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Enjoy the exploration. Good morning, Matty, how are you doing?
Speaker 2: I'm great erow. How are you?
Speaker 1: Absolutely fantastic and very excited to share a conversation with you,
because what I love about Men of Troy is that
you answer a lot of questions because come on, you
got to deal with it too. When it comes to
these people that are doing fantasy sports, they may know
the stats for today, but they do not know how
we got here. And you give us that opportunity to
really step into mister Carroll's life and say, oh god, dang,
I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, for sure. It was so cool to look
you know, it's cool to get perspective. You know, I
feel like twenty years is a good way to look back.
People have a lot work, they've had a lot more
time to marinate in it and think about it.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I was just doing some research for
iHeartRadio based on why is it that time is flying by?
And it's because we associate ourselves with days of the week. Well,
when it comes to college ball or even professional ball,
what are we doing? We're always saying Saturday, Sunday, Saturday, Sunday,
Saturday Sunday. You know, if you you know, can we
just attach ourselves to the sports hero and then and
then get on with our lives?
Speaker 2: I know, I love it, you know. I think it's
one of the I point this out in the book,
which is really interesting. It's one of the reasons that
college and pro seems so different is other than the
you know, level of play and the age of the
player stuff like that, is because of the days in
which they're played. So Saturday, this is this more kind
of hopeful day, right, and it's like all of these
alums coming back to the place where they spent the
best four years of their lives and all these students
in the stands and games just in the bands. You know,
games just feel those college games just feel so different
from the more sort of professional NFL which happens on
Sunday when people are kind of god dread and got
to go back to work on Monday. It's a really
interesting thing.
Speaker 1: To me, see, And the thing is is that it
opens up our minds into a clearer sport as well,
because the business side of college ball or professional ball,
we tend to forget it is a business before it's
a sport.
Speaker 2: Yeah percent. And obviously now I think that, you know,
the veil has been lifted off of college football. It's
very much, you know, a money making sport at this point.
Speaker 1: So what was it like, though, to put yourself in
a position where people were calling Pete a failure, they
were calling him a fraud and a fake because right away,
I mean, being down here in Carolina, well I'm going
through the same junk with Belichick. Everybody's going get rid
of him. Ah, this guy's it's stupid to have him
in there. And I'm going, oh, I think that Monty
just wrote about this, but it was a different player.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, so when when Carol joined the Trojans
in two thousand and one, he was a failure at
that point by by all metrics. I mean, he'd been
fired by after one season at the Jets, and then
he went to the Patriots for three was fired there.
Those coach, those owners of those franchises just didn't get him.
He was a player's coach. He tried to make everything fun.
He wore flip flops, he had a basketball hoop installed
in the facility. They just didn't get him. He was
a little too loosey, goosey. So he goes out to USC.
He's not the first choice. Depending on how he talked to,
he's either the third or the fourth choice. So he
got this downtrodden coach and this downtrodden program and they
syncd up and you know, his kind of loosey, goosey
players coach kind of style really worked with college kids.
You know, he's the diametric opposite of Bill Belichick, really,
I mean he's Belichick is very much kind of a
militaristic kind of football coach. Carol is very much a
player's coach. One of the things that really came through
and reporting this book, talking to his ex players and
his ex coaches at USC, was that he made it fun.
This whole philosophy, His whole philosophy was to get peak performance,
to get pete creativity, you got to make it fun.
And so you know, a lot of these guys would say,
hey this, you know, Pete Carroll made it so fun.
It felt like I was twelve years old again playing
in my backyard. Yes, so different from La Chick.
Speaker 1: See that's how I watched the TV when when he
was on the screen, I felt comforted. In other words,
I wanted to see him as well. I wanted to
see his reactions. I wanted to predict what he was
going to say into that little microphone. You know. It
says he brought me so into that game, is what
he did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. I mean he was always moving. Yeah, he's
always chewing a big wap to gum and practices. He
would he would run down on the kickoff team. There's
one story in the book where he there's a fourth
and goal play at practice and he decides he's going
to be the running back and he tries to jump
over the pile kind of like crucial Walker, but no
one catches him and just slams into the turf. I mean,
he was just a maniac, and he's still even in
his you know, in his seventies, he still was this active, crazy,
you know guy who actually like he was twenty five.
Speaker 1: Well, don't you think it's because he proved to the
rest of us on this side of the flat screen
that no matter how bad the storm is, can we
just sit down and talk of about this because I
always felt like that he was He may not have
had the solution, but let's talk about it. Let's at
least bring people together to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean, he very collaborative. You know. One thing
that's really interesting about his coaching career is that for
most coaches, like Bill Belichick, you know, there's a good
cop bad cop dynamic and the head the head coaches
the bad cop, so he'll go and he'll yell at
the player, and then then assistant will co over and
be like, go to the player and say, this is
what the coach meant. You know, don't take it too personally.
That dynamic was was inverted. At USC. Carrol was the
good cop, but he had guys like Lane Kiffin and
ed Orgeron who were kind of the bad cops. So
it was this crazy No other big program or no
other big NFL team that I've seen has had this
kind of weird inverted dynamic like that, and you know,
it didn't work in the NFL. His first stint After USC,
of course he goes the Seahawks, improves that it could
work there as well. Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got to tell you, I became seriously in
control of my passion for football when he went to
the Seahawks, only because you know, growing up in Montana,
you're either a Seahawks fan or you were a Broncos fan.
And when he went to Seattle, it's like, oh, sorry, Broncos,
that's it, man, I'm gone, I'm out of here. Because
Carroll was up there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it was an incredible run he had there.
We you know, we forget about it. He got fired,
right and last year d Raider's not very good, I
do think, and you know, in time we will appreciate
what he did there. But you know, he's one of
only three coaches to win a college and national title
and a Super Bowl. He was within six inches really
a Lendell White fourth down conversion of winning three college
titles in a row. He was within you know, a
bad play call to throw it, to accidentally throw it
to Malcolm Butler and not give it to Marshawn Lynch
of winning two Super Bowls. So you know, he had
the unfortunate kind of historical accident of being around at
the same time as Bill Belichick, who's considered to be
the greatest NFL coach of all time, and Nick saidon
who's considered to be the greatest college football coach of
all time. But Carol's right in there, you know, I
think he's a top ten, top fifteen coach of all time.
Speaker 1: Don't you think though, It's about time that they're starting
to marry these to these two sports, because even the
way that you bring the everybody together, the players and
the coaches together inside this book, it's still the same sport,
just a different level of play. But you can love
both of them and really really you know, have a
game in your hand and heart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, we're trending that way. I mean, I
just read yesterday that the Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson was
offered six point five million dollars to play for Miami
next year. He turned that down to grow but I mean,
you know that's probably that's about what he's making his
rookie contract, right. I mean, so there's college football is
definitely trending in a way of becoming kind of more professional.
I feel like they need to get a handle on it.
And maybe treat it more like professionals football and you know,
have a salary cap and make these players employees. Otherwise
it's going to get kind of out of control and
they might start making more money than they would as
a pro.
Speaker 1: What is that like for you on your side of
the storytelling, because I mean, my god, just in the
past five or ten years, everything that's taking place, especially
with this portal and all that kind of stuff, it's
got to be driving you insane.
Speaker 2: It is crazy. It's very very hard to wrap your
arms around, I feel like, because it also changes every year,
you know, I mean just watching these guys. I mean
you're a fan of a team, and then thirty guys
Ohio State. What had twenty twenty five guys run to
the portal after they lost in the playoffs. One thing
that I loved doing about this USC book and this
pe carrol Era book is that it's just a little
easier to wrap your arms around. Now. Was it a
fair system? Absolutely not. Was there cheating going on? Absolutely?
Was there you know, players being paid, Yes, but it
was an easier you know, kids stayed for two, three,
four years. There was no you know, if you left,
you had to sit out a year, so no one
left and so it's kind of an easier era to
kind of wrap your arms around a little bit.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Monty Burke coming
up next. The name of his sports book is Men Troy.
We are back with journalists, Monty Burke. So one of
the things that I have to ask you about, only
because now that you're bringing up Pete Carroll and the
other coaches that you'll talk about are the other leaders,
is the fact that we've evolved into this generation now
where it seems like they're coming to the to the
college leagues to take a break because they know the
NFL is can open because I mean, what was it
eight coaches that lost their job of this season in
the NFL. Well, we're going to lose now on the
college side, and it's like do we start all over
here now?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean it's actually now nine openings because tom
at Pittsburgh. It'll be interesting to see if they if
they do raid, I mean, will Kurt Signetti or will
Kirby Smart or will Ryan Day? Will they make the jump?
This would be a good year to do it. There's
you know, not only nine openings. There are some good openings.
I mean, if the Ravens and the Steelers seems like
pretty good jobs to me. So it'll be very interesting
to see if they raid the college, you know, kind
of the college head coaches, or if they look to
you know, assistance offensive coordinators, defensive coordinators that are already
in the NFL.
Speaker 1: You have a quote in here that I've not heard
of before. But I'll tell you what. I want to
live by it. I want to study it. I want
to figure things out by it. In the way that
you say that the mantra let whoever earns the palm
bear it. That's powerful inside my heart because, in other words,
own it, own it, and do something with it, don't
just let it sit there.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. That's actually the motto of the University of
Southern California. Wow. And I've always loved that. I mean,
there's a they have a lot of you know, kind
of like a Trojan iconography there. They got the crazy
guy who gallops out on the white horse, you know,
and plants the sword in the middle of the field.
And you know, I just love all that stuff. I
think it's so cool. But I do that quote to
me is great. Is unbelievable. It's a little bit like
a man in the Arena stuff from Teddy Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: So in a really creative way, do you not see
your book also not just being a book of history,
being a book about sports, but also in a very
very fun way. This is like a true crime story
because I mean, you're going in there and you're identifying
the characters of what what's been going on. Is like, go,
oh my god, he did it? Who did it? I
don't know, let's go find out who did it.
Speaker 2: Yep. It's so fun to put these books together because
it's just so fun to call, you know. I think
I interviewed a little more than one hundred and fifty
people from this book, including Carol, and you know, they're like,
every little interview is like a piece of the puzzle,
and then it's my job to put that puzzle together
and make it coherent to a certain degree. But I
really love and then the rabbit holes you go down,
I mean, to dive Maggie Bush scandal was amazing, to
dive into ed Orgeron and Lane Kiffin and to go
down to you know, at the time he was still
at Old Miss When I interviewed him, but just to
go down and hang out with him for a couple
of days and like, you know, see what he's doing
and get his thoughts and how this influenced him. And
then to compare guys like Pete Carroll to Nick Saban
or Bill Belichick, it's really really fascinating. He's so different
from those guys. And you know, it worked. It didn't
work quite as well as Belichick's I guess the NFL
didn't like work quite as well as as a Saban
in college, but man, it worked well. See.
Speaker 1: The thing is, though, is that with Pete Carroll it
almost you know, I get that vibration that he's just
that dude next door that has a guard in his backyard.
He likes his deer. He's so every bit of us.
And then if you if you give him a great compliment,
he's like, all right, that's fine, But did you see
everybody else around me? Did you see that I had
some assistant coaches and players and things. It's not all me?
Speaker 2: Yep, exactly. No, he was really great about I mean,
look at his coaching tree right now. Yeah, Lame Kiffin,
Steve Sarksian, I mean, the probably are two of the
top whatever five ten coaches in college football right now.
I mean the guys that learned under him. He's always
been good about about promoting them, and yeah, I agree.
He's very much like give other people credit where it's
deserved well.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that you talk about inside
this book that should be felt by all fans, but
most of them, you know, don't really buy into it,
and that is is that when you lose, you lose
a part of yourself, and you should be losing a
part of yourself. For instance, like with the Panthers not
going to the next level of the playoffs. Yeah, we're hurting,
we're planning, we're going what the hell is going on here?
And it's like that's part of the game, and you're
writing about it inside this book.
Speaker 2: Yep. It's it's kind of all about how you react
to those things, right, I mean, the Panthers are fascinating
to me. Are they going to take the next step up?
Or was this the high water mark? You know? And
this is you know, I mean, but this is the
this is the question, right, It's a you see this
in the USC book they had when Pete Carroll got there,
he was not people didn't want him to be. The
USC alum didn't want him there because he'd been terrible
in the NFL, and he started off one and four
in his first season and all the people all in
uproar like that. But he stayed steady, built a team,
you know. I mean, there's you mentioned the nine openings.
There's uh, there's a little bit of a knee jerk
thing going on. I mean, you see, like the Browns
seem to fire their coach every year. The Raiders seemed
to fire their coach every year. Uh. But then again,
you know, the Steelers seemed to hold onto their coach
too long. The Ravens seemed to you know, So there's
a real fine balance here. It's it's coaching. Is just
I find football coaches, especially at that level NFL and
time college should just be absolutely fascinating people.
Speaker 1: Is it a levitation game in the way that in
radio we do everything we can to get to certain markets.
We'll be there maybe six months to a year, then gone, gone, gone.
And every time that I look at what's going on
in any kind of you know, college sports or pro sports,
it's like, man, they're playing the radio game. They're here
for a moment and then I gotta go because I'm
building my future.
Speaker 2: Yep. I feel like it's exacerbated by social media and
stuff like that. I mean, if you go on it's
so funny to go on Twitter after a playoff game
and see the team, the people who support with the
team that lost. They're all like fire the coach this.
I mean, you see, Alabama is at a great example.
Calen de bor is a very good coach, but just
because he hasn't won a title, because he hasn't done
what Saban did, people are all open arms. You get
to give him one more year, one more year. I mean,
there's just no patience with our sort of social media
ecosystem right now. See.
Speaker 1: I wish I would have Pete Carroll could have sat
down with Bryce Young of the Panthers and during that
moment where we all wanted him out, we wanted Rice
gone right now. I wonder what Pete would have said
to them, and I have this feeling he would have said, look,
go look in the mirror, say hey, look, you're great
at what you do. You're the best that you can do.
In this moment, Let's work with everybody else so that
we can work as one.
Speaker 2: Yep. Tried to. He always tried at USC in particular,
to keep his players even though they were out. They
became I mean, Liner and Reggie Bush became as famous
as some of the celebrities used to come to the games,
but to keep everything kind of in house and only
worry about what they could control, to not listen to
the noise. Of course, there was a little less noise
back then. There wasn't social media, it wasn't really in existence.
But still he did a very good job of keeping that.
I think the best coaches do that. I think they
have a way of keeping their players kind of in
this sort of you know, protected state where they can
operate and at peak performance and not worry about the
outside noise. But man, that is hard to do these days.
I feel like it's everywhere.
Speaker 1: So you've dedicated the book to Heidi and Hansel. Now
those are probably two of the people that I would
hear you say, give me five more minutes, five more minutes.
I'm onto something. Don't let me go just yet. Come on,
we give me five more minutes and then we're on
our way. Am I right or wrong on this?
Speaker 2: You're very right. There is my mother and my wife
who are the most wonderful women in the world, and
the most forgiving women in the world, and forgiving of
all my you know, I'll be driving and say, hey,
can you write this down with guy at this thought
about this thing, you know, yeah, so I just mean,
they're incredibly supportive and great, you know, people in their
own right, and you know, so, yeah, I'm very happy
I got to be able to acknowledge them.
Speaker 1: Well, we got to give credit to the person that
inspired you to be so descriptive like you are, because
I got to be honest with you that final two
minutes and thirteen seconds in that game, clock, I actually
I started to sweat and get nervous because that, to
me is the brilliant writer, the brilliant storyteller that made
me feel that anxiety in two minutes and thirteen seconds.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that very much. I loved going through those games.
I mean, particularly that National title game was just so
so fun to go through it frame by frame, watch
it fifteen twenty times. But also talk to the people
who were there, you know, talk to Pete Care What
were you thinking when you made that call for Lyndelle
White to go forward on fourth down? What were you
thinking on fourth and five when Vince Young has the ball,
what play did you call? I actually I called the
interview the Texas defensive coordinator as well and asked him
what play he called. So it's so fun to go
through and kind of you know, again, that's what time
helps with that a little bit. I don't think you
get all that, you know, necessarily a year after the
game happened. I think it well thought about it. They're
willing to talk about it. So super fun to do.
Speaker 1: So when you sit down and you have a conversation,
not an interview, but a conversation with over one hundred
and fifty people to put this book together, do you
ever just sit down with Pete and go, I know
some junk, I've heard some stuff along the way. Do
you want to talk about it now or do we
just bring it up in a normal talk.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that's a really interesting thing about interviewing people.
So you know, what you usually do is you saved
that stuff for sort of the last interview one of them,
you know, But with Pete, Pete was pretty open. So
I just said, hey, here are some things I found
that you're not going to like, And I was right,
he did not like him, and if it were up
to him, you know, if it was his book, he
probably wouldn't have put him in there. But you know,
my job is to be sort of objective, you know,
just the facts kind of deal. And so you know,
there are some things in here which I think he'll love,
and there's some things in here which I think he
won't love so much. But again, my job is to
do my job and not necessarily write, you know, his
book for him. It's to write the definitive, objective story
of this incredible nine year era at USC.
Speaker 1: God, you've got to come back to this show anytime
in the future. I haven't even gotten started yet, dude,
I'd love to all right, will you be brilliant today? Okay, sir,
thank you.
Speaker 2: I appreciate having on