LIFE COACH: Dreams and Teams that Shape a Life

Hello again, friends, this is Dick Foth. With stories to make sense of it all, I always like it when I get to meet people with an angle on life or a set of experiences that are different than mine. And of course most people in the world that applies to, but sometimes there are folks who express it or model it in a way that just catches your attention. I want you to meet that kind of person today, an outstanding woman, and wife, and mother, and leader, but beyond all of those things, or maybe as an expression of all of those things, she is a woman with a great heart. Here she is. So I get to sit today with Linda Crumb, good morning, Linda. Good morning, Dick. And here we are, and I'm talking to you in downtown Fort Collins, Colorado. But you don't come from downtown Fort Collins, Colorado. Here's my standard go-to question, right? Ready for this. Where were you born and brought up? I was born in Davenport, Iowa, and I was brought up there my entire journey. So you're a Mississippi river woman? I am a Mississippi river woman. Female version of Mark Twain. Maybe not quite as much of a voyager on my raft floating around, but there are a lot of outlooks where Mark Twain would sit and reflect and talk about the beauty of the sunsets. One of those is in Muscatine, Iowa. I think most people may not associate Muscatine, Iowa with the great adventure, river pilot, author Mark Twain, even though he was a Mississippi river guy. But after Linda brought up Muscatine, Iowa, she sent me this quote from Mark Twain, who's speaking of that town. This is what he says, and I remember Muscatine, still more pleasantly, for its summer sunsets. I have never seen any on either side of the ocean that equated with them. Davenport is Quad Cities area, Rock Island, Illinois, and so forth, right? Correct. Home of John Deere. John Deere? Near there at least. Right, Alcoa Aluminum. Really? So it's the great heartland of America. Some people would call that in as you move further west, the flyover space. All the elites of the East and West coast, but the flyover space, from my experience, having lived in Illinois for 14 years, is really cool space. What is it in your mind about the heartland that is so meaningful? Well, I think it's the people. I think relationships are real and deep. There's a sense of community, at least in the time frame when I grew up, things have probably changed a little bit in all our worlds, but the other thing for me is, and just having moved out to Colorado and trying to plant things in the ground, it's a chore to dig through the clay and the soil here, and you know, you put your shovel in and Davenport, Iowa, and it's Black Rich Dirt. And so much of what comes out of that are, you know, fresh foods and crops and dairy and farm animals and all the good homemade foods that come from that, from butter to ice cream to I don't often salivate, well, I don't know if it's on the top. We're going to. So there's a lot of, you know, things that are grown or raised there that are then distributed in our food chain. And so it's, I think about that, you know, you put a shovel in and it's a different journey than when you put a shovel in the dirt here. I want to jump to the fact that you're an athlete. When did you know you were an athlete? I know you played as a little girl you're doing whatever, but when did you know and how did that happen? Yeah. So a couple things. One, my dad was a really good athlete. So I have two sisters. So here's this athletic guy who's in lots of Hall of Fame's that had three daughters. So right there. Let's just hold that for a moment. The word you use and something you wrote about your father is legendary. And right there, you said lots of Hall of Fame's. What do you mean? Lots of Hall of Fame's. Right. Coaching Hall of Fame's, playing Hall of Fame's from the school that he attended and played basketball. Just lots of accolades in terms of his history in athletics, either as an athlete, a coach or an administrator. So he was high school teacher, college coach. He was a high school teacher and coach. And you know, back in the day where high school sports were the center of a community. You mean like Hoosiers? Like Hoosiers. Even though it's Indiana. That's Hoosiers. Right. But very similar. I mean, everybody came in the community to the events and you know, there's not pro sports in Iowa. So that sense of community at the high school is big and it's real and the gyms that you know, it's there's rivalries and it's big. And this is Iowa's version of Friday night lights. It is a little bit, right? Maybe not the same money and stadiums that see 10,000 people, right? Right. But it's definitely that feel, right? So your father set the culture in your growing up years to think about sport? He did. I mean, my dad would go to practices on, you know, a Saturday. And I would literally just hang out in the gym with him all day. I would just roam the building and go into a smaller gym and shoot baskets and, you know, find all kinds of ways to pick up a ball and entertain myself. So I just sort of grew up. I, you know, it was almost like you weren't a girl. You were just somebody who loved to pick up a ball and create things with it, right? You know, I remember growing up my dad would play catch with me. And he was going to make sure I didn't throw like a girl. But you are a girl. But in his mind, it didn't matter, right? Boy, your girl, you place, you know, you play sport and you play sport, you do it the right way and you get good at it. And there's a very real sense in which it doesn't matter, you know, if you're trained, absolutely, absolutely. And my neighborhood was all boys. Oh, okay. So they would knock on the back door and this is in the days when, you know, all the kids, you're gone all day. Play till dark. Yep. We would play baseball and football and, you know, we would just go. And I was always the quarterback because I could throw not like a girl. So you're, how can I put this on the air? You're not short and speedy like a shortstop in baseball. You're tall. I'm tall. And your sport is what? My sport is volleyball. And my whole life, I was really sort of gearing to be this basketball player. My dad was a basketball coach. And so I would spend a lot of time shooting hoops and playing horse and even playing a little bit of pickup with the boys. But at that point in Iowa, girls basketball was six on six, where you had three forwards and three opponent guards on one side of the court. And after a basket was made, the ball would always come to center court. And then the other six on the other end would play, right? Like so it was come back and forth. Well, I played five on five pickup with the boys. And that was a whole lot more fun. Sure. And so introduced in high school to volleyball really to keep in shape for basketball. And opportunity to work with one of the most incredible women who has been a lifelong mentor still lives here in Fort Collins with me. Yes, her son's an assistant coach at Colorado State for basketball. And so someone I've known for 40 years was instrumental in sort of in teaching me and instilling this love for a different sport volleyball. And it was kind of history from there. So you played division one? I did for whom? The University of Iowa. What's their mascot? The Hawkeyes. Hawkeyes. And the football team at a certain point when they play football they turn and wave toward the hospital. Yeah, the children's hospital. That is such a cool. That's a really cool thing. So you're part of the whole Iowa Hawkeye family. Yes. And then you went on and coached. Didn't it just a quick shot of where you coached? Yeah. So as an assistant coach, I coached at Iowa State and Ohio State. And as a head coach, I coached at Butler University, Duke University and Iowa State University. Was it Butler Jim or Hoosiers? Yes, it was. Home of Hoosiers. Okay. So in a Duke, you were a Duke. Yes. You told me that your office was where? In Cameron indoor stadium. Right outside men's basketball locker room and women's basketball locker room. Is that right? Yes. Well, that would be interesting to feel the intensity in that. I've only been in Cameron arena once. I think I lost my hearing there. That's when it started. It is loud and it is hot. And that's exactly what you wanted to be, right? Have you always been a competitor? Yes. Because of your dad or because of just the context and just all the boys in your neighborhood or the whatever. Yeah, I think environment and I think I'm wired a little bit that way. What does competition do for people? I think one of the bonuses of competition is it really gives you the gamut of experience, right? It's this thing where you're going to drive towards something, you're going to drive toward a goal and you're either going to get it or you aren't. And so then you're going to have to deal with success or failure. And to me, it's just this microcosm of what life is like. It's going to have struggles, you might have injury, you might be healthy, you might hit your peak performance. It's, you know, it's really a whole gamut of things. But at the end of the day, it's really this microcosm of what we face in life. When Linda just brought up peak performance, it triggered a memory in me that is funny for me. But, you know, all of us peak at different times. Here's mine. I tell people that when I was a little kid, I was in this British boarding school. It was a British girls boarding school high on the plantations of South India. And they let little boys go there till they were 10. And then they figure out those are girls and they ship the guy someplace. I have no idea. But years ago, I went back to that school and they had a yearbook, a little paper yearbook for the school for 1948. And it said that they had a sports day where you had competitions. And that Dickey-Foth won the flat foot race, not the jet plant fee, but it was the foot race and the frog hop. And I won both of those at H6 and I peaked. That was it. And I think this idea of competition is really interesting to explore because in volleyball, you're competing as part of a team. Talk to me about team a little bit. Right. I mean, the great thing about team is that, you know, you're one in the case of six, right? And so really, each person has this role. And every role is valuable. Whether it's, you know, in volleyball, I mean, Liam, a key server, I'm an outside hitter, whatever it is, it's being able to perform your piece of that whole process to the best of your ability. And the, you know, if I'm passing the ball, the better I pass it to the setter, the better they're going to have a set for the hitter, which means the hitter then is in a better position to, you know, have more shots to get a kill, right? So every piece of that is important. And if I don't work as hard on my pass and I give the setter a mediocre ball, it sets the hitter up for not an ideal situation. But all of that is really important because it's every piece brings value in the process. And this is why they track assists in basketball, isn't it? I mean, isn't that one of the things when I read stats, and I'm not a huge stat person, but when I read stats and hear commentators or analysts talk, they say things like, well, he or she is generous with the ball or they aren't ball hogs, even though they may be the best shooter on the floor to give it a moment. They engage the team because that opens up other things. If I throw it to you, it opened, right? I mean, all of that going on. Right. Absolutely. I mean, if you can find people at the right moment when they're open, say in basketball, right? And they have a shot, you know, it just means now we're in a better chance to score, right? And the more people that are able to score, the harder it is for a team to guard us and the more success we can have if it's a one-dimensional team with one superstar, it's pretty easy to shut that down. That's why I think probably my sport in terms of watching at least and playing, I guess, back in the day, although I was nervous I had thick glasses and so I never played on a high school team back in the 50s. But the thing that you keep hearing is that those players may not be as good as the players on the other team, but they're a team. It's very interesting to hear the language that's used at the end of a game, hard fought in one, went a 320-pound lineman. They say, so what's the key to this game? And they say, I just love these guys, man, you know, that idea that love, if you will, builds a team. My definition, which is not mine, I've stolen it from somebody who stole it from somewhere and they don't remember when it's with public domain, is love is the accurate estimate and the adequate supply of another person's needs. Love is the accurate estimate, adequate supply of another person's needs and we tend to use that about personal relationships or spouses or marriage or, you know, friends and all of that. But I think that applies to real teams that there is a bonding like I don't know if you've ever read the book about the 1936 rowing team from UW, from Washington. Yes. And you know, the boys on the boat and to hear how the writer writes about the bonding and the sense of ecstasy that they felt through their work. Let me just circle back to one other thing, when in your experience did someone in your athletic career say something or do something that you think took you to the next level or inspired you to the next level. Anyway, besides your legendary father, it could be, yeah. Well, what's interesting is I really didn't start playing volleyball till I was a sophomore in high school, which is in today's world very late. Yeah, sure. Very late. And the coach that I had I think was really one of the most influential people in my life because she saw me as a whole. In addition to all the work we were doing related to skills on the court and the challenges that she would put there, you know, in terms of I was a hitter. And so, putting me in situations that were uncomfortable and messy and, you know, and really encouraging me that I had the skill to get through those and excel. But that's a process. It's messy. It's uncomfortable. You don't always believe in yourself, but this person who's driving you every day to say, I see it and you can be it and to have the resilience to keep putting you there. You know, it's not easy to keep putting people in those situations that are hard. We want to be like, oh, I want to make it easy for people. But it's sort of in that fire that you really get refined and you become what you can be. So would it be fair to say she believed in you when sometimes you didn't believe in yourself? Oh, absolutely. What a gift that is to have somebody believe in you when you don't believe in yourself or you're frustrated or you want to quit or whatever else is going on. In that, what I consider a great film, chariot's a fire that's about 50 years old, almost 50 years old. There's a sequence at the Olympics where Harold Abrams, who is one of the people that the film focuses on, has a coach on the side. And I supposed to have a coach, but he had sort of a coach on the side. And there's a sequence where this man who's a Belgian, Harold has lost a heat or something. And he puts coins on the mantel piece. And he says, Harold, what I need from you is for you to give me two more coins. And that is shorten your stride. Put two more steps in every whatever 10 years, whatever it is. And that kind of affect and impact really does change people. At least my observation in my own life, even though I'm not an athlete in that sense, I've had people who have challenged me at key points and affirmed me when I wasn't affirming myself, right? Right, absolutely. When I say coach, what comes to mind? Besides, again, besides your dad, but in terms of the function of coach, what comes to mind? Because you've been that. To me, a coach is somebody that sees the whole person, not just the piece of sport that they are working to enhance performance in, but the whole person when they're off the quarter, off the field, who are they and knowing that person well enough to be able to bring out what they need on the court? You know, I just see it as this mentor, this person who inspires that, you know, again, who sees what you don't always see in yourself. That's what I think about when I think of a coach, I think it's someone who says, you know, here's what I see that maybe no one else sees. You know, I'm one of those people who my college, Jesus follower, heaven, I read him. When I read how he speaks to his followers, you know, Simon Peter, this guy's a fisherman. I don't know if he was a teenager when he was called away from his nets in the story or whatever it is, but there's this moment in time when if we were to give Peter the Minnesota Multifacic inventory, one of those psychological profiles testing things, you know, or the Myers-Briggs, I don't think he'd do great, you know, he's all over the map. I think he's a natural leader, but he's all over the map and he needs to discipline all that. And at one point, Jesus says to him, you know, I think I'm going to call you the rock, the stable guy, and you can almost see the other 11 guys saying, what? But when I hear you talk, it sounds like that. Absolutely. The language that idea to me that you're either speaking something into a person or you're calling something, they don't see out of them. Is that fair to see if that word is that accurate? Yeah, I think it's almost this idea that, you know, there's, it's this unusual suspect, right? Like, you know, you walk into a gym and you see, you know, typically you can find right away who the superstar is. But, and that's great. There's a superstar, but there's often all these other kids that do so much that actually really make the team successful, right? And so, um, whether it's a superstar or that role player, you know, I think what a coach sees is how they add value and enhances, in their mind, how they can basically bring the whole team together. And I think about, you know, the, the rowers, it was this idea of what did every one of those rowers need to excel at in order for that accomplishment to happen. It wasn't just one person, it was the group. And I think the same thing, it's not, it's not often, it's a bigger picture than the surface. I heard it said a few years ago that coaches are the tribal chiefedans of our age. Do you believe that? Well, I think what coaches do are what leaders do. I look at the CEO of our company. And I really think what he does is no different than what a coach does. I mean, you're really, it's about enhancing the performance of people and really knowing them in a way that you can address not what they want all the time, but what they need, being able to create an inspiring environment, you know, that keeps them going, but, you know, providing those guard rails and structures when they need to hear critical things that are going to allow them to enhance their performance, right? It's just really to me. I see it as the same. Moving toward a common goal. Absolutely. There is a sense when I think of coaches and I have a friend who's now gone. I tell people, so many of my friends are now gone. I got to get some younger friends. He was a backfield high school football coach that when I was a young 20-something, I wasn't on his team or anything, but we were friends. He was 20 years my senior, about 20 years my senior, and just had so much wisdom. He was a sage to me in a lot of ways. He used to say, without desire disaster and, you know, these little aphorisms that he had. And that, the idea of coached to me, and again, this is from the outside, more than from the inside, is that here's this person who could be like your dad or your mom, or more likely it is like your aunt or your uncle. There's a relationship, but it's not a direct line, right? And that piece for so many younger people today is so critical, especially in an age of high anxiety, to have somebody or some bodies, not just parents, but the teachers and the coaches. All of those in concert working toward a common goal is really important. Well, I don't want to keep you too much longer, but I do have one more question, maybe two, okay? Okay. And you've transitioned from being a coach in sport. You've been now the executive director of a couple of foundations, and you now are the executive director of a foundation called Otter Cares. And I'm sitting here in an office where you work and I'm looking up at this spectacular picture of California sea otters. And I used to live near Monterey Bay, and my wife gave me sailing lessons paid for sailing lessons when I turned 40. And I remember taking a sailboat out to the kelp fields and look at those little sea otters wrapped in kelp and they got a rock on their chest and they're cracking muscles or something, they're food, right? And then anyway, those will be, so you are the foundation side of this company that we know here in Fort Collins and is known around the world as Otter Box or Otter Products. Otter Cares is the name of, just give me two or three sentences on Otter Cares. How do otters care? And everybody who works here calls it, it's called an Otter, right? Yes, absolutely. They have otortunities. Otter relations and everything's otter. You know, really Otter Cares is this opportunity to ignite youth to reach their potential. So you think about my background as a coach, right? And so the work that we do really reaches into our community and says, how can we work with schools or youth program providers and ignite the minds of the next generation to really create businesses and bolster our economy or ignite their ideas on ways that they can be a difference maker or change maker in the world. We do that within our own company to our otters. I think one of the greatest opportunities we have is for our employees to see that opportunity within themselves. So for us, it's about really helping people be a difference maker in their community, whether they're an employee or that next generation of youth. So just give me a couple quick examples about what does it you do with youth in Fort Collins or Larimer County, wherever that does what you're describing. We have the privilege of providing grants, so financial dollars or people resources to educators that really have these ideas of programs that they can work with youth where the youth really have the opportunity to lead with their ideas. So it might be an innovative learning environment where they're able to have all kinds of resources that they can make things and prototype and test and run it down the journey of what is a problem I see? What can I make as a solution to solve that problem? And then in the journey, all these competencies and skills that we would say are what makes someone successful? I can think creatively, I can problem solve, I can work with others, I have this resilience when it doesn't quite go right or my idea didn't work to rethink it and move forward. I saw one video clip I think of high schoolers here or maybe middle schoolers in an aircraft facility making drones or something. Is that right? Yeah, absolutely. So in that case, it was the passion of an educator related to aviation where it really gives kids these opportunities to pursue a pathway where they're able to learn about drones and what are the job opportunities related to the use of drones? Be it working for a realtor, working for a farmer, right? Drones are everywhere now in the world, you know, or even going into flight, being man-daviation, control tower certifications. Anything you can imagine. So you spent all those years as an athlete and you haven't stopped being an athlete, I'm sure. But all slower now. All of us lose this cat. It's right in the mind. It's not so much as quick in the body. Tell me. So you've moved from being an athlete player to maybe a player coach to being a coach to being and now using that same view of the world, the same trust in the maker, the same, all of that. Now you're in a place where you can encourage folks, young people across this county and other places to explore, to find who they are. So you're still helping to believe in people when they don't believe in themselves a lot of times. Absolutely. And opening doors. And so you sit here every day or go places every day and you get to give things away and encourage people. Is that right? You know, I tell our CEO, I have the best job in our company because when when people have a dream and you get to listen to them and really help them shape it into a little bit more strategic idea and then really say, okay, here's the resources you need to run with it. That's pretty special. You know, I'm sitting here saying they pay you for this, right? They do. See, there's there's that. So you get to do this and you yourself get funded and it's just it's wonderful. And thank you for who you are and what you do and for your mom and dad and all of that. This totally unrelated question. Yes. Growing up in Iowa, what was your favorite meal? My favorite meal. That's a good question. I probably should have asked that first. I think my favorite meal when I was growing up, actually, my mom would make this beef stew. And it's funny because I'm not early a beef eater now. Right. But I remember I would ask for that on my birthday. That would be my special meal. She would make this pot of beef stew with dumplings on top of it. And it was just exquisite. Can you still smell it? I can still smell it. Well, on that food note, thanks for giving us food for thought about what it means to compete, what it means to focus, what it means to be a team, what it means to have a coach and be a coach. And we're grateful to God for you. Thank you so much, Linda, for being with us today. Well, thank you so much, Dick. It's always just a joy to spend time with you and I learn something every time I do. Okay, now I'm paying you. Thanks a million. Bye-bye. There is something about people who have eyesight, sort of infrared eyes, if you will, or x-ray eyes that can see into the hearts and the minds and the dreams and the aspirations of other people. There's something about those kind of people that are just in and of themselves inspirational. In these kind of times, with great anxiousness and great uncertainty, to have people who think like that and act like that and engage in those kind of efforts is a tremendous gift. So I'm so grateful that we have the chance to meet Linda Crumb today. That's it, friends. I'm out. We're done. And thank you for listening. If you have a chance to write a review or want to, that would be great. A couple of sentences. And we're just so grateful that we get a chance to be together each week and we'll catch you next week. God bless.