here we are the following pod cast is produced or sponsored by community member of the content views and opinions expressed are those of the participants and do not reflect those of the mc or the town of belmont p m c welcome your comments call us at six one seven four eight four two four four three or email us at access at belmont media dot org here i am and here comes the music talk about breaking down the fourth wall you to do that and be a part of the show along with us you also become a fan of our cast year by following us on facebook search time out for sports talk that's of course the flagship t v show a winner i hate to be so self aggrandizing but winner of an award yes actually can you know quit my teaching job and i can just be a sportscaster in the winter in the spring and i can be a football coach in the summer in the fall and they'll be excellent i mean what do you think i've been trying to do for  award was won by the time out flagship our t v show which actually this week is going to be having its four hundred all time show that's excellent as we kick off our twenty fifth season we took twenty five seasons around the word the hometown was at the hometown media  his everybody who works so hard to make community t v real in belmont and it does so much for our sports program up that's ok it doesn't much for our sports program and our sports culture too so just it's awesome to see everybody be recognized for so much work yeah i'm trying to get you louder on the actual todd cast but less ok let's not in the headset ok we sound like we're going oh you're the you're the you're the audio guy well don't be so sure about that this is a yeah this is audio and video today so that and then coming back going strong in the second half but but coming up a little bit short particularly the framingham game where obviously came down to the final seconds you had a chance to win over time and winning eventually winning score with a touchdown in an extra point you lose by six talk about that  because it started off again really quickly try to get through this one but it started off with like both teams committing a lot of turn overs there was a delay at the start because of heavy rains prior to the game and i know the framing it team arrived a little late once it got started the first quarter i believe each team that two turnovers ball which is kind of the in the game yeah i mean you know it's kind of been a consistent issue for us and obviously one that we're trying to rectify you know in that where we're coming out the gate a little bit a little bit slow or a lot slow you know that framingham game i fumble wasn't a fumble you know it was a fumble because they call it a fumble and he scooped it up and tried it in the end zone but you know we watch it on cut the next day and it's pretty clear i mean his elbow is square down on the ground the ball still in there and the kid rolls over the top of him as he's our quarterback is already on the ground or rips the ball out and it rolls into the end zone and framingham pounces on it and that ends up to be the that's the difference you know i mean that's the that's the winning score so obviously you know we had a lot of opportunities throughout that game and we need to capitalize on it but it was it was rough to have a call like that in a fumble like that and you know you got to rebound from that and you got to regroup you know we turned the ball over again on our on our second possession had some movement going chalking up some yards you know got up about midfield thinker on our forty five yard line in front of the ball again turn the ball over to them you know so those are the things that we just can't continue to do and expect to be expect to be successful you  know we just we have to control the things that we can control and we have to stop shooting ourselves in the foot and give ourselves the best opportunity to win and you know that's been that was a focus for us after framingham and it's again a for because for us after after d you know we've been saying if we if we play forty four minutes like we play twenty two minutes i think we're doing one but we don't we didn't you know and so we're in three and that's a tough pill to swallow for sure for our kids and for our coaches you know we definitely think we're better than our record belies but you know you are with your record says you are and right now we're in zero and three team that has a tendency to get out of the gate a little bit slow often civilian have to spend the second half trying to trying to catch up and trying to recover and that's not a recipe for success some of the positive highlights from that game would have been the fact that you know george fitzgerald looked very strong through a couple touchdown passes to get pollock and joviality with a couple of interceptions plates and we had good defense which kind of made that third touchdown freemium score which eventually proved to be the game winner a little frustrating because you know framingham they go to the same well to the same receiver three times in a row and joe does a great job defending the first two times last time i guess the kid just made an extra move in and got open for the for the six yeah i mean i think coach manti did a great it was a great place  there i mean they ran i think like two or three back side slants on joe and he defense them all he had a great game i mean he really did he picked off two passes he had a bunch of passes defense think in addition to a couple in the end zone and they ran a backside slant on him i think twice maybe even three times in a row he defends that and then they ran a slant out you know little kind of slant poco type deal job it hard on the slant and the poco went out into the end zone and that was a touchdown you know so yeah that that third touchdown was was definitely frustrating i mean i thought our defense played some pretty good football we saw some some set that we weren't expecting to see when they kind of bunched up and went into the double wing foot the foot that wasn't something that they showed i thought coach prayer and coach barge defense side of the ball adjusted to that pretty well and it worked for them on one series but it didn't work for them the next time they went to it we got a turnover on downs so yeah i mean that was definitely one positive i thought i think our our defense plays hard i think our kids compete you know and that's something that a bunch of people in the community have said to me and it's something that i'm really proud of you know and when your own theory you have to definitely look at the things that that are positive and there are a lot of positive things on the football team one of them is the fact that our kids that they don't stop playing ball they don't stop going to i mean they don't stop playing ball they don't stop fighting they don't stop competing every single rep and that's something that's going to bring us success it's going to bring a success in the league and it's going to bring a success throughout the rest of the season i thought george had a great day had a much stronger second half i mean eighty percent of our often to production was in the second half so so you know you i think we put up about two hundred sixty two hundred two hundred sixty yards or something like that that game which we need to put out more but i think one hundred ninety of that was in the second half and george showed some great consistency and great calm and he threw some great balls and he had some great escape moments there too extending plays and finding men downfield he's a really good little quarterback and he's more comfortable he gets back there and by the way he was doing all that with a high  which you know we didn't talk about but it was real that was during the framingham game ok you know so for him to go out there and and and play on that he's a tough kid he's a gritty kid and you know he's kind of back to full now and he's moving a lot better than he was and so we're excited about that well and again a similar theme kind of played itself out to with with the woodward game but i have one more question about the frazier game which weeks of hindsight do you look back at that final play call the fourth down near the goal line was i know was fourth him to roll out of the right no no we were we were out of timeouts so if we were if we were going to try to run the ball up the middle we had seven seconds left so if we were going to run the ball the middle we were going to run the ball the middle get up to the line of scrimmage clock spike and then  play so you know we talked it over in the last time out and said you know what let's just try to win this now we tried to go to kind of an isolation play on the back side and framingham did a great job the fencing that probably went to the well little bit too many times on that play  george did a great job of recognizing that that wasn't a place to put the ball in escaping out to extend the play our running back popped out of his flare and got down towards the pylon and you know we just didn't execute it he was open you know he was open and we just missed the throw i'm sorry that was that was tyler tyler that was tyler reynolds off emotion into into kind of the five yard flat area out there and you know we just missed the throw george was rolling out there was some pressure it's a big moment you know for on the ball in the game and we just didn't execute and our guys were pretty broken up about that because they care and i said to them and i'll say it to anybody who listen to me you know one one play doesn't win or lose a football game so you know we're not in the position to win the game in the last seconds without fitz without tyler without our defense without everybody who contributed to what i thought was a really fantastic last fourteen minutes or so of marauder football we got to take those fourteen minutes we got to play like that forty four and again if we do that we're going to be we're going to be really successful t shirt and i think also i guess just even frustrating watching from from the booth was that last year you had those great last second wins at home in front of harrah's field yeah out and and you were right the game was right there again as we're watching it we're thinking ok it's going to be another fantastic finish and enjoy it you know and it was you know lexi being down that close at the finish yeah i mean we it's a it's a tough beat you know and all credit to framingham coach manny you know they came to play that day and i think we did too we just waited  we just waited a little bit longer than they did and they got some breaks you know and that's the nature of the game it's not faulting them or their game plan or their six not cheapening their success you know i mean the ball bounced for them the calls those calls of the front of the game went that way for them and you know that turned out to be a pretty big deal so yeah it's definitely a frustrating loss we definitely think we're better team than was on the field that day and you know our job as coaches and as players is to is to regroup and we did a great job of that you know our guys came in watch film the next day and we broke down what we did well and broke down what we didn't do well and we you know start to get ready for a woman and that's kind of how football works and so i was at the booster dinner last night in the athletic director for wesleyan university was the speaker and you know that's of one of the things he talked about is that none of us want to lose obviously but you can learn a lot about yourself and about your program and about your football team in a loss especially a tight loss like that and over the last two weeks you know we didn't get the result that we want to both weeks but we've learned a lot about our guys while i know why you want to community cable award coach you know third place for your announcing skills and also just the master the segue regular because you talked about leading into woodburne talking about the close games and of course you know the previous two meetings with were in the last two years you lose by three points both games there for the taking this year kind of a different story and getting kind of goes back to the the slow start you were talking about i mean first five possessions i think you only gained about twenty five yards of offense is a real struggle and you know that will bring team now you getting into the meat of the leak schedule and they're very strong they have a three headed running back attack and a number ten i know i also love the fact that you want to refer to these guys by numbers and and i want to refer to him by name as the irony is that you know his name the numbers but so yeah it's funny but ok let's just so what's talk a little bit you know about that that's the start there just was was there anything i guess you were surprised about that with they with their game plan and what you know just  and then they sent a b gap blitz and you know we practiced that but young left tackle out there and he missed it you know a kid went on top in the backfield and you know that knocked us back to second and fourteen fifteen and that changes our play structure you know and then you know where fa then we we fall start in anticipation of that blitz and you know how we are now or you know second and twenty in third twenty and that changes our play approach a little bit you know we didn't have the best game on the off chance line that game first and foremost you know those guys heard it a little bit in film you know if we're going to be committed to running the ball well those five guys up front have to take it upon themselves to do that and it definitely wasn't the best game from them i thought we did a good job defensively especially in the first quarter first and second quarter in all honesty keeping us in the game we won in the half time twelve nothing and we're saying ok we've got a real opportunity to to turn this around coming out and then we three now did for our first series of third quarter and we gave a big play on the other side and all of a sudden you know it's twenty  and that's a little bit of a mountain you know four minutes into the third quarter and that's when we really decided to kind of clock in and play football and we scored two touchdowns in fourteen minutes with great drives downfield long field drives for the most part you know and is a tough team you know it's a jack belcher coach jim so you know you know that they're going to bring the fire and you know that they're going to bring a little bit of chip enos and you know you know that they're going to bring a little bit attitude to the game and we knew that going in the week and we were ready for it and they got a great running back man and i casual doe and to be perfectly honest i think that's you know that's their dude they got you know they got a bell horse and they're using him and he had some great great runs and we've been saying all week you know if we stop this kid we got a great shot to win the football game you know i say again that if we play forty four minutes like we played the last ridgeon then that's a river it's a very different ball game but we didn't you know we didn't and as a result you know we're going comes away with the two touchdown win and a well deserved one at that yeah right i mean i think there are some moral victories again you can take from this game one your teams play in the second half no question and also the fact that this team the week before against burlington i don't talk about wilbur now wilburn ran for four hundred forty seven yards  to you held him down i think about two fifty or something which you know and in fact casual joe he ran for two sixty five against burlington and he held on to one hundred sixty you know i know you you'd like to hold him to last i understand but but you know the way he had been running and you know the fact that they were you know committing themselves to the run i mean i still think your run defense i mean maybe we're having trouble stopping the run off instantly but defensively it did seem like you know that at times you were able to kind of yeah you know i think defensively we did a pretty good job against them to be honest i'm in casual doze again he's a great running back man and he you know one hundred sixty yards probably seventy of those came on two big plays you know so that that's you know i don't know how many times you carry the ball but that means the twenty one twenty one so he had two big plays it probably accounted for sixty or seventy of his yards a twenty carries for you know hundred ninety yards or whatever and we'll take that that's a pretty that's a pretty solid defense day but those big plays are again remain remain a focus and they were all tackling big plays there they weren't plays where you know he was scheme open where he just had a huge seam and he just took that seam any and he ran it they run a very tight offensive set try to kind of create a wash up in front and he runs into that washington are k c we had a couple of guys who were on him and he's a big powerful back and a great kid we talked after the game he's good friends with our fullback out him and so we were all talking after the game he's just a wicked nice kid and very humble and driven and you know his feet kept moving and we slid down his leg and insecure tackles and so you know that's some that we have to be very focused on doing is being a consistent tackling team we're much better tackling team than we've been any year in the past and that's one of the reasons that our defense is performing better than it has we need to now do that consistently again across forty four minutes of defensive football in order to compete in the middlesex and you did talk about that play early in the third quarter which kind of it at point broke the game open because it was close even though statistically you know you were on the wrong defense and coach every myself or work in the off and so you know in the defense gets to work pretty commonly you know i'm clocked in with avery in the quarterback in the receivers you know so i have to go oh i remember that pass the alley bit job it job it up on a on a counteraction pass and the guy ran right by me is wide open on the sideline you know and it can happen i don't i don't really have a i don't really have a ton of correction to make there for joe outside of you know regis surface keys and you know get good reads and and in that situation he didn't he was a little over aggressive to the run it's hard to not be overaggressive to the run against that team that's kind of their often so you know they smack you in the face with the casual  over and over and over again and then they try an action pass and put one over the top you know so that that sort of big play those big play moments obviously are things that we have to reduce you know and i mean again i think off fans of lee we were  really wanted to we really want to play some smashmouth football against that team it wasn't really working as well as we wanted it to work when we opened up and started moving the ball through the air that's when you you really saw as move the ball and have success and so you know we we see that and we think we've got a team that can again be a balanced off and a multi faceted off ends but right now you know our attack is doing a lot to drive it so we're excited about that and yeah so kind of what got the office going you mention the passing of course regionally what kind of first got at the end of the game it felt like he had about ten catches and now with nineteen on the season he's just one behind the number receptions he had last year when he led the team and this is just for three games he's already got nineteen catches yeah i mean our offense is a little bit different jake's a big part of it obviously i think the great stat on that one is he had ten catches and eleven targets so that you know that means that there was only one time that we threw the ball a chick and it didn't end up in his hands you know he's a really talented receiver runs great routes can catch the ball we've got a lot of other talented receivers too will it you know is really talented luke getting up field and you saw it on that toss you got out to the as you saw that he had a lane up and he put his foot in the dirt he went through right up and right up to the seam for seventy seven yards and score also a sigh of relief because at that point you're watching him really have not been able to do anything you know  know it was it was all the other than the run early because i know it was most definitely nice to see it was most most definitely nice to see ty do that and i was really happy for him you know he's been working hard to try and improve that aspect of his game so to see that realize was really happen was really was really great and then obviously on the next drive you know we were able to move the ball through the air consistently and get to the five yard line and punch it in you know let's talk about that last drive though if there was anything wrong with that drive it's that it was twenty two plays eighty five yards it of the entire fourth quarter and if you'd only been down one score i would have said hey that's a great drive but yeah i mean was it what was the thing i mean obviously you were trying to you know i i don't naturally want to take up the whole fourth quarter there to i mean so we were just trying to execute we're just trying to execute our offense you know i think that there's kind of a misconception of like our your you know your down so you got to throw the ball deep and that's just not how coaching works man i mean we have an office of structure we have an authentic game plan we have stuff that we've wrapped and defensive coordinator is saying keep everything in front you keep everything in front you so we were throwing underneath that shell and saying you know we're going to keep chalking up yards are going to keep getting first downs and keep executing our offense and hopefully some is going to make a move and break a tackle and go up the sideline and score fast that would be great but you know do we have yeah i mean we have a two minute often pts whether or not we wanted to run it in that situation you know ok i mean we can we can run fades and posts and corners and all that stuff that takes as vertical up the field we run a much higher risk of going three and out you know and at that point the game is you know for me is about we got people in the ball you know we got a hold the ball we got to stay we got stay on on the off inside the ball and we got score and you know whatever happens at that point i mean that was that was the fourth quarter with like six or seven six seven eight minutes how long was that drive that drive took almost ten minutes you got the ball with about there was about a little over ten minutes left in the in the fourth so it was just it was early fourth quarter you had the ball and then it was twenty two plays eighty five yards resulting in the the red and i'm sure that's fourth quarter we're down three scores you know yeah i mean i think we did a couple deep shots on that drive to one or two digits on that drive to see if we couldn't chunk up a bunch of yardage but you know take a big shot on first down you better get that yardage back with efficacy on second down you know it's a game of down and distance you know and you want manageable downs and distance and that's kind of our philosophy and you know our two  incident that much different from our regular office with the exception the fact that we're executing faster you know we're trying to get on the ball quicker will probably go hand signals and start sending plays in that way which we were doing against framingham because we're trying to spare george running over to the sideline  you guys noticed we were flash and that game which is not something that we do as much as as as a lot of other teams i'm sorry flashing flashing here we're calling the plays from the sideline with hand signals instead of having the quarterback come over to the sideline and get a play and go tr in and so we're trying to do that against framingham because george an ankle sprain and we weren't trying to have him keep running back and forth from the huddle to the sideline and then obviously so yankel was feeling better this past week again i know he was feeling better sarkis ass adoring r a t s it does a great job and he was phil will get better last week and you know he's feeling even better this week and they'll be feeling even better next week it's not something that's affecting his play now which is great and i don't really think it affected his play that much in framing him you had a couple great escapes he had a great run for first down  you know he's he's a tough kid well through three games he's already completed fifty percent of his passes thirty nine to seventy eight for four hundred sixty five yards which averages out over one hundred fifty yards passing game three touchdowns only one interception i mean you have to like what you've seen  of fitzy so far george is just getting better that's the that's the awesome thing about watching this kid progressing grow you know is he's just he's just getting better every single day he goes out there and he's a tremendously smart football player he's also very good at kind of working now to kind of shut his brain off a little bit and focus on execution and think less about big picture stuff which he does have a tendency to do he hasn't reached the ceiling yet you know this is his third started three varsity games in his entire football career you know so this kid is getting better and better every single time he goes out there to work the off chance and we are excited for him to take another step forward as our quarterback this week and let's get to this week then obviously the middle six week schedule doesn't get any easier reading comes to town and you guys played a pretty tough up there last year of course as i was also looking back you had the game at harris field two years ago which maybe doing that to everybody this year but so i mean your thoughts going to the game i mean you still think do you still think at all about that game from two years ago i mean it wasn't really i mean what happened then really wasn't on as much a display last year when you guys played a tough game you were you were only down ten points at the half  at their place yeah i mean i think the game two years ago it's really funny when john and i talk about a coach here and i talk about it with that that wasn't our perception you know what i mean that wasn't again you want to hear what i had to say about that game you go back and read my quotes you know my quotes in that game was this is a tough football team they beat us up we need to get better we're going to go back into the house and we're going to we're going to get better you know and those were that's what i had to say about the game and you did i mean the next year last year you  played whatever anybody else had to say about that game is up to them and i didn't have anything other than that to say about that game i still don't have anything other than that to say about that game coach here is a great football coach he's a he's one of the most successful football coaches in the state of massachusetts he's got a super bowl titles under got middlesex league titles under his belt that team is is churning out successful well executing football teams year after year after year so the notion that like i have something against that to me is ludicrous if anything when i compete against a coach like that who long established with a lot of success i'm trying to learn as much as i can about how it is that they structure their off and structure their defense and call their plays to get better myself as a coach i'm sure we have some cultural philosophy to soften all differences in terms of how we want to teach the game and what our team identities are that's true for every coach that are out there you know and john and i have been colleagues in the middle sex for three years now and going into our fourth year and we were actually had a great conversation at the league meeting this year he didn't recognize i pulled my car up right next to me open his door kind of hard and cracked my car door and so we had a good laugh about that so you know we played them a little bit tougher last year had a great first half didn't they made some great halftime adjustments against our defense that really hurt us most especially speed option running kind of a weak side speed option set and that that hurt us a great quarterback last year they're going to be another tough team again you know and you you know they're going to be chomping at the bit to play ball because they're coming off of a loss to the frailest show and lexington and that's you know the game that everybody is saying is the league title game you know which is it is what it is you know as a coach you know where we're all in one and zero in three so i understand why people aren't talking about us in the league conversation you know but there are a lot of good football teams in the middle sex but i know how it goes you know and that definitely has two powerhouses in the middlesex large going head to head i mean those are two great football teams you know we know they're going to come in juiced up we know they're going to come in geared up ready to play we know they're going to be a physical opponent they always are we know we're going to have to play our best football to go out there and compete and get a win and that's something that we believe we can do i mean i wouldn't be a good football coach if i didn't believe in my team's ability to go out on any given day and beat any team and on asli i believe that it's not just hyperbole it's not just you know coach speak you know i believe in this team's ability to put four quarters of a of a three phase game together and when we do that and it's coming when we do that this team is going to be a solid football team and i would even go so far as to say a really difficult football team to beat our competition doesn't get any easier going into running you know and a lot of guys i think i'm not lamenting that i'm not lamenting that i mean i'm ok i'm only three i'm all in oh man i'm trying to go out there and went on thursday night now you know i'm zero and zero and if we win we want to know for about five minutes and then we're back to zero and zero you know because we got winchester the saturday after that you know and so that's the attitude that i think all great coaches honestly take and i'm i'm that's what the attitude that most of my colleagues take you know the people who are sitting up in the stands or the sports writers or sportscasters and stuff like that they're talking about the big picture stuff they're talking about how the league shaking now they're talking about all the stuff that happened last year or two years ago or what that game was and all that all that stuff we as coaches are  free from that i don't i have i don't think about that at all i mean i know ben jones took a trap for seventy eight yards for on the first play a game i remember what we did that game we went back and watch that film to see some things that they might try to do again some of the formations that didn't after the rain broke it didn't rain that hard i am with you when the bands not there there's a there's an element of the atmosphere and ours that is just missing we miss them when they're not there i'd say once the game starts you know whether or not the band every so often i'll catch some tunes as you know walking off the series but in the context of play call and coaching our guys up and that's true for all of our coaches i have time i can tell you what's happening back there but it's like the soundtrack to the game without a sound it is definitely quieter i mean you definitely hear that and i know that paul and our toes do such a great job i love with those guys do over there so we hope that we're going to get good whether we think we're going to we've got good weather in the forecast so hopefully the bands back out thursday night keeping our fingers  minutes yeah well forget that we're already beyond that anyway so let me what will close with this we talked about it a little bit before we started to cast the sweet yeah obviously a lot of news taking place in the national football league this week especially with regards to  you know participation and actions during the national anthem and i know we talked about this last year when it was you know even became an issue for several games during last season for the for your team so is there going to be is a kind of a re you invigorated i know it's not right the word i want to get there but do you think there's going to be i mean is this something you're to be talking to the team about this week just to get an idea of what they may or may not want to do before the anthem this week yeah i mean we're not we're not supporting any issue i haven't i haven't heard any issue at all i know that that obviously this is a movement that's at the center of our national conscience and of our national consciousness it didn't just sports illustrated cover this week should be to illustrate yeah that it's it's it's it's grabbed hold at the at the center point of to a certain degree of our national identity our kids are  americans for the most part and so they're not immune to that they see it they hear it they have opinions on it our stance our stance as a program again is that every american has the right to freely express themselves provided they are not speaking in a manner that is obscene or in a manner that is inciting hate and violence and we will do our part as coaches and as a program to support the kids whatever decision it is that they choose to make in terms of how they want to address the anthem our position as coaches is to remain within the context of the program neutral in order to because i believe that one of the one of the big issues that exists at the center of this conversation in this debate and i'll go over to say this and talk about it is this notion of mutual exclusivity that exists and how it is that we process our country you know and it's this this kind of love it or leave it mentality where patriotism is all or nothing and as an individual as a person as a brown man in america of mixed  race i can't see that and i don't think that patriotism has ever been all or nothing nor his patriotism ever been blind and so this creation of this mutual exclusivity of either you love america or you hate america is to me ludicrous i think that it's very very possible to love my country which i do very much and believe in its goodness and believe in its potential believe in its ability to rise and to unite and i believe in all of those things it's possible to believe in all of those things while at the same time acknowledging that there are some very real structural issues in how our country approaches different communities that exist within it and for me this protest and all of the stuff that swirls around it is a question of due process that's really the issue not to get into a legal discussion but that's really the issue that sits at the heart of this protest it's not just a protest about police brutality it's not just a protest about bad cops it's and there are lots of great cops out there i mean i interact with great members of the belmont police department every single day almost we've got their kids in our program this isn't this isn't about that this is about a a structural and systemic denial of due process which is one of if not the most fundamental american right the notion that the government cannot deprive you of your life your liberty your pursuit of happiness your property with out proving beyond a reasonable doubt that they have the right to do that that you have done something that is worthy of that deprivation it is one of the central issues that led our original thirteen colonies to withdraw from their home country and declare independence was the notion that they did not feel as though their government was affording them the individual rights that were guaranteed by english law and so everything that we know sociologically tells us that this problem is real everything that we know so she logically tells us that this problem is endemic and me personally as an american i wish that people saw that as degrading to all americans because due process taht affects all of us and it doesn't just live in a courthouse due process lives in access to residential opportunities it lives in access to occupational opportunities it leads to the dispensing of educational resources it lives in criminal justice it lives in health care and the basic and fundamental notion of our great nation which is one that i believe in so deeply and strongly that ike i can talk for hours about it is that no matter who you are rich or poor white black gay straight christian jew muslim or atheist the law of the country will treat you the same and the opportunities that you are afforded as a person to chase your dream your life your liberty and your pursuit of happiness are not rooted or restricted in the color of your skin but in the words of dr king in the content of your character and the notion correct that the reality that that does not exist in our country today scares me and saddens me because i know our nation has the potential to rise to a true level of greatness when the national anthem plays on thursday night i will stand and salute my fla that's what i will do i do that as the head coach of the belmont football program in an effort to remain neutral in a conversation that is swirling with so much emotion that the actual content of the issue is so lost as a man and as a human being i hope that all americans can state unequivocally that basic equality and access to due process under the law is a right to choose be extended to all americans and that when it's not our basic and fundamental american identity is damaged by that and i hate to make this i mean i'm putting myself out on a limb making a statement like that  but i'm a proud american i'm a proud american i love my country and disses what sits at the heart of who we are as a people if you are asked to define the national identity of the united states of america culturally we're a nation of so many different races and religions and creeds and ethnicities there's the cultural identity of the united states is is in the words of benedict anderson and i'm sorry to talk so much about this is an imagine conception i don't mean that to say that it's not real i mean that to say that it's not culturally tangible i mean you take me up here in boston and you take say a mexican american in phoenix what what culturally do we share we don't speak the same language you probably don't worship the same way we don't eat the same foods we probably don't listen to the same music you know we might not even wear the same clothes well we share culturally is something that is abstract right this this common american this and what sits at the heart for me of that common american ness is equal protection under the law and i don't think that any citizen of our nation should be required to compromise that ever in ever without due process and i hope and pray every day that more americans will be willing to see that and to put truth and justice and love and compassion in the center of their souls and walk forward into this conversation with that in their heart you know coach i know i don't think i could you couldn't you couldn't have said it any better and i know we bring you in here every week wearing your coach's hat to talk football but you took it off there for a second but you are at heart what i was about to say is at heart you are also a teacher and that your day job you your teacher i know you're teaching the kids on the football field but you're also teaching them in the classroom coach good luck this weekend i think it's radek thank you very much and we just want to remind you as we wrap up a reminder that all the typecast with coach q can be found online at belmont media dot org slash podcast also on sound cloud dot com by searching belmont media listen at your convenience by