Transcript: Ben Malbasa on Coaching, Shakespeare, and Success

Good morning, and welcome back to Late Start Show. We are here with head varsity football coach, English teacher, and U.S. class of 1996, Mr. Ben Malbasa. How are you, Coach Malbasa?

I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. It was great to have you on the show. Well, we started all our podcasts at the beginning, and this will be the same.

So can you tell us a little bit about where you grew up and what your childhood was like? Absolutely. So I came to U.S. 40 years ago, mid-year in 1985, 1986. So this is actually truly my 40th year at university school.

I grew up mostly in Cleveland. My parents were not from Cleveland originally, and they came to Cleveland. They had a friend who had a U.S. tie, a guy named Clint Jackson, who was class of 72. and between them and a few other people, they looked at US and I ended up coming to US mid-year. So that's sort of been my experience and how I ended up here.

You know, being an alumnus of university school yourself, what kind of, looking all the way back to some of those early years, do you kind of remember some of the first few days, first few years of US and what that was really like for you? U.S. still is remarkable for what it does for its youngest students. And Jack, I know you came in ninth grade. And Charlie, what year did you start?

I was starting kindergarten. So you experienced theme learning. And really, my experience in the 80s were the beginnings of theme learning. So we had the group of teachers that had completely changed the way we did lower school education, grades K through four at that time.

And so their approach was really remarkable. And I just remember it being so radically different from coming from, you know, sitting in a Catholic school class, sitting in rows at desks and doing worksheets, to going to stations and learning about Native American cultures, learning about the Cleveland arts scene and studying painters in second grade and then fourth grade Egypt. I still remember that they might have an amazing fourth grade teacher who in my mind is one of the best educators I've known. It was a woman named Barbara Deutsch.

And to this day, her fingerprints are on some of the themes at the Shaker campus that we still use. And she was so thoughtful about developing a young person as a thinker. You weren't a fourth grader. You were, in your context, a historian, a writer. and she cultivated that mindset and created that awe of learning that I just think is something we do very well to this day and it carries through as a young person then grows and matures as a learner.

What is it about that all boys education at those lower levels that lets the teachers kind of channel that energy and that curiosity into something like Dean Learn? It's a great question and it's hard to answer in the sense that I know what I know now. When I think back to what I didn't know then, I think it was the flexibility and it was the activity during the day, which I think is so important. I mean, you had field class.

When I was in fifth grade and sixth grade, we had an hour and 10 minutes of field four days a week. I think that's a really good thing for a young man as he's growing up at that age. Before you're into interscholastic athletics, it's still mostly intramural, all of that at that age. But even at those lower grades, that ability to move from station to station around a room.

Now, as an adult and having read a lot of literature on the differences, right, we now know that a kindergarten boy is about 18 months behind a kindergarten girl verbally. So the idea that it might be a good idea to have them learn separately seems rather obvious. And so, you know, obviously from an intellectual standpoint, I now understand why it works. But back then it was just, wow, we get to do fun things and learn while we do it.

And eventually you would transition to the high school here. What were some of those classes or teachers at the upper school that really influenced you? Well, you know, I think through middle school and high school, for me, for the most part, it was my coaches and teachers. And it was the people who crossed those bridges.

I mean, in seventh and eighth grade, I had a Latin teacher and a football basketball coach, Pat McDonald, who was just passionate about learning, but also loved sharing athletics with us at that age. You know, we had some field teachers who were incredibly influential in all of our lives. I mean, we talk about it. I have a group text to this day.

And the amount of times that, you know, Dave Starrett, Frank Kanzinger, Ron Grant, and George Richards comes up is remarkable, I think. You know, at the high school, you know, Jim Garrett, and I knew Coach Garrett from the time I was in second grade. So, you know, I think of Coach Garrett's influence. I had an amazing history teacher, Rob Thomas, who I think generations of U.S. students would rank among the best.

Terry Kessler, who wasn't a coach, but was probably the most influential teacher for me in math and economics. You know, Jim Stevens as a coach became really influential in my life at the end of my time here. I was fortunate. Also, we had a coach, Tom Lombardo, who's now the head football coach at St.

Edwards. He was our head basketball coach my senior year, and he made a huge difference for many of us. And I'm sure I'm leaving a lot of people out. You know, kind of going to that sports aspect of your high school career, were you involved in sports at U.S.?

What sports, and how did playing on those teams really shape your high school experience? I was a terrible athlete. As I've said many times, one of my greatest traits as a coach is I try to look for people who look like me and make sure we attack them in a game. If you look anything like me, I don't care what sport it is.

There's a weakness there, and that should be exploited. I was really lucky, though. You know, I'm thinking of people who influenced me. You know, our athletic director was also my advisor sponsor during my time.

It was Tom Callow. And, you know, Coach Callow, Coach Grant before him at the Shaker campus, they and Dave Starrett certainly fostered the fact that I knew at a very young age I loved the game and was very interested in coaching at a young age. And all of them encouraged that. And so at every stage, they were looking for me for opportunities to be involved on that end of coaching.

My senior year, Tom Lombardo walks up to me at football practice and says, I heard you're going to go out for basketball. I say, yeah, coach, I can't wait. And he says, you're cut. and this was a year after you know coach morton another amazing teacher and coach in my life had said to me why are you here um at tryouts for basketball and and you know coach lombardo said no you're definitely cut come manage for me i'll treat you as an assistant coach and that's really how i got really involved in coaching you know us has a storied football tradition were you kind of involved in that football program tradition early or can you kind of tell us some of those experiences that you really had we do have an amazing tradition i mean i you know there's there's some game film of me as a junior bobbing on a sideline and getting drilled by a kid from kiski um on a kickoff um and i think i think that film may or may not still exist uh so you know my level of play was was really poor um i was again though fortunate to be around some really good people you know my i had some great classmates uh you know one of one of my classmates was the first in a line of quarterbacks to lead the area in passing. We kind of had a run in the 90s and early 2000s.

We were a pretty good passing offense. And so it had been a little bit of time. We were an early adopter of the spread offense. And so from that period and then into the early 2000s, we threw the ball a lot more than other football teams in Cleveland.

That was a great experience to have as a young, both as a student and then as a coach, to learn something that really was a little bit new in high school football. Yeah and spoiler alert, you did come back to us later in your career but I'm wondering when you were at US as a student, did you already know that you love this place and wanted to give back to it? Were you able to have that kind of presence in that moment? I think if you'd asked my classmates who's most likely to be at U.S. as a teacher and coach in the future, I think I would have won that award in part because, and I think that's not unique in the sense that I think a lot of us were very passionate about our experience.

You know, I've had two great influences in my life. I have amazing parents in university school. And that's really been, those experiences that I had here were so important to me that I wanted to be part of that moving forward. I also knew, though, that coaching and teaching were important.

You know, I think part of it is growing up, I'm still very close with my father. You know, my dad's, the people he respected the most were his high school coaches. And so hearing those stories growing up and then having the coaches who impacted me, I just think I knew that was a path I wanted to follow in some form or another. And Terry Kessler said something to be really smart when I was a senior.

I told him, you know, I think I'd like to work for 20 years and then teach. And he said to me, he said, I understand that and a lot of people think it. He said, it's really hard to do. And his comment to me was, you know, you'll get in a lifestyle and used to a set of things and then shift.

And that's a really hard decision to make. And it did stick with me. And as I was in college and thinking about what I really wanted to do after college, that pushed me to say, hey, I want to go into education more quickly. You know, after graduating U.S. in 1996, you went to John Carroll University.

How did you kind of find the transition from high school to college, and what influenced your decision to attend John Carroll? So I actually want to correct the record. I went to Ohio State, and that was back before it was hard to get into Ohio State, just to be clear. So that wasn't impressive. but I went to Ohio State in part because I was a little unique and I wanted to be able to go to Big Ten football games.

So maybe in a way I was a little ahead of my time in terms of college tastes as I look at some of our students who go to SEC schools that still makes me hard to understand today in 2025. But when I went to Ohio State, had a great experience there. I had a chance to transfer back to Carroll and coach JV basketball for Coach Lombardo. And so really, that's why I made the change.

And I will tell you, college was a breeze compared to U.S. I mean, I've told many people this. I had better grades as an undergrad, graduate student, and law student than I ever had at university school. they wouldn't even let me to the assembly for cum laude as a student here at US and I'm going to say as a law student I was able to get to that level of academics and I thought law school was so much easier than US it's not even funny afterwards you traveled to St. John's to get your master's degree and then after St.

John's you went to Case Western Reserve University for law school what made you decide to earn a law degree after liberal arts studies? Well, law is a liberal art, and I think that's sometimes lost. You know, at one point, we treated law as part of an undergraduate liberal arts education, and there are actually some really good thinkers. In fact, the commencement speaker my senior year at U.S. was a guy named Austin Surratt, who was a professor at Amherst.

I mean, he's actually made this argument. We do people a disservice by not treating law as an essential liberal art, and I'm glad that we actually have it in many ways in our program with Mr. Perry's classes and Ms. Coy's classes because I think having an appreciation for being able to think about things from varied perspectives is one of the real gifts of a law school education.

You know, I think for me it was an opportunity to grow. I taught for four years right out of college. I had the opportunity to go to law school, and I loved every minute of law school. And I still practice some law to this day The beauty of law is it helps you help others solve problems And that true if you a criminal defense attorney and it true if you creating an M deal You helping people solve problems.

And what could be more fun than that if you like dealing with other people? Not to mention, even those who aren't so extroverted, doing the legwork that oftentimes is behind the scenes in law that helps people solve problems is, I think, core to the practice. And you mentioned there was that four-year period between when you graduated school and then went on to law school. What was those, you said those teaching, correct?

Yes. What was that first experience with teaching like? Were there any new moments in the classroom that you had to work through? You know, I taught four sections of English and coached three sports, football, basketball and baseball, and I would never be hired today.

We're a much better school today than we were when I was hired. And I say that today we hire PhDs in English. And I will say there's all kinds of advantages to the school that you have attended. There was also some value, though, in having a full immersion into being a teacher and a coach and being around high school young men really for 13, 14, 15 hours a day.

And getting to know that student who might drive you nuts in second block. But then you see, boy, he's a really good teammate. He works really hard on the football field. And maybe there's something there that can help him do a little bit better in English.

And then also at the same time, occasionally having that student that you really like in English class, but you find absolutely annoying on the field or on the court. And trying to understand, okay, well, this is a different way to reach that young man. And I do think one of our strengths as a school for its history has been that belief that that mentoring, teaching, coaching process is immersive. and and I think it's one of our I wouldn't say it's not something we've lost but it's one of our challenges to make certain that we can continue to develop it and find that that balance as as we move forward and it's a different world today on so many levels but I do think that was an incredible four-year sort of teaching immersion experience and you know I had a department chair Phil Cocotilo, who was amazing. And so I learned so much as a young English teacher.

I joked, when I went to Elyria Catholic in my third year of law school, and I taught English class, I taught a regular junior section of English. So I was a full-time law student, I was a part-time teacher, and obviously it was that football coach. And we had Andrew and Thomas week four after a big win. I think of their birth date as week four.

I don't always remember the exact birthday. But the, my memory is within two weeks, students were like, our class is harder than the AP class. And really what I was just doing was I was just teaching US junior year, because that's what I knew. And so it's an amazing experience, because, you know, I just got to be around a really talented group of students that year, who completely rose to the occasion and ended up, you know really loving that class and it's a group that i'm still in touch with that's a pretty cool experience so us is amazing even beyond its walls yeah so you mentioned that experience at illyria catholic and then after illyria catholic you took over at the head coach as head coach at benedictine high school how did that opportunity arise and would you uh how was that experience like there so we lived on the east side of cleveland the whole time that i was at illyria catholic and so for those of you don't know you know leary is far west side um and it was about a 50 minute commute benedicton was literally eight minutes door to door from my house when the job opened even my athletic director and principal at a lyric catholic oh you should go for the benedicton job it's obviously a great tradition but i'll also i'll also say there's a great lesson that I would share with anyone.

Make certain when you do something, you do it because it's what you want, not because you think it's what you're supposed to do. I still remember driving from Elyria Catholic, having just talked to my team at EC and going to meet the team at Benedictine. I remember having kind of a feeling in the pit of my stomach. Why am I doing this?

I love what I do. I love where I do it. And I really was part of a special community at Elyria Catholic. It's still very special to me.

And it's nothing. Benedictine's a great school with a great mission, has some amazing human beings, obviously an incredible football tradition. And so this is nothing about Benedictine. It's just always make sure, certainly you know why you're doing something.

I'll also say, don't assume that you're the reason for being successful. you know I think anyone as a young person I shouldn't say I'll just say speak for me I think had a lot of initial success as a head coach and you don't appreciate some of the ways in which you're lucky when I was a leader Catholic I had a great coaching staff that with very little effort on my part bought in to everything we did and I just thought oh you treat people well you have some talented players call some good ball plays you can have a lot of success. And the reality is building a staff over time and having everyone on the same page and teaching, those are things that are really important. And it's just like building a team, building a company, any of those items, you need to make sure you have the right people on the bus. You need to make certain that they've got the right direction.

Everyone has to be on the same page. And that's something I learned from my Benedictine experience that, hey, that doesn't happen by accident. And so, you know, I was there for two years. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to do.

Someone who was a good friend of my AD at Valeria Catholic was the athletic director at NDCL, and he called me when they had the opening. I had a great time at NDCL. I'd probably still be there if it weren't for the fact that when Jim Stevens retired, that my boys were already here, Andrew and Thomas. And then I had the opportunity to be here at university school, which has been so impactful in my life.

You know, my next question is, be that when 2015 you kind of got that call what was that moment like for you kind of returning home to lead the program kind of where it all started you know it's uh i mean maybe at the risk of thinking everything's a lesson for others certainly a lesson for me um the person who was most responsible the two people are most responsible for me coming back one was jim stevens my predecessor who called me when he was ready to retire and said ben is this something you'd want to do um and then the other person was was dr o'neil bill o'neil um who's you know amazing administrator here was director of the upper school at points obviously a very successful cross-country and golf coach and you know it was really interesting because when i was a young teacher doc and i weren't always on the same page um and yet when i left and i went to law school So we made a point of getting together for lunch or breakfast about once a year. And over that time, we developed a relationship and then obviously, you know, went through the search process here and came back. And, you know, Bill's the main reason I came back. And I guess I would say it's really good to maintain relationships with people, even sometimes when at first you might not be on the same page as them.

Because over time, you learn to appreciate some of the things that they see. and maybe they appreciate some of the things that you see too. But, you know, and again, he's been one of the most helpful people to me as a coach in philosophy. And all of that came after I left here after four years as a young teacher. And so I'm really grateful for that relationship.

To this day, it's every time I sit down with Doc, it's a conversation that makes me a better thinker, a better teacher, better coach, probably a better parent. Doc is amazing on so many fronts. Where did you meet Coach Kennedy along this coaching journey? I met Coach Kennedy.

Coach is a Benedictine grad. I met him when I was the head coach at Benedictine. He came in. He was coaching at a small school, Ledgemont, that no longer exists.

He was the defensive coordinator. We were just sharing some ideas. I was really struck by Coach's passion. Fast forward, I take the job at NDCL and I'm looking for a defensive coordinator.

And I said to him, hey, is this something you'd be interested in? And he was. And then, you know, obviously that's been an incredible partnership. I think the thing that strikes me most about Coach, he's such a clear communicator of anything.

And I think it's why he's so good at track, why he's so good at basketball, why he's so good at coaching football. He communicates things clearly. He has an ability to make certain that you know he's going to be fair but tough. And he has a passion for seeing a young person develop.

So I take a lot of pride in the fact that he came over to U.S. when I came here from NDCL because I think he's about as impactful as any coach could be. You talked about your predecessor, Coach Jim Stevens. He'd been here for, I believe, 15 years. how did you feel about stepping into the shoes of such a long-tenured coach? Were you nervous, excited, all of it?

Both. I think one of the things about Coach is, first of all, he completely changed the way we trained. So in the late 90s, early 2000s, we did not have a great off-season program. And, you know, Coach Stevens was the person who really said, we have to make the weight room matter.

And by the way, he did all of that without Coach Alvarez. I mean, everything I do is a cheap version of Coach Stevens. I mean, he did all of the training for almost everybody in the school. And that was in addition to being an amazing English teacher, writing an incredible number of college recs and helping just about every student he had with their college essays. um so so coach was really remarkable on a lot of fronts he also took on a lot of the responsibilities himself um now part of that was it was a different era but at the same time i think one of the things is you know he he also knew and he put me at ease because he said he said ben he said there's going to be some things you think we need to do that are going to be a lot different and he said i want you to know you're right and not to worry about.

He said, look, he said, you know, what we were doing 15 years ago made sense. He said, I just, you know, didn't always have the will to make the changes that I thought probably need to be made. And so, you know, what a great gift from somebody that I have such immense respect for to say, hey, Ben, it's okay to make changes. You know, Coach Stevens probably never had a staff meeting in his life.

You know, we have staff meetings. In my first year, he was actually on staff. He was our linebackers coach. and it was such a fun year. And I think maybe one of my personal highlights, we had an upset of Maple Week 10 and he walked up, he says, is it okay if I say I'm proud of you?

And I'm like, yes. And it was so awesome to get to coach with him because he'd done so much for me. You know, moving to U.S.'s program specifically, what do you think defines the culture of U.S. football and what makes it unique compared to other teams in the kind of area? Culture is a buzzword.

We all use it. I think culture is really what binds. What is it that keeps us together? And let's face it, over the course of time, and you guys have experienced some years on some teams, culture is stronger than other years, right?

I think overall, over the course of 11 years, that sense of brotherhood, that sense of togetherness has been the strongest consistent trait. And you know I think number one that something that true very much as a school culture You know I think we take that seriously But I think football because of the demands you know if you do workouts at 6 a four days a week in the summer, it's hard to not feel a sense of deep commitment to what you do. I mean, so culture is the shared belief, but it's also the shared practice. And, you know, when I think about elements of our school that have the strongest cultures, right?

And again, I'm going to miss people when I say this. I look at speech and debate, and I look at the work that they consistently put in. Well, there's a huge shared commitment there. I look at baseball and its success.

There's a massive shared commitment in that program. And again, I feel badly because I know I'm leaving out places where there is clearly a strong culture. But again, I think that combination of shared belief and shared practice really matters. And I think at some level, right, in football, it's about doing the daily tasks that you have to do to compete.

And also, right, knowing that, let's face it, nothing's guaranteed. You know, in football, it's a highly competitive area for football. So, hey, we can do everything right, but we're going to go play against teams that do everything right also. You're not just going to win because you do everything right and others don't.

Well, that's the real world, right? There's no guarantee of results, and you have to figure out how to get better at the margins. Let's talk about Team 136 specifically. Looking back at this past season, what are you most proud of, and what lessons did you learn from this team?

I was very proud of the resilience of this team. You know, week five, we had a very rough loss at home to Akron East. It was a rough performance. And I was pretty down after the game.

I thought it was a game that we had opportunities to win. We turned the ball over. We didn't execute in key situations. We committed some really, really weak penalties.

And what I mean by that is they were moments where we just mentally lost focus. And obviously, that's game five of the season. You're halfway through. And so as a coach, I felt like I let my team down.

At some point, that's what we had allowed, and that's where we were at. And obviously you got looming a rivalry game the next week that was very significant to our team. And the second half of the season had some really tough games involved. So to see our team, number one, have the best week of practice I've ever had at university school.

We kind of made a point about the energy we wanted at practice. And this is where it all combines. And you can't do this every week. we not only kind of demanded a level of enthusiasm and energy at practice, and players responded. You know, our coaches, I kept them here until about 8.30 every night that week, Tuesday, Wednesday, or excuse me, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, to go over every moment of film from practice those days to get ready for that game against Gilmore. and so you know I think players saw the effort that their coaches were making coaches I think saw the increased intensity of the players and it brought out the best in everyone and and I have a friend who's an older guy who is a who writes a lot about how teams achieve what he calls flow you know those sort of magical moments right you know that day when your team is a little better than it ever is.

And his whole point, right, is it comes from an atmosphere where leaders lead leaders. That if you understand everyone is a leader, and so, you know, hey, that guy on the sideline who's, you know, screaming third down in practice because he's trying to create a little bit of juice for the practice session is leading, right? He's affecting how others perceive practice as much as, right, the safety was also calling out the coverage and getting it right and making certain, you know, Ty's got us in the right coverage or Colin's got us in the right coverage. It's all together, and everyone's leaving.

Yes, coaches might make the practice plan or plan the indie period, but players are also leading us and saying, hey, this is what we want, and you can ask more of us. And sure enough, you know, we play some pretty good football and win a huge game for our team. and I thought set up a nice second half of the season. And it was interesting that that carried through in practice. That unique week of practice carried through right till the end.

And I really think maybe the defining thing about this season was how much this group wanted another week. And we didn't catch the breaks. I mean, that happens. Again, football's highly competitive.

At the same time, I don't know that I've ever had a group that was more passionate about having the opportunity to play. And, hey, our guys knew whatever we had this week was not going to be easy. If we made it, we were going to play a really good football team. And our team still wanted that and wanted more of the challenge.

I think that's the real testament to the resilience and to the attitude and that togetherness, right, of the team. Ultimately, again, we talk a little bit about loyalty, right? And loyalty is a tough word, right? Because on one hand, it's the individual right to the other player.

But ultimately, if we're not all loyal to the team, if we're not all loyal to what we believe, if we're not all loyal to our school and its values, whatever that loyalty level is, then it might not work. And this team showed incredible loyalty to the team and to the goals of the team. And I thought that was really remarkable. One of the highlights of the season, at least for me, was that game at the Shaker Campus under the lights that you mentioned at assembly you had been envisioning for a long time now.

Can you talk about what that experience was like and just seeing the community come together for that game? Okay, I'm going to back up for a moment. I came here in 1985. And one of the questions was, you know, how do we have these two campuses and bring them together?

And it was interesting because when I first came here as a student, you still had a lot of teachers who had experienced the school on one campus. Don't forget, we didn't stop playing games at the Shaker campus until 78. So all the football and soccer games were there, even about 8 to 10 years after we moved out to Hunting Valley. There were still teachers that went back and forth between the campuses and taught on both campuses when I was a student here.

So there were still some things that kept the campuses a little more together. Most of the administrators had been on a one-school campus at that point. And, of course, by the time I'm graduating here, it's becoming an issue. There's, you know, we go through an accreditation process every seven years called ISACS.

It's an independent schools consortium that does the evaluation. And I think it was something like four straight seven-year accreditations. Yeah, you kind of have some different campuses and cultures. You need to really work on bringing them together.

I came back, I teach, constantly talking about that in meetings. In fact, how do we bring these campuses together? Come back 11 years later after law school and teaching elsewhere 10 years later. First meeting I'm at, they're talking about that issue.

And I think at some level, the most obvious way to keep a shared campus culture is to have opportunities where the campuses are together. And the reality is you can't do Founders Day every week. You know, but you can have events where everyone is involved and where your younger students see your older students and look to them and say, well, I'd like to do that. And so to me, it's always been an obvious answer that football games in greater Cleveland in the Midwest, you know, high school football game is one of those kinds of events where you can have community.

It's not the only one. I want to make sure that's clear. But it's certainly a good example of one. And so I've always thought that made it worthwhile.

I also believe from a young age, we have this beautiful campus on 200 acres. But if a football game happens here and nobody sees it, does it really happen? Whereas, hey, if you're in Shaker Heights, you're in a neighborhood, people are aware of it. let's face it, on a Friday night too, think of how involved you two are, and you're just a microcosm of a student body that is hyper-involved. How many things do you guys have on a Saturday that would stop you from going to a game?

A ton of stuff. Not to mention all of our student athletes who are competing often at those times. And you play a Friday night game, there's more opportunity for students to be together. I don't think it hurts that HB and Laurel are a short walk away.

I think that can add a little something to it as well in terms of the appeal of going to a game on a Friday night. So I think all those factors together, and then you throw in the lights. I think those are all elements that I'd say, hey, that's a lot of fun. So it'd be great if that's something we could do going forward.

You know, as you look ahead, what do you kind of hope to see from the program next year, two years, kind of going in the future? Are there any kind of specific goals or milestones you have in mind? I think to me, continuing to build the sense of program, and I think we've done a lot of this over the last 10 years, continuing to build a program fifth grade up in terms of the rookie tackle, what we do at the middle school. Your brother in eighth grade at a good middle school is nice to see a Nelson in a football helmet, which was great.

He's now my favorite brother, and I barely know him, Jack. But, you know, seeing that and making certain that we're maximizing the level at which we teach all the way through the same fundamentals. You know, plays are nice. People say, I'll run the offense. okay a little bit that's true use some terminology but most importantly how do you teach tackling how do you teach running around um all of those details I think that's something where we can continue to maximize that development um in our program um five through 12 so that's a goal and then you know obviously we want to be a consistent playoff team you know it's disappointing to not be playing this week um and I know I know all of our guys are really committed to making certain I mean As I start my off-season conversations, that's something we want every year to be a playoff team.

So, you know, I think those are goals. And then to advance in the playoffs. We haven't done that in a few years. It's time for us to take that next step.

So we've talked a lot about football, but you've coached. You've also taught here. You've also been in other roles with connecting with alumni. And as you look at your legacy as a whole at university school, what do you hope to be remembered by students when that time comes to retire, or move on.

What do you hope to be remembered as? I think legacy would be way too big of a word. When I think of people who have legacies, they were so impactful for so many people for so long. I mentioned Tom Callow.

He did every job you could ever have and had such humility in doing it. Everything from head football coach to athletic director at the end of their career, driving the bus to make certain, you know, the JV team gets to Akron on time. You know, I think if anything, you know, the hope would be that, like any teacher, helping a young man discover something about which he's passionate and then a process for pursuing it, right? Both are important, right? you know, on one hand, the spark matters.

But if you don't learn how to follow up on that spark, then that's a lost opportunity. And I think one of the things that so many of my colleagues do well here and I hope maybe I contribute to in a small way is both ends of that process You know to teams before this will not be the best thing you do. It might be great, but it's just a sign of the passion you have for this and the work ethic you commit to this, that's a template for the next passion you pursue. I've always said part of our responsibility in the motto is to be ambitious.

Think big, pursue great things, and have the work ethic to achieve them. And I'd like to think, if anything, that helped us think big, but also helped create some processes where young people and even old people like me get better at pursuing them. You know, for a student athlete considering U.S., how would you kind of pitch the football program to them, pitch this school to them, and what makes playing here so special? I think Mrs.

Townsend-Hartes does a great job of saying it's a 40-year decision, not a four-year decision. And I think the thing I would come back to is we pursue excellence. We pursue it on the football field. We pursue it in all of our athletic endeavors.

We pursue it in all of our artistic endeavors, all of our extracurricular endeavors, and we pursue it in the classroom. Do you love to learn? And do you love to play? If you don't love either one, this is not the place.

Right? I mean, if you don't love, and by the way, love doesn't mean it's easy, right? You might love to learn and you might love to get good grades. You don't, I don't think, generally love it when it's 10 o'clock at night and you still got two hours of homework.

So I'm not saying, oh, you're going to enjoy every minute of it. But if you love the thought of, okay, hey, I'm going to pursue this and be the best version of myself I can be, and you love to pursue that athletically, that's an amazing combination that you can pursue here in a way that not every place can offer and and so you know to me that's always my question do you love to learn and do you love to play whatever sport that is in my case it's football um but boy boy you better love both and i think that's that's really the the magic of university school we've also talked about a bit about that magic is the brotherhood we have here and that sense of family and community. You've been lucky enough to actually have your family here. You've coached with your father and your son's two sons are here at US.

What has it been like having your family here at US and being able to share this with them? Well, it means a lot. You know, again, I shared a little bit of my my parents and their influence, both really committed to education. And my dad's a little a little bit of an interesting story.

He initially didn't want us to come to U.S. He kind of viewed it as the private school and he had a stereotype in mind. And Charlie knows him a little bit better, I think, than you do. But I don't think anyone could be more passionate about U.S. than him in the bigger picture after he saw our experiences here.

So it's been fun to have him involved with football. And then obviously, most importantly, what I think I've most appreciated for Andrew and Thomas is that they have a different set of interests than I do. You know, obviously Andrew and Thomas didn't play football. And yet they've pursued things that they are passionate about with the same intensity, the same focus, and with the same people guiding them, the same kinds of inspiration guiding them that I would hope, you know, someone who loves football gets here at university school. um and so and what i i think i also love too is that they have a really close-knit group of friends that stick up for each other and they care about each other uh and and i think that's when i think about my u.s experience and i see them have a maybe a different flavor of it but that same experience that's been really special to me as as a father you know looking back at your time at u.s we all need to laugh sometimes do you have kind of a funny or unexpected moment either in practice or game or just even teaching that really kind of just sticks out to you well i i think my my first year back at us we're about two about a week and a half into school and i assigned my first english paper in english 10 and one of my football players is in the class and Later on, he'll go on to coach for us and be involved, Coach Fidelli, Mikey Fidelli.

And I assign the first paper, and he raises his hand. Yes, yes, Mr. Fidelli. In my English class, everyone's Mr.

Yes, Mr. Fidelli. He says, Coach, you didn't come back to coach school. We really have to do this paper? there was a really long staring contest and then i just said yes and so you know but but he definitely made me laugh that was uh that was a a really funny moment um it was also fun that same year uh this is jan fazio who was a colleague of mine and a great teacher um she she would joke with me at lunch and you know she would make fun of my sponsees i would make fun of her and her sponsees and one of our football players uh kevin douglas thought we really didn't like each other he was a qualified because she was his sponsor and he was like my coach my sponsor don't get along and we had to like have a talk with him like no we're actually best friends so those those were some funny moments especially when i first came back i think it's hard to explain but something that's special about us is the amount of humor and uh i think one mark of intelligence is being able to be quick with it and have the humor and you walk around these halls and it's just jokes flying everywhere some smart things smart things being said in exchange i think that's something that's really special i'll add one other thing to your point i think one of the things we do well is take what you do seriously don't take yourself seriously and i think from our leadership on down the level of ability to recognize our own we all have some absurdities i probably have more than most um but to be able to recognize it to laugh at yourself i think is a skill we develop here and i i think you know no matter how successful a u.s grad is i'm always struck by that level of sort of self-deprecation, humility that almost every U.S. grad has.

And I think it's because you don't really walk the hall here and not occasionally have somebody call you out on your flaws. And so it's a pretty good training ground for life. You know, Coach, coming down to the last question, one of the things I always think about when I think about kind of my time playing football, and a lot of people who can say the same are those pregame speeches. What's one line or message from a pep talk that you've given that has just really resonated with you or the team or something that has just kind of really stuck out and that you still think of today?

I've never thought much about pregame speeches. First of all, I'm not quite sure how important they are. By the time you get hit two plays into the game, it probably diminishes any effect of what your coach said 15 minutes ago. I will say my predecessor, Jim Stevens, once made a point that basically every football pregame talk is in Shakespeare, and most of them are the Band of Brothers speech, okay, and Henry V.

So it's some part of the Crispin's Day speech in some form or another. So, you know, I think that's maybe something to think about. You know, basically it's, hey, you're special. Your group has worked really hard.

We don't need anybody else. And if you work hard together, you'll always remember it. That's really what the Crispin's Day speech is. And if you think about it, that's the most pregame talks you've ever heard from any coach.

And so, you know, I guess I'll give credit to Coach Stevens for shaping them. If I've ever said one thing that I was proud of in a pregame speech, it was something along the lines of what I said earlier, right? This will not be the best thing you do, but it will be a sign. Make certain what you do, play in, play out as a sign of everything you will do.

And I thought that was something that was a good message, and I'm glad it stuck. We kind of have it in the locker room as something that we keep front of mind. And I think that that point is really true, right? All the things we do here, even at our most impressive, right?

Hopefully none of this, your A-plus grade, your Chernod project, your great football game and a rivalry game, hopefully none of that is the best thing you do. That's not why you're at university school. You're here to begin that process of thinking about what the next big thing is. And guess what?

There's always a next big thing. And that's true whether you're 18, 48, 78. You know, Jack and I often talk about our why, the reason we do what we do. What is your why?

What motivates you to come in on the early mornings and stay spending countless hours just leading the football team, become just a better teacher, just becoming a better person every single day? I'm going to credit Doc O'Neill again. If you're going to be successful at anything, you have to have an irrational belief in the importance of what you do. I believe team sports, football in particular, matter.

And again, not always this game, But I believe something about young people learning to compete together and pursue a goal together is absolutely crucial. That's what people taught me. That's what I hope I would pass along to guys that I teach and coach. I believe English class matters.

There are plenty of people that say, why does rhetoric matter? Why is it so important to teach parallelism? Well, you know, I happen to believe that if you can put your ideas together in a clear form and you can communicate them and you can recognize the way others are putting their ideas together, you have the opportunity for your ideas to be more impactful. And you also have the opportunity to catch some other people whose ideas maybe might be impactful in the wrong direction.

You know, why does literature matter? Well, what is literature? There's a reason great works survive. They survive because somehow they capture something that is beautiful and true and good, or something that's evil.

You can see temptation in Macbeth. There's a reason why Macbeth lives as a text. There's a reason why Gatsby lives as a text. There's something very true about something in your past you idealizing and maybe struggling to make it your present.

We can all relate to that. We can all learn from it. And so, yeah, I mean, I think at some level, right, if you teach and coach, it's because you have an irrational belief in the importance of what you do. You know, even what I do in development, right?

At some level, you know, I believe in our mission, and I believe in its ability to transform young people, and in doing that, transform the world. And other people might say, hey, that's absurd. And I would point out to them, maybe it is. But aren't we all better off if we have that sense of belief in the importance of what we do?

Show me someone who's good at anything, and I'll show you someone who has an irrational belief in the importance of what they do. And that's, to me, maybe the core of a good life. Well, Coach Malbasa, it's been great having you on the show, Jay. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights and experience and stories with us.

To our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. And we'll hope you'll join us next Wednesday for another episode of Late Start Show. Thank you, Coach. Thank you, guys.

I appreciate what you do.