How an Overlooked Player Became a Top Football Coach

And the reason is is that there are coaches everywhere that are teaching kids how to be better at whatever their position is. But that's a football position or a picture sport.

What she never hears is...

Mark Wagner is a private football coach, entrepreneur, and the founder of Read the Game. He helps athletes develop the intelligence discipline and confidence to reach their full potential by mastering the strategy and mindset behind the game. Read the game is about understanding why you do what you do. Often times the players, even professional ones that I've seen, they don't really understand why they do what they do. So I want them to understand this is what you do, what's work on getting better at it.

Let's make sure you understand when it works, why it doesn't work, and what do you do if it isn't working. So what are the top things that you see issues with these athletes. The kids are focused so much on... "Today Apple is going to reinvent football." "It's our over, I'll tell how we're..."

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"You can live your dreams." Hey, welcome back to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast. Thank you for joining us again. I got a special guest for all the football fans out there. I'm talking American Football.

I know it's the World Cup season, and a lot of people in Miami are talking about football. World Cup, but no, we're going back to American Football.

“And yeah, so tell us about yourself, what's your name, where you from, and what do you all about?”

So, my name's Mark Wagner, and I am a professional football coach and consultant on football. And I'm based out of Virginia Beach, Virginia. All right. I also founded a company called Reed the Game, which allows me to go national, I have my own website, so that I can help other coaches and players and leaders to learn what I've been able to apply in the Southeast Virginia area.

All right. So, Reed the Game, right. There's a lot of readings that do in plays and all kinds of stuff. But for you, what's what's Reed the Game mean? I think Reed the Game is about understanding why you do what you do.

I mean, a lot of coaches, they focus on, let's improve their talent. And they do tremendous amounts of drills and such a true and football as well, and any sport. But oftentimes, the players, even professional ones that I've seen, they don't really understand why they do what they do. Why did that work? Or why would you do it now? What is that person that's defending is doing better?

They struggle with being able to articulate that. And if they can't articulate it, then on the game, when the action's happening live, it's very hard to think on your feet. So I want them to understand, this is what you do. Let's work on getting better at it. Let's make sure you understand when it works, why it doesn't work, and what do you do if it isn't working.

Okay. So you can adapt it and you can read the defense or read the game. Yeah.

“You can do to make it happen. And how long you've been kind of honing in this thing?”

I mean, how long you've been a coach for? I've personally been a coach for 17 years. Okay. I've been planning football since '07 years old. Yeah. Well, what position?

Well, when I started, I was big from age, so they put me at the line, believe it or not. Okay. When I started, it was flag football. Yeah. I mean, yeah. When I, my age, they didn't flag was not existing. Okay.

And so I've been playing tackle my whole life. I started when I was seven, like I said, work my way up. I grew bigger, or I mean, I grew older, but I didn't grow bigger. Yeah. Right. And so then I transitioned at the coach's insistence to quarterback.

All right. Because I was a pitcher in baseball. Yeah. Okay. And so my focus is on quarterback. Then in college, I moved to wide receiver, personally catches the ball. Yeah.

So I've been basically on the offensive side, but I played defense as well.

Okay. Okay. So you, and what are you coaching now? You coaching college, you coaching, kind of all the above. So as a private coach, I'm not necessarily associated with any team.

All right.

“I help out teams on a consultant basis. That's what that means.”

Okay. And that's what I'm looking to expand. But really, I have players that sign up for me. And they usually fall on the three categories either. They, they're new to the game, which is fine.

Those are the younger kids. They are the second string, and they want to start. So what do they need to do to win that? Yeah. Or the terrified ones or the starters, and they have a second string or coming after them.

And so I take those players, and I help them to, again, develop their skills as always.

But also, if you understand it, then you can possibly outthink the person into the role. Yeah. I'm sure there's also the player that's trying to get into the good schools, possibly. Or they're just trying to get on the starting lineup. Most of them are just trying to start, and, you know, especially in the United States.

If you're already that talented at schools pining over you, you don't really have to worry. Just keep your grades up, right? Okay.

“I'm at the kids that are looking to maybe go to a smaller school, where they're not getting picked on by the big schools.”

Get in there academically, hopefully they're fine. Yeah. And then do well, and then move up, and then move up again. Yeah. And today, and I'm college football specifically in the United States.

We have the transfer portal, which is basically free agency.

Yeah. They're allowed to go anywhere they want every season without penalty. Well, so they're looking to start, get better, get some good stuff on film, get some really good stats. And hopefully translate that into a bigger school. And then maybe, and it does happen not often into the, into the professional leagues.

All right. You have one of my favorite movies. Not favorite, but one of the ones that everyone talked about in high school was a crazy movie called the program. Yes. I don't know if you see that one technically based on Florida State, but yeah, don't say that out loud.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. I mean, so you're helping out with a lot of these guys. I'm surprised that you didn't say, I don't know.

It's like someone that got got cut from from pros and then trying to get back in.

Because they don't have the coaches that they can fall back to in college, I guess. They're kind of like in this transition stage. Or maybe they go to like Canada Pro League. Oh, those athletes. I'm actually working with a player right now that they had a pretty reasonably good successful college career.

But at a lower level. Yeah. Went to a few NFL combines where they think about the draft did not get picked. Now I'm trying to help him get into the Canadian football league, which is kind of similar to what kids do in college. So you might go to not the Canadian football is a lesser league, but it's lesser known, at least in the United States.

Yeah. So if a person is not making the pro league and wanting the transition, they can. I mean, but that's a big life move going away to Canada or, you know, in certain cases, European leagues. Yeah. I'm usually trying to get them earlier.

Get them in high school. And my job is not to tell them where to go to school. My job is to give them the knowledge to understand if you go here. This is why you can succeed. Not just academically, but of course, athletically.

Yeah. And I have to be honest with some kids, they're not ready. Maybe they don't have the skills or maybe they don't have the maturity. I think I don't know about you, right? I definitely am into sports, right?

I used to be into football, American football growing up. But I'm sure the game has changed so much more in terms of reading the game, because, you know,

“back when we were growing up everything on a paper, you know, you have to tell the players.”

Now with so much access to information and the internet, I'm sure like all the plays are online. You know, there's just so much to talk to read in the game, like all the plays, right? And it's honestly, it's like, I don't know. I mean, how many plays do you know? You must know like a thousand or something.

I mean, it's not to be endless. Yeah, all the terminology and how they do it, how they line up, I mean, I understand it, right? Every coach has their scheme in certain ways of doing it. Yeah, like in football, you have your shapes and how you choose to apply them, right? Yeah.

What should I do now, by the way? I think what you are right, there has been a seismic shift in sports, certainly in football. Yeah. And the reason is that there are coaches everywhere that are teaching kids how to be better at whatever their position is. But that's a football position or a picture sport.

Kids go to camps, they hire personal trainers like myself. Yeah. And they all focus on how to play the position better.

And of course, you can always go out to YouTube and find an infinite number of videos from people that are coaches or you never know that are going to teach you.

If you do this, you're going to become a star or this is how you do this specific skill better. Yeah. What you never hear is why. And again, that's the core of my philosophies. When you do this, this will work.

And they might explain a little bit behind it, but essentially the kid is just mimicking a skill. And that's basically like think about school when the teacher stands up and they write out a math equation on the board. When they do it, it looks easy. Well, okay, I understand it. I can do that. Yeah.

But when you get home and you have to do it yourself. And it's a slightly different than it's, oh, oh, I'm not sure I listened well enough. I memorized, but did I really learn. And that's what I'm trying to show.

“And I think that's what makes people different today.”

There's plenty of kids that are very, very talented. And it is so easy. We're very aware of your sport. They get the film in front of a coach at any level. Yeah.

Social media. You can blast your stuff everywhere. So what distinguishes you from a hundred other kids or a thousand other kids across the nation in your particular position or sport? Well, if you get the ability to explain it or you can actually show it on film.

Now the coach has a thinker because no coach wants to spend their very precious practice time trying to explain something to a player. They expect me to kind of know it. But they got to learn somehow. Yeah. And that's the challenge today.

I think that's the shift also. You know, before it was just based on size and grid. And like those that movie that I just talked about, it was all like,

“Oh, now it's like, okay, how's your game intelligence?”

Yes. He used to be able to differentiate yourself by what you did well. It's a fear talent. You drained harder. Maybe you lifted weights more or whatever the ice may be.

Everybody's doing it. Schools are sponsoring it. Schools are asking for it again. There's tons of camps that you can go through. So do you think there's more more pressure on the modern age athlete?

There's definitely more competition because there's so much money involved in everything. Yeah. Yeah. And so the kids want to get there. Not necessarily because they're all coming from from a hard.

Scrabble places, but they just want to make them. They want to get the fame and exposure of it. Especially in football. I mean, it's the most popular sport in the United States. Yeah.

So there's pressure from them. But unfortunately, there's a lot of pressure from the parents, especially the young age. Mm-hmm. And the kid just feels like I have to do it. I have to do it after work harder after sweat more.

Yeah. To a certain extent. That's true. But if you can outthink your opponent, you can outplay them. Yeah.

Right on.

“So what are kind of the top things that you see issues with these athletes?”

I think there's a couple of things. One still today. And this was true when I was a kid. Coaches still think talent matters beyond all things. Mm-hmm.

And they don't ever take a time to see if the kid really wants to play the position or even actually know who's trying to play the position. They just look at what they can do. And they say, I think they'll do well. And they put them there. And so not a kid may be in a position where they do have the skill, but they don't have the knowledge, so they're not sure what to do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And that'll work against them if they're defender or whoever else that's going against them does have it.

I think the second thing is that again, this, the kids are focused so much on getting bigger, faster, stronger, but never smarter.

Yeah. And you need all four in today's world. Mm-hmm. I'm sure. And how do you, how do you do with the parents and the pressure?

And I'm sure there's like, you know, there's all kinds of parents out there, right? Some of them might be too overbearing, right? I don't know. There's plenty. Yeah, especially in the youth.

Yeah, yeah. It's a nice, more of an issue.

“Is that something that you have to handle?”

Kind of like saying, hey, you know, I'm going to be teaching them this way. I know that you have your ways, you know, but we have to work together on this. Yeah, I mean, every coach at every level has to deal with the parents. Yeah.

Like I said, the youth is, is the most because you're interacting and they just call you by your first name Coach Mark or something like that.

Yeah. Parents love to live by carelessly through their kids. It's not necessarily that they're looking at a 10 year old or even a high school kid in thinking that kids could make pros. They want to be able to show up on work on Monday and say, wow, you should have seen my little junior and what they did at the game. Absolutely.

I think okay, man, if I have a kid, I want him to be, you know, playing like because my, my wife's from Italy. So I'm like, yeah, imagine if we grow them up in Italy and he plays for Juventus or you know, or yeah, yeah. So yeah, everyone dreams like, you know, if I carelessly and there's like, oh, okay, you got the opportunity kid, you know. So, and there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, you know, I have you see it actually what they're doing now, like on on social media.

So there's like, you know, the father of a newborn baby and he's already putting, you know, the soccer ball at his feet. Oh, yeah, you know, like the first week. And then like, you know, six months later, the kid is already kind of just dribbling like in the crib, right? With the soccer ball. Exactly.

Being comfortable. And you're posting it. If this is the next one. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if they're doing that with like footballs, right? But they start younger and younger. And I tell you, it's actually getting worse. You know, when I was a kid, if you got a college scholarship, you know, then that social media didn't exist.

But you tried to tell as many people as you can. Yeah. Then it used to be that when you got an offer, you said, hey, I committed to such and such a university. And that was a source of pride. And you should do that.

Yeah. Now it's to the point where you see kids posting that, especially on Instagram, I'm committed and they're middle schoolers. And they saying, I committed this such and such a high school. Yeah.

You were probably zone there in the first place.

So what do you actually committing to? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they want that exposure. They want to say, like, I'm what sought after. I'm wanted and I chose you. And I think there's a dynamic that's changing.

And then college football with the transfer portal is really much that way. The free agency for the longest time in football transfer window and football. Yeah. He is the players have learned to start getting a little bit of the upper hand of saying, you have to prove that I want to be on your team.

Wow.

“Well, I can't wait to get into it in our during our episode.”

Um, but yeah, how do how do people find you?

So they can come to read the game on be very clear that it's read the game. And there's a hike in between read, hive and the hive and game. If you're like, type the whole world in or the whole word in, excuse me, you get a basketball statistic company. Okay. Which maybe you interesting of you.

Yeah.

“If you want to learn about me, you can read me there.”

Um, if you Google me and you grew up, Google private coaching. Believe it or not, I come up first or go to where you are. All right, nice, nice.

Um, and I always ask my, uh, I'm, I guess, what do you, what are you most excited about?

In football or in life, it doesn't matter. However, you want to answer it. I would say, you know, I'm lower, I'm coming towards the end of hopefully my professional career. I would say I'll just retire and become a high school coach and I could do that. I could be one now if I could afford to time and, unfortunately, the pick up for what they pay teachers.

But really, where I see it is, that just limits me to the team. So the excitement is being able to expand this brand nationally. Absolutely. And work with people and the technology supports it because I can do this virtually. Yeah.

Um, and flying is easy. It can be there in a day, pretty much anywhere in the United States.

And being able to help people in a way that I never could just in my own hometown.

Absolutely. All right. Well, read the game. Like I said, I'm excited to get into this episode.

“If you're to football, if you're in statistics, right?”

Or just the culture of the sports, then tune into Mark's episode. But thank you for joining us. And I can't wait to have you guys back on the next episode of Live in Your Legacy. [ Music ]