tell a friend or family member, or leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. We'd really appreciate it. All About Change is produced by the Ruderman Family Foundation in partnership with pod people.

That's all for now. I'm Jay Ruderman, and we'll see you next time on All About Change.