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00:00 The coaching legacy is great. We'll get into a lot of that.
00:02 So it's January 6, 1937, and you're in this world.
00:07 You're not sure of your senses because you were just born.
00:10 Did you have any idea at any time that you were going to be destined
00:15 down the road to be one of the most successful coaches in history?
00:18 Oh, absolutely not. Let's remember, I was born during the Depression.
00:22 My father had a third grade education. I was born in a cellar.
00:26 We had two rooms, a bedroom for myself, my sister, my parents, and a kitchen and a half bath.
00:32 That bath did not have a tub to shower in. There was no welfare, no food stamps, no safety net.
00:38 Nobody from our family had ever gone to college, let alone graduate.
00:41 So I had no intentions. All I wanted was a job at the mill, a car, five dollars.
00:45 Who could ask for more than that?
00:49 So it's just amazing how people affect your life.
00:52 And I'm here because I've had so many great people guide me and help me.
00:58 You're here also because you almost won 250 games, I guess, one short, 132 and seven,
01:04 in a turbulent world of college football over so many schools.
01:09 That's hard to do, I think.
01:11 And when you take a look at your career, which is primarily college,
01:15 we'll get to the Jets in '76 in a second,
01:18 the thing that strikes me about all those schools is the diversity, the different cultures,
01:23 the different structures. Were there commonalities as a head coach that you found early on in all of
01:30 those programs that you could use to increase the likelihood of your success?
01:34 That's a great observation because when you coach at Arkansas, it's different than coaching
01:40 at William & Mary, etc. And you have to adjust to it. But you have to have a philosophy.
01:46 My philosophy is very, very simple. Life is nothing more than a matter of choices.
01:50 Wherever you are, good or bad, it's because of the choices you make.
01:53 You do drugs, you're up out of school, join a gang, get tattoos from all over, get arrested.
01:58 You're choosing that difficulty in life. And please stop blaming me for the choices you make.
02:02 So all I've ever tried to do was teach the athletes. I never felt I coached football.
02:06 I felt I coached life. Just make good choices. And it doesn't matter whether you're a football
02:12 player, a husband, a father, if you make good choices, things are going to be positive.