"What do student-athletes need to know to succeed in college recruiting?" with guest Tom Thayer (07-12-2005)
John Kerr:
Hello everyone, welcome to the maiden voyage of collegiate athlete today streaming across the US and the globe thanks to the world wide web. Broadcasting live form Chicago Illinois. Im John Kerr, this is the first of thirteen episodes of collegiate athlete today the only radio show talking about high school sports and the biz of college recruiting. We want to thank voice America for streaming voice collegiate athlete today and helping steer this broadcast from the mother ship in Phoenix Arizona but if it wasn't for the man sitting next to me in our makeshift studios in Chicago collegiate athlete today would just be a great idea and nothing else. I want to bring in the pride and job of north Chicago Illinois, Chris Kraus. Chris give a shout out to our CA Today audience
Chris:
JK, we are so fired up to be here today. We are going to cover of ton of information for families and we are so looking forward to getting this thing started out on the right foot. And bringing out a message of why sports is going to be a integral part of kids futures and making sure that we drive them to the right schools and great opportunities. So we are fired up to be here and excited.
John:
Well why we are so fired up about this show. Anyone listening out there or in the future can relate to this. College recruiting is a topic that everyone has a story from. Whether it be your own story, whether you were a good high school athlete and had the ability to play in college but were overlooked. Maybe you have a son or daughter who is playing little league or club soccer but you don't know how good they are. Or maybe you have a niece or nephew or grandson who is a world beater but really has no options for college but you just want to help. This is where you will get those answers and this is where we want you to turn for advice. And if we cant get you the answer, one of our guests will. Now today we will not be taking your phone calls we will be starting next week but that does not mean that you cant reach out to us. The email address here is CAtoday@ncsasports.org. Questions, comments, feedback on the show. Pass it along, this is your show. This is interactive. We want to hear from you. And we'll have that phone number for you in week 2.
But before we get to Chris' background we want to take a few minutes and talk about The National Collegiate Scouting Association. Chris, tell your audience out there, our audience out there about this organization which is really one of the few true scouting organizations in this industry.
Chris:
Well NCSA, our mission is to continue being a leader in collegiate scouting by building lasting relationships with the college coaching community and empowering the athlete to choose the best education possible. And the way we do that is through a mix of education and technology. And by utilizing the resources of our over 40,000 registered college coaches. And making sure that the student athlete knows how this works and really has an understanding about the timing and when it takes place. Coaches are constantly telling us that their biggest challenges are unrealistic parents, unprepared student athletes and lack of really verifiable data and we have been really blessed to be able to take some great information and pass it on to some qualified student athletes and really teach these student athletes how to take control and empower themselves and manage this process and make sure that they make it onto the next level with the right fit academically not just athletically.
John:
And Chris you know this because of personal experience and that's what we're going to get into right now. The focus is that you wouldn't know this info if you didn't go through it yourself. And Chris we mentioned before North Chicago, Illinois, you grew up, it's a town about 25-30 miles north of Chicago. You played football there at North Chicago as well as a bunch of other sports. Tell the audience out there when you first realized that sports can be a vehicle to get you somewhere and get you out of town.
Chris:
Well there has been a common thread that I have been able to find just from talking to athletes who have been able to compete at the next level and beyond. And a lot of that comes from just goal setting, a lot of kids, they didn't just decide to be a division I athlete their senior year. This comes from goal setting from the time you're in third or fourth grade you start realizing some things that maybe sports can be a vehicle to help drive you to get your education taken care of and get you to a better place. And that kind of happened for me when I was at North Chicago I was fortunate to have a family who were my next door neighbors who happened to be a guy named Phil Judson who was a high school coach and had a son who went on to play at the next level and who is currently the head basketball coach at Northern Illinois. Rod Judson was kind of my role model and I was really fortunate to have a role model who really set my sights on what could be possible at a young age.
5:22
John:
Of course Rod Judson is now the head basketball coach at Northern Illinois University and also coached under Lon Krueger down there and helped recruit some of the final four players, Duron Williams, Dee Brown from that run the Illinois team had earlier this year before losing to North Carolina in the final game. Now lets fast forward, Chris, your senior year at North Chicago, you would think that as an All-Conference linebacker, you'd be hearing from all these difference schools. Tell your situation goes back to the fall of 1983.
Chris:
Well the challenge in recruiting from just listening to what coaches are telling us and a little information can be really dangerous. Well a lot of times a high school coach will say well wait until your senior year and see how things go. And those letters you get from those college coaches don't mean anything until they start calling you. Well there's some truth to that but it can be very misleading. In reality, college coaches are looking at kids freshman year and sophomore year is when the process starts. From the time you walk through the doors and start working on your GPA, that's what really matters. And from the time I was a Jr. I was fortunate enough to get a lot of letters and a lot of exposure because of a kid in front of me named Aaron Swopes who went on to Wisconsin and gave a lot of exposure to our program and got me on the radar screen of a lot of college coaches my junior year. So I started getting letters from about 150 colleges, initial recruiting letters, which I thought that meant scholarships, the reality was that there was about 10,000 other kids who were receiving the same letters. So in going through the process, I just kind of sat back and let my coach handle it. I didn't realize until I started seeing some other kids in my conference that were getting recruited by some high end programs. A kid named Mike Rodbro (sp?) was being recruited by Miami, they had just won the national championship. And I said, wait a minute, how is this guy who is going on to Miami be recruited when we just beat them two weeks ago and I kicked the snot out of them pretty good. So I figured that I should be getting looked at. So it wasn't until I started to really get angry at the whole process and started taking some matter into my own hands. I started calling up these coaches and started asking them if the were still looking for a linebacker and that's when I realized that had I not started doing this early I would have missed out a once in a lifetime opportunity.
7:30
John:
So senior year, Chris, youre seeing guys go on, like Mike Rodbro, youre starting to get some interest from some schools. What led you to your eventual choice which is Vanderbilt, an SEC school in Nashville Tennessee? When did Vanderbilt start coming into the picture?
Chris:
Well when I started going through the letters and making calls. A lot of the coaches, the first thing they said was, the first thing that they didn't know that I was interested in their program, which was a little disturbing and the second thing was well get a little video together and send it out and we'll take a look at you. So my dad and I put together a little video highlight and sent it out to the schools that requested it. And within a matter of days we started getting airplane tickets back in the mail and coaches saying hey we want you to come on an official visit. A couple schools said that they really liked what they saw but had already made commitments, I know Michigan was one of the schools that kind of was the first one to write me a letter which I was really excited about, but by the time we got the video and sent it out they offered an official visit but backed out because another kid has already committed. It was a tough situation when realizing that there were some opportunities that had already passed me by simply because I wasn't involved in the process early enough. It really came down the Air Force Academy, some Ivy League schools, Eastern Illinois, Iowa State and Vanderbilt, and when is started looking at all the different school, well actually Northwestern, but to get a chance to play down south in the SEC in some of these storied programs against an Alabama and a Georgia and all those places and to see that Vanderbilt was serious about graduating their student athletes. They were always on top in term of academics, and that was the reason that led me down to Vanderbilt.
John:
This school, again Chris, that never would have known about you, a school that you never would have known about had it not been through your football. Again the athletics getting you noticed by some schools and then end up going somewhere academically which you really couldn't have gotten into on your own merit. Correct?
Chris:
Yeah its funny when you get down there, you realize that there is a 139 valedictorians in your freshman class. And you think, how am I going to compete with these kids who are coming from some of the top high school programs in the country. But they really sold me on how they had a plan together to make sure that the academic support would be there to make sure that I would be able to succeed. That was something that really led me and my family. I remember my mom and dad were really excited to know that there was going to be another set of eyes and ears on me to make sure that I was progressing, to make sure that I wasn't going to be another casualty of collegiate football which you hear about every day. The fact is that there is only about fifty percent of kids going into college these days are even graduating, so it's a big challenge to make sure that these kids make it through.
(10:23)
John:
They probably had to look at a map to find out where Nashville Tennessee was. The next thing you know youre on your way to Nashville, spending some time in the SEC, when we come back here on the other side of ths break is more about Chris' experience at Vanderbilt and the people he met down there. And again also for anyone in the audience im going to give our information out one more time, we're not taking phone calls today, this is a first show, but if you want to give a comment, a question, we want to read those comments, we want to hear from you. The email address is CAToday@ncsasports.org.
When we come back, we want to hear some of those stories of Chris playing down there in the SEC, down there at Alabama, Auburn, at Arkansas, Baton Rouge, the Bengal Tigers, Chris has some great stories about his experiences down there. We are also going to hear from somebody at the end of the show who has his own experiences and we have a great segment coming on here which we hope over the next 13 weeks is going to be a really great segment here from a guy who we are going to have here at the end of the show. We are going to tease this and we are going to tease him a little bit later, but don't go anywhere because when we come back we are going to hear more from Chris. You are listening to Collegiate Athlete Today on the worldwide leader in internet radio, Voice America. More after this.
14:30
John:
Welcome back everybody, it's the maiden voyage of Collegiate Athlete Today streaming across the US and the globe that to the worldwide web. Broadcasting live from Chicago, Illinois. I'm John Kerr along with Chris Kraus. This is the first of 13 episodes of CA Today the only internet radio show talking about high school sports and the business of college recruiting. Once again we want to thank Voice America for streaming CA Today and helping steer this broadcast from the mother ship in Phoenix Arizona. We are talking about college recruiting, which is the theme of the show today, but we want to reemphasis to everyone listening out there. Kids listening from their computers, moms and dads you aren't really comfortable with the internet, you don't realize that you can listen to the radio on the internet. Kids talk to mom and dad, tell them to get on the computer and listen to the show. This is a show for them. Anyone can relate to this show. You've known someone, an uncle, an aunt, you yourself, someone has been involved in recruiting in some capacity and we want to hear from you. We want to hear your story. This is your show. Or maybe your story hasn't been told yet, we want to hear about it. Your feedback, your comments, questions. Let's get back to Chris here. We have been talking about Chris' background growing up in North Chicago, Illinois, a town about 30 miles north of Chicago. How does a kid from there end up at Vanderbilt in Nashville Tennessee? How does that happen?
16:05
Chris:
Well it's amazing, I think that one of the things that happened was that there was a kid that went to Libertyville a year before, a kid named Jim Pop who brought a little exposure to the north suburban conference so a couple of coaches had seen me play back when I was a junior at that time. And going down to Vanderbilt was a chance to see another side of the country and be able to really buy into that name game. You start talking about playing in front of 97,000 people at Neiland Stadium in Knoxville and the whole Dear Bryant and Alabama tradition, its really easy for a young, impressionable 17 or 18 year old kid to be able to look at that be like wow that's where im going. I'm going to be the next kid that comes out of there who goes on to play professionally.
John:
How about that Bengal tiger down there in Baton Rouge, CK?
Chris:
Yeah, well that's a whole other story. You go down there, youre playing in from of 80,000 people in Death Valley, and you're a freshman and youre on the kick off squad and they have a tiger sitting outside your locker room and theyre prodding it. And youre sitting there thinking, what am I doing here, there a bunch of drunk Cajuns out there throwing bottles at you and people urinating over the side of the stadium and they've been there for 4 hours getting primed up for the game and you talk about being tiger meat. Its pretty intimidating and it was a hell of an experience.
John:
Quite an indoctrination into SEC football for a young impressionable kid from North Chicago. Can you be impressionable coming from North Chicago?
Chris:
I don't know, JK, coming from one side of the tracks to the other, its true.
John:
There ya go, Chris has a lot of great stories and experiences at SEC. We are going to turn things back here to why you ended up at Vanderbilt. What's going to fall of 1984, youre freshman there, the football team was actually doing pretty well. Talk about that experience freshman year and impact it had on what you experience that forced you to realize that you're really down there to go to college.
Chris:
Well the selling point for Vanderbilt was, they were just coming off an Independence Bowl appearance the year before and to be able to go down there and have the chance to be able to play for a team that was doing pretty well was exciting. But after our 4-0 start, we beat Alabama on the road and Maryland on the road, and the wheels kind of fell off from there and it was kind of like the highlight of my Vanderbilt career was over in a matter of weeks because after losing 6 of the last 7 games, we didn't go to a bowl game and reality set in that this was going to be a long haul and I better get my education and hit the books because professional football was something that I realized was not going to be in my future. After seeing a couple friends of mine who actually got drafted to go to the NFL come back with their tail between their legs, they just couldn't make it and I thought if these guys couldn't make it, I wasn't going to make it at the next level there was no way that I was going to make it. So instead of hitting the weight room as much I started hitting the library a little bit. And it paid off.
(19:00)
John:
Chris, not only did you find the library, but you also realized that the Vanderbilt part, the education part was why you were really down there. Tell the audience out there again about how Vanderbilt, and again this is another great lesson of why you want to play sports, how sports can be a great vehicle, I mean you probably had some idea of what you wanted to study when you got down there. Right Chris? But they really helped you formulate a plan down at Vanderbilt.
Chris:
Well im discovering just from being involved in athletics and working with lots of student athletes who are going to play at different levels is that its really about the education. It's the bottom line, when we really starting putting together numbers and really looking at what schools are really committed to getting their kids graduated on time and with a degree that is going to be useful. One thing that was exciting for me and more exciting for my parents was to see that they actually had a plan through the human organizational development dept. down at the educational school where they actually put together a schedule for you to take to make sure that youre going to graduate on time. To make sure that youre taking the right courses making sure that when you got there they were going to be able to really monitor your progress getting you into classes that were going to make progress towards your degree and the fact that they had an internship program was one of the things that really turned me onto the dept at Vanderbilt that really led me into what im doing today and that is helping train student athletes and empowering student athletes on putting a plan together for success.
John:
And Chris talk about the importance of the academic support because the acclamation and transition part to college is something which is under-rated in terms if you get student athletes from all over the country maybe going to a different area. In your case you went from North Chicago, Illinois to Nashville Tennessee and certainly the cultural shock of being in a different town but then also the fact that it was eased by the fact that you had support systems there that made sure that you got from Point A to Point B, you had some direction, you weren't just wandering in this sea of academics, you had someone to point you in the right direction.
(21:00)
Chris:
Its funny when you're coming out of North Chicago and you're thinking Nashville, you're thinking the Grand Ole Opry and thought that when I got off the airplane I was going to be greeted by some toothless hillbillies with some banjos or something. And that wasn't the case, Vanderbilt is a world class school. I went to school with Ross Perot's Kids, Peter Uberoff's kids and really started to find out what a class organization and class institution that I was being indoctrinated into and by getting into there and starting to see that there was this plan where people were serious about me being successful and by being able to stick to that plan I could succeed. I saw a lot of kids who were drinking beer and playing Frisbee and having the best parties on dad's dime, a few semesters later they ended up getting kicked out of school while I was able to make progress towards my degree and graduate on time.
John:
And of course you spent most of your time at the library. Right Chris?
Chris:
Oh yeah, I didn't stray too far from the library too often, JK.
John:
So even at Vanderbilt they do have parties.
Chris:
Yeah. But its all about balance. And one of the things that fun about being a student athlete is that one of the things that athletics teaches you is managing your time. And part of managing your time is making time to entertain yourself. But you also know your priorities. But if sports is important you have to get the grades to stay in school and get your degree so that you don't lose you scholarship. And there was no way that I was going to go home and tell my dad that I lost a $25,000 a year scholarship because I wanted to take my partying to another level.
John:
Its again, you mentioned the key word, Chris, is balance. Football. Academics. But also as you mentioned, having a plan, following that plan. And before we hit this break, Chris, tell the audience that all this is 20 years ago, the academic support systems today at most universities are much more expansive than they were 20 years ago and tell them how they help with the acclamation process.
Chris:
The biggest challenge is really learning how to study in college for me. Its just getting over that initial hurdle of being away from home, you have a whole other set of demands on your time from the weight room. Going to any division 1 program is like having a full-time job on top of going to college. We realize that youre getting up at 6am to get treatment on an injury that you might have, youre hitting the weights, you're studying film until 8 or 9 at night and then you could be studying all night for a chemistry exam the next morning. So being able to have some support where people are watching you and if they see you slipping, if you miss a class they are going to know about it and it wont happen for long and they are going to make sure that you're there for one reason and that's making progress towards your degree. And if you having trouble and if you need some help they may demand that you have a tutor to get done what you need to get done.
John:
It's an extra set of eyes and ears. Right Chris?
Chris:
That's right.
John:
And it's hard to put a price tag on that. When we come back from this break we are going to talk about how the relationships and the experiences that Chris had at Vanderbilt really shaped his professional life as well as his personal life. The folks you met, what happened to you after school and really the path you took to the recruiting industry. Not too many kids graduate from college thinking that they are going to get into the recruiting industry, well he followed a path thanks to Vanderbilt and some friends that he made he had made that really led him there and also led him to the guest that we have coming up at the end of the show. I'll give you a hint one hint, he is a part of a Super Bowl Championship team. And he is going to tease a segment that we are going to have on the rest of the episodes of this show about highlights guests during later shows. More after this.
(30:00)
John:
Welcome back everybody, it's the maiden voyage of Collegiate Athlete Today streaming across the US and the globe that to the worldwide web. Broadcasting live from Chicago, Illinois. I'm John Kerr along with Chris Kraus. This is the episode one of 13 episodes of CA Today the only internet radio show talking about high school sports and the business of college recruiting. For the first show today we have been talking to Chris Krause, the host of this show, the president and founder of the National Collegiate Scouting Associations. And getting his story because the only way you can really have credibility in this business is by having your own story and experience to talk about. Chris' story is very unique in growing up from humble backgrounds in North Chicago, Illinois being an All-Conference linebacker and ending up at the Univ. of Vanderbilt in Nashville Tennessee. Chris talks about how the experiences of football got him to Vanderbilt but also how his Vanderbilt experience really shaped who he is today. So this is where we are going to pick it up Chris, during your experiences at Vanderbilt you had the opportunity to go out to California and what happened there and tell the audience how you got out there and how Vanderbilt helped you to get out there.
Chris:
That's one of the things that I don't think a lot student athletes really realize. What university you go to really shapes your future. This is really the biggest decision that a young person is gonna make in their life. It's going to shape the friends they have, its going to probably shape who they may end up with and potentially marrying as a spouse and for parents out there, its going to shape what your grandkids are going to look like. And its such a big decision that is made at such a young age. And coaches tell us that you can't really start too early on this process and you cant never have too much help. And being able to get into a family environment where they care for you more as a student than an athlete you knew that there were things set up beyond school like relationships for beyond school that are going to help open some doors. It didn't guarantee success but having a good degree and some connections really helps.
John:
Most people wouldn't think that the recruiting business would be a viable place to find a job. When they think of recruiting you think that would be a coach in some capacity. Certainly there are universities that have recruiting coordinators or operations chiefs, but in your case the recruiting business was in its infancy when you got out to Cali and hooked up with some people out there. Tell the audience how you got into the recruiting industry and how you got led down that path.
(33:00)
Chris:
Well through an initial practicum I did, I working with a management consulting firm out of Nashville called Halburton & Assoc. and through them I was able to understand what management consulting was all about. I was able to find out whether I liked it, if I had a passion for it, is this something like I see myself doing. I was really able to understand the business. And really did I have a passion for teaching and coaching and really in the world of business its like business coaching. And I was able to get into that and realized that I really liked it. And after that I had an internship with a group called Dynamics Inc we were doing sales and management seminars with the automobile industry. We were out in LA and were able to hone my skills and really start to get some hands on experience at a high level of teaching people how to approach the sales process and operate with integrity, how to set goals and really how to manage yourself. It was with that background that really helped me to realize my passions and my real passion was athletics. And to able to combine my internship experience, I met a guy named Preston Denard who actually played for the Rams, who had just started a franchise in the Los Angeles, one of the first recruiting services in the LA area back in 1989. And he asked me to work him and I thought wow, I didn't even know that this service even existed. And I thought had I had something like this when I was looking at colleges, I may have had some great opportunities with many schools had I had the service to help me to find the right college for me. Could I have gone to school like Harvard or Yale or Princeton and played as a starter over going to Vanderbilt where I was stuck behind other people. Because hindsight is 20/20. Kids can fall behind in the classroom because they are playing behind some other kid. You have to be able to look at all your options or else you could miss out. That stuck with me and made me want to educate kids that its not about what program youre looking at its what program is best for you. Because many kids feel like failures if they don't play all that much and most start to fall behind academically if they start to feel like failures when they don't play at the school they choose. It's important to find the right fit or else opportunities could be missed. There's over 1700 college programs that need great kids and offer opportunities for that perfect student athlete for them.
John:
Options is what we're talking about, options, right Chris? We talked about choices. The choices you make really shape you as a person, they also shape the people that you meet. And relationships are part of that. And the relationships that you made through Vanderbilt helped lead you to where you are today in terms of being able to build some bridges to help you professionally. You talked about your experience of going out to LA with the Bulls and a former member of the Bulls who was actually at Vanderbilt. I didn't even know that they had a basketball program at Vanderbilt. Apparently they did when you were there, tell everybody who we're talking about.
Chris:
Sweet Sixteen Man! They lost to Kansas actually. Well actually Will Perdue who was the SEC Player of the Year my senior year ended up getting drafted by the Bulls, I think 11th of the first round. Will and I had been friends and I was just coming back to Chicago after doing my internship to start working with a franchise called College Prospects which really was the infancy of the recruiting process, no one had really done this in Chicago and Preston had told me to come out to LA and I said hey, if im going to do this I want to go back home because I still had a lot of good contacts and old coaches that I knew and many people that I could turn to in terms of my network to get this off the ground. Will was one of those people who helped me out and this was 1990-91 which actually was the year of the first NBA championship for the Bulls. Through Will I was able to meet many people involved with the Bulls organization. I went out and watched them with Michael Jordan and watched them play at the Forum in LA. And through Will I started meeting people who played with the Bears and other Bulls players which really expanded my networking abilities and created a wide variety of contacts. I met a guy named Micheal Stonebreaker who was an All-American at Notre Dame, we became pals and through him I met more people who worked for the Bears. It's funny how the world begins to get really small.
John:
Welcome back everybody. And right we have a special guest here and no one knows the business of college recruiting or sports as much as our current guest right now. He is a former Notre Dame graduate, member of the 1985 Super Bowl Championship Chicago Bears and a current radio analyst for the Chicago Bears. Tom Thayer. Tom, welcome to CA Today.
Tom:
JK its nice to be here, thank you.
Chris:
Big Tom, welcome to the show. One of the things that we are going to do here in "Profiles of Success" is to be able profile people and talk about how sports really brought them to where they are today. And talk about how sports taught them the intangible things that they wouldn't have learned just by going to a math class or an English class. Things that stand out as a CEO as someone who is running an org. based on time management, goal setting and athletics, team building, leadership, things that carry people through life and are integral to success. And we want to highlight along the way here on CA Today are those common denominators and how did sports make an impact in their lives. And what is it doing for them today. And in this reoccurring segment that we are excited to have Tom Thayer host, we will ask some questions to get that information. We are going to ask some specific questions to find out how sports made an impact on these guys. And so my first question for Tom is; what was your biggest obstacle in college?
Tom:
For me the biggest obstacle for me was academics, that may sound funny to say, but for me athletics came easy. I was fortunate. But I went to school at Notre Dame with a lot of All-Americans who struggled at athletics whereas I was opposite. So one thing that struggling through academics taught me was how to manage my time, how to pay attention in class, how to take notes, how to spend some private time with professors and advisors in order to get a better understanding of how to achieve academically. And for me, I might have been out of my league going to Notre Dame because they have academics as such a stress point of that university but that pressure actually made me develop into a better person during my four years there because I really had to learn how to manage my time there. Because one of my greatest fears for me was that I could not keep my grades up to the point of being eligible to play athletics and so I had to be realistic in that I didn't expect A's and B's at Notre Dame. So my goal was to be the best football player that I could be and the stress of keep my grades up really helped me develop an all-around drive in achieving that.
Chris:
That's awesome, Tom. I know that one of the interesting things that you shared with me was that as an All-American at Notre Dame and a professional athlete who was able to play on a Super Bowl Championship team and block for the likes of Walter Payton, you still had to start at the bottom of the food chain in the beginning. How did you cope with coming in as a fledgling freshman into college and manage yourself so well that you were able to succeed and become the star that you became.
Tom:
In any avenue that you choose in life, there is always going to be a point where you are at the bottom of the ladder and you are going to have to work your way to the top. When I left my high school and my high school career which was extremely successful, we had just won the state championship that year, I was the only guy going to a Division 1 program. And even coming out of a top ranked, State championship program and going to a huge Division 1 school like Notre Dame, even then I was at the bottom of the ladder. And that can be tough. So you need to have the mental toughness to understand and realize that the only way that you are going to succeed is to work your way up to the top. And everyone has to be able to set a goal for something that is out in front of you, because everyone starts out at the bottom. And for me, my main goal was to be a active player on the football team, whether it was as a starter or a back-up, it was always a goal to be a member of that team and to be a contributor. Fortunately, I was able to stay healthy so that I could keep making those next jumps to achieve my goals and take the places of graduating seniors or injured players, so that worked out. So you have to confidence in yourself and one of the biggest goals of any high school athlete going into college is the perform well at the next level and possibly go past college and that takes mental toughness and personal confidence. So the lack of academic confidence on my part really pushed me to excel at athletics which I was more confident in because if academics was going to keep me on my toes than I had to keep my head about myself and really balance what I lacked with overachieving in the physical side. It was all positive stress though, it wasn't something that I couldn't handle. And that lesson and that mental toughness helped me after athletics. Because even after you finish your professional athletic career and you decide to take another type of job, when you enter that job you are going to again me at the bottom of the ladder. And having that ability to really deal with the stress and pressure of being the lowest guy on the totem pole is something that I learned while trying to manage myself in college. After I finished my professional football career and went into broadcasting, I didn't start as an on-air personality, I started as the guy holding the microphone in the locker room after the games trying to get sound bytes from athletes who wanted nothing to do with me. So I had to work to prove myself and work my way up.
Chris:
And that's one of the things that you talked about Tom when you talk about taking an obstacle head on but getting the degree in communications from one of the best universities in the world from setting those goals is key. So what are you doing today? And how would you say that your collegiate athletic career affected your life today?
Tom:
My collegiate career had everything to do with where im at today. When I was a freshman I would watch the stars on my team being interviewed and how they carried themselves, they set the example for me when I was just beginning my college career. And then when I became an active participant at Notre Dame and I was getting interviewed, I was trying to handle myself with class and be a good role model for the people below me. I learned from watching the upper classmen before me. I studied them, I learned how to communicate with class. And later on when I moved up to the professional ranks I was able to carry that respectful attitude with me. In my 12 years career as a professional athlete, I had the opportunity to play for some very successful teams, like you mentioned the 85 Chicago Bears, I used those tools that I learned in college. I learned to pay attention. And I learned how the cameraman worked and how the people with the voice recorders worked and how the radio interviewer was working as opposed to the tv interviewer. And then when I did finally end my professional career, an opportunity presented itself for me to get involved in the media. But like I mentioned before, I didn't start at the top in this business either. I didn't end my 12 year career as a football player and jump right into being an on-air personality. I was carrying around a microphone in the locker room trying to get quotes from athletes who really wanted nothing to do with me. And I was one of those people jamming a microphone in someone's face and from there I moved up until I was finally an on-air personality. And everything that I paid attention to in college and learned through my experience as an athlete in college ended up helping me somewhere down the road in life. I can't say enough about how much it meant to me that I was able to really concentrate and stayed involved in my major in college through the pressure of academics and the standard at Notre Dame. I would still like to think that I am in the infancy stages of my broadcasting career that I hope will last 20 plus years, so every day im still learning the process of the business and I still have to work towards short-term and long-term goals to succeed.
Chris:
When you're green you grow, when you're ripe you're rotten, huh? Fantastic T, we really appreciate having you on today and we look forward to your segment, Profiles of Success. In both academics and athletics and we are really fired up about having you on board and on our team and that youre going to bring this great information and these great stories to student athletes who are going to be setting these goals in the future.
Tom:
Well I think that this is a great opportunity for parents to learn. I come from a family where I have 14 nieces and nephews and I try to keep every one of them involved in sports and they aren't all going to be at a Division 1 level but the academics are just as important
John:
For Tom Thayer and everyone listening out there, I want to thank everybody for listening to the first CA Today show. We also want to thank the boys back in Phoenix. We look forward to being here with you for the next 13 weeks. Goodbye everybody.