[gentle R&B music] - Welcome to Fatherhood, where we uplift voices and redefine legacy by highlighting the strength, sacrifice, and stories of black fathers shaping our communities every day.

Today we're sitting with fathers who lead both on and off the field.

As coaches, they're mentors and role models who are shaping young men through discipline, accountability, and guidance.

But beyond the game, they also carry the responsibility of being present and devoted fathers at home.

Today's conversation explores the connection between coaching and fatherhood and the legacy being built every day.

Joining us today are four incredible leaders here in Memphis, Coach Rodney Saulsberry.

- Great seeing you.

- Coach Jermaine Carter.

- Thanks for having me.

- Coach Faragi Phillips.

- Thank you for having me.

- And Coach Bryant Jones.

- Thank you for having me.

- Thank y'all for being here.

Now, each of you have stepped into coaching with purpose, you know, shaped by experience and fatherhood has only deepened the way that you lead, mentor, and pour into the next generation.

What I'd like to know is if there was a specific moment in your own lives where you came to the realization that you ain't just playing a game, right, but you're preparing yourself for the burden and the weight of leadership.

- You wanna tackle it first?

- Oh no, you got it.

[guests laughing] - I guess early on, like I'm thinking, growing up I don't think I thought about coaching at all, you know, but I think that life also taught me to coach, you know, so it was one of those things that you look back in hindsight, you see some things that you did growing up that prepared you for the preparation and all the things that go into coaching.

So probably all of us organically as players, you're not thinking about coaching 'cause all of us played sports, so we weren't thinking about the coaching aspect, but when you look back at it, some things that were being taught to you and you saw how you gravitated to it, how you led other people during those times.

So coaching actually is in your blood, but you may not recognize it at the time when you just growing up.

- I think for me, I always wanted to help people.

I've always said that I wanted to be a police officer as a kid, but when I graduated from college, I just, something happened in Lakes University where my coaches poured into me and I was like, you know what?

That may be something I want to do.

And soon I graduated, spring, I was doing spring football at Lakes University.

So that's where it started for me.

- Okay, okay.

- Yep.

- For me, it was, let's say, I was one of them hard headed players.

- Okay.

- So, [chuckles] it was just a little different.

And then once I started to pay attention what my coaches was trying to tell me, I'm like, oh, maybe if I would've listened then I'd be all right now.

- Yeah.

- So now I'm trying to do the same thing that they was trying to do for me, put it in them.

- Okay.

I'm gonna come back to that.

I'm gonna come back to that.

Faragi, what do you think?

- I think, you know, hearing coaches that I can vividly remember throughout my playing days, you know, I was always tasked with being a leader, leader of a team, and it wasn't so much that I had the best ability, I just had that leadership quality and entity that coaches saw in me.

And so, you know, obviously when my playing days was over, you know, I couldn't do the things that I wanted to do as a player, it was easy for me to transition from athlete to coach because I had that leadership entity in me that gravitated with people, and then in terms of what we do, it gravitated with young people and you can kind of influence them to have some type of things about, you know, what life is gonna present and things of that nature.

But for me, in a nutshell, I think I always had that leadership quality that could resonate with young people, even when I was, you know, a teammate in my playing days.

- Okay.

Well, I appreciate y'all sharing that and something you said, Brian, and you too, Jermaine- - Okay.

- That got me thinking.

So who was the first person that really poured into you and how does the memory of that individual shape the way that you may engage with a player on your team that's having a hard time or struggling with a certain thing?

- For me, the first person that ever taught me anything about football or anything was Curtis Givens, Sr.

- Okay.

- So I moved to Memphis- - The Dynamites?

- Yes, The Dynamite, so we know that.

I moved to Memphis, I was just a kid that used to walk around.

I didn't know nothing about football, I seen this team playing at Whitehaven High School, I lived across the street.

So I was like, "Can I play?"

But I didn't know how actually mean this guy was when it came to winning and losing and discipline.

So once I got that level of it, it just started to sink in.

He taught me the basics and then went from there.

And then I ran into this guy.

[people laughing] I didn't play junior high football, they got me off the track.

- Yes.

- Okay.

- They came and got me off the track, so once I found out, oh, I could do this, it went from there.

It wasn't easy, I ain't gonna say that.

It wasn't easy 'cause I still had a little rough to me.

- Yeah.

- So after that, there wasn't no problem.

Then I started to learn a little more as I moved to Texas.

So from then on, I'm like, well, maybe I can do something else with this, and that's where it went.

And then I started to see him win state championships.

I wanted to do that.

- You wanted to do that.

- Right.

- I wanted to do that.

- That's good.

- I think for me, it was a lot of coaches, honestly.

It just never was that one person.

I played for Riverside Raiders.

We actually played against them, they used to be us like crazy every year.

I used to hate that tick, tick, tick, boom [chuckles].

I used to hate it.

But no, it was a lot of coaches.

I actually, you know, dad was there, was not there.

So I gravitate to a lot of, you know, men and I guess male figures and, you know, so I guess the first person introduced himself to my mom was Winston Ford, played at Carver, won State in 1979, yeah, he did.

Edgar Williams.

They called him Juice, he was one of the coaches.

There's coach Lucky.

And at Carver, I went to Carver High School.

- Okay.

- Coach Joe Harris was that real mentor, hard-nosed guy, and can't forget Steven Bratchet.

Never forget Coach Bratchet, you know.

So they just poured into me as a young kid and I just, I listened to every last one of 'em guys, maybe because the father wasn't there, you know, he was there, but he wasn't there.

I ain't gonna say not down with Pops, but he was there, but he wasn't there so those guys were the ones who I just poured into and just listened, like, okay, okay.

But yeah, so it was a lot, it was a magnitude of them, actually, not just one person.

Yeah.

- Okay.

What about y'all?

- I think for me it was, I can remember, man, I was in second grade, really young, but I was always able to kind of, you know, have some ability.

And I thought, you know, even at that age, you know, my basketball ability playing little league basketball would kind of get me through some crevices in life that, you know, my otherwise character wouldn't do.

And this lady by the name of Martha Morgan, man, she was a white lady, my second grade teacher, and immediately she embraced me and showed me the value of what a person is outside of basketball, outside of sports, period.

And throughout my time as a elementary student, all through middle school and high school, she kept in touch with me all throughout my, you know, my prep career.

And it wasn't until like recently, three or four years ago, I tweeted on something about, you know, how much of an influence she had on me and she reacted to it, and it got back to me and it really blessed me.

But man, early on, it was a lady by the name of Martha Morgan, as a second grade teacher, man.

She looked beyond all of my flaws and everything that I thought I had going on with myself, she could see through that, and that really affected me throughout my whole elementary, middle school, and high school career.

- I love that.

- Yep.

- That's cool.

- Yeah, for me, I mean, obviously, again, having your dad around is so important, you know.

I was blessed that I had a father that was there.

My father was a pastor, you know, I was young.

He became a pastor when I was young, I think I was about sixth grade.

But my parents and our family was so close, we had a very close family so we were always surrounded, and I believe it's a firm thing that the environment that you put your kids in means something.

- Yes.

- And the people that your kids are around means something.

And I know that that's not always normal for a lot of our environments in our neighborhoods where everybody's communal.

- Yeah.

- But I was blessed that we were in a very communal society where everybody looked out for everybody.

So I had a lot of coaches always growing up, and our father was very intentional about who he allowed us to be around.

- Yeah.

- So it helped.

And now again, we knucklehead kids, we gonna find our way to be around other people as well.

- That's right.

- But they put us in environments and obviously get into high school and having Stan Collins as a head coach, it really helped us develop and helped push us because he really believed in pouring into us, and I was lucky enough that he had worked with my sister, he had taught my sisters along the way so I came up along a whole family tree of going through Whitehaven and growing up in that environment, so it was very beneficial.

So Stan Collins, the one to help pour into us and use that model and stand on his shoulders and continue to build on it.

- Fantastic, well, I appreciate that, fellas.

And I'm gonna pivot a little bit.

We know that, you know, balancing the responsibility rather of leading a family as well as leading a team really requires both, you know, a high level of attention as well as intention because they both demand your energy.

- Right.

- They demand your presence and your heart.

- Right.

- So when you're in a situation where you've given a hundred percent of your energy to your team, how do you make sure that your family doesn't get the leftovers of who you are when you walk through those doors at home?

- Honestly, I would say it was kind of hard for me, but I didn't realize it was hard.

I was working at Memphis Academy of Health Science.

I was the head football coach of the middle school, but I also was the athletic director, and I'll always call my wife, be like, "Hey, can you come get, you know, come get my son."

She'll just come get him.

"Hey, I gotta do that, I gotta stay late.

Can you do this?"

And not realizing it was hard, you know, coming home eight, nine o'clock at night then also being the track coach as well.

So, you know, everybody know it's all day with track.

- All day.

- One day, me and my wife got into it.

We actually had an argument and she was like, "I be with him more than you."

And I'm like, "No, you don't."

And she like, "Jermaine, think about it, who was coming to get him when you was," I was like.

I never realized.

- Couldn't say much.

- What can you say?

Because it was so true, but I didn't realize it was hard like that.

I really didn't until we had that conversation and I thanked her so much for sacrificing me going after my dreams and her taking care of the babies, you know?

But I didn't realize, honestly so.

- Every team, I think I've been able to, you know, be a leader as a coach, my wife has probably been the most valuable person.

- Right.

- On that team because of the sacrifices that it takes from them, you know.

Oftentimes we're spending many, many hours away from home, but, you know, it's safe in knowing that home is okay because of the sacrifices that she understands that I'm trying to put into what I'm trying to do to be the best possible coach and team that we can have.

And so it was easy for me, but at times when I had some slippage, you know, my assistant coach, who's my wife, she would definitely give me some reminder, "Hey, you leave Coach Faragi at, you know, "at the gym or at school, you don't bring him in here."

- Yeah.

- But I think more than anything, man, just her sacrifice and understanding that what I'm doing is important to me, and it helps me become the person that I'm trying to be at the school and for our team.

But also understanding that when I come through that door, I am a husband and I'm a father.

So it was kind of easy for me to transition of, you know, bringing that coach environment home as opposed to me bringing, you know, that coach in the house and thinking that's gonna have some value, which it never did.

- Yeah.

- But I forgot to mention, I'm sorry, I forgot to mention she was supportive.

She was, but you know- - That's a blessing.

- Yeah, she was.

Got to give her credit.

- And I was gonna say is that, again, Faragi and I, we've known each other for a very long time.

- Yeah.

- And when you're young, you don't know, you don't know any better.

And sometimes it's not gonna work, and you need to understand that as a man, you gotta see beyond that.

And, you know, so early on, didn't know how to balance that, didn't know how to manage that.

- You don't know what you don't know, right.

- So not knowing, and it leads to fracture.

So again, so I wish I knew then what I know now, but now it's, I mean, it's a blessing.

So when you do make mistakes and things may not work out, don't give up on that.

- That's right.

- You know, because having that family household is extremely important.

So we had to learn that we had to take a couple lumps, but then get back on that horse, you know.

'Cause as men, a lot of times, we think we can do this thing by ourselves.

- Yeah.

- And it is not the way to go about it, you know?

So having that person that help mate with you is so important, so we gotta make sure we learn and understand that.

So I had to take some more notes from Faragi, and now we figured that thing out.

- Yeah.

- So the second time around, you really realize the importance of having that balance of home life and with what you're doing as a coach.

- I think for me, I just made it a little, I made it fit me.

- Okay.

- So I made the team part of my family that way my daughter got brothers now so my wife can't fuss at me if the kids always at my house or- - Yeah.

- Around my house, they got responsibilities too, yeah like, she gonna tell you what to do just like me, and you gotta do it.

So you just gotta deal with it.

Now she got sons that can do this and do that.

- Wow.

- So I just- - So you blended both.

- Yeah, I just made it work for me that way I don't get fussed at.

- Yeah.

- That's what's up.

- I like that, that's smart.

That's smart, and speaking of learning, right?

Growing up in a black household, there's this saying that goes, "Do as I say, not as I do."

Right, I'm sure we all familiar with that, right.

So I'm curious, has there been a specific lesson that you've taught on the court or on the field that you've had trouble applying to your children or your own personal life?

- I think for me, man, when I first started coaching, kind of piggyback off of what Coach Saulsberry was saying, when I first started coaching, you know, I would use every word and every noun, and verb under the sun, right.

And I would like to think that that was because of my experience growing up.

You know, my mom, you know, was a cusser and still is a very good cusser.

[guests laughing] And my dad, bless his heart, he's gone to be with the Lord, but man, you know, I had a very good experience at home of what words to use, and so obviously that experience and that upbringing, you know, kind of poured into my earlier years as a coach, you know, I would kind of use things that I felt my mom and father would use with me and say some things to me, and I could really catch myself because the kids that I was dealing with, I think all of us can speak for this, in terms of the inner city kids that we're dealing with, they hear enough of that at home already.

- Right.

- Right.

And so, man, when I was able to, you know, give my life to Christ and kind of look at some things and be transparent with myself, I understood that there's a different route I want to take with this young person or with this team and with these people because I know the F-bombs and all of these curse words that I'm wanting to kind of shell out to them, they've already heard it, and at some point in time it becomes numb to 'em.

So my direction with them was a little bit different in terms of how I wanted to approach them, but I got that intention because of the fact that it was what I got from home and I didn't wanna be the same person that I knew I couldn't be to relate to these young people that I knew I was getting at home early, early in my career.

- Oh, definitely, that's one of the things, the language that we use, Brian will tell you, all those guys will tell you is that, man coach you different, you know, that's like, hey, it's not, you know, so when you grow and mature, you know, getting that relationship with Christ and learning how to be demanding when not being demeaning.

'Cause again, we grew up with coaches that, you know, ain't no telling what would be said, you know?

So learning that, okay, it's another way to deliver that message.

So as a teacher, that pedagogy of knowing that, hey, there's different ways to deliver the message without berating anyone and doing those things.

So that was a learning process.

I can listen to Maurice now, Maurice Harris, one of my best friends, he just say, "How we cursing, telling 'em not to curse?"

You know, like we cursing, saying, don't curse, you know, that ain't make sense, you know, so we had to grow and develop through that process of knowing that there's a way to do it.

So that's one that I know for most coaches, that's gonna be the thing that they had to learn.

Practicing what you preach with the language that you use.

- I got a lot of that as a player.

"Hey man, watch your mouth, man."

[guests laughing] All right, coach.

So it is, you know, like you say, the language barrier between then and now is not the same.

Like kids curse freely in front of their parents now.

When we hid that.

- And adults.

- Right.

- And adults.

- Like we hid.

If we got caught cursing, we like, man, hey, there's somebody grandma right there.

Pay attention to what you're saying.

- Right.

- But now, it's just.

So now I try to tell 'em, "Hey, respect your elders."

- Right.

- "Watch what you say.

"You see that lady right there?

Act like that's your mother."

So I say it's more of a teaching level now instead of where we was getting the elbow and the, "Shut up, watch your mouth."

So it's a little different now.

Kids today don't understand how tough they are not.

Like you really not tough.

- Yeah.

- If you see what we went through then as far as the discipline we got in that school from a coach, you might get a forearm from Coach Collins or something, you might have get a paddling.

None of that's going on in schools no more.

- Right?

- So now you have the kids that talk bad to teachers and then they mothers and fathers come up there and back it up.

That's not how it was for us.

- Right.

- If the teacher says, you did it, you did it.

- Right.

- Now you going home and you gonna get a whooping again.

[guests laughing] So, you just gotta roll with the times.

- Yeah.

- But at the same time, I'm still trying to teach them that ain't how it work.

- Yeah.

And speaking of discipline, right?

We know that coaching is more than wins and losses.

- Right.

- Right.

- What you're doing is you using sports as a foundation to really build young men and prepare them for life.

You know, teaching them discipline, teaching them respect, right.

So, how does that look like for you personally?

Are you dealing with so many different personalities on a team, so many different backgrounds?

Is there a standard or static approach to how you go about developing young men outside of skills for that particular sport?

For football or basketball, right, just skills that they need in life.

Is there a standard process that you have or?

- I think no two- - Let's talk about that.

- You can't handle each player the same way.

- No doubt.

- That's first.

So if I can talk bad to you and get you to understand that you outta line, I probably can't talk to him like that.

I might pull him to the side, he might be a little bit more sensitive.

So you have to pay attention to the personnel you're dealing with as far as your discipline.

Like, some players will quit if they get talked bad to.

I don't know what that's like.

My mother wasn't gonna let me quit.

- Yes.

- Right, right.

- So kids have a choice nowadays.

As a child, I never had a choice in nothing I did.

I don't care if my coach dragged me home by my collar, I still never had a choice.

"Okay, you going back to practice tomorrow."

So nowadays, "Well ma, I wanna transfer."

There you go.

Now you gonna go to this school and act up.

"I want to transfer again."

You gonna go to this school and act up.

So it's all about how you handle the personalities.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Everybody personality can't be handled the same.

- I think for me, in my approach, everything was always about experience.

We didn't do it a lot at Carver, but I learned a lot when I went to college, okay.

So when I became a head football coach, I told myself I wasn't going to, I was gonna sir everybody, everybody's a sir.

And he'll tell you right now, when the kids talk to me and they say, huh?

I say, Honda, I don't drive a Honda, I drive a Nissan.

You huh your homie, you yeah your friend.

And he'll tell you, I do it all the time.

I'm a sir like you a sir, and you are a man, like, you know, and I do it to the kids, but for me, I used to have the boys dress up on game day, of course a lot of people do that, but I really took it serious, because in college, you know, it's a business trip, you know, we put our suit on and we get on the bus and we going to Texas to play, you know, Texas College or anybody like that.

So I took that with me when I became a coach, and I still do it to this day.

And what I did, I used to make them come to me.

Out, okay, yep, okay, okay, okay.

You look okay, okay.

Hey, come here.

Hey, I'ma fix you up a little bit.

Hey, okay, you good.

- I do understand that appearance.

Like, they wouldn't let us wear braids or dreads.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- You had to have a haircut.

- Yeah.

- Well everything was different then, you had to have a haircut.

- Yeah.

- So I understand that.

- Right.

- So I just took it from my experience, from college, man, it really, it was college.

And in high school we ate KFC for pre-game meal and I thought it was okay.

But I had a coach, Coach Jeff Sawyer, you know, we had baked chicken, a salad laid down before a game, you know, so I took that with me.

Went to the cafeteria lady, Hey, I need some baked potatoes, I need this, I need that, I need baked chicken, da da da, sit down, lay it down.

So I just took it with me.

And like I said, it's off experience, man.

Just everything I was experiencing, honestly.

- Yeah, yeah.

And I think at the end of the day, right, your true impact isn't just measured in wins, right, not just with your record, right?

But it's measured in how the mark you leave on these young men that you're developing, you know, how you help shape their lives, right?

And the legacy that you leave in those players as well as your families.

So 20, 30 years from now, when your name comes up in a conversation between a former player and your kid, what's the one word you hope both of them use to describe who you are and what you meant?

- Oh, first and foremost that I love them.

- Man.

- You know, again, I firm believer that winning is a byproduct of doing things the right way.

- Yep.

- If you do things right, you live right, you treat people right, all those things, winning becomes because of that.

But I make a point for all my guys, like, I know every kid's name.

I'm gonna know everybody, even if you can't play dead or you can play, or you the all star on the team 'cause everyone's important.

Every kid has a purpose, every kid has something they can contribute- - Right.

- No matter what it is.

So we make a point in Whitehaven they know that before you leave there, we're gonna have a real heart to heart conversation, and you gonna know that from man to man, I love you, you know.

And it's like, so break down those barriers of knowing that as men, we have to make sure to know that we care about each other and I care about you beyond football.

So I hope that's one thing that they will say, coach cared about me.

- Yeah.

- Even if I didn't play, you know, coach cared about me.

Coach knew who I was, even when I didn't know myself.

So that's one of the things I really want to gravitate or what I want to resonate with those young men.

- Gotcha.

- I think for me, that's good, coach.

I think for me, man, it was, you know, probably more so than anything just selfless, you know.

- Okay.

And I think all of us understand that we've taken on some things through our playing career, obviously in our coaching career that we can all kind of tie into how we do things.

But for me, man, I would always go back to the point where when I came through high school, I don't remember having the Lord in my life when I was a high school player.

It wasn't important to me, right?

Only thing that was important to me was trying to be the best basketball player I could be, right?

And then when I got to college, the old guy played for, Lafayette Stribling, old, mean black joker, I'm talking about man mean but he loved us so much.

He loved us enough to take us to church on a Sunday after a big game Saturday night, or when we were outta town on a visiting trip, we would also find somewhere to go to church and fellowship with the Lord.

And so that never left me because I oftentimes, I would be sitting in church hungover from the night before whether we won or lost, but he would make a point to have all of us get on the bus and go to church.

And so when I began to coach, and man to understand that, you know, we have to coach the holistic part of this young person, it came back to me to where, man, I gotta give a foundation of the Lord with these young people.

I gotta be a seed sower in that regard because it never left me and it was something that I always think about even to this day, as to why he would do that and I could probably say it was done to him.

And so I think all of us aspire at the end of the day to hear, "Well done my good and faithful servant", because we gonna either hear that or we gonna hear the opposite.

- Right.

- And I just use it as motivation because when that day comes for me, that is definitely what I want to hear, and that's what it's gonna hold me accountable to.

- Well, I appreciate that fellas, and I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation.

Today's conversation reminds us that leadership isn't just about what happens on the court or on the field, it's about the example set every single day through discipline, guidance, and consistency, fathers like these are shaping not just athletes, they're shaping the leaders of tomorrow.

Because at its core, fatherhood is about showing up, pouring in, and leaving a lasting impact that extends far beyond the game.

Thank you again to our esteemed panelists for your insights today.

I'm Nate Ollie, and this has been Fatherhood, where we uplift voices and redefine legacy.

Thank you for joining us.

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