Leading Young Men: How Coach Josh Montzingo Transformed a Football Program and a Community | Growth Elevated

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Julian Castelli 00:00:02 Welcome to the Growth Elevated Leadership podcast with Julian Castelli. Each week, we talk with senior tech leaders to explore stories and insights about the challenges involved with growing technology companies. We hope that these stories can help you become a better leader and help you navigate your own growth journey.

Julian Castelli 00:00:27 Good morning. This is Julian Castelli. I’m the host of the Growth Elevated Leadership podcast, where each week I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders in the tech industry and today beyond. Past guests have included CEOs and CXO of great companies like Work Front, CHG, healthcare, Pathology, Watch, and Moment. Can it be the San Francisco 40 Niners and many more. This episode is brought to you by Growth Elevated. We are a community of tech founders, CEOs, and CSOs who are committed to working together to share best practices and learnings in an effort to help all of us become better leaders. We do that through educational programs like this podcast as well as our blog and of course, our annual Ski and Tech Summit, where we bring leaders together in beautiful Park City, Utah to enjoy camaraderie, collaboration in the beautiful mountains, and fun.

Julian Castelli 00:01:12 So if you enjoy skiing in the outdoors and networking with other tech leaders, check us out at Growth Elevated Comm and please subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts. All right. Today I am excited because we are going to try something new for this podcast. We’re going to shine a light on some great community leadership that has a tremendous impact on thousands of boys and young men. Our guest today is the very successful football coach, Josh Manzano, and we’re going to explore leadership lessons learned from his journey of turning around the Park City High School football program. Coaches have such an important impact on the social and character and leadership development of our youth. I know that I owe tremendous thanks and gratitude to my coaches who invested in my development when I was young, and I just want to give out a quick shout out. I doubt they’re listening. But just in case. Glenrock High School coach Christiansen, coach McDermott, coach DeWitt at Glenrock. Thank you very much. I think about you often. And Amherst coach Austin Dart, coach Moran, coach McKechnie at Amherst College.

Julian Castelli 00:02:06 Thank you very much. You guys have had a huge impact that’s greater than you know. And today we’re going to talk to a special coaches having that same kind of impact in the community where I live and is impacting hundreds of young men in our community each fall. His name is Josh Manzano. Josh is the head coach of the Park City Miners football team, and he has taken a program that was struggling to compete ten years ago and turned it into a perennial power that many say is maybe punching above their weight. There was a recent article that that pointed out how successful the program is, and it used used those terms and said, not bad for a ski town. Josh has grown the program 2 or 3 fold in terms of participation. Participation, which means impact on, on, on, on young men as well as the winning results. And Josh is a long time teacher and coach at the high school level. He’s going into his 10th season as the head coach for the Park City Miners football team, but overall, this is his 22nd year of teaching and 24th year of coaching overall.

Julian Castelli 00:03:03 Coach, let me start by thanking you for the impact you’ve had on our community and my sons personally. We’re all grateful for your leadership and we’re excited about learning from you today.

Josh Manzano 00:03:12 Thank you. It’s my pleasure. I’m blessed to be able to coach, and I’m blessed to have this conversation with with someone like yourself.

Julian Castelli 00:03:18 Well I’m excited. Josh, this is this is really, you know, one of my passions. I’ve had the privilege of watching you and this journey and working with you. And so I’m excited about sharing some of these lessons as we talk beforehand. A football team is a, a dynamic organization with all kinds of pressures from the outside. And, you know, we the audience here are typically stepping into leadership roles of companies that might be 1 or 2 people might be 50 to 100. Give us a sense of how did you get involved in coaching? And we’ll talk about how the coaching experience mirrors the corporate experience and turnarounds in a moment.

Josh Manzano 00:03:54 Sure. Yeah. No, I.

Josh Manzano 00:03:55 My coaching journey was mostly because I enjoyed the game so much. I grew up playing it. Obviously. I played in small college football, Division three football and I enjoyed the heck out of that as well. But really and truly, my defensive coordinator in college helped me to understand the game, not just play the game. He put me in a film room. He taught me how to understand defense. He taught me what I was looking for, the mental side of the game, and that there was a lot more to just being a physical athlete, that there was a lot of mental that went into it. And I’m someone who who loves to learn, loves to grow mentally and cognitively. And I found that stimulating. So I said, okay, this is way cooler than I thought it was. I’m going to really learn this game inside out. So I did to try and help play, but also because I was fascinated by the whole thing. Injuries limited me from finishing my career there as a junior.

Josh Manzano 00:04:41 I was kind of done, but then I realized I can’t be done with football. I sat out for my senior year, kind of drove me crazy, and I realized I need to get into coaching. So the minute I was student teaching, I asked if I could get in with with them, volunteer in any capacity.

Julian Castelli 00:04:54 And so you got into it in college, into the coaching side?

Josh Manzano 00:04:57 Yeah. When I was student teach in my last year. So they they allowed me to coach. I was blessed to coach for a really dynamic coach in Deerfield, Illinois at a fantastic program. I think he won his 100th game while I was there, which was pretty fun and exciting. Everybody wore a t shirt underneath their regular stuff and took it off after we won, which he was upset about because what if we didn’t win? And they should never do something like that? Just a guy who didn’t even care about personal success. It was all about team. He enjoyed the fact that they were positive in the lives of men and developing young leaders, which I liked.

Josh Manzano 00:05:29 I think he was a good mentor for me. I really understood the game. It was in the small, affluent community, which I’m kind of in now. A lot of lessons were taken from that as I realized this is something I want to do someday. I wasn’t sure it was head coaching, but looking back, my my D coordinator and that head coach Jim Harrington were were big factors in me. My love and value that the game brings to lives. I think that’s where it kind of launched my journey.

Julian Castelli 00:05:51 Yeah. That’s a that is a great point. And I could totally see that. And I didn’t realize you started right in college. That’s fantastic. You talked about unappealing layers. Football is a multi-layered more complex than than meets the eyes isn’t it?

Josh Manzano 00:06:03 Yeah, 100% is. There’s. And then there’s also when you’re when you get to be a head coach, you realize, oh, it’s not just XS OS calling an offense, calling a defense, standing on a sideline, cheering and having fun, and the pomp and circumstance that goes on with the game that before you even get to that, there’s so much administration that goes into things and just the daily grind of making sure everything’s done well.

Julian Castelli 00:06:23 It’s leading a several hundred person organization. That’s what I was about to start saying earlier in terms of the parallels to our audience. Right. So, okay, you’re the new CEO. Basically build an executive team, which you call a coaching staff, right?

Josh Manzano 00:06:36 Absolutely, absolutely.

Julian Castelli 00:06:37 You gotta get alignment from your stakeholders, which would be kind of, you know, in our world, getting alignment from investors and board directors and other people. Right? You got to get investment. You need to be able to recruit people from the community. I want to talk about each of these things, but like, there’s a lot of lot of.

Josh Manzano 00:06:52 Absolutely. Yeah. And that’s the trap. Sometimes you try to take on too much yourself. That’s where I learned the value of delegation, the value of trusting others that you need to have a vision. It needs to be clear so that everybody understands where you want things to go, because it is ultimately your direction that you should have as a leader. But the second is you need to find people that you know, understand that mission and vision and are ready to jump in with you.

Josh Manzano 00:07:14 And I was blessed to find a lot of people, a lot of great people that invested in myself as a young coach.

Julian Castelli 00:07:20 Right. So you’re ultimately you’re leading a several hundred person organization and then even probably double that when you talk about the whole community that you have to lead in general and you can’t do everything right, you have to figure out ways to scale by building a team, ways to scale by by having, you know, culture and foundational values. And, and and those are very similar to the business world. So let’s talk about when you came to Park City, you’d been coaching for how long? Ten plus years at that point.

Josh Manzano 00:07:47 Yeah. It was around 11 years, I think by the time I got here.

Julian Castelli 00:07:50 And the program wasn’t. Wasn’t wasn’t where it is today. Right? Where were we? Take us back ten years?

Josh Manzano 00:07:55 No, an interesting one was we first got here. There was a there was a coaching staff that was in their last season. I didn’t coach with that, with that staff because I didn’t get here until mid-July.

Josh Manzano 00:08:04 I felt it was too late to jump in, so I thought I’d get the lay of the land, take a year off, you know, plus help the family with the move. And once, once I got settled in, we decided my son and I, who was six at the time, that we’d go to a football game and he’d grown up watching me coaching Nebraska on a very successful team that made a championship run. The only game we lost was the championship game. I’ve done that twice, once as an assistant in Nebraska. Once he was a head coach, so he was used to high level football. And when we sat in the stands, he looked at me.

Julian Castelli 00:08:28 Not what you’re used to, not a little a little different.

Josh Manzano 00:08:30 He looked at me and said, dad, is this what football’s like in Utah? And I said, well, I mean, right now this is where Park City is at. He goes, do we got to go back to Nebraska? Let’s get out of here.

Josh Manzano 00:08:37 And I said, well, I’ll leave, but things are going to change somehow. I don’t know what it’s going to be like, but by the time you get old enough, I think things won’t be the same that that staff was done that year.

Julian Castelli 00:08:47 And what was your, you know, sitting in the stands, but you’re a coach, so you got a professional view. What were you seeing that maybe the you know, the audience could see the scoreboard, but you were seeing more. What were you saying that that, as you were assessing the what you were you were about to get into.

Josh Manzano 00:08:59 That that staff at the time. it’s not that they didn’t understand football. It’s not that they weren’t necessarily good coaches, but there was a lot of emphasis on flash. It was that was kind of when Oregon was a big deal and how flashy they were and how fast they would go, and they tried to model that and use that same thing, which doesn’t always work in high school. And it necessarily didn’t work for what Park City was.

Josh Manzano 00:09:17 They didn’t really have an identity that they could hang their hat on, other than they tried to make that flashy look at me type thing, but they didn’t play any defense. They didn’t have any physicality. They didn’t have any toughness, which you got to win and to win playoff games, to win a lot of tough games, you got to be able to be, you know, as physical as the other team. And I could tell that, you know, they were just missing a lot of pieces. I didn’t get to see practices. I didn’t get to see what lifting looked like. But I could tell that there were a lot more emphasis on what they looked like than maybe the steps it took to get to where they wanted to win. And when that stuff was done, I done, I was able to jump in with the next staff as an assistant for three years. And, you know, kind of some of the rebuilding started there with, with our with the head coach that I coached under during that time.

Julian Castelli 00:09:52 Awesome. So, so the program was kind of like a 500% win loss ratio at the time when you took over. Is that right? Okay. So let’s.

Multiple Speakers 00:10:01 Let me just.

Josh Manzano 00:10:02 Around 500 or below at times.

Julian Castelli 00:10:03 Maybe a little below. So maybe not a winning team, right.

Multiple Speakers 00:10:06 Not often.

Julian Castelli 00:10:07 And and you know, as you and I talked earlier, there’s a lot of distractions in the ski town, right. We do have probably the number one ski team and bobsledding team and other things. Right. As we.

Multiple Speakers 00:10:18 Should. Right. We should. Absolutely.

Julian Castelli 00:10:20 Because people come from all over the world here. But yeah, football may or may not have time to get the attention. How many kids were in the program, you know, at that time you think was it was a kind of a declining program because you and I also talked. I remember there was a this was also around the time when the big scare about about the the health and safety impact of football was really threatening the program.

Josh Manzano 00:10:39 Yeah, I mean, in a lot of programs, but especially here where team sports weren’t necessarily a priority. A lot of people were into the individual type competitions. Be it skiing, mountain biking. You know, had kids at a winter school where they, you know, they they ski all winter and they go to school in the summertime. So they aren’t available for team sports as much as other ones. And those are some of the best athletes in town.

Multiple Speakers 00:10:57 Yeah, those are.

Julian Castelli 00:10:58 Olympic athletes, many of them.

Multiple Speakers 00:10:59 Right.

Josh Manzano 00:11:00 You’re competing with a lot of things that are drawing away from you. We had some kids at the when I first got took over that were leaving Park City to go to bigger teams to try and get noticed, to try and get recruited, or that things had been bad enough here, that they just didn’t want to stick around and see what happened when I took over. I had a few who hung on with me, which was great, that senior class that I had started with when they were freshmen as an assistant.

Josh Manzano 00:11:21 They believed in it thanks to them, was partly why I turned around. I started that first year as as fast as it did. But, you know, it’s just a it’s a tough place to try and get everybody organized into a team sport. It’s different. But we were able to do that with some success on the field. But I think the investment in the community was the biggest turnaround. We had people who I had my line coach, John McCurdy, and his wife, Jess McCurdy, who started a thing called the Park City Passing League after about, I think, our first or second year. So early in my ten years of tenure here so far as a head coach.

Julian Castelli 00:11:52 So let’s explain what that is. Yeah, that’s kind of like a feeder system, right?

Josh Manzano 00:11:56 It is. I mean, we had a youth program that was super strong. Thomas Baines had done an amazing job turning around a youth program here, and he ended up coaching with me, both freshmen through varsity. And without him, that this wouldn’t have been possible as well.

Josh Manzano 00:12:07 But then to to piggyback on that false success, some people who were worried about contact, well, we had we had this Park City passing league that the McCurdy brought in. They brought the model from California, kind of put their own spin on it.

Julian Castelli 00:12:18 So had they they seen something like this in California and wanted to replicate it here?

Josh Manzano 00:12:21 They did. And it’s a non-contact. So it’s flag football. It’s five on five. It’s not a full seven on seven, but it’s for third grade all the way up through ninth grade or eighth grade incoming freshman for for our program. And so it’s it’s a big chunk of our community youth age groups there that can get exposed to what non-contact football feels like, but it’s coached by our players, so it’s coached by the JV varsity freshmen. All levels are it’s open to them and they coach it, they referee it. The kids are around our kids. They realize that these kids, you know, they’re pretty fun kids to be around. They’re what they’re disciplined.

Julian Castelli 00:12:53 Oh it’s it’s it’s it’s wide eyed. Right. You got the the Friday night players are there and they’re talking to me as a, as a young kid. Right. I remember that that was super exciting. And I remember the first time I showed up at this thing in the spring, like, you know, around here, like the snow is barely melting, right? So we’re barely off the ski slope. We got giant.

Josh Manzano 00:13:09 The snow in the end zones. Absolutely.

Julian Castelli 00:13:11 And and someone says, hey, you know, you should show up at the football field. There’s something going on. And I remember thinking that, you know, it’s going to be cold and there’s going to be a few people huddled around looking at a play sheet. Right? And I get in the parking lot and there is music going. I’m like, wait a minute, this I hear a band, I hear rock music like there’s not a football game going on. And then I smelled barbecue. Yeah, right.

Julian Castelli 00:13:30 And I remember coming up and seeing Tim Chesley Cook, you know, having a giant grill. Absolutely. Burgers and dogs. And people were selling gear and people, you know, and there are people in the stands. I mean, it was some energy, right?

Josh Manzano 00:13:42 Oh, yeah. Yeah. Tim Chesley and Jason Miller both, you know, Jason with the was definitely the one cooking a lot of those times and doing.

Julian Castelli 00:13:48 The great Jason. Yep, yep.

Josh Manzano 00:13:50 You know, those two were also coaches for us. And without them you know some of this turnaround success doesn’t happen as well. Their investment into the into the into the community along with our football team that that connection was invaluable. But they did a great job of energy enthusiasm there in the spring. Parents could see that, you know, the interaction with myself when I’m there, some of my other coaches who are there that, hey, these guys aren’t just meat head’s going to beat my kids into oblivion. They actually care about our kids.

Josh Manzano 00:14:15 They want them to to develop.

Julian Castelli 00:14:16 And that’s the key point, right? Because if you’re there and you’re you’re a little bit football curious, but also it’s a little football fearful, right? You can come there and get to know the community. Right. And it did a great job of integrating, you know, hey the high school coaches are here. That was exciting. Hey the high school players are here. They’re actually working with our kids. And then, you know, the flag football has been taken off in that parallel, too. It’s a it’s a great way to get get to learn the sport and do that. So so that in the youth program that’s kind of like you’re feeding and recruiting, right. And so.

Josh Manzano 00:14:45 It is absolutely for.

Julian Castelli 00:14:46 Us that intentional. Were you thinking through like in terms of okay for five years from now to have more kids in your program, you’re going to invest in this base. And then that’s kind of the funnel.

Josh Manzano 00:14:56 Yeah. So when I looked at whether or not I was going to even put my hat in the ring for this head coaching job, the first thing I realized was that the youth program was so strong that I was it was an it needed to be better than it was, it could be better than it was, and the footing was firmer than than anybody knew it was.

Josh Manzano 00:15:12 So having that strong youth program and seeing the development that was done there and how Thomas Baines brought an attitude and a toughness in the and the kids that were produced from there. I knew for a fact that we could turn things around from from an athletic standpoint and from a football standpoint. So then it was culture, then it was a lot of the other things that I was going to have to get involved in, and that was going to be a bigger, bigger thing for me.

Julian Castelli 00:15:34 Got it. Okay, so so that was kind of a foundational. Getting your your stakeholders in the community involved. You saw some good signs there. That helped your due diligence to kind of say okay, I think I can I’m going to have some. Some advantages there. So tell me about, you know, okay. Your first introduction to the program. What was what were some of the challenges with the program when you started? I think I remember you telling me that we didn’t have enough equipment even for for the people coming up, right.

Josh Manzano 00:15:59 A lot of the equipment was outdated a little bit. and that’s hard. That’s a that’s a difficult thing for a lot of programs to try and have, you know, the cream of the crop equipment, which we do currently. But it didn’t start that way.

Julian Castelli 00:16:09 Yeah. It’s not cheap stuff.

Josh Manzano 00:16:10 It’s not. It’s more expensive than I think I realized. That’s where the administrative side comes in. And looking at actual numbers of what the cost is per item and then the numbers that you need to purchase, and then trying to figure out how you’re going to fundraise for that. That’s again where.

Julian Castelli 00:16:24 Yeah. That’s right, that’s right. You started the do you start the golf tournament, your group there that you just described or that’s going on.

Multiple Speakers 00:16:30 For an idea?

Josh Manzano 00:16:31 Yeah, it was my idea. But thanks to the Park City Passing League who’s, you know, giant partner with us, obviously, but not just us with the youth, with our cheerleading program there. They’re a community organization that’s giving back to to youth in the in the whole town.

Josh Manzano 00:16:43 And then they do the same thing outside of Park City. They’re they’re benefactors for lots of West High School needed some help. They were they jumped in with that and a couple of coaches that there was a family with a car accident for a player, and they jumped in for that. And then there’s a coach with the ALS up at Ogden who they jumped in for and, you know, helping out with some medical bills with that. So they’re just so generous. I mean, they’re beyond feeding us with some players and, you know, connecting with the community for the football team. they’re just a general giveback organization that we’re just blessed to be partnered with. But they do the same thing with us with fundraising. I brought the golf, the golf idea to them because of something we had done in the Midwest, where I moved from, from Nebraska, and it had been successful out there. And I thought, well, shoot, I don’t know why that wouldn’t work here.

Julian Castelli 00:17:22 We certainly have golf courses.

Multiple Speakers 00:17:23 Yeah, we have golf courses.

Josh Manzano 00:17:25 No people golf in Park City. So let’s give it a shot. And, you know, they took it and ran with it and took it to some level I couldn’t even imagine, which allowed us to really revamp everything to get all the equipment we needed. As our numbers went from about when I first started, about 40 kids in the program, and that’s JV and varsity. So if you had freshmen, probably about 60 something to now we sit at about 85 to 95 on JV and varsity. And with our freshmen we’re up to 120 to 140 per year. So it just depends.

Julian Castelli 00:17:52 On having, you know, if you double your your population of players, you’re going to you’re going to have an increase in talent, right? It’s funnel math.

Multiple Speakers 00:17:59 And your depth.

Josh Manzano 00:17:59 Which is important. But then now your equipment which a program that was looking at 40 to 60 kids, that’s doubled. You have to double your equipment and it adds up really fast. But thanks to the, you know, the partnership with Park City passing in their generosity, and our town just giving back and believing and investing in us, we’ve been able to outfit our kids with some of the best, safest equipment available, which is important in my opinion.

Julian Castelli 00:18:22 Got it. Yeah. So so you, you know, a lot of people probably don’t understand that backdrop of both fundraising, development of recruiting, development, you know, connectivity to the community. So so some of those foundational elements were there, some of them you brought ideas to and that that that that is a is a big factor in being able to build a successful program, which is, you know, not even on the book of X’s and O’s. Right. Like, this is when we talk about the, you.

Multiple Speakers 00:18:48 Know, that’s why.

Julian Castelli 00:18:49 City of having a successful, you know, scoring a touchdown is what everyone sees. But this is years in advance. It’s fundraising, it’s organization. It’s community involvement. It’s it’s getting out there and talking to parents about the safety of the sport. And as you mentioned, showing that you care about their kids and there’s going to be responsible leaders out there having impact with your kids. Right. And I think you’ve done a great job of that.

Julian Castelli 00:19:09 People talk about it. I’ve been fortunate enough to go through the system and my kids. I’m grateful that they did. But, you know, that wasn’t the expectation. So so that’s a lot of layers when I talk about layers earlier. But beyond what you think about calling X’s and O’s that are foundational.

Josh Manzano 00:19:23 Yeah. Character and culture turns out, was way more important than what offense, what defense we run every year. As much as everybody thought we just needed a different offense or needed a different defense, including maybe myself, who was too, too naive to know better.

Julian Castelli 00:19:36 Considering your secrets from Nebraska and everything will turn around, right?

Multiple Speakers 00:19:39 Yeah, that would.

Josh Manzano 00:19:40 Be that would be the naivete that I showed there. However, really and truly, it comes down to character and culture and establishing a firm foundation and standards that your program needs to uphold. And I think it’s true of any organization.

Julian Castelli 00:19:52 That’s 100% is. So what was the what was the culture like when you got there? And then how did you go about attacking that problem? So I think that is pretty central.

Josh Manzano 00:20:00 It was a bit toxic, just to be honest with you. I was maybe on my way out my last year there as an assistant.

Multiple Speakers 00:20:05 I knew you were a.

Julian Castelli 00:20:07 Little you’re a little nervous. You’re kind of wondering what you’re biting into.

Multiple Speakers 00:20:10 Well, I didn’t want.

Josh Manzano 00:20:11 To be around some of the toxicity myself. And some of that was. It’s on both sides. It’s not. It’s not just coaching. There’s their community things. There’s you know, this is kind of a community. People come to have fun and cut loose and maybe too much. So, you know, they’re not as invested as they should be. And that causes, you know, dissension between certain people who want to work hard, be invested in those who don’t just want to play and have fun and go on vacations and not show up to practices and not come in the summers.

Multiple Speakers 00:20:36 And so so you were.

Julian Castelli 00:20:37 You were you were kind of the you were the hard nosed authority coming in to maybe have to wreck some.

Multiple Speakers 00:20:42 People’s fun. Yeah. In the Midwest.

Josh Manzano 00:20:44 We worked 24 hours a day. You’re going to be here all summer long. You’re never going to miss a single thing. Okay, I got to take a deep breath.

Julian Castelli 00:20:50 How’d that go.

Multiple Speakers 00:20:51 Over? Yeah.

Josh Manzano 00:20:52 Did not go well. My first year was great because the senior group at the time I knew was from freshman up. And they were invested. They believed.

Multiple Speakers 00:20:58 In.

Julian Castelli 00:20:58 So you had built bonds with them. So you had a guarantee?

Multiple Speakers 00:21:01 Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Manzano 00:21:02 And their parents as well, I think they trusted me as well. So, you know, that connection is important. You have you can’t. The players are first. But it does help if the player if the parents are in with you as well.

Julian Castelli 00:21:11 Yeah. The parents have to buy into it. I mean, look, I haven’t gone through it myself. I think every level you’re a little surprised by the depth of commitment. You know, and it becomes an all in thing for, you know, five, five months of the year.

Julian Castelli 00:21:23 Yeah. You know, as a as it should be, but as it has to be to be successful. Right. Like, I think people would love to be able to do it along with five other things. But you can’t be successful that way.

Josh Manzano 00:21:32 Right. You can’t. And, you know, and that group started to kind of learn that lesson. You have to build a foundation somewhere. So it started with a talented group, but they had to learn to come and lift and do it all summer long and be together as a team. And why it mattered to actually do it together versus on their own whenever they wanted to. And that was more convenient that those bonds you built, that, as a brother or as a team are important when you get into a tough situation in a game and you learn to trust each other, and that doesn’t happen in a game. It comes from all the time in the summer and times in practice and times off the field when they maybe just go hang out and have a burger.

Josh Manzano 00:22:05 They get to know each other as people, not just as a player. And that’s a different kind of level of depth of connection that you need in order to really trust somebody in a firefight when you’re really against the wall. And they didn’t have that going into that. A tight group did the senior group, but the rest of the team didn’t, and they started to build those bonds. I have to give them a lot of credit, but I was very intentional about that. Tim Kite had a book with Herb Meyer there above the line that I gave to him my.

Julian Castelli 00:22:29 Lead, the line. Yeah, I remember that. It’s a great book.

Josh Manzano 00:22:32 I gave it to my leadership counsel. I asked him to read it. Of course, half of them didn’t read it, but some of them did. But we talked about it. We learned from it. You know, we went to E plus R equals though, learning about learning about how, you know, the events are going to happen in your life and how you respond is way more important.

Julian Castelli 00:22:46 You can’t control the E, but you can’t control the R, right?

Josh Manzano 00:22:49 You control the and you control the response. And that’s going to affect the outcome. You can make it positive or negative, but you can’t control the fact that something’s going to happen. you know, and that, you know, we had some, some foundational things we talked about. We’re going to have relentless effort. We’re going to be incredibly tough, both mentally and physically. And we’re going to compete at all times. You have to have some kind of pillars or standards that we that we’re going to be built on. And those were our three things and we talked about those.

Julian Castelli 00:23:12 For toughness compete, right, etc.. People still people still talk about that and the t shirts. That’s good.

Josh Manzano 00:23:18 It’s more it’s morphed a little bit to compete now, which stands for something else. I won’t go through the entire thing, but, you know, that’s where things aren’t static. Culture is a dynamic, living, breathing organism.

Josh Manzano 00:23:28 And I’ve learned that what worked maybe for five years has to change a little bit as we go on. In last year’s group, my leadership council wanted to adjust a little bit. So that’s where we came to compete and it stood for something. And they had a big part of that. And I like the kids to be invested. You need your people. It’s not me browbeaten I need everybody.

Julian Castelli 00:23:45 No, if you just you can’t hand down values from above. They’re not they’re not the tablets. Right. You just kind of you have to pull them from from the community, from the community if they’re really going to believe in them. So so do the group come up with the compete. And then what we’re talking about, you know, etc., was was an initial set of core values. Right. And now we expanded them to compete. And so they they kind of self generate many of those.

Josh Manzano 00:24:08 Many did. I gave them some ideas. I came up with a broad list and said, hey, let’s let’s look at these to give us a direction.

Josh Manzano 00:24:13 Because sometimes if you just say, hey, okay, I got 20 guys sitting in a room and they’re.

Julian Castelli 00:24:17 Come up with some values, you’re going to have a lot of.

Josh Manzano 00:24:19 Get. Yeah. And then they’re never going to agree on things. So I said here’s here’s a framework. Here’s a structure of some things I think we agree on. But I also want to hear if you have something different, let’s talk about why come present that to the group, why you think it’s important. And let’s see what we as a group can come up with. And this leadership council had all the grades represented from both sophomore all the way up to to senior. Freshmen aren’t ready yet for such as for such things, but they get brought in as a sophomore into our leadership council. And they they took it serious because they wanted to see us take that next step as as a group as well and be more connected. And they wanted to have some say they like, yeah, I know you came up with etc. I know why and it makes sense, but I think we need to add this.

Josh Manzano 00:24:55 We need to. I said, okay, it just can’t get more than this. So we came up with compete because to me, kind of a Pete Carroll guy a little bit and being a Seahawks fan and being a homer. But I also love his energy, his enthusiasm in that, you know, competition is everything. And I felt like we just weren’t competitive when I first took over. And that was one of the things we needed to be built on, was that no matter what, Park City is going to compete and they’re going to play hard and you’re going to feel it in the morning and you’re going to be like, wow, that team just gave us everything. Even though they were half our size or half our talent or whatever it is at the time, especially when I first took over, some people, I just wanted to know we played them whether we were going to beat them or not.

Julian Castelli 00:25:26 Yeah, you want to.

Multiple Speakers 00:25:27 Do you want to lose?

Julian Castelli 00:25:28 You want to know they play played your team.

Julian Castelli 00:25:30 You want.

Multiple Speakers 00:25:30 To. Yeah.

Julian Castelli 00:25:31 Remembering in the next few days.

Josh Manzano 00:25:32 So I didn’t want to lose compete. So I gave him that and said now let’s come up with what that stands for, you know. And that ran with it really well, you know, especially some of our older guys who’ve been around me and hearing the character lessons and the culture lessons that we do weekly and that we use throughout the season and throughout some of the off season as we get started before pre-season practices. And we’re pretty mindful and intentional about educating them on what leadership looks like. What does it look like to be a leader? Do you have to like, yell and scream, or can you lead by example? Or can you be a mix of both? Can you be a quiet leader or a vocal leader? Like there are different ways and everybody has their own styles, but at the same time you have to put a thought into it, like, what am I going to do? And be more intentional about it versus some of the guys who are the old school, maybe meet head, quote unquote, like, I’m just going to yell and scream because I’m big and scary and they’ll have to follow me.

Josh Manzano 00:26:16 Works for about five minutes.

Julian Castelli 00:26:18 It only goes so far.

Josh Manzano 00:26:19 Then they tune you out, I said. You know this the same as me. My first. My first couple of years, I think I was probably the the meat head who was yelling and screaming too much because I felt like we needed a direction. We needed to be tough. And, you know, these guys had been, you know, not going where they needed to go and they needed to understand what it takes. And yeah, I was burning people out by my second year.

Julian Castelli 00:26:36 Yeah. The complexity you need, you need the drive. You need the you you need to push yourself physically. But the the complexity of an offensive playbook or a defensive playbook is pretty pretty. I think it’s beyond what most people on the stands understand. So it’s it’s a mental challenge too. They have to invest mentally to understand the formations, the the audibles, the plays, the the hand signals. I mean, it’s it’s learning a lot a lot of language.

Julian Castelli 00:27:01 So one of the things.

Multiple Speakers 00:27:02 That’s fun.

Julian Castelli 00:27:03 Is to see how fast, you know, these young kids can learn.

Josh Manzano 00:27:07 Absolutely. Yeah. Which is a valuable lesson. I mean, we try to use football as a vehicle for lessons in life, like, really and truly what this is, is this is going to help me when I get going for a job understanding, you know, the level that I’m going to have to put in of effort into preparation before I even go interview that there’s it’s not just show up and hope for the best, because we didn’t do that in football. We didn’t just show up and hope for the best. I had to work out. I had to show up in practice. I had to go to meetings. I had we had to learn a playbook. And then now I’m going to go perform. Same is true for, you know, I’m gonna do my preparation. When I go and get that interview room. I’m going to learn about the company. I’m going to learn about maybe the leadership structure.

Josh Manzano 00:27:42 I’m going to find out from past employees what, you know, culture felt like a little bit. I’m going to do some research before I walk in that room. So I’m not caught off guard when I’m asked some questions. And it looks like I’m invested in this company and I want to be a part of something, you know, trying to use lessons like that in all kinds of very various phases of life.

Julian Castelli 00:27:57 Absolutely no. I think it’s a fantastic training ground for life, for their professional careers, for their collegiate careers, to to succeed around new teams. It’s been wonderful. let’s let’s talk about, yeah. Those are some foundational things you were changing. When did the the results start coming in? You know, things didn’t change immediately, I’m sure. Right.

Josh Manzano 00:28:18 So our first year, I think we felt like things changed around quite a bit. We went six and six. So that 500 record was really good.

Julian Castelli 00:28:23 That was a lot better than the past.

Multiple Speakers 00:28:25 It was better than the past.

Multiple Speakers 00:28:26 You hit.

Julian Castelli 00:28:26 You hit level water.

Josh Manzano 00:28:27 We hit level water. But more importantly, we made the playoffs, which we hadn’t done for a while. And we won. We won the first playoff game in seven years, so that was a really big deal at the time. It had been a big drought of and we went down south, which at the time southern football was that was where high school football was measured for our level. And that was you just don’t. It was like the walking down to the SEC for for any other team and realizing that it’s a different world. Like the football here is different. The kids look different, their coach different. We had to go play down there at one of their teams that we weren’t supposed to be within 40 points of, and we pulled off a miracle win with a punt block that we returned for a touchdown. It was just magical goodness.

Multiple Speakers 00:29:06 Wow.

Josh Manzano 00:29:06 At the end, I had four reporters from local stations surrounding me. Can you believe you won? Like, did you ever think you could even compete? It was.

Josh Manzano 00:29:13 There were so many people from their team that they were sitting in our stands on the other side of the field, because they had nowhere else to sit.

Multiple Speakers 00:29:19 Right. Right.

Josh Manzano 00:29:19 People who made the trip. So my wife was surrounded by the enemy and trying.

Multiple Speakers 00:29:23 To figure out what’s.

Josh Manzano 00:29:24 Different. And then when we won, it was so quiet. She was like, it was weird, but I was cheering. It was so much fun. I couldn’t believe it. I’m like, yeah, me too.

Multiple Speakers 00:29:30 That’s fair.

Josh Manzano 00:29:31 That was, I think, also the belief that, hey, we can do things like.

Multiple Speakers 00:29:34 We’re not.

Josh Manzano 00:29:35 There yet. You got to have those moments when you’re when you’re just starting over or you’re building something.

Julian Castelli 00:29:39 Build on those those wins and those those milestones.

Josh Manzano 00:29:42 You got to have something besides just, you know, talking about it and feeling good about it and playing better or moral victories aren’t enough.

Multiple Speakers 00:29:48 You got to have.

Josh Manzano 00:29:49 Some proof of concept. And that’s what we I think we had like, okay, we played with the team no one expected it to be.

Josh Manzano 00:29:55 We’re not even as big as those guys. But what we’re doing is working now. How do we get better? I want to take the next step. And that was the seeds were sown right there. yeah, that was important. Now, the big problem is we kind of took a step back the next year. We only won three games. and that was. I’ll put a lot of that on myself, to be honest with you. I took for granted the culture that we were intentional in that first year. I kind of felt like, hey, it’s there. The kids are going to take this. They’ve got this. They’re ready.

Multiple Speakers 00:30:20 To.

Josh Manzano 00:30:20 Go. Oh, they’re high school kids. Wait a second, you goofball.

Multiple Speakers 00:30:23 well, you.

Julian Castelli 00:30:24 Know, I think the same lesson holds true with 30 and 40 or 50 year olds at the workplace. One of the key things that we talk about in this leadership podcast is it’s not enough to say something. You have to say it almost every day.

Julian Castelli 00:30:36 You have to repeat it over and over and over again, because life happens and people have distractions. And if they’re not hearing that constant message, they’re going to, you know, they’re hearing garbage. Other messages.

Multiple Speakers 00:30:46 You.

Julian Castelli 00:30:46 Know, more so than ever. So if you’re not competing with consistency, you have to kind of really invest in that inconsistent messaging.

Multiple Speakers 00:30:53 Yeah.

Josh Manzano 00:30:54 Yeah. That was that was a tough lesson for me. I was also, like I said, maybe a little bit too hard charging. Still bringing my old Midwest self that was that worked there. You know, you could be intense. You could. Kids were going to just do whatever you said, whenever you said, and however you said to do it, I needed to change me a little bit. I needed to grow, I needed to adjust, I needed to adapt. So I took an entire offseason after that second year and I poured into myself. I didn’t look at offense, defense. My concern was simply, how can I grow as a person, as a human being, as a leader.

Multiple Speakers 00:31:21 As a leader.

Josh Manzano 00:31:22 As a father, as a teacher in every area of my life, I’m going to get closer in my spiritual relationship with my Lord and Savior. Every avenue of my life was looked at, and that was just a personal decision by myself, because I felt like I wasn’t meeting to my own personal expectations, and I was just maybe trying to push that on other people. And it’s not fair to them. I need to be the best version of myself so that they want to be around me.

Multiple Speakers 00:31:43 And that change.

Julian Castelli 00:31:43 What resources did you find when you were you were looking to invest in yourself? Any any good resources around leadership that you’d recommend for others?

Josh Manzano 00:31:50 Oh, absolutely. I mean, I went right back into my above the line book and.

Multiple Speakers 00:31:54 Read some.

Josh Manzano 00:31:54 Of my own lessons, because that started me on this journey of character and culture and because I didn’t know where to go. I knew things needed to change.

Multiple Speakers 00:32:00 When I.

Josh Manzano 00:32:01 Took over, but I was like, I don’t know, like I can’t make up this stuff myself.

Multiple Speakers 00:32:04 So yeah, right.

Josh Manzano 00:32:05 That got me a structure. And then I’ve realized systems are always important. You know, you can maybe adjust and adapt systems, but you need a system, a framework to help give yourself some guardrails so that you know what you’re doing. You look like you know what you’re doing, and people can trust you and where you’re going, and that you have a proven way to do something and accomplish a goal. So I realized that there was going to be more than just the above the line book. I was going to have to invest in deeper areas of how I am as a leader. I jumped in anything Tim Kite did, or Brian Kite, his son. Now, since Tim Kite’s past, you know, they had the focus three podcast. I, I was listening to every single one of those. I was bringing those to the team after that year, and we were doing a lot of lessons from them. But then I expanded beyond that. I was looking for anything I could find.

Josh Manzano 00:32:45 Tony Dungy has a great book about mentorship.

Multiple Speakers 00:32:48 And.

Julian Castelli 00:32:49 Mentor leader, right.

Josh Manzano 00:32:50 Mentor, leader. I realized that, hey, there’s more than just coaching. Coaching is mentorship. This is giving back and giving into somebody else. And it’s not just yelling, screaming XS O’s how you look on the field, getting yelled at at the grocery store because you didn’t win again, or even hearing about it at church because it’s a small town and you can’t get away from things.

Multiple Speakers 00:33:09 Yes.

Josh Manzano 00:33:10 Block that noise.

Multiple Speakers 00:33:11 Out.

Julian Castelli 00:33:11 That’s where it’s different. As you know, your leadership is very similar than corporate leadership in many ways that we’ve discussed. Where it’s different is everybody knows your success. It’s on the scoreboard and everyone’s watching.

Multiple Speakers 00:33:22 You very.

Josh Manzano 00:33:22 Public. Your your success and your failures are very public.

Multiple Speakers 00:33:26 That’s right.

Josh Manzano 00:33:27 But I needed to get away from that, I.

Multiple Speakers 00:33:28 Think, early.

Julian Castelli 00:33:29 Any funny stories about that? I mean, we watched the high school, the high school and college football movies and TV shows, right?

Multiple Speakers 00:33:36 No, I mean.

Julian Castelli 00:33:38 The, what do you call art mirrors? Reality, right?

Multiple Speakers 00:33:40 I mean, it does.

Josh Manzano 00:33:41 I mean, I’m sitting at church one time just to talk about not being able to get away from things. I’m sitting at church and the pastor all of a sudden calls me out because we’re going to play our rival coming up for our first game, Wasatch, and says, hey, you know, come on up, because we got the coach from one of the coaches from Wasatch is also here. And let’s, let’s say a little something like this is church. We’re going to talk about the football game in two weeks.

Multiple Speakers 00:33:58 And okay, what.

Julian Castelli 00:34:00 Is this Texas.

Multiple Speakers 00:34:01 I can’t even get a I.

Josh Manzano 00:34:02 Just here.

Multiple Speakers 00:34:03 To to to grow. Yeah. I didn’t know this was going to happen.

Josh Manzano 00:34:06 But I mean that my first time here, I realized I was in a different community, which we talked about, and that I was in a different land, so to speak, than the Midwest. I had had a young man who comes up to me, I’m just an assistant and I’m new to this is my very first year as an assistant.

Josh Manzano 00:34:18 And he says I can’t have contact for two weeks. And I said, okay, did you talk to the trainer? What’s wrong? What got hurt? Well, no, my massage therapist said that I shouldn’t have contact for two weeks. I’m too tense.

Multiple Speakers 00:34:27 I’ll probably relax.

Josh Manzano 00:34:28 In two weeks and then I should be good to go. I knew right then and there I was on a different planet.

Julian Castelli 00:34:33 You’re a different.

Multiple Speakers 00:34:33 Place.

Josh Manzano 00:34:34 This is not the Midwest. And we’re talking about massage therapist giving us excuses to not hit somebody.

Julian Castelli 00:34:39 Yes.

Multiple Speakers 00:34:39 Two tense. Two tense are.

Josh Manzano 00:34:41 My assistant who came from the Midwest.

Multiple Speakers 00:34:42 I was lucky.

Julian Castelli 00:34:43 Enough that conversation might have made you a little tense, I suspect.

Multiple Speakers 00:34:46 Yeah. At first.

Josh Manzano 00:34:47 Yeah, that blew my mind. I’m like, I.

Multiple Speakers 00:34:48 Don’t know.

Josh Manzano 00:34:49 What to even say to that one. I had an assistant who I was blessed. Cody Gardner, one of the best coaches in the state and one of the best coaches I know, he’s now the defensive coordinator at Corner Canyon, one of the top high school coaches in the nation are top high school teams in the nation.

Josh Manzano 00:35:01 He took a big chance, moved from the Midwest on me and our program coach with us for a long time and was a big part of our turnaround, being a knowledgeable coach that could really come in and bring a lot of a lot, a lot of effort and fire and energy. And his first time here, he got the same experience. He had a kid come up to him, and it was the first two weeks we’d had practice and he just showed up out of nowhere. He says.

Multiple Speakers 00:35:20 Well.

Josh Manzano 00:35:20 Where you been? He goes, oh, I’m the Galapagos. And he didn’t know what to say. Cody has.

Multiple Speakers 00:35:24 Something to say.

Josh Manzano 00:35:24 To everything. He goes, I didn’t know what to say. I literally just said, cool. That’s impressive. I don’t even I don’t have anything.

Multiple Speakers 00:35:29 To say to that.

Josh Manzano 00:35:30 So he jumped in and did drills.

Multiple Speakers 00:35:32 Yeah.

Julian Castelli 00:35:32 That’s something you just you’re unprepared for that response, right.

Josh Manzano 00:35:36 And that’s our community. Like we we are not. That’s why I said I had to adjust.

Josh Manzano 00:35:40 I had to adapt, I had to I had to make maybe change my expectations. They need to be bigger than they were previously. But I have to find a way to work with the community, not against the community where it can’t be all or nothing, but that we have enough commitment to get our goals realized, but at the same time be more flexible than I would have previously at a different location. I think that was a big deal. People before were fighting against things versus trying to find a way to work with things, work with the youth, work with the community, expectations of travel time and and time away and that you can have a happy medium. You can have maybe a marriage between those two, even though it’s not what you want. Personally, you’d love to have the full time 24 hours a day together. Maybe you can do it without. And I think that’s been good for me. It was good for me to get away and have my own times to recharge. That gave me time to get into those books, podcasts, anything.

Julian Castelli 00:36:26 I got to work on yourself and up your craft as a leader and your your knowledge. Right?

Josh Manzano 00:36:31 And that that made a huge change in me, you know, getting into my own faith and getting back on track with that a little bit that second year, you know, in my own devotions in the morning, I’m having my own structure and discipline that I maybe lost when I was trying to do so many things at one time, and I was focused on winning, so I missed the process. I was I was so worried about what I looked like because I was hearing about it in the community. If we weren’t winning, especially after the second year. Right. I was so focused on the product and what we were going to get versus all the steps it took to get there, you have to have a goal. Goals are absolutely foundational. You need to have something to aspire to. The problem is the big part, and the most important part is the process and the steps that get you there.

Josh Manzano 00:37:06 I need to have a better plan for that, a better plan for myself to help teach people where we want to go. So I got more clear in my mission vision. I was able to also maybe change my mentality and how I connect with people just because of some of those books. Learning to be mentor versus a coach from Tony Dungy that made a big, big impression on me. you know, reading books about ego and how they can be destructive, being too driven by my ego. Josh Metcalf had some great books that I was reading on on different things as well. I just, I could go on and on and on. I just 20, 25, you know, they weren’t long books all the time that they were short. I was just digesting as much as I could. And that’s become something I do every offseason. Now. I look for work and I get better first before I get to the guy. So I spend from December all the way until about April or so, when I start getting back into football with the team, I’m just investing in myself.

Josh Manzano 00:37:55 And then I’m going to bring some life lessons to the kids. There’s like, they always get, you know, it’s something I do. Hey, and then this or that.

Julian Castelli 00:38:01 So some sometimes you’re learning from the outside and bringing that to the team. Sometimes you’re learning from the inside and reflecting on that.

Josh Manzano 00:38:08 Yeah, I’m always looking for something authentic because if the kids know I did it or I go through it, but this year I’m going to ask them to do hard things, and that’s going to be kind of our we have a theme every year I try to look for something our team needs this years do hard things. Part of that is I’m I put that schedule in front of them. It’s hard. And we’re going to ask.

Julian Castelli 00:38:23 Them to work right.

Josh Manzano 00:38:24 Hard. So I had to go do something hard. So I went and ran a marathon this year. That’s the hardest thing I could think of. I number one, I needed to get in shape. I needed to have you.

Julian Castelli 00:38:32 That’s that’s no small feat.

Josh Manzano 00:38:33 It’s not. So I trained for about six months. I went, I went and completed it. I won’t say that I was setting the world on fire, but I did complete. I finish by about 13 minutes. So not ideal, but also not as bad as I thought maybe I possibly would do. Now I’m going to do that again. That was a oh.

Julian Castelli 00:38:49 Now that’s perfect. If you’re if you’re going to try and, you know, use the theme, let’s do hard things.

Josh Manzano 00:38:53 Well, the more yeah.

Julian Castelli 00:38:54 I’m going to.

Multiple Speakers 00:38:54 Use those.

Josh Manzano 00:38:55 I’m going to use those lessons that I learned. And when I’m telling them to do hard things, they all know they’re like, oh yeah, that’s kind of hard. How long did you go, coach? 26.2 miles. Yeah. Really? Yes. Did you stop? No, I kept running.

Julian Castelli 00:39:07 Did it suck? Yes. It hurt?

Multiple Speakers 00:39:09 Yes. Yeah. Did I get exactly.

Josh Manzano 00:39:11 The time I wanted? No.

Josh Manzano 00:39:12 Am I a better person for it? Am I in better shape now? Am I more disciplined and. But do I feel better? Yes. Do I feel like I accomplished something great even though I didn’t exactly what I want? So if I don’t win that championship. But I came close, am I still going to feel really, really good about what I accomplished and look back at all my achievements? Absolutely. So I’m going to be able to bring those things to the team. you know, I’ve done the same thing with workouts. Hey, we’re gonna do this crazy hard workout, but I’ve done it first and they’ve seen me do it. And they know that, okay, it works. And coach knows if it doesn’t work, he’ll tell you we’re not doing it because it’s nuts. And I did it to myself first. I think it’s important that they they really authentically believe that not only are you just talking to them, you’re going to walk the walk with them.

Julian Castelli 00:39:46 Yeah. And to show that you’re you’re humble enough to learn and develop yourself is a great lesson for for all the young, young men that we coach so well.

Julian Castelli 00:39:54 Judge, that’s that’s fantastic. These are great lessons that are absolutely applicable to everyone that’s listening here, that’s trying to lead an organization to do hard things to to innovate. And I’m so glad we took some time to learn from you this morning. Thank you for sharing with us.

Josh Manzano 00:40:08 No, thank you for having me. It’s a blessing.

Julian Castelli 00:40:10 I’ve enjoyed it and look forward to seeing you on the field.

Josh Manzano 00:40:12 Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for all your years of coaching. Guys like you are the reason why we have the success we do.

Julian Castelli 00:40:17 It was a real honor. I really enjoyed it. Thanks, coach.

Josh Manzano 00:40:19 Thank you.

Julian Castelli 00:40:24 Thank you for listening to the Growth Elevated Leadership podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, would you please follow us and subscribe on your favorite podcast player and we’d be grateful if you recommend it to a friend. If you’d like more resources on how to become a better leader in business, we invite you to visit us at growth com. We’ll be back next week with more insight from another great tech leader.

Julian Castelli 00:40:44 Thank you.

Timestamps by PodSqueezePodcast Introduction (00:00:02)
Julian Castelli introduces the Growth Elevated Leadership Podcast and its focus on tech leadership stories and insights.

About the Growth Elevated Community (00:00:27)
Background on the Growth Elevated community, its mission, and events like the Ski and Tech Summit.

Episode Focus & Guest Introduction (00:01:12)
Julian introduces the episode’s special focus on community leadership in youth sports and guest Josh Manzano.

Coach Josh Manzano’s Background (00:02:06)
Overview of Josh’s coaching career, impact on Park City football, and his experience as a teacher and coach.

Coaching Journey Origins (00:03:12)
Josh shares how he got into coaching, his college influences, and early lessons in leadership.

Early Coaching Experiences & Mentors (00:03:55)
Josh discusses his first coaching roles, mentorship, and the importance of understanding the game beyond playing.

Complexity of Head Coaching (00:06:03)
Josh and Julian discuss the administrative and leadership complexities of being a head coach.

Parallels Between Coaching and Corporate Leadership (00:06:23)
Comparison of building a football program to leading a business, including team building and stakeholder alignment.

Arriving in Park City & Initial Impressions (00:07:47)
Josh describes his arrival in Park City, initial observations of the football program, and early challenges.

Assessing the Program’s State (00:08:47)
Josh evaluates the team’s lack of identity, focus on flash over substance, and the need for foundational change.

Challenges in a Ski Town Community (00:10:07)
Discussion of distractions in Park City, competition with other sports, and declining football participation.

Building Community Investment & Youth Programs (00:11:21)
How community involvement and the Park City Passing League helped revitalize youth football and engagement.

Park City Passing League & Community Energy (00:12:21)
Description of the non-contact youth league, its impact, and the vibrant community atmosphere it created.

Intentional Feeder System & Recruiting (00:14:45)
Strategic investment in youth programs as a pipeline for future high school football success.

Program Challenges: Equipment & Fundraising (00:15:59)
Initial struggles with outdated equipment and the importance of fundraising, including the golf tournament.

Growth in Participation & Resources (00:17:25)
How increased fundraising and community support led to program growth and improved resources.

Foundational Elements Beyond X’s and O’s (00:18:22)
Emphasis on the unseen work—fundraising, organization, and community trust—behind building a successful program.

Culture and Character Over Schemes (00:19:23)
Josh explains that character and culture are more important than playbooks in turning a program around.

Addressing Toxic Culture (00:20:00)
Josh describes the toxic culture he inherited and the need for a new, more committed team environment.

Building Commitment & Team Bonds (00:21:32)
The importance of off-field bonding, summer training, and intentional culture-building for team success.

Establishing Core Values & Leadership Council (00:22:29)
Introduction of core values, leadership council, and the evolution of team culture and standards.

Evolving Culture: COMPETE Framework (00:23:18)
How the team’s core values evolved into the COMPETE framework, with input from student leaders.

Leadership Styles & Personal Growth (00:26:16)
Josh reflects on adapting his leadership style, moving from authoritarian to more intentional and empathetic leadership.

Football as a Life Training Ground (00:27:07)
Using football to teach life skills, preparation, and lessons applicable beyond sports.

Early Results & Playoff Breakthrough (00:28:18)
First signs of success: making playoffs, winning a key game, and building belief in the program.

Setbacks and the Importance of Consistent Culture (00:29:55)
A step back in the second year highlights the need for ongoing culture reinforcement and personal growth.

Investing in Personal Leadership Development (00:31:22)
Josh’s commitment to self-improvement, leadership books, and mentorship as keys to better coaching.

Public Nature of Coaching & Community Stories (00:33:10)
The visibility of coaching in a small town, humorous anecdotes, and adapting to unique community expectations.

Adapting to Community & Work-Life Balance (00:35:40)
Learning to balance commitment with flexibility, working with rather than against community culture.

Focusing on Process Over Outcome (00:37:06)
Shifting focus from winning to process, planning, and personal discipline for long-term success.

Annual Self-Improvement & Leading by Example (00:37:55)
Josh’s routine of offseason self-improvement and modeling hard work for his players.

Theme of “Do Hard Things” (00:38:08)
Implementing the annual theme, leading by example (running a marathon), and teaching resilience.

Closing Reflections & Lessons for Leaders (00:39:54)
Final thoughts on leadership, humility, and the universal applicability of these lessons.

Podcast Outro (00:40:24)
Closing remarks, invitation to subscribe, and preview of future episodes.