"Don't Be A Turkey Person" Michael Knowles & Oscar-Winner Bill Courtney
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Oscar-winning coach Bill Courtney. Coach Courtney, thank you for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. So, Bill, you've got an amazing personal story. I want everyone to get into the upshot at this point because I think it's a really good point not to be a turkey person, which is to say, don't just be the kind of person who, you know,

hands the bum a dollar, looking in the other direction, and runs away as quickly as possible. Don't just do your charity in a selfish way or in a grudging way, but really recognize people's humanity and really fully give of yourself. I love that whole idea. But just before we even get into not being a turkey person, could you just tell our Crème de la Crème audience here a little bit about your personal story? I grew up in Memphis. Dad left home when I was four.

Um, mom did the best she could worked hard. Um, but was a bad chooser of mates. I had five fathers. My fourth one shot at me down a hallway. I had to dive out a window one night to save myself and, um,

I grew up in apartments in kind of a lower socioeconomic environment, and that's kind of where I came from. I got married, had four kids, took $17,000 and started a business. I now have 150 employees, an $80 million business that does business in 42 different countries.

The good men in my life were football coaches. And so when I graduated Ole Miss, I coached football for a living, had those four kids, couldn't afford it anymore. But in the state of Tennessee, if you go through a bunch of classes, you can continue to coach as what's called a non-faculty, certified non-faculty coach. And so I've coached for 33 years. So I've had this parallel life as a business owner and as a coach.

When I started my business, I found out about this school called Manassas, only about a mile from where my property was. And I took an opportunity to coach there, frankly, because it was convenient. I found 17 kids on a varsity football team whose previous record was four wins and 95 losses. And...

Seven years later, we were 75 kids. We were 18 and two and in an area where an 18 year old is three times more likely to be dead or in jail than he is to have a job or be in college. We graduated 18 seniors in those last two years and 17 went to college and these goofy guys from Hollywood showed up.

Said they wanted to make a movie that we were convinced we'd see on a Wednesday on Channel 422 at 3 in the morning. And a year later, I'm walking down the red carpet at the Academy Awards. That's quite a story. It's an interesting story. It really is. So I want even before we get to the turkey person, but I don't want people to get the turkey person out of their head because it's a good point.

Sure. What impelled you to be charitable? What impelled you to give of your time? You got a successful business. You don't need to be coaching, doing all this other stuff. Was it your rough upbringing that you think, well, I'm going to make sure this kind of stuff doesn't happen to other kids? Because plenty of people have a rough upbringing and they say-

all right, I'm going to go get mine. You know, I'm going to go get my sack and forget about everybody else. This is the school of hard knocks and we all got to fight our own way out. What, what gave you that kind of charitable spirit? Well, in fairness, I did decide I was going to go get mine. Um,

I, you know, I never had a, I never had a, I never owned a, I never cut grass with a lawnmower until I bought my own house with a yard, bought my own lawnmower, you know, and I wanted my children to have opportunities and things available to them that I didn't as a child. And so I went to work hard, um,

I don't know why the Lord has decided to bless me with this business and my marriage of 33 years and four delicious children who are now all gainfully employed, doing well all over the country. But he did. And I believe fundamentally that a requisite, a requirement of those blessings is to give back.

And my way of giving back is, again, when I was growing up in a lot of dysfunction with a lot of pretty bad men in my life, I had some coaches that had they not invested in me, I'm really not sure where I'd end up. And the very fundamentals and tenets and values that operate my life with, my personal life, my philanthropic life, my professional life, my entire life with are the lessons I learned from those men, those coaches. And so...

I saw an opportunity as a coach to meet that requisite requirement to give back with a skill set and a passion that I have, which is the lessons that football can teach young men. And so I enjoy coaching football. I'm competitive as hell. It was an opportunity to give back. It was a place that I had a passion and a discipline. And so they all kind of met at opportunity and I,

That's kind of the story. So what's a turkey person? My first year at Manassas. Remember, when we showed up, we were inheriting a team that was four wins and 95 losses over the previous 10 years. Garbage. So halfway through the season, we're 3-3. And now I think 3-3 is pretty average, but when you've won four games in 10 years, they thought I was a fat redheaded version of Lane Kiffin or somebody. And so...

I, uh, when I first got there, I also learned that.

That athletic ability was there and losing was not really about tackles and scoring touchdowns. It was more about a lack of fundamentals of things like character and commitment, integrity, the value and dignity of hard work, the importance of showing up on time, civility. The core values in tennis that your grandmother should have taught you, you know. And so I started teaching those as well and holding kids accountable to those.

Well, halfway through the season, we're three and three. And while the whole team, because we're winning and there's no equipment and stuff, they're buying into the football. But only half the team is buying into the important stuff. The other half of the team, while we're respectful on the football field, the minute practices and games are over, they're back into the streets, engaging in the same type of behavior that metaphorically got them to 495 in life. And...

So I was losing it a little bit, real frustrated. I went to my guy. Every coach has a guy, especially a first-year coach. You really got to have a guy. And I said, hey, man, what do I got to do to get that half the team to buy in important stuff like your half the team? And this is a guy who was always real open with me and always had real conversations. And he just said, coach, dismissively, just keep doing what you're doing. If you have children, you know the tone. And I'm like, no, man, real talk.

And he said, coach, I don't want to hurt your feelings. I said, you are not going to hurt my feelings. I'm a grown ass man. And he said, all right. I said, why can't I get that half the team to buy in the important stuff? Like you're half the team. Y'all are all in on football, but the important stuff that's going to serve you long after the days of football are over, I can't get them to buy in. And he said, coach, you're trying to figure out if you're a Turkey person or not.

And I got to tell you, bro, I learned a lot of vernacular and phrases my first four months at Manassas that I'd never used or heard in my life. But that was not one. And I looked at him kind of like, what are you talking about? And he said, coach, everything's given in Christmas. People roll into our neighborhoods and they give us hams and gifts and turkeys. And we take them because we ain't got none. But then they leave and we never see them again. It makes you wonder, are they doing that because they really care about us or they're doing that to make themselves feel good?

and he looked me dead in the eyes he said coach really man what the hell are you doing down here in the hood with us and i gotta tell you michael the truth is it pissed me off i was giving my time my money my effort and i i immediately went to the old default you can't help these folks if i'm doing all i'm doing and they still wonder if i'm a turkey person you just can't help quote these folks and

And then I started thinking about it, that I really was enjoying the backslaps. I was enjoying the way it was exalting me among my peers. I was enjoying the press. And all of a sudden, this effort, I was starting to enjoy what it was doing for me and what it was about me.

If you serve soup in a soup kitchen or you give turkeys away on Thanksgiving or hams at Christmas or any of that, man, the story is that's a beautiful thing. People don't need to quit doing that. But we do have to check ourselves and ask ourselves very honestly this. What's our motive?

Are we motivated by the simple exaltation of another person who's not as blessed as us, who's not as fortunate as us? Or are we doing it because it makes us feel good or it exalts us among our contemporaries? If you were doing it for the latter, the people will take what you have to offer and they will say, yes, sir, no, sir, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, and smile at you. But the minute you turn and walk away, they will still darts through your back because you are a fraud.

philanthropy is about helping another person for the value of that other person, not for yourself. And so the danger in being a turkey person is simply motive and consistency. And if we will be consistent and be motivated by the very people we are trying to serve, motivated by actually

celebrating and someone else becoming better as a result of that service and back up from it and let them have the limelight of their successes as a result of the little bit of work you're putting in, then you avoid being a turkey person and true servant leadership happens and amazing things occur.

If, on the other hand, you want to take the credit because it makes you feel good, well, you'll give away some turkeys, but you're not going to make any damn difference. Right, right. Because people can see that. I mean, to your guy's observation, they can tell 100%. Don't think poor people are dumb. And I'm going to tell you something else. In some ways, they're a hell of a lot more astute than you and I are. And they see through that because that's common knowledge.

We have to be uncommon. We have to serve for the value of the other people, back up from it and relish in their success, not our own. And if you do that, beautiful things really can happen. Right, right. I like that basic definition of love, that love is willing the good of another for their own sake, not for not willing the good of another so that you get a trophy that you can put on your wall or something like that, but really for their own sake that you dissolve a little bit out of it. Uh,

Really, really important point that is not only classically, ethically, and morally true, but that any person can see in real life when you actually engage in it. It's just a radical difference.

Bill, where can people find the movie, first of all? Amazon Prime bought it. So Undefeated is on Amazon Prime. If you want to watch that, you can read about that and all these tenets in my book, Against the Grain. And there's plenty of stuff on all that. And where we came to you from is you can go to turkeyperson.com, which will link you with my podcast, An Army of Normal Folks.

where we highlight every week normal people doing this exact work for the right reasons, which we're trying to inspire people to use their passion, their discipline at points of opportunity and get involved in the communities for the right reason and be consistent with it and maybe change the trajectory of our culture right now. Beautiful. Coach Bill Courtney, thank you, sir, for coming on the show. And thank you to all of you for watching the show. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. We'll see you tomorrow.

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