The Long Game: 20 Years From Walk-On To Washburn University Head Football Coach | Zach Watkins

Do you have any open spots on your team? Stop it, John.

I'm trying to ask a cool question. If you do a good job with those relationships, you're going to have them stick around. I've had plenty of jobs where it feels like work.

Sam, that'd feel like a job to me.

What are the best and worst football movies?

Ooh, that's a good question.

That's a great question.

There are some bad football shows.

This podcast was made brought to you by Choose Topeka. If you're thinking about making a move, Choose Topeka can get you up to $15,000 to relocate.

Whether you're buying or renting, Topeka and Shawnee County are ready to welcome you. Apply now at choosetopekacom. All right, Zach Watkins, welcome to the podcast.

Good to have you, you are the new head coach of Washburn football team.

Yeah, thank you guys for having me. Absolutely, we're getting some big recruits on the show.

I know, man, that's what we're getting.

Big name. Big name Zach Watkins.

Well, I'm following Coach Ballard, so that's the biggest name you have to follow, especially the season they had.

Exactly, yeah we'll have to really one-up him. So he has to get back out here and claim the top dog spot, you know Sure. Well, zach, would you mind maybe just giving us a little background? How did you? Where are you from? How did you get into athletics and coaching and all that Sure?

Yeah, I grew up in Independence Missouri.

Let's go.

Grew up right by Arrowhead Stadium oh cool. Went to high school there Truman High School and then I came here to play football in 2005. I walked on here redshirted my first year, played my career here, played on a little bit after college, had a few pro tryouts and tried to make it, and then at some point the game, the playing game, ends for everybody.

Right yeah.

Got into coaching. Right after that I was a GA at Northwest Missouri. I was there for everybody, right. Yeah, got into, uh, coaching. Right after that I was a ga at northwest missouri. I was there for six months, got really fortunate to get a full-time coaching job. Uh, my d coordinator here, chris brown, is the head coach of fort hayes and hired me out there cool I was there for three seasons and um then coach shurig hired me back here and been here ever since, so it'll be year 10 coming up.

Yeah, what positions you play in college. Linebacker, linebacker, let's go. I could have guessed that. Look at the guy I know he's still a brick house.

About 20, 20, 30 pounds ago.

Yeah, what do you bench? I don't know, I just put it on and I'll just go. Humility, I like it, man. So you said you, briefly, were trying some pro tryouts.

Yeah, so I was in camp with the Minnesota Vikings. Their rookie minicamp had a few OTAs, a few rookie minicamp and tryouts and, like I said at some point, playing stops. Mine just stopped pretty quickly.

Yeah.

For an undersized D2 guy. You really got to have things line up for you. And it just didn't work out for me, but it gave me the knowledge of what it takes to get there and, um, once you're there, obviously you have a good shot as anybody. But now in the coaching profession you can help those guys to have those goals of having a little bit of respect. That, hey, this is at least my experience.

This is what worked for me it didn't work for me and um, so yeah, I was. I was lucky to be there that is.

That is so cool. I've always like, growing up, I'd always think like you know what's, what's the point in playing, you know, minor league ball, or what's the point in you know, trying to go play overseas professionally. You know you're not, you're gonna end it back here. It's something you can put on your resume forever, definitely like it's so cool, even if it's like, hey, you know, might be a long shot, might be a one or two year thing. Like no one can take that away from you. You had some pro shots and you get to talk about it here.

Yeah, 10 years later, it's always cool yeah, and you had no idea where that's gonna go, right, yeah, um, you know, it's obviously way different back then than it was now and the draft process and the scouting and social media and all the ways to access information and video and film and. But we tell our guys all the time, if you're good enough, they'll find you. The NFL especially, they don't want to miss a small school guy, they don't want to miss a diamond in the rough, and so if you're good enough, they'll find you.

and you'll have a chance to play and obviously it takes a lot of work before that even is a possibility, but that's definitely possible through Washburn.

Wow, that's super cool. Well, yeah, isn't there. There's a football guy who's playing in the NFL right now.

Yeah, corey Ballantyne, who are some of the other pro Washburn graduates.

Yeah, Corey Ballantyne plays for the Colts right now. Kyle Hinton plays O-line for the Falcons. Jj Letcher is still in the CFL with Montreal.

Yeah, I went to school with JJ.

Yep, a couple of Washburn alumni are NFL coaches now.

Really.

My college roommate, joe Hastings, is assistant special teams coordinator with the Colts. That's cool. Michael Wilhoites played linebacker at Washburn Really good friend of mine. He's been an NFL coach for several years now also, wow. So you know, we tell those guys we have the jerseys the NFL jerseys in our weight room and on our recruiting pitches and um, that's a, that's a phrase we use if you're good enough, they'll find you wow, that's cool.

I don't know cory, cory doesn't know me, but he's a fellow thunderbird. Okay, shawnee heights grad, so it's possible. Shout out, shout out, shout out to shawnee heights.

That's awesome, t-birds.

So you've been coaching 10 years or ish yeah, this will be, uh, I guess 2011 to now, so I guess 15 wow okay, yeah, and you, your first year head coach here at washburn.

Um, so you started in the spring. What? What's your first year been like so far?

yeah, it's been. Uh, you know, you always plan for the next, uh, you know promotion and the next opportunity. And I've wanted to be a coach for a long time and when that, when the opportunity shows up, you know you feel like you're ready. But then when it hits, you realize that you know they're.

You're not quite ready for everything, but I got the job just after around thanksgiving, um, so christmas and that whole time of hiring a staff and making some changes within the program was hectic. And then early January the staff and the players got here and we started this spring. And just really proud of what we did this spring from a physical standpoint in the weight room and the physical development of our guys the community service we've done, the attendance at other sports games, the involvement in Washburn's campus Topeka community I think we did a really good job of making sure people know that we care about where we are, care about Washburn, care about Topeka, and we want to make that a really big deal for us.

So what was it like? I mean, you basically participated in every level of the program. You played as a walk-on, no less, and then you coached on the staff and now you're the head coach. So like what's it been like kind of being in each of those roles and how do you feel like that's prepared you for what you're doing now?

yeah, it's been uh, kind of when you phrase it like that. It's very interesting because this this fall will be 20 years from when I first got here wow on. I got here in 05 and 25.

So yeah, like you said, a player for five years and then you leave to coach a conference rival and then come back as an assistant and a coordinator and now the head coach. And you're right, you've kind of seen it all. You've seen the changes the Washburn changes, topeka changes. But I think you're exactly right. All those previous roles have prepared you for that coaching role. You know what washburn is and maybe what washburn needs. You know what topeka is, what topeka needs and wants from a football program, and all that on top of what the players need, because the players are the most important thing and I'm just really excited to be in this role, that's cool, that's awesome.

What does a a football team roster look like? How many guys do you have on on the roster? How many coaches do you have? Is that kind of up to you, or is there a number that you have to be under whatever?

yeah, we'll carry anywhere from 120 to 130.

You know you have to have a lot of people, for 11 guys on a team exactly on the side, you know and you got to have a work team and guys that are red shirt.

You'll have some guys that are injured, some guys that you know, starters, backups, third strings you have to have all those layers built in and wow, we kind of feel 120 125 is a good number for us and that's just players, or everybody players. Okay, players on the team, 15 coaches, including our strength coach, and so 140 on the football roster.

If you're right.

Okay, on top of the support staff and the admin, the people that help us do our job, and there's probably 200 people that are involved in the football program, making it go every day wow, that's crazy.

That is, that is a lot.

How many?

roles are actually on the field, like so between offense defense, special teams. How many positions are there?

like 25, 20, yeah so each position coach, or each position has a position coach, and so there's six or seven on both sides of the ball wow and with our full-time strength coach who oversees the entire weight room. We we count him on our staff. So that's 15 coaches.

And there's like 25 playing positions roughly.

There'll be. Yeah, there's four or five on each side of the ball. So you know, depending on what kind of offense you're, on what kind of defense you're on Right right, but you know 10 total spots on the field.

We definitely don't want to get into the X's and O's no no, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, you can.

Yeah, we're not experts, we don't want to expose ourselves Exactly. It's like the shoe episode, like how little we know about shoes.

We interviewed a guy who's got this custom shoe business and it was really cool and it's like we know dangerously little about that subject.

So we're not even going Like selling, like you know, jordans and $800 shoes, $1,000 shoes yeah, it was wild, so anyway. So what are some of the changes to how the team operates? Maybe strategies or approach or like culture that you are really excited about, you know, as you're really embarking as the head coach?

Sure, yeah, some of the things we did quickly were just to involve our team and our players in Washburn's community and Topeka community. We did over 2000 hours of community service this spring in a five month span. Wow. We did a football night at every sport on campus, so we had our football players go to every other sports games once, at least once throughout the spring.

Come on.

We did accountability groups within our team and you earned points for doing positive things in the community and negative points for doing negative things and we had a ton obviously more positive points than negative. But all of that trying to get our guys into Topeka and the surrounding areas but also get them involved on campus and volunteering and helping out other departments on campus and making sure that people know football is going to be involved in a positive way for all those things.

Wow, how sweet, because you're probably one of the biggest benefactors of it. How sweet is that indoor facility.

It's the best facility in the nation, but for for Washburn it completely changed what we're able to do. Every sport can utilize it, in season, out of season. It's a revenue stream to bring, you know, bring track meets and bring other organizations in. We have a huge turnout at our football summer camps and the indoor makes that possible. So the vision of people before me had that vision to build it and fight for it. And once it got done you knew it was going to be a special thing.

How long was that? Maybe you don't know the answer to this. How long was that in like in the works, Like, hey, this is a thought we're pursuing. This was like a how long yeah.

Several years until it finally kind of started getting going and built around COVID it was, you know, years before that and there's a lot of planning, a lot of fundraising, a lot of things that have to be done. But when Washburn puts their mind to something and the administration and the support gets behind it, I mean things happen quickly. And that's what makes Washburn special is the people that are here, the people that are in Topeka, the people that live in Topeka that also are involved with Washburn because, like I said, when things happen, because those people drive, those people want things done, it's pretty special.

Yeah, is there anything you're nervous about?

In the head coaching role? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know there's always things you're you know. You don't know what you don't know.

Yeah so.

I'm excited for our first training camp, I'm excited for our first game, August 30th. But you know we're you know we may stumble at some point, we may lose a game, we may, you know, do something wrong of how we want to do it in our process, and those are things that are unseen and you have to adjust and improvise and adapt. But you know, I think we do a great job of our processes and how we're attacking everything. So I think if you're true to that, you'll be in a good spot.

Here's a question I was just thinking of. As you said, you have like 125 guys on your roster. Be honest, are there some guys that you're like?

I don't know who that kid is, no no, no, To be honest, you know, I think me myself. I know every kid's name, hometown oh, I love that, and our staff does too. Yeah, and you know, not just college players but any athlete's going to appreciate you at least knowing a kid's name. Yeah, yeah, and we are big on relationships in our program. You know, knowing a kid's name and hometown is the bare minimum.

It's also knowing his family and siblings and girlfriend, and where he works and all that kind of stuff that rolls into it.

That's really cool. I'm just sitting here thinking like, yeah, you know, that's some walk-on from wherever. I don't know who that kid is, he's the assistance problem or whatever, but that's really cool yeah, no, it's.

Uh, I've always prided myself personally on wherever I've been, the coach stops I've been. Is that you know the roster, top to bottom, um, but now in, obviously, the head coaching role, um, I visited with every kid twice in the spring and then right after spring ball to make sure that you know, just talking off the record, how are things going, how's home, home life, how's classes going, and then you visit on scholarships and visit on playing time and how your spring went and what your summer needs to look like. And so when you sit down with the kid one-on-one and have a tough conversation, you get to know a lot more than just their name.

Right, that's a lot of meetings. Yeah, like 125.

Yeah, we took the coaching staff, met with their players right after spring ball and talked kind of X's and O's in position depth chart where they are, and then I sat down with every kid after that meeting and just summarized kind of what the goals are leading into the summer and then into fall camp, which starts here pretty soon.

Wow, that's cool. Camp which starts here pretty soon. Wow, what I gotta imagine. There's a tension where, like, obviously as a coach, you know there's the your, the primary job you're accountable for is winning games, like it's what you're paid to be in the role for, but then so you know to try to do that. You have plays and strategies and recruiting and all that. But then then it's there's a lot of like the soft skills, of like making sure kids are like okay in life and like I I've heard like a lot of kids will sabotage themselves and it's not like. It's not like a skill issue, it's like a character issue or some just bad decisions, or it's just stuff is going on in their lives and what's it like, as a head coach, having to manage a lot of that off field stuff. In addition, you see what I'm saying Like, is that a challenge? Is that? Were you ready for that? You see what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah, and that's to be honest, that's probably the number one part of the job, because these kids are um 18 to 22 years old and they all come from different places.

They're all at different stages of development. They're all you know. Kids develop in different ways and things become important to them that maybe weren't important when they got to college or've hired. They have to delegate, within their positions and their roles, of that exact thing is building the relationship with the kid. That leads you into knowing all of that knowing what makes a kid tick, knowing how he's motivated, knowing the stressors or successes that he's having right now, knowing how things at home are, knowing what home life is like and that's a much bigger piece of the job than most people probably think about coaching, but it's probably the most important part of the job.

So what's your favorite part of the job?

To be honest, the relationships kind of like you mentioned, but with our coaching staff, the coaches that we've hired and um, working with those guys every day, having those relationships with the families, the wives, the kids, and then with your players. I mean players will play hard and believe in the coaches that you know.

Treat them right and believe in them right and so the guys we hired and the guys we're trying to build up as players that's the number one focus is trying to develop your players and their relationships as a part of that here's a question really not for it's definitely not for me.

High school kids trying to get recruited division two what do you as a head coach? Who has seen uh, you know the whole spectrum of how it works. And now, as the head coach at washburn, what do you recommend for high schoolers to do? How do they get noticed by Washburn University?

Yeah, high school football is still unique because high school football is the biggest way to play football. All the other sports have club sports, aau tournament teams.

Oh sure, Football doesn't really have that.

There's some seven on seven, but every college coach is going to go to your high school football coach. So your high school football season and the way you train, the way you perform your academics at high school matter than anything else.

So, if I'm talking to a high school recruit, we're going to go to the high school head coach first, and then maybe a coordinator, maybe their position coach, but we're not going to go to somebody external. We're we're. We're going to the high school football coach, and so the advice we give to recruits is do what your high school coach needs to be done. So the weight training, the academics, the camps that you go to, all of that has to be built around your high school team. Um, but the best way to get recruited is perform at a high level. It doesn't matter where you're at, same thing as a small college like us and kids getting a shot in the NFL. If you're a 1A, 2a, 6a high school, it doesn't really matter. If you're good enough, it's our job to come find you. Our number one focus is Topeka and the surrounding areas, and then we'll move into Kansas City and all over Kansas and we're going to start locally and recruit out. So if you're good enough, we'll find you.

How many of your roster now do you think is from Topeka?

I don't know the number off the top of my head, but a couple dozen for sure.

Yeah, wow.

We have to recruit local, we want to recruit local Right, yeah, I mean that's a 20, some percent For sure, yeah, for sure. And that gets people excited about the program, gets people in the stands, it gets fans here, right. Let's high school coaches know hey, we want to recruit your kids.

Right, right.

We're not recruiting kids just to keep them here. They're good enough to play here, so we're going to try to make sure they stay here.

Right, yeah, wow, that's wild. What do you? What do you tell a kid, either college or high school or whatever? Um, I've, I've. It seems like sometimes you hear this with athletes like hey, coach is out to get me, like man, coach doesn't like me, whatever.

Coach Watkins hates my guts.

That's the reason I'm not playing more. That's the reason I'm not doing well, or whatever. What do you tell somebody in that kind of a situation?

Yeah, and that's happened this spring, it's happened every semester. The coach's number one job is to develop, you know, develop and graduate the kids, but it's to, you know, win football games. Our job is to play the best kid and you know we, the kids we like to. You know that we respect and appreciate the most the kids that do everything right. You know they're good academically, they show up on time, they work hard, all those kinds of things. But our job is to play the best kid that gives us the chance to win a football game. And I promise you nobody wants to play a kid because they like him or don't like him. They just we're going to play the best kid we can to win the game.

And so that solves a lot of issues. We're up front with our guys that, hey, we've recruited you. Maybe you're a walk-on, maybe you're a transfer, maybe you're a true freshman, maybe you're a senior, it doesn't matter to us, the best kid's going to play.

Right.

And how do we determine the best kid? We grade every practice, we grade every game. We're graded on five areas of accountability within our program. So everybody that touches our student athlete grades our kids. And so everybody that touches our student athlete grades are our kids, and so that way they know it's not just a football thing, it's a training room, strength coach, academics, community service All of those things are graded and the best kid's going to play.

Wow, yeah, that's great man, what percentage this will speak to my lack of football knowledge. What percentage of recruits coming in end up redshirting? Is that pretty common?

Yeah, I mean we'll try to redshirt everybody. You know the way college football has changed. It's pretty transient, the transfer portal, and kids can go find their next home pretty quickly. It used to be you came in, you redshirted, you developed and eventually you played Well. You know it's not a bad thing, but kids want to play early, developed and eventually you played Well. You know it's not a bad thing, but kids want to play early. You know kids want to play now and it's our job to give them the tools to be able to do that. They just have to realize some kids have been here for four years. Some kids are 22 years old. They're young men and 18 year olds may have a tough time, you know, in certain areas to compete with those guys.

So our philosophy is to still recruit high school kids, redshirt them, develop them, and those guys are your core foundation moving forward that's got to be incredibly frustrating how fluid the transfer portal is and you know you spend all this time trying to develop guys and it's a long process can be five, six years for some of these guys that you're developing and you just never know at any point they're going somewhere else.

Yeah, and that's common at every level of college football Division I, Division II, it doesn't matter. But you have to adapt to the way the game is, the way the rules are the way the instability operates, and if you don't adapt, you're not going to have success. And I'm a big fan of the players getting what they deserve, whether it's from a financial standpoint or the playing time they're looking for.

But I think if we can get kids into our culture, into our program, the way we're trying to do things, kids want to be here Washburn, kids want to be at Washburn, Kids want to be in Topeka. So if our culture is strong enough to keep kids here, there's not kids always looking to leave. You're you're always going to lose a few kids that are unhappy or have goals at a different place. But, um, if you, if you do a good job with those relationships and the way you coach your kids and care for them, you're going to have them stick around.

Yeah, hmm, what, uh, what? What do you think? Um, it's obviously you played under coaches and then you've coached under coaches as well. What were some of the most impactful things that other coaches have done for you?

Yeah, that's a great question.

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Most of the things for me were off the field, which I think coaching in general is mostly off the field, especially at this level where you don't have a hundred person support staff. You're responsible for a lot of different things that are not just football, and I think I'm the coaches I've worked for the three different school three different stops that I've been at is family is the number one priority for our entire program and I'll go over our pillars of our program but, family, accountability, discipline, toughness and respect, and our entire program is built on those five things, but family's number one.

And so the coaches that I've been under. They've really showed me how you can be a great family man while being a college football coach. And being a college football coach is not easy. There's early mornings, late nights, travel.

Every Saturday in the fall is taken up. But the way things are electronically social media, film, all that kind of stuff you can work extremely hard but be a very present family man and that's how I am. Family is the most important thing to me. My Um, family is the most important thing to me. Uh, my wife and two kids is the most important thing. And our families, our coaches and their families I've told them the same thing and so we're moving to a morning practice model this fall to give us more time in the evening to go to those games and practice plays and whatever else.

How?

old are your two kids?

A five-year-old son, two-year-old daughter.

Come on. Yeah, man, that's valuable time.

We can't we're right in the thick of just chaos all the time.

That's awesome. I have kids around that age as well. It's chaos.

It's the best job in the world.

It really is so fun. It's so fun, but it is chaos.

Yeah, and so part of the recruiting tactics for hiring these coaches and our players is really selling family as a number one thing that we do. Wow, you're going to be with your family as much as possible. We're coming off a few-week break. We had camps all through June, told the staff to get away. You've got weeks off and come back refreshed, ready to go for a training camp. But you can't give family time back and football takes what it takes. It takes a lot of time and there's no way around that. To win, to be successful, to run a good program, it takes time, but it doesn't mean you have to sacrifice other times that you could be with your family or doing whatever things that you have.

Right.

And so.

I'm big on that. I'm big on making our staff do that. Our staff wants to do that. They're all great men and husbands and fathers and they want to do those things and it's my job to empower them, to make them go do those things.

I'm going to ask you the same question I asked Brett Ballard and you maybe have a greater appreciation of it. What does he need to do to dunk? We did ask him that. Yeah, no, uh, do you, uh, do you have?

any open spots on your team.

Stop it, john I'm trying to ask a cool question. Do you know how cool your job is? You have a sweet job.

That's. I saw the episode with Coach Ballard and Coach Ballard's a great guy, but it's never lost on me what we do for a living, wow yeah. Because it's not coaching football. That is your job. You have to win games to have that job, but our job is to develop these kids, graduate these kids, show them what it's like to be, hopefully, a good husband, father, good man.

You're judged by winning football games which is the unfortunate part of the job sometimes, but it's never once been lost on me that I can go to the office and do things like this and talk to our players and walk in a weight room and walk in a gym and walk on a field and that's just my everyday life. My kids come on the field and use the indoor and they're around the guys all the time and, um, you know, that's just not common at most places.

That's cool.

I've said this many times it's never once felt like a job or felt like work. There's early mornings and late nights and you know it's going to be a stress on your family or stress on you, but it doesn't feel like work. I've had plenty of jobs where it feels like work and you don't want to go to those every day, but I've never once in my entire coaching career felt like that.

What time are summer waits for the boys?

Two different sessions, 6 and 9 am.

Yeah, 6 am. That'd feel like a job to me. Sounds brutal.

Yeah well, when you're a player doing those runs and lifts, that's a lot different than me just watching.

That's true.

Yeah, runs and lifts. That's a lot different than me just watching. That's true. Yeah, that's true. Well, if you'd work out with alex, you'd be awake for two hours. Work out with alex that guy hasn't worked out in me either. Clip this part and send it to him. Yeah, uh, we have a friend who he thinks the only time to work out is like 4 30 in the morning.

We're like pro that's when I go first thing in the morning. You just can't, you just can't that's true.

You have to work out before they get there probably.

We cannot let Alex see that clip.

We're going to have to cut that clip out now.

If you knock it out first thing in the morning, it doesn't matter what else happens during the day. It's done. Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, you got better, you got to work out. Yeah, totally yeah. What are the best and worst football movies or shows?

Oh, that's a good question, great question. There are some bad. What are some of the worst ones? Um, I haven't seen, you know, a ton of the the uh TV series or the Netflix shows, but some of the football in there is just not realistic. You know it's not. It's not good football to a football coach. You're analyzing. Well, they want to do that, or why are they doing this?

Like when they do play calling in a movie.

Yeah, play calling, or the way they throw a ball or catch a ball, dude that is funny.

When you can tell the actor's not an athlete the way they throw the ball. You're like no one throws a ball like that.

Yeah, but I grew up on the Varsity Blues and Remember the Titans.

Oh, yeah, yeah and Remember the Titans, oh yeah.

Yeah, there's some really good football movies. There's some bad football entertainment also, though.

We Are Marshall, good, very good how about you guys?

Do you have good and bad football movies?

I mean, remember the Titans is classic. For me that's probably number one. Yeah, it's so good.

We Are. Marshall is a big one. That's the one where the team died in a plane crash. Yeah, that was a good one.

Is that Samuel L Jackson? Is that the one where he?

I don't know, john, don't press me. Yeah, I don't know.

Or is it Matthew McConaughey? I forget.

It's been a while. Matthew McConaughey is the coach.

Yeah, yeah, okay yeah.

Yeah, yeah, uh, air. Bud.

Air bud's probably worst. Yeah, I'm trying to think. I watch, do you like? Uh, Friday night lights.

I've seen it Never finished all the way through. Um I read the book growing up.

Oh, is it based on a book? Yeah, so the book? Are you kidding me, john? Yeah, I read the book. Growing up they made obviously a new movie TV series.

But um, yeah, the book was. I mean I read the book growing up. They made obviously a new movie TV series. But yeah, the book was. I mean I read it probably middle school.

Yeah.

It was a great read.

Yeah, so did they make the movie first or the show first? I'm trying to remember, probably, the show. I don't know, I have no idea. The show is basically so. I never saw it until like six months ago. Some friends of ours were like dude, we just we re-watched Friday Night Lights, it's so. They watched it like over Christmas break. Oh, they just knocked it out. Yeah, they just knocked the whole thing out over, like their, their kids are in college, so they had their kids home for break and so they like watched it for like over the week of Christmas and like you guys got to watch this show, and so my wife and I sit down. We had, I think our kids were at their grandparents for like three or four days, so we, we watched it for a while and I was like this is just like a soap opera, like I don't know if I can do this, it's. It's.

It's like the oc or like gossip girl or like something like that, both football uh, blindside, very blindside, good movie, good movie yeah, I don't think you can top we uh remember the yeah, it's as good as it gets what's the Adam Sandler one where he's in prison, longest Yard, longest Yard Is that one realistic?

Well, I mean, you know, that's just good football. I mean you have good athletes and big guys and Adam Sandler. It's just a good movie. Yeah, absolutely All right Changing gears 2025 season.

What, yeah, absolutely All right. Changing gears 2025 season. What are we looking at? We got a good roster this year.

Yeah, we've recruited really well. We created a new position, director of player personnel, and Coach Sharp is in that role, and we are, as best I can say it, we're doing everything the exact right way in recruiting.

So, contacting kids, recruiting kids, showing them Washburn, selling them on Topeka. We've had over 3,000 kids on campus since March, wow. So that's from junior days, that's from camps, that's from recruiting visits, all those kind of things, just showing people Washburn's campus. And so we've recruited really well. We've got very good transfers who have joined us some at semester, some in May and we've developed our high school kids really well. So I'm really excited about this fall.

Yeah, heck yeah. How many scholarships does a roster of 125,? How many can you give out?

So Division II is limited to 36 full scholarships across the entire team. So you break those up and you can divvy those up however you want and need to. So that was probably one of the biggest challenges of becoming a head coach is you have a budget number and you're puzzling your entire roster within that budget number.

And that's primarily your call. You're the one doing that.

So when you get the job you know you have a, most of the scholarships are taken and most of the money's being used, and some kids graduate a semester, you sign some new kids, some transfers, high school kids, and so all those puzzle pieces have to work within that budget number and that was a big change. But also it's again an off the field, off the football field thing you have to deal with as a coach.

Yeah I was. I'd always thought you know, cause I knew you were on a limited amount of scholarships and so I knew you know there's some, you know, on full rides, some that are on half, some that have you know walk-ons, and I'd always in my head thought that you know the guys who are on full rides, those are your best football players. You know they're getting the full ride, when it might tell me if I'm wrong might be more of a reality of not necessarily if we can get some academic money for this guy and give him, you know, half football, like he might be our best player, but thank God he's smart because we can use that money elsewhere.

Yeah, and Washburn is tremendous about all the extra ways to stack scholarships of great academic scholarships, great Shawnee County, Topeka area incentives to come to Washburn oh that's cool. All that stuff you can stack up.

You can spread your money out a little farther and it doesn't really matter how you're paying for school, Right?

yeah, Once you're on our team, everybody's treated the exact same. Most coaching staff, most of the players don't know who's on what scholarship, and that's probably a good thing. And all you're judged on is by how you act and operate and perform within the football program academically in the community, and that's what we grade our guys on. And that's all part of the encompassing recruiting process of how can we make the scholarship dollars work, but also the position needs. We have the academic money we can provide. What needs do we have at certain positions? And all of that rolled into one as your recruiting class.

Yeah, I mean, I can speak to that personally. So I went to Washburn, graduated from there in 2020. And you know, halfway through I decided to go into business, the business school, and you know there's scholarships within that department, and so I was on a general one and then, a couple years later, I was able to get more through the business school. I mean, there's a ton, a ton of options for kids who are wanting to go to Washburn if you can. Just, you know, they just had a little matrix for you know, act this, keep this GPA and you're good, and it was. It was really cool.

That's awesome, yeah, Washburn being a great academic school man, every program is great. We we sell the hell out of the academic side because you have to, because that's that's a huge staple of Washburn university. But also what we can provide recruits and maybe some other schools can, is that quality of education. So when you have that quality of education at Washburn, with the monies on top of it, it goes a long way.

Wow, is it? I imagine, if you're in that position I mean, maybe this isn't the case, but I imagine it'd be easy to feel like pulled in a million directions by everyone's opinion on different things, and I'm sure a lot of it's well-meaning coaching staff. You know, man, you got to give this guy, it's got like we need this guy and you're like man, I don't know my eyes on the whole team, so it's you know. And then maybe, I don't know, maybe do you have people in just the school administration like, hey, make sure you focus on this and this and this. And is it hard to kind of just keep focused and keep a clear running lane? For no, this is what we need to do. I need to stay locked in and not let other people's opinions or or questions draw me. Does that make sense? Like is that? What's that been like?

I think all that goes back to the type of people that are at Washburn. They all want the football program to succeed and win games and graduate your players, and I think we're all very aligned on what we want and that's you know, that's, that's my final job is, you know, it's? It's not a suggestion giver anymore, it's a decision maker. The coaching staff can suggest and people can suggest, but it's my job to decide and I'm a very collaborative head coach. I want opinions from the coaching staff, in certain cases the players or administration, but at the end of the day it's you know, the buck stops here.

It's my decision, and so try to do what's best for the program at all times. You never want to do what's best for you or a certain coach or a certain player position. You have to keep the program at all times. You never want to do what's best for you or a certain coach or a certain player or position. You have to keep the program at the forefront of your mind. What's the best for Washburn football, washburn University, and so by having that as your vision and your focus and make some of those tough decisions pretty easy, that's awesome.

So I mean you got to big roster and you got a big you know coaching staff. Not all the sports have that kind of personnel. Do you have any coaching friends at Washburn who coach other sports that you're close with that you've gotten to know whether it's in the office or whatnot.

Yeah, I think the Washburn athletic staff in general. I mean it's a tight knit group of people and do a lot of things outside of the office together but Coach Ballard and I are great friends and watching the success that Coach Ballard had this year and really has had his entire tenure making the tournament you know, pretty much every year that he's been here he's been a guy that I've asked questions with and bounced ideas off of.

Really, I've built good relationships with every coach at Washburn head coach, assistant, volunteer because we're all doing the same thing. We're all trying to develop kids and graduate kids and win games, and when you can kind of have the same focus as everybody else. It doesn't matter what gender they are, what sport it is what scholarship money.

You have Coach Holliday and I, the softball coach, we share ideas all the time. Kirby, the tennis coach, we share ideas. He's been extremely successful. So Davey, the soccer coach, just pretty much can name everybody. But how do you interact with this situation, or how does this benefit you, or how do you stretch this at the division two level? And all those things have helped us develop our program that's sweet, that's awesome, man.

Well, we're excited for this next season, man. It sounds like you're the right guy in the right role. You know, man, you got the vision, you're focused. It's exciting. So we're excited to see how you do, and you know that you're you're already hitting the ground running, man so when's first game?

first game is saturday, august 30th um, against truman state. That's coming up. Yeah, it's a. It's a 1 pm game, uh, saturday. So yeah, we're excited. Our players report august 4th um.

So a couple weeks away, or a week or so away yeah, do you know how the schedule fares compared to previous years in?

terms of like difficulty. Yeah, so our schedule wise has been set for this year. But doing the whole schedule, so the training camp schedule, the meetings, the meals, the travel, that's all just been a huge puzzle piece you have to put together. Yeah wow, and that's again, that's an off-the-field thing which impacts your on-field success, but that's more of your time and focus than the you know on-field is sometimes.

Yeah, August 4th you get to find out who's been putting in the work and who hasn't been.

Yeah, we've had a tremendous summer. We've had over 100 guys here all summer.

Oh, wow.

Training, doing player-led captain's practices at the indoor and the game stadium, and we've had our best player attendance and best player development summer we've ever had.

Wow.

Hopefully you add in the recruiting we've done and the development our coaches have put in the player. Development hopefully leads to success on the field.

Who are your captains for this year?

We'll get those announced and solidified during training camp.

So, we're doing a few different things within the program. We're going to have our single digit numbers earned. The single digit numbers, you have to earn those. So it's been really since January, january, spring ball, summer training camp. We're going to vote. Players will vote for each other. Top 10 vote getters get the single-digit numbers. Wow, that's cool, those single-digit numbers. So when you guys come to a game you can see zero through nine and you know those guys are not necessarily the best players. Those are the best kids in our program, wow, yeah, maybe the best students, students the best in the weight room, the best players, the best community service guys. But our players will vote for each other based on all those different things and the top vote getters get those numbers wow, that's cool.

That is cool. I like that man. Yeah, wow. So uh, first game coming up soon, man, that's great. Uh, can we hit you with a few rapid fire questions?

yeah, absolutely let's get them. Yeah, a few rapid fire questions. I can't promise I'm prepared for them, but I'm ready. That's good. That's the whole point.

That's the whole point okay, so uh, you're, you're married. How long you've been married?

uh, this will be 11 years, come on man, congratulations yeah, thank uh.

Where are you taking your wife on a date Like ideal date night in Topeka?

Ooh, yeah, um man, we love to eat, so um, been a little bit everywhere. I mean blue moose, uh, maybe North star maybe um maybe the white linen, maybe? Uh, just to Bobo's and get a burger and shake. Come on man, you know, Love it You're hitting every area.

Man, that's awesome, dude. I think North Star is underappreciated. Yeah, it's so good. It is good, it's insane Because, especially when you walk inside and it looks like what is this place? Yeah, the steak to vibe ratio is insane. You, what is this place? The steak to vibe ratio is insane. You know what I'm talking about. It looks like you're walking into someone's living room from the 70s, yep, but the steak is off the charts.

It's insane. That is a delicacy in Topeka. It really is yeah.

the first two places I went when I was a player were Bobo's and North Star. Yeah, those are two great places that was a long time ago now, but those have been. Now that I've been back here coaching, those are.

What's the my mind just blanked on it we talked about recently. What's the place on East Topeka like sixth and golden, like the hole in the wall place? The burger place. The burger place, price package, price package. You ever been to price package? Oh, price package, price package. You ever been to price package? Oh, yeah, bro, yeah, yep.

That's like That'll just do your insides.

If it's a good food place in Topeka, I've probably been there, yeah, yeah.

Come on, man, that's awesome. Are you a coffee guy?

No, not a coffee guy, just naturally juiced up.

Naturally captivated.

I love it, golfer. I am a golfer. Go to golf course, yeah, uh, well, tcc hb country club okay, just you know, just obviously immaculate. Uh, growing up in kansas city, there's a ton of great courses there. Yeah, um, but firekeeper I mean just being that's a good answer.

You know being 20, minutes north.

Uh one of the best public courses in the state yeah you, I can't, can't get much better than that heck yeah and so our, our golf schedule is squeezed in. Yeah, I'm gonna play, you know, through the end of the month, and then we'll put the clubs away for seven, eight months and try to pick it up okay, so you're, you're golf, you golf, yeah, like what's your handicap?

five dang the fact that you know what your handicap is speaks that you actually are a golfer, golfer, and the fact that single digit, yeah, you get after it.

Yeah, well, yeah well, when you play with several guys that are better than you and know their handicap, you better try to keep up, but yeah golfing is. That's probably the main hobby I have outside of um, obviously, coaching and being a family man and being a dad uh, don't, don't get to do it a lot just with the demands of the job.

But, like this month of July, when the staff is away taking your vacations and getting out of the office, you have to recharge before the season hits and some coaches are shy away from doing fun things or doing things that are advantageous to their health or their families, but I'm a big supporter of you. Have to recharge yourself and your family before you dive into the season.

Yeah, it's called the greatness golf tournament. I'm getting coach Watkins on my team.

Come on, yeah, yeah Well it's kind of messed up that you're so good at two things. Like two very difficult things football and golf, cause, like most people aren't good at one of those things, you're good at both.

I'm good at none of them and I can't dunk. No, Coach Ballard said he has a trampoline you can use, thank goodness. Alright, you're doing a home project, menards, home Depot or Lowe's Lowe's? That's a great question and there is a right answer. That's a great question.

I'm a Home Depot guy. Let's freaking go, let's freaking go. My wife is Menards so she's tried to force us into Menards. My son loves Menards because the snacks are right there and you can't get it. Yeah, but I've been a Home Depot guy for a long time.

My guy, let's go. I know you had your head on your shoulders. Home Depot, home. Depot yeah, okay, yeah.

So will your son eat snacks while shopping? I'm like your son I like to get snacks.

Will he open the snacks while you're in the store?

He'll try to If you're not looking. He's got them open and you're pushing the car. You look back and you're like come on.

I definitely do that in Dillon's. I like open up the top and that's funny. Yeah, it's like a reward. My six-year-old who's like the most rule follower ever which is not how I am, naturally my wife is like that. She's like these are the rules you can't do that like why. My six-year-old's like dad, mom said you can't do that like well, mom's not here, so same thing.

I tried to walk in the exit doors of menard my wife makes me go to the entrance.

Oh man my wife won't cross over grass. If there's a sidewalk, you can't walk in the grass. There's a sidewalk like it's like a hundred feet faster. This way I'm gonna walk through the grass um, what's the next one?

how many potholes did you hit on the way over here today?

hit a few um. I just came from across the street, though, and you already hit a few. It's a three-minute drive from the office to here. Yeah, I was running a few errands before, so, yeah, I hit a few. But, there's just. You know I'm a big fan of what Topeka is doing overall but construction, and it's a pain sometimes, but they're improving everything. And our campus is under construction all the time, just new things being built and yeah, it's being improved.

Good save, coach watkins. Good save. Yeah, we're always improving way to spin that uh, maybe let's close with this.

Uh, what, uh, what is one of your favorite things in topeka off campus, just maybe as someone who lives in the city, maybe as a family man. What's something you just love about living in the city of Topeka? And then, what's one thing you would love to see come to Topeka at some point? Maybe, a business, a service, whatever.

I mean, for me personally it's golf, my son is kind, it's golf, my son is kind of getting into golf and so I'm taking him to the course. But obviously the restaurants too. We do a lot of our recruiting dinners around all the different restaurants in Topeka. We go downtown, which recruits a lot. So the downtown vibe and increased people going down there has really been good for us in the recruiting side. But you know pools and all the Discovery Center, the zoo, my son and kids love that.

Yeah.

My daughter would go to the zoo every day if we let her Totally.

My kids were there earlier today, yeah.

But growing up in Kansas City, obviously, obviously you know all the kinds of food you want, but one of my favorite places is longboards in kansas city okay, all right, I haven't heard long they have one coming to lawrence, but if we can bring one a little bit further, west yeah let's, let's say what is, what is? Yeah, what's a longboard so it's a kind of a Hawaiian raps, reggae music playing.

Okay, it's just a. Is it like a Hawaiian Bros sort of Kind of?

but it's all raps and bowls and I kind of call it the Hawaiian Chipotle. But you know they're giant panini raps that are just Sounds awesome. Hawaiian Chipotle, that's a good way to put it. Yeah, is it like? Hawaiian Bros are just Sounds awesome. Hawaiian Chipotle, that's a good way to put it.

Yeah, is it like Hawaiian Bros, kind of Not really. No, yeah, better. Well, where can people find you at? You said your first game's August, yep.

First game is August 30th.

Okay, Are you on?

social media. Yep, so we haveod Football. My personal Twitter is Zach Z-A-C-H underscore Watkins. Each coach has their own Twitter. We link them all back to Ichabod Football. That's our big recruiting area. That's our big recruiting.

So that's where I should send my huddle tape. Yep, exactly, send it.

We'll evaluate it. We'll get back to you pretty quick.

I got four years of eligibility evaluate it.

We'll get back to you pretty quick. I got four years of eligibility. Well, we need guys that have four years, so yeah, so be be ready for a call.

Yeah, I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the uh, the group twitter dms among your coaches, like what kind of memes and uh videos being sent there?

yeah, we have a coaching staff twitter or a coaching staff group chat. It's always active. It's um guys liking guys sending things Some important information, but some just not important stuff being thrown around.

Hey, that's just as important. Absolutely, I love it.

Yeah, our staff's very active on social media, all the platforms. I think it's a way to connect with high school kids recruits coaches, parents families.

Totally.

So all of our coaches have some version of that and we're very active on there and our football content was great this spring Summer. We kind of took a break and scaled back a little bit, but then fall we'll ramp everything back up with mic'd up and practice clips and behind-the-scenes features and content. So I'd love to have you guys come out check out a practice.

Love it, Dude.

That'd be great yeah guys come out, check out a practice. That'd be great. Yeah, dude, mic'd up content is some of the best athletic content. Yes, we did, uh, three or four different mic'd ups this spring. That's awesome. The athletic department, the football program and it's uh, football coaching is very unique when it's mic'd up because it's you know the things you say the things you don't say, yeah exactly so um, yeah, that's some of the best content well, thank you so much appreciate your time.

This has been awesome. Yeah, thank you guys, appreciate your time absolutely.

I love the show, love what you guys are doing for topeka, and I just appreciate you guys having me on.