Jack Clark Edit
Mon, Oct 30, 2023 8:18PM • 33:36
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
rugby, team, mental toughness, coach, players, leadership, bit, feel, put, sport, talk, leader, moment, world, strengths, jack, hard, important, idea, thought
SPEAKERS
Paul Barnett, Jack Clark
Paul Barnett 00:00
Jack Clark. Good evening, and welcome to the Great coach's podcast.
Jack Clark 00:05
Yeah, thank you very much, Paul. Happy to be here.
Paul Barnett 00:08
Well, it's gonna be a bit surprising for some of the audience to hear an American voice talking about rugby. But you've got a fascinating story and I can't wait to get into it with your bit, Jack, something really simple to get his going. Can you tell us where you are in the world and what you've been up to so far today?
Jack Clark 00:25
It's nine o'clock in the morning and the center of the universe that would that's the University of California Berkeley campus. And specifically, I'm, I'm in the doc cuts and Field House, which is our little office outside of winter rugby field. It's a beautiful late fall kind of morning.
Paul Barnett 00:43
No, I would have perfect. Well, thank you for starting your day with us. We do appreciate it. And I'm very keen to get into this amazing story. You've got the takes us from Wales, all the way back to America and of course, to too many other places as well. But, Jack, maybe I'll start by just name checking a couple of the great coaches I know you've had firsthand experience with there was Pete Newell. And there's Mark quiet. And I'm sure there's been many others as well. We were talking about Becky Burley just a moment ago, but perhaps I could just start by asking you, what is it you think the great coaches do differently? That sets them apart?
Jack Clark 01:17
Well, they're great communicators, right? I mean, you know, if you're gonna, if you're gonna move a group of people, you know, in a direction together, you've got to be able to articulate that direction and be pretty plain spoken about it right, be accessible in your communications. And I think that would be the I suppose the, the fundamental thing that I see in great coaches, and then I think after that, they all have something proprietary about that, I think you'll find where they look at the games, their games slightly differently, they probably analyze differently, they capture different notational analysis, statistics, they would, they would probably have their own, they would be stabbing things that other people don't even pay any attention to. So I think, probably those are the two things that stick out.[PB1]
How the great coaches are clear communicators and have a plain spoken vision that they align peple to.
Paul Barnett 02:07
You played your last ever rugby match as part of the world. 15. And if I got my research, right, it was against Wales at Cardiff arms Park, which must have been pretty special. What do you remember most now looking back about that day,
Jack Clark 02:23
you don't have a responsibility. I mean, they they it was a kind of a poor man's world. 15 and I'm the only American that was on the field to start the game. And, you know, geez, don't make a hash of this. You know, they're gonna think we're all none of us are any good. If you don't play hard. Try to have a good game. So I I remember that weight of responsibility that I felt I remember how special the old Carter Farms Park was. I mean, what a what a cathedral it was. And unfortunately, I remember leaving the game I think I only left one game as a player. And it was that game. If you remember that old world front row, I think it was might have been grand price but somebody put a anvil sighs fist into my ribs at one point, broken ribs punctured lung, one of those deals. And I spent a few days in a Welsh hospital. I was in the lung ward with the other people that had black lung, I actually. But they were a good bunch I can remember really snuck in a couple of beers. It was actually not that. Not that bad for a couple of days.
Paul Barnett 03:22
Well, talking about weight of responsibility, your team, the Cal Bears have been playing for 120 years. But here's the more incredible stat. They've only had six coaches in that time. How do you harness the energy of the past to strengthen the team's culture in the present,
The fact that his team has only 6 coaches in 120 years, and how he therefore connects tradaition with the present playing group
Jack Clark 03:43
I believe that is remembering the past to the present. And for that matter, anytime there's a function, you know, remembering the presence of the past to be able to introduce these young men that are walking between the lions today. And then, you know, for people that played a cow Long, long ago, I mean, there's still these wonderful, wonderful stories, and I'm a bit of a storyteller. I think you need to be able to tell stories to be able to engage people and I mean, it's easy to say we stand on their shoulders, right? I mean, that's the easy thing to say. But when you when you really you know, fully paint that picture of of who these people were a lot of our rugby you know, we started playing in 1882. In my office here, there's, you know, there's photos of a rugby game with 50,000 people in attendance and for your audience. This is the what could have been moment in American rugby, you know, where we start off playing rugby. And then we, as a new country want to play our own sports, not British sports. So we morphed to American football and the early days of American football were quite dangerous. There were deaths and by decree we go back to playing rugby as our main sport and so from 1906 to 1914. It's the number one sport on our campus and then we you know, fall back into play in American football is the number one sport and then rugby becomes the second sport after that, and it's remained that for 120 years. Yeah, it's a it's a really rich experience. You know,[PB2]
Paul Barnett 05:09
Eddie Jones to coach, the English team thinks that America has the potential to be a powerhouse in World Rugby.
Jack Clark 05:16
Yeah. Well, I mean, we have the potential I mean, when you we haven't towards 300 million people and a country that sits inside of a continent? Of course, we have potentially, you know, and I appreciate that when we look only through the lens of rugby, then, you know, I suppose rugby is the, I guess Sleeping Giant isn't that the term that the world uses, but it's not really sleeping isn't it's hyperactive? In sport, it's just hyperactive and different sports is really what it is. So we have great potential. But we have a lot of work to do to be able to make rugby a sport in all of our schools, that all of our schools are playing middle school, through high school through university. And then we need some structures to develop our very best players that emerge from that. And I think it's early days for American rugby still, right? I mean, I think obviously, the best part of our game will be in the future.
Paul Barnett 06:12
Well, it might be early days, but you've already had success. You were the head coach of the USA team, you claimed 16 test victories. But on four occasions, you were close, breathtakingly close to beating Australia, Ireland, Wales, and Argentina, which is pretty impressive. And I know you didn't get the W but you weren't close, Jack. And I wanted to ask you, how do you approach competitions, when you are the less resourced competitor?
Jack Clark 06:44
You've got to embrace being an underdog, right? And and it's, it's not the worst thing somebody can call you, mind you, right? I mean, the idea that somebody else has got better players, and they're better resource than they're better prepared for the moments. You just got to acknowledge it. And then you say, but what the heck, you know, let's, let's, let's give it a lash and let's see what happens here. It doesn't have you know, it shouldn't affect your confidence, it shouldn't affect your ability to go compete. If anything, we you know, the pressure really should be off when you're playing some team you at you have no business being on the field with that team. In some cases. I mean, I, I would remind you that my stretches, the coach began in 93. But in 95, the game goes professional, and you know, all of the mature rugby nations just opened up this war chest, they took their rugby immediately to the next level, right? And so if it was hard, before professionalism, it got unbelievably hard after professionalism for all the countries like ourselves, which were, you know, truly, truly amateur. But yeah, it felt like a little David versus Goliath and let's, let's give it a go. And, you know, they put on their jersey the same way we do. Let's let's go see what could happen. Now. Although we can close a couple times when we didn't overachieve. It was almost an embarrassing. I mean, we had a couple of really rough ones as well. I think besides those 16 victories, I think we got maybe 10 occasions, we were within a try, right and Close, but no scalp. Really, we never, we never got one of those scalps that we really wanted. One of those mature regulations,[PB3]
Paul Barnett 08:21
they could do it enrage Jack, but we'll have to wait and see one of the topics that you speak passionately about in the community, not just in universities and with sporting teams is the value of high performance teams, and the benefit they can bring. Could you tell us about the values that you've identified as being critical to high performance?
Jack Clark 08:40
Well, we have a set of values, I'm not sure that they all point they speak to our organizational values, what we believe in what we want to measure. But I think that's, that's, I think the question you're asking is, how do high performance teams no matter what they believe, and how do they go about, you know, kind of making sure every day they're aligned with their values? And, and, and I think one of the first things has to do with measurements, I knew a guy once and he said to me, why guess when you can know? And he hit me, because my instincts for our game are really quite good. I mean, I pretty much know what happened after the game, I've got a pretty good idea in my head, what we did well, and what we need to work on, and what were the real trigger moments in the game that that might have swayed it. But is that that's not really enough, is it? I mean, is his point of why guess when you can no hit hit me, hit me hard. That's right. We do have to use all of that video analysis, we have to make sure that we're using statistics in the right way and that we are truly understanding our performance and and so I think it has to do with this willingness to measure to use applied science where where it's appropriate. I think that's at the core of every high performance organization, no matter what they you know, what they list is their values of it. Fellas, I think it's this belief of, you know, there's no shortcuts here, we have to do this very, very thoughtfully.[PB4]
His ideas about how performing teams go about aligning to their values nomatter what they might believe inindiviually.
Paul Barnett 10:06
You mentioned in there that it really hit you hard. And I know that when you were in New Zealand, there was also a Maori phrase that you had. Kia kaha. Tell us how that influenced you thinking?
Jack Clark 10:18
I started researching teams and what I, what I what I found is that if teams were tough is because they celebrated toughness, they wore it on their sleeve, if you will. And once that became clear to me, I really started kind of reverse engineering, is there some kind of tough organization out there? Whether they're, you know, in tech, or whether they're in sports? Is there some kind of organization out there that is really tough, but that they don't ever talk about it? They don't really measure it, and I couldn't find one. Right. And, and so I think that phrase, the Maori people, right at first, right, I mean, you know, it's an affirmation, it's a hello, it's a goodbye. It's be strong, right. And there's this idea that we're, you know, we wouldn't be here, if we weren't strong. And let's wear this on our sleeve, let's make this part of our identity. I think that's a pretty powerful concept.[PB5]
How the new zealnd Maori saying of Kia kaha, which translate to Stay Strong influences him.
Paul Barnett 11:11
Check, I have another terrific quote from you, you say, but we have to believe that if we're going to get a paycheck as a coach, that we can develop young people to lead, it has to be part of the curriculum of what we do. Tell us about some of the ways that you help the players that you lead to become leaders in their own right.
Jack Clark 11:32
It's interesting. So the University of California Berkeley, where I work, the leading public school on the planet quite often in all these rankings, right up there in the top five typically have private public every, you know, all the schools put in on a global basis. But I don't think you can find leadership anywhere on our campus. I mean, I think we have some, like military ROTC kind of program where there's probably a little some leadership there. Certainly, there's collaboration of students working together on a project. But I don't think that leadership is just out there as a curriculum, and it seems to me to be a pretty important attribute of what sports can teach, you know, I've got this glossary in my head. And it's, it's, it's an organizational glossary, if you will, for our team.
You know, we say that leadership is the ability to make those around you better and more productive. And it's, it's interesting to think of leadership that way to not think about it as a rank, not think about it as who's got the corner office, who's the senior on the team, who's the star player, who's the captain, but think about it in the terms of it's an ability, you don't arrive at it, and then all of a sudden, you start doing it. And if you have the ability to make those around you better and more productive in my world, you're a leader, you don't need to be a senior, you don't need to be a starter, you don't need to be the captain, you just need to have that ability. And what we know is we have a lot of good performers in all kinds of sport in business that are really pretty exceptional as performers, but they don't have that ability to make others around them better and more productive. So you celebrate it when people get it, right, you talk about it, when people get it wrong, you make it something that they want to become. [PB6]
His view on leadership as the ability to make those around us better and more productive. And the way he tries to develop this in his team.
And then over time, I know it's worked, right, because I hear back over the years from former players and you know, for them to be able to, in their own families to be a leader to be a leader in their communities and to be a leader in the workplace. I mean, that's a pretty, pretty great thing, you know, and I've said a few times, and it's just kind of undervalued because we're, you know, we're in the new cycle where we talk about the next great thing, buy the next great person.
And it's my belief that we don't solve any of the really big issues with a person that we need bright people don't get me wrong, but it's really groups of people that kind of decide they're going to be on a team. And they they're the ones with their nose pointed in the same direction are going to go out there and solve the big problems, you know, disease, poverty, education, all these problems, and certainly their problems in America. And I think there are problems around the world. And we're going to solve those with groups of people. So I want our players upon their matriculation, to have leadership skills to be able to be in that group of people that are really leading the way. It's so it's fundamental. I mean, we say around the paycheck, but I don't expect every volunteer that's helping out as a coach to necessarily take on even more than just planning activities for the team and being a coach. But once you get a paycheck, I think that's the point where your obligation isn't just to the team, it's to relay to those individuals to make sure they're developing to their best self.[PB7]
Paul Barnett 14:53
Yet leadership is so central to your message. Yeah, it's it's, it's in all your interviews. You play his talk about it, it's clearly very important to you. I'm just wondering, was it always there or was there, you know, like this, this moment, similar to the moment you had in New Zealand was it was something like that.
Jack Clark 15:12
Yeah, you know, being around the team, year after year, season after season, it turns out to be a bit of a laboratory, you know, where if you're observing what's going on, you know, you're better for it, your players, the organization, the team, they really teach you what it is you need to be looking for. And what I saw is, it's a mistake for the minority, to lead the majority. And for us to say that's the system, because it's pretty easy to say, You're the boss, everyone else is, is not the boss, and you're the star player, you're the captain, you're the coach, and everyone else is, I guess, a follower. And that didn't feel right. To me, the idea that, you know, there's a handful of people, and they were the leaders and everyone else was follower. So I tried to create a definition that was just more accessible, that where everyone could really be a leader, and that that organization would be stronger. In the end, it would be a more resilient organization, it just, I want everybody on our team to feel like they can contribute to the leadership of the team. Now, when you're young, your your toolbox doesn't have a lot of tools in it. And you might not be able to leave anytime, anywhere, like the really good leaders can. But you can begin that journey to being a leader, I want to make sure that it's never rank based, that leadership is always seen as a skill, not as a rank.
How he views leadership as a skill not a rank.
Paul Barnett 16:34
Jack, one of the one of the great messages I took from researching you is this whole idea of actually, it's your quote, my players will leave this campus with a PhD in team, it's it's such a great idea. If someone was listening, and they wanted to improve their teams and work teams, community based team sports team, what would you tell them to start?
Jack Clark 16:57
If they want to improve the leadership, the team, I would just make sure that whatever structures you put in place, make it open for other people to contribute to the leadership, a little bit of what we just shared. I mean, so often, I mean, sometimes Santa has a consultant, I can work with a business and they'll and they'll say, yeah, that that idea of everyone can be a leader, what a great idea. And then all of a sudden, I'll show them their own structure that has a quote, quote, Leadership Committee, and where the top executives in the firm refer to themselves as gi leaders. And it's like, well, we have to change that if we want to open up this to everyone being a leader now that doesn't change chain of command and authority. You know, we need chain of command in order to make the organization work. But leadership doesn't have to be hijacked by the people with the best resume on the on the rugby team and or the best business card in business. You know, it needs to be something that everyone can contribute to, you know, this place, you know, you get a parking spot at Berkeley if you win a Nobel Prize, right? So you know, stakes are a little bit high. So I suppose there's a few people rolling their eyes when they hear the rugby coach talking about his players are getting a PhD and team but there's no one even even working on it other than us, the way I see it, I mean, where it's truly, truly important to us. And, you know, we want to make sure that our players are are matriculating with this really acute understanding of team dynamics and leadership.[PB8]
Paul Barnett 18:26
Well, Jack, many Nobel Prizes these days are won by groups of people. So I think you're onto something. When you talk about the mindset within the team, you describe it as grateful for everything entitled for nothing. And it's this selflessness comes through as well. And when I listened to answer the other questions, but I'm wondering how it shapes the team dynamic,
Jack Clark 18:46
you know, it's aspirational, really is what it is. I mean, it's I don't know that we hit it every year, to be quite honest, but we're attempting to, and in my mind, I see this big room is where our values live. But the passage way to get there is a mindset, if you can't reconcile the mindset, the values aren't going to mean anything to you is, I guess what I believe that mindset of of grateful for everything entitled to nothing is is kind of based on on collegiate sport in America. And it might be true for organizations around the world, but I don't know that there's a fair bit of entitlement in collegiate athletics, and there's an absence of gratitude. And somebody has to talk about it. Somebody has to say that, you know, isn't that amazing that you can put your your soiled clothes in a hamper? And you come back the next day and they're cleaning your locker? I mean, isn't that isn't that something to be grateful for? There's nutritionists and coaches and sports Psych and strengthen conditioning and there's all these services dumping into the athletes and the idea that you'd be a little bit grateful for that is powerful, right grateful to all your coach has over your life, to your parents, to your friends, to all these people that support you. Gratitude is just a beautiful thing. This idea that you're not owed anything makes makes you more resilient is what it really does. I mean, if you don't feel like you're owed a break by the referee, or if you have to play into the wind, both halves, I mean, there's some teams that'll throw them off kilter, you know, anything happens like that. They feel like victims. And I believe there's teams out there that are just far more resilient. They don't think they're owed a break, they don't need a break, they're there to compete, no matter. You know, what the conditions,[PB9]
The mindset he tries to bring into his team of grateful for everything entitled for nothing
Paul Barnett 20:33
talking about resilience, mental toughness is very important to you. In fact, I've heard you say it's as important as physical toughness, but it's a little bit harder to train and teach. So I'm wondering, you get these new people into campus every year they come in? How do you go about helping people develop the skill of mental toughness?
Jack Clark 20:51
It begins by defining if you say the term mental toughness, and not everyone just nods their head. And if you go into the library, there's 30 meters of books on mental toughness, and they're all probably correct, right? So if you went around a room of people, and you said, what's the definition of mental toughness, you'd be 10 people and you'd have 10 different definitions, but yet, it's one of those phrases we use all the time. So organizationally, I just think it's important that we were working from the same glossary that we know that we have a definition.
And I would say that my definition for mental toughness has changed three times over 40 years, I had a definition that I didn't really like, but I knew it was I knew how important mental toughness was. So I used it. And then I used a different one that I thought was a little bit better. And then for the last long time, the definition I've been using, it really works for me that I borrowed from a cricketer. And I know nothing at all about cricket. But this cricketer was a really good cricketer. And he happened to write a book, and he asked me, he said this definition one time, and it just so resonated with me that I borrowed it. And it's, it's now embedded in our culture. And we say that mental toughness is the ability to focus on the next most important thing. And if you really unpack that, you know, you don't have to access mental toughness when things are going well. Right. So there's no need for it. And when things are really pear shaped, and you do have to access mental toughness, I think the tendency is though, what does this mean? You know, you play it forward a couple steps, like that can't be good. You play it backwards, like how did happen? And it you know, it affects your, your psychic, whereas people that have the discipline about mental toughness, no matter what happens to them, and in those moments that aren't going well, they have the ability to put all their energy and all their focus into what's going to happen next, what's the most next most important thing? And how do I put my focus in it? So that's what we think. And then I guess you can measure it like anything else. If you really believe in it, you can, you can measure when people are exhibiting really strong mental toughness. And you can, and you can talk about it right? You can celebrate it in the room.[PB10]
The way he talks about mental toughness as being the ability to focus on the next most important thing.
Paul Barnett 23:00
How would you measure it check? How would you measure it?
Jack Clark 23:04
Let's say that somebody, you know, had a had a couple of moments in the game that weren't great, right? And they've made some mistakes that that's those mistakes that they wouldn't normally make. But yet they find a way to kind of dig out of that situation, and to go on and find their footing again and get back in the game and not let those mistakes affect them. While all that is on videotape. All of that is there's a story that can be told about that sequence. And I'd be the one that clip that story and clip those sequences and tell that story. So that other people would say how I can dig out of this and how you dig out of it is to put your focus on the next most important thing. So that's an example if
Paul Barnett 23:45
you can you train it, is there an exercise you can undertake on the pitch to prepare people for that requirement to focus on the next most important thing?
Jack Clark 23:54
I think you can you can certainly train discomfort doesn't mean that I'm going to lose you can pressurize players in training activities to where they get used to that pressure and it's gets easier the game slows down for him maybe it's really fast at first and it becomes more achievable as they are they're in that situation more and more. I mean, fatigue is one of those interesting things you know how many mistakes of both emotional or mental as well as physical we make once we get tired so obviously having an elite level of fitness is pretty important to mental toughness you you get used to wow I you know I felt like my heart was gonna explode but it's really not and I actually can recover fairly quickly. And if you as you start to flirt with those outer limits, if you will of your of your well being both mental and physical, you know you find out that well it's not that bad. I'm okay I am still in control here. I thought I was just like a leaf blowing in the wind there for a moment but no, no, no, I'm back in control of this whole thing. So to a degree, yes, you can train,[PB11]
Paul Barnett 25:03
check in you opening, you talked about great coaches being blind spoken, and having good communication skills. And I'd like to just reference that as I asked you about feedback, because I imagine, given your focus on mental toughness, there would be times when you would be giving people feedback that would be very close to the bone. And I'm wondering, are there any particular styles or routines that you've found to be more effective than others?
Jack Clark 25:28
Yeah, I think I'm a little bit different. And in my communications, I mean, on the training field, there's not enough time to just have a quiet word with a guy, right? I mean, there's, there's too many things that need to be talked about, we can't slow down the training session to talk about unnecessarily. And so, you know, I asked my players to have some kind of thick skin and to be willing to learn from someone else's good deeds or deficiencies. And our learning curve is, is improved, because it's not just about a coach saying to you step with your right foot, not your left foot. But it's, it's like, every coaching point is over the top of all the players on the field just about so it's an environment of coaches talking to all the players at once. Now, you're probably having an example of one or two players, you could have just pulled them aside, or just use their name and told everyone else, don't worry about it, this isn't your coaching point. But what I attempt to do is to leverage all that, I mean, if you're one of 50 players that training and the coach says two or three things specifically to you, you get two or three coaching points that you can, you know, work on, if there's 6070 coaching points that are put across the tops of all the players and you can grab 20 or 30 of those, well, your your learning curve increases out in the open on the training paddock, we're not going to everyone would rather just have their coaching privately. I mean, I think it's human nature, right? But it's not going to be that way. Because we got four months to get from the beginning to the end of the season. And we know what we want to be at the end. So we don't have the time to do it that way. That's impractical. It's, it's polite. It's, it's it's nurturing, but it's not going to help our team get to where we need to get. Now conversely, I love to have one on one conversations with players, we refer to it as modeling, they have their notebook out, I have my notebook out, there's strong science, I think social science on this point of just talking about their strengths, really building a model for them to play the game based on what they do really well. And this could be their mental approach their physical attributes, their skill levels, it can be anything having to do with, with what creates their performance, but to really, you know, focus 70% on their strengths, maybe 30% on their deficiencies. I know every evaluation, every one on one that I ever had growing up, it was always about what I got to do better. And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, there's nothing wrong with saying here, here's some things you can do to improve. But reality is that we're not going to do a lot of those things, some of them will, over time, we'll we'll move you know a deficit into the strengths column. But for the most part, we've got to go make plans based on and build a game if you will build an approach to the competition based on what we do really well based on our strengths.
So I'm a big believer in sitting down talking to a player about their strengths. You know, they say we code our brain in longhand. So they've got their notebook out, and they're writing and I'm doing the same. And I'm not going to allow anything to hit that piece of paper that shouldn't be there. If somebody says, I'm a really good tackler, and if they're not, I'm going to talk them out of that point. But there's a better chance they might say, Well, I think I'm a pretty good ball handler and I'm going to expand upon that point. Not only are you good ball handler, you're good ball handler off either hand and you can wait a pass properly the accuracy the you know, I'm going to make that skill if you will come more to life. I found doing these one on ones I kind of stumbled into it and I was basing these one on one sessions on strengths and I was on an airplane one time and the guy next to me was a British gentleman and and what do you do? And I will I coach rugby, what do you do? And he goes well, I'm a researcher and it turns out he had a book and the book was strengths based leadership and in strengths based leadership, the author this very concrete laid out that there's strong science in that that retention performance, all of those things have a lot to do with whether the boss or the coach really gets that individual knows them really well. So it made sense to me because I would I would get these kind of awkward bro hugs you know, after one of these one on one meetings, talking about somebody strengths for an hour and I'm thinking well, I'm gonna see in five minutes on the field here, what do you what are we doing here and you know, it gives people a great sense of satisfaction when the boss really gets them and really gets their strengths. And he's not just making the list of things that they can do better, but helping them model out and build their performance on what they do really well,[PB12]
Paul Barnett 30:06
when it comes to helping players, I have this quote from you, I'm not sure the game it came from, but it was a championship game where the team lost. And you actually said to them at the end, or this is the quote that was attributed to you were hurting right now. And the scar will never go away. We all have scars in our lives. And these scars are what we draw on a pivotal moments. Yeah, to cracking quote, one of the scars that you draw on in those pivotal moments.
Jack Clark 30:31
Yeah, was I just feel as great responsibility to put these young men in a position where they can succeed, where they can put in a ton of hard work, and then get a payday at the end. And that that can be a bit of a blueprint for them just to go about life. And then you know, listen, you lose some games, right? I mean, there's going to be times when, you know, you're not successful. And there needs to be some perspective and all of that, right. I can't believe that it's the worst thought for me is that a participant would think, because they weren't successful in the end, that it wasn't worth it. That to me is my nightmare, right? So I want to make sure that we're gonna get something from this, that's going to be super valuable, whether we win or we lose, because of how much we're putting into it. And because of the process that we're, we're using, so yeah, I mean, scars are valuable, right? I mean, things you can touch and feel and remember, and okay, I can I can pull from that experience.
Paul Barnett 31:33
Jack, you've been so generous with your time. I know, it's early in the workday, and you've probably got to get busy. So just one last question if we can, and it builds on this idea of teams, and you talked about it before how you believe that teams are going to solve many of the problems we've got in society, education, poverty, disease, whatever those challenges may be. So my question is, if we were to gather the teams that you have influenced together in one big room, what would you hope that they say your legacy is,
Jack Clark 32:01
I haven't spent a lot of time on thinking about my personal legacy, I guess I would want their experiences to be healthy, hard, difficult, but but rewarding. And I remember, I remember one time that there was a player, kind of almost first team rugby potential, but really spent quite a bit of time on in the reserves didn't get his name called to be a starter and a lot of the big games, and they are so after his graduation, he asked for a meeting. And I have to admit, I was dreading the meeting because I just felt man, this kids put in four years of work. And, you know, his pay day was not to go play in the big games necessarily, you know, and I Oh, man, and a young man sat across from me. And he says, you know, Coach playing, playing rugby, a cow has been the hardest thing I've ever done. And my heart sunk because I knew exactly where this was gone, that he was just going it wasn't going to be worth it. And then he finished the sentence by saying the hardest thing I've ever done that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. I went well, that's that's kind of what I was going for it. It felt like that's what we're here to do. It's not supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be challenging. You should feel overwhelmed from time to time. And, and playing is important, but but growing as a man is more important.[PB13]
And wanting to leave a legacy where th e experiences were healthy, hard, difficult but rewqarding
Paul Barnett 33:21
I think the benefits of challenge. Feeling overwhelmed and growing as a man is a great place to finish. Jack. It's been super to spend a bit of time with you today. Thank you so much for the for your time and for the energy you put into the interview.
Jack Clark 33:33
Right. Okay, cheers. Thanks, Paul.