al scates edit
Mon, Aug 21, 2023 10:41AM • 45:13
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
coach, ucla, players, volleyball, team, played, won, championship, curtain, year, practice, volleyball coach, taught, athletic director, gave, started, work, influenced, drill, court
SPEAKERS
Paul Barnett, Al Scates
Paul Barnett 00:00
Al's gates. Good morning, and welcome to the Great coach's podcast.
Al Scates 00:06
Well, thank you.
Paul Barnett 00:08
Very happy to be chatting with you today and perhaps something really simple to get his going. Could you tell us where you are in the world and what you've been up to so far today?
Al Scates 00:20
Well, I'm in Los Angeles, Encino, California, which is part of Los Angeles. And I went out and played 18 holes of golf with Larry Rundle, who was captain of our 68 and Olympic volleyball team and playing on my first championship team at UCLA. Before the NCAA, it was a USA collegiate championship. And I lost $3. To him, he sunk about a 45 foot pot on the eighth teeth, took away a few bucks from me, and one, three. So we play every Tuesday and Thursday, and at rest of the time, I came home, worked on my honey do list and was enjoying a little cigar in the patio when I got reminded about the meeting today.
Paul Barnett 01:15
Well, thank you for pulling yourself away from that cigar just to chat with us. I'll sure I'll be trying to make it worth your while through the interview today. Our you've had experience of some great coaches. I mean, when I was researching and preparing for today, I could see name names like Bill Rankin, but the group, the great John Wooden, and of course, Doug Beale, who we've also had as a guest on the podcast. And I wanted to start by asking you from this experience working with these people and seeing them up close. What is it you think the great coaches do differently that sets them apart?
Al Scates 01:58
Well, my experience is that they don't all do the same thing. The three coaches who really influenced me, were quite different. And they work to their strengths. And if you include Doug Bill, I'm talking about four coaches that are really different. I'll start with Bill Rankin. He was my high school basketball coach. And he played basketball at UCLA after World War Two. And in 1957, I played I was a backup Senator on his team and we won the marine League for the first time in our school history. He was he was tough, but we had we had fun at practices he enjoyed. He enjoyed being out there coaching. And he'd been doing it for a long time. And he, I was going to be an electrical engineer like my uncle Joe. And I started coaching. And I decided I coaching the kids on the playground for different groups. Of have 10 year olds, 12 year olds, 14 year olds and 16 year olds, I said I was going to have fun just like Bill Rankin. And I probably laughed and enjoyed myself at every practice that I ever conducted with the exception of high school football, which where I wasn't the head coach, and I had to be more serious. So that's what Bill did for me. He taught me how to have fun, and how to let the players have fun that I was coaching. And, and he gave me the desire to coach because it was something he enjoyed. And that's what he gave. Now Colonel Burke Degroot was the next coach that influenced me. He is retired Air Force dean of students at Santa Monica College, which was a two year college. When I started coaching, we only practice and when I started playing at UCLA, we only practiced one night a week. But currently the colonel had his team practice in five or six days a week. And the younger man he coach, became the best college team in the country. And he was very strict and disciplined and later I when I coached the national men's team in 1971 72 when I was the head coach, I I had Colonel Berg as my assistant and he just, you know, players didn't fool around when he was around. He was he had that military persona about him, which is good to have from time to time. But the best thing about him is he wanted to elevate the sport. And in 1963, my first season at UCLA, he told me that he couldn't form a college league. But because I was at UCLA, I should form one. And so in 1963, I formed the league. And you can say he was one of the founders because he got me. He got me started. And we had a volleyball League. Prior to that, we just went out and played at YMCAs, we played double elimination. So very, wasn't an important influence.
And then I didn't know John Wooden, NIA when I started out in the 60s, because I couldn't afford to coach volleyball, unless I was working full time as a teacher. And so John practice from 5am, three to five and the men's gym. And then the freshman team, from seven, five to seven. And then I came on in practice was wrestling, and women's gymnastics. So I had 1/3 of the gym. So I didn't actually see what John but I read his book called practical, modern, practical, modern basketball. After he won two NCAA championships, he published his book in 1966. And the first chapter is my coaching philosophy. And that had a big influence. I'm holding the book here my hand. And I think I'll read a few things I read in 1966, that influenced me. Talking about his players, he said, they must be eager to become the very best that they're capable of becoming. And then he says, I want my my players to be able to feel sincerely to feel that doing the best that you are capable of doing is victory in itself. And less than that is defeat. And that and then later in talking to him, whether you win or lost, if if the players are doing the best they can. That's that's all that matters to coach. And he's talking about the coaches a teacher, he says sense the most important responsibility of a coach in regard to the actual playing of the game is to teach his players properly and effectively developing to execute the various fundamentals of the game is first of all, a teacher. And then something he said in this book that became the Four Laws of learning, which he got into much, much more often later in his coaching career. But this changed my way of coaching this one half paragraph and here it is, a fundamental must be explained and demonstrate. The correct demonstration must be imitated by the players. Their demonstration must be constructively criticizing corrected. And then the players must repeat repeat the execution of the proper model. And Nicola correct habit has been formed to the point will where they will act instinctively in the correct manner. Those are the important things I read in this book. The rest was about basketball, which I already knew about basketball because I I took a class from his assistant Jerry Norman, and I used his simple offense to win the LA County Park championships. With a bunch of 10 year olds when I was a junior at UCLA. We ran the UCLA offense. It was that simple with a bunch of 10 year olds. So I'm gonna wrap up quoting him as he says, it is not what you do, but how well you execute it. If it is based on sound valid principles, there are no real secrets to the game, at least not for very long. And so even in the 70s in 79, when we ran, one, went undefeated for the first time and won another national championship, I was only using three offensive plays. Whereas the teams on the other teams were running probably 4050 different variations of plays. I just kept it simple and executed it as well as I possibly could. John Wooden, and I became good friends after he retired. So he took an office next to mine. Because he, he, he wanted to give up his big office, but he didn't want to leave UCLA after he retired. Because he exercise on the track every day. And in answer his 1000s of letters that would pour into his office weekly. And he didn't even use his, he used his own stamps to mail and who would even use the university post. But then then we talked, and I showed him this book. And the things I underlined and how it influenced me coaching[PB1] [PB2]
now doesn't feel he played for me in 72. As a backup senator, he was a very good blocker. And I like my first team to run running against him trying to say it out against him. And, but I admired the job he did with the 84 and Olympic team. He he actually cut two of the best players on the team that could have been in the starting six. But he was trying to mold this diverse group of players, key players from the Midwest. He had coached when I'm, in fact, at Ohio State when he was coaching, but he eliminated these two guys. And he still won a gold medal. And it and he he practiced them like he estimated 10,000 hours between I think he came on in 82 in three years and scheduled matches all over the world somehow kept these guys together with very little pay except a jobs program where they work part time. And I know I had four players on that team, that one of them got cut, that would be the fifth guy. But they were living three to a bedroom. And somehow I kept them together and we became the best team in the world. So I certainly respect the job. He did.
Paul Barnett 12:59
Elmont Sealy, one of your ex players, I believe, said that your culture was based on Darwinism. He said it was the survival of the fittest. And when I read your practice, sessions used a scoring system to determine who was going to be in the top group. How did this create positive performance pressure in the team?
Al Scates 13:21
When I started coaching in the fall of 1962, we shared the gym with a gymnastic team and a wrestling team. So we drew these and we were in the middle. So we drew these large curtains to separate the three areas of the gym. And so those curtains were always there. And by the time Mike came along, I was carrying, I'd say up to 36 players. And I never had anybody standing around during practice watching. I had them all doing drills. And by that time I had, you know two full time assistant coaches. And being the beginning I coached by myself on one court. But so I had a I had a coach for each group. And so the top 12 players I coach and depending on the amount of assistance I had for assistance, many times I had a volunteer assistant then I would put the second 12 with another assistant and then the others the third group with another assistant and then later as players quit. I didn't cut them if they were willing to do the things I made the first group do which is 300 Sit Ups 300. Push Ups Sprint's along the length to the gym dives rolls maximum jumps If they were willing to work as hard as the first group, I didn't cut them. But they were divided behind these curtain genuine balls flying underneath people's feet when they were jumping. So it became, I didn't see the players behind the blue curve, okay. But if I needed a player, if somebody wasn't playing well, I would yell over to my assistant coach, send me an outside hitter, and I'd send the another an outside hitter down. So whoever was playing good on the second core, would come up to the first court. And the second court coach could say the same thing to the third court coach. So everybody had a lot of pressure to perform as well as they could, because they wanted to move up a call. [PB3]
Now, as far as the point system, every drill, I won, I kept score. And we ran team drills, I didn't get on the stand and hit balls at players, and that type of thing. I mean, everybody, the drills were initiated by a surgeon. And so you know, somebody won the drill, somebody lost to do now my first team was losing most of the drills. I would change a player from the second team to the first team. And I'd send somebody down, and if that player performed well, then he stayed there. And if some if the second team got worse, and wasn't competing well enough for the first team, we'd bring somebody up from the second cord from behind the blue court curtain. One year 1992. We had just two courts. And I had for Olympians on the Second Court, the whole year for future Olympians was one coach us Bjorn Volstead, a Norwegian player were recruited off of for videotape. Anyway, he came back to get a master's degree. He was a great coach. He started for me for four years. And we went undefeated. In 84. We went 38 know when he was a freshman, he was a great player. I used him as a middle blocker. And then I taught him how to be an outside hitter. And he won championships in both positions where he has to pass half to court. He didn't know how to pass. So I had two middle blockers, Eric Sullivan and Kevin Wong, who I wanted to convert to outside hitters and pastors. Well, after a year of training, as we aren't had cut all the rest of the players over there and come over and asked me if I could cut him. I said they're not working hard, you can get him. So he wound up with these four guys, who all became Olympians, Kevin Huang, and beach volleyball. John speranza, and Olympic volleyball coach and UCLA coach. I think he's been the three Olympics is an assistant head coach. And Eric Sullivan became an Lobero. For three Olympics. He learned how to pass so well. And Jeff Nygaard was in three Olympics two and then doors and one on the beach. But they were kind of blue curtain for the entire year, working their butt off. And this was how this is what my ceallaigh called survival of the fittest. And maybe he's right.
Paul Barnett 18:56
l can I ask you about John's burrower, actually, because I've got this nice quote from him. And he says, the way he managed to make objective decisions, was to say fairly separate from the players. It was never personal. And once he graduated, he enjoyed the relationship that developed with his players. So I wanted to ask you, how did keeping this type of distance from the players help you as a leader?
Al Scates 19:24
Well, first of all, I wasn't there until practiced the way you didn't become a volleyball coach, earn a good salary. I needed to work full time as a teacher, so I can afford to be about volleyball coach. So after I taught a classes or whatever it was, I didn't get there to UCLA and four but 315 And we started practice at three during that time. So I wasn't there to talk to now They can talk to me if they wanted to stay after practice. During practice, when I came the door, or I had my assistant coach already conditioned them.
When I came to the door, we got to add the volleyballs there was no time to talk to the players at that point. It was time to drill and the way Witten taught me to drill was I gave him directions during the drill, I never stopped practice to talk to anybody. I talked to him during the drill, what are demonstrated during the drill. So I mean, and I didn't hang around because I also had a family. So after practice, I left so when you know they didn't have enough, we didn't have an opportunity to come friends. And besides, I didn't play the players I liked the best. Anyway, I played the players who did the best job together, which wasn't necessarily all the best players. [PB4]
I was interested in winning championships every year. So I never started six seniors on a on a team. Because if I had a freshman that was as good as a senior I'd start the freshmen are close to being good because that freshman was going to be better than the senior anyway by the end of the season. So I never had the most seniors I ever had on starting NCAA championship demons four. That way we could win a championship next year with players who had been there and experienced it. Now after we won a championship, I mean after the players graduated, I became friends with most of them. I mean, I'm Sue and I celebrated our 62nd wedding anniversary. Saturday, and I must have had I don't know how they know is my anniversary. I must have had texts from about 30 or 40 players, X players. I mean, just congratulating us on her anniversary. And I I stay in touch with these guys. I mean, my former players are among my 10 best friends. A lot of them in a former trainer. For that matter. Dr. Pill Cowdrey is a former trainer for four years as a student trainer. So yeah, I mean, I'm going to add a text from to my guys, we're gonna go see UCLA volleyball game, it goes to Irvine. And today, so I just want to be objective. And then afterwards, we'll become friends. Now many coaches, successful being friends with their plans might have Dumfriesshire Pepperdine, for example, is one that comes to mind
Paul Barnett 22:58
62 years, so I should say congratulations, we, my wife and I are closing in on 20. So we're a little bit behind you. But we're heading in the right direction, I guess are one of the other things I wanted to ask you about was team rules, because I have this little quote from you and you say, don't have a bunch of stupid rules, where if a player breaks the rule, you have to penalize them. And I thought this was a little different from what most people talk about. So when it does come to having guardrails or team rules or whatever you want to call them, how did you go about handling that?
Al Scates 23:36
Well, I do have, I had one, don't do anything to embarrass the team or the university. That was my one rule. Now, when I started getting reporting to female associate athletic directors, they, they wanted to see my rules. So when I gave them my one rule, they wanted to see the rest of it. So I had the I typed up about a 20 rules. And then I take it in every year and then look at my rules. And then I'd put it back in the file and change the date the next year. This went on forever. But the players never saw those rules. They only saw one verbal hurdle. One verbal rule, don't do anything to embarrass the team or the University. And I dealt with it when they did that. And I mean, worst thing would be a suspension for kicked out of practice and a few matches. That would be the worst thing. I've never had to kick anybody off team. I mean, during practice, the worst thing that can happen is I kick somebody out of practice. But since we only had we we had more than one chord, I usually just send down behind the blue curve to the next court[PB5]
Paul Barnett 25:05
how Bill Ferguson says that you're the best in game tactician that ever was. Which is a great a great thing to him to have someone say about you. But when it comes to communicating tactics, particularly in the hate of the game, when there's lots going on, have you found ways that work better than others?
Al Scates 25:27
Well, when I started coaching, as far as communication goes, we weren't allowed to coach. It was like tennis coaches, they weren't allowed to coach. So by the time I started coaching at UCLA, I'd already coached baseball teams, so I just gave him signals where my hand where to serve, and how to block what kind of blocking scheme me is. So I just use signals with you can get off the bench, that was the rule when I first started coach. And then later, of course, you can just go up and talk to the players, you can stand next to the court. So later, you can just talk to him, you don't have to waste a timeout to tell him things. So I had serving rules, serving areas, which often coaches use today. And with my hands, my fingers, and I could give him to to split the zones of the court if I wanted to. pretty precise. And the blocking schemes, and I can usually when signal is set or what played a call, remember, we only had three plays for most of the career, up until the late 70s. So we just did him so well. Nobody could stop us. And most of the time, I mean, the team that wins hits better than the other team. That's that's the way it's always been.
Paul Barnett 27:08
One of the fascinating things about your stories, you've coached championship teams in five different decades. Now, as the leader of the program, what's the biggest change that you've seen over that journey?
Al Scates 27:24
Well, in the beginning, I mean, my first volleyball coaching experience, I was a junior at UCLA, and I I just finished coaching a football program and I needed a job. So I went over to Beverly Hills High School and got hired as a trainer. Learn how to tape ankles and stuff. And then they they knew as a volleyball player, they wanted me to coach their boys volleyball team. But nobody knew how to play so I, I would look for the best athlete in school, which happened to be the quarterback of the football team. And I taught him out of spike a volleyball. And he was excited. And I said, okay, all we need now is five great athletes besides you. And we're all set. So he went out and got some, some good basketball players and football players and I taught them how to play volleyball. Well, that's, you know, the 60s, that's what you had to do. Because volleyball wasn't taught in high school. There were no club, high school teams, there was no volleyball below the college level. So, and there was no women's volleyball at all. The only volleyball you can find for college aged guys was in college and then after that you played for a local YMCA or something. Also, there was hardly any practice time I when I played at UCLA, we only practice one night a week because we only had one gym, and then priority went to other sports. Now, here's the big change in 1965. I was I was over in Mexico City. I was I was captain of the USA team that year. And we I met a man who was president of the zone in Mexico City. And he told me that the Japanese men in a women's women's Olympic teams, who won a gold medal in the silver medal were in Brazil and they were stopping over in LA in December of 1965. And so when I got home from that trip, I I went to our athletic director JP Morgan and I said to JD I can put 5000 paying customers And our new poly pavilion, which seats 12,000 people, and you can keep all the money, all the money will go to the athletic department just don't charge any rent. And he agreed. And then I went to USA volleyball. And I says if you put up the Japanese for an extra night, and we will give you a poly pavilion will play against the USA teams. And it'll be free. There's no there won't be any rent. So our athletic director, signed a deal with USA volleyball signed a deal with the Japanese. And they gave me posters, and I went down on the beach community in Southern California where people love volleyball, and I put up these posters, and we're charging two bucks per general admission, five bucks for a renal level. And prior to that, the biggest crowd I've ever played for in the United States was 175 people against France, at Carson High School suburb of LA. So hardly anybody knew about volleyball. But I knew a guy named Bud furlough, who was editor that Herald Examiner, and I'd get come home and dictate to my wife, an article about the upcoming match and should type it up, I take it in the hand at the button hit print the next day. We also had a program called the Steam Room in the Steam Room is a radio show. And I'd call in and talk about the match. And so there were 5000 paying customers over 5000 and we beat the Japanese men for the first time ever. And Japanese gold medalists women, they beat us in about half an hour beat the girls. threes are awesome. And that we beat. We just want a championship that year. So we beat as see our arch rival. And our athletic director told me that he would make volleyball and NCAA sport. He was a head of the basketball committee, very influential man negotiated the TV contracts for the NCAA. And so in 1970, he did it. Volleyball became an NCAA sport. And that's when I decided I wasn't going to be a school administrator that eventually I was going to do something I love and earn enough money at it and stop teaching and just be a volleyball coach.
Paul Barnett 32:54
It's an amazing journey that you've been on, you know, from, from very humble beginnings through to, to the Olympics and the World.
Al Scates 33:05
of terrorism, and I was never I was going to be a basketball coach or a football coach. And I was never going to be a volleyball coach. But Glen eggs, another important coach was my volleyball coach at UCLA. And he took a sabbatical. 62 to go to Japan. He was he's studying underwater and research. And he says why don't you go apply for the job. And I was going to be a high school basketball coach. I I was number three in the test for LA City. And I was going to be able to go to a good high school and start my coaching career and and that's what I was going to do. I I wasn't thinking about coaching volleyball, I was going to be I was working on my school administration credential. I was going to be a vice principal principal superintendent of schools. That's where my plan was. And Glen, Glen did two things for me. When I was learning volleyball, I would miss some classes at UCLA. I was a kinesiology major. One day saw me coming in late to class. I walked by his office he came does y'all get in here? And he says, next time I see you walk by here I want I want a halo around your head. He says you're walking in you got Sandell over here from the beach. You're getting the class late. I want you to sit in the front row. I want you to be serious as a student here. And that was the first good thing he did for me. And the second good thing he took a sabbatical and I became the coach.
Paul Barnett 34:53
Could I ask you about the three times three separate occasions When your team's did a three P, they won three championships in a row. And I was wondering, as you reflect on that, what did you learn about keeping teams focused and not letting them, you know, prepare and move forward without a sense of entitlement?
Al Scates 35:20
Well, the thing is, if they slept off and practice, they were going behind the blue curve Sinjin Smith, one of the best players that ever played at UCLA, was a freshman in 1976, on the first court on the first team, and he didn't, he didn't dive for a ball, I thought he could recover. I sent him behind the curtain for two weeks, and he busted his ass. And I didn't send anybody down for two weeks, so he didn't get to come up the end of two weeks, he dove for every ball for the next four years, he could possibly have a chance of getting, he worked harder. You know, as a senior, I had a guy named Coach Caray, come on the team. And I told Sinjin he's going to partner up with this guy. Because we're going to win a championship if if you work hard with coach, and he was a freshman, and St. St. John was a senior. And during this drill that lasted 45 minutes, where they sprint and did 300 situps, the circle duo we call coach and Xinjian would compete to see who could win, they would be lapping other players who became Olympians. They'd be laughing him around the gym, working so hard.
And I just, I think if players knew that if they worked as hard as they could, even if they were behind the curtain, they had a chance to come up. And once they got up on the first quarter, some of them never left. So I didn't ever motivate anybody, verbally. I mean, I told them our goal is to win the championship. And I mean, I I didn't yell at him or anything. I mean, I've had players who yelled at him on my behalf. Carter was one of the guys that would do that. If he didn't think somebody was working hard. And I've had plenty of guys since him.[PB6] [PB7]
Paul Barnett 37:36
Catch, of course, he's now a great head coach in his own right and potentially could be one of the greatest ever.
Al Scates 37:43
Yeah, he wasn't my assistant coach. When we went into flooded in 19 sec, 79. Anyone? Oh, no, he was my assistant coach in 1983. He was I was his first coaching job. He was coaching one of those groups behind the curtain. And he was he didn't graduate, he had a double major. He wanted to be a medical doctor. So he didn't graduate until his fifth year was completed at UCLA. And of course you can only play for so I made an assistant coach
Paul Barnett 38:22
out if I could take you back and introduce you to that young man that was coaching at Beverly Hills High School. Knowing what you know now, what would you say to that person?
Al Scates 38:39
I tell him to take a job that I really love and marry a good woman. That's all he needs to know. You've got to love going to work every day. i i enjoyed I enjoyed coaching volleyball, obviously. I coached them for 50 years. So I must have enjoyed it. But
Paul Barnett 39:04
you've been married longer. So you've done
Al Scates 39:07
yeah, married a good woman. I did both. I did both things. But you know, I had to work my butt off to make volleyball. A job where I could actually earn you know. I want to be athletic director came in the second year and thought I was making $100 a new athletic director. So he gave me a $300 Raise and told me I was making 400 Well, in first year I coached at UCLA they gave me $100 But that was the entire budget. Because I told him I couldn't I couldn't take any salary because I wanted to play on the Olympic team. And I I had to be a professional if I took money for coaching which was the rules at that time. So the first year I bought 10 volleyballs and paid the entry fees with my own money. So that only it costs me to coach volleyball the first year. The second year, I actually got a little budget, and I made 400 won a championship I made 600 After. After that, I got it. I was my fourth year I made 1000. So I always made more money teaching that I did coaching. It was not, you know, he didn't make serious money until I became I finally became full time at UCLA 1978. I was a full time coach there 34 years. And I was still teaching full time while I was supposedly a full time coach. So I had two full time jobs.
Paul Barnett 40:53
I feel like I'm keeping you from the rest of that cigar. So maybe one last question if I could. Yeah, I want to the coach Russ Rose had this to say about your legacy. I'd like to read that to you. Before I asked you the question. He said, the number of great players who have played at UCLA, and the bond that they all have for each other. And the university is the greatest contribution is made to the sport. That's his lasting legacy. It's a great quote. It's a wonderful quote from a great coach in his own right. But I wanted to ask you, in your words, what you think your legacy is as a coach?
Al Scates 41:34
Well, I'd say it's probably forming the first volleyball league out here for colleges. I had I had to kick Santa Monica College out of the league. The second year, even though Berkeley good gave me the idea to formally because he was beating the other four year colleges in the athletic directors were going to pull her colleges out because the junior college was beating him so he formed the league for junior colleges or two year schools. That is still going on. That was one. The second one was putting 5000 People in Pauley Pavilion to watch volleyball. And that was huge because that's why volleyball became an NCAA sport without JD Morgan. Oh, one more thing. How about the number of coaches out there that are coaching that 50 coaches coaching in college and Stein Metzger at UCLA went to beach volleyball championship, Mike, Celia UCLA won a Women's Championship and he man and kowski won several NCAA is at UCLA. John's bras gonna win when it is CLA one three at UC Irvine. And the national team coaches Well, Coach Kryon johnsburg, coaching the Olympic teams. So I'd say that's a pretty good influence those those guys out there coach and then it played at UCLA. The staff men staff at UCLA is all UCLA players. The two assistants. And Brandon tell Pharaoh was at first center, I was talking about 97 that knew how to set[PB8]
Paul Barnett 43:22
it without me helping him. It's a pretty amazing coaching tree out. And I think if we got these people in a room, I reckon they might reference the fact that you've taught them about hard work and the merits of a good work ethic too. But I could be wrong.
Al Scates 43:38
Oh, I only had four hours sleep six days a week. I when I got home, I spent it with family until the kids and the wife went to bed. I didn't start working again until 10 o'clock. That's when I looked at video I used to have my sisters splice 60 millimeter film together into six different rotations. And look at you get 16 millimeter tape and then later video tape. And I still wasn't earning enough I had to write I wrote nine books on volleyball. And I do my best writing between 10 and two and get up at six and then I had to take my son to water polo practice at Beverly Hills High School so I got up at five four for a year because the court there's a swimming pool and then the basketball court goes over the pool at eight o'clock for the all the PE classes in there. So thank God I learned how to drive at 16 I didn't have to do that anymore.
Paul Barnett 44:45
It's an amazing legacy owl and I appreciate you spending an hour with us today and telling us a little bit about your your amazing story which continues on now through the coaching tree that you've created.
Al Scates 44:59
There If you enjoyed once you get me started I just keep going so
Paul Barnett 45:07
anyway thanks Allah
Al Scates 45:10
it's a pleasure thank you