Building Winning Teams by Veteran NFL Coach, Al Saunders

Al Saunders, a veteran NFL coach with a rich history in football, talks with our host Craig Domann in this week's episode of Pro Mindset® Podcast. They discuss Saunders' journey as a coach, the importance of building relationships with players, and the key traits that set Hall of Fame players apart. Saunders emphasizes the significance of teaching, communication, and treating every player with respect. He shares insights on player development, the mental aspects of coaching, and the value of hard work and consistency in achieving success in the NFL. 

Episode Takeaways:

• Positive reinforcement is more effective than negative reinforcement.
• Effective communication is essential for a team to perform its best.
• Reflecting on a long career reveals the importance of relationships over accolades.

Al Saunders shares his experiences and insights from more than 50 years in football, emphasizing the importance of preparation, competitive spirit, and the value of relationships in coaching. He reflects on legendary players, his coaching philosophy, and the profound fulfillment that comes from team sports. He began as a graduate assistant at USC before moving on to coach wide receivers at Missouri. He later took on roles at Utah State, California (Cal), and Tennessee, where he worked as an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. In the NFL, he served as an assistant and later head coach for the San Diego Chargers before holding key offensive roles with the Kansas City Chiefs, St. Louis Rams, Washington Redskins, Baltimore Ravens, Oakland Raiders, Miami Dolphins, and Cleveland Browns. He discusses the impact of coaches like Dick Vermeil, who prioritize their players' well-being and foster a sense of belonging and purpose.

@uscfb @mostatefootball @UtahState @calbearsfball @vol_football @chargers @chiefs @rams @commanders @ravens @raiders @miamidolphins @clevelandbrowns 

#NFLCoaching #AlSaunders #CoachingPhilosophy #PlayerDevelopment #Communication #Coaching #TeachingInSports #CoachingRelationships #HallOfFame #FootballCoaching #Success #Football #Relationships #CompetitiveSpirit #NFL #Preparation #Legendary #TeamSports #USC #MissouriTigers #UtahState #CalBears #TennesseeVols #SanDiegoChargers #KansasCityChiefs #StLouisRams #WashingtonRedskins #BaltimoreRavens #OaklandRaiders #MiamiDolphins #ClevelandBrowns 

Transcript

CRAIG DOMANN (00:01)
Welcome everybody to Pro Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Craig Domann. Today we have a 38 year veteran NFL coach by the name of Al Saunders. Anybody that knows NFL remembers his name because he was a Superbowl champion with a St. Louis Rams many years ago when they won the Superbowl with the greatest show on turf with Trent Green being replaced.

He's been an NFL, he's been an NFL head coach for the San Diego Chargers, but he's best known, at least from my experience of being in the football business, as being an offensive guru. Being that guy that was always a step ahead of all the other defensive coordinators in the league. He was very creative, had a lot of good players in a various variety of different teams. And coach you coach with three hall of fame head coaches, Joe Gibbs, Dick Vermeel and Don Coriel.

So you've been around the block.

Well, Al Saunders still has a very powerful name in the NFL circles. And the Kansas City Chiefs recognized you as one of the best coordinators in their franchise history. And that was before Patrick Mahomes showed up. And then whoever's got him's got to look good.

He's going to be coaching.

All right, coach. We're going to talk about a variety of different things today. One of them, we're going to talk about you and your your journey as a coach, trying to figure it out because everybody everybody's trying to figure it out. All these coaches out there, if anybody's a younger coach, they're trying to figure it out. How do I move up? We're going to talk about that. Another thing I want to talk about is the players that you coached. What was the separator?

because sometimes it wasn't just the best athlete. You know, and you talked about Trent Green. know, Trent Green was probably with you in Washington. He was with you in Rams. He was with you in Kansas City, possibly, because I know he's in those three franchises and you weren't those three franchises. So what did you see in a guy like Trent Green? So let's start with you first. What did you find to be successful as a coach? And when you look back, what would you have done differently if you could have?

What did you care about that maybe you shouldn't have cared about? What did you not think was important that was really important?

Al saunders (05:15)
Well, those are a lot of long, long answer questions, some deep thinking. And put me back on track if I start going off track on that to try to answer the questions.

CRAIG DOMANN (05:18)
Take your pill.

Al saunders (05:30)
that you've asked. You know, there's nothing I ever wanted to do in my life other than be a coach. I remember going back to junior high school. had the PE teacher there at McChesney Junior High School in Oakland, California. It was a guy by name of Mr. Anderson. I don't know his first name, but we know it was Mr. Anderson.

get to school early, an hour before school started in the football season, you check out footballs in the basketball season, you check out a basketball, baseball season, you check out bats and balls, he'd play with us an hour before school, we'd have pickup games all year round. And I used to think, man, what a great job this would be. He just plays every day and he's a great guy. Man, this guy can shoot three-pointers and he can hit the ball over the fence and he can throw it like a dart.

I don't know if he ever played, you I'm sure he played in high school or in college, you but you grew up, my father was a professional boxer at the we immigrated from England when I was five years old. And he spent some time as a custodian at the Oakland YMCA. So, and we lived right close to the Oakland YMCA in downtown Oakland. So I spent all my days at the Oakland Y when I wasn't in school, I was at the YMCA, you know.

in a big building next door playing basketball or just playing sports. And I just grew up in a world of sport that I loved. I ended up going to St. Ignatius High School in San Francisco. Got tremendously involved in swimming. Was a prep all-American swimmer and had a career that really probably should have gone into college, but I wanted to play football in college. Went to San Jose State as a walk-on. Was influenced by

some tremendous people, Bill Walsh, Dick Vermeel, I'll quote Dr. Bob Bronzen, who we all played for. And I went to graduate school at Stanford, got my master's degree in education. And my first coaching job was a high school coach at Gunn High School in Palo Alto. And after that experience, I thought, you know, I really want to, I just want to coach. I don't want to teach in the classroom. I want to coach and I want to teach, which

coaching is, is teaching, you know, so your ability as a teacher and a communicator, your ability to, to generate, motivate students. but I wanted to do that with football players. So long story short, I ended up, applying to the graduate program at the University of Southern California, and Dr. Bob Bronson, who, who influenced me greatly at San Jose State, was able to help me get a graduate assistantship at USC.

and we had a pretty good team with Lynn Swan and Pat Hayden and J.K. McKay and all those guys. So that's the way it started. It started with a passion to do something that I just always wanted to do in my life. And I never lost that passion in 50 years of coaching. And the people that I met as a graduate assistant, and we went and got coffee and pumped up the footballs and lined the field sometimes.

But on that staff was Joe Gibbs as the offensive line coach. Willie Brown was a wide receivers coach. Phil Krueger was the linebacker coach. We had some tremendous coaches on that staff. Dave Levy, who was the best assistant coach I've ever been around in my life. And when they moved on and got different jobs, sometimes it's not what you know, it's who you know.

So the ability to network within the profession is really important. But I remember John McKay, Hudson Howe, who was an offensive line coach in the league for years, he and I were two graduate assistants at USC for two years. Didn't get paid a penny, not one cent in two years. And the NCAA convention came up and Coach McKay called us in his office and said, Al, Hudson, he goes, you guys know what the NCAA convention is for?

go, yeah coach, you he listened to some great speakers and learn more about football. says, no, it's to get a job. He says, go down there and get one because you don't have one when you get back. Now that was, that was coach McKay's humor side. Anyway, long story short, you know, he helped us both get a job from university of Southern California. And like he always said, you know, we always would, you know,

CRAIG DOMANN (09:48)
my God.

Al saunders (10:00)
We were afraid to ask him for any money, but it would have been nice to get paid a little bit, you know? So he says, he says, you were both paid with your experience at the University of Southern California. We will always be great. And you will always be a part of USC. He says that is more payment than anybody could ever receive. And he was so right, you know, cause this day.

I'm really proud of my affiliation with the University of Southern California because they're always going to be up there, you know, where they really were. So moving forward, for people moving forward in the profession, I would say this. First of all, the contacts that you make and the people that you work with are extremely important. Loyalty to me is something that I've always lived by and I think if you're a loyal, honest person who works hard,

I've worked with lot of coaches that are extremely hard workers and sometimes it's not how long or how hard you work, it's how smart you work. I've also been with some coaches that, you know, really were the last ones into the office and the first ones to leave. And I think you have to have a real strong work ethic. And people notice that. You know, I was always told just do your job, do it the best you can do and always treat players not how you want to be treated.

but how they want to be treated. And there's a real difference in that, you know, treating people how they want to be treated versus how you want to be treated. And there's always a difference between telling and teaching. You know, if you're going to be a coach and move up in the profession, timing is, you know, I've been around a lot of coaches that are fabulous coaches that never had an opportunity to get in the NFL because they just weren't in the right place at the right time. But if you are an outstanding teacher,

If you have a great work ethic, if you are loyal, if you're honest, and when I say honest, I think you always need to tell people the truth, not what they want to hear. And a lot of people will tell people what they want to hear and in coaching that's probably, in my opinion, not as loyal as you can be. I've always had great relationships with the head coaches that I've worked for because I've always told them the truth. And sometimes that's hard to do because

When you're in a position as an assistant coach, you think the head coach wants to hear that everything is great or everything is going the way it should be when in fact, they really want to hear what you, they ask you a question to hear your response. Marty Schottenhammer, who I worked for for 10 years, was unbelievable at that. He would always say, I'm asking you a question because I want to hear the answer. And I want to hear the answer that's honest. And don't tell me what I want to hear.

Because I'll make the decision but I can't make the decision unless each one of the assistants are telling me Exactly what what you believe and that's why I've hired you and I've always remembered that I thought that was you know, really an insightful way You know to reach the coaches then and he was just a phenomenal coach to work for he should be an hall of fame And won 200 games as a coach in the NFL and just really a tremendous guy. But but the upward mobility and yeah

CRAIG DOMANN (13:15)
Let me interject something

there. Let me interject something.

A lot of people that are in the coaching world are what people call yes people, yes men. And they don't want to ruffle any feathers. And they don't have conviction about what they believe. So they just tell the head coach everything's good. And those coaches, those assistant coaches that don't tell the coach, the head coach the truth, are the ones that get the head coaches fired. Because every coach has a blind spot. We all got them. I got them. Everybody's got them.

Al saunders (13:38)
You

CRAIG DOMANN (13:50)
and the head coach needs to know what his blind spots are. What is he not seeing that you guys are seeing when you're in that position? So continue, but that's my perspective on coaching is that everybody's got it. They just can shoot me straight.

Al saunders (14:05)
Well, yeah, I think that's a big part of it. You know, the ability and the relationship you have with anybody, with your wife or your children. You know, I think you've got to be honest. And sometimes that's hard to do because sometimes feelings get hurt a little bit. Sometimes, but...

that's all part of growth and you don't grow unless you know how to grow or unless you've been informed the things that you need to work on. It's just like players, you know, it's really hard and the NFL is really difficult when you cut players, when they don't make the football team. But if you're honest with them and you tell them why, I think they always appreciate that. I know Dick Vermeel who...

one of the most wonderful human beings ever and one of the greatest coaches ever. He always used to say, you know, treat every player like a first round draft choice. You know, don't treat a player like a walk on or don't treat a player like a free agent. They're all first round draft choices and they will always, you know, how do you reach players? And I think people have a sense. Some people are leaders. have the ability of leadership.

They communicate well and others just don't have it as much, you know, and it's recognizable. But I've always believed players, they don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And I've always felt like my first meeting ever with position as a quarterback coach or receiver coach or offensive coordinator or head coach was always that it was, you know,

I will do everything I possibly can to make sure that I do everything for you to reach your potential. And that's what you want to make the difference between a player being able to play or not play is reaching the maximum level of their ability as a football player, swimmer, track guy, cross country guy, basketball player, and then let your ability level take you higher than the next person. And that's gonna happen. Some people are more gifted than others.

But as a football coach, I think it's ultimately your responsibility not only to be a master at the information that you need to impart on that player, but also have the ability and have the empathy to deal with each person individually and make sure that they know that you care about their development, you care about them off the field as well as on the field, you care about their family, you care about everything about them.

just like you would your own children. And I kind of lived by that. And I think oftentimes head coaches that I worked for maybe recognized that and wanted that as part of their staff. And it wasn't anything other than what I really believed in because I was treated that way in my college career. I was treated that way as a young kid in the seventh grade running around an asphalt field in the middle of downtown Oakland at McChesney Junior High School with Mr. Anderson.

I've never forgotten that. And it's about people. It's about treating people with dignity and respect and treating people and enjoying the fact that's what coaching is. Enjoying seeing someone that you have taught or are teaching, whether it's a unit or an individual or a group, achieving something as a result of maybe something you told them or helped them do. That's why it's a great business. And guys should

get to advance in the profession, in my opinion, you work hard, you become a great teacher, because if you can't teach, your players aren't going to improve. You've to be a great communicator, and if you have communication skills that lack, develop your communication skills. And you never know it all. I watch some of the offenses that are being played now, some of the way things are being done, some of the protection schemes in the NFL.

It's a disaster. You can't teach what you don't know and you can't teach experience. So you have to be a PhD candidate in your responsibility. And I know that I respect and appreciate people that work hard to be better at what they do. People that, you know, gather information by any means they possibly can to improve their ability.

to coach and teach. I learned that from Bill Walsh and Dick Vermeel who went to the same school like I said and Bill used to say when he got into college coaching, yes in college, when he became head coach at Stanford, I remember him talking at the first clinic, the coach of the year clinic in San Francisco and he got up and said, you know, all these college coaches, he said, there's a lot of great recruiters out there.

And he says, that's how some guys have gotten jobs. And it's true, you need to be a great recruiter to be a college coach. But he says, your coaches, your teachers, learn the game, study the game. It'll last you a lot longer being an expert in football than it will being a used car sales recruiter. I'll never forget that. And now Bill had just come back from the NFL. He just took the job at Stanford.

And he struggled recruiting initially, but then he built what he is one of the greatest coaches that ever lived, you know, and but that learning and being able to impart your knowledge, then players don't care what you know. And like I say, unless they know how much you care and unless you can impart that knowledge, it's not what you could do as a coach. It's not what you aspire to be. It's not all of the great plays that you can diagram and draw up. It's what they can do. It's what they know and what they can do like.

Don Coriel used to say, you know, and we had the greatest offense in the history of game until we went to St. Louis and became the greatest show on turf. But Eric Coriel with Dan Fouts, Kelley Munslow, Chuck Muncie, and Charlie Joyner and all those guys, Wes Chandler, it was phenomenal. And Don used to say, hey, don't ever ask a player to do what he can't do. know, find out what someone can do.

and then put him in a position to do it and let him have fun. Our practices were fun, our games were fun. His coaching philosophy, and I might be going off on a tangent here, but his coaching philosophy was, we never once talked about ball security or interceptions or turnovers. Don was, Don's philosophy was, you score as many points as you can in the first half. We're gonna throw the ball all over the place. You're talking about, you know, like,

people call trick plays, we call them just part of our, we call them creative plays in our offense. They would always be running the first half. We'd throw the ball all over the place. Muncie was a great running back and he rushed all over the place. And we'd come back in at halftime and then Don would say, okay, now we're going to decide how to play the game. If we're ahead by 14, we're going to run the hell out of the ball. If we're down by 14, we're going to throw the hell out the ball. And that was his philosophy and the players loved it. And nobody scored more points. We led the league in offense for six straight years.

the seven straight years that I was there. And once again, with the great coaches like Ernie Zampezi, and once again, Joe Gibbs was on that staff as an offensive line coach, and Dave Levy is just phenomenal. We had some phenomenal coaches there, but he made football fun. And he just allowed the players to be themselves, and he would say, put them in a position to do what they can do, and what they can't do, teach them how to do it.

That's your job to teach them how to do something they can't do but will never put them in a position to do it until they master that and that's your responsibility. And that was a message that stayed with me for a long, long time. But advancement and coaching, once again, I'm gonna wrap that up because I kind of went off on a tangent, but work hard, be a master at your craft, learn how to communicate if you don't feel your communication skills are really good. That's both written and verbal.

communication skills and learn as much as you can, have as much conversation as you can about football. Study what other people are doing. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is power in politics. Knowledge is power in the football world. And the more knowledge you have, better you are gonna, the more value you're gonna be to the coach that hires you.

CRAIG DOMANN (22:55)
Well, one of the things that you've said that I totally agree with, I've coached for about 15 years at high school and youth level, it's still the same. It's still the same. Nobody, nobody pays to come to the games. The players aren't paid, but the game is still the same. And I would have conversations with my clients on the drive to practice and I would be dealing with the same issues with sixth graders as I was dealing with NFL guys. They're all the same.

Al saunders (23:04)
Yep.

CRAIG DOMANN (23:22)
That's why when people look down on high school coaches, they're doing the same thing pro coaches are doing. Just the pro coaches are dealing with athletes that have more capabilities.

Al saunders (23:30)
Well, let me tell you something, Craig. High school coaches

are the best coaches in football.

CRAIG DOMANN (23:38)
They have to be.

Al saunders (23:38)
High school coaches are the best coaches in football because they teach young players how to do it. They teach young players how to block, they teach them how to tackle, they teach them how to run, they teach them how to throw, they teach them ball security. They're the best teachers and they make a difference. My most enjoyable, and I will say this, we just had a reunion last year.

with kids that I coached in 1970 at Gunn High School. Those kids, my most enjoyable year in coaching was that high school year. And I thought that would be high school, that's what I was gonna be. was gonna be high school. Dick Vermeule was coaching the Hillsdale High School. Bill Walsh was coaching at Fremont High School across the bay, and I'm coaching at Gunn High School in Palo Alto. And that's all I wanted to be, was a high school coach.

But then they told me I had to teach in the classroom. thought, I don't want to do that. So how do you not do that while you go to college? And so that's how that stream went. But in reality, I really believe that the high school coach, it's like teaching somebody to swim. When you teach somebody to swim, they don't know how to swim when they first get in the water. You have to teach them the basic concepts of being able to move through the water and actually swim. That's what high school coaches do.

They teach those young quarterbacks how to throw the football from a technical standpoint. They teach the fundamentals of every aspect of the game of football. I've been around some coaches that really didn't teach very well. That if the player couldn't do it, that was their fault and they just moved someone else in there on a variety of levels. Not in high school. You teach those kids how to do it. And I think they're the most gifted. They're the most patient. They're the most thorough.

and they are the best coaches. Now, when you talk about X's and O's and game plan strategy and all of that, now as you move up at the level of coaching, it gets more and more advanced. God bless the high school coaches. They're the best on the planet, in my opinion.

CRAIG DOMANN (25:49)
Well, and one of the things that you said that is so important, especially at the high school level, is you have to develop the players and you can't put them in positions to do things they're not capable of doing. And so once you identify their limitations, you've got to put together a plan for how you're going to improve their capabilities. Right? Where in the NFL sometimes, if a guy can't do it,

Al saunders (26:04)
Absolutely.

CRAIG DOMANN (26:17)
You kind of know in the back of your head he could do it. He's capable of doing it. not doing it. You call the GM and say, hey, know, Carl or whoever it is and say, give me somebody else. This guy's not working out.

Al saunders (26:28)
That's right and a lot of there are there are NFL coaches You'd like to think that that doesn't happen, but it does you know they You take a player and one player is more skilled than another player So they spend more time with that other player and neglect the player that needs skill development because they're not as good at teachers as some high school coaches

And that's why Dick Vermeel always used to say, treat everybody like a first round draft choice. You better coach every single guy because that's your responsibility. I hired you to teach those players in your room to be the best they can possibly be. Dick or Marty Schottenheimer was the same way. Coriel, Joe Gibbs was the same way. know, all those great, John Harbaugh, who had the privilege to work for his dear friends with his dad.

John in my opinion is one of those Hall of Fame coaches He will be in the Hall of Fame because that's what he believes in he believes in teaching he believes in hiring coaches who are great teachers and Anybody that would say well The the when you tell a player well, he he just can't do it. Well, wait a minute That's what you're hired for I'm hiring you to teach that player how to do it It might take too long. He might not be able to develop quite as quickly as someone else

And in the NFL, well, you've got timeframes, you have to move on. But in college, redshirt the guy, or he's going to be there hopefully for four years now with all those NIL and the portals and all those things. It's a little different. it's all about teaching. It's all about teaching. And there's a difference between telling and teaching. There's a real difference between telling and teaching.

CRAIG DOMANN (28:15)
Coach, there's two situations that pop up in my head. One that you lived in St. Louis. When Trent Green went down and Kurt Warner stepped in, if Kurt Warner was not coached, he would not have been able to go from the Arena League to the NFL to MVP, the Super Bowl champion in such a short period of time. So that's a testament to the staff that you guys actually coached up.

Al saunders (28:18)
Mm-hmm.

CRAIG DOMANN (28:42)
Everybody in the room not just the starter and then look at San Francisco today They're starting quarterback the last couple years was a third string quarterback as a rookie He was mr. Irrelevant and they coached them up. They kept him around nobody keeps three quarterbacks on the active roster They kept three quarterbacks Shanahan kept three quarterbacks on the active roster Not knowing that he would become their guy He became their guy so I think the

Al saunders (28:48)
Okay.

CRAIG DOMANN (29:09)
The lesson that you're sharing is so true that you gotta catch them all.

You gotta coach them all. Because when you lose players to injury, you're gonna need that guy.

Al saunders (29:20)
Yeah, there's no question about that. And that's really difficult on the NFL level. That's really difficult for some players to continue with the same enthusiasm and motivation that they would have if they were playing. It's a little more difficult. Kurt was our

practice squad player before Trent came in and we actually traded for Trent Green. Mike Martz was on the staff and Mike had had Trent in Washington. And I was kind of pulling for Rich Gannon because we had Rich Gannon in Kansas City and they were both free agents. And we evaluated both Rich and Trent on video and looked at every film they played in the last two years.

finally decided that we were going to bring in Trent. Rich went on and became MVP of the league with the Raiders, took them to the Super Bowl, who I just loved dearly, what a tremendous competitor he was. And then Trent ended up getting hurt, like you said, the first year. And lo and behold, there's Kurt Warner kind of waiting in the wings and just developed. Had he not played in that arena league, had he not done some of those things early in his career,

It just took him time to develop. Some people are later developers than others. Mike was coaching the quarterbacks at the time and saw something in Kurt that was exemplary and that's his accuracy and his ability to anticipate his toughness and all those kinds of things. And remember the first game he got in and never looked back. that he's sitting in the Hall of Fame now and doing broadcasting.

did that broadcast in Germany yesterday or last Sunday. But he's a wonderful human being and just so inspirational and just never lost faith in himself. And I think that's probably what a lot of kids do. High school kids, college kids, NFL players, they lose confidence and they lose faith in themselves to be able to continue.

CRAIG DOMANN (31:17)
You know.

Al saunders (31:38)
to grow and get better at what they do. And a lot of that is because the people that are surrounding them, the coaches that they have, they aren't positive motivators. Some people are just negative people in life. Some people, they think that you yell and scream and grab a guy by the shoulder pads and shake him and that's the way to coach him. No, that's not the way they want to be treated. That's not the way they want to be treated. So that's all part of it.

CRAIG DOMANN (32:08)
Here's one thing I see in football more than almost anything else in life Football is a very negative biased profession because when you watch game film To see how you guys did you're looking for what you didn't do well And when you bring the players in to kind of review the film you go over hey, we got to get better here We got to get better here. This is not how we do this, which is the way you get better But it's also from a player standpoint if he if he has

Identity that is confused meaning he thinks he's what he does not who he is He's gonna take that personally He's gonna it's gonna take he's gonna take a hit on his confidence Because you're sitting there giving him the ten things. He's got to get better at Whereas if a young man has identity He has everything in order in the sense that he is not defined by what he does You there coach

Al saunders (32:42)
So,

Yeah,

I'm good. Just making sure I'm plugged in here.

CRAIG DOMANN (33:08)
I just lost it for a second.

It's all good. But if he knows who he is and it's separate from what he does, you can criticize him and critique him and all those things all day long. And he's like, yeah, coach, I got it. I got to get better. And that becomes his to-do list. That becomes his business plan for how do I improve my game? So how do you do even talk to players? Have you ever had a conversation with a player before where you're like, hey, bro, I'm beating you up, but it's not who you are. It's how you're doing. It's how you're handling the blitzes.

It's how you're handling whatever aspect you're critiquing them on. you ever had those conversations or do you just let it what it's going to be?

Al saunders (33:47)
Yeah. Well,

I think that's personally it's how people teach and how, you know, how they come across in terms of their dialogue with an individual.

I've always felt like positive reinforcement is better than negative reinforcement, but it comes back down to the fact that you got to tell them the truth. And it comes back down to the fact that if they know how much you care about them, then they'll listen and be responsive to what you say. in my coaching, and I tried to be this way, and hopefully I would never have put a player in that situation,

You you've got to point out what they've got to improve on, but you do it in a supportive way. And I hope in my career, I never berated players, you know, verbally, I might have yelled at a player that he didn't give his best effort. That was, I would always tell them, the only thing I will ever get angry at is if you're not giving your best effort to yourself and to the team. So could never tolerate.

lack of effort, but you could always tolerate a mistake being made by a player from an assignment standpoint or from a technique standpoint. And if a player made a mistake assignment-wise, then we have to do a better job of teaching them or making it into a language that they can understand and perform better. And there's all levels of that. mean, in the NFL, you get a guy, a right tackle that went to Harvard, and the guy right next to him went to Bemidji State.

No offense if anybody out there went to big bad, just threw that out there. But you get a Rhodes Scholar versus you get somebody who barely could get into college. And I've had players that can't read or write. So you've got to be able to reach those players and you reach them in a way that you do it positively. You don't berate players. Now some coaches are like that. Some people are like that. And those people I would never hire on my staff.

Because I don't think it's productive. I think you can be hard on a player. That's not a good word to use. You could be demanding of a player. And players want to be coached. All the really great players that I've been around, quarterbacks, receivers, tight ends, offensive linemen, the guys that are in the Hall of Fame, there's probably about 23 or 24 of them that I've coached.

every one of those guys, every one of those guys wanted to be coached. wanted to be told Tom Brady, you take, I didn't ever coach Tom Brady, but Tom Brady, you ask him, he wants to be coached. He wanted to be corrected. That's why he thrived in the environment that was in with Bill Belichick. I mean, Bill wasn't afraid to tell him what he did or what he didn't do. Did it in the right way, challenged him. and it brought out the best in him. And I think that's what you do with players. It disappoints me.

When I go to high school practices, sometimes I'll just go to high school practices to hang out and just listen and just watch. It really bothers me when I hear coaches just raising their voice about 20 octaves and just berating a player and really challenging his pride and basically his manhood. I don't think that's the way to get anything done. And it's not an excuse that that's the way football is, because football is a violent sport. It's a violent sport.

but you don't have to be violent in your temperament in order to make somebody a better player than they already are.

CRAIG DOMANN (37:34)
1000 % agree with that So you've coached 23 or 24 Hall of Famers I'm not gonna ask you to pick one But I want you to pick a common trait that you see in addition to wanting to be coached What is the thing that sets them apart from the rest because everybody that plays in the NFL's and then if I'll I mean they're a pro player These guys are the best

Al saunders (37:40)
Yeah. Well.

Yeah, well first Yeah,

first of all There's nobody Wearing one of those gold jackets that didn't have tremendous physical talent. I mean there's there's not a Hall of Famer that doesn't have physical skills above and beyond Most of them now, there's a lot of players that have great physical skills that never get there for a lot of reasons That the thing that separates them I think

is their commitment to the game. I think it is their ability to take information and process it and be able to get better. And some have had really good coaches and some have had marginal coaches. Some have had a whole bunch of coaches, but they've been consistent in what they do. And their work ethic to me is always

in the top echelon of work ethics. mean, there's always, if you have 55 players on a team, you can rate them one to 55 on their work. You know, how they study the game, they work on the field, off the field, you know, how they work on their days off. So the separating thing is the consistency with which they approach the game in terms of their learning physically.

mentally and emotionally and their ability to adjust to different circumstances as they get older in their profession, their ability to take care of themselves and take care of their body and their competitiveness. know, some guys, those guys in the Hall of Fame, every single one of them is extremely competitive. And you'd think all NFL players are, they are to a degree, but they're

There's degrees of everything, some are more so than others. But their ability to digest information, transform it into physical work, their ability to do it on a consistent basis, their passion for the game, and I think those are the things that really separate the great ones from the good ones from the average ones.

And everybody that plays in the NFL is a great one. They were great players at some time in college. There's a lot of guys that win the Heisman Trophy that don't make it in the NFL. And the other thing I think is, probably maybe I'm saying it in a different way, but they are mentally and physically tough. They are both mentally and physically tough. And maybe the mentally tough aspect.

is even more important than the physically tough because those guys that are in the Hall of Fame, they have played a lot of years and they played against the greatest players to ever play. And it is a tremendously, it takes a tremendous toll on you physically, mentally and emotionally, but they've been able to continue on and overcome that to reach the heights that they have as Hall of Fame players.

CRAIG DOMANN (41:14)
I'm going to regurgitate back what you just shared with me. That was gold. That was gold. Commitment and passion to the game. Their work ethic in all areas. Off the field, on the field. You know, physical, body care, all that stuff. Studying, the playbook. Next one is consistency. And not it, to me that consistency is growth. Because if you consistently do what you do, you're not going to be the same person next season as you were last season.

Al saunders (41:40)
That's

right.

CRAIG DOMANN (41:42)
the

next game as you were last game, there's going to be an improvement graph that you're going to plot as you get better because of your consistency. Your competitiveness, no question. Their toughness, no question. And I would add one, just to, and it kind of fits in all these. It's the ability to overcome adversity. Because every single one of them didn't, their career was not linear.

Al saunders (41:49)
Yep.

CRAIG DOMANN (42:11)
They had detours, know, even as a coach you have detours. Andy Reid never won a Super Bowl until he got to Kansas City. Andy Reid was a good coach before he got to Kansas City. But because things have kind of worked out for him, now he's a great coach, but he's still the same guy. And he's probably still got some of the majority of the same principles he had 20 years ago.

Al saunders (42:33)
It just didn't have Patrick Mahomes. but you're absolutely right in that assessment and that's kind of

CRAIG DOMANN (42:36)
Exactly. Hey, you was, that's a holy.

Al saunders (42:45)
what I kind of enveloped into mentally tough, you know, because you have to be emotionally and mentally tough to overcome adversity because everyone, you're right, every one of those guys have had some adversity, either playing with injuries, family, off the field issues, but they've been able to overcome that and focus and concentrate on what their job is and do it at the highest level of anybody in the sport.

CRAIG DOMANN (43:16)
Who's one of the most competitive players you've ever coached? And give an example of that, you probably have a hundred of them. But pick somebody that and demonstrate how competitive, share a story about how competitive he was.

Al saunders (43:19)
god.

Wow, that's, I would hate to single out a player, especially with that particular quality that we're talking about.

But there's, there, I have a lot of really favorite ones and guys that are tremendously competitive. Or they wouldn't be where they are. but if I had to pick one, that the others aren't as competitive, but Charlie Joyner, you know, not a lot of the young listeners would know who Charlie is. Charlie is in the Hall of Fame.

He coached Charlie with the San Diego Chargers. He's a wide receiver, played 18 years in the National Football League. 18 years. And this is when there weren't a whole lot of rules that helped wide receivers and defensive backs could line up on the line of scrimmage and pound them into the ground. Lester Hayes would line up over Charlie Joyner and hit him about six times in the helmet before Charlie got off the line of scrimmage. But Charlie played 18 years.

CRAIG DOMANN (44:16)
as a coach.

Al saunders (44:45)
I saw him run into a goal post, fracture three fingers, come out, had the trainer tape them up and go back in and play the rest of game. He was so competitive. was, nobody likes to lose and Charlie didn't like to lose, but he never expressed it that way. He just played harder. If something

CRAIG DOMANN (44:58)
Mm-hmm.

Al saunders (45:14)
If he needed a critical catch on third down or needed him to go block for Chuck Muncie or needed him to run a drag route in front of Kellen Winslow, he would do that. He would do anything it took to win a game. Sacrifice his body, sacrifice everything. Can you imagine playing 18 years in the National Football League? I had so much respect and so much admiration for Charlie.

In fact, I'll tell you what he did. This is a true story. My very first year as the receivers coach with the San Diego Chargers. So I had my first meeting, my receivers, and then I kind of did the offense to a degree. Ernie Zampezi was our offensive coordinator, just phenomenal coach. But we are in rookie camp, okay? In those days, you had six weeks of training camp, two a days.

Okay, with pads. Two weeks before that, the rookies came in. So rookies had two weeks and the veterans had six weeks, six preseason games. So we're, now this is my first year, right? And here's my first training camp we've gone through. The off season program was non-existent in those days. So the first time you really got together with the player, they a mini camp that lasted one weekend.

and guys would come together, go out have a couple of beers and they'd go home and that was it. Sometimes we just practiced a little bit, ran around and you saw them when they came back to training camp. So anyway, long story short, in those days we had like 50, 60 rookies who would report to rookie camp and we'd go through all of them and then we'd keep about 10 or 15 to go with the veterans. So here's rookie camp. I go into the meeting.

And there's probably, I'm making this up now, I'm to say 10, 10 receivers, probably five on each side, you know, running around. And it's my first meeting. And who's right in, right in the front row in the middle of my meeting is Charlie Joyner. Now Charlie, at that time had probably played 12, 11, 12 years in the league. He'd been to, already been five or six Pro Bowls. He's sitting right in my meeting.

And, you know, so after the, you know, I go through the meeting, I say, Hey, Charlie, how you doing? You know, hey, how's it going? So after, after the meeting, said, Charlie, what the heck are you doing here? You don't have to be here for another couple of weeks. He says, you never know when you might change something. And I never want to be caught by surprise. He was at every single meeting that I had. didn't go on the field because it was the rookies, but he was at every single meeting. And then we started, started our two day camp.

for six weeks and Charlie, you couldn't, in practice, he would run, he would run, we, you know, we have offensive groups going and defensive groups going. Charlie would run the, he would run the plays for the scout team because he wanted to catch balls from the backup quarterback. Just in case, just in case Dan Fouts went down, you know, I want, I got to catch some balls from whoever it was at that particular time, you know.

That's the way Charlie was. So if I had to pick one person that I could tell a variety of stories about, you know, and then you think of Marshall Falk and you think of Marcus Allen and you think of, you know, Priest Holmes and think of Tony Gonzalez and Kellan Winslow and, you know, I mean, they just go on and on and on, the competitiveness of some of those players. And Kurt Warner, you mentioned, know, Trent Green, know, Steve Deberg.

played another guy who played 18 years in the league, you know. There's a competitive guy. They're all competitive. But Charlie Joyner, if I had to take one to the altar with me, it would be Charlie.

CRAIG DOMANN (49:20)
Okay, so I remember those days I was a little young boy The oakland raiders were crazy. I mean they were they would tomahawk chop you in the helmet There was nothing disallowed. So they did everything. So my question is in today's nfl If a player had the same mindset in the same work ethic that charlie had back then As long as his body didn't fall apart he could have played 25 30 years

Al saunders (49:32)
Yeah.

CRAIG DOMANN (49:49)
You play forever because they don't do that anymore.

Al saunders (49:54)
I don't know about 25 years, but your legs run a lot of routes. They put on a lot of miles.

CRAIG DOMANN (50:01)
But no, no

pads. They only got 14 pad practices all season. Really, 14 pad of practices in training camp. That's seven days worth of training camp in the old days.

Al saunders (50:05)
Yeah.

We had, when I go back, Don, we practice in the morning in shorts and pads, but Marty Schottenheimer, for 10 years I worked for Marty, we had padded practices in the morning and the afternoon every single day of training camp. During the season, we'd have a goal line scrimmage on Thursday. Marty believed you.

He played the game for a lot of years with Cleveland. know, Marty was a football guy. He believed in... The first meeting with Marty, this was... And I just come from San Diego, right? So we were Star Wars offense, throwing the ball all over the place. Marty's first meeting with the team is, we play the game to kick the ball. And I'm sitting in the back and I'm going, play the game to kick the ball. He goes, here's...

CRAIG DOMANN (51:01)
Hahaha!

Al saunders (51:08)
He says, we play defense, we play special teams and offense, you play the game to kick the ball and don't screw it up. He says, we either punt it, we kick a PAT or we kick a field goal. He says, if any offensive drive ends in one of those scenarios, either a PAT, a field goal or a punt, I'm the happiest coach in the world. He says, we'll play field position.

We'll play defense and we'll play great special teams. And Marty, for 10 straight years, had nine straight winning seasons, went to the playoffs, eight of those nine years. And the last year he was there, it was probably our best team. But we went seven and nine or seven and eight, whatever it was in those days. I think we played 15 games, right, so it seven and eight. And Marty had just signed a five-year contract and he resigned.

because we had to lose. Now that's a competitive guy.

CRAIG DOMANN (52:11)
No, I love Schottenheimer. I think I think the I'm a I grew up a cheese fan. I grew up in the Kansas City area. So I was a diehard I Went to KU. Yeah So I think that I think and then this is you know pulling something out of my head I don't know Schottenheimer one is one a playoff game Did he win a player?

Al saunders (52:18)
You went to KU, right? Yeah.

yeah,

we won a bunch of black games. yeah, we won a ton of them. lost. We won back a couple of years. were in the AFC Championship game. The one that I remember them. Well, two of them that I remember. One was at home and we played Indianapolis. We didn't punt and they didn't punt. And they had the ball last and they won it at the end. And then we had one in Buffalo when we had Joe Montana. There's another competitive guy.

CRAIG DOMANN (52:36)
Did we?

Al saunders (53:01)
Joe Montana is our quarter and lost that game and

CRAIG DOMANN (53:11)
Was that Christian or Koya in yours? Didn't win the

big one. Was that Christian or Koya or was that after that? After that?

Al saunders (53:18)
That was after that.

Christian was there. I just had breakfast with his old college coach, by the way, about a week ago. yeah, Christian was there and then we had Marcus Allen. And then we had, I forget who was after Marcus, but Marcus was with Joe and all those guys. We had some really good teams there. But Christian, wow. Now they're all competitive guys, boy. Christian.

CRAIG DOMANN (53:36)
Okay.

Al saunders (53:47)
could have been an Olympian in the shot put for Nigeria. And Ben just talked about this with his coach. It was his track coach and a football coach at Azusa Pacific in California. But Christian was in the stands in the 1970 Olympics. No, was it 70? Maybe 74 or one of those years. He was in the stands and

somebody from a Nigerian, one of the field events, won the first medal that Nigeria had ever won in a field event in the Olympic Games. And his coach, Christian, just cried his eyes out in the stands because that could have been him. And they wouldn't let him participate on the Nigerian team because he defected basically to the United States and came here. that's quite a story.

CRAIG DOMANN (54:43)
Talking

about crying, Coach Vermille, in a very positive way, was one of the most player-friendly coaches I've ever met. He made every player he coached feel like he was the most important player on the team. I've never heard a bad thing ever said about Coach Vermille. How did he endear himself to this player so much?

because everybody loved that guy.

Al saunders (55:15)
Yeah, you know, we just spent two weeks in France with my wife and I with Dick and his wife Carol, but we just got back about six weeks ago.

Dick is one of my dearest and closest friends and one of the people that I respect more than anybody in the world, not only as a coach, but just as a human being. And people always ask me, what is it that, just like you've asked, what is it that separates Dick Vermeel from a lot of other people? Not only is it an X's and O football coach and a motivator, but the thing I've always said is Dick Vermeel gives you value.

Everybody in life wants to be valued. Where you work, your associates, your family, your friends, you want to feel like you have value and you have purpose. And Dick has a way of imparting that on everybody, whether you're the owner, whether you're guideline in the field, line in the fields.

Whether you're a player, whether you're a coach, Dick Vermeel gives you value and gives you purpose. it's just like I said earlier, and I came from Dick, players don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And Dick cares about you. There's not a week that goes by that I don't talk to Dick. And there's not a month that goes by without Dick talking to his players who he has coached.

always available to him. He's the most generous, most humble human being I've ever been around. And he would always say, it's amazing what you're to get accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit. You know, he always gives credit. He always gave credit to his coaches. Never took credit himself. Always gave credit to the coaches, to the players, to the ownership, to the people that work with him. He used to, when we were at Kansas City,

And everybody thought it was kind of corny because nobody had ever done it in the you know, coaching college is a lot different than the NFL because of the relationships you have with the players and their families. know, so Dick used to have at his house twice a week, he would cook, he would cook dinner. Okay. It was usually the same thing as like a brisket on the barbecue kind of thing. And of course, you'd always have a bunch of wine because Dick was in the wine business, know, in Calisoga, California, that's a very good phrase.

So, but he would cook for different groups. One night it would be the offensive coaches. One night it would be defensive coaches. One night it would be the quarterbacks. One night it would be the safeties, because he couldn't have 50 guys. So one night it would be the corners. One night would be the interior offensive line, the centers and the guards, and then the talent, and their wives.

But that's the way he was and people would say, that's kind of college, know, kind of rah rah kind of stuff. But that was Dick Vermeel. Dick loves people and he wants to know people and he wants to know about you and he wants to know what your interests are and he wants to know what in his way, what motivates you, what you need. He's just the best ever.

But he gives you value. feel like you are important when you're with Dick Vermeer. You feel like you can contribute something because like he always says, when you talk about players and scouts used to evaluate players, and you get some scout that says, guy is going to be a number one draft choice, or this guy's this, that, and the other. And Dick would always say, it's not who's right, it's what's right.

You always have an opportunity to change your mind. You can think this player is the greatest guy in the world, and find a little bit more information about him, and maybe not think that he's going to contribute as much to our program as you would want him to. You can change your mind. Where some scouts, and some coaches even, they get enamored with a player, and because they've said that this guy is really going to be a great player, they won't come off of that. They do everything they can.

kind of prove that right to the detriment of the team and to the environment and to the room, you know. So Dick would always give you an opportunity to speak freely, to change your mind. His door was always open. It always is. His phone is always available to this day. He still is a major part of the lives of the people that have coached for him, with him and played for him.

CRAIG DOMANN (1:00:07)
Well, I two really cool things to say about coach. One is he wanted to know the players families, their, their life, their situation off the field, out of the locker room, away from the stadium. And he would show up at weddings. He didn't miss a wedding. I mean, they obviously had winded the weddings too. And the second thing I would say is that when I talked to my guys that have been done for a long time, they still talk to coach. Coach calls to check in on

Al saunders (1:00:18)
All right.

CRAIG DOMANN (1:00:37)
And very few coaches can do that. mean, everybody's so preoccupied with what's going on today that they can't remember the people that helped them get to where they are. And coach is one of those people. He's a connector. He's a connector. And the last positive thing I would say is that when you talk about how he talked to his scouts about being authentic, you know, about the prospects, it's really who he is. He's an authentic person. And when you're authentic, you can really be who you are and not worry about what people think.

Al saunders (1:00:46)
Okay.

CRAIG DOMANN (1:01:07)
I think there's too many coaches today that care to him up much about the optics and what they look like The best coaches don't care Just do you and the best like John Harbaugh. He's got his method. He's got his point. He's got his program and he kind of runs a protein like a college team and You know what if you don't like it, you can go somewhere else. He's gonna do it his way and it works They have the number one offense in the league right now

Al saunders (1:01:36)
To no, maybe maybe I don't know Yeah Yeah John and Jim played the played against each other But you know the thing that and dick would say this if he was here He would attribute a lot of his success to his wife Carol

CRAIG DOMANN (1:01:36)
Has he won two Super Bowls or just one? Two? I can't remember. I think he's won one for sure, but I thought he won two. But wasn't there the Harbaugh Super Bowl at one point? The Miners and the Ravens? Yeah.

Yeah, it's pretty.

Al saunders (1:02:06)
Carol was like a mother to everybody on the team, both on the professional level and on the college level. She and my wife are dearest of friends. Carol Vermeel is just the epitome of what a coach's wife should be. She is my wife.

My wife always says, why can't you be more like coach? know, fuck, nobody can be like coach. He's the best in the world. You know, I could never be like that. But I try to be, I try to emulate Dick Vermeel, but he's just so special and Carol is so special and they mean so much. Just like you said, they would never have missed a meeting. They would never have missed if a player had a problem. The thing about coach is you felt like you could talk to them about it.

A lot of coaches say, yeah, you got a problem, on. They don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear the problems. They want to move it on to someone else, not Coach Vermeer. He dealt with the problems. He didn't shy away from those things. And no matter how dramatic they were or how involved they were, whether, like I say, whether it was an owner, whether it was a coach, whether it was a player.

You could count on Dick Vermeel to all and that's where that loyalty comes in. It's kind of a two-way street. Dick gives that loyalty to you as a human being and you can't do anything but give it back. That's why players played so hard for him and loved playing for him.

CRAIG DOMANN (1:03:47)
Coach, I just look at the time. I can't believe we've gone over an hour. I have one thought. 50 years as a coach, you still are young minded. That's what I love about coaches. They're all young minded. You're not, your age is just a number. You could probably still go coach if somebody would pay you to do it and maybe you didn't have to work 80 hours a week. Okay.

Al saunders (1:03:48)
Yeah.

CRAIG DOMANN (1:04:15)
But the thing that I see with the game of football is it really boils down to the relationships. It's not the trophies. It's not the awards. It's the relationships. And the fact that you and coach and your wives went to, you know, France for six weeks, went to Europe. That's a testament to that, that it really is about the relationships that you develop with these people.

It's yeah, it's nice to go to the Super Bowl. It'd great to be undefeated and be talked about forever. But it's really the relationships. What's your thoughts on that?

Al saunders (1:04:49)
Yeah, I agree 100%. You know, and by the way, my wife and I decided that 50 years was enough and I could have had some jobs, but I didn't want them. I've got six grandkids and they keep me young and I spend all of my time that I possibly can with them. have three children that are all married and my grandkids, my grandchildren is where my heart and my

My time is now. But I had to get that in and I forgot what the question was. did you ask? relationship, yeah. Yeah, that's what I miss the most about not being involved on a daily basis with football is the relationships you build with the players and your fellow coaches. Because truly, that's what it is.

CRAIG DOMANN (1:05:24)
We were just talking about relationships.

Al saunders (1:05:43)
What I would tell all young coaches, and you said it, you hit the nail right on the head, winning's important because that's why you keep scoring and you play and you work because you want to win the game at any level. But to me, especially the youth coaches, it's not about how many games you win. It's not about how many games you win. It's about how many of those kids

want to come back and play the next year. How many of those kids have you given a positive experience that they enjoy the game, that they want to play it again at a higher level, that they enjoy coming to practice, they enjoy what they get from the camaraderie and the sprinter core and the relationships they have with their buddies. That's to me the essence of sport and the essence of coaching is creating, as you said,

creating relationships and garnering the benefits of the human interaction you have with the people that you work with and coach with and play with. There's nothing like it. You cannot duplicate the feeling that you get in a locker room or on the football field or on a basketball court or baseball field for that matter, but any sporting event that involves a group of people.

when you win and you've sacrificed and you've put in the work and you yourself have made a contribution and you have a passion for it and you love it, you can't get that feeling, in my opinion, in any other walk of life. And I have been so lucky and so blessed to be, to have been able to play the game, been able to coach the game.

and now be able to impart some of those things on my young grandkids. I won't coach them, but I'm gonna encourage them to get involved in as many sports as they can.

CRAIG DOMANN (1:07:46)
Al, thank you so much for being on Pro Mindset today. I just had, I got goosebumps when you were talking there at the end, because I've been a part of some very successful high school teams, won the state three times with my boys and I was coaching. And you cannot replicate the emotional, like the fulfillment that you receive in the locker room when you see people that have worked hard together.

You know gone through the they've been Basically the blood sweat and tears for the whole season the ups and downs the expectations the injuries the the disagreements the Conflicts even among the players you've overcome all of that to end up with a common goal of Becoming a champion and you did it and it is you can't get that business You can't get that you can't

Al saunders (1:08:19)
Okay.

CRAIG DOMANN (1:08:43)
There's nothing else you can do. And it's better in team sports than it is in individual sports.

Al saunders (1:08:45)
Yeah.

You don't get it in the English class or the science class. You've got to be a participant in the sporting world to feel that way. In fact, I did a podcast just a couple days ago, and during that podcast, the moderator played the clip of the US hockey team

playing the Russian team, when was that? 84 or whenever it was. The Miracle on Ice, that movie. I, you know, I saw the movie about two or three times way back, but I hadn't seen it for a long time. And the clip was just as they went, they were getting prepared to go on the ice to play the game and the talk that the coach gave. And you talk about goosebumps. Now I'm thinking, my God, you know.

That emotion, just everything that we've talked about, everything about a team, everything about togetherness and hard work and how much it means, it was just, it was only about what, three minutes, maybe long, but what a compelling, unbelievable gift of communication to those players. That's what sport is all about in my mind. That's the beauty of being able to participate.

on any level. Pop Warner football, junior high, high school, college, NFL, having the opportunity to be a participant in our great country's sporting world is just phenomenal. I appreciate you letting me talk about some things that mean a lot to me. That's one of the great things about reflecting back on what you did. You asked me a long time ago,

right at the beginning of anything I would change. And I can really say I might have changed a couple of decisions. I turned down a couple of jobs, head coach in Nebraska, head coach in a couple of NFL teams to stay with the team that I was at. And I might have made a different decision. But I think that's the only thing I look back on. But then again, I wouldn't have had the same experiences had I

not done that. there's nothing that I would change in my coaching life. It's been unbelievable.

CRAIG DOMANN (1:11:16)
Thank you very much coach. I appreciate everybody for listening to pro mindset podcast today It's not every day we get a gentleman that's been in the sporting world for 50 years as a as a coach A handful of years before that as a player You can tell from this conversation today man of integrity Has a lot of deep relationships with people we coached with and had a tremendous amount of success as a coach with the teams that you coached and when you

Al saunders (1:11:19)
you

CRAIG DOMANN (1:11:46)
not too many coaches walking the planet today can say they've coached, know, 20, 24 Hall of Famers. So thank you, Al Sanders, for being on today.

Al saunders (1:11:55)
Thank you for having me, Craig. I really enjoyed it. I hope we'll get to talk again sometime.

CRAIG DOMANN (1:12:01)
You got it.