Joe Ryan: Coach is a veteran sports performance specialist who serves as the first ever district wide strength and conditioning coordinator for Southlake Carroll Independent School District in Texas. Appointed to the monumental role in June of 2023 through a unique funding initiative by the Dragon Touchdown Club, Coach Castleberry is tasked with designing, implementing, and overseeing the comprehensive athletic development of all Dragon athletes across all sports from grades 7 through 12. With over two decades of coaching experience, Castleberry has a deeply rooted background in Texas high school athletics. Prior to taking the helm at South Lake Carroll, he spent seven years as the Strength and Conditioning Coordinator at Northwest High School. Throughout his versatile career, he has coached a wide array of sports, including football, baseball, softball, and basketball, giving him a rare holistic understanding of what it takes to develop multi-sport athletes. At South Lake Carroll, Castleberry's impact has been immediate and transformative, working alongside head coaches including Executive Director of Athletics Riley Dodge. He has modernized the district's weight rooms, including extensive renovations at Dawson and Carroll Middle Schools, and shifted the entire department's athletic culture. His philosophy extends far beyond the weightlifting, as he focuses on competitive high performance model that integrates strength training, nutrition, refueling strategies, and injury reduction protocols in lockstep with the medical staff. Coach Castleberry holds a Bachelor of Science in Exercise and Sports Science from Texas State University and a Master's Degree in Education Administration from Lamar University. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. Beyond the Field House, Doug is supported by his wife Casey and their three sons, Jack, Chase, and Camden. What a fantastic bio with our next guest, Coach Castleberry. Coach, welcome all in, man. I'm very, very happy to have you on this day off we both have. And you know, beautiful Friday for us out here in Louisiana. Y'all got a little bit of rain going on though, huh?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, yeah. I woke up some lightning pretty early this morning. Not not that we need to be woke up, you know that that internal alarm gets you every time, but we'll take it, you know. twenty years ago I probably would have been mad about it, but as I get older, you know makes the grass grow.
Joe Ryan: yeah. I know the feeling. You know, my lawn was set to go off a little bit later than usual this morning and sure enough at at normal time my eyes popped open and I'm like, Well, I guess we're starting the day today.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, right on. Go ahead and start the coffee pot.
Joe Ryan: Yeah man. So how's summer going so far? Good?
Coach Doug Castleberry: It's good, man. We three weeks in with the with the summer stuff, two with our younger kids, but you know, idea idea for us is just don't miss a beat, you know, just keep rolling. We know we know that the summer's huge for us. especially on the football side of things, that we we've gotta get more out of our summer than everybody else. And that's we we try to put a urgency under our kids like that that Hey look, this seven weeks is not a it's not a game. It's not a like we've we've got a this is where we're making up ground, you know.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: so it's it's been good. trending in the right way, you know,
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: going in. I think we got one more week and then we give off that July fourth week. So
Joe Ryan: That's all I was gonna ask you is when when do y'all kinda get a break?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, we'll go four weeks, week off, and then finish up four in July with the football kids and then they kick it off August fourth, I guess, or third, I believe.
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: the girls get out a little they they finish a week early because they start their you know, volleyball camp starts earlier, all that stuff. So yeah, man,
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: we're we're we're trending in the right way, I think. Kids are kids are responding well and showing up most importantly.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, and I think I think people are catching a little light, I think, on social media, especially Instagram of y'all's immaculate facilities, huh?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Man, that that wasn't supposed to that wasn't supposed to be that wasn't supposed to
Joe Ryan: Believe me, hey, look, we just we just built something brand new and I know exactly how you feel right now. Everybody's got the same questions and everybody's like, Man, it's so great. It's so the
Coach Doug Castleberry: It wasn't it it wasn't supposed to be like that.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I didn't know it was gonna be like that. I just had a guy reach out, Max reached out and was like, hey man, can I come to your facility? I was like, Yeah, sure. Come on man, I'd love to show you around and and he throws a mic on me, he's like, Just give me a tour like you would, you know, kids or parents or whatever and it kinda turned into T V cribs.
Joe Ryan: That's what that's what we actually called ours Denim Springs Cribs is what we did. Which
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: I mean we have a huge media department here and it's great and
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: it's you know, but I mean I I know the exact feeling you have doing those things. It's kinda like, Man, I just wanna I d I want the office to know I don't even work here, you know. Just le leave me in the weight room.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, and I joke I joke with a lot of people over there. It's like, you know, I don't I don't have to go into school building much now
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: 'cause I'm in the field house and I've got, you know, we're on a block schedule so it's four days or four four periods a day for an hour and a half. Well, three of those periods I've got athletes, you know. And
Joe Ryan: Uh-huh.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I kind of joke. I'm like I don't even know if I I'd be willing to bet there's people in that school building don't even know I work here. I like it like that.
Joe Ryan: Yep. Me too. I the farthest I make it in a day is twice a week I make it to the cafeteria for lunch duty. And that's
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: it. Like that's the that is my and that is coach, it's maybe a hundred yards if that from the field house. So it's not very far. You know, I don't
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yep.
Joe Ryan: if I don't have to go up there and we're all good, we're all good.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Bread on. Bread on. Moving on.
Joe Ryan: So but I know exactly how that is, man. It's but it's exciting. It is exciting to kinda show what you provide and kind of people see a a day in the life of all the moving parts.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, I know I don't I don't think a lot of people get it. but one hundred percent like I I'm still convinced that there's people that don't know exactly what we do.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: okay, you just work kids out. Yeah, that's that's yeah, that's it.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, you're the you're the you're the guy that yells a lot on the sideline and da da da. And
Coach Doug Castleberry: That's why
Joe Ryan: a lot of people, you know, they see, I don't know, man. I'm I'm a big Kurt Hester disciple and
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: he he was very, very against the you know, mustache, tight sleeves, you know, all that and you know, there's a p time and place for that, but that's not what everybody is, you know. I'm
Coach Doug Castleberry: No, no, well you can't be. You know,
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: especially when you're working 'cause you you're taking twelve to fourteen programs and yeah, your football kids, they respond to that. They love that. They want the juice and the guy and the bouncing around and smacking people and whatever, you know, but if you roll into tennis with that same intensity, man, you're getting
Joe Ryan: I got I got too, coach. Don't worry about the kids, man. I got mine too running around.
Coach Doug Castleberry: So he's fired up. He he he's up before I am.
Joe Ryan: That's awesome.
Coach Doug Castleberry: but yeah man, you you've gotta kinda be a chameleon and you know, 'cause kids there's you got kids that come in that that is that's not their niche. They're not they're not excited about being there. They they're not comfortable in that room because that may be their first experience. So if you come off, you know, full on full on, you know, juice daddy, you might scare a little bit.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, that's how swim, man. That swim's my swim is my
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: you know, swim's not in there wanting to you know, get their name on the two twenty five cleanboard every day, you know. They're kinda like We're here because we have to be.
Coach Doug Castleberry: No, no, no, no.
Joe Ryan: So well look, tell us a little bit, man. You know, you dive into it. You you you well obviously South Lake Carroll it's a very historic program in Texas. You know, I grew up there. A lot of people know who it is, you know, obviously you off sent tons
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: of players to the next level. You have a high identity, in the NFL too, you know, with with guys making it there, you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right.
Joe Ryan: so tell us a little bit how you got to where you're at, where you've been, you know, how how things and you develop the You develop where you're at, man. I know everybody's got a great story.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Well it's it's i it I d I don't I I guess it's a calling, man. I I don't know. firm believer that you just gotta w you gotta work in front of the right people. You know, the right people have to see you work. when I first I was an English teacher, football coach, baseball coach for thirteen years and I had in my head that I wanted to be a head coach. when my at Northwest when our street coach left, he took an internship with Yancey.
Joe Ryan: Simply.
Coach Doug Castleberry: at UT. And so he took off. I I kinda asked our AD at a baseball game. I was man, who you gonna get to replace him? We don't have anybody better than that. And he goes, well you could do it. And man the gear started spinning and I didn't have my CSCS at the time. I was his, you know, his le his football guy. He came to me about lifts and I would I would run it for him. so he could go with other programs and stuff. And it just kinda grew from there. Geno Pierce came and asked me to come run a site for him in the summers for the performance
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: course. so I went out and ran ASEL for six or seven years and kinda got a taste of what strength coach life was like and organization and planning and all that stuff. And then yeah, man, Joel took a chance on me and and and said, Man, I'll you can get your C S C S, that's fine. Well okay and and Just kinda worked from there, man. Worked there for seven years, eight years as a strength coach. and then Coach Dodge came in and he was our O C for one season and then he got the South Lake job and then they created that position and knocked on the door. So I was like, Hey man, why wouldn't you wanna go be a part of something like that? And
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: So so why not? And then man, they've done nothing. It's been nothing but a honeymoon since I got there. It's it's I mean, the first first year they rebuilt our middle school weight rooms. Second year they rebuilt the high school weight room. third year they redid the indoor and gave us twenty more stations in the indoor. So we've got fifty two stations on campus that where there's really there's really no excuse for us not to get our work.
Joe Ryan: in man, that's amazing.
Coach Doug Castleberry: We've got places to do it now. And so it it's been r it's been really nice. and it like I said, man, I I I don't know what Coach Dodge saw, what he liked, but it it was enough. So Yeah, I gu I guess.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, it was something, right? And look, I think we all cause I kinda had a similar like I kinda knew I wanted to be a strength coach. I kinda didn't. my goal actually was to be a head coach, just like you,
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: you know, at some point. And it was kinda like, you know, why not why not kinda have similar responsibilities? You know, you get to be around the kids all the time. You can you know, you're you're with them more than anyone, you know, outside of really the head coach and it's You know, you kinda get the similar responsibilities without all the the responsibilities, you know. The sitting in the sitting in the chair and being the Yeah. You know,
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, without the going to the booster club and answering phone calls and no doubt. No doubt.
Joe Ryan: that everybody wants to be there 'til it's time to be there, right?
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt. No doubt. I don't know if everybody wants to schedule all the time 'cause you know, it's it's like, yeah, an off season, right? Well, yeah. Yeah, they are, but we got six other sports in season. and
Joe Ryan: Yep. That's what there's a lot of computer time. A lot of lot of this time, right? It's I don't know how you are. I I kinda I wish I'd a paid attention
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt. I can stand.
Joe Ryan: more in like computer science classes. Learning Excel and learning all this stuff. And not having to teach myself. Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yup. Wish wish I would have listened more, I tell you that, man, 'cause that that Google slides and them formulas will boy, that'll have you that'll have you rethinking life.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, and like I tell, you know, I get interns every now and then and like I
Coach Doug Castleberry: Okay.
Joe Ryan: like I tell them, like, once you set it up once, you're good. It's just
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: getting past that initial doing it, you know. And
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: same thing as you, I'm sure, you know, like it's the same thing for me every summer. It's once I get it built, we're good. It's just getting to that point.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Getting it there and getting it input and then yeah, once yeah, once I try to stay ahead and like I'd like to think, you know, in a perfect world, yeah, you've got your, you know, your annual periodization laid out.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: But man, I buddy of mine, Monty Sparkman up here, and he he told me a long time ago, he's like, I plan about a month out. Why is that? I was
Joe Ryan: Yeah. And so
Coach Doug Castleberry: like, I mean, I I know, you know, we have in in theory, we have this is where we wanna be, but And kids progress differently, you know, and then we're not we're not just gonna, you know, progress just to say we did. You know, we're gonna make sure we work, especially 'cause I'm a I'm an Olympic lifting guy. Like I I I'm gonna teach it and I think it's worth it and we can get into that later, but man, I j we're just not gonna progress to progress. You know, we're gonna make sure we master it and my freshmen are figuring that out right now and I tell every day, I was like, I don't care. I don't care about the weight on the bar. You're not gonna impress me right now. Like you're not. Like, yeah, you're stronger now than you've ever been. And the idea is that in three years you're stronger than you were then. I mean, you know, but you're moving it right. And so we I don't know, man. getting them to understand that and to drop the egos a little bit and to you know, really hone in on what we're trying to get done.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: But at the same time, man, mean you you gotta be a little bit. You mean it's like, look, man, we will be smart, don't be soft.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right? Like like don't run from strain. but just you know, get to understand strain, you know.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, that's the that's the I see that more like you say with the freshmen. You know, we're we're in week three with our freshmen. I know y'all start a little bit week later with them, but they're just now getting to the point where we're actually catching the bar and our clean, you know, the first
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: few weeks was just kind of and we'll do winter workouts with them, you know, feb February to April kind of get them broken into what I like to call weight room etiquette and just where things go, how the process works, how we how we dress when we walk in here, things like that. But they're just getting to the point where we're actually catching in that front rack position. But for me
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, indeed.
Joe Ryan: it's like I don't I mean dude, I don't care if you're cleaning, you know, a plate right now. I don't care if you're just cleaning the bar. Like I treat the way our freshman Schedule set up and I don't know how y'all's is, but they're really only practicing one or two days a week and playing one game. So I treat their in season almost like it's
Coach Doug Castleberry: Off season.
Joe Ryan: off season. Not so much the volume of it, but like
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right.
Joe Ryan: the intensity of it's gonna be the same because we're still learning for a year. I still want to see if you I'm trying to see if you wanna be here. If you really want to do this, you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: So I get exactly what you mean, man. It's it's a process and people don't normally see see how much goes into it, but it's a it's a lot of time spent questioning and and figuring it out.
Coach Doug Castleberry: and and man, yeah. And I get I'll I'll be honest, there's times I do get tired of watching the same thing. I'm like, okay, man, I wanna progress. No. Majority room's not there. Like
Joe Ryan: Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: you you know, and it's I have a bad habit about I'll find the I'll find the the one kid that ain't getting it. And
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it will completely hang my success rate on that kid. Like, I'm a terrible coach. This kid can't figure this out. Like, what do we do? Ninety ninety percent of them are killing it, but I'm You know, you don't know.
Joe Ryan: Yep, I know, I know exactly what you mean, you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I mean that kid yeah, you know. He may be
Joe Ryan: Yeah, I know. Yeah, I get
Coach Doug Castleberry: bought in. He may be completely, you know, just checked out and probably won't even be with us next year. I don't know. But, you know, it's I I find him and well I well I I'll beat myself up about that. But
Joe Ryan: Me too, man. And and I this is probably the best year I've gotten and we can dive into this a little bit more, but this is probably the best year I've gotten with our girl sports.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: Understanding that like, you know, I have a daughter who will be here in a year or two.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Okay.
Joe Ryan: And I'm starting to understand more because she's been waking up with me and coming to lift with me in the morning times. Like
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: I I refuse to wake her up because I'm like If you want to do this, you need to wake yourself up. And she does. I I give it to her. She's up at, you know, four o'clock every morning like I'm coming with you. Awesome. But I'm starting to learn more and more spending time with her, like with our female athletes, it needs to be fun for them to really push themselves.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: Whereas the male athletes, they push themselves to have fun. If that makes sense.
Coach Doug Castleberry: It's a yeah. No, I'm with you.
Joe Ryan: And I I'm learning that more and more and like I try to make it more of a I've tried this year to make it more of a not we're having fun everyday environment, but it's more of a we're having fun, we're in here to still work hard, and I'm getting so much more out of because of it. You know, I Yep. Yep. You know, I
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. Turn up to T turn up to Tate McCrae and let him work.
Joe Ryan: let them I that's a you know, I'm glad you bring up some of that is like I learned this I saw it somewhere years ago of you know, I love music just as much as the next person, but a lot of this is for them. You know, it's not they don't like they don't even know who damn blink one eighty two is. You know what I mean? They don't
Coach Doug Castleberry: No. No.
Joe Ryan: like what I like, but I need to mix in some of what I like with what they like and boom, here we go.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, p Pantera on a squat day doesn't hit doesn't hit for them like it does me.
Joe Ryan: Mm mm. Nope, nope, nope. But they I was playing I was in there just a minute ago and I was playing cold play and I got two of those those national lifters. I was telling you about one of them's like, yeah, coach, I can lift to this and the other one's like, We need to turn this off. Can I please have the music? And I'm like, Yeah, I'm I'm going out of here anyways, don't worry. But so look, so you hired in twenty twenty three at South Lake. You know, you're the first district wide strength coach, you know, something that seems like it was pretty heavily supported by the community and everything like that. You know, what's what's it like walking into a place like that that has such tradition already to kind of be, all right, here's the guy. We're we're starting this program from scratch.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right. prior prior to me there, football football was going. I mean,
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: that's I've told everybody that and I told the kids that I was like, look, what's your like you're you were winning before I got here. Okay, like my job is one is just to keep you healthy, keep getting you stronger in a scientific way to where, you know, we're doing it the right way. And Coach Mun, Coach Sides, we've got two coaches on staff that hold a CSCS on the football side of things.
Joe Ryan: Nice.
Coach Doug Castleberry: So they they the template was in place. Like I mean we we get the most out of our kids. They've been getting the most out of their kids before they got there. It was just a matter of taking that off their plate so they can worry about football. And now it's all right, I'm taking that template and I'm putting here's the things I think we need to be doing. Right, here's the progressions we're gonna work, here's how we're gonna organize it, whatever. The biggest, probably most proud, I mean I am, I'm proud of my football guys. They they kill it. They are they do. But as far as is just getting the the other groups, you know, the tennises and the swims and the girls' soccer, boys' soccer, getting them into it and getting them consistent in it and understanding what like we go back to what strain is and you know, we don't have to not we're not in here to kill you every day. That's not the idea. Right, we're gonna leave some meat on the bone for the next day when I'm not out here smoke you and and getting them to understand that I'm not just I'm not just a football guy. Right. So Ed make winning them over, you know, because you have to. And and this
Joe Ryan: yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: this job and yeah, it's about sets and reps and organization. More you know, organization, organizational mastermind is what it is. Right? You've gotta be an organizational guru.
Joe Ryan: Ha ha ha.
Coach Doug Castleberry: If you're organized and you're excited about it. After that it's just relationships. And I know it's cheesy and it's
Joe Ryan: absolutely.
Coach Doug Castleberry: cliche and everybody you can say that about everything. But when the kids understand that you really do care about them and that, hey, you know what? We're done. We did you killed it today. We yeah, we got more to do, but we got what we needed. Let's get off our feet because I know you're beat up, because what you know, just let them know you're looking out for And and that that's probably the number one thing that I would say probably help me. was getting the kids to understand that like I'm I'm here to help you. Like I'm not I'm not here to dog cuss you. I'm not here to wear you out. I'm not here to run you to the bone. obviously talking with them, you gotta have relationships in order to have conversations. Find out where they're at and what's hey, what's the deal today, right? Like why are you why are you beat up so much all the time? And finding out what's going on outside the walls. And understanding that th those stresses have an impact on how you train. And so I I would say that, just winning them over, getting them understand that I'm there for and that I'm I'm you know, I'm just trying to keep available. You know, we we we say it all the time and I'm pretty sure it's a pretty common thing, is your best ability is availability. You know. you're you're no you're no good to anybody hurt. You're not good to me, you're not good to the team, and your parents are probably gonna be angry because they spent all that money on you playing these sports and now they don't even get to watch you play 'cause you're hurt. So big things, keep available. and so that that's from how we talk about nutrition, I would love to say, Yeah, we got it locked in on the nutrition and our kids are, you know, meeting it 1.8 gram. What bro, I get them for two. I'm with
Joe Ryan: Yeah. S says the bag of talkies they're walking around with, right?
Coach Doug Castleberry: the Gatorade. you know, it's just it's just trying to put the right information in front of yeah, it'd be cool if we were all locked in like that, but I'm with for at at most, at most two hours a day.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: They got twenty-two other hours a day that they've got to take care of themselves, and and so it's just more or less trying to keep informed. of like this is what this is what it should look like. This is what it is. I communicate a lot of our sport our nutritionist stuff through sports you like grocery lists and 'cause I mean, yeah, you can tell the kids, but the kids ain't filling the pantry. Mom and dad are.
Joe Ryan: Mm-mm. Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: So trying to get that information to the parents as to hey, like, you know, this is this is what it needs to look like at the house.
Joe Ryan: That's one of my biggest preaches, coaches it's like, you know, you touched on it a little bit, you know, two things is like you talk about the workouts, you know, I'm a real big just like I'm sure you are with the Olympic base is I'm here to build athletes. I
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt.
Joe Ryan: I don't you know, football's wired different. Absolutely. A any s any school you go to, I mean football's wired different. There's it's gonna
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yep.
Joe Ryan: be more intense, it's gonna be rowdier, it's gonna be, you know, heavier lifting weight. But
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: they're still lifting like athletes. I don't tell me what a football workout looks like. Tell me what a volleyball workout looks like. I'm just trying to build athletes here. That's
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt.
Joe Ryan: like, you know, one of my biggest headaches sometimes is when, you know, I hear the, you know, volleyball parent or the softball parent or the you know baseball parent of like, well, we're lifting like football players. No, we're just lifting like athletes. Like we're we're gonna clean, we're gonna squat front and back, we're gonna bench because I found that kids just like benching, you know, you want buy in, let's bench a little bit, you know. We're gonna look good yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt. You gotta you gotta play the game. It's a little Mac Coon told me that he's a buried smoke and mirrors.
Joe Ryan: Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Smoke and mirrors. yeah, I d it's it's not only that.
Joe Ryan: And just having some of that, man, it's just like you gotta you gotta like you said, play the game sometimes. Get them bought in.
Coach Doug Castleberry: And that's what I try to sell to the kids. I'm like, and I'll repost, you know, like follow college strength coaches and put it on your story and stuff. But I'm like like I don't do that to show the weight that they're doing. I do that to show you that if you intend on going to the next level, this is what's gonna be expected of you. So those, you know, two second pauses in the bottom and those four second eccentrics is not just stuff made up. Like you're gonna see that. And and the same thing with the with the Olympic lifts, I mean, yeah, I you and I both know, yeah, you can get you can get the power output from throwing balls and med box or box jumps. I know that. But I feel like I'm doing a disservice to the kids if I don't at least teach them the movement so that maybe if they do get that chance, they give a chance to shine in that Devo group when they roll into that, you know, UT or wherever you go. we had a kid, he'll shout out to Eric Garza. He walked on at UT and just so happens my stepson is interning at UT. Okay, so he's on the football side. He knows who Eric Garza is. Eric Garza knows who he is. And he'd I mean he told me from day one, he's like, probably the best mover we have in our Devo group. He goes, overall. He goes, maybe not be the strongest dude in there, but dude knows how to move. He knows he knows technique has been coached, it's clear. And I mean, yeah, it feels good, but I only had Eric for one year. Like that's Eric, well, I came in his senior year and then he was gone in December. But I think he left early. But you know, it it's it's getting him to understand that I'm I'm I'm just trying to put you ahead of the game a little bit.
Joe Ryan: That's what, you know, I'm sure you're the same way. I pride myself on some of that. Like I wanna know that you're ready to go in there. It means I'm doing my job here.
Coach Doug Castleberry: It warms my heart when they come back like coach you thank I'm I was I was ready. Like I might not
Joe Ryan: I was ready. Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: have been ready for the schedule, I might not have been ready for the load of the expectation, even though we I still think what I I'm proud of what we do. Like I mean I am like as on the football side especially because they do, they get a true off season. whereas my soccer's don't really they don't really get an off season.
Joe Ryan: Soccer, baseball, you know, it's with yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: all the club sports because volleyball, I mean we try to work around it with volleyball because our our head coach is she Leslie she's she's plugged into the the the volleyball world outside the club stuff so she can be like all right look this week we they've got a huge you know nationals or whatever and this tournament here we got a lot of girls going so we can adjust our training there but like soccer man they got they all play different clubs, they all got different schedules. So we I basically just have to treat them like they're in season all year long. You know. we got a couple of little things, you know, we have a red light system, if you want to call it that, to where that's you communicate with me ahead of time, coach, I got a game tomorrow or I got a game tonight. How do I need to change my lift? And that This was a big thing because any if you're like me, like I grew up in the in the time where you don't lift on game days. You know, you don't lift day before a game, you don't create soreness, whatever. But we're just uneducated. You know? Whereas now it's like,
Joe Ryan: Yeah, yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: no, no, no, no, no. Like, y'all know you play today, that's fine. You can still lift. We're just gonna make modifications to the number of times you have to do that movement. And so Yeah, and that's it, man.
Joe Ryan: Cut it in half or cut it in three quarters, yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: We a red light system a red light means You're cutting a set and you're cutting the reps in half. So even if we're hitting 90 for doubles, let's just say, right? Hey, you're gonna come in, you're gonna pop that bad boy for a single, which shouldn't be a problem, and you're only gonna do two double or two singles instead of three doubles.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right? So you're still getting that load, your body still feels that external load, and you're you're not you're not doing it enough to create any kind of soreness or fatigue or anything like that. If anything, if anything.
Joe Ryan: And that's my yes, it's
Coach Doug Castleberry: It should f make you feel better. Like you going in there and you smoke ninety percent. Woo. Rack it. Let's go. You feel good. Let's get it. You know, confidence. One hundred percent. One hundred percent.
Joe Ryan: Yep, it's the confidence part of it. Yeah, absolutely. The confidence part. And the that's what you know, I'm not saying it happens here, but I see it happen, you know, the the talk about it on social media sometimes is, you know, leading up to those games and all that. Well you can't take an intensity that you've had since August and just because you're leading up to the game means the intensity goes out.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I lost it.
Joe Ryan: Think I lost coach. trying to reconnect.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You cut out, coach.
Joe Ryan: I have stable internet. This is the beauty of this podcast for all you listening, is that it's it's real life, you know, it's not this planned out or sitting down doing anything. This is real life. Coach had a little bit of bad weather, so he might have missed on some of this.
Coach Doug Castleberry: there you go. You froze up for a second, I'm sorry.
Joe Ryan: There he's there is back, see. I was talking. Hey, don't coach, that's what I was just telling everyone, like, this is real life, guys. We don't sit down and plan this out. Like a little bit of bad weather, it might go in and out, you know. But
Coach Doug Castleberry: I was about to text you and be like, man, you froze on me.
Joe Ryan: I think we both froze, but I I kept talking, I kept it going, man. But yeah, you know, people people you can't take that intensity since August and then just cut it off because we started the season. Your kids are gonna get worse.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Well I mean to me I mean I I was thinking about this when, you know, you sent me the list last night and was looking at it. It to me it's it's as simple as this. Like you y I think one of the things you said, what's what was one of the questions, it was I don't remember what it was now. But like you can't you sit there and you you take the whole off season to build your body, right? To to withstand the the the intensities of the season. Well when you hit that season you can't just stop doing it. Cause then you're gonna keep asking big things of your body and eventually big things are gonna you're gonna break down. Right? Like, I mean, it's it's that simple. If you do something, you're taking a swing and you're swinging, I don't know, 150 times a day, fine, but you can't dial back when you continue to do that because your body, you're you can't handle it. Like that bars fracture is gonna happen, that oblique tear is gonna happen, or whatever it is. You know, you you've gotta keep straining, you've gotta keep training your body to withstand what you're asking it to do.
Joe Ryan: And that's what, you know, I'm real big on. I heard Connor Neighbors used to be the strength coach at UL and now he's with Coach Moffitt at Texas AM. I heard him talk
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: one time about riding the wave. And I'm real big on that. You know, if I know that it's a because I have my my monthly plan of this is where I want to be at the end of the month, but I write the first week's workout and base the rest of the three weeks off that first week because week one and week two might look totally different. You know, if we go into week we week week one and it's a tough game for whatever sport. and or a tough, you know, here in Louisiana, we're real big baseball wise and softball are tournaments heavy at the beginning of the season.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: So I know that, you know, we got to ride the wave and it it might not look exactly the same and we might not be able to, we might have to keep that that percentage in our periodization at a certain level for three weeks and
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: just kind of build upon there and move the weight fast rather than, all right, we're gonna load up this weight. You know, I I kind of I've learned that over the years and gotten smarter about that.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you you you do. You have to meet where they're at.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I mean I and I know coach all the co every coach is they've got a they've got a let's say this. They got a pucker moment.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right? When the game's too big and the weight room's not that important anymore. Every every coach does. Everybody does. It could be the Super Bowl, might be your pucker game, might be last year's district champion. I don't know. Right? But there's gonna be a point where that Tighten up
Joe Ryan: Mm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: and all of a sudden, hey, we need that extra thirty-five, forty minutes on the field. Or we need that. You know you need to be in here. Right. And and I get it, dude. And then and then that's maybe that's a benefit of me being a ball coach prior to that. As I understand head coaches and I tell the story a couple of times, not taking shots at coach, but it was. I mean, our volleyball girls, they They hit district play. Now, our district is no joys. It's tough in volleyball. So we had Keller and we had Byron Nelson. Right? Byron Nelson is a 6A Division I state champions in volleyball. Two times. They were national champions. They're good. They're good.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Well, we wrote we were pretty good too. Well, we get into that game. We play them on a Tuesday. And I had baseball softball going on after school, girls were coming over after their volleyball practice to live. So I had everything set up, boxes out, timers set, all they had to do was come in and press play and go. And I look in there and workout didn't run. Boxes were still out. I'm like, okay. So I text Coach, like, hey, how'd it go? Right? I was gonna see if I catch her in a trap. She goes, We didn't come over today, Coach. We meant we needed the court time. I was like, okay. And I didn't say nothing. They play Bayern Nelson on Tuesday, they lose. Okay.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: All right, cool. Keller comes up the next week on a Tuesday. Keller's good too. Same thing. All right. I think we rolled it back one more time. She she did it a third time, and I think it was against Byron the second time we played.
Joe Ryan: Second time around, yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Mm-hmm. I said, all right, coach. Hey, none of my business. I said, but. Every Monday you've skipped, we've lost on Tuesday. Happened three times. We lost to Keller, we lost to Byron twice. I said I'm not saying I'm not saying anything about what I'm doing is causing us to win or lose games. But kids can sense that. Yeah. They may not, it may not
Joe Ryan: Consistency. Consistency, that's yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it may not be the greatest work in the world, but the schedule didn't change, and the kids want to know why we didn't come lift. And now they see that pucker in their puckered, just keep it keep them coming. Just keep coming. It may it may be twenty minutes. It might
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: be abbreviated, but just keep the consistency of it. Right.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, I don't care if we come in and we're just cleaning and we're doing some buys and tries. I don't care. But we need that we
Coach Doug Castleberry: Get out.
Joe Ryan: need to have it.
Coach Doug Castleberry: And so I call, I I said something to her. I was like, coach, and just after that, she goes, it'll never happen again. And then I don't think they lost again after that. They went on, they ran the they ran the table, they won the 6th A Division II title. It was awesome. It was it was cool.
Joe Ryan: That's amazing. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: But again, I mean it total coincidence. It ain't nothing I'm doing. But I it was just it was like
Joe Ryan: Dude, this has to be my internet.
Coach Doug Castleberry: go I just just bring just send Just l keep the schedule the
Joe Ryan: I'm not sure.
Coach Doug Castleberry: same. And it was kind of a fun story, but we had some really, really talented girls, really special group of girls. And they bought in that that would have been year three with them. So that first group was I guess they were sophomores when they got
Joe Ryan: We're about to find out. I'm sure he'll be back in just a second. Trying to reconnect. Make sure you have stable internet. This is gonna be a great episode no matter what. When we chop it up and we make sure it's good.
Coach Doug Castleberry: there and they bought into it, man. We were just waiting for to kinda flourish as leaders.
Joe Ryan: And I don't know what the heck's going on.
Coach Doug Castleberry: And and they did. Man, it was it was it was a fun run to watch, man. It was a good group of chicks. But yeah. So
Joe Ryan: So yeah, man, it's it's you know, it has to be. You know what I mean? It it's and I have sports like that, but just like you said, you know, coaching a sport still, you kinda you are wary of some of it, but at the same time it's kinda like we still have to get in there and get the work in because it has to be that consistency, that schedule. They end up questioning, especially when you get bought in. It's like they end up questioning what's what are we doing? Why aren't we doing? How are we doing? Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Mm-hmm. well. And it makes me laugh. Coach, man, we why ain't we lifting? I don't know, dog.
Joe Ryan: Yep. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Y'all got a time slot right here. It's
Joe Ryan: Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: on the computer right there. I I don't know. I'm not
Joe Ryan: Yep. I I'm real big on
Coach Doug Castleberry: I'm not gonna sell the head coach under the table. I'm not gonna put it on just I don't know.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Mm, yep. That's I'm real big on keeping dates for everything.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: I don't wanna be I don't want the you know, we're the first ones a lot of the time I I I do love this profession and I I I find it funny sometimes because we're the first ones to sometimes get blamed of why things are going wrong,
Coach Doug Castleberry: yeah.
Joe Ryan: but we're never the first ones of like Hey man, you kinda built these kids up to where they're at. And you know, I'm not saying it's all us because you still gotta have the sport coach. They're the X's and O's at the end of the day, but like, you know, our injuries went down this much, our da da da da da da, like we we made it this far with the toughness and the but we're also the first ones of like, well, things are going bad, you know, we need to take away this first. So
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right. Right. No, I mean it's you know, it's a fight to stay relevant.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I guess that's life in general, man. It's just a fight to
Joe Ryan: Absolutely.
Coach Doug Castleberry: stay relevant. And and but for young coaches and strength coaches and guys that are getting into it, like if if you're not the voice for it, there won't be one.
Joe Ryan: Mm mm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know, like like if something's wrong and and some if they're mi like you've gotta you've gotta speak up. You gotta say
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: something like and shoot a text, be like, Hey man, I'd love to see your kids. Like, like we need I just need thirty minutes. Give me thirty minutes with you know, just but you've gotta you've gotta voice it because those coaches, man, they do, they get they get laser locked in, especially you get a tight district race where games every game's important. They've got, you know, wins and losses is there. That's that's how they feed their families.
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right? So it's you gotta kinda kinda goes back to the relationship thing of of being comfortable enough to pull the head coach aside and say, Look, I gotta see your kids more. Like if if I've moved
Joe Ryan: Yep. That's what our our
Coach Doug Castleberry: and you've gotta be flexible. If I need to move it to during the period or after school, you don't wanna do whatever. I'll do whatever I gotta take, but just let me get your kids another day a week or whatever. You know
Joe Ryan: Yeah, I like flipping ours around just so that it w what's happy for them, you know, like 'cause I have a lot of sports in the same block, right?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: So like for me it's like varsity boys basketball and varsity volleyball are in the same block.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: So it's it's give and take, you know, when volleyball's in season, they come in first because they're in a in season workout. It takes me t
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: twenty, twenty five minutes. Basketball
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. Quick hitter.
Joe Ryan: will come in the second half, you know, if it's a game day volleyball knows they're in for fifteen, twenty minutes, you know, we're game day lift, they know what it is. We're in, we're out, let's go.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: and I flip them around in the off season, you know, when or as volleyball ends, you know, and they start their off season. Basketball is first now. And like I like to keep them happy and we balance everything out and the gym time's balanced out. And, you know, they're real good about it. They're real good about coach. You know, we have to and I'm even okay with coach if we 'cause I get them three days a week, no matter what. I'm okay if we're in season and you're like coach, you know, like We might bump it down to two days a week. That's fine. I get it. But two days is better than no days. Two da
Coach Doug Castleberry: So no doubt. I've I've given up as many as going down to one. And it was smoke and mirrors. It
Joe Ryan: Yeah. I've done that with baseball. Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: was, you know, new coach came in, new coach to South Lake. Same year I came in and it was, hey, we can come in on Wednesdays. I'm like, okay. All right. I'll I'll play the game this year.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Next year when we get to the off season or end of the school year, I'm like, look, I would love, give me your kids one more day. It could be after practice, maybe before practice. You tell me when's good for you, but we need them in here twice a week. You know, and obviously during your tournament time, soccer, baseball, volleyball, one time a week is probably all you're gonna get.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know, if if you're lucky to get two, I'll take two, don't get me wrong, but I also get it. Like your kids are about to go play six games and run 18 miles, you know, like I get it. I get it. You know, so we'll t stay off the lower half if we have to on that one day. Like, all right, keep your leg fresh. Let's go. Maybe do some type of single leg, like box blast, just to get some kind of output or power output from the lower half. Then all right, go. You know, get out, go go win games. And then usually during that tournament time, I'll try to If they do give me a second day or they do give me a little more time, I'll try to do some type of recovery circuit for You know, where yeah, you're gonna go in, we might hit it might be a clean complex and then we're gonna grab foam rollers and we're gonna, you know, barbell smash your legs and soft tissue stuff, lacrosse ball the feet. All right, get out, you know, and just give and take a little bit. You know, the kids kids like that sometimes that the barbell smash, some of them boy, they don't like it that much. I think it feels great. But boy that get on them get on them Achilles tendons and them calves, boy, them kids start squealing a bit.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, that's that man, I I go you know, I go I still lift and everything and I go see a chiropractor and a masseuse, you know, once a month and I I don't I refuse to let the masseuse touch my lower half because I'm very I'm the same way, man. Those calves and those Achilles, I'm like don't don't touch. I Yep, I let me just
Coach Doug Castleberry: Little pressure.
Joe Ryan: deal with it. Let me just deal with it my own way, you know. Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Sweating
Joe Ryan: So, you know, you talk a lot about your varsity sports, but I know you kinda handle that pipeline of seven through twelve, right? And you kinda you know, a little bit of it, a voice in it all, you know, how's how you making sure they're ready once they get there?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Well we man, it it don't go unless the coaches do. You know that.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: you know, our middle schools, if I'm being honest with you, they're understaffed, they're outnumbered. so organizations big. I don't get to the middle schools enough. I'll be honest with you. Like I'm
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I'm more of a liaison, a consultant, if you want to call it that. I'm a kind of no news is good news because I've got varsity and J V groups running During the same time they do. so man, we keep we keep it pretty simple. We don't progress them too fast. I know I'll see in the summers. So that's when I take that time to build relationships. But I mean, we man, we start we seventh grade, we're in a goblet, you know, simple stuff, four station rotation, just because yeah, they redid the weight rooms. They're not huge. I think we've got eight racks in there.
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: And there's as many as a hundred and forty kids.
Joe Ryan: Ooh.
Coach Doug Castleberry: So
Joe Ryan: Goodness.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know, it gets a little squirrely, man. So it might be, you know, I'd I've tried to create more space. I put some outside in the gym, one of the auxiliary gyms, put some hooks in the wall, T R X's out there. And just create station rotation where you got two stations in the weight room, you got a T R X station, you got a bench like using the bleachers for hand elevated push ups or single leg box blast or single leg step downs or something like that. And then you got like a plyo station with our boxes and so they just Forced patient rotation, three to four kids a rack and man go. you know, I don't get the odd that's that's downfall. I don't I don't get to my middle school kids enough.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, I and I get that, man. That's that's something that I think is all of our dreams is kind of being able to be more involved with the middle school so they're kinda
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: ready. You know, I I know one of my same as you, man, my biggest downfall is the female athletes in middle school. I wish I got with them a little bit more. You know, I'm able to get with the male athletes, especially going into their their freshman year, that end of their eighth grade, February to April, I'm with But and I and I do open it up. in the summertime, but it's more of a voluntary thing. Like if you want
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right.
Joe Ryan: to show up, here it is. here's the times we'll be and it's strictly lifting. It's zero running. We're trying to pr pr pr pr you know, make the lifting technique a lot better. but it my downfall is the female. I wish I could get somebody down there. You know, I wish I could I have a plan in my head already. If I could get somebody there, perfect. But we have three feeder schools and so it's like how do you get one person in three places at once?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Said in one of those videos, man. If I could be in more in more than one place at a time, bro, I'd be a rich man. But
Joe Ryan: Yep. Yep. It's
Coach Doug Castleberry: it's just not feasible. I mean, just like our wrestlers, we have a split high school, so you have the senior high and you have the high school.
Joe Ryan: Okay.
Coach Doug Castleberry: It's like five miles apart or something, shuttles run in between. Well, wrestlers stay at the high school. Like they train over there, their locker rooms over there, everything for wrestling is at the high school. Well, they share athletic variable football, which is at the senior high. So wrestling it's like, all right, here's the block, go over, teach it, teach what we're wanting from it. Hear the coaches, let the coaches hear me teach it. And then from there everything's run through rack. So I'll update the programs through Rack Coach, send it to or not even send it to They just log in and hit play and go. And then as the block progresses, I'll try to go back over. All right, hey, we're gonna progress it to this now. It's just almost like a again, kinda like a consultant, 'cause it it's you
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: got three or four sports running through the weight room at the senior high and one over here, and it's it's just it's hard, man, and it I'll lose sleep over it. I will. But
Joe Ryan: Dude, me too. I I wake up in the middle of the night, like stressing about like Yeah, everything. I'm sure the same way, man. Just stress about like
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, I mean just dumb stuff, but it it is what it is, man. You just want the best for the kids and you want them all to have the same opportunity, you know, and then it it it'll stress you out a little bit, but at the end of the day, man, and I have this a thought a lot, like we are teachers, you know, we're teachers in the fact that instead of handing you a worksheet or saying, Here's your project, look, here's what you've gotta get done today. Either you're gonna do it or you're not, right? Either you're gonna find a way out and and slip through the cracks and do as little as possible, or you're intrinsically motivated enough that this is important to you. You know, and while you wish every kid was like that, not every kid is like that. You know, and I don't know how you get I don't
Joe Ryan: Yeah. No they're not. They're not some aren't wired that way.
Coach Doug Castleberry: know how you transition like that. I think you just keep coming and eventually eventually come around, you know. or they'll quit.
Joe Ryan: One or the other, man, like it's not for everybody, you know. I think all kids kinda know. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Maybe maybe maybe water polo's not for me if this is part of it. Okay. You know, or or whatever it is. Whatever sport. It doesn't matter. Football. I mean football's got those guys too. Like I don't wanna do this anymore. Okay. That's okay.
Joe Ryan: No the only kids that blow my mind with some of that is when they go through the whole off season and right before it starts. Like I'm like, Man, you've done everything. You've done all the hard stuff. Yeah. Like this is it. Like you got
Coach Doug Castleberry: Quit.
Joe Ryan: ten opportunities at this point. Like you've done the the other, you know, two hundred and sixty days are done.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right. You quit right before they wrote the check. But whatever.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I I guess. but I
Joe Ryan: So you spoke a little bit a little bit about this earlier, you know, and I don't know how many y'all have, but the multi sport athlete, you know, how you balancing some of that? You know, it's it's 'cause it's so common these days that kids are specializing.
Coach Doug Castleberry: No.
Joe Ryan: I wish kids would realize and even sport coaches to an extent, like they're always talk skill work. We gotta get skill work, we gotta get skill work. Your skill work should be, you know, I'm a football player and in the off season I'm playing baseball and it's putting me on a island and it's allowing me to be competitive, although it's a team sport, I have to still stand in the batters box. I still have to be in the outfield and track a ball.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yep. It's competing.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, exactly. Competing, you know, or, you know, volleyball, you know, I'm gonna go jump for track or, you know, but how do you handle some of the multi sport kids?
Coach Doug Castleberry: We do. We've got a we've got quite a few, man. We've got a especially our younger guys, some football, basketball guys, a few football baseball guys. we don't I mean if it's a back to back like for example, receiver Brody Knowles, he was a football basketball kid. Okay, big receiver kid. Obviously came out of a fifteen week football season, banged up, like you went through it. So not necessarily in a huge rush to get him right there where the basketball guys were, understanding that he needs a little time there. He's not in basketball shape. He knows that. I mean their kids aren't stupid, you know. So it's it's really not a I mean, there's not a transition. I mean, they just
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: roll right into it and we'll have little modifications here and there and for a few weeks and then it's look man, just buck up and go, Big Daddy. You know, if anything, there's you know, other sports, some sports are more consistent rather than others in their during their season. So that's where it worries me, because I'm like, hey, while all your other fall sport buddies are grinding to the bone right now, I saw you one time this week. So just just understand that, dude. Like like if you you have to understand what your body needs.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Like if you still wanna excel in this sport too. I'm not saying you've gotta do everything they're doing, but I'm saying you can't just shut it down. Right? Like you look. You look when
Joe Ryan: Right. Y you're gonna be highly disappointed, it's gonna be my fault when you come back.
Coach Doug Castleberry: when the old boy behind you slips up on you because you didn't you didn't keep yourself sharp in the off season off season.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. That's my big thing is I tell like you better not flinch guys. You flinch. Somebody somebody
Coach Doug Castleberry: No, be gone.
Joe Ryan: who's worse than you is outworking you.
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt. No doubt. And I mean that it's kinda good to have that. I mean, when you've got depth and you've got guys that can do that, man, that that helps. Because that a lot of fire under his rear end, you know.
Joe Ryan: yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it was the hey I don't want to lose what I had. now I've I I grew up in a small school where I knew I was gonna play. I knew I wasn't gonna miss a snap. Matter of fact, I would beg to miss a snap every once in a while 'cause it's like punt, kick off, kickoff return, extra Can I can I have a second like
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: a series, you know, and and that's what we had, we could we play one side of the ball, you know, when we got depth like you do at the six A level. And I'm like, how are you tired? You play yeah.
Joe Ryan: Can you can you im can you imagine if they'd had GPS vest back then of like how much your
Coach Doug Castleberry: You you play sixty snaps a game, dog. Come on, man.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Like like I'm trying I'm getting you ready for eighty and you're only playing sixty, you know? It's like it's like, man, trust me, you got this, you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, no doubt. And and and granted they probably you can you can exert a little bit different effort when you're only playing sixty to eighty snaps a game versus a hundred and twenty to hundred and forty. You
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: know, you can you can sell out for those sixty snaps if you if you if you've done it right.
Joe Ryan: W when you're scoring the touchdown and ha then having to run down on kickoff is not the same as scoring the s
Coach Doug Castleberry: No, not that's not fun at all.
Joe Ryan: scoring the touchdown and the other team goes on a twelve play drive and you get a break, you know, it's it's a little bit different, you know. well
Coach Doug Castleberry: Grinder. Yeah. Yeah it is.
Joe Ryan: when you talk about that, man, like some of the some of the way you handle those kids as far as like you talked a little bit about it with your sports you, you know, sending stuff out, but the handling the the balance of the nutrition and the rehab and the refueling and stuff, you know, we all know that And I tell our kids this, I'm sure you do too, you know, the best supplement you can get is sleep and food. And
Coach Doug Castleberry: Sleep is keen.
Joe Ryan: and I tell the kids, like especially our female athletes, you know, some of I I hear this a lot. I don't wanna get bulky, I don't wanna get bulky, sweetheart. I don't have you long enough, you don't sleep good enough, and you don't eat good enough for you to get bulky.
Coach Doug Castleberry: We don't eat enough. If lifting weights, I saw I've told him, I was like, if lifting weights is all it took to get bulky, I would be huge. I was like, Girls,
Joe Ryan: Yeah, yeah. And it's like
Coach Doug Castleberry: I was like, this is my office. Like I'm in here all day long. Like I have an hour and a like I have an off block where I could train every day. I was like, but if you ain't pumping in at about five to six thousand calories and sleeping eight hours a day, you ain't
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it ain't that easy. I wish it was, but it ain't that easy.
Joe Ryan: There's a reason the people that are, you know, your your elite bodybuilders and people like that, you know, that's their whole life. They're not doing they're
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: not doing anything else. Like they're they're living, breathing, you know, every bit
Coach Doug Castleberry: machine.
Joe Ryan: of that, yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Eating when they don't wanna eat. I mean it
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Is your body gonna change some, you know, boy, girl, it don't matter. Absolutely. I
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: mean you're you're at the peak of your of your muscular endurance in your life, but you're not gonna be by any means turn into this jacked up CrossFit, you know, hm. Yeah. But how
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. physique, yeah, not as it's it didn't work like that.
Joe Ryan: do you balance some of that? You know, how are you how are you fueling them? I mean, y'all got I think you know, nutrition stations and
Coach Doug Castleberry: We do we've got a we've got a nutrition room. That was part of that the build when they did when the Traditions Club did the we kind of re repurposed it 'cause initially, like in our weight room, they wanted to make like this whole wall of just windows.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: All right, and which I get, but our windows would have faced the parking lot. I'm like, that's not aesthetically pleasing at all. And then the back of my head as a strength coach, I'm like, that's not gonna help us be better athletes. Like that's not gonna help us. Having
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: having windows in our weight room, that's not gonna help us. And so we repurposed that money and put it more towards the construction cost that it would have done to turn those into windows. And that's where we put it into the nutrition room and into the recovery room. And just basically turned two closets that were just one had a washer and dryer in it, which we don't do laundry. The kids take their clothes home and
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: they wash them and they bring back. But Turn that into the recovery room and then nutrition rooms, just it's essentially it's like a little snack bar, man. Protein powder, reconhydration, you know, liquid IVs, flow water. try to have some snacks in there, just and it's grab and go. now there's there's some that take over that probably go a little too far with it 'cause I'm like, look, there's five hundred athletes that have access to this room. If you come in here and treat this like your own personal cupboard every day, we're not gonna have any food. Right, 'cause I mean our supplies run out too, right? I'm trying to make it last, make sure everybody
Joe Ryan: Yeah, I mean it's it's you you can only e only get so much.
Coach Doug Castleberry: has access to it, but you know, we're we're working on it. we we re-upped on our Tuscell or traditions club, got us some more protein. Not rolling that out in the summers. And I granted I know protein's not the end all be all, but we live in America and they're gonna find carbs, right? And they're gonna find fats. It's just trying to get to get that protein up to where they can grow and they can recover. now I know they're gonna find carbs and fats, and not always the good ones, I get it.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: But man, just like with the snacks and stuff, it was legendary. was who was who funded it for the first four I think first four f six months. And the kids, man, it was like just getting those like I didn't even know they made these. Like, yeah, it's a cinnamon roll, but it's got twenty grams of protein. Right? And it's two grams of sugar or whatever, just sh getting exposed to that. Like, hey, you find something, man, tell mom pick it up at the store. Keep that at the house. So you can throw one in the bag. I mean, of course they know uncrustables and chocolate milk or you know, that's
Joe Ryan: Yeah, king.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Can't ever fail with that. But, you know, just getting them a man, this fruity pebbles protein is awesome. Well, go tell mom to go get some, you know, have it accessible
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: there. They a lot of those kids don't know. So just trying to get them
Joe Ryan: No, they don't. And it's
Coach Doug Castleberry: exposure to it. Not married to anybody or any brand, just just get them exposure to it. Right, you're right, man.
Joe Ryan: If I can if I can send you home with a few more calories and a little bit of protein, you know, that's what matters, yeah. You know, not every not every kid's dealt the same hand. You know, I think
Coach Doug Castleberry: Nope.
Joe Ryan: that's what we all sometimes forget, but a lot of the time realize is that not everybody's going after this and they're able to go to Smoothie King or able to go get a Subway sandwich or Yeah. t dude, that's that I wish it was ten dollars. I took my daughter
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right, it's for ten dollars on a smoothie.
Joe Ryan: the other day, we I got a twenty ounce smoothie and she got like some little like fruit bowl and it was like twenty seven dollars. I'm like, when did this happen?
Coach Doug Castleberry: What when do strawberries get so expensive?
Joe Ryan: Yeah. I know. Like what are we doing here? Like this ain't even worth it anymore. Like So you
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. yeah.
Joe Ryan: know, you get some we all live and learn, right? I mean we we
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: there's stuff you probably did last year that you're not you're not doing you look back and you're like, man, I that was dumb, like why did I do that?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Well yeah.
Joe Ryan: I do it all the time, but you know, some of the you know, you spent time at Northwest, you know, you spent, you know, what, seven years there
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: and You know, is there stuff that you did right? You may have said that was dumb, you you wanna do different that you brought over to South Lake and you like, you know what, this is how we're gonna do it now and
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, one I would say, man, is is I learned to rely on my coaches more. Is is giving them ownership of it and try and like when you put a plan together, assign Don't ask like, hey, you're gonna run this station, this is it, like you are you are the assistants here. Like I can't. I can't. Can't run three stations at once.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right. And then they may not feel comfortable coaching it, but they can go they can go start they can go stop they can go encourage Right? Like I don't expect you to go let's just say we I don't I don't expect you to go teach the the clean. I'm
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: gonna take care of that. But when we're on the movement stations, I'm gonna need you here. And when we're in the weight room, I'm gonna need you just watching these racks. Just going by. If you I tell my simple, you can do three things for me. You can either coach, you can encourage, or you can take videos of kids doing cool stuff.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Any of those three things will help me.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Because I'm never I I s I absolutely stink at video and and putting stuff out. Like, I mean, I'll get some stuff occasionally, but like Kids like that. They like they wanna see themselves doing that and Yeah. throw
Joe Ryan: You you talked to intrinsic motivation earlier. I mean there there it is right there. Like kids
Coach Doug Castleberry: it out there on the old gram, man, and kids will love it, you know.
Joe Ryan: I'm good for about two weeks at it and then I get busy and it's like,
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: damn, like I wish I'd a kept that up because they were working harder two weeks ago.
Coach Doug Castleberry: they kill it, man. yeah, get that media department to walk through and they just bring your cameras. I don't even care if they're on. Just
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: walk around with a camera, kids will start showing up.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know, kinda like when those college logos start showing up in the spring. Like man, I'll start a Yeah, brother, wait, can I come back tomorrow?
Joe Ryan: Yep. Man, this is the hardest you've worked all all year. Yeah. I've thought about dressing up friends so that they don't have no idea who it is. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Say college buddy, come on, bring a clipboard. Bring a clipboard and wear that Clemson jacket that I gave you.
Joe Ryan: Y yeah. I gotta stop watching my desk when you come out there, just go grab it. You know
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, it wouldn't be a bad little well, I don't know, little firm. Like just let me know, coach, when you need me, I'll send somebody out.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Well you talked to you know, you talked a little bit about them helping and you they don't have to do everything but does here we go. The internet. It's my internet. It's gotta be my internet. I'm gonna have to get our great
Coach Doug Castleberry: Cutting again, but I'm not gonna do anything stupid.
Joe Ryan: producer and developer Rob to edit some of this one.
Coach Doug Castleberry: From home back.
Joe Ryan: This is my internet. It's gotta be my internet. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's I think it's mine. I'm up at the school right now, so it's gotta be my internet. But
Coach Doug Castleberry: There we go. There we go.
Joe Ryan: again, this is what makes this great, is it's real life. But you know, you y you talked a little bit about I guess delegation's the word of of
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: getting better at that, you know, do you because I I catch myself sometimes with this is when you're able to delegate to those other sport coaches is kind of learning from them and collaborating and different philosophies and how they go about things and kind of adopting that into your own philosophy. I'm sure you get some of that.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, I mean every coach is gonna have their input. I mean, obviously, and at the end of the day, we are we are an extension of their program. Right?
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: One hundred percent. So if a coach is absolutely hell-bent against something, right? Okay, we won't do it. Right? And it might be that way for a year or two. But eventually that conversation is gonna come by, like if it's something that I know That I can't hide from, like I I can't sneak it in any other way, right? Because we go back to the whole smoking mirrors, right? Like, okay, yeah, we're not squatting, but we're doing this.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know, heavy sled push, we're still getting, we're still getting lower body output. But is it's having those conversations with them to find out, and I do every I'm every fall, every well, every twice a year usually. is to where we sit down before the season. That's when I get my schedule of saying, all right, how many days do I get them? When do I get them? How long do I get them? How many kids will be there? So that I can put the whole big schedule together for all the programs and try to make it fit. Right.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: In season obviously gets priority. Off season will get what's left over, kind of like you talked about having, you know, your varsity boys basketball in season coming in first, getting them out of the way and then rolling in your off season. Same, same concept. at that time Hey, what do you think? Now I know. I know what I want to do because I know what the sport demands are, right? And that's why we go to the games. Like prior to three years ago, I'd never been to a water polo match in my life. Right? But you go over there and you see what the sport demands are and you see what's going on. And I mean, obviously just in your head you can kind of figure out what the sport demands are. But just seeing it and seeing the kids compete and more importantly, them seeing me there was huge.
Joe Ryan: Huge, huge.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Huge. Those kids were just like, my god, what's up? I'm like, Yeah, let's break him go. Drown his ass. Push him under You know, I don't know Listen.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But still, like they love seeing, you know, no matter the sport.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Listen to one or two cues and then just start echoing that, you know, exactly
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: what you want the coaches to do. Like, hey, you know, freaking head out of water, punch and shrug. just say that to If you don't know what you're saying, that's fine, but just say the cues that I'm saying, right? Just like I go to a soccer game and now I'm getting better about it. I'm getting better about soccer. But I, you know, cross it and don't just say kick it.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know. But Yeah, I don't know, man. Just yeah, just getting what's important to them. like our our girl soccer coach loves the flies, man. He loves flying tens. He loves it. He's like, Can we do that every week? I was like, I would love to do it every week. Can you give me time to do it every week? And not take time out of the weight room for it? Right? And getting them to understand that and trying to get the kids to understand, like, yes, I know you ran a lot. You ran a lot. But how much top end did you really run? Did you ever see top end this week? Okay, so now here's what we got to have in this discussion of if you don't see it, get exposure to 90% of your top end within seven days, you're gonna start losing top end speed.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right? So that's why we fly. That's why you're max recovered every time we do it. That's why we're logging it so that you can see, like you your body has to be exposed to it. Right. And just try trying to educate
Joe Ryan: That's what that's what you talk about soccer, you know, I'm real real close with our girl soccer coach and him and I went and visited Auburn recently. You know, we he's
Coach Doug Castleberry: Okay.
Joe Ryan: real big on wanting to be in the weight room and be involved and you know
Coach Doug Castleberry: Love it.
Joe Ryan: and I have him kinda learning the we've got the O VR timing gates.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: And so I have him learning it and helping me out and able to, you know it saves me some time, you know, I trust him. I I allow him to go do that and just,
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: you know, knock it out because he does love looking at the numbers and love looking at this and that and where when the ultimate the ultimate little Ponti scheme I got going on that hey man why don't you come help out with football and just run this part of it so I don't have to be consistently out there doing it and setting it up and I have somebody that can do it, you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Heck yeah.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, same concept though, man. Learning to delegate, learning different philosophy, different different ways of
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know.
Joe Ryan: thousand ways to skin a cat, you know. And you see
Coach Doug Castleberry: No, no doubt. And and I think that's kind of our job. Like we're talking about being a chameleon, you know, is okay, no one all right, I can get it another way. You know, and
Joe Ryan: Yeah. It
Coach Doug Castleberry: being able to sleep get it in a different way.
Joe Ryan: Right. And you've seen so much. You know, you've had you're at what right at twenty years in your career now. You know, you've seen a bunch of stuff change from the beginning to the end.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Boy has it.
Joe Ryan: What's what's, you know what's something
Coach Doug Castleberry: Well I mean
Joe Ryan: that's a big like a big, you know, I think technology maybe is gonna be one thing that you you you touch on, but you know, what's something that's technology based or whatever that's that's a big change.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Man twenty years of it. I d when I first started coaching and granted I was twenty, what, twenty five years old. I and I not strength coach. This is just like like I thought you know, I was under kind of the old impression of, hey, if we're not throwing up, we're not working hard enough. 'Cause that was I mean, that was that's how we grew up. Or at least that's how I was you know you weren't puking
Joe Ryan: Yeah, he Yeah, no, yeah, same thing. I mean it was
Coach Doug Castleberry: or you weren't drained, you weren't working hard enough. Well, you know, you can only you can only work as hard as you can recover. So the emphasis on recovery and the emphasis on what it takes to be able to train like that and that you don't have to train like that every day in order to get the you know to get your cake and eat it too, right? Just
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: just because you're outworking everybody, well, you may be outworking everybody, but if you're losing ten percent of your kids in the season because you're beat up, because you're hurt. Maybe that outworking wasn't you know, maybe should have focused a little bit more on the intentional, like the intent of the work rather than just the amount of work. Right? And I mean that goes that just go I think that comes just evolving as a coach and maturing as a coach and understanding the science and w the human body a little bit better of hey, we don't we don't have to we don't have to strip clean every day.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Like If we're gonna get after really hard on Monday, Tuesday don't have to be like that. Right? And
Joe Ryan: Yep. That and that's kind of my thing too, man, is like especially during the summertime where we're we have weeks where we go four straight days.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: My fourth day is really like I build it in as it's a I don't ever want to call it a recovery day, but it is a it's more of a bodybuilding emphasis day where we're just we're getting in there and where it's the end of the week. We're gonna hit a lot of auxiliary lifts, but we're gonna do bodybuilding type movements because we lifted we we we hang clean the front squat on Monday, we heavy back squat, heavy bench on Tuesday. We come back and we do our top to bottom cleans on Wednesday and we we bench again and then we, you know, Thursday's gonna be our auxiliary. And I think
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: I think, you know, kind of building that in and kind of, you know, having the temperament to do so, you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: That you're not I mean and you're getting again, you're getting exposures to different types of training.
Joe Ryan: Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Like like I mean
Joe Ryan: We deadlift. I mean like I don't a lot of people don't, you know, they shy away from it. I don't ever max deadlift our football kids, you know, we base yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: No. We'll trap bar. We'll trap bar Maxim.
Joe Ryan: I I base it off their body weight. You know,
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: it's a body weight thing and like I'll tell them maybe this week, you know, we're we're five by three at our body weight, you know, as fast as we can move that bar, you know, or we might be body weight five by one plus thirty pounds or whatever it is, you know, I'm I'm not
Coach Doug Castleberry: yeah.
Joe Ryan: a this It's not the juice has not never worth the squeeze to me with maxing, especially straight bar. Now, obviously power of the thing's different because that's what they do. You know, they're gonna
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right.
Joe Ryan: but you know, seeing some of that and you know, you dive right into I think it's a perfect time as you know we're in that transition period you talked about, you know, when we were coming up, it was if you're not puking, you're not you're you're not really working. And
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right.
Joe Ryan: then we transitioned into a period in this pres profession of injury prevention.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: Well, that's a crock of shit. You can't prevent anything. Yeah,
Coach Doug Castleberry: I hate that term.
Joe Ryan: can you reduce injuries?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: Absolutely you know, strength training that any doctor or any professional or anybody will tell you, you know, if as long as you're doing resistance training your whole life, you can reduce the amount of injuries and things you have. So you know, it's our job. It's our job to reduce injuries. We
Coach Doug Castleberry: A hundred percent.
Joe Ryan: can't prevent David them kids I mean you have kids just like I do, them kids, I see more injuries of just freak accident things happening. You know, like we had a young man that had to miss the whole spring 'cause of a A T V accident. You know, it's not Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: E bike, e bikes over here.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. And it's just like you can't prevent anything, man. Like
Coach Doug Castleberry: No, you can't live in a bubble.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Like A C L's happen, you know, MCLs happen, thumbs happen,
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. I do.
Joe Ryan: you know, like hamstrings happen. Like you y you can do all the hamstring work or, you know, reduce the amount of hamstring work you want, but that stuff happens. What's gonna happen happens.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, yeah. I mean it's you know, we weak things break, you know. kid that's I mean, i it it's just kind it common sense to me. Or it seems like common sense. Like, yeah, that kid's gonna hold up if he's handling his load plus external forces and external loads and that's fine. Yeah, nobody's knee's gonna hold up through a freaking high low where a kid rolls over. I don't care what you do for your you know, your lower half, but I mean injuries do happen, but yeah, I'm kinda with you on that. Prevention's a stupid term 'cause you can't things it's things are gonna happen when you play hard and you play full speed. You know? now the non contact stuff, yeah, I I take that a little personal. that's always the first one I like our girl soccer, you know, I get a text that's like so and so blew her knee out. It's like, God dang. I'm like, collision or no collision? He goes, definitely collision. Like girl took her out. I'm like, okay. You know, but that boy, that that non-contact stuff, that
Joe Ryan: Makes you sick to your stomach.
Coach Doug Castleberry: does, man. I mean, we had a kid, is it two years ago, running back, went to make a cut and he like hung his toe. And I saw I happened to be watching the film when they were watching it that Saturday morning. He kind of clipped that toe and when he got his foot down, the knee was out over the toe and he was trying to cut back left. knee didn't have a shot, man. It
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: was like I don't I'll be honest, I don't know what I could have done to make that better. Like, I mean, the kid 'cause
Joe Ryan: There's just some stuff you can't, man.
Coach Doug Castleberry: the kid was a he boy, he was a grinder. He was always there. Like he didn't miss workouts. It's one thing if he was a hit and miss kid, but this kid and he Built it back and he was just heating up there towards the playoffs last year and getting confidence and be able to slam that foot in the foot on the floor and go left. Cause anytime he would break one, it was right. Right. Right. I was like, I wanna see him go left. And then he freaking gets up there in the gap, slams that right foot in the ground and breaks one off towards the side, and I'm like, he's back.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: He's got confidence. He's not in his head anymore. He's back.
Joe Ryan: Once you yeah, once they reach after an injury, man, they that's the biggest thing, especially any athlete, but high school kids they don't understand like when they get you know, they actually get an injury that keeps them out. It's the mental part of it and just staying involved. Like I hate when kids just disappear. And you don't see Like, stay around. Like that's gonna be the best thing for you. You know, we had a young
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: lady last year, freak thing happens. It's the first time I've ever had this happen, but we're cleaning one day and she just doesn't get that front rack up and she broke her wrist. And
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: we're talking about three weeks before, you know, like a month before volleyball actually started, you know, volleyball player.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right.
Joe Ryan: But she stuck around. She got a cast the
Coach Doug Castleberry: Mm-hmm.
Joe Ryan: very next day, she was back in there that Monday with the with the safety squad bar, squatting still, cleaning with her dumbbell, you know, still doing everything
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: she could, and was able to come back in three weeks with a broken wrist and play the play the whole season. You know, luckily it was a clean break. Like we were blessed
Coach Doug Castleberry: wow. That's awesome. Right, right, right, right.
Joe Ryan: Bless no screws, no to clean break, boom, in out. But it it it does when kids just shut it down or they think like I just don't have to be around anymore, like that is one of my biggest pet peeves is like show up, be
Coach Doug Castleberry: look.
Joe Ryan: around. I promise you that your recovery is gonna go a lot better if you're around your teammates, if you're showing up, if you're there.
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt. our football we had O'D Ware, he he tore his ACL last year in like week four, I think. Again, avoiding running down on kickoff, avoiding a guy. Got his foot kind of kinda jumped, kinda avoided. I don't really know, but came down and it gave. He was a freshman. But you know, our off seasons, we go four day split. So Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Wednesday's competition day. And so we have upper lower split. Every upper day his butt's in there. Lower days, he's with the athletic trainer doing all of his rehab stuff and all that. So you know, it him being around and being just staying, just staying with us, you know. Like, yeah, you may not be in here every day. And he would towards the end, man, he'd come in, he'd start working the stuff he could and he was released to work. But yeah, man, you've you've and it's hard. I mean, it's it's hard on a kid because it's it is in their head. And, you know, they feel like they're not a contributor anymore or whatever they th I don't I don't know. I never had anything that put me out very long other than a what was it, a Jones fracture on my foot. But my coach had me sitting in a freaking chair at baseball throwing BP from a chair. Like, you know, like I I d there wasn't a way out. I wasn't taking
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: ground balls, but I was still involved in practice. And so, you know, it's it's it's keeping relevant and and keeping Yeah, we got a couple s belt squats, so there's really no excuse for anybody. our
Joe Ryan: Nope. That's what I bought safety squat bars for that reason. Like if we got an
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: upper body, like and that's something I gotta get better at is keeping them involved opp opposite the injury, you know?
Coach Doug Castleberry: And it's and it you can, but then if it's if the kid's not wired like that, you know, if it's and there there there's people like that. Let's be honest.
Joe Ryan: Some just are, yeah. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I mean, you know, there's there's people that are gonna look for a way out rather than I wanna find a way back in. And if if they're not programmed like that and you don't have the support of the coaching staff to go pull that kid out of the training room. Why why? You've got ninety other kids in here that are going. You can't, I mean I don't get me wrong. I know
Joe Ryan: Yep. You can't sit and babysit one.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I know, you know, save the one. I get it. But those kids in there need you too, man. So if if you don't have a head coach,
Joe Ryan: Yep. There comes a there comes a point where the one will bring the ship down.
Coach Doug Castleberry: no doubt, man, a kid if you don't have the the head coach in there or assistant, somebody in there pulling them out saying, look, we have this guy for this reason. His job is to make sure that you can stay a part of this. And, you know, absolutely, come here. Okay, you can't do that. Here's what you're gonna do instead. you can't do that, here's what you're gonna do instead. You can do that instead. You can do it in the rack. You can stay at the rack with your partners, you can be a part of this still. But if you don't want
Joe Ryan: Understand my internet.
Coach Doug Castleberry: to, I'm I'm not gonna lose sleep over you.
Joe Ryan: Trying to reconnect.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know, not not like that.
Joe Ryan: This has been a fantastic episode though. I
Coach Doug Castleberry: Think we cut out again.
Joe Ryan: just want to let everybody know that. I mean it's been a great dive into some knowledge with Coach. And here we are. We are reconnecting. I don't get it.
Coach Doug Castleberry: So I guess if if it is still recording, I don't know. But I guess it's it's more of it's it's a community deal. You know,
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it's it's you've gotta be on the same page as the head coach and the assistants all have to be bought in and we can't be this, well, you know, this guy, you know, he's a big player, so we're gonna let him do this, but we're gonna hold these freshmen to a different standard. You know, like it's
Joe Ryan: Yeah. It's a little bit different.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I think and it it it lit up some people. I don't know, I had a day during the off season and I was like, if you're if your best athletes aren't your hardest workers, then you've got a culture problem. You know, and maybe
Joe Ryan: Yep. That's half the battle is the culture.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it came off wrong, like, well may and somebody's like, Well, i if they're not bought in. Well, if they're not bought in, they're not gonna work hard.
Joe Ryan: Yep. I mean, it's
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know, but it's you know, I and I get being a dude, but at some point in time, I tell the kids this all the time, right now, yeah, you may be skill level elite, you may be above everybody we play. Eventually one day you're not gonna be. You're gonna be in a room full of dudes that have the same skills, same whatever. Here's your advantage. Be a better lifter, be a better preparer, be a better person.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: than them because the skill levels eventually gonna match up. And then
Joe Ryan: Mm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: you're gonna have to rely on something else, whether it be you're just mentally tougher, you've done hard things, you sh you've trained, like you know it, you have confidence from that. Because that's what's com that's where confidence comes from is preparation. Right?
Joe Ryan: Yeah. And to touch a little bit on it, imagine if the roles were reversed and you didn't give everything you had every day, everybody'd be mad. Like,
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right.
Joe Ryan: so I can't I can't hold you accountable, but if I don't give you everything I got one day or if I'm not there one day, your first thing to question is, you know, coach, where were you? Why weren't you? You know, it's it goes both ways sometimes. A lot of people don't see that. So
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right. No doubt. No doubt.
Joe Ryan: I got a few more for you, coach. I know you got a busy day ahead, you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Okay. Now you're good.
Joe Ryan: One thing, you know, I know we both have families and we're in this profession, you know, and for our young coaches who are thinking about having families or who have them now and they're younger, you know, what's what's a way that you, you know, kind of balance that out? Balance family life, balance how how you do things at work. I know sometimes
Coach Doug Castleberry: sucker.
Joe Ryan: it's hard for me personally to turn it off. Like
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: that that's one of my biggest battles every day is turning it off.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I I that's I probably suck at that, man, I'll be honest. when I was a sport coach, I tried to make my family as much a part of it as I could. you know, I coach D line and running backs there for a few years at Northwest. So on Wednesday nights we would feed my position group at my house so that my kids got to know the kids that I can my families knew each other, right? My kids
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: knew my kids. And my kids knew the kids that I was coaching and they looked up to and they would come over and wrestle with and just So that my wife and my kids didn't feel awkward, like they want ooh, I like that kid. He was so nice. Blah blah blah. Well, good. Come cheer for him. Right? And so you've got your and not because I I just die to have my family at the games. Yeah, it's cool. It's great. I mean it's it's always great to have their support. But just try to immerse them, man. Like bring my you know, bring around. our our coach fortunately, since I've been at Northwest, every coach that I've worked for has been a really Good, their wives have been good about creating like a little sisterhood, right?
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: To where they they have a ladies' dinner and they get the girls together and bring the kids and have a coach's party and let the kids run around and and get into trouble or whatever they do, you know. but man, just and this is the part I suck at is when I get out of my truck and come in the house is giving my family the same energy that I just gave five hundred athletes all day long.
Joe Ryan: It's hard.
Coach Doug Castleberry: you know, and I and I'm convicted by that. I know that. I know there's days when I come home and I plop my butt down and sit in that recliner 'cause I'm just spent. Right? But And maybe I need that reminder of, hey, maybe you need to drive around the block a couple more times, go back, swing through, get another energy drink, so that you can you can pour into your kids and your family just like you poured into those kids. if if anything, my family gets the short end of the stick, I would think on that. be better about
Joe Ryan: Yeah, I well.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it. But like I said, man, like you said busy dad. Like now me and my thirteen year old about to go to breakfast here in a little while 'cause he, you know, just just dad and boy going to use some, you know, biscuits and gravy or whatever, you know. But just trying to just trying to spend
Joe Ryan: That's the best, man. Those are the best little moments.
Coach Doug Castleberry: spend time with them when we can, you know. Get home, give them my afternoons and my evenings, like in the summer when I'm busy in the mornings. And just just trying to just trying to, you know, i it goes fast, brother. I mean, I we were once the house of three, 'cause me and my wife got married. My stepson was eight, the one that's interning at UT now. Well now he's twenty two. We got a thirteen and eleven year old and they're in all the stuff and it's just just trying to be present for them too, you know.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: but yeah if if if advice easier easier said than done is leave work at work. You know when you when you you know lock up the facility then leave it. You know and you don't always have to be there. You know, I I have a I have a FOMO. Like if I take a day, I'm still texting coaches like, Hey, how'd it go? Hey, what'd it look like? Or better yet, they're texting me like, Hey, check this out and I'm like, yeah.
Joe Ryan: I can't believe I missed that. Like, I'm the same way, man. We squatted heavy the heaviest of our summer so far this past Tuesday and I wasn't there. And I'm tech
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: I'm hitting up kids like, hey man, how was today? Like how'd you how'd
Coach Doug Castleberry: Well was it?
Joe Ryan: you feel? Like, you know, of course if you text the coaches group chat, they're gonna say, it was the best day ever.
Coach Doug Castleberry: It's good.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. You know, see ours are they like to throw it in your face, like, you weren't here, it was the best day ever. Like, best day we've had all season, all year, you know, and it's like,
Coach Doug Castleberry: yeah.
Joe Ryan: so I'll hit up the kids and be like, hey man, how was it? coach, I hit this today and I felt like this and da da da like you know, I have the FOMO too. I was like not that it and I'm a lot better than what I used to be. I used to think I had to be here all the time and da da da. You know, I I've gotten better at leaving it at work. and I've gotten a lot better of you know, bringing my family and kids around. My biggest issue is like you said, is giving the same energy or sometimes being able to turn off the I don't know what you call it, you know. the the the drill sergeant. You know, I
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: g I get home and it's like I see one little thing on the ground and it's tough for me to like, why wasn't this picked up today? Why didn't you do this? Why you know it's like Alright, let me take a step back. Their kids, you know, they're they're they're learning too. It's I gotta I gotta teach them at this point in their
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: lives, not just hammer out, you know. So I get it, man. It's
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. another another and Monty Monty told me this a long time ago, man. I cause he's he's a buddy, like well beyond professional friend. I mean that's how we met was because we were string coaches and that's where Mac told me, he goes, Hey, when you get into this, you need to go visit him, you need to go visit Keys, you need to go to these guys, see how they do business and just develop it for your own. But Monty he's like he's like, I get it, Doug. He's like stress, whatever. He goes But you need to understand this. If you died today, they're gonna post your job tomorrow.
Joe Ryan: Yep. Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: So don't get too hung up on it, you know, and and that that's something that stays in the back of my head. It's like, yeah, I mean maybe I make it out bigger to be a bigger deal than it is, and it probably is. And you know, in my head it is a bigger deal than it probably should be, but I don't know man.
Joe Ryan: And I know people get annoyed with me too, man. It's like to me, this is the end all be all. Like this is the most it's the most
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, like I'm like
Joe Ryan: important classroom on campus. It's the most important job on campus. Like to me, to me, and to everybody else. Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yes. And it should be. But you're the only one you're the only one that's gonna voice that. Right? Like you're the only one that's defending strength and conditioning and why it's so important for every kid on the campus. Right? I mean that's that's the way we're supposed to be, I guess. So but yeah, turning it off. Yeah, I I would agree with that. That's why I need to be better. My wife was actually standing right there, it's like I wanna hear what he's gonna say, right?
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yep, yep. I know if my wife was sitting right here she'd say she'd be the same way. She'd be she'd be what's what's he gonna say right here?
Coach Doug Castleberry: But she's a saint, dude. She's she's good, man. She she gets it done and handles all the things. the calendar, lets me know where I've gotta be. Hey, can you be here this day? Yep, I'm gonna finish baseball at five. I'll be at his game at five fifteen, you know, and and try to try to be everywhere at once, but
Joe Ryan: Yeah, insurance called me yesterday, asking me questions. I'm like, you need to call my wife. she handles that. I don't here's her number. Like, don't don't call me about this anymore. Yeah. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Call call my mom.
Joe Ryan: Well coach, I got one more for you, and it's actually
Coach Doug Castleberry: All right.
Joe Ryan: been my favorite question to ask on this podcast. you know, we do random just so it'll get to let our listeners know a little bit, and it's a three
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: three series question. You're in the weight room, you're working out, you're trying to get motivated, what's the go to song or or genre or or artist? Okay. Yeah. I I like Lynn Biscuit. I know some people that don't, but I like Lynn Biscuit. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Mmm Limp Biscuit. Yeah. Like that's my that's my good. I think hey, that's just that was my time frame, man. That was they were what 96 I think when they came out, so I was a freshman, you know, testosterone's building, you know, right. It's just that was that was a different generation of music and tearing stuff up and just getting after it. I don't I just I liked
Joe Ryan: Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it. It was kind of like a little hip hop. kind of rap slash ro I don't know. That's just that was me.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Them them with Kid Rock coming out around the same time and you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Anybody that would have been on any of the Family Values tour
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: back in the late nineties, I would I would have been I'm down for.
Joe Ryan: There. What about movie? You're getting ready to get motivated. What what are we watching?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Movie.
Joe Ryan: Or even not motivated, man. Like my favorite movie is Goodwill Hunting.
Coach Doug Castleberry: that's a great movie. Definitely a top five. movie is gonna get me going. God, I can't remember which one it what the name was it I wanna say it was gladiator, but not the not that one.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: It's got Harding in it. That big Jack. He got the him and his brother UFC fight. I can't remember the name of the movie. Warrior. That
Joe Ryan: warrior. Yes, yes. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: movie is dope. Like my man just
Joe Ryan: Yeah, yeah. Tom Hardy was huge in that movie. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great movie, man. It really is.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Toilet paper rolls. It was, man, and I'd never seen it. We watched it at Northwest one day. And I it's one of those movies like I I want to show my kid, but like, yeah, maybe not yet. but man, yeah, that just any of those, Rocky f Rocky Four is probably my all time favorite How Much Can One Guy Take movie. Just him and the Mad Russian, just just man.
Joe Ryan: It's the best one. I mean it it
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, and you got you know, you've got your tech it's kinda like the battle between VBT training and old school just grinding, you know, and and
Joe Ryan: Absolutely.
Coach Doug Castleberry: not that I'm banging VBT, we work it a little bit, mainly just to drive intent, but you know, just just good old how much can one guy take, just slug fest. Yeah, yeah, they're gonna be a cross tide, a sack of rocks.
Joe Ryan: Yep. Put me in a barn and let me lift, you know. Yeah. Yep. So last one. You're stranded on a island. What's
Coach Doug Castleberry: Okay.
Joe Ryan: one piece of weight equipment we got? This can be something functional that'll that'll help you actually, you know, survive or something that you lift with.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Is this is the barbell is the barbell in is that included as the one piece?
Joe Ryan: Yes, the w it it can't be, you know, it's not it's not barbell and wait. It's barbell, it's you know, I've had s a lot of different answers here.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. so if I can have a barbell but I can't have weights. God. I was I saw that and I was like, man, I'd say landmine, but you gotta have a barbell and landmine. Man, you know what? I might I might say Damn, that's tough, brother.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. And I've had it it's funny the the different people.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Probably a barbell.
Joe Ryan: Barbell.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause I don't have to have the landmine. I could always, you know, just dig a hole and let it rocker down in there. But it wouldn't have weight, so you're kinda limited, but you can always, you know, tempos, time, you can you can make it harder. So I'm probably the I'm a barbell guy anyways.
Joe Ryan: Do a lot of different stuff with them. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: like we we when we designed that weight room, was like, I want as many bars as we can get in here safely. You know, so
Joe Ryan: Dude. I love that. I got two per rack. I got an Olympic bar and a power bar.
Coach Doug Castleberry: well we we've we got bars. we went with Texas Power Bar, it's all American bars, so it's got the knurling in the middle. But they're like, Well we're what about cleaning? I was like, what about cleaning? I was like, Good.
Joe Ryan: Yep. We got those in yeah, we got those in our Olympic room.
Coach Doug Castleberry: We'll have proof that we're catching it deep in the in the rack and you'll have that little barbell hickey, you'll be okay.
Joe Ryan: Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: but yeah, probably just a good old fashioned barbell, man.
Joe Ryan: I've heard it all. I've heard I've heard battle rope to trampoline to kettlebell
Coach Doug Castleberry: Okay.
Joe Ryan: because, you know, it's all about the way they think. You know, some people
Coach Doug Castleberry: I was thinking at the to be honest, after you said no it, I was thinking maybe T R X. You know?
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Some people, you know, like I had an athletic trainer on. She said battle rope because in her profession, her mind, it's keep everybody safe. So I'm gonna take
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: a battle rope to figure it out. Chris Martin, the strength coach for LSU baseball, said trampoline because he said if I'm strained, I'm gonna have fun at least. I get it. You know, it's all about the mindset, man, and I love it.
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt, man. That's that's I I wasn't even thinking about entertainment. I was thinking
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: about what can I get the most work done with.
Joe Ryan: Yep. So coach, look man, I've had a freaking fantastic this is one of the best episodes
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, that'll look.
Joe Ryan: we have, although the internet and on my end kind of messed up a little bit, but it makes it better. You know, I
Coach Doug Castleberry: So I'll get in. Yeah.
Joe Ryan: had a I had computer die recently. I thought it was charging the whole time and had to finish an episode by myself. So
Coach Doug Castleberry: There you go.
Joe Ryan: but look, you know, people want to follow you. Instagram. Yeah, I think it's what it what was the Instagram tag? I have it, but
Coach Doug Castleberry: coach I don't even know dude. let's see. I think it's coach underscore seaberry, I believe. I don't even know how to find it. Is
Joe Ryan: Ha.
Coach Doug Castleberry: that bad? I don't know. If you look on Instagram, just look up Doug Castleberry and
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Yeah, and
Coach Doug Castleberry: it'll come up. But I think it's co there it is, it's up top. Coach underscore and then C Barry.
Joe Ryan: There you go. There's if y'all want to give coach a follow, you know, see what he does day to day, see a little bit inside the life, how you balance it all, how you balance family, how you balance work, and kind of see some some pretty proficient lifting and and a lot of athletes going on. Y'all give coach a follow. And you know, again, coach, we can't thank you enough for taking time out your day, coming on here, and and we're very excited for this to come out.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Absolutely, man. I appreciate you having me. It was a good time.
Joe Ryan: Absolutely, brother. Well if y'all need anything else, y'all go ahead and give us a follow on the Moffat Method on all social medias. That's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and go ahead and give this a follow when it comes out. It'll be on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, yeah. I woke up some lightning pretty early this morning. Not not that we need to be woke up, you know that that internal alarm gets you every time, but we'll take it, you know. twenty years ago I probably would have been mad about it, but as I get older, you know makes the grass grow.
Joe Ryan: yeah. I know the feeling. You know, my lawn was set to go off a little bit later than usual this morning and sure enough at at normal time my eyes popped open and I'm like, Well, I guess we're starting the day today.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, right on. Go ahead and start the coffee pot.
Joe Ryan: Yeah man. So how's summer going so far? Good?
Coach Doug Castleberry: It's good, man. We three weeks in with the with the summer stuff, two with our younger kids, but you know, idea idea for us is just don't miss a beat, you know, just keep rolling. We know we know that the summer's huge for us. especially on the football side of things, that we we've gotta get more out of our summer than everybody else. And that's we we try to put a urgency under our kids like that that Hey look, this seven weeks is not a it's not a game. It's not a like we've we've got a this is where we're making up ground, you know.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: so it's it's been good. trending in the right way, you know,
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: going in. I think we got one more week and then we give off that July fourth week. So
Joe Ryan: That's all I was gonna ask you is when when do y'all kinda get a break?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, we'll go four weeks, week off, and then finish up four in July with the football kids and then they kick it off August fourth, I guess, or third, I believe.
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: the girls get out a little they they finish a week early because they start their you know, volleyball camp starts earlier, all that stuff. So yeah, man,
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: we're we're we're trending in the right way, I think. Kids are kids are responding well and showing up most importantly.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, and I think I think people are catching a little light, I think, on social media, especially Instagram of y'all's immaculate facilities, huh?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Man, that that wasn't supposed to that wasn't supposed to be that wasn't supposed to
Joe Ryan: Believe me, hey, look, we just we just built something brand new and I know exactly how you feel right now. Everybody's got the same questions and everybody's like, Man, it's so great. It's so the
Coach Doug Castleberry: It wasn't it it wasn't supposed to be like that.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I didn't know it was gonna be like that. I just had a guy reach out, Max reached out and was like, hey man, can I come to your facility? I was like, Yeah, sure. Come on man, I'd love to show you around and and he throws a mic on me, he's like, Just give me a tour like you would, you know, kids or parents or whatever and it kinda turned into T V cribs.
Joe Ryan: That's what that's what we actually called ours Denim Springs Cribs is what we did. Which
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: I mean we have a huge media department here and it's great and
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: it's you know, but I mean I I know the exact feeling you have doing those things. It's kinda like, Man, I just wanna I d I want the office to know I don't even work here, you know. Just le leave me in the weight room.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, and I joke I joke with a lot of people over there. It's like, you know, I don't I don't have to go into school building much now
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: 'cause I'm in the field house and I've got, you know, we're on a block schedule so it's four days or four four periods a day for an hour and a half. Well, three of those periods I've got athletes, you know. And
Joe Ryan: Uh-huh.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I kind of joke. I'm like I don't even know if I I'd be willing to bet there's people in that school building don't even know I work here. I like it like that.
Joe Ryan: Yep. Me too. I the farthest I make it in a day is twice a week I make it to the cafeteria for lunch duty. And that's
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: it. Like that's the that is my and that is coach, it's maybe a hundred yards if that from the field house. So it's not very far. You know, I don't
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yep.
Joe Ryan: if I don't have to go up there and we're all good, we're all good.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Bread on. Bread on. Moving on.
Joe Ryan: So but I know exactly how that is, man. It's but it's exciting. It is exciting to kinda show what you provide and kind of people see a a day in the life of all the moving parts.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, I know I don't I don't think a lot of people get it. but one hundred percent like I I'm still convinced that there's people that don't know exactly what we do.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: okay, you just work kids out. Yeah, that's that's yeah, that's it.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, you're the you're the you're the guy that yells a lot on the sideline and da da da. And
Coach Doug Castleberry: That's why
Joe Ryan: a lot of people, you know, they see, I don't know, man. I'm I'm a big Kurt Hester disciple and
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: he he was very, very against the you know, mustache, tight sleeves, you know, all that and you know, there's a p time and place for that, but that's not what everybody is, you know. I'm
Coach Doug Castleberry: No, no, well you can't be. You know,
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: especially when you're working 'cause you you're taking twelve to fourteen programs and yeah, your football kids, they respond to that. They love that. They want the juice and the guy and the bouncing around and smacking people and whatever, you know, but if you roll into tennis with that same intensity, man, you're getting
Joe Ryan: I got I got too, coach. Don't worry about the kids, man. I got mine too running around.
Coach Doug Castleberry: So he's fired up. He he he's up before I am.
Joe Ryan: That's awesome.
Coach Doug Castleberry: but yeah man, you you've gotta kinda be a chameleon and you know, 'cause kids there's you got kids that come in that that is that's not their niche. They're not they're not excited about being there. They they're not comfortable in that room because that may be their first experience. So if you come off, you know, full on full on, you know, juice daddy, you might scare a little bit.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, that's how swim, man. That swim's my swim is my
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: you know, swim's not in there wanting to you know, get their name on the two twenty five cleanboard every day, you know. They're kinda like We're here because we have to be.
Coach Doug Castleberry: No, no, no, no.
Joe Ryan: So well look, tell us a little bit, man. You know, you dive into it. You you you well obviously South Lake Carroll it's a very historic program in Texas. You know, I grew up there. A lot of people know who it is, you know, obviously you off sent tons
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: of players to the next level. You have a high identity, in the NFL too, you know, with with guys making it there, you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right.
Joe Ryan: so tell us a little bit how you got to where you're at, where you've been, you know, how how things and you develop the You develop where you're at, man. I know everybody's got a great story.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Well it's it's i it I d I don't I I guess it's a calling, man. I I don't know. firm believer that you just gotta w you gotta work in front of the right people. You know, the right people have to see you work. when I first I was an English teacher, football coach, baseball coach for thirteen years and I had in my head that I wanted to be a head coach. when my at Northwest when our street coach left, he took an internship with Yancey.
Joe Ryan: Simply.
Coach Doug Castleberry: at UT. And so he took off. I I kinda asked our AD at a baseball game. I was man, who you gonna get to replace him? We don't have anybody better than that. And he goes, well you could do it. And man the gear started spinning and I didn't have my CSCS at the time. I was his, you know, his le his football guy. He came to me about lifts and I would I would run it for him. so he could go with other programs and stuff. And it just kinda grew from there. Geno Pierce came and asked me to come run a site for him in the summers for the performance
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: course. so I went out and ran ASEL for six or seven years and kinda got a taste of what strength coach life was like and organization and planning and all that stuff. And then yeah, man, Joel took a chance on me and and and said, Man, I'll you can get your C S C S, that's fine. Well okay and and Just kinda worked from there, man. Worked there for seven years, eight years as a strength coach. and then Coach Dodge came in and he was our O C for one season and then he got the South Lake job and then they created that position and knocked on the door. So I was like, Hey man, why wouldn't you wanna go be a part of something like that? And
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: So so why not? And then man, they've done nothing. It's been nothing but a honeymoon since I got there. It's it's I mean, the first first year they rebuilt our middle school weight rooms. Second year they rebuilt the high school weight room. third year they redid the indoor and gave us twenty more stations in the indoor. So we've got fifty two stations on campus that where there's really there's really no excuse for us not to get our work.
Joe Ryan: in man, that's amazing.
Coach Doug Castleberry: We've got places to do it now. And so it it's been r it's been really nice. and it like I said, man, I I I don't know what Coach Dodge saw, what he liked, but it it was enough. So Yeah, I gu I guess.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, it was something, right? And look, I think we all cause I kinda had a similar like I kinda knew I wanted to be a strength coach. I kinda didn't. my goal actually was to be a head coach, just like you,
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: you know, at some point. And it was kinda like, you know, why not why not kinda have similar responsibilities? You know, you get to be around the kids all the time. You can you know, you're you're with them more than anyone, you know, outside of really the head coach and it's You know, you kinda get the similar responsibilities without all the the responsibilities, you know. The sitting in the sitting in the chair and being the Yeah. You know,
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, without the going to the booster club and answering phone calls and no doubt. No doubt.
Joe Ryan: that everybody wants to be there 'til it's time to be there, right?
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt. No doubt. I don't know if everybody wants to schedule all the time 'cause you know, it's it's like, yeah, an off season, right? Well, yeah. Yeah, they are, but we got six other sports in season. and
Joe Ryan: Yep. That's what there's a lot of computer time. A lot of lot of this time, right? It's I don't know how you are. I I kinda I wish I'd a paid attention
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt. I can stand.
Joe Ryan: more in like computer science classes. Learning Excel and learning all this stuff. And not having to teach myself. Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yup. Wish wish I would have listened more, I tell you that, man, 'cause that that Google slides and them formulas will boy, that'll have you that'll have you rethinking life.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, and like I tell, you know, I get interns every now and then and like I
Coach Doug Castleberry: Okay.
Joe Ryan: like I tell them, like, once you set it up once, you're good. It's just
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: getting past that initial doing it, you know. And
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: same thing as you, I'm sure, you know, like it's the same thing for me every summer. It's once I get it built, we're good. It's just getting to that point.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Getting it there and getting it input and then yeah, once yeah, once I try to stay ahead and like I'd like to think, you know, in a perfect world, yeah, you've got your, you know, your annual periodization laid out.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: But man, I buddy of mine, Monty Sparkman up here, and he he told me a long time ago, he's like, I plan about a month out. Why is that? I was
Joe Ryan: Yeah. And so
Coach Doug Castleberry: like, I mean, I I know, you know, we have in in theory, we have this is where we wanna be, but And kids progress differently, you know, and then we're not we're not just gonna, you know, progress just to say we did. You know, we're gonna make sure we work, especially 'cause I'm a I'm an Olympic lifting guy. Like I I I'm gonna teach it and I think it's worth it and we can get into that later, but man, I j we're just not gonna progress to progress. You know, we're gonna make sure we master it and my freshmen are figuring that out right now and I tell every day, I was like, I don't care. I don't care about the weight on the bar. You're not gonna impress me right now. Like you're not. Like, yeah, you're stronger now than you've ever been. And the idea is that in three years you're stronger than you were then. I mean, you know, but you're moving it right. And so we I don't know, man. getting them to understand that and to drop the egos a little bit and to you know, really hone in on what we're trying to get done.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: But at the same time, man, mean you you gotta be a little bit. You mean it's like, look, man, we will be smart, don't be soft.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right? Like like don't run from strain. but just you know, get to understand strain, you know.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, that's the that's the I see that more like you say with the freshmen. You know, we're we're in week three with our freshmen. I know y'all start a little bit week later with them, but they're just now getting to the point where we're actually catching the bar and our clean, you know, the first
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: few weeks was just kind of and we'll do winter workouts with them, you know, feb February to April kind of get them broken into what I like to call weight room etiquette and just where things go, how the process works, how we how we dress when we walk in here, things like that. But they're just getting to the point where we're actually catching in that front rack position. But for me
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, indeed.
Joe Ryan: it's like I don't I mean dude, I don't care if you're cleaning, you know, a plate right now. I don't care if you're just cleaning the bar. Like I treat the way our freshman Schedule set up and I don't know how y'all's is, but they're really only practicing one or two days a week and playing one game. So I treat their in season almost like it's
Coach Doug Castleberry: Off season.
Joe Ryan: off season. Not so much the volume of it, but like
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right.
Joe Ryan: the intensity of it's gonna be the same because we're still learning for a year. I still want to see if you I'm trying to see if you wanna be here. If you really want to do this, you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: So I get exactly what you mean, man. It's it's a process and people don't normally see see how much goes into it, but it's a it's a lot of time spent questioning and and figuring it out.
Coach Doug Castleberry: and and man, yeah. And I get I'll I'll be honest, there's times I do get tired of watching the same thing. I'm like, okay, man, I wanna progress. No. Majority room's not there. Like
Joe Ryan: Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: you you know, and it's I have a bad habit about I'll find the I'll find the the one kid that ain't getting it. And
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it will completely hang my success rate on that kid. Like, I'm a terrible coach. This kid can't figure this out. Like, what do we do? Ninety ninety percent of them are killing it, but I'm You know, you don't know.
Joe Ryan: Yep, I know, I know exactly what you mean, you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I mean that kid yeah, you know. He may be
Joe Ryan: Yeah, I know. Yeah, I get
Coach Doug Castleberry: bought in. He may be completely, you know, just checked out and probably won't even be with us next year. I don't know. But, you know, it's I I find him and well I well I I'll beat myself up about that. But
Joe Ryan: Me too, man. And and I this is probably the best year I've gotten and we can dive into this a little bit more, but this is probably the best year I've gotten with our girl sports.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: Understanding that like, you know, I have a daughter who will be here in a year or two.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Okay.
Joe Ryan: And I'm starting to understand more because she's been waking up with me and coming to lift with me in the morning times. Like
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: I I refuse to wake her up because I'm like If you want to do this, you need to wake yourself up. And she does. I I give it to her. She's up at, you know, four o'clock every morning like I'm coming with you. Awesome. But I'm starting to learn more and more spending time with her, like with our female athletes, it needs to be fun for them to really push themselves.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: Whereas the male athletes, they push themselves to have fun. If that makes sense.
Coach Doug Castleberry: It's a yeah. No, I'm with you.
Joe Ryan: And I I'm learning that more and more and like I try to make it more of a I've tried this year to make it more of a not we're having fun everyday environment, but it's more of a we're having fun, we're in here to still work hard, and I'm getting so much more out of because of it. You know, I Yep. Yep. You know, I
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. Turn up to T turn up to Tate McCrae and let him work.
Joe Ryan: let them I that's a you know, I'm glad you bring up some of that is like I learned this I saw it somewhere years ago of you know, I love music just as much as the next person, but a lot of this is for them. You know, it's not they don't like they don't even know who damn blink one eighty two is. You know what I mean? They don't
Coach Doug Castleberry: No. No.
Joe Ryan: like what I like, but I need to mix in some of what I like with what they like and boom, here we go.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, p Pantera on a squat day doesn't hit doesn't hit for them like it does me.
Joe Ryan: Mm mm. Nope, nope, nope. But they I was playing I was in there just a minute ago and I was playing cold play and I got two of those those national lifters. I was telling you about one of them's like, yeah, coach, I can lift to this and the other one's like, We need to turn this off. Can I please have the music? And I'm like, Yeah, I'm I'm going out of here anyways, don't worry. But so look, so you hired in twenty twenty three at South Lake. You know, you're the first district wide strength coach, you know, something that seems like it was pretty heavily supported by the community and everything like that. You know, what's what's it like walking into a place like that that has such tradition already to kind of be, all right, here's the guy. We're we're starting this program from scratch.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right. prior prior to me there, football football was going. I mean,
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: that's I've told everybody that and I told the kids that I was like, look, what's your like you're you were winning before I got here. Okay, like my job is one is just to keep you healthy, keep getting you stronger in a scientific way to where, you know, we're doing it the right way. And Coach Mun, Coach Sides, we've got two coaches on staff that hold a CSCS on the football side of things.
Joe Ryan: Nice.
Coach Doug Castleberry: So they they the template was in place. Like I mean we we get the most out of our kids. They've been getting the most out of their kids before they got there. It was just a matter of taking that off their plate so they can worry about football. And now it's all right, I'm taking that template and I'm putting here's the things I think we need to be doing. Right, here's the progressions we're gonna work, here's how we're gonna organize it, whatever. The biggest, probably most proud, I mean I am, I'm proud of my football guys. They they kill it. They are they do. But as far as is just getting the the other groups, you know, the tennises and the swims and the girls' soccer, boys' soccer, getting them into it and getting them consistent in it and understanding what like we go back to what strain is and you know, we don't have to not we're not in here to kill you every day. That's not the idea. Right, we're gonna leave some meat on the bone for the next day when I'm not out here smoke you and and getting them to understand that I'm not just I'm not just a football guy. Right. So Ed make winning them over, you know, because you have to. And and this
Joe Ryan: yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: this job and yeah, it's about sets and reps and organization. More you know, organization, organizational mastermind is what it is. Right? You've gotta be an organizational guru.
Joe Ryan: Ha ha ha.
Coach Doug Castleberry: If you're organized and you're excited about it. After that it's just relationships. And I know it's cheesy and it's
Joe Ryan: absolutely.
Coach Doug Castleberry: cliche and everybody you can say that about everything. But when the kids understand that you really do care about them and that, hey, you know what? We're done. We did you killed it today. We yeah, we got more to do, but we got what we needed. Let's get off our feet because I know you're beat up, because what you know, just let them know you're looking out for And and that that's probably the number one thing that I would say probably help me. was getting the kids to understand that like I'm I'm here to help you. Like I'm not I'm not here to dog cuss you. I'm not here to wear you out. I'm not here to run you to the bone. obviously talking with them, you gotta have relationships in order to have conversations. Find out where they're at and what's hey, what's the deal today, right? Like why are you why are you beat up so much all the time? And finding out what's going on outside the walls. And understanding that th those stresses have an impact on how you train. And so I I would say that, just winning them over, getting them understand that I'm there for and that I'm I'm you know, I'm just trying to keep available. You know, we we we say it all the time and I'm pretty sure it's a pretty common thing, is your best ability is availability. You know. you're you're no you're no good to anybody hurt. You're not good to me, you're not good to the team, and your parents are probably gonna be angry because they spent all that money on you playing these sports and now they don't even get to watch you play 'cause you're hurt. So big things, keep available. and so that that's from how we talk about nutrition, I would love to say, Yeah, we got it locked in on the nutrition and our kids are, you know, meeting it 1.8 gram. What bro, I get them for two. I'm with
Joe Ryan: Yeah. S says the bag of talkies they're walking around with, right?
Coach Doug Castleberry: the Gatorade. you know, it's just it's just trying to put the right information in front of yeah, it'd be cool if we were all locked in like that, but I'm with for at at most, at most two hours a day.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: They got twenty-two other hours a day that they've got to take care of themselves, and and so it's just more or less trying to keep informed. of like this is what this is what it should look like. This is what it is. I communicate a lot of our sport our nutritionist stuff through sports you like grocery lists and 'cause I mean, yeah, you can tell the kids, but the kids ain't filling the pantry. Mom and dad are.
Joe Ryan: Mm-mm. Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: So trying to get that information to the parents as to hey, like, you know, this is this is what it needs to look like at the house.
Joe Ryan: That's one of my biggest preaches, coaches it's like, you know, you touched on it a little bit, you know, two things is like you talk about the workouts, you know, I'm a real big just like I'm sure you are with the Olympic base is I'm here to build athletes. I
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt.
Joe Ryan: I don't you know, football's wired different. Absolutely. A any s any school you go to, I mean football's wired different. There's it's gonna
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yep.
Joe Ryan: be more intense, it's gonna be rowdier, it's gonna be, you know, heavier lifting weight. But
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: they're still lifting like athletes. I don't tell me what a football workout looks like. Tell me what a volleyball workout looks like. I'm just trying to build athletes here. That's
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt.
Joe Ryan: like, you know, one of my biggest headaches sometimes is when, you know, I hear the, you know, volleyball parent or the softball parent or the you know baseball parent of like, well, we're lifting like football players. No, we're just lifting like athletes. Like we're we're gonna clean, we're gonna squat front and back, we're gonna bench because I found that kids just like benching, you know, you want buy in, let's bench a little bit, you know. We're gonna look good yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt. You gotta you gotta play the game. It's a little Mac Coon told me that he's a buried smoke and mirrors.
Joe Ryan: Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Smoke and mirrors. yeah, I d it's it's not only that.
Joe Ryan: And just having some of that, man, it's just like you gotta you gotta like you said, play the game sometimes. Get them bought in.
Coach Doug Castleberry: And that's what I try to sell to the kids. I'm like, and I'll repost, you know, like follow college strength coaches and put it on your story and stuff. But I'm like like I don't do that to show the weight that they're doing. I do that to show you that if you intend on going to the next level, this is what's gonna be expected of you. So those, you know, two second pauses in the bottom and those four second eccentrics is not just stuff made up. Like you're gonna see that. And and the same thing with the with the Olympic lifts, I mean, yeah, I you and I both know, yeah, you can get you can get the power output from throwing balls and med box or box jumps. I know that. But I feel like I'm doing a disservice to the kids if I don't at least teach them the movement so that maybe if they do get that chance, they give a chance to shine in that Devo group when they roll into that, you know, UT or wherever you go. we had a kid, he'll shout out to Eric Garza. He walked on at UT and just so happens my stepson is interning at UT. Okay, so he's on the football side. He knows who Eric Garza is. Eric Garza knows who he is. And he'd I mean he told me from day one, he's like, probably the best mover we have in our Devo group. He goes, overall. He goes, maybe not be the strongest dude in there, but dude knows how to move. He knows he knows technique has been coached, it's clear. And I mean, yeah, it feels good, but I only had Eric for one year. Like that's Eric, well, I came in his senior year and then he was gone in December. But I think he left early. But you know, it it's it's getting him to understand that I'm I'm I'm just trying to put you ahead of the game a little bit.
Joe Ryan: That's what, you know, I'm sure you're the same way. I pride myself on some of that. Like I wanna know that you're ready to go in there. It means I'm doing my job here.
Coach Doug Castleberry: It warms my heart when they come back like coach you thank I'm I was I was ready. Like I might not
Joe Ryan: I was ready. Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: have been ready for the schedule, I might not have been ready for the load of the expectation, even though we I still think what I I'm proud of what we do. Like I mean I am like as on the football side especially because they do, they get a true off season. whereas my soccer's don't really they don't really get an off season.
Joe Ryan: Soccer, baseball, you know, it's with yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: all the club sports because volleyball, I mean we try to work around it with volleyball because our our head coach is she Leslie she's she's plugged into the the the volleyball world outside the club stuff so she can be like all right look this week we they've got a huge you know nationals or whatever and this tournament here we got a lot of girls going so we can adjust our training there but like soccer man they got they all play different clubs, they all got different schedules. So we I basically just have to treat them like they're in season all year long. You know. we got a couple of little things, you know, we have a red light system, if you want to call it that, to where that's you communicate with me ahead of time, coach, I got a game tomorrow or I got a game tonight. How do I need to change my lift? And that This was a big thing because any if you're like me, like I grew up in the in the time where you don't lift on game days. You know, you don't lift day before a game, you don't create soreness, whatever. But we're just uneducated. You know? Whereas now it's like,
Joe Ryan: Yeah, yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: no, no, no, no, no. Like, y'all know you play today, that's fine. You can still lift. We're just gonna make modifications to the number of times you have to do that movement. And so Yeah, and that's it, man.
Joe Ryan: Cut it in half or cut it in three quarters, yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: We a red light system a red light means You're cutting a set and you're cutting the reps in half. So even if we're hitting 90 for doubles, let's just say, right? Hey, you're gonna come in, you're gonna pop that bad boy for a single, which shouldn't be a problem, and you're only gonna do two double or two singles instead of three doubles.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right? So you're still getting that load, your body still feels that external load, and you're you're not you're not doing it enough to create any kind of soreness or fatigue or anything like that. If anything, if anything.
Joe Ryan: And that's my yes, it's
Coach Doug Castleberry: It should f make you feel better. Like you going in there and you smoke ninety percent. Woo. Rack it. Let's go. You feel good. Let's get it. You know, confidence. One hundred percent. One hundred percent.
Joe Ryan: Yep, it's the confidence part of it. Yeah, absolutely. The confidence part. And the that's what you know, I'm not saying it happens here, but I see it happen, you know, the the talk about it on social media sometimes is, you know, leading up to those games and all that. Well you can't take an intensity that you've had since August and just because you're leading up to the game means the intensity goes out.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I lost it.
Joe Ryan: Think I lost coach. trying to reconnect.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You cut out, coach.
Joe Ryan: I have stable internet. This is the beauty of this podcast for all you listening, is that it's it's real life, you know, it's not this planned out or sitting down doing anything. This is real life. Coach had a little bit of bad weather, so he might have missed on some of this.
Coach Doug Castleberry: there you go. You froze up for a second, I'm sorry.
Joe Ryan: There he's there is back, see. I was talking. Hey, don't coach, that's what I was just telling everyone, like, this is real life, guys. We don't sit down and plan this out. Like a little bit of bad weather, it might go in and out, you know. But
Coach Doug Castleberry: I was about to text you and be like, man, you froze on me.
Joe Ryan: I think we both froze, but I I kept talking, I kept it going, man. But yeah, you know, people people you can't take that intensity since August and then just cut it off because we started the season. Your kids are gonna get worse.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Well I mean to me I mean I I was thinking about this when, you know, you sent me the list last night and was looking at it. It to me it's it's as simple as this. Like you y I think one of the things you said, what's what was one of the questions, it was I don't remember what it was now. But like you can't you sit there and you you take the whole off season to build your body, right? To to withstand the the the intensities of the season. Well when you hit that season you can't just stop doing it. Cause then you're gonna keep asking big things of your body and eventually big things are gonna you're gonna break down. Right? Like, I mean, it's it's that simple. If you do something, you're taking a swing and you're swinging, I don't know, 150 times a day, fine, but you can't dial back when you continue to do that because your body, you're you can't handle it. Like that bars fracture is gonna happen, that oblique tear is gonna happen, or whatever it is. You know, you you've gotta keep straining, you've gotta keep training your body to withstand what you're asking it to do.
Joe Ryan: And that's what, you know, I'm real big on. I heard Connor Neighbors used to be the strength coach at UL and now he's with Coach Moffitt at Texas AM. I heard him talk
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: one time about riding the wave. And I'm real big on that. You know, if I know that it's a because I have my my monthly plan of this is where I want to be at the end of the month, but I write the first week's workout and base the rest of the three weeks off that first week because week one and week two might look totally different. You know, if we go into week we week week one and it's a tough game for whatever sport. and or a tough, you know, here in Louisiana, we're real big baseball wise and softball are tournaments heavy at the beginning of the season.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: So I know that, you know, we got to ride the wave and it it might not look exactly the same and we might not be able to, we might have to keep that that percentage in our periodization at a certain level for three weeks and
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: just kind of build upon there and move the weight fast rather than, all right, we're gonna load up this weight. You know, I I kind of I've learned that over the years and gotten smarter about that.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you you you do. You have to meet where they're at.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I mean I and I know coach all the co every coach is they've got a they've got a let's say this. They got a pucker moment.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right? When the game's too big and the weight room's not that important anymore. Every every coach does. Everybody does. It could be the Super Bowl, might be your pucker game, might be last year's district champion. I don't know. Right? But there's gonna be a point where that Tighten up
Joe Ryan: Mm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: and all of a sudden, hey, we need that extra thirty-five, forty minutes on the field. Or we need that. You know you need to be in here. Right. And and I get it, dude. And then and then that's maybe that's a benefit of me being a ball coach prior to that. As I understand head coaches and I tell the story a couple of times, not taking shots at coach, but it was. I mean, our volleyball girls, they They hit district play. Now, our district is no joys. It's tough in volleyball. So we had Keller and we had Byron Nelson. Right? Byron Nelson is a 6A Division I state champions in volleyball. Two times. They were national champions. They're good. They're good.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Well, we wrote we were pretty good too. Well, we get into that game. We play them on a Tuesday. And I had baseball softball going on after school, girls were coming over after their volleyball practice to live. So I had everything set up, boxes out, timers set, all they had to do was come in and press play and go. And I look in there and workout didn't run. Boxes were still out. I'm like, okay. So I text Coach, like, hey, how'd it go? Right? I was gonna see if I catch her in a trap. She goes, We didn't come over today, Coach. We meant we needed the court time. I was like, okay. And I didn't say nothing. They play Bayern Nelson on Tuesday, they lose. Okay.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: All right, cool. Keller comes up the next week on a Tuesday. Keller's good too. Same thing. All right. I think we rolled it back one more time. She she did it a third time, and I think it was against Byron the second time we played.
Joe Ryan: Second time around, yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Mm-hmm. I said, all right, coach. Hey, none of my business. I said, but. Every Monday you've skipped, we've lost on Tuesday. Happened three times. We lost to Keller, we lost to Byron twice. I said I'm not saying I'm not saying anything about what I'm doing is causing us to win or lose games. But kids can sense that. Yeah. They may not, it may not
Joe Ryan: Consistency. Consistency, that's yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it may not be the greatest work in the world, but the schedule didn't change, and the kids want to know why we didn't come lift. And now they see that pucker in their puckered, just keep it keep them coming. Just keep coming. It may it may be twenty minutes. It might
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: be abbreviated, but just keep the consistency of it. Right.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, I don't care if we come in and we're just cleaning and we're doing some buys and tries. I don't care. But we need that we
Coach Doug Castleberry: Get out.
Joe Ryan: need to have it.
Coach Doug Castleberry: And so I call, I I said something to her. I was like, coach, and just after that, she goes, it'll never happen again. And then I don't think they lost again after that. They went on, they ran the they ran the table, they won the 6th A Division II title. It was awesome. It was it was cool.
Joe Ryan: That's amazing. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: But again, I mean it total coincidence. It ain't nothing I'm doing. But I it was just it was like
Joe Ryan: Dude, this has to be my internet.
Coach Doug Castleberry: go I just just bring just send Just l keep the schedule the
Joe Ryan: I'm not sure.
Coach Doug Castleberry: same. And it was kind of a fun story, but we had some really, really talented girls, really special group of girls. And they bought in that that would have been year three with them. So that first group was I guess they were sophomores when they got
Joe Ryan: We're about to find out. I'm sure he'll be back in just a second. Trying to reconnect. Make sure you have stable internet. This is gonna be a great episode no matter what. When we chop it up and we make sure it's good.
Coach Doug Castleberry: there and they bought into it, man. We were just waiting for to kinda flourish as leaders.
Joe Ryan: And I don't know what the heck's going on.
Coach Doug Castleberry: And and they did. Man, it was it was it was a fun run to watch, man. It was a good group of chicks. But yeah. So
Joe Ryan: So yeah, man, it's it's you know, it has to be. You know what I mean? It it's and I have sports like that, but just like you said, you know, coaching a sport still, you kinda you are wary of some of it, but at the same time it's kinda like we still have to get in there and get the work in because it has to be that consistency, that schedule. They end up questioning, especially when you get bought in. It's like they end up questioning what's what are we doing? Why aren't we doing? How are we doing? Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Mm-hmm. well. And it makes me laugh. Coach, man, we why ain't we lifting? I don't know, dog.
Joe Ryan: Yep. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Y'all got a time slot right here. It's
Joe Ryan: Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: on the computer right there. I I don't know. I'm not
Joe Ryan: Yep. I I'm real big on
Coach Doug Castleberry: I'm not gonna sell the head coach under the table. I'm not gonna put it on just I don't know.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Mm, yep. That's I'm real big on keeping dates for everything.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: I don't wanna be I don't want the you know, we're the first ones a lot of the time I I I do love this profession and I I I find it funny sometimes because we're the first ones to sometimes get blamed of why things are going wrong,
Coach Doug Castleberry: yeah.
Joe Ryan: but we're never the first ones of like Hey man, you kinda built these kids up to where they're at. And you know, I'm not saying it's all us because you still gotta have the sport coach. They're the X's and O's at the end of the day, but like, you know, our injuries went down this much, our da da da da da da, like we we made it this far with the toughness and the but we're also the first ones of like, well, things are going bad, you know, we need to take away this first. So
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right. Right. No, I mean it's you know, it's a fight to stay relevant.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I guess that's life in general, man. It's just a fight to
Joe Ryan: Absolutely.
Coach Doug Castleberry: stay relevant. And and but for young coaches and strength coaches and guys that are getting into it, like if if you're not the voice for it, there won't be one.
Joe Ryan: Mm mm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know, like like if something's wrong and and some if they're mi like you've gotta you've gotta speak up. You gotta say
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: something like and shoot a text, be like, Hey man, I'd love to see your kids. Like, like we need I just need thirty minutes. Give me thirty minutes with you know, just but you've gotta you've gotta voice it because those coaches, man, they do, they get they get laser locked in, especially you get a tight district race where games every game's important. They've got, you know, wins and losses is there. That's that's how they feed their families.
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right? So it's you gotta kinda kinda goes back to the relationship thing of of being comfortable enough to pull the head coach aside and say, Look, I gotta see your kids more. Like if if I've moved
Joe Ryan: Yep. That's what our our
Coach Doug Castleberry: and you've gotta be flexible. If I need to move it to during the period or after school, you don't wanna do whatever. I'll do whatever I gotta take, but just let me get your kids another day a week or whatever. You know
Joe Ryan: Yeah, I like flipping ours around just so that it w what's happy for them, you know, like 'cause I have a lot of sports in the same block, right?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: So like for me it's like varsity boys basketball and varsity volleyball are in the same block.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: So it's it's give and take, you know, when volleyball's in season, they come in first because they're in a in season workout. It takes me t
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: twenty, twenty five minutes. Basketball
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. Quick hitter.
Joe Ryan: will come in the second half, you know, if it's a game day volleyball knows they're in for fifteen, twenty minutes, you know, we're game day lift, they know what it is. We're in, we're out, let's go.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: and I flip them around in the off season, you know, when or as volleyball ends, you know, and they start their off season. Basketball is first now. And like I like to keep them happy and we balance everything out and the gym time's balanced out. And, you know, they're real good about it. They're real good about coach. You know, we have to and I'm even okay with coach if we 'cause I get them three days a week, no matter what. I'm okay if we're in season and you're like coach, you know, like We might bump it down to two days a week. That's fine. I get it. But two days is better than no days. Two da
Coach Doug Castleberry: So no doubt. I've I've given up as many as going down to one. And it was smoke and mirrors. It
Joe Ryan: Yeah. I've done that with baseball. Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: was, you know, new coach came in, new coach to South Lake. Same year I came in and it was, hey, we can come in on Wednesdays. I'm like, okay. All right. I'll I'll play the game this year.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Next year when we get to the off season or end of the school year, I'm like, look, I would love, give me your kids one more day. It could be after practice, maybe before practice. You tell me when's good for you, but we need them in here twice a week. You know, and obviously during your tournament time, soccer, baseball, volleyball, one time a week is probably all you're gonna get.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know, if if you're lucky to get two, I'll take two, don't get me wrong, but I also get it. Like your kids are about to go play six games and run 18 miles, you know, like I get it. I get it. You know, so we'll t stay off the lower half if we have to on that one day. Like, all right, keep your leg fresh. Let's go. Maybe do some type of single leg, like box blast, just to get some kind of output or power output from the lower half. Then all right, go. You know, get out, go go win games. And then usually during that tournament time, I'll try to If they do give me a second day or they do give me a little more time, I'll try to do some type of recovery circuit for You know, where yeah, you're gonna go in, we might hit it might be a clean complex and then we're gonna grab foam rollers and we're gonna, you know, barbell smash your legs and soft tissue stuff, lacrosse ball the feet. All right, get out, you know, and just give and take a little bit. You know, the kids kids like that sometimes that the barbell smash, some of them boy, they don't like it that much. I think it feels great. But boy that get on them get on them Achilles tendons and them calves, boy, them kids start squealing a bit.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, that's that man, I I go you know, I go I still lift and everything and I go see a chiropractor and a masseuse, you know, once a month and I I don't I refuse to let the masseuse touch my lower half because I'm very I'm the same way, man. Those calves and those Achilles, I'm like don't don't touch. I Yep, I let me just
Coach Doug Castleberry: Little pressure.
Joe Ryan: deal with it. Let me just deal with it my own way, you know. Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Sweating
Joe Ryan: So, you know, you talk a lot about your varsity sports, but I know you kinda handle that pipeline of seven through twelve, right? And you kinda you know, a little bit of it, a voice in it all, you know, how's how you making sure they're ready once they get there?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Well we man, it it don't go unless the coaches do. You know that.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: you know, our middle schools, if I'm being honest with you, they're understaffed, they're outnumbered. so organizations big. I don't get to the middle schools enough. I'll be honest with you. Like I'm
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I'm more of a liaison, a consultant, if you want to call it that. I'm a kind of no news is good news because I've got varsity and J V groups running During the same time they do. so man, we keep we keep it pretty simple. We don't progress them too fast. I know I'll see in the summers. So that's when I take that time to build relationships. But I mean, we man, we start we seventh grade, we're in a goblet, you know, simple stuff, four station rotation, just because yeah, they redid the weight rooms. They're not huge. I think we've got eight racks in there.
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: And there's as many as a hundred and forty kids.
Joe Ryan: Ooh.
Coach Doug Castleberry: So
Joe Ryan: Goodness.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know, it gets a little squirrely, man. So it might be, you know, I'd I've tried to create more space. I put some outside in the gym, one of the auxiliary gyms, put some hooks in the wall, T R X's out there. And just create station rotation where you got two stations in the weight room, you got a T R X station, you got a bench like using the bleachers for hand elevated push ups or single leg box blast or single leg step downs or something like that. And then you got like a plyo station with our boxes and so they just Forced patient rotation, three to four kids a rack and man go. you know, I don't get the odd that's that's downfall. I don't I don't get to my middle school kids enough.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, I and I get that, man. That's that's something that I think is all of our dreams is kind of being able to be more involved with the middle school so they're kinda
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: ready. You know, I I know one of my same as you, man, my biggest downfall is the female athletes in middle school. I wish I got with them a little bit more. You know, I'm able to get with the male athletes, especially going into their their freshman year, that end of their eighth grade, February to April, I'm with But and I and I do open it up. in the summertime, but it's more of a voluntary thing. Like if you want
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right.
Joe Ryan: to show up, here it is. here's the times we'll be and it's strictly lifting. It's zero running. We're trying to pr pr pr pr you know, make the lifting technique a lot better. but it my downfall is the female. I wish I could get somebody down there. You know, I wish I could I have a plan in my head already. If I could get somebody there, perfect. But we have three feeder schools and so it's like how do you get one person in three places at once?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Said in one of those videos, man. If I could be in more in more than one place at a time, bro, I'd be a rich man. But
Joe Ryan: Yep. Yep. It's
Coach Doug Castleberry: it's just not feasible. I mean, just like our wrestlers, we have a split high school, so you have the senior high and you have the high school.
Joe Ryan: Okay.
Coach Doug Castleberry: It's like five miles apart or something, shuttles run in between. Well, wrestlers stay at the high school. Like they train over there, their locker rooms over there, everything for wrestling is at the high school. Well, they share athletic variable football, which is at the senior high. So wrestling it's like, all right, here's the block, go over, teach it, teach what we're wanting from it. Hear the coaches, let the coaches hear me teach it. And then from there everything's run through rack. So I'll update the programs through Rack Coach, send it to or not even send it to They just log in and hit play and go. And then as the block progresses, I'll try to go back over. All right, hey, we're gonna progress it to this now. It's just almost like a again, kinda like a consultant, 'cause it it's you
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: got three or four sports running through the weight room at the senior high and one over here, and it's it's just it's hard, man, and it I'll lose sleep over it. I will. But
Joe Ryan: Dude, me too. I I wake up in the middle of the night, like stressing about like Yeah, everything. I'm sure the same way, man. Just stress about like
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, I mean just dumb stuff, but it it is what it is, man. You just want the best for the kids and you want them all to have the same opportunity, you know, and then it it it'll stress you out a little bit, but at the end of the day, man, and I have this a thought a lot, like we are teachers, you know, we're teachers in the fact that instead of handing you a worksheet or saying, Here's your project, look, here's what you've gotta get done today. Either you're gonna do it or you're not, right? Either you're gonna find a way out and and slip through the cracks and do as little as possible, or you're intrinsically motivated enough that this is important to you. You know, and while you wish every kid was like that, not every kid is like that. You know, and I don't know how you get I don't
Joe Ryan: Yeah. No they're not. They're not some aren't wired that way.
Coach Doug Castleberry: know how you transition like that. I think you just keep coming and eventually eventually come around, you know. or they'll quit.
Joe Ryan: One or the other, man, like it's not for everybody, you know. I think all kids kinda know. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Maybe maybe maybe water polo's not for me if this is part of it. Okay. You know, or or whatever it is. Whatever sport. It doesn't matter. Football. I mean football's got those guys too. Like I don't wanna do this anymore. Okay. That's okay.
Joe Ryan: No the only kids that blow my mind with some of that is when they go through the whole off season and right before it starts. Like I'm like, Man, you've done everything. You've done all the hard stuff. Yeah. Like this is it. Like you got
Coach Doug Castleberry: Quit.
Joe Ryan: ten opportunities at this point. Like you've done the the other, you know, two hundred and sixty days are done.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right. You quit right before they wrote the check. But whatever.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I I guess. but I
Joe Ryan: So you spoke a little bit a little bit about this earlier, you know, and I don't know how many y'all have, but the multi sport athlete, you know, how you balancing some of that? You know, it's it's 'cause it's so common these days that kids are specializing.
Coach Doug Castleberry: No.
Joe Ryan: I wish kids would realize and even sport coaches to an extent, like they're always talk skill work. We gotta get skill work, we gotta get skill work. Your skill work should be, you know, I'm a football player and in the off season I'm playing baseball and it's putting me on a island and it's allowing me to be competitive, although it's a team sport, I have to still stand in the batters box. I still have to be in the outfield and track a ball.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yep. It's competing.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, exactly. Competing, you know, or, you know, volleyball, you know, I'm gonna go jump for track or, you know, but how do you handle some of the multi sport kids?
Coach Doug Castleberry: We do. We've got a we've got quite a few, man. We've got a especially our younger guys, some football, basketball guys, a few football baseball guys. we don't I mean if it's a back to back like for example, receiver Brody Knowles, he was a football basketball kid. Okay, big receiver kid. Obviously came out of a fifteen week football season, banged up, like you went through it. So not necessarily in a huge rush to get him right there where the basketball guys were, understanding that he needs a little time there. He's not in basketball shape. He knows that. I mean their kids aren't stupid, you know. So it's it's really not a I mean, there's not a transition. I mean, they just
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: roll right into it and we'll have little modifications here and there and for a few weeks and then it's look man, just buck up and go, Big Daddy. You know, if anything, there's you know, other sports, some sports are more consistent rather than others in their during their season. So that's where it worries me, because I'm like, hey, while all your other fall sport buddies are grinding to the bone right now, I saw you one time this week. So just just understand that, dude. Like like if you you have to understand what your body needs.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Like if you still wanna excel in this sport too. I'm not saying you've gotta do everything they're doing, but I'm saying you can't just shut it down. Right? Like you look. You look when
Joe Ryan: Right. Y you're gonna be highly disappointed, it's gonna be my fault when you come back.
Coach Doug Castleberry: when the old boy behind you slips up on you because you didn't you didn't keep yourself sharp in the off season off season.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. That's my big thing is I tell like you better not flinch guys. You flinch. Somebody somebody
Coach Doug Castleberry: No, be gone.
Joe Ryan: who's worse than you is outworking you.
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt. No doubt. And I mean that it's kinda good to have that. I mean, when you've got depth and you've got guys that can do that, man, that that helps. Because that a lot of fire under his rear end, you know.
Joe Ryan: yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it was the hey I don't want to lose what I had. now I've I I grew up in a small school where I knew I was gonna play. I knew I wasn't gonna miss a snap. Matter of fact, I would beg to miss a snap every once in a while 'cause it's like punt, kick off, kickoff return, extra Can I can I have a second like
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: a series, you know, and and that's what we had, we could we play one side of the ball, you know, when we got depth like you do at the six A level. And I'm like, how are you tired? You play yeah.
Joe Ryan: Can you can you im can you imagine if they'd had GPS vest back then of like how much your
Coach Doug Castleberry: You you play sixty snaps a game, dog. Come on, man.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Like like I'm trying I'm getting you ready for eighty and you're only playing sixty, you know? It's like it's like, man, trust me, you got this, you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, no doubt. And and and granted they probably you can you can exert a little bit different effort when you're only playing sixty to eighty snaps a game versus a hundred and twenty to hundred and forty. You
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: know, you can you can sell out for those sixty snaps if you if you if you've done it right.
Joe Ryan: W when you're scoring the touchdown and ha then having to run down on kickoff is not the same as scoring the s
Coach Doug Castleberry: No, not that's not fun at all.
Joe Ryan: scoring the touchdown and the other team goes on a twelve play drive and you get a break, you know, it's it's a little bit different, you know. well
Coach Doug Castleberry: Grinder. Yeah. Yeah it is.
Joe Ryan: when you talk about that, man, like some of the some of the way you handle those kids as far as like you talked a little bit about it with your sports you, you know, sending stuff out, but the handling the the balance of the nutrition and the rehab and the refueling and stuff, you know, we all know that And I tell our kids this, I'm sure you do too, you know, the best supplement you can get is sleep and food. And
Coach Doug Castleberry: Sleep is keen.
Joe Ryan: and I tell the kids, like especially our female athletes, you know, some of I I hear this a lot. I don't wanna get bulky, I don't wanna get bulky, sweetheart. I don't have you long enough, you don't sleep good enough, and you don't eat good enough for you to get bulky.
Coach Doug Castleberry: We don't eat enough. If lifting weights, I saw I've told him, I was like, if lifting weights is all it took to get bulky, I would be huge. I was like, Girls,
Joe Ryan: Yeah, yeah. And it's like
Coach Doug Castleberry: I was like, this is my office. Like I'm in here all day long. Like I have an hour and a like I have an off block where I could train every day. I was like, but if you ain't pumping in at about five to six thousand calories and sleeping eight hours a day, you ain't
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it ain't that easy. I wish it was, but it ain't that easy.
Joe Ryan: There's a reason the people that are, you know, your your elite bodybuilders and people like that, you know, that's their whole life. They're not doing they're
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: not doing anything else. Like they're they're living, breathing, you know, every bit
Coach Doug Castleberry: machine.
Joe Ryan: of that, yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Eating when they don't wanna eat. I mean it
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Is your body gonna change some, you know, boy, girl, it don't matter. Absolutely. I
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: mean you're you're at the peak of your of your muscular endurance in your life, but you're not gonna be by any means turn into this jacked up CrossFit, you know, hm. Yeah. But how
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. physique, yeah, not as it's it didn't work like that.
Joe Ryan: do you balance some of that? You know, how are you how are you fueling them? I mean, y'all got I think you know, nutrition stations and
Coach Doug Castleberry: We do we've got a we've got a nutrition room. That was part of that the build when they did when the Traditions Club did the we kind of re repurposed it 'cause initially, like in our weight room, they wanted to make like this whole wall of just windows.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: All right, and which I get, but our windows would have faced the parking lot. I'm like, that's not aesthetically pleasing at all. And then the back of my head as a strength coach, I'm like, that's not gonna help us be better athletes. Like that's not gonna help us. Having
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: having windows in our weight room, that's not gonna help us. And so we repurposed that money and put it more towards the construction cost that it would have done to turn those into windows. And that's where we put it into the nutrition room and into the recovery room. And just basically turned two closets that were just one had a washer and dryer in it, which we don't do laundry. The kids take their clothes home and
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: they wash them and they bring back. But Turn that into the recovery room and then nutrition rooms, just it's essentially it's like a little snack bar, man. Protein powder, reconhydration, you know, liquid IVs, flow water. try to have some snacks in there, just and it's grab and go. now there's there's some that take over that probably go a little too far with it 'cause I'm like, look, there's five hundred athletes that have access to this room. If you come in here and treat this like your own personal cupboard every day, we're not gonna have any food. Right, 'cause I mean our supplies run out too, right? I'm trying to make it last, make sure everybody
Joe Ryan: Yeah, I mean it's it's you you can only e only get so much.
Coach Doug Castleberry: has access to it, but you know, we're we're working on it. we we re-upped on our Tuscell or traditions club, got us some more protein. Not rolling that out in the summers. And I granted I know protein's not the end all be all, but we live in America and they're gonna find carbs, right? And they're gonna find fats. It's just trying to get to get that protein up to where they can grow and they can recover. now I know they're gonna find carbs and fats, and not always the good ones, I get it.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: But man, just like with the snacks and stuff, it was legendary. was who was who funded it for the first four I think first four f six months. And the kids, man, it was like just getting those like I didn't even know they made these. Like, yeah, it's a cinnamon roll, but it's got twenty grams of protein. Right? And it's two grams of sugar or whatever, just sh getting exposed to that. Like, hey, you find something, man, tell mom pick it up at the store. Keep that at the house. So you can throw one in the bag. I mean, of course they know uncrustables and chocolate milk or you know, that's
Joe Ryan: Yeah, king.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Can't ever fail with that. But, you know, just getting them a man, this fruity pebbles protein is awesome. Well, go tell mom to go get some, you know, have it accessible
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: there. They a lot of those kids don't know. So just trying to get them
Joe Ryan: No, they don't. And it's
Coach Doug Castleberry: exposure to it. Not married to anybody or any brand, just just get them exposure to it. Right, you're right, man.
Joe Ryan: If I can if I can send you home with a few more calories and a little bit of protein, you know, that's what matters, yeah. You know, not every not every kid's dealt the same hand. You know, I think
Coach Doug Castleberry: Nope.
Joe Ryan: that's what we all sometimes forget, but a lot of the time realize is that not everybody's going after this and they're able to go to Smoothie King or able to go get a Subway sandwich or Yeah. t dude, that's that I wish it was ten dollars. I took my daughter
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right, it's for ten dollars on a smoothie.
Joe Ryan: the other day, we I got a twenty ounce smoothie and she got like some little like fruit bowl and it was like twenty seven dollars. I'm like, when did this happen?
Coach Doug Castleberry: What when do strawberries get so expensive?
Joe Ryan: Yeah. I know. Like what are we doing here? Like this ain't even worth it anymore. Like So you
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. yeah.
Joe Ryan: know, you get some we all live and learn, right? I mean we we
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: there's stuff you probably did last year that you're not you're not doing you look back and you're like, man, I that was dumb, like why did I do that?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Well yeah.
Joe Ryan: I do it all the time, but you know, some of the you know, you spent time at Northwest, you know, you spent, you know, what, seven years there
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: and You know, is there stuff that you did right? You may have said that was dumb, you you wanna do different that you brought over to South Lake and you like, you know what, this is how we're gonna do it now and
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, one I would say, man, is is I learned to rely on my coaches more. Is is giving them ownership of it and try and like when you put a plan together, assign Don't ask like, hey, you're gonna run this station, this is it, like you are you are the assistants here. Like I can't. I can't. Can't run three stations at once.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right. And then they may not feel comfortable coaching it, but they can go they can go start they can go stop they can go encourage Right? Like I don't expect you to go let's just say we I don't I don't expect you to go teach the the clean. I'm
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: gonna take care of that. But when we're on the movement stations, I'm gonna need you here. And when we're in the weight room, I'm gonna need you just watching these racks. Just going by. If you I tell my simple, you can do three things for me. You can either coach, you can encourage, or you can take videos of kids doing cool stuff.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Any of those three things will help me.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Because I'm never I I s I absolutely stink at video and and putting stuff out. Like, I mean, I'll get some stuff occasionally, but like Kids like that. They like they wanna see themselves doing that and Yeah. throw
Joe Ryan: You you talked to intrinsic motivation earlier. I mean there there it is right there. Like kids
Coach Doug Castleberry: it out there on the old gram, man, and kids will love it, you know.
Joe Ryan: I'm good for about two weeks at it and then I get busy and it's like,
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: damn, like I wish I'd a kept that up because they were working harder two weeks ago.
Coach Doug Castleberry: they kill it, man. yeah, get that media department to walk through and they just bring your cameras. I don't even care if they're on. Just
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: walk around with a camera, kids will start showing up.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know, kinda like when those college logos start showing up in the spring. Like man, I'll start a Yeah, brother, wait, can I come back tomorrow?
Joe Ryan: Yep. Man, this is the hardest you've worked all all year. Yeah. I've thought about dressing up friends so that they don't have no idea who it is. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Say college buddy, come on, bring a clipboard. Bring a clipboard and wear that Clemson jacket that I gave you.
Joe Ryan: Y yeah. I gotta stop watching my desk when you come out there, just go grab it. You know
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, it wouldn't be a bad little well, I don't know, little firm. Like just let me know, coach, when you need me, I'll send somebody out.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Well you talked to you know, you talked a little bit about them helping and you they don't have to do everything but does here we go. The internet. It's my internet. It's gotta be my internet. I'm gonna have to get our great
Coach Doug Castleberry: Cutting again, but I'm not gonna do anything stupid.
Joe Ryan: producer and developer Rob to edit some of this one.
Coach Doug Castleberry: From home back.
Joe Ryan: This is my internet. It's gotta be my internet. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's I think it's mine. I'm up at the school right now, so it's gotta be my internet. But
Coach Doug Castleberry: There we go. There we go.
Joe Ryan: again, this is what makes this great, is it's real life. But you know, you y you talked a little bit about I guess delegation's the word of of
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: getting better at that, you know, do you because I I catch myself sometimes with this is when you're able to delegate to those other sport coaches is kind of learning from them and collaborating and different philosophies and how they go about things and kind of adopting that into your own philosophy. I'm sure you get some of that.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, I mean every coach is gonna have their input. I mean, obviously, and at the end of the day, we are we are an extension of their program. Right?
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: One hundred percent. So if a coach is absolutely hell-bent against something, right? Okay, we won't do it. Right? And it might be that way for a year or two. But eventually that conversation is gonna come by, like if it's something that I know That I can't hide from, like I I can't sneak it in any other way, right? Because we go back to the whole smoking mirrors, right? Like, okay, yeah, we're not squatting, but we're doing this.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know, heavy sled push, we're still getting, we're still getting lower body output. But is it's having those conversations with them to find out, and I do every I'm every fall, every well, every twice a year usually. is to where we sit down before the season. That's when I get my schedule of saying, all right, how many days do I get them? When do I get them? How long do I get them? How many kids will be there? So that I can put the whole big schedule together for all the programs and try to make it fit. Right.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: In season obviously gets priority. Off season will get what's left over, kind of like you talked about having, you know, your varsity boys basketball in season coming in first, getting them out of the way and then rolling in your off season. Same, same concept. at that time Hey, what do you think? Now I know. I know what I want to do because I know what the sport demands are, right? And that's why we go to the games. Like prior to three years ago, I'd never been to a water polo match in my life. Right? But you go over there and you see what the sport demands are and you see what's going on. And I mean, obviously just in your head you can kind of figure out what the sport demands are. But just seeing it and seeing the kids compete and more importantly, them seeing me there was huge.
Joe Ryan: Huge, huge.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Huge. Those kids were just like, my god, what's up? I'm like, Yeah, let's break him go. Drown his ass. Push him under You know, I don't know Listen.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But still, like they love seeing, you know, no matter the sport.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Listen to one or two cues and then just start echoing that, you know, exactly
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: what you want the coaches to do. Like, hey, you know, freaking head out of water, punch and shrug. just say that to If you don't know what you're saying, that's fine, but just say the cues that I'm saying, right? Just like I go to a soccer game and now I'm getting better about it. I'm getting better about soccer. But I, you know, cross it and don't just say kick it.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know. But Yeah, I don't know, man. Just yeah, just getting what's important to them. like our our girl soccer coach loves the flies, man. He loves flying tens. He loves it. He's like, Can we do that every week? I was like, I would love to do it every week. Can you give me time to do it every week? And not take time out of the weight room for it? Right? And getting them to understand that and trying to get the kids to understand, like, yes, I know you ran a lot. You ran a lot. But how much top end did you really run? Did you ever see top end this week? Okay, so now here's what we got to have in this discussion of if you don't see it, get exposure to 90% of your top end within seven days, you're gonna start losing top end speed.
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right? So that's why we fly. That's why you're max recovered every time we do it. That's why we're logging it so that you can see, like you your body has to be exposed to it. Right. And just try trying to educate
Joe Ryan: That's what that's what you talk about soccer, you know, I'm real real close with our girl soccer coach and him and I went and visited Auburn recently. You know, we he's
Coach Doug Castleberry: Okay.
Joe Ryan: real big on wanting to be in the weight room and be involved and you know
Coach Doug Castleberry: Love it.
Joe Ryan: and I have him kinda learning the we've got the O VR timing gates.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: And so I have him learning it and helping me out and able to, you know it saves me some time, you know, I trust him. I I allow him to go do that and just,
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: you know, knock it out because he does love looking at the numbers and love looking at this and that and where when the ultimate the ultimate little Ponti scheme I got going on that hey man why don't you come help out with football and just run this part of it so I don't have to be consistently out there doing it and setting it up and I have somebody that can do it, you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Heck yeah.
Joe Ryan: Yeah, same concept though, man. Learning to delegate, learning different philosophy, different different ways of
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know.
Joe Ryan: thousand ways to skin a cat, you know. And you see
Coach Doug Castleberry: No, no doubt. And and I think that's kind of our job. Like we're talking about being a chameleon, you know, is okay, no one all right, I can get it another way. You know, and
Joe Ryan: Yeah. It
Coach Doug Castleberry: being able to sleep get it in a different way.
Joe Ryan: Right. And you've seen so much. You know, you've had you're at what right at twenty years in your career now. You know, you've seen a bunch of stuff change from the beginning to the end.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Boy has it.
Joe Ryan: What's what's, you know what's something
Coach Doug Castleberry: Well I mean
Joe Ryan: that's a big like a big, you know, I think technology maybe is gonna be one thing that you you you touch on, but you know, what's something that's technology based or whatever that's that's a big change.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Man twenty years of it. I d when I first started coaching and granted I was twenty, what, twenty five years old. I and I not strength coach. This is just like like I thought you know, I was under kind of the old impression of, hey, if we're not throwing up, we're not working hard enough. 'Cause that was I mean, that was that's how we grew up. Or at least that's how I was you know you weren't puking
Joe Ryan: Yeah, he Yeah, no, yeah, same thing. I mean it was
Coach Doug Castleberry: or you weren't drained, you weren't working hard enough. Well, you know, you can only you can only work as hard as you can recover. So the emphasis on recovery and the emphasis on what it takes to be able to train like that and that you don't have to train like that every day in order to get the you know to get your cake and eat it too, right? Just
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: just because you're outworking everybody, well, you may be outworking everybody, but if you're losing ten percent of your kids in the season because you're beat up, because you're hurt. Maybe that outworking wasn't you know, maybe should have focused a little bit more on the intentional, like the intent of the work rather than just the amount of work. Right? And I mean that goes that just go I think that comes just evolving as a coach and maturing as a coach and understanding the science and w the human body a little bit better of hey, we don't we don't have to we don't have to strip clean every day.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Like If we're gonna get after really hard on Monday, Tuesday don't have to be like that. Right? And
Joe Ryan: Yep. That and that's kind of my thing too, man, is like especially during the summertime where we're we have weeks where we go four straight days.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: My fourth day is really like I build it in as it's a I don't ever want to call it a recovery day, but it is a it's more of a bodybuilding emphasis day where we're just we're getting in there and where it's the end of the week. We're gonna hit a lot of auxiliary lifts, but we're gonna do bodybuilding type movements because we lifted we we we hang clean the front squat on Monday, we heavy back squat, heavy bench on Tuesday. We come back and we do our top to bottom cleans on Wednesday and we we bench again and then we, you know, Thursday's gonna be our auxiliary. And I think
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: I think, you know, kind of building that in and kind of, you know, having the temperament to do so, you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: That you're not I mean and you're getting again, you're getting exposures to different types of training.
Joe Ryan: Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Like like I mean
Joe Ryan: We deadlift. I mean like I don't a lot of people don't, you know, they shy away from it. I don't ever max deadlift our football kids, you know, we base yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: No. We'll trap bar. We'll trap bar Maxim.
Joe Ryan: I I base it off their body weight. You know,
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: it's a body weight thing and like I'll tell them maybe this week, you know, we're we're five by three at our body weight, you know, as fast as we can move that bar, you know, or we might be body weight five by one plus thirty pounds or whatever it is, you know, I'm I'm not
Coach Doug Castleberry: yeah.
Joe Ryan: a this It's not the juice has not never worth the squeeze to me with maxing, especially straight bar. Now, obviously power of the thing's different because that's what they do. You know, they're gonna
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right.
Joe Ryan: but you know, seeing some of that and you know, you dive right into I think it's a perfect time as you know we're in that transition period you talked about, you know, when we were coming up, it was if you're not puking, you're not you're you're not really working. And
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right.
Joe Ryan: then we transitioned into a period in this pres profession of injury prevention.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: Well, that's a crock of shit. You can't prevent anything. Yeah,
Coach Doug Castleberry: I hate that term.
Joe Ryan: can you reduce injuries?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: Absolutely you know, strength training that any doctor or any professional or anybody will tell you, you know, if as long as you're doing resistance training your whole life, you can reduce the amount of injuries and things you have. So you know, it's our job. It's our job to reduce injuries. We
Coach Doug Castleberry: A hundred percent.
Joe Ryan: can't prevent David them kids I mean you have kids just like I do, them kids, I see more injuries of just freak accident things happening. You know, like we had a young man that had to miss the whole spring 'cause of a A T V accident. You know, it's not Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: E bike, e bikes over here.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. And it's just like you can't prevent anything, man. Like
Coach Doug Castleberry: No, you can't live in a bubble.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Like A C L's happen, you know, MCLs happen, thumbs happen,
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. I do.
Joe Ryan: you know, like hamstrings happen. Like you y you can do all the hamstring work or, you know, reduce the amount of hamstring work you want, but that stuff happens. What's gonna happen happens.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, yeah. I mean it's you know, we weak things break, you know. kid that's I mean, i it it's just kind it common sense to me. Or it seems like common sense. Like, yeah, that kid's gonna hold up if he's handling his load plus external forces and external loads and that's fine. Yeah, nobody's knee's gonna hold up through a freaking high low where a kid rolls over. I don't care what you do for your you know, your lower half, but I mean injuries do happen, but yeah, I'm kinda with you on that. Prevention's a stupid term 'cause you can't things it's things are gonna happen when you play hard and you play full speed. You know? now the non contact stuff, yeah, I I take that a little personal. that's always the first one I like our girl soccer, you know, I get a text that's like so and so blew her knee out. It's like, God dang. I'm like, collision or no collision? He goes, definitely collision. Like girl took her out. I'm like, okay. You know, but that boy, that that non-contact stuff, that
Joe Ryan: Makes you sick to your stomach.
Coach Doug Castleberry: does, man. I mean, we had a kid, is it two years ago, running back, went to make a cut and he like hung his toe. And I saw I happened to be watching the film when they were watching it that Saturday morning. He kind of clipped that toe and when he got his foot down, the knee was out over the toe and he was trying to cut back left. knee didn't have a shot, man. It
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: was like I don't I'll be honest, I don't know what I could have done to make that better. Like, I mean, the kid 'cause
Joe Ryan: There's just some stuff you can't, man.
Coach Doug Castleberry: the kid was a he boy, he was a grinder. He was always there. Like he didn't miss workouts. It's one thing if he was a hit and miss kid, but this kid and he Built it back and he was just heating up there towards the playoffs last year and getting confidence and be able to slam that foot in the foot on the floor and go left. Cause anytime he would break one, it was right. Right. Right. I was like, I wanna see him go left. And then he freaking gets up there in the gap, slams that right foot in the ground and breaks one off towards the side, and I'm like, he's back.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: He's got confidence. He's not in his head anymore. He's back.
Joe Ryan: Once you yeah, once they reach after an injury, man, they that's the biggest thing, especially any athlete, but high school kids they don't understand like when they get you know, they actually get an injury that keeps them out. It's the mental part of it and just staying involved. Like I hate when kids just disappear. And you don't see Like, stay around. Like that's gonna be the best thing for you. You know, we had a young
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: lady last year, freak thing happens. It's the first time I've ever had this happen, but we're cleaning one day and she just doesn't get that front rack up and she broke her wrist. And
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: we're talking about three weeks before, you know, like a month before volleyball actually started, you know, volleyball player.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right.
Joe Ryan: But she stuck around. She got a cast the
Coach Doug Castleberry: Mm-hmm.
Joe Ryan: very next day, she was back in there that Monday with the with the safety squad bar, squatting still, cleaning with her dumbbell, you know, still doing everything
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: she could, and was able to come back in three weeks with a broken wrist and play the play the whole season. You know, luckily it was a clean break. Like we were blessed
Coach Doug Castleberry: wow. That's awesome. Right, right, right, right.
Joe Ryan: Bless no screws, no to clean break, boom, in out. But it it it does when kids just shut it down or they think like I just don't have to be around anymore, like that is one of my biggest pet peeves is like show up, be
Coach Doug Castleberry: look.
Joe Ryan: around. I promise you that your recovery is gonna go a lot better if you're around your teammates, if you're showing up, if you're there.
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt. our football we had O'D Ware, he he tore his ACL last year in like week four, I think. Again, avoiding running down on kickoff, avoiding a guy. Got his foot kind of kinda jumped, kinda avoided. I don't really know, but came down and it gave. He was a freshman. But you know, our off seasons, we go four day split. So Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Wednesday's competition day. And so we have upper lower split. Every upper day his butt's in there. Lower days, he's with the athletic trainer doing all of his rehab stuff and all that. So you know, it him being around and being just staying, just staying with us, you know. Like, yeah, you may not be in here every day. And he would towards the end, man, he'd come in, he'd start working the stuff he could and he was released to work. But yeah, man, you've you've and it's hard. I mean, it's it's hard on a kid because it's it is in their head. And, you know, they feel like they're not a contributor anymore or whatever they th I don't I don't know. I never had anything that put me out very long other than a what was it, a Jones fracture on my foot. But my coach had me sitting in a freaking chair at baseball throwing BP from a chair. Like, you know, like I I d there wasn't a way out. I wasn't taking
Joe Ryan: Right.
Coach Doug Castleberry: ground balls, but I was still involved in practice. And so, you know, it's it's it's keeping relevant and and keeping Yeah, we got a couple s belt squats, so there's really no excuse for anybody. our
Joe Ryan: Nope. That's what I bought safety squat bars for that reason. Like if we got an
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: upper body, like and that's something I gotta get better at is keeping them involved opp opposite the injury, you know?
Coach Doug Castleberry: And it's and it you can, but then if it's if the kid's not wired like that, you know, if it's and there there there's people like that. Let's be honest.
Joe Ryan: Some just are, yeah. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I mean, you know, there's there's people that are gonna look for a way out rather than I wanna find a way back in. And if if they're not programmed like that and you don't have the support of the coaching staff to go pull that kid out of the training room. Why why? You've got ninety other kids in here that are going. You can't, I mean I don't get me wrong. I know
Joe Ryan: Yep. You can't sit and babysit one.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I know, you know, save the one. I get it. But those kids in there need you too, man. So if if you don't have a head coach,
Joe Ryan: Yep. There comes a there comes a point where the one will bring the ship down.
Coach Doug Castleberry: no doubt, man, a kid if you don't have the the head coach in there or assistant, somebody in there pulling them out saying, look, we have this guy for this reason. His job is to make sure that you can stay a part of this. And, you know, absolutely, come here. Okay, you can't do that. Here's what you're gonna do instead. you can't do that, here's what you're gonna do instead. You can do that instead. You can do it in the rack. You can stay at the rack with your partners, you can be a part of this still. But if you don't want
Joe Ryan: Understand my internet.
Coach Doug Castleberry: to, I'm I'm not gonna lose sleep over you.
Joe Ryan: Trying to reconnect.
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know, not not like that.
Joe Ryan: This has been a fantastic episode though. I
Coach Doug Castleberry: Think we cut out again.
Joe Ryan: just want to let everybody know that. I mean it's been a great dive into some knowledge with Coach. And here we are. We are reconnecting. I don't get it.
Coach Doug Castleberry: So I guess if if it is still recording, I don't know. But I guess it's it's more of it's it's a community deal. You know,
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it's it's you've gotta be on the same page as the head coach and the assistants all have to be bought in and we can't be this, well, you know, this guy, you know, he's a big player, so we're gonna let him do this, but we're gonna hold these freshmen to a different standard. You know, like it's
Joe Ryan: Yeah. It's a little bit different.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I think and it it it lit up some people. I don't know, I had a day during the off season and I was like, if you're if your best athletes aren't your hardest workers, then you've got a culture problem. You know, and maybe
Joe Ryan: Yep. That's half the battle is the culture.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it came off wrong, like, well may and somebody's like, Well, i if they're not bought in. Well, if they're not bought in, they're not gonna work hard.
Joe Ryan: Yep. I mean, it's
Coach Doug Castleberry: You know, but it's you know, I and I get being a dude, but at some point in time, I tell the kids this all the time, right now, yeah, you may be skill level elite, you may be above everybody we play. Eventually one day you're not gonna be. You're gonna be in a room full of dudes that have the same skills, same whatever. Here's your advantage. Be a better lifter, be a better preparer, be a better person.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: than them because the skill levels eventually gonna match up. And then
Joe Ryan: Mm.
Coach Doug Castleberry: you're gonna have to rely on something else, whether it be you're just mentally tougher, you've done hard things, you sh you've trained, like you know it, you have confidence from that. Because that's what's com that's where confidence comes from is preparation. Right?
Joe Ryan: Yeah. And to touch a little bit on it, imagine if the roles were reversed and you didn't give everything you had every day, everybody'd be mad. Like,
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right.
Joe Ryan: so I can't I can't hold you accountable, but if I don't give you everything I got one day or if I'm not there one day, your first thing to question is, you know, coach, where were you? Why weren't you? You know, it's it goes both ways sometimes. A lot of people don't see that. So
Coach Doug Castleberry: Right. No doubt. No doubt.
Joe Ryan: I got a few more for you, coach. I know you got a busy day ahead, you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Okay. Now you're good.
Joe Ryan: One thing, you know, I know we both have families and we're in this profession, you know, and for our young coaches who are thinking about having families or who have them now and they're younger, you know, what's what's a way that you, you know, kind of balance that out? Balance family life, balance how how you do things at work. I know sometimes
Coach Doug Castleberry: sucker.
Joe Ryan: it's hard for me personally to turn it off. Like
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: that that's one of my biggest battles every day is turning it off.
Coach Doug Castleberry: I I that's I probably suck at that, man, I'll be honest. when I was a sport coach, I tried to make my family as much a part of it as I could. you know, I coach D line and running backs there for a few years at Northwest. So on Wednesday nights we would feed my position group at my house so that my kids got to know the kids that I can my families knew each other, right? My kids
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: knew my kids. And my kids knew the kids that I was coaching and they looked up to and they would come over and wrestle with and just So that my wife and my kids didn't feel awkward, like they want ooh, I like that kid. He was so nice. Blah blah blah. Well, good. Come cheer for him. Right? And so you've got your and not because I I just die to have my family at the games. Yeah, it's cool. It's great. I mean it's it's always great to have their support. But just try to immerse them, man. Like bring my you know, bring around. our our coach fortunately, since I've been at Northwest, every coach that I've worked for has been a really Good, their wives have been good about creating like a little sisterhood, right?
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: To where they they have a ladies' dinner and they get the girls together and bring the kids and have a coach's party and let the kids run around and and get into trouble or whatever they do, you know. but man, just and this is the part I suck at is when I get out of my truck and come in the house is giving my family the same energy that I just gave five hundred athletes all day long.
Joe Ryan: It's hard.
Coach Doug Castleberry: you know, and I and I'm convicted by that. I know that. I know there's days when I come home and I plop my butt down and sit in that recliner 'cause I'm just spent. Right? But And maybe I need that reminder of, hey, maybe you need to drive around the block a couple more times, go back, swing through, get another energy drink, so that you can you can pour into your kids and your family just like you poured into those kids. if if anything, my family gets the short end of the stick, I would think on that. be better about
Joe Ryan: Yeah, I well.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it. But like I said, man, like you said busy dad. Like now me and my thirteen year old about to go to breakfast here in a little while 'cause he, you know, just just dad and boy going to use some, you know, biscuits and gravy or whatever, you know. But just trying to just trying to spend
Joe Ryan: That's the best, man. Those are the best little moments.
Coach Doug Castleberry: spend time with them when we can, you know. Get home, give them my afternoons and my evenings, like in the summer when I'm busy in the mornings. And just just trying to just trying to, you know, i it goes fast, brother. I mean, I we were once the house of three, 'cause me and my wife got married. My stepson was eight, the one that's interning at UT now. Well now he's twenty two. We got a thirteen and eleven year old and they're in all the stuff and it's just just trying to be present for them too, you know.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: but yeah if if if advice easier easier said than done is leave work at work. You know when you when you you know lock up the facility then leave it. You know and you don't always have to be there. You know, I I have a I have a FOMO. Like if I take a day, I'm still texting coaches like, Hey, how'd it go? Hey, what'd it look like? Or better yet, they're texting me like, Hey, check this out and I'm like, yeah.
Joe Ryan: I can't believe I missed that. Like, I'm the same way, man. We squatted heavy the heaviest of our summer so far this past Tuesday and I wasn't there. And I'm tech
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: I'm hitting up kids like, hey man, how was today? Like how'd you how'd
Coach Doug Castleberry: Well was it?
Joe Ryan: you feel? Like, you know, of course if you text the coaches group chat, they're gonna say, it was the best day ever.
Coach Doug Castleberry: It's good.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. You know, see ours are they like to throw it in your face, like, you weren't here, it was the best day ever. Like, best day we've had all season, all year, you know, and it's like,
Coach Doug Castleberry: yeah.
Joe Ryan: so I'll hit up the kids and be like, hey man, how was it? coach, I hit this today and I felt like this and da da da like you know, I have the FOMO too. I was like not that it and I'm a lot better than what I used to be. I used to think I had to be here all the time and da da da. You know, I I've gotten better at leaving it at work. and I've gotten a lot better of you know, bringing my family and kids around. My biggest issue is like you said, is giving the same energy or sometimes being able to turn off the I don't know what you call it, you know. the the the drill sergeant. You know, I
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: g I get home and it's like I see one little thing on the ground and it's tough for me to like, why wasn't this picked up today? Why didn't you do this? Why you know it's like Alright, let me take a step back. Their kids, you know, they're they're they're learning too. It's I gotta I gotta teach them at this point in their
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: lives, not just hammer out, you know. So I get it, man. It's
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. another another and Monty Monty told me this a long time ago, man. I cause he's he's a buddy, like well beyond professional friend. I mean that's how we met was because we were string coaches and that's where Mac told me, he goes, Hey, when you get into this, you need to go visit him, you need to go visit Keys, you need to go to these guys, see how they do business and just develop it for your own. But Monty he's like he's like, I get it, Doug. He's like stress, whatever. He goes But you need to understand this. If you died today, they're gonna post your job tomorrow.
Joe Ryan: Yep. Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: So don't get too hung up on it, you know, and and that that's something that stays in the back of my head. It's like, yeah, I mean maybe I make it out bigger to be a bigger deal than it is, and it probably is. And you know, in my head it is a bigger deal than it probably should be, but I don't know man.
Joe Ryan: And I know people get annoyed with me too, man. It's like to me, this is the end all be all. Like this is the most it's the most
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, like I'm like
Joe Ryan: important classroom on campus. It's the most important job on campus. Like to me, to me, and to everybody else. Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yes. And it should be. But you're the only one you're the only one that's gonna voice that. Right? Like you're the only one that's defending strength and conditioning and why it's so important for every kid on the campus. Right? I mean that's that's the way we're supposed to be, I guess. So but yeah, turning it off. Yeah, I I would agree with that. That's why I need to be better. My wife was actually standing right there, it's like I wanna hear what he's gonna say, right?
Joe Ryan: Mm-hmm. Yep, yep. I know if my wife was sitting right here she'd say she'd be the same way. She'd be she'd be what's what's he gonna say right here?
Coach Doug Castleberry: But she's a saint, dude. She's she's good, man. She she gets it done and handles all the things. the calendar, lets me know where I've gotta be. Hey, can you be here this day? Yep, I'm gonna finish baseball at five. I'll be at his game at five fifteen, you know, and and try to try to be everywhere at once, but
Joe Ryan: Yeah, insurance called me yesterday, asking me questions. I'm like, you need to call my wife. she handles that. I don't here's her number. Like, don't don't call me about this anymore. Yeah. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Call call my mom.
Joe Ryan: Well coach, I got one more for you, and it's actually
Coach Doug Castleberry: All right.
Joe Ryan: been my favorite question to ask on this podcast. you know, we do random just so it'll get to let our listeners know a little bit, and it's a three
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: three series question. You're in the weight room, you're working out, you're trying to get motivated, what's the go to song or or genre or or artist? Okay. Yeah. I I like Lynn Biscuit. I know some people that don't, but I like Lynn Biscuit. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Mmm Limp Biscuit. Yeah. Like that's my that's my good. I think hey, that's just that was my time frame, man. That was they were what 96 I think when they came out, so I was a freshman, you know, testosterone's building, you know, right. It's just that was that was a different generation of music and tearing stuff up and just getting after it. I don't I just I liked
Joe Ryan: Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: it. It was kind of like a little hip hop. kind of rap slash ro I don't know. That's just that was me.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Them them with Kid Rock coming out around the same time and you know.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Anybody that would have been on any of the Family Values tour
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: back in the late nineties, I would I would have been I'm down for.
Joe Ryan: There. What about movie? You're getting ready to get motivated. What what are we watching?
Coach Doug Castleberry: Movie.
Joe Ryan: Or even not motivated, man. Like my favorite movie is Goodwill Hunting.
Coach Doug Castleberry: that's a great movie. Definitely a top five. movie is gonna get me going. God, I can't remember which one it what the name was it I wanna say it was gladiator, but not the not that one.
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: It's got Harding in it. That big Jack. He got the him and his brother UFC fight. I can't remember the name of the movie. Warrior. That
Joe Ryan: warrior. Yes, yes. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: movie is dope. Like my man just
Joe Ryan: Yeah, yeah. Tom Hardy was huge in that movie. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great movie, man. It really is.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Toilet paper rolls. It was, man, and I'd never seen it. We watched it at Northwest one day. And I it's one of those movies like I I want to show my kid, but like, yeah, maybe not yet. but man, yeah, that just any of those, Rocky f Rocky Four is probably my all time favorite How Much Can One Guy Take movie. Just him and the Mad Russian, just just man.
Joe Ryan: It's the best one. I mean it it
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, and you got you know, you've got your tech it's kinda like the battle between VBT training and old school just grinding, you know, and and
Joe Ryan: Absolutely.
Coach Doug Castleberry: not that I'm banging VBT, we work it a little bit, mainly just to drive intent, but you know, just just good old how much can one guy take, just slug fest. Yeah, yeah, they're gonna be a cross tide, a sack of rocks.
Joe Ryan: Yep. Put me in a barn and let me lift, you know. Yeah. Yep. So last one. You're stranded on a island. What's
Coach Doug Castleberry: Okay.
Joe Ryan: one piece of weight equipment we got? This can be something functional that'll that'll help you actually, you know, survive or something that you lift with.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Is this is the barbell is the barbell in is that included as the one piece?
Joe Ryan: Yes, the w it it can't be, you know, it's not it's not barbell and wait. It's barbell, it's you know, I've had s a lot of different answers here.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. so if I can have a barbell but I can't have weights. God. I was I saw that and I was like, man, I'd say landmine, but you gotta have a barbell and landmine. Man, you know what? I might I might say Damn, that's tough, brother.
Joe Ryan: Yeah. And I've had it it's funny the the different people.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Probably a barbell.
Joe Ryan: Barbell.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause I don't have to have the landmine. I could always, you know, just dig a hole and let it rocker down in there. But it wouldn't have weight, so you're kinda limited, but you can always, you know, tempos, time, you can you can make it harder. So I'm probably the I'm a barbell guy anyways.
Joe Ryan: Do a lot of different stuff with them. Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: like we we when we designed that weight room, was like, I want as many bars as we can get in here safely. You know, so
Joe Ryan: Dude. I love that. I got two per rack. I got an Olympic bar and a power bar.
Coach Doug Castleberry: well we we've we got bars. we went with Texas Power Bar, it's all American bars, so it's got the knurling in the middle. But they're like, Well we're what about cleaning? I was like, what about cleaning? I was like, Good.
Joe Ryan: Yep. We got those in yeah, we got those in our Olympic room.
Coach Doug Castleberry: We'll have proof that we're catching it deep in the in the rack and you'll have that little barbell hickey, you'll be okay.
Joe Ryan: Yep.
Coach Doug Castleberry: but yeah, probably just a good old fashioned barbell, man.
Joe Ryan: I've heard it all. I've heard I've heard battle rope to trampoline to kettlebell
Coach Doug Castleberry: Okay.
Joe Ryan: because, you know, it's all about the way they think. You know, some people
Coach Doug Castleberry: I was thinking at the to be honest, after you said no it, I was thinking maybe T R X. You know?
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Some people, you know, like I had an athletic trainer on. She said battle rope because in her profession, her mind, it's keep everybody safe. So I'm gonna take
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah.
Joe Ryan: a battle rope to figure it out. Chris Martin, the strength coach for LSU baseball, said trampoline because he said if I'm strained, I'm gonna have fun at least. I get it. You know, it's all about the mindset, man, and I love it.
Coach Doug Castleberry: No doubt, man. That's that's I I wasn't even thinking about entertainment. I was thinking
Joe Ryan: Yeah.
Coach Doug Castleberry: about what can I get the most work done with.
Joe Ryan: Yep. So coach, look man, I've had a freaking fantastic this is one of the best episodes
Coach Doug Castleberry: Yeah, that'll look.
Joe Ryan: we have, although the internet and on my end kind of messed up a little bit, but it makes it better. You know, I
Coach Doug Castleberry: So I'll get in. Yeah.
Joe Ryan: had a I had computer die recently. I thought it was charging the whole time and had to finish an episode by myself. So
Coach Doug Castleberry: There you go.
Joe Ryan: but look, you know, people want to follow you. Instagram. Yeah, I think it's what it what was the Instagram tag? I have it, but
Coach Doug Castleberry: coach I don't even know dude. let's see. I think it's coach underscore seaberry, I believe. I don't even know how to find it. Is
Joe Ryan: Ha.
Coach Doug Castleberry: that bad? I don't know. If you look on Instagram, just look up Doug Castleberry and
Joe Ryan: Yeah. Yeah, and
Coach Doug Castleberry: it'll come up. But I think it's co there it is, it's up top. Coach underscore and then C Barry.
Joe Ryan: There you go. There's if y'all want to give coach a follow, you know, see what he does day to day, see a little bit inside the life, how you balance it all, how you balance family, how you balance work, and kind of see some some pretty proficient lifting and and a lot of athletes going on. Y'all give coach a follow. And you know, again, coach, we can't thank you enough for taking time out your day, coming on here, and and we're very excited for this to come out.
Coach Doug Castleberry: Absolutely, man. I appreciate you having me. It was a good time.
Joe Ryan: Absolutely, brother. Well if y'all need anything else, y'all go ahead and give us a follow on the Moffat Method on all social medias. That's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and go ahead and give this a follow when it comes out. It'll be on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify.
