Men Don't Run in the Rain — And 7 Other Essential Lessons for Being a Man
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Summary
Rick Burgess is a radio host, a men's ministry leader, and the author of Men Don't Run in the Rain, a son's reflections on life, faith, and an iconic father. In our conversation, he discusses what his dad taught him through football and beyond, including why men don't run in the rain, and why you need to get out of the stands, avoid being stupid, refuse to rest on your laurels, and take full responsibility for your life without making excuses.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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When Rick Burgess was growing up, his father, Bill Burgess, was also his football coach. But Bill
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was a mentor on and off the field, not only for his own son, but for the many young men he coached
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at both the high school and collegiate level. Though Bill has passed on, his lessons remain
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timeless and valuable for all men. Today on the show, Rick shares some of his old school wisdom
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with us. Rick is a radio host, a men's ministry leader, and the author of Men Don't Run in the Rain,
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a son's reflections on life, faith, and an iconic father. In our conversation, he discusses what his
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dad taught him through football and beyond, including why men don't run in the rain, and why
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you need to get out of the stands, avoid being stupid, refuse to rest on your laurels, understand
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the difference between confidence and arrogance, and take full responsibility for your life without
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making excuses. We also talk about how Rick drew upon his father's wisdom when tragedy struck his
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life. After the show is over, check out our show notes at awimp.is slash rain.
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Thanks for having me, Brad. Excited to talk about this topic today because this is one that you and
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No, for sure. So you got a new book out. It's called Men Don't Run in the Rain, a son's reflections
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on life, faith, and an iconic father. And this book is all about your father and college football
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coach, Bill Burgess. So your dad, he was a football coach in Alabama. He played football for Auburn from
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1958 to 1962. After that, he became a high school football coach and athletic director. He coached at
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Woodlawn High School and Oxford High School there in Alabama. Then he became the coach of Jacksonville
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State University. Had a lot of success there. He took his team to three national division two
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championships, won one of those, won multiple Gulf South conference titles. He was named national
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coach of the year, was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. So he had a very successful
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coaching career. And it seems like your dad, he was born to coach. Like this was his calling and he
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filled it. Yeah. There's people that maybe want to be a coach and you just put it best, Brett. Then
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there's people that were born to coach and he just, because it came so natural to him, it was kind of
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like breathing. I don't think he even put a lot of effort into saying, I must do this and I have to do
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that. And I think it's just what he was born to do. And he was one of those people that if he came
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into a room, he would influence people whether you wanted him to or not. What I love about this book
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is, you know, we were talking before we got on the show. I played high school football here in
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Oklahoma and your dad, he just, he reminded me of some of the football coaches that I had.
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And you know, his, his sayings that he had is like witty one-liners that he had without even
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trying to be witty the way he carried himself. And I love how you start the book, this physical
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description you give your dad, because I think it really captures the way he dressed and carried
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himself. It captures his philosophy towards coaching in life. So what was the Bill Burgess uniform
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that you, you knew that like that, that's dad. When you think about your dad, that's what you
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remember. Yeah. You know, he just was, um, you know, he wasn't really, when I look back, he wasn't,
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I don't think over six foot tall, but he seemed like he was, you know, seven feet tall, but he was
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very muscular and, you know, he, he was old school. So he always had the trucker cap on with the team
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logo, you know, right on the front. He wore a coach's shirt, you know, the standard with the team
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logo, you know, the insignia on the, on the left chest. And, and, and then he would wear these black
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coaching shoes. You probably remember these, Brett, they were, I think Rydell made them.
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Yeah. They were black. And then of course he would do tube socks, of course. And he would pull those
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up to his massive calves, which were legendary, legendary. And those calves would kind of break
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the elastic, elastic of the tube socks. And then the, the socks would fall down, you know, around his
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ankles, never staying up. And then of course he had his whistle on, you know, had kind of a piece
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of leather around it and it had a whistle. And then on the end of the whistle was athletic tape.
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My dad believed that athletic tape could cure any problem. And of course it would have that on the
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end, tobacco juice, and sometimes blood would be stained on the athletic tape. And then of course,
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the final part of the uniform was always the bike coaching shorts. Uh, they were super,
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super tight and that's the way he was standing in that Alabama sun. He, he was just the iconic
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portrait of those classic football coaches from that era that had influence on everybody they
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coached. How do you think that exemplifies his philosophy or sort of his stance towards life?
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You know, dad was always about keeping it simple. He probably was one of the most humble people
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that I've ever known for the, you know, considering the leadership role that he was constantly being put
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in and the accolades and, and he was never an I person. He was always a wee person. He always
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complimented the staff, complimented the players, everybody who worked, the equipment person, you
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know, the trainers, the, you know, the janitor, you know, whatever the case may be. And so I think
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if you looked at the way he dressed, he dressed in a way that shouldn't really, it did, but it
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shouldn't have really, the intent was not to bring attention to himself. He felt like if I was going to be
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coaching, this is the things I need to coach. And I'm certainly not trying to make a fashion
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statement or bring any attention to myself. I'm here to work.
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It made me want to go get some bike shorts for myself.
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I think that's the next trend that's going to happen here. Coach bike shorts.
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All right. So let's talk about some of these lessons that you, you highlight in the book.
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And the first lesson that you highlight that you got from your dad was, it's the title of the book,
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men don't run in the rain. It's very evocative phrase. What does that mean?
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You know, it meant more than what it literally means. You know, I, in the intro, I tell you the
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story about me being with my dad and I knew it was actually one of my friends, you know, dad was,
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this doesn't surprise you. He was our biological father, but he was a father figure for so many
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of our friends. And of course the multiple players that he coached because they either didn't have a
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father at all, or they may have had fathers that were not great people, you know? And so dad became
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kind of a pseudo father for many. And one of my best friends in school and in growing up, his father,
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you know, was not involved in his life and unfortunately was actually eventually murdered.
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And so, you know, he looked to dad as his dad. He was at our house all the time.
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And he was the first one that said to me when we were little boys, we weren't very old and he saw
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dad and a, and a downpour and dad wasn't running. He was just walking methodically. He wasn't, you
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know, picking up his pace. He wasn't slowing down. He was just, the rain wasn't really hitting him.
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And he looked at me and he said, your dad doesn't run in the rain. And I thought, no, okay. And I didn't
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think anything much about it. And maybe dad's just odd. I didn't know. So when I got a little older,
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somewhere around 12, 13, something like that, I was leaving his office. And one of those classic
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Alabama afternoon downpours came, you know, with the daily thunderstorm with all the humidity.
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And so I went to run to his, uh, to his truck and he put his arm out and he, and he stopped me
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and he says, no, men don't run in the rain. And I remember thinking to myself, I don't think I
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fully grasp it, but almost what he was saying is men should never be frantic. Men should not
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make a big deal out of things that aren't a big deal. It's just rain. And I don't want to see you
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nor any man scurrying like the rain falling on them is going to hurt them. And he said, we, we walk to
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the truck and he's teaching something there about steadiness. He's teaching something there about
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not being fearful of things that we shouldn't be afraid of. He's speaking about a confidence,
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a calm that a man should bring to a chaotic situation. So he was saying something much bigger
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and it took me a while to realize that, but I see now he was starting to teach that as soon as he could.
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Yeah. That, uh, that phrase, that advice, men don't run in the rain. It reminds me of this
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Nassim Taleb quote. Are you familiar with Nassim Taleb, uh, anti-fragile black swan? He's just like
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economist guy. Sure. But he has this line, I don't run for trains. And I think it's very similar.
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And he says this about why he doesn't run for trains. He says, I have felt the true value of
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elegance and aesthetics and behavior, a sense of being in control of my time, my schedule and my life.
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And also you just, yeah. So it's just like your, your dad didn't run in the rain because he was in
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control. Even if this is the rain's happening, no big deal. I'm still in charge. Nassim Taleb
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doesn't run for trains because first off, you just, you look kind of silly when you're running
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in the rain or running for a train, but also just, it asserts your agency. Hey, you know what?
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This doesn't bother me. That's exactly right. And I think sometimes that's what's missing
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in our homes. I'd say, I always had this sense that as long as this man was, was here,
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then we're good. And if I had looked up and never saw him panic in situations, you know,
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that might've been fearful or scary, it would have caused the entire family to lose all hope.
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You know, almost he was a, a calming factor, a steadiness, a foundation in his family's life.
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And you're right. They're both saying the same thing. If we cast a different vision,
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it doesn't just affect us. It's not about them. It's the impact it has on all those you influence.
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All right. So you actually played for your dad when he was a high school coach at Oxford.
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You know, my dad was probably the best that I ever have seen or heard of. You know, when you
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see all these movies, anytime there's the, here's the authoritative dad and he's a coach in his kids
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and, and then he makes them run sprints, you know, like the great Santini, you know, that Pat talked
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about in his famous book that went on to be a movie. You know, it wasn't that at all. Dad really
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separated the fact that he was the coach and that he was our father. He never mixed the two.
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It wasn't any harder on us than it was anybody else who played for him. It wasn't any easier on us.
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Our playing time was earned. That was understood. Now I probably, the only thing that was a little bit
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different because, and I understand his caution on this is he had to be careful about patting us on
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the back publicly, you know, in interviews and things like that. I think that was difficult for
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him. And I think at times he might've said, maybe you and your brother deserved, he was more apt to
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do it for my brother than me because of our personalities. But, uh, is that maybe there were
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times that I could have gotten a pat on the back publicly about a game. And if he wasn't my dad,
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the coach probably would have done more of, but that was no big deal because we didn't have any of
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the, the bad stuff, you know, Hey, I didn't like the way you played today. What were you doing in
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practice? Get out in the yard and let me show you again how to do that. There was none of that.
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Even if there was something wrong with the team and he was at home and we were eating dinner,
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he would never bring it up. And then we got back to the field the next day, he'd bring it up.
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So he, he never mixed the two and never made it weird. And playing for my dad was actually a very
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positive experience. And I'm glad I got to do it. I think there's a lesson right there for men
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learning how to separate work from home. A lot of guys, they bring work home, all the stress
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and whatnot, just makes their family miserable. And that's a skill. Like I think it's a skill you
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have to practice and develop. It doesn't just happen. I don't think. No, I think he was intentional
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about it. I think it would have embarrassed him if he'd had done it any other way. And I think he found
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him and there were some of these men around like through youth league and things like that.
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And I remember dad was always repulsed by the little league dad that my dad was not a huge
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fan of little league. He didn't keep us from playing it and he didn't try to encourage us
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to play it. But he, he knew that there were a lot of men that were putting themselves in
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positions with influence over boys that probably were not going to be a great influence. Luckily,
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I had a dad that could kind of offset that, but I remember him being very repulsed by the coach
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dad that was screaming at his son on the mound, you know, and the son's obviously upset. And,
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you know, here's this dad who's coaching the whole team and he's, you know, focused on traumatizing
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his son and in front of everybody. And my dad really, really disliked that.
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So one of the lessons you learned from your dad when you played for him was nobody cares
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about last year. What's the story behind that lesson?
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Yeah, my dad ran a program and you being from Oklahoma, you know, you saw big programs and
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it was very rare that there would be someone younger than a junior to actually play and
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be in the starting lineup. And in those days, and I've even seen in my home state of Alabama,
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this has changed a lot. Even the biggest schools will still, you know, take what we used to
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call the B team. Some people call it junior varsity and they combine them, you know, and I've
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always wondered why that is because, you know, dad didn't have near the coaching staff as these big
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schools have now in high school, but he still made sure the B team had its own coach, had its own
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practices, its own games. You didn't practice with the varsity and then go play like I saw my son's
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doing even at big schools. So he didn't do it that way. And so for you to be on the team as a
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sophomore, be on the varsity was almost unheard of. So the year that I was coming up, I had four
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other friends that were, we were sophomores that had had good, we were always playing a year ahead
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and his senior class that year was, was weak and the numbers were weak. Their win loss record wasn't
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very good. And so he pulled five sophomores up to the varsity, which was unheard of. And I got to start,
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he was not my position coach, but the position coach may be the starter. So I had a good year
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for a sophomore. And so I was coming back my junior year going, well, I know who's the starting
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defensive tackle. I know what that is. And so the first play of the two a day practices
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for the new season, my junior year, he erupted and he pulled me out of the lineup. They told me to go
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sit on the bench and they were going to get somebody in there that was ready to play, that was hungry.
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And then as that player is running on the field, he walks over to me as I'm confused and standing
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on the sideline. And he said, nobody cares what you did last year. And if you think you're going
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to come out here and start on what you did last year, he said, nobody cares what you did last
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year. That's in that year. And today is a whole new day. And you're going to have to earn the starting
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position on this team, just as if you've never played it down for me. And I even remember thinking,
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Brett, I don't think I was given a bad effort, but he knew that was his opportunity and he was not
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going to let a sophomore's head blow up and was never going to make me think or anyone on that
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field that you played for any other reason than you earned it. And he was letting me know that if I
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phoned it in and leaned on last year, that I would probably find myself on the bench.
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How have you carried that lesson over to other areas of your life beyond football?
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Yeah. I mean, I don't want to get overly spiritual, even though the book does have a spiritual
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component to it, as you saw. But I think a lot of times people in men in their spiritual life,
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in their careers or whatever, you know, it's sad for me to think that a man ever has already lived
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his best year. You know, I'm 60 years old as I'm talking to you. And I remember doing the research
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and somebody making me aware of it asked me, had I seen it? And I said, I had not. And I found out
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that research shows that if a man has his mental and physical health, that 60 to 70 is the most
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influential decade of his entire life. Well, if I've maxed out in high school and want to tell you
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about me making all state in high school for the rest of my life. And I'm doing that to the point
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that I'm not even remotely attempting to accomplish something right now. I use the example in the book
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of Philip, you know, when he had the Ethiopian and he had this big moment where he baptizes this
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Ethiopian and interprets, you know, the book of Isaiah. And I said, you know, a lot of people would
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have just the rest of their life, they would have been Philip. And that would have been the last thing
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you ever heard. But it says in scripture that Philip immediately left that area and began talking
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to other people about Christ and interpreting scripture for them. He didn't rest on the Ethiopian
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story. And I think a lot of times men tell these same stories when there's a lot of life left as if
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they've maxed out. You know, that that was my greatest moment. And I think it also makes us lazy,
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you know, that we think, well, I've done enough. And that's not true. I mean, until we take our last
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breath, there's still value to our lives and we should be having impact and influence and making
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a difference. And dad was teaching me a life lesson that you don't rest on your laurels. I mean,
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nobody cares what you did in 1982. What are you doing in 2025, 2026? Yeah, that idea that when you're
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60, you still might have 20 years left. That's a long time to get a lot done. And just that idea that
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you can still keep doing things and trying to be better reminded me of a conversation I had a
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while back ago with Cynthia Covey. She's the daughter of Stephen Covey of Seven Habits of
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Highly Effective People fame. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she finished a book that her father had
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started. You know, he passed away and then she finished it. It's called Living Life in Conscendo.
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And it's all about your most important work is always ahead of you. And she talked about how her
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father, like this is a guy who has written one of the most influential, you know, self-help books
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in history. But he always thought, like, I can do something better than that. And he was always
00:19:01.940
striving more. And he says, you know, I might not be as well known for my later work as I was with
00:19:07.000
Seven Habits, but I still got something important to do. And I got to keep working that. And he was
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doing that until his dying day. Yeah, no doubt. I mean, even in my, at 60, you know, I did the same
00:19:18.920
radio show for 31 years. And, you know, when that show ended in December and I sensed that it was time
00:19:26.860
for it to end, I thought its best days were behind him. And I started getting a feeling that we were
00:19:32.800
an oldies act. We were starting to rest on the things we'd done in the past. And we had a very
00:19:37.240
successful career. And, you know, I decided that it was time for me to do something different. So,
00:19:43.060
I mean, literally, I've been, you know, as you and I are doing this interview, I'm four or five
00:19:49.180
months into, you know, a brand new show and I host a radio show for my day job. And I'm loving it. And
00:19:55.820
I mean, I'm talking about, like, in January, I was sitting down listening to research. They put
00:20:02.460
research in the field. I wanted to know what I was doing poorly, what I could do better. And it would
00:20:07.880
have been real easy, you know, to be at 60, say, hey, I've been in radio for over 40 years. Y'all have
00:20:12.980
nothing to tell me. But that's not true. I mean, I still need to bang on my craft and continue to
00:20:19.520
get better at what I do. And as you just stated, I don't know that I'll be remembered in my industry
00:20:25.560
as much for what I'm doing now as what I did in the past. But if I'm looking in the mirror and I
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think I'm better at what I was doing and I'm actually doing this job better, then that's good
00:20:36.580
enough for me because I think that I can still improve. There's no doubt about that. But am I
00:20:42.820
willing to improve? You know, you could come to the reality you could still improve and still be
00:20:46.800
too lazy that you won't do it. Not only do I know I can improve, I am trying to improve,
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which is the second half of it. I love this lesson, other lesson you got from your dad, because
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my dad told this to me. I had football coaches say the same to me. And I've told this exact same
00:21:03.060
thing. I coached flag football for my son and his team. I said the same thing to my flag football
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players that I coach. Don't be stupid. What did your dad mean by being stupid?
00:21:16.180
You know, my dad was obsessed with removing all stupidity from the planet. He hated for you to do
00:21:24.640
stupid things. And then he had all these analogies, you know, if I'd ordered a truckload of stupid
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people and all I got was you, I would have got my money's worth, which is one of my favorites.
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But, um, you know, dad thought that a lot of things in life could be avoided if you just wouldn't be
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stupid. I mean, what you just decided to do was stupid. And if you would minimize the stupid things
00:21:45.880
in your life, you know, for instance, you know, it's third down, it is third and long. Okay. And
00:21:52.880
they throw a pass, you know, for eight yards when they needed 12, but I tee off on the quarterback
00:21:58.100
late and now they get an automatic first down. That's stupid. I mean, we had this handled if you
00:22:03.660
had just not been stupid. And he, he would say things like be smart. Hey, be smart. Like if he
00:22:09.240
saw us, you know, starting to elevate a little bit, you know, on the field, you got to think this
00:22:13.620
through, be smart right here. You know, Hey, they're probably going to go on too. Are they going to
00:22:18.660
change the cadence? If it's fourth down and a half a yard, you can bet they're going to try to draw you
00:22:23.200
off sides. Don't be stupid and jump. You can actually watch the ball. You shouldn't even be
00:22:28.100
listening to what the quarterback is saying because we move on the ball. It's stupid to listen to him.
00:22:33.720
And a lot of these things were very simplistic. And that's why he marveled that we would still do
00:22:38.960
them when it seems so obvious that these were bad decisions. No, I think, yeah, you're right. Like
00:22:43.300
a lot of the problems that people have in life are just the result of being stupid. No doubt. I mean,
00:22:49.020
I look back at my life and the problems that I have brought on myself really it's because I just
00:22:54.680
made a stupid decision that far outweighs anything that happened to me that I said, I don't think I
00:22:59.240
had anything to do with that. You know, a lot of it is just, if I had just made a, a just stopped
00:23:04.700
and said, let me use logic, which is, you know, now common sense is a superpower. Let me just think
00:23:11.660
this through and just don't be stupid. It reminds me of a Charlie Munger quote. Uh, he says it is
00:23:18.220
remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently
00:23:23.340
not stupid instead of trying to be very intelligent. That's good. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. And, and I
00:23:30.920
tell the story about us setting, you know, the, the woods behind our house on fire by just being
00:23:35.540
stupid. We thought that we would take dried out pine limbs and suddenly we could turn those into
00:23:41.040
torches like we saw in all the adventure movies, you know, where they've always got a torch. And so we
00:23:46.460
thought let's make torches out of dried out Alabama sun, dried out pine. You know, there's nothing
00:23:52.960
more flammable than pine straw. So let's pick up limbs that are brown and let's light them and
00:23:58.780
pretend like we have torches in the woods in a drought. That's just stupid, you know? And then
00:24:04.400
of course it didn't take long for somebody to go, Oh, mine nearly burned me and threw it over
00:24:07.840
to not be burned. And then it set that on fire and off we go.
00:24:11.040
How do you not be stupid? Like, let's say you're a 40 year old guy and you feel like,
00:24:16.060
I mean, am I being stupid? Like, how do you know, how do you stop being stupid?
00:24:20.080
Well, I think the first thing we need to do is to not make decisions without, you know,
00:24:25.680
there's, have you ever heard the, um, the term? And I know it's been used quite a bit. If you take
00:24:30.420
a rifle, let's ready ourselves, let's aim, and then let's pull the trigger. Well, a lot of times
00:24:36.540
somebody will shoot ready aim. I'm just squeezing the trigger and I didn't take any time to think
00:24:40.660
about what I'm doing. So a lot of times, if you'll just stop for a minute and go, okay,
00:24:44.940
I'm thinking about taking action on this. Let me, let me go ahead and look ahead of that potential
00:24:51.900
regret. Okay. If I had not done this, then I wouldn't be sitting in the situation I'm in right
00:24:57.100
now. A lot of things are avoidable in life. If you'll just stop for a minute, reason it out
00:25:02.940
and then take action. We tend to take action, then think about it later. And that's a huge mistake.
00:25:08.540
You know, the five P's prior planning prevents poor performance, you know, maybe do a little
00:25:13.080
more thinking and a little less reacting. Yeah. Something that I told my players when I coach
00:25:19.020
them and I tell it to my kids too. It's like one of those things I'm trying to get into their head.
00:25:22.620
I want them to develop this stance towards life. It's just situational awareness, pay attention to
00:25:27.180
what's going on around you. I feel like a lot of the mistakes that happen on the field, or even when
00:25:31.940
your kids do something stupid, they just weren't paying attention. They weren't just kind of off
00:25:35.920
in la-la land. And I'm like, Hey, just keep your head on a swivel, pay attention to what's going on,
00:25:40.760
know your business so that you can make good decisions. It's a tough lesson to teach young
00:25:45.540
people. It is. And do you think too, Brett, when you think about this, another thing I would say
00:25:48.880
is look at the history of people who made this same decision. You know, I can't tell you how many
00:25:54.040
times I've been counseling men and I'm like, okay, so you, you started, you know, a relationship
00:25:59.180
with a woman at work when you're married with three kids. Did you not, you know, there's quite
00:26:03.980
a bit, if we can look, we can see a lot of examples that this never ends well. There's a lot of times
00:26:08.960
you can just look at the history, how many people who've made this decision that it turned out well
00:26:13.020
for. And I don't know why people always think, well, maybe this time I'll find a way to maneuver
00:26:17.700
through it. But the, and in this very serious scenario, I just mentioned that man is only thinking
00:26:23.180
about one thing. He's thinking about satisfying some sort of, of desire and he's not even thinking
00:26:29.140
about the mess he's about to make. All right. So another lesson there to not be stupid or an
00:26:33.880
antidote to not being stupid, read, read literature that includes the Bible. There's a lot of examples
00:26:39.460
of people being stupid there, but even like the Odyssey, the Iliad, I mean, there's just so many
00:26:44.320
examples and just history books, so many examples of people being stupid and you'll learn, you know
00:26:48.120
what? I'm not going to do that. That really is helpful. Yeah. We're going to take a quick
00:26:52.840
break for your words from our sponsors. And now back to the show. So at the beginning of every
00:27:00.120
season, your dad would give these epic speeches to kind of set the tone, particularly for the new
00:27:05.040
players. And during those speeches, he would throw the gauntlet down by telling the players to get out
00:27:11.380
of the stands. What does that mean? How have you taken this advice and applied it to your life?
00:27:16.960
Don't we all want to be on the field? I mean, it's amazing to me that men, especially when they're
00:27:22.620
watching sports, they're disgusted by the thought that they would not want to be in the starting
00:27:27.640
lineup. But then we get into life and men and life seem to be perfectly comfortable with being third
00:27:34.520
string, not participating, not accomplishing anything. And a lot of men are like, nah, I'm just
00:27:41.300
going to farm that out to somebody else. And, you know, I'm not going to do that. I don't want to get
00:27:46.240
involved. I don't want to have to get my hands dirty. But if you were to say to them, would you like
00:27:50.300
to be on a sports team and sit the bench? They go, absolutely not. You know, but yet we're sitting
00:27:55.020
the bench on the important things in life. And so dad's deal was, and he would add a little caveat
00:28:01.180
to that. He would say, now, if you can't handle the way things are going to go here, then leave
00:28:05.740
right now and go sit in the stands and then tell everybody how great you could have been if Coach
00:28:11.120
Burgess hadn't been so difficult. And, you know, men do that. And that kind of gets into another thing
00:28:16.420
we'll talk about. But, you know, they'll sit in the stands and then talk about all the coulda,
00:28:21.060
shoulda, woulda if life just hadn't been so unfair. And, you know, that is just so counter
00:28:27.320
to how men were made. That's how we act in our fallen state. And the one thing that always gets
00:28:33.400
me, I'll have people sometimes that'll be critical of how I'm doing things. And I always ask a man,
00:28:39.400
say, look, before I want to listen to what you have to say, what do you do? Because I found being a
00:28:44.700
Christian doing secular entertainment. I don't do Christian radio. I'm a Christian who does radio.
00:28:49.800
But most of the complaints that I get in the way that I'm in the world but not of the world and try
00:28:54.740
to use entertainment to earn the right to share my faith, the most critical people I deal with are
00:28:59.720
not people who disagree with my belief system. It's usually people within all the denominational
00:29:05.040
garbage of the Western church. They complain the most. It's more of the you're not doing it right.
00:29:09.920
Now, before somebody, because sometimes I do need to be held accountable, so I'm not saying I'm
00:29:14.880
perfect. But one thing I always want to know, Brett, what do you do? Tell me what impact have you had
00:29:21.540
for the faith? How do you use the gifts that God's given you to advance the kingdom of God? I'd like to
00:29:27.580
hear that first. Are you just some guy who sits in the stands and tells the rest of us on the field what
00:29:32.720
we're doing wrong? How about get out of the stands and get on the field and let's see you make a play?
00:29:37.180
Yeah. And he also talked about in that same chapter, a lot of men, or even you see this in
00:29:43.240
high school sports, a lot of boys, they want the perks of playing football or a sport. They want
00:29:49.560
to wear the cool uniform. They want to come out of the tunnel on game night. They want to be cheered.
00:29:54.640
But a lot of people, they don't want to do the work that is required in order for you to do that,
00:29:59.920
right? The two-a-day practices and the practice every day after school for two or three hours.
00:30:04.360
Uh, and your dad had this saying, sometimes you'd stop practice and it's like three o'clock and you
00:30:10.240
see the buses leave, taking kids home. And he'd tell the players like, Hey, there goes those three
00:30:14.060
o'clockers. Yep. Yeah. He, he would tell us because you know, the line, you, you remember this breath.
00:30:19.340
There's a lot of days you're out on that field. You wish you was on that bus. You kind of want to go
00:30:22.820
home and watch, you know, Andy Griffith pre-runs and, you know, and eat a snack too. And, uh, and he was
00:30:28.580
basically letting us know that the sacrifice we're making now will pay off in the end because he
00:30:34.080
would say now to come Friday night and this isn't high school. You can change it to Sunday or Saturday
00:30:39.260
if you played at even higher level. But he said, come Friday night, all those on the bus that don't
00:30:44.540
want to be you right now, when the band's playing, the stadium's full, the cheerleaders are cheering
00:30:49.620
and you're walking out of that tunnel onto the field. Every one of them would switch places with you.
00:30:54.500
So what you have to understand is they're not willing to make the sacrifice you're making,
00:30:59.560
but when it gets to the reward, they're going to wish they would have been you if they could
00:31:04.080
have somehow avoided the sacrifice. And he said that doesn't exist. And so we think about that
00:31:08.980
all the time. I remember a very, very jolting statement that was made by Vance Havner. Vance
00:31:16.540
Havner was an old school pastor. And he said this, he said, the Western church would stop praying
00:31:22.680
for revival if they had any idea what it was really going to cost.
00:31:26.680
It reminds me of that whole line about, you know, you're not willing to pay the price.
00:31:29.680
This is a line from Ronnie Coleman. He's a bodybuilder. And he says, everybody wants to
00:31:35.500
be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy ass weights. And it's true. Like everyone
00:31:42.420
wants the big muscles or whatever, but no one wants to do the stuff you have to do to get there.
00:31:45.860
Oh, I've said this recently because I've always struggled with my weight after football when
00:31:49.740
I stopped playing. Cause when I walked out of that last workout, I said, well, I'll never do
00:31:52.860
that again. And eventually I just came into conviction that this was not fair to my wife.
00:31:57.620
This wasn't fair to my children. And it certainly made me less effective in men's ministry because
00:32:02.480
it looked like I had no discipline. So I started committing myself and lost weight, got myself
00:32:08.360
in better shape. I wanted to hit my sixties, you know, wide open. And I've done that. And then
00:32:14.060
people will ask me and you can tell they don't want to hear it. Okay. They'll say, so tell me how
00:32:17.860
you've lost the weight and, and got yourself, you know, in a little better shape. What have
00:32:22.580
you done? And I know what the reaction is going to be. And I look at them. I say, well, I practice
00:32:27.920
good nutrition. I don't overeat and I exercise who knew. And I'm, I'm admitting that I spent
00:32:34.400
most of my life knowing that, and I wasn't willing to do it either. So I'm not being hypocritical,
00:32:39.320
but you can tell that is not the answer they want to hear to your statement that you just made
00:32:44.160
about the bodybuilder is how can I somehow not be overweight and be in better shape and
00:32:49.280
not be so sick, but I don't want to have to do, put any effort into it. And that's why
00:32:53.720
these shots and these pills and all this stuff is so popular right now, because people are
00:32:58.560
trying to find a way, uh, to be healthier without ever doing anything. And you may lose
00:33:04.680
the weight with these things, but there's a bigger question. Are you really healthy? But
00:33:09.240
when somebody says, what would you suggest? And you go, well, I would suggest good nutrition,
00:33:13.360
less eating and more exercise that does not draw a crowd.
00:33:17.820
No, it doesn't. All right. So get out of the stands, get more involved in life, in your marriage,
00:33:22.960
in your family, in any organizations you belong to, even at work. A lot of guys just kind of
00:33:27.320
sit on the sidelines at work and just carp about things that have been like, Hey,
00:33:31.620
what can I do to make things better here? But recognize there's a price. There's going to be
00:33:36.320
some sacrifice involved, um, in, in not being in the stands. Another mantra your dad had
00:33:41.620
throughout his career was no excuses. And I'm sure everyone listening who's had a football coach
00:33:46.360
probably heard that no excuses. What did that look like for him as a coach, that mantra?
00:33:52.320
This drove him as crazy as stupid things, people making excuses. And one of the things my dad never
00:33:58.780
did, never. If we lost a game, he never made an excuse. You, you could have the worst call in the
00:34:06.180
game ever that went against you by the officials. And I can remember some dillies, some good ones.
00:34:11.340
And he would never bring that up. He said, if we played the way we were supposed to play,
00:34:15.980
then the calls would have made no difference. There were moments throughout the game. We could
00:34:20.880
have won the game and we just didn't get the job done. And then he would take most of the
00:34:25.300
responsibility on himself. He would never, I thought one time he was going to just completely
00:34:31.040
lose control. When he started watching these college head football coaches that if it didn't
00:34:36.900
go well, they would send one of the coordinators to the post-game press conference. They wouldn't
00:34:41.340
go themselves as if they were blaming the coordinator. That infuriated him. And I remember the first
00:34:48.040
time that I was playing for him and we had a defensive end that, you know, let containment
00:34:53.300
be broke. They bounced outside of him. And he said, where were you? You're supposed to,
00:34:58.500
you know, you know, this funnel that play back inside. And the defensive end said, well,
00:35:02.860
I slipped coach. And he looked at him. He said, but you can't slip. Don't make an excuse.
00:35:07.340
Just tell me you didn't get the job done. Uh, if you're the person in charge of containment,
00:35:11.400
slipping is not an option. Just say you didn't contain. And then we can work with that, but
00:35:15.580
please don't make an excuse about it. And, uh, and so he felt like that you should ultimately
00:35:21.280
just admit there was nothing more freeing that if you didn't have success is to actually say
00:35:26.820
you didn't get the job done, not blame it on something else. Like you, you didn't have
00:35:30.820
any responsibility. Well, now he's teaching more than football there, you know, because
00:35:34.800
people are always willing to blame other people for really things they need to take
00:35:39.100
responsibility for. And he taught that lesson and he taught it hard. I never heard him make
00:35:45.160
an excuse. I do remember one time, and this is in the book, and you probably read that
00:35:49.000
when he had the game where they beat a team really bad in college and it was in a
00:35:53.120
torrential downpour. So he was leaving the house on Sunday after we'd gone to church
00:35:58.640
and was headed back to the office for the next week game. And the other coaches, coaches
00:36:03.120
show was on TV. And that guy was talking about how hard it rained and how they couldn't move
00:36:07.900
the ball because how bad the weather was. Now dad's team had beaten the other man's team
00:36:12.560
35 to nothing. And so my dad looked at me as he went out and he said, well, I'll tell
00:36:16.900
you, listen to this guy, you would think it only rained on one side of the field.
00:36:19.480
And, and that's all he said, but he was making the point. There he is making excuses.
00:36:24.960
You know, he didn't make them and he didn't have much respect for other people who did.
00:36:29.860
So how can taking, I mean, it sounds like your dad was advocating for something like
00:36:32.660
just radical ownership of your life. How can that change a man's life?
00:36:38.140
Well, if I'm always justifying everything in my life and I'm always making an excuse for
00:36:42.620
the things that are in my life, then ultimately, you know, I'm never going to go anywhere.
00:36:48.200
I'm sorry. If you're listening to this and you had a bad family life, that's terrible.
00:36:52.800
I'm sorry. If you had a rough go of things, I'm sorry. If you've had a kind of a rough
00:36:56.720
time, but at the end of the day, that can't be used as an excuse for you not to succeed.
00:37:02.860
If you saw bad examples in your life, then why don't you be a good example?
00:37:07.180
We are in control of the things that we do. We may not be able to control what other people
00:37:12.860
do, but my dad always taught control what you can control. So ultimately you got to take ownership
00:37:18.360
of how this turned out. And if it didn't go well at the end of it all, it's probably because you
00:37:23.040
didn't do the job as well as you should have. Yeah. In existential philosophy, there's this
00:37:27.240
idea of living in bad faith. When you're living in bad faith, you're denying the responsibility.
00:37:32.760
You can make decisions that change whatever situation you're in. You still have the ability
00:37:37.600
to make decisions. Like that can't be taken away from you. Exactly. And so whenever you try to make
00:37:44.120
excuses, you say, yeah, you're living in bad faith. You are denying your agency. Yeah. I mean,
00:37:49.440
whatever happened to that's on me, you know, and I will tell you this, one of the biggest
00:37:55.180
obstacles that I face every single day is myself. I'm my biggest enemy. And so I try to get myself
00:38:02.420
under control. And if I can do that, what's coming after that usually is not near as difficult.
00:38:08.300
Yeah. So something else, a sort of thread throughout this book is your dad teaching
00:38:14.180
about the difference between confidence and arrogance. Your dad sounds like he was a confident
00:38:19.420
man, but not an arrogant man. What's the difference between confidence and arrogance according to your
00:38:23.740
dad? Well, there's no doubt he was confident. I think my dad truly believed that there was nobody
00:38:28.680
alive that could take him, you know, and that he, he, he, he, he would overcome anything. And,
00:38:34.220
you know, there's a, there's a thing out right now. I don't know if you've been seeing it where
00:38:38.300
could a hundred men defeat a silverback gorilla? Have you been watching that? I've been watching
00:38:42.680
that. Yeah. I think my dad thinks he could, you know, and I don't think my dad, my dad would like,
00:38:48.080
yeah, I'll handle that. That's not a problem. You think a gorilla could take me, but his confidence
00:38:51.820
was not arrogance because also the same man that was confident that he could stand against anything
00:38:58.480
that life could throw at him was also the same man that an equipment salesman found cleaning the
00:39:04.520
bathrooms when he was athlete director and head coach. And so when he went in to find my dad in a
00:39:11.200
stall cleaning a toilet and he asked my dad, what in the world are you doing coach cleaning the toilets?
00:39:17.640
I mean, you're the athletic director, you're the head football coach. And dad said, I'm cleaning the
00:39:22.300
toilets because it's my turn. He never thought he was above cleaning toilets. So yes, he was confident,
00:39:28.900
but he wasn't arrogant. He always kept that servant's attitude. My ultimate leadership is actually to serve
00:39:36.780
the assistant coaches, to serve the players, to let them know that though I am confident in my abilities,
00:39:43.900
I would give myself for your benefit. And I remember he had the attitude of he could get on to us, but
00:39:50.200
nobody else could. He became our advocate if others tried to get on us and, uh, you know, talking about
00:39:55.820
teams and even talking about us as his children and his family. So my dad was confident, but then,
00:40:01.600
you know, arrogance is something that I struggled with. And, and you see in the book, he tried to teach me
00:40:07.520
because I was a bit of a hot dog, which drove him crazy. And, uh, and of course he would always try
00:40:13.980
to take me down that road and tell me about that fine line between being confident in your job and
00:40:20.200
being arrogant about what you can do. And the, the point that he always tried to make is that if you
00:40:27.540
are not willing to put the work in, if you're not willing to sacrifice yourself for the benefit of the
00:40:33.200
team, that's not confidence, that's arrogance. And when you're arrogant, you'll get us beat.
00:40:38.740
Let's shift themes here. It's not football related, but your dad, he, he was a hunter.
00:40:43.880
Yes. He's a big time hunter. And one year when, you know, he was older and you were older,
00:40:49.220
you're an adult, you gave him a GPS device because you thought, Hey, this would be handy
00:40:53.360
for my dad to have when he's out hunting Turkey or whatever. But the thing is, he never used it.
00:40:59.400
Never. I have it in my office. I still have it.
00:41:01.740
Why, why is that? Like, what lesson did you take from him?
00:41:04.560
Well, you know, I thought I was going to give him the greatest father's day gift ever.
00:41:09.220
I would shame my siblings, you know, because I got this new technology and knowing that he
00:41:14.100
loved the outdoors, I thought, well, he can go anywhere he wants to go now by just entering
00:41:18.400
in, you know, these were the old garments, you know, still, they were a little bulky and
00:41:21.700
you had to put them in your car and all that. These were the early days of the GPS.
00:41:25.440
But what dad said back to me, I've never forgotten. He asked me what this thing
00:41:31.540
was. And I said, dad, that's, that's a GPS. You just enter in wherever you want to go.
00:41:36.360
It'll take you right to it. So he, he doesn't even take it out of the box and he kind of pushes
00:41:40.640
it to the side. And I see him doing that. And he even asked me for the receipt.
00:41:44.940
Uh, and I said, dad, what, what, what's the deal? Do you not want that? And he goes,
00:41:49.520
you know, I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings or anything. He goes, but I don't
00:41:53.520
need it. I said, you don't need a GPS. And then he said, no, I don't go anywhere that
00:41:58.300
I don't know where I'm going. And I thought, oh my goodness, I don't even have a response
00:42:03.480
to that. His point was, I always know where I'm going. I don't wonder where I'm going
00:42:09.440
or need someone else to figure out where I'm going. I always know where I'm going and
00:42:14.500
boy, what a lesson, right? Brett. I mean, how many men right now are just kind of making
00:42:19.500
it up as they go. They think that somebody else needs to tell them where they're going
00:42:23.960
when they need to, if, if you don't know where you're going, I don't know how we expect
00:42:30.360
Your dad's story reminded me, I just recently finished Moby Dick. I finished a couple months
00:42:37.080
Well, there's this famous scene with Ahab and he's got this quadrant. That's what the
00:42:43.060
sailors use to navigate. And there's this moment where he just destroys it because he realizes
00:42:48.900
the quadrant can't tell him where he wants to go. It's like, that's on me. And so he
00:42:53.560
smashed it. He's like, I'm in charge here. So yeah, your dad's story, the GPS reminded
00:42:58.360
It's exactly the same thing. Ahab is realizing this can't help me decide where I want to go.
00:43:03.660
I got to figure that out. And of course, then dad was adding,
00:43:07.080
the other part, figure out where you want to go, but you also need to know how to get there.
00:43:10.980
So how can a man figure out where he's going in life? I'm sure you deal with a lot of men
00:43:17.080
Yeah. Yeah. I think first of all, you know, what is your passion? Is there anything you
00:43:21.640
feel called to at all? I mean, is there something that kind of keeps you awake at night? Is there
00:43:26.280
something that, you know, it's down in like their guts where you're like, man, I really
00:43:30.480
feel like this is where I should go. I think this is what I need to do. I'd love to have
00:43:36.300
more impact with my life. But until you figure out where you want to go, then there's no way
00:43:41.460
to put together a plan on how to get there. But then you have guys that do the other.
00:43:45.340
They know where they want to go, but kind of we've already touched on this, but they're
00:43:48.660
not willing to figure out what it takes to get there. And then sometimes they figure out
00:43:53.180
what it takes to get there and they're just not willing to give that to go. But somehow
00:43:56.420
they still expect it to happen. So I think that the thing that I find with men a lot,
00:44:02.740
Brett, and I remember this period of my life, if you're listening to this right now and you're
00:44:08.220
just kind of making it up as you go, man, use today for time to change. I'm going to stop
00:44:13.700
just making it up as I go. I'm going to figure out what is important to me, what I think I'm
00:44:19.860
supposed to be doing with my life, and then I'm going to put together a plan to do it.
00:44:23.680
In 2008, your two-year-old son tragically drowned. Losing a child is the worst thing that
00:44:30.720
can happen to a parent. How did the lessons you got from your father help you prepare for
00:44:37.820
Well, the thing that you've already heard is men don't run in the rain. And boy,
00:44:43.560
it was pouring and storming and raining when that happened. And, you know, I immediately
00:44:49.360
begin to draw on the things that he taught me about right now. Your whole family's looking to
00:44:53.040
you. You know, everybody needs to feel steady. Everybody needs to feel calm. They don't need
00:44:58.000
to see you panic. You don't need to be coming apart. Now, I didn't take that to the point that
00:45:03.420
is unhealthy where I didn't mourn. But there was a moment in the beginning where your wife has
00:45:09.380
fallen apart, your children, who the siblings are falling apart. And frankly, whether you like it
00:45:15.540
or not, we don't have that luxury. Because if we don't hold this thing together until everybody can
00:45:20.500
get back on their feet, then it's all going to fall apart. And I had been taught that I don't run in
00:45:26.860
the rain, that I stand sturdy and I go and I minister to my wife and I pull the children together
00:45:35.140
and I start talking to them about, you know, life and who God is in these situations. But I would
00:45:40.720
challenge every man is kind of what we just talked about, about a game plan. It's impossible for me to
00:45:46.940
tell my wife and tell my children who God is when a two and a half year old little boy dies or what's
00:45:53.380
going on in the world when a two and a half year old little boy dies if I don't already know those
00:45:57.780
answers. See, I didn't know that this was ever going to happen, but I had spent a large portion
00:46:03.660
of my life preparing for whatever was coming. You know, for me, it was the Word of God. I went there,
00:46:10.380
I wanted to know everything about God I could possibly know. And you say, well, Rick, how do you do that?
00:46:15.160
I don't like to study. And I was the same guy. The early days of our family, after I was redeemed,
00:46:20.640
my wife was the spiritual leader. I'm not going out like that wasn't true. But that radically
00:46:24.760
changed in my life when I realized that I was actually quite knowledgeable about everything
00:46:29.240
that I deemed a value and everything that I loved. I knew about hunting. I knew about fishing.
00:46:34.420
I knew about football. I knew about how to run a business. I knew how to do a radio show. I knew
00:46:39.120
how to run that equipment. Well, if I'm not, if I don't have good study habits, how in the world did I
00:46:44.000
learn all this? I learned it because I was passionate about it and I cared about it. And I had to come to a
00:46:49.700
terrible conclusion that I didn't know who God was and I didn't know the Word of God because I
00:46:54.540
didn't deem it a value and I didn't love it. So I changed that and began to seek God in a way that
00:47:00.880
I never had and began to study His Word. Well, when this moment arrived, I had the answers. Now,
00:47:08.420
I didn't come up with them. They had been provided to me by the very God that created me.
00:47:12.380
But in that moment, what the family and my wife can't see is me falling apart and running in the
00:47:20.040
rain. And I'll never forget the words of my wife when it was all kind of clearing and we were
00:47:26.260
reflecting and it's always with us. But she said, you know, that night at Children's Hospital,
00:47:32.160
our pastor couldn't comfort me. Our friends couldn't comfort me. Our family couldn't comfort me
00:47:38.340
because we all knew one thing. They couldn't be my husband. They couldn't be the children's father.
00:47:44.040
So we waited on you because no one could replace you. How did your father help you during this time?
00:47:53.580
You know, my father helped me by confidently encouraging me and telling me that I was doing
00:48:01.540
a good job. And the thing I think that I'll never forget is my father and I and our interaction
00:48:09.160
at my son's memorial service when I got up to speak and didn't expect to speak the way it went.
00:48:18.120
It was a supernatural moment. But when it was over, he and I had an interaction. And that was that
00:48:25.940
we were both kind of redefining what it looks like to be a man. And I won't give it all away. You can
00:48:33.340
read the book, but he basically is telling me that he knew it was raining. He knew it was storming and
00:48:38.380
he watched me and he let me know that I didn't run. Yeah. When I read that scene, basically your dad
00:48:45.280
was telling you you're a man, like you're a man. And I think every man, they crave that from their dads.
00:48:51.080
They want that recognition from their dads. Yeah. My dad didn't patronize me, but my dad
00:48:56.180
never robbed me of hearing, I'm proud of you. And then in that moment, it was the thing that even
00:49:02.280
goes beyond, I'm proud of you is, does he see me as a man? Does he see me as his equal? And I remember
00:49:08.400
that moment vividly because he looked at me after it was over. And like you said, and he just looked
00:49:12.520
at me and said, now that right there is a man. And to hear that in that moment, he gave me the
00:49:19.040
confidence I needed to continue on. Yeah. I think there's a great lesson there of
00:49:23.520
a father's blessing or a father's recognition. I think that's something you got to think about
00:49:28.400
as a father. You might not be thinking about that when your kid is five, even 10, or maybe even 15.
00:49:34.900
But once they start getting in adulthood, you got to start thinking about that.
00:49:38.040
Yeah. And I think before that, you know, cause they're not men yet, but you definitely need to
00:49:42.080
find these moments to tell them you're proud of them. Don't ever assume that your son or daughter
00:49:48.380
knows you're proud of them. Don't ever assume that. Don't ever assume that your wife knows that
00:49:53.220
you love her. If you have a wife, these things need to be vocalized by us clearly. And it really,
00:50:00.620
really has an impact when we do so. If there's one lesson you got from your dad that sort of
00:50:07.060
encapsulates all the wisdom you got from over the years, what would that be? I think the thing that
00:50:12.460
I take away the most is that though you are in the leadership role, be someone that is still fun to
00:50:21.140
be around. My dad was intimidating. My dad was clearly in charge and had influence, but he also
00:50:29.020
was fun. You know, it wasn't just the, I'm whipping everybody into, you know, military shape and you never
00:50:35.500
see him. I'm always stoic. And he wasn't like that at all. My dad was a huge cutup and he, he picked
00:50:42.560
and chose his moments correctly on when he needed to kind of let the pressure off a little bit and
00:50:48.060
let's lighten things up a little bit. And so I looked at him and I realized that I learned from him
00:50:54.820
how to love a wife, which he did with my mother. Incredible. How to be authoritative, but still be close
00:51:03.060
to your children to still be able to cut up and have a laugh with them. And I think that probably
00:51:09.960
of all the lessons we talked about today and talked about in the book, I believe the lesson of being
00:51:15.840
steady, the lesson of not panicking, the lesson of let your family and let society see that you're,
00:51:23.400
you're there, you're at your position, you're watching, you're, you're over them. And, um, and
00:51:28.800
ultimately take responsibility for the mistakes you make in life and own them and then change
00:51:35.280
and don't make those same mistakes again. So taking full responsibility for, for who you are
00:51:40.800
and leading while at the same time, encouraging with the same amount of power, you know, don't just
00:51:46.980
be strong to correct. Also be strong to encourage and take responsibility for when you mess up.
00:51:53.680
Well, Rick, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book in
00:51:56.720
your work? You can go to themanchurch.com. We're a men's discipleship strategy. All of our resources
00:52:03.240
are there, but this new book will be there too. themanchurch.com. And you can also contact us if
00:52:08.540
we can help you any way with your men's ministry, if that's something you're interested in. But if not,
00:52:13.280
at least get this book and it'll be right there on the homepage. Fantastic. Well, Rick Burgess,
00:52:17.440
thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me, Brett. It means a lot.
00:52:21.320
My guest here was Rick Burgess. He's the author of the book, Men Don't Run in the Rain. It's available on
00:52:25.080
amazon.com. You can find more information about his work at his website, themanchurch.com. Also
00:52:29.940
check out our show notes at aom.is slash rain. We find links to resources. We delve deeper into this
00:52:34.420
topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at
00:52:45.940
artofmanliness.com. We find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles that were written
00:52:49.560
over the years about pretty much anything you think of. And if you haven't done this already,
00:52:52.780
I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give you another podcast or Spotify. It helps out a lot.
00:52:56.500
And if you've done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or
00:52:59.820
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00:53:03.240
support. Until next time, it's Brett McKay. Reminding time to listen to anyone podcast where you put what