Talking Mindset with Nicholas Conte
Nicholas Conte, specialists coach at VMI and decorated former UVA punter, teaches a masterful lesson on mindset and achieving high performance. This transcends football.
Our conversation spans the mental side of playing and training, the role of specialists in games and practice, proper nutrition, and Conte’s journey from UVA to VMI and one day soon the NFL.
Timestamps:
(2:47) Why special teams is unique, typical practice for specialists
(7:38) Pre-game warmup and common pitfalls
(16:52) Punter’s role during the game
(24:50) Process oriented thinking
(34:50) Mindset
(39:08) Training methods
(46:26) Role of student managers
(52:43) Nutrition
(56:04) Our mutual admiration for Trent Corney
(1:02:17) Conte’s ideal use of a 25th hour
Transcript:
Michael Gallagher
Coach Conte, thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks, Mike. Glad to be here. I've been looking forward to asking you a bunch of things regarding your playing career your coaching career and apparently now your graphic design career.
Nicholas Conte
Yeah, it's it's been it's been a long ride since we started at UVA bounced around a little bit and made it from player to coach to I guess now graphic design artists for for VMI football right now.
Michael Gallagher
Now, people listening might know you most or I associate you most with being arguably the most successful punter in the history of Virginia football. Is that correct? Actually, I don't want to put you on the spot like that.
Nicholas Conte
The stats have me at number one, and I'll leave it at that.
Michael Gallagher
Yeah, I don't want to put you on the spot. But the stats do have you at number one.
Nicholas Conte
Statistics don't say the whole story. But they say enough. I guess on that point. You know, I'm successful career, I'm really happy with what I did. And with the team we had, and I'll be honest, I don't always want the guys to beat it. But I root for UVA. And if they do, I'm happy for them.
Michael Gallagher
I've got a whole list of things going back in my mind to practices and games and everything that went on with special teams, because special teams almost had a practice a distinct practice within the overall team's practice.
Nicholas Conte
Yeah, absolutely. Special teams is the only the only part of the team that you need everybody for you need offensive players you need defensive players. Any guys who specialized a specialist you know they Kickers, punters long snappers holders, some returners, and you have to get the whole team bought in. We may not play a true third of the game in terms of plays. But the effective special teams in a game can flip the tide instantly. Big punt have a field goal, a block. Those are huge.
Michael Gallagher
And drilling down even further within special teams, specialists. You're practicing offense defense special teams in a practice. But there's only so many reps you can do as a specialist in those periods. So walk me through what was it like I, I feel like I had a bunch of different responsibilities during a practice. So I never got to see what one player did from start to finish through a practice. What were those like for you?
Nicholas Conte
It's it's very different for us. People view us differently when it comes to football. Some people don't see us as football players. But what they don't see is we're the first ones out to practice every day. We may not have the long three hour grinder meetings. But once we get out of meetings, we get you know, 15 minutes, and we're out on the field, we're dressed, we start stretching. Then we start our warm ups and the way your muscles working in your legs, your flexibility. They're not muscles that can take a beating necessarily in terms of swinging your leg you're working on hip flexor, hamstring, quad, calves, abs and your body just can't take a blow all day you can't hit 400 balls just like a guy can't run 400 routes in a practice. So we get out there early. And we would start warming up getting ready because once the returners got out to the field, we're hitting fulls to them to get them ready to give them realistic looks. And then we have to cool down because practice with the start. And so we would go 10, 15 periods before we got back again. So we had to cool ourselves down and find a way to stay calm and to stay warm, without overdoing it so that we went to the live periods, our coaches had an accurate idea of what we were capable of. Because when it comes down to it, your coach needs to know in this situation, am I sending out my kicker in this situation? Am I sending out my punter? What is our average likely going to be? So they can gameplan around it a little bit better. And if you're out there just swinging for the fences and you don't kick special teams first period, you've been out there for 30 minutes prior, your leg isn't going to have the same force and you're not going to be as smooth, which is the key to being good kicker is skill and smoothness through the ball, you're not trying to power it. And so they're not going to get a realistic look. And and that made a difference for us for practice, because we weren't doing every period, you know, there were periods where we were just kind of hanging out stretching. And people see that. And they go, Oh, those guys aren't really trying what especially to do during practice. You know, there was always that joke, like, specialists probably go inside and play ping pong during practice, right? We don't even see you guys, are you guys even practicing right now, you've got one job. But the whole time we're doing something that may not be fully kicking, but we're doing something to hone our craft. And because we miss a kick, we're more disappointed than anybody else. Because we expect ourselves to be perfect every time. And it's I think it's the only position in football, where you truly expect to be absolutely perfect every time you step on that field.
Michael Gallagher
I've never thought about it like that before. But that makes perfect sense. Perfect, no pun intended there. It does make perfect sense and how you were describing how practice goes that mimics during a game get me to start to finish you're warming up least an hour before a game. Games go, nowadays, these games, it seems like over four hours. So over the course of maybe five hours around the same timeline as a practice, including the warm up, you have to be able to like you were saying, warm up cool down, warm up cool down at various points throughout a game because you could be needed several times over the course of hours. But I guess you have to walk the fine line if you can't stay. Like that heightened state at the ready every single play of the game.
Nicholas Conte
Absolutely. You know, before games, I would. Wow. I mean, you you were there, you would help me and I would start with stretching and we'd go out and start punting. And the problem is that a lot of young kickers have that I had, that I finally learned by the time I started was you have to know when to cut yourself off. You can be having a terrible warmup. And it's the hardest thing to do not to just keep trying to kick yourself out of a slump. But you can't do it. And I finally got to a point where I would kind of watch the clock. And I knew when I got out there and about 30 minutes before we would go back in is when I've winded down and it was more of not only a physical thing, but it was a mental thing for me too. There was a certain way I warmed up, call it superstition. I had a certain way that I warmed up that when I went out there, I knew Okay, I put this cleat on first I put this you know, I did this stretch routine. I did my drop drill. Now I'm going to go to the far end zone by the hill I'm going to kick into the net. Just gonna warm up, back it up a little bit, go out to the 50 yard line hit some of my own once I turn a couple over, have one of you guys or snapper come over snap to me after about 20 punts. 20 to 30 I'm switching sides, I'm coming back. That should be right around the 45 minute to 30 minute time, I can get a couple specialties and then I can stand there and just kind of bask in the greatness that is college football at the DI FBS level and just kind of enjoy it for a moment. Because my first game at UCLA, I was scared, I'm not even going to play, I was absolutely terrified. And I didn't really take it in at the beginning of the game because I was so worried I went to the far corner away from everybody, Coach Lewis include, I mean, I was down on the far left in by myself, just to get my mind right saying this is actually happening. And Coach Lewis came down there and talk to me and, you know, calm me down. And from that point on, I just kind of used my warm up as my way of calming myself down to get ready to play. Because as a punter and a kicker, unlike other positions, again, you can't have high mood swings. You can't be super high up and energized and crankin and then go super low, because you're gonna mess up. And if you let that bring you down, you're gonna you don't have another play. If I went out and I shank the putt, I was waiting a minimum usually of at least seven to eight plays plus, before I got another opportunity to show that that wasn't who I was. And sometimes if you're really good, you might only get to a game. So if you miss one, there goes your average and there goes your reputation. And so you have to be what a sports psychologist I spoke to under Mendenhall said he said, You have to be like a sniper. And you have to find a way to calm your heart rate down to calm your mind down, to not worry about what's going on around you to focus on your task and to hit that 40 yard shot. Because it's the only play in football, punting specifically where you gain 40 plus yards for your team, every time you step out there. If an offense did that, they would be in the Hall of Fame. You know, it's one of those things that it's a unique aspect. And I read recently, the 40 yard dash was set up, specifically, because that's the average distance a player was going to run on a punt. And that tells you how important special teams is, and how important it is for specialists, to stay calm, to keep their bodies ready. And to just go out there, relax and do what they know how to do.
Michael Gallagher
I guess I learn something new every day, I had no idea that was the origin of the 40 yard dash.
Nicholas Conte
Twitter, I learned that on Twitter, good old Shayne Graham, he might be a Hokey, but he puts out some good things on Twitter.
Michael Gallagher
And going back to what you just said earlier about the stability of the state of mind that's required. You said earlier on that when you had to cut yourself off for warmups, you mentioned not having to fight the urge to keep punting. And the phrase I'm looking for is you don't want to punt yourself back to even, like, if you had a bad punt if you're in warmups, and you have to stop at a certain time. You have to fight that urge to be like, I'm not gonna stop until I hit one 50 yards, whatever it is, it just reminded me I was just watching this movie on Netflix. I love all these poker themed movies about, you know, the poker term, playing Full Tilt?
Nicholas Conte
Yes
Michael Gallagher
Exactly like that, that's exactly what it reminded me of.
Nicholas Conte
And it's something I have to remind my young kickers about too. It's something that a lot of young kickers Don't think about. And honestly, it wasn't something I thought about, especially my first three years at UVA. But it makes sense when you're out there, and you're focused on the negative. And it was really this sports psychologist that really kind of took my game to the next level. Because I learned how to control my mind a little bit better. Now, it's not to say I don't still get, you know, rattled every now and again, I don't get down. But there are certain things like you don't acknowledge a bad punt. Some people yell the cost, they constantly smack their hands. They make this big show just like you see wide receivers or quarterbacks they mess up and you know, their head droops. They slap their hands together, they throw a fist down, you can tell by their body language that they're be they've been defeated by what they just did. But no one truly acknowledges the good kicks unless it's a made field goal to win a game, you see the kicker, and the holder and the snapper come together and maybe one or two O-linemen come up and pat the guy on the head. But unless it's a game winner, no one is there celebrating it. So it becomes a vicious cycle for kickers, where they miss hit one. And it's like they want to show everyone that Oh, that's the mistake, that's a one in a million, it doesn't happen to me. And so they make this big show of it. Well, now they've got this association with negative when they go to kick versus keeping a positive mentality, and acknowledging all their good punts and their good kicks, and their good snaps to where they're comfortable. And they snap there. And a lot of people use the word don't and not when they're kicking or snapping. And so they'll say to themselves, you'll never hear it out loud. And every kicker in the world, I'm 99.99% sure says this to themselves, at least at some point in their career, even the greats is, oh, I don't want to whatever, kick it out of bounds, shank it, snap it on the ground. And it's like if I tell you don't think about a pink elephant, you immediately think of a pink elephant
Michael Gallagher
Immediately.
Nicholas Conte
And it's one of those things that if you tell yourself, don't kick it out of bounds. Well, now you're either going to kick it out of bounds, or what was going to be a perfect punt or a perfect kick, right to where you wanted it. Let's say it's a kickoff and you're like, man, don't kick it out of bounds. Just put it down in the middle, don't kick it out of bounds. When now you're going to overcorrect. And you're either going to wrap your foot around the ball and pull it out of bounds because you've been telling yourself that or you're going to put it exactly where the coach doesn't want it and where your scheme isn't set up versus telling yourself, put it on the numbers. I've got this, put it on the numbers. And now you're focused on the positive aspect versus the negative and it's a very mental position. You really have to slow yourself down because it's so technical with every little movement can affect a kick. And we're talking millimeters and half an inch can be the difference between a made field goal or like a 53 yard punt and a shank and hearing the loudest sound and football of that football clanging off the upright and your team looking back at you disappointed because the game ended on that.
Michael Gallagher
Two things you mentioned in there that I didn't want to forget, first about the body language. And I think what you were another way of putting what you said is, say you the, the missed kick or a miss hit punt, and then associating that with negative body language. And how people don't do the reverse with a positive punt or kick, I guess, with punt the, the exception would be if a punt is down at the one yard line, I'm sure everyone's pumped up about that, but not in most other cases. And that creates a feedback loop, especially a negative feedback loop. If your, if your head sinks down, like you were saying, you drop your shoulders and you're hunched over after a bad, bad kick, it's only just going to create a negative feedback loop where you spiral downwards
Nicholas Conte
So I used to make a joke, when I was playing at UVA that mine was the only position where people went and got snacks when I came out on the field, and I was totally okay with it. Because I knew that unless we were on the 50 yard line going in, or unless I smoked like a 67 yard punt, people weren't going to notice. And if they did, they didn't care. Because what do people care about? They care about scoring. They care about offense and defense. That's what sells tickets. And that's one of the things you know not to go off the topic of football, but you think about basketball, UVA basketball got drilled by announcers because of the pack line defense and how it's boring. But technically, it's one of the most amazing things you've ever seen when it comes to basketball. But because people aren't scoring and there isn't this huge, fast paced, this team scores now this team scores now this team gets a turnover, people got bored with it. And it's the same thing with football, they want to see those high scoring games, they want to see the offense go out, drive the field, big explosive plays, then the defense makes a huge stop or a big hit. And unless the punt is down on the one, which is this huge deal, because it's so technically hard to do. If you hit a 45 yard punt at a four or five hang, fair catch, and you're leading the nation with a 45 yard net average, no one in the stands cares. Because all they want to see is that TV timeout to go away that offense come out on the field. And that's a hard thing for some people to realize, but it's something I embraced when I was at UVA, because that's why I didn't get down on myself when I miss hit one. And that's why I would avoid people when I did miss it one because I didn't want the negative energy. But when I did hit a good one, I had the self awareness and the internal capability to hype myself up like "Hey, there we go. Let's acknowledge that good one." There was very few times that a coach came up and gave me a high five or that a player did other than "Hey, good punt." There was no excitement like when a guy gets an interception, even when I hit big punts. Now when I downed them on the one, or when we ran the fake at UCLA, you know, that's a different story. That's a game changer. That's something that brings excitement. Even the Duke game, we downed it at the one I think it was two plays, maybe three plays later, Mack comes off the edge smacks Daniel Jones flips him, strip sack, Eli Hanback jumps on the ball, we get a touchdown. And everyone came up to me at that point and was like, "Hey, that's your touchdown." And that was probably the most excitement that I saw during a game. Because we had downed the ball on the one but we lead the nation and balls downed on the one. So we got a little bit more exciting my fifth year. But before that, we punted like 75 times. And there's only a handful of times that people got excited for a punt that weren't on the field. That's a little different when it's the players but from a fan perspective, you don't hear a lot of excitement when a guy fair catches the ball. It's pretty quiet in the stands. You know, even in front of 70,000 people, it's quiet. But you have to own it and understand that, hey, you did something you did your job. And as a punter, if you do your job, that often means you're not going to get recognized for it. It's just like an o-lineman. If you do your job, no one's gonna really acknowledge you unless you pancake somebody or make a huge block. But the moment you get beat, everybody's going to remember it. Just like the moment you shank a punt, everybody's going to remember, at least for that week.
Michael Gallagher
Yeah, that'll be the talk of you'll go on Twitter and be like, Ah, so and so didn't give up that sack. It would have been a whole different game.
Nicholas Conte
Exactly. They don't mention the other 40 plays where a guy dropped the ball, or someone missed an assignment or there was a bad play, call or mistimed timeout. And all of these factors lead into a game. But we as humans, like to put the blame on one thing, we like to look for a reason. And oftentimes it comes down to a kicker, or it comes down to a quarterback. Missing a throw, why didn't he throw it there? Well, hindsight is 20/20 just like on a kick, why didn't he play the wind? Why did he miss it? Well, I can promise you he wasn't purposely missing. He just made a mistake.
Michael Gallagher
And once and once we get that as fans, once you get that one reason, everyone stops looking after that. You settle on the one thing, and that becomes a story.
Nicholas Conte
Absolutely. I mean, do you remember the Penn State game when I think it was Ficken missed four field goals, and they lost against us? And that kid got death threats over field goals. And it's like, there was other things that went down in that game, where they didn't capitalize where his field goals, wouldn't have even been necessary. But because the kid had a bad day, and now that's an extremely bad day for a kicker. But fans came after him at such an extreme rate. But no one else pointed to any of the other reasons why they might have lost. And it was really cool to see their head coach step in for the kid. But it's one of those things that you know, you kind of look back at it and go, Why? Why do we look at that one specific play? Why we expect punters and kickers to be perfect, but we're human. So we're going to be imperfect. We're not going to be perfect every time. But that expectation is there. And that brings us back to our point from earlier that we're expected to be perfect every time and we expect ourselves to be perfect every time. And it's the only position where that's the case. Quarterback can throw two terrible passes in a row, get absolutely sacked, not throw the ball away when he's supposed to, and he throws a 60 yard touchdown strike, it's the greatest thing that ever happened. Punter goes out and shanks two punts in a row. And then cut, gone. Right, just like a field goal kicker. Field goal kicker will go out there and miss every extra point, smoke at 62 yarder, but no one cares if he missed the extra points. But it's the same number of plays. It's just they don't have as big of a effect on the game because we might get four or five kicks four or five punts, quarterbacks gonna get 60 plays. So it just doesn't even out. We may not have as many plays in a game. But they clearly have the same effect as somebody who has the 60 to 70 plays a game.
Michael Gallagher
Earlier this season. I don't know if you remember, I don't want to date this too much because this'll be coming out weeks after we're talking right now. But this past week, Dan Bailey missed however many kicks for the Vikings like three, four. A few weeks prior, it might have been the Titans first or second game of the year, Steven Gostkoski missed five kicks. However, the two the difference between the two of them was Minnesota lost, and the Titans wound up winning when Gostkowski made one kick out of six he attempted that day. And another example of that results oriented thinking that just because the Titans, if you looked at the stat sheet and didn't know who won or lost, you'd probably didn't know at what point those kicks occurred in what order, you'd be more upset about Gostkowski's performance than Dan Bailey's. But most people look towards the result of what happened in the game, and then work backwards from there. So, this ties into what you were saying earlier is that people criticizing from the outside in have are going purely based on results as opposed to the individual plays and a more process oriented thinking.
Nicholas Conte
100%. You know, I think a good example of that is our punt unit at UVA. We were really good. Especially my fifth year, average, like 44.3 yards a punt, gross average, and I believe it was like a 40.3 net average. We were in the top 25 in the nation. Maybe even top 15 we lead the nation and punts downed inside the 20 and punts downed at the one. But because of our record and the outcomes of the games, people always said "Oh, you play football for UVA. You guys suck." Well, no. We're leading the nation in a lot of things that we're doing at my unit. But the result of the game, just because we didn't win, doesn't mean it sucked. It just meant that we were having growing pains as a whole team. But everyone is so focused on the outcome, whereas you can have a kicker or a punter who is terrible, and is in the bottom 10 of the nation. But if your team is winning, no one cares and goes, "Oh, you play for them, you must be pretty good. You guys are winning a lot, how's it going?" But they look at, they look at records and look at games like Dan Bailey is one of the best kickers that has ever walked this earth. And he had a mistake, Gostkowski too. I mean, you look at these guys' careers, they've been in the league forever. And that's hard to do. There's only 32 of us in the league at the time. They don't really carry backups. I was a call guy a few times, and you're not on a roster, you're literally waiting for the phone to ring if something happens. So these guys are not like the worst guys out there, but when you watch ESPN some weeks, you would think that they picked the worst players. But even if you missed those few goals, you won't show up on ESPN unless your team loses. Nine times out of 10. If your team loses, they'll pin you as the reason that you lost. But if your team wins, they won't even think it happened. They'll just focus on how great of a game the quarterback or the defense had or the offense of this wide receiver this play. They won't even focus on it. It's interesting how sometimes it brings attention to it, and sometimes there's no attention brought to it. And that's something that's hard for a lot of younger guys to understand. And a lot of people get caught in their feels about it. They're wondering why everyone is looking down on them. And they're not used to that feeling of, "Hey, I did something great, or I did something right. And I'm not being rewarded for it. But every time I do something wrong, it brought attention." And that's why it was important for me to learn how to self, internally hype myself up, but also to ignore the negatives. Because you've seen the coaches on game day. Coaches get fired up just as players do, if not more so. And if you mess up, they're the first ones to rip you. So I've tried to find ways to avoid Coach Lewis some games when something bad happened, I would just kind of like skirt the side there. And he'd always come and find me. But he and I had a good relationship to where he was always very positive, he might be upset about something but he knew. He's a kicking coach, you know, he, he understands special teams. He's an awesome guy, I was so happy to play for him. Because he changed the route of my career, my second year, and I owe all of my success to his encouragement. But that man would get fired up during a game. And there were some times where he and I would just kind of look at each other. And he knew I knew what he was about to say. And so we would just be like, "Alright, we're good." Because he knew I didn't respond after he learned me. He learned I didn't respond well to that. It doesn't make me perform better to cuss me out or to yell at me. Or to tell me "what was that? Why did you mess it up?" It's he would come up and by the end of the season, come and go, "hey, what went wrong there?" Like, "Coach, ball went inside on me." He goes "Alright, fix it." "Yes, sir. Got it. Not a problem won't happen again." And we were good. But you watch some games like you'll watch Saban sometimes on the sideline. I feel for those guys, because they'll get ripped. And that's one thing and me as a coach that I've taken into account is one you have to learn your player, but two, when it comes to kickers, you can't be a traditional football coach. You cannot be, I shouldn't say you can't, but I'd say nine times out of 10 that's not the way you want to approach your kickers because usually kickers are a little bit different. And it's one of those things, it's always a joke, like, team kick is always the weird ones. They're so different. They're not normal football players. And we we're not because we can't be, to an extent. We're not going to go out there and be meatheads and try and crack people all the time. And so our mentality is a little different. We're surgeons, we're snipers. We have to be fine motor skills. And if you know anything about human biology, the first thing to go when you're under high adrenaline and high stress is your fine motor skills. And so if you have gross motor skills, big things, grabbing something big, hitting something, that's something your body's meant to do because it's in a fight or flight mode. But sitting there and looking at a ball and dropping it and taking walking, literally I had to teach myself to walk as I punted, because slow is smooth and smooth is fast when it comes to kicking. You had to walk into it as you've got 250 pound plus guys running sub 5 40's trying to knock your head off when you're in a vulnerable position. Staying calm and making sure that my drop was perfect every time, because if the nose dove, if the nose went inside, if my thumb barely grazes the ball, it'll create friction on a free falling ball. And that's a mis-hit. And so that's a fine motor skill. And it's something that you have to drill over and over and over again to create muscle memory with because under those high stress situations, the first thing that wants to go is this fine motor skills. But if you've drilled it, and you keep yourself calm enough, I'm not saying I was out there, like I was at home sitting on the couch, my adrenaline was definitely going a little bit. But it got to the point where I was comfortable enough to where I could slow it down. And everything felt comfortable. And I knew, as long as I stayed positive, and I focused on one or two things only. Not focusing on, okay, my steps, my drop my follow through my angle, I would pick one or two things, and nine times out of 10 for me in college it was "bellybutton height, and walk." And those are the two things I needed to tell myself before every punt and as I was punting, and everything else took care of itself. Because I was able to keep my fine motor skills, if I would have kept myself all hyped up and then a mental basket case out there, we would be having a completely different conversation. I mean, we probably wouldn't be having this podcast right now. I would have been one of the forgotten punters, you know, one of those guys that no one ever remembers, and I hope I'm not. I hope that never happens, but it's something that you have to think about when it comes to kicking and punting, is the mental aspect of the game, because it is such a mental position. I'd say it's that saying, you know, it's 90% mental, 10% physical, which is normally like, man, it's really 50/50. But in kicking, it's truly like 70/30 I would say, because if you don't have the mental capacity, and you're constantly berating yourself, doesn't matter how talented you might be, you're getting in your own way.
Michael Gallagher
Have you read the book, the Inner Game of Tennis?
Nicholas Conte
I have not.
Michael Gallagher
It sounds like, I feel like you could have been reading this whole time from the book. I listened to Michael Lewis's podcast on coaching, I think it's called Against the Rules. And Season Two was all about coaching. And he talked to the guy, I believe, who wrote this book called The Inner Game of Tennis, that, this guy was a tennis coach, and I guess one of the most successful tennis coaches in history, and he writes this book, and it becomes a best seller in the realm of coaching, anything, because of the way he approached how he coached tennis. Exactly like you said earlier, is one of his biggest corrections. I have the book sitting here, I haven't read it yet. I've got a ton of books here that I have yet to read in my room. But one of the things that drew me to this book was, he mentioned, just like you said, how most people in this instance, kickers, you're attempting a kick, you're telling yourself, "don't do this, or don't drop the ball like this, don't let my thumb graze the ball. Don't do any of these things." When you need to be having a positive, maybe not a mantra, but a positive affirmation or something you're telling yourself in your mind. Like the example he gave was, if you're hitting a forehand, in tennis, most people are like "oh boy, don't hit this into the net." Instead, he would tell them to think "this is where I want to keep my elbow" like we said, one or two things like have my plant foot here, keep my arm in this motion, and then that's all you focus on. And that's what leads to success, not thinking over to yourself "Don't hit it out of bounds" or "don't hit it into the net." It's these same the same principles people took from tennis, and are bringing them to all these other areas of life.
Nicholas Conte
Absolutely. I think part of it too is, at least as a kicker, and I've told my guys this, here at VMI. But once you get to a point where that becomes natural, you get this swagger about you. You almost come across as cocky. And that's a good thing. Now, you don't want to be overly cocky because then that becomes negative. Because when all of a sudden people get super cocky, they become egotistical, and anytime they mess up, it affects them more. But when it comes down to it, I by my senior year and into the NFL and to this day, I have this little bit of cockiness about me when it comes to punting and with holding. It's one of those things that I know and I tell myself "I'm going to be positive" and it comes across to people as cocky but it's a good thing when you're kicking and if somebody challenged me, or if I go out there, and coach asked me, can I do it? Absolutely. Coach, I can do that no problem. I've been practicing, I've done it 100 times in practice. And people sometimes see that as a negative. But when it comes to it, you need that because you need to have that self positivity. Whereas if you sit there and you're humble, or what we perceive as being humble, in reality, you're actually talking yourself down, and you're setting yourself up to give yourself an excuse as to why you can't do it, or why you're not going to do it. So if you if a coach asks you, now, there's always these limitations, you have to know your range. So be honest with yourself, don't BS a coach. And don't do it to yourself, because that's just going to create disappointment in both of you. But if it's something you feasibly know you can do if you were to come out with me on the field right now. And say "Conte, from 50 yards, can you put on seven? Every time?" "Yes, I got this. Not a problem. Where you want it? You want it left, middle or right? I'll put it wherever you want. You want on the numbers, I'll put it on the numbers." But then that gives you that positivity, if you've already said to yourself, I've got this. I know I can do this. Whereas if you were like, "Hey, Conte, can you put it on the seven?" "Ah, yeah, I can, you know, but I might miss it one or two." Or "yeah, I can get it close, probably." Now you've set up doubt. And now you've changed your mindset, and how you look at this game and how you look at what you're about to do and how you view yourself. And that's something that's hard to teach out of kids because we're taught from a young age, don't be cocky, be humble. And that's a great attribute. And that's how you should be. And I don't disagree with that. But when it comes to being on the football field, it's different. You have to have a little cockiness to just like a great lawyer has to be cocky in what he does. You don't want a lawyer when your trial comes up, saying, "Yeah, I think I can help you." No, you want the guy who's gonna say, "Hey, no problem, I got this, we're gonna attack this thing. I know exactly how we're going to do it. Here's our plan of action. I've done it before." That's the guy you're gonna go with versus the guy who is, oh, yeah, you know, I think we can handle it. But this might happen, or this might happen. So just be prepared. You want the guy who's going to be gung ho about it, even if they were absolutely even all the way through. And that's the same thing with a kicker, you have to have that little bit of cockiness to you. So that you keep that positive mentality. Because the moment you doubt yourself, you're done. You've lost the game. It's a mental battle that you've lost with yourself. And no one else is there to hype you up. Maybe a field goal kicker, it's a little different, because you're getting points for the team, but from a punting or like holding, I think holding is probably the most stressful and underappreciated art in football. But no one notices a great hold. Unless it's one that falls on the ground, and the guy somehow gets it down. But no one truly understands unless they do it. Or unless they're a kicker, the intricacies of it. So you have to be positive, you have to be a little bit cocky at what you do. Because you're not going to get that external motivation. It all has to be internal.
Michael Gallagher
And people listening might doubt that you'd be able to go out there, like you said, and kick it 50 yards and drop it right on the seven. I can attest to the amount of times I've seen you practice and I forget exactly how the point system worked, but you'd start from a certain point on the field and kick to a specified yard line. I guess something like darts maybe I don't know I'm not too familiar with the darts scoring either way, you have to get a certain amount of points. And you're doing it based on yards. You couldn't go below zero, something like that. So it was very specific, the yardage you had to hit.
Nicholas Conte
Absolutely.So what we would do, it was a game that I learned from my private kicking coach and I still to this day, you know, I'm still training I'm still trying to, to make it. It's a game I like to play that we've always played and it's, it's for Aussie punting. So those situations where it's really the 52 yard line for me wind at my back 55, but really 52 is where I'm the most comfortable. I know I'm going to hit the seven yard line every time and in, and you put two or three balls on the 50 or 52, two or three balls on like the 45 or 47, two or three balls on the 40 or 42. That's every five yards. Well, those are different styles. They all look the same to somebody who doesn't know punting like super intricately. You're going to look at and go oh, that ball is going end over end. Yeah, but there's a little bit of difference. But the game is every yard line it lands on, that's how many points you get. So if I landed on the seven, I get seven points, then I go 10, that's 10 points. I land it on the one, that's one point, and these are out of the air, so we don't play roll, because that'd be too easy to cheat. I just roll out in a light nice little spiral nose up ball, it would hit and roll inside the five, and I get three or four points every time. So you're hitting the hang time, but you're hitting the normal punt. So wherever it hits. Now if I hit it in the endzone, that's 20 points. And that's a death sentence in that game. If you hit the end zone, you're done. It's over. Whoever you're playing against, got you beat. And whoever has, it's like golf, whoever has the lowest score wins. And we would play things like that. And that's why people sometimes look at punters and kickers and go, "y'all just mess around during practice." But these are games like, we would, I know, you were there, we would try and hit that trash can on the indoor that was on the 35 yard line on the far side, away from McCue. And people looked at us and go, "Why are y'all just trying to kick a ball into the trash can?" It's like, well, if you think about it, it's accuracy. It's something I do to this day. When I go out and train every week, I'll sometimes take depending on what I'm focusing on that week, I'll take a trash can, I'll put it on like the 10 yard line. I'll go 55 yards away from it. And I'll try and land that ball in that trashcan. And if I can keep my misses within like, five yards each side, from 50 to 55, I'm having a really good day. Because that's like if a coach tells you "Hey, put it on the numbers" and you put it like in the middle of the numbers and you put it on the bottom number at the very end just outside of it and just outside of the top number. That's phenomenal. So we would do these little games we play punt golf, we play, punt pass and kick, all these little things that look like they're just for fun, and they are fun, but it's a great way to get your training in without being bored. Because sometimes if you get bored, you don't really focus on what you're doing. You just kind of go through the motions, but you create this game and like, punt pass and kick. Sometimes I would play against a kicker. So like, Dylan Sims and I would play each other. And I'll never forget, we were, it was like six o'clock at night on like a Tuesday. And we were using the indoor we had got some training time in and it was the offseason, we're like "Alright, we're gonna do a punt pass and kick." And so I was talking about punting. Dylan was cocky about kicking. Dylan beat me on the pany. And then I beat Dylan on the kicking. And so it came down to a drop-kick field goal. And I ended up beating him, and I hope that he's listening, because I do remember beating him on a 40 yard drop-kick that I had no idea what I was doing, and I've never trained kicking before.
Michael Gallagher
I'll have to get his side of the story.
Nicholas Conte
Please do, he probably, he'll probably negate it. But I'm telling you it happened. If I need to I'll call Luke and try and find the footage of it. There has to be one of the cameras that was working that night.
Michael Gallagher
Before I forget, you mentioned about people thinking you were just playing around punting into the trash can across the field. Nobody, I mean, one or two coaches would question on defense the usefulness of quarterbacks practicing throwing into the trash cans. But when you think about it, nobody really outside of them was questioning whether quarterbacks were throwing balls into the trash cans when it doesn't really that doesn't translate into a game like the punting does.
Nicholas Conte
No, not in the same way. I think, some of the times, the trash cans, just to think of it from an offensive perspective, like you're throwing a fade route and you have to land that ball in the bucket, you have to throw it up and get it to come down that plays into it. But like on a normal open field throw I don't think it does. Now the biggest thing for us as kickers was Coach London hated us doing that. Because the indoor was low enough that I would hit the rafters. So in order to hit that ball, I'd either have to perfectly thread it through the rafters, which is complete luck, or you'd hit a line drive, and it'd be right over the trashcan. But you hit those big curtains, with Heath Miller's face on them.
Michael Gallagher
Oh, yeah, that big, that huge banner.
Nicholas Conte
And I can't tell you how many times he saw us do that he would come over and tell us about how those things cost like $40,000. And if we break one, it's coming out of our pocket. And those balls went back in the bag so fast. I would put it down if I saw him look and I put that ball down. But we destroyed many a ball punting them just into the indoor. I mean, I hit the ceiling and there are still carpenter screws that I can remember seeing that were like seven inches long, come falling from the ceiling. And then you look at the ball. And then Kyle would get so mad. because he'd look and be like, "What are you guys doing to these balls? Like they're gouged." It's like well, if we could raise the indoor about another 20 feet...
Michael Gallagher
It was designed improperly.
Nicholas Conte
It was, they weren't expecting us to. They say it was high enough to kick in. I beg to differ.
Michael Gallagher
Though I remember many times the ball clinging on the the support beams to the roof I guess, but that's what they were.
Nicholas Conte
It became a goal for me during practice, I'm not gonna lie, it got to a point where, one, I knew that if I didn't hit the rafters, then that was gonna be a low hang time. And when we went back and watch film coach would be like, "Hey, we got to get the hang time up on this" or then I'd shank it. So I knew if I could just smack the ceiling, I'd be like, oh, coach, it was a great punt, every time. And whether it was or not, it showed up on film is like that ball, if it lands back around the line of scrimmage, they know it hit the rafters. So then there was no logic as to whether or not it was a good or bad punt. They just had take my word for it.
Michael Gallagher
I never thought about it like that. I guess, I had no idea was going through your head. I'm too busy worrying about, you know, I'd probably have to track that ball. If it hits the rafters and land somewhere on the field, I've got to be on and off in five seconds getting that ball in and getting the practice moving along.
Nicholas Conte
Oh, you're a superstar. Like, I can't tell you how impressive what you guys did was, and especially seeing it now from a coaching perspective how vital you guys are to practice and making everyday work. Like it was impressive, especially for game day. I don't like the stress that you guys must have felt like I'm sitting here talking about like kicking stress. And I'm sitting here wondering, you know, all of a sudden, a ref is calling for a ball or something's going wrong on the field or, you know, from a Kyle standpoint, a headset goes down. The stress that would bring, I don't know how I would be able to handle that as well. So, props to you guys.
Michael Gallagher
I can tell you firsthand experience those game days were, from report time till dismissal, it was I believe it was more than 12 hours. It was an entire day, which is comical, because I think technically, you're not supposed to be working as a student manager for more than 20 hours a week. And let alone all the additional stuff I was doing on my own free time. The required hours were well over 20 hours a week in-season.
Nicholas Conte
It was quite it was quote unquote, voluntary. Don't you understand that? I mean, come on, man.
Michael Gallagher
Well, there's there's a quote unquote, voluntary and then there's like the actual voluntary.
Nicholas Conte
Voluntary workouts that we had to do. It's voluntary, and you truly did not have to go, and you don't. But if you lose a spot, there might be a reason why.
Michael Gallagher
Exactly you'd have to be. And this is something that I was trusted with is, with my summer camp job for multiple years, I was trusted with reporting I believe it was two weeks late, reporting to training camp. And I would miss those first two weeks where it was nine to five, if not later, more hours in a day of just heat pressing numbers onto different pieces of equipment. And I got to miss all that. And was trusted with over the course of the rest of training camp, making up that missed time. And not forgoing any, any pay or benefits or whatever it was for that missed time.
Nicholas Conte
Yeah, I mean, I'll never forget how much time you were there. I used to joke with you about it, like, "Man, you're here more than I am." You were there when I got there in the morning, and you were there when I come back in the evening after class for meetings or whatever we had going on, even just private training. But at the same time, you know, I always, always tried to appreciate and let you guys know how much what you meant to me was. I mean, you helped me out there snapping, training getting me ready. I mean, that was huge for me and you didn't have to do that and you could have taken those hours off. And you know, I can't thank you enough for for doing that for me and helping me do what I needed, and add another element to my kicking game that then helped us show out on the field when it came to Saturdays and the occasional Thursday or Friday night. You know, it's, you're the unsung heroes of the football world.
Michael Gallagher
If you needed anyone to get a better view of when you're playing that game, trying to pin it inside the seven yard line. You wanted someone right there at the yard line, I was there to do it.
Nicholas Conte
You were, and that goes back to the cockiness, because I wanted you to be there. So I could make sure that the guy I was going against didn't try and play the "Oh, that was the three." No it wasn't, that was the five, and I've got a guy down there to tell me it was at the five.
Michael Gallagher
Wow, I see how it is.
Nicholas Conte
But Michael Jordan with all of his stuff with the Lakers, you know you always had to have somebody there to beat and you know that's why they say "Competition breeds excellence" and I think we did that. I think the special teams unit, the last couple of years has been solid, you know, it really started, I guess with Jimmy Howell for me, right before I got there the year before, and then Voz, Voz had a stellar career. And then it was my turn. And I didn't want to let those guys down. And it's one of the things that, you know, you took pride in, and I still to this day, take pride in, you know, Nash Griffin punting this year he was there when I was, he was a backup, and you know, seeing him be successful, and taking pride and what we're doing, and what our unit is, and just keeping that alive has been huge. And Lester did it too. And it's been really cool. It's been really cool for me to see because I took so much pride in that unit. And I would hate to see for it to go downhill because someone didn't take as much pride as I did. And I think they both got their little cockiness to them to now Nash came in with it. Which has been great for him, because he's done a good job at UVA. But, you know, there's been a ton of help, and you never can do anything by yourself in life, you always have someone to help you or to put you there and, and you were one of the many people who were there to help me push myself and get better because my second year, you know, I was, I was fairly certain they were going to kick me off the team, because I wasn't good enough as a walk on. And it was something that, you know, you being there snapping to me, and me going out to Arizona on weekends during the spring without anybody knowing, and making it back on Monday for practice, to train. It made the difference in my career and set me up to be on a path of playing and now coaching and still trying to play and one of those situations I never thought I'd be on you know, I always thought medical school. And here I am still living football, which is great. I love what's happened.
Michael Gallagher
I mean, you were the master of in that nutrition class, we took together you you knew all that stuff cold.
Nicholas Conte
That nutrition classes. So I still have referenced that to this day, people have talked about like, C4 as how they take C4 and stuff. And I'm like, well, it's not the original one. The original one wasn't allowed. And it actually had this, this and this and you know that nutrition class, it still comes back up. I forgot we had that together. That class was fun. Randy Bird, the man.
Michael Gallagher
He's a true expert. I think one of, I don't think people understand how few experts there are, especially when he started. Even now, I think it's a more a slightly more saturated field. But there were very few expert nutritionists five, six years ago, and I I'm very certain that he's one of the best in the country.
Nicholas Conte
Absolutely. I mean, he was doing things that teams are just now figuring out. And this was five years ago. Like do you remember we had to do like shots of beet juice?
Michael Gallagher
Absolutely. I think I tried. I tried one.
Nicholas Conte
God, it tasted like dirt. Terrible.
Michael Gallagher
I tried one and only one.
Nicholas Conte
Oh man, I think he mixed it, he had one that like mixed with apple juice to taste better. And, you know, they would barricade the staircase, they would sit in front of the staircase. And you could not get past until you had your beet juice. And it had to do with your body. The amount of red blood cells carrying oxygen through your body. And if you did it, like 30 minutes before practice, it increased your load that you could take but he did some cool things. And that nutrition class was one of them. But then he would take it a step further. You know, he truly, I think he's another one of the unsung heroes for the program at UVA right now and why they're doing so well. Those cooking classes. No one teaches players how to cook. They think, okay, we're gonna go to training table, we're going to JPJ and we'll get our food. And we'll tell you what you need. But there are times we're not around it, we don't have time to go to JPJ especially, you know, like, I always think my third year at UVA class wise was the hardest. I feel like that's a pretty common thing is that your third year in college is kind of like your grinder. Your fourth year you're kind of coasting to the end there. You got a couple of classes that are hard. First year you're taking all intro. So you're just learning school. So it's hard to an extent. But third year for me was the toughest. So I didn't have time to go to JPJ sometime. But we'd go and do those classes, and you'd eat it and you'd be like, "Hey, this is healthy. This is delicious. And this is something I can take into my life outside of this" and to this day I still use some of those recipes. And you know I'm in better shape now than I was in college. And you know, I still think back to the diets he would have me on because there were some times where I had to get, there was one time I had to gain weight and it was not the healthiest thing and he helped me get up in weight. But then he helped me turn it into muscle. Which was important because those jerseys are tight and when you're playing in front of 60,000 people and you're on TV, you don't want to be the one with the belly hanging out.
Michael Gallagher
No, absolutely not.
Nicholas Conte
Especially when you're around a bunch of guys with six packs, you know, who play wide receiver, DB, and you're out there looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy. It's time to shapen up.
Michael Gallagher
Or Trent Corney.
Nicholas Conte
Oh man, have you seen his stuff recently? Not to get on a tangent, but on Instagram?
Michael Gallagher
I am very much so intrigued in interviewing him about all the things he's up to. I am fascinated by what he's up to.
Nicholas Conte
I am to its mean. He's bench pressing, like 150 pounds by like 20 reps each arm on dumbbells. Like my best is one right now is 120's for eight. And I'm like this dude. I mean, he was a beast when we were at UVA. He came in as like the strongest guy on the team. I think he was like, 3% body fat. And like 240.
Michael Gallagher
Exactly. I remember Randy saying during our nutrition class that it was, and he was describing to the class, the dietary needs of the team are really the needs of three separate teams within one, if that makes any sense. People eating completely different things. And the only weird anomaly in there was Trent because of his size, but also his extremely low body fat percentage. It was a it was a true anomaly.
Nicholas Conte
They forced him to gain body fat and he didn't want to, but it was unhealthy low and he was probably the most athletic human I've ever met. There's still, if you google him, or YouTube, Trent Corney UVA. Not only will you get his pro day, but there was an ACC there was a video that they got posted by the ACC and it was like the number one most athletic thing and like the one before it was Ryan Switzer, doing a backflip and catching like two footballs while flipping. And then you come to Trent and he's in water up to his like, mid chest, and jumping out of a pool backwards. And to anybody who's tried to jump in a pool just to play volleyball, like I can barely get my knees to clear the water, much less clear the water, go another six inches to clear the lip of a concrete pool, land on it and walk away like it's nothing.
Michael Gallagher
It was, I remember that video distinctly. And I'm still, I am replaying it in my mind. I I couldn't even tell you, I could probably get two inches off the ground in water. It's crazy.
Nicholas Conte
And believe it or not my first first two or three weeks at UVA, he was my lifting partner.
I would kill for that.
They were they were teaching us, I couldn't benchpress, I kid you not I could not benchpress my own bodyweight. At that time. I was right around 200 pounds. I could not benchpress my own bodyweight, and Trent's over there. And I remember we were sitting there and the strength coach comes up and Trent's like "this is really light. I normally do like 200." And the coach goes, "you know, son, these are kilos, not pounds. So that's why you're at 100. That's 200." He goes "No, no, I'm from Canada. I use kilos. It's 200." And everybody like the weight room stopped. Everybody's like, "Wait a second. What? One we don't know how to calculate kilos. And two. No way." And sure enough, I mean, Trent like he and I would be lifting together, and then after about like two days of them finally realizing that this dude is a beast and has been lifting since he was like four years old, they finally moved him off of my rack, which made lifting go a lot faster, because when I would put one plate on he would need like six more. So us trading back and forth was a very slow, rigorous process. I think I got more lifting done moving his weights around and trying to pick up my own.
Michael Gallagher
I was there at the pro day that year. And I saw him, I made a point to be right near him when he was doing the bench press. I don't want to say too low in number. But I want to say he benched 225, like in the mid to high 30s.
Nicholas Conte
Yeah, I want to say it was it was like 32.
Michael Gallagher
Maybe low 30s. I don't want to underestimate that. But it was an incredible amount of times.
Nicholas Conte
You know my best, I actually did the 225 again about two weeks ago. I got 19, well 18 and 99% of 19. I didn't lock my elbows out on the 19th so I didn't count it, but it was up high enough I could've racked it, so 19. And I was like man, I'm stronger than I've ever been. And I immediately thought back to that and I was like I'm gonna go watch that video again. And I just like I watched it and just hearing that way just like clank clank clank clank. It was like me just bench pressing the bar. It's just so I went to his Instagram and I'm just like, "This dude is stronger than anybody I've ever met and he is shredded" and he's bigger than he was when we were playing, because now I think he's just truly bodybuilding. And he's no longer on, it was Winnipeg's team, I believe.
Michael Gallagher
I think so, the Blue Bombers.
Nicholas Conte
Yeah, he was the blue, oh yeah, he was the Blue Bombers. And, you know he was a stud player but I think his true calling has been bodybuilding. That's something he's gonna do for the rest of his life, and if I'm not mistaken I believe his father's one, is a bodybuilder as well, or was. So I think it's kind of like a family thing. I just remember he and his brothers and his dad all being absolutely yoked.
Michael Gallagher
Yeah, I've got those genes too. I don't know if you could tell.
Nicholas Conte
I mean, I've seen it, I'm just waiting for you to get on some WWE stuff. Or Smackdown. You know, I've been waiting for that since we were in college. So keep working on those muscles. I want to see you take down like, I want an old school battle with you and John Cena. Like, that's what I want.
Michael Gallagher
I think the size discrepancy is beyond the realm of, of like suspension of disbelief.
Nicholas Conte
Hey, Rey Mysterio took down Big Show, and I forget who the other one was. So if that can happen, you can do it.
Michael Gallagher
That's true. But I think people underestimate how big or how strong he is. He's built like a fire hydrant. So he's still got plenty on me.
Nicholas Conte
And he's a great actor too, so I wouldn't want to see him lose.
Michael Gallagher
And along with all you've got going on now, still training, still preparing, coaching, learning new skills all the time on and off the field. If you had a 25th hour in your day, to spend on any of these things, or just one of them, what would be the best use of that time?
Nicholas Conte
Oh, that's a tough one. Um, honestly, if I had a 25th hour, if I could do it with anything I would, I'd said spend it with my family. It's kind of corny, it's kind of a cop out, I guess to an extent because you were talking about those three things. And if I need to, I'll answer to one of those and said, you know, I'd spend it on training. But in the grand scheme of life, the way I've looked at it recently, with my career, especially, it has highs and it's definitely had its lows. And the one thing that's always stayed constant for me is my family and their support. And as we get older, I mean only 26. So not like I'm ancient here. But at the same time, I've started to understand more, you know, our time is limited. And the one thing that's always going to be constant for us is the ones that love us and that we love. And the more time I could spend with them, the better because I'm going to have a career one way or the other in something, and I'm going to have, I might have multiple, things are always going to be changing. Careers come, careers go, you retire. And if you pigeonhole yourself into just that, you're going to miss the bigger scheme of life. And you'll regret it in the long run. So if I had that 25th hour, it's been my family. Because there's something that you'll never regret, at least in my case. And I have a little cousin now. She's also my goddaughter, and I want to spend more time with her if I can, because you don't get that time back. And one thing Coach Wach has said, always at UVA, but at VMI now is "time is the one thing that you spend, that you can never get back." You can always get money back. You can always get physical things, even if you lose them, if you trade them, you sell them, you can always get them back in some way, shape or form. But time is one thing that you'll never get back. And time with family is well spent. Because that's something that you can constantly, just, it makes you happy it fulfills you. But it's something you won't regret. If you focus too much on career, no one ever sits there on their deathbed and says "I wish I worked more." But they say "I wish I spent more time with my family." Or "I wish I had better relationships with my friends." And so that's what I would spend my 25th hour doing is focusing on them rather than the things that I spend the other 24 hours of my day focusing on.
Michael Gallagher
Perfectly acceptable answer.
Nicholas Conte
Went deep on you there. I came out of left field, I feel like on that one for you.
Michael Gallagher
I mean, the whole point of this question is, these are the things I'm trying to get at. I don't want some cookie cutter answer about about whatever it is that you think I want to hear. I want to hear these things. This is what I'm interested in.
Nicholas Conte
No, I guess I mean, yeah, you know, family's the most important thing for me. I remember at UVA you know, Coach London always said faith, family, football, and in that order. And, you know, I relate to that. Family is the number one thing in my life, and always will be. It trumps anything from a football career, coaching career, graphic design career I guess. It trumps all other things in my life. You know, and it's something we don't get. You know, as we get older, we spend less and less and less time with our family, and we moved out after college, our senior year is really your last time back at home, and then you go home, but you're only home most for like a week. And every time you go back, it's been, you know, I'm lucky enough to live close to home right now. So I can go home and see my parents on weekends or see my sister, help them out, they can help me out that kind of thing. But you know, if I got a job, if I get a chance to play or if I get a coaching career out, you know, I'll be moving a lot and I won't have that opportunity. And I'll be focused on 24 hours in my day I'm focused on my career and bettering myself, or at least what we view as bettering yourself. And sometimes your family aspect falls to the wayside. I mean, think about how many times you as a kid, you didn't call your grandparents or something. And it comes easy. It's easy to fall in that rut, it's something I'd like to challenge myself to be better at. And two, if there was 25 hours in the day, I wouldn't spend it working, I'd spend it making memories with family, because that's something that you cherish for the rest of your life.
Michael Gallagher
I love it. And on that note, I want to thank you for this whole supersized conversation. I really didn't have much, I, you saw what I sent you, I didn't have much outlined going into this, but I'm very grateful for all the knowledge you shared. And you just kept hitting me one after one with all these great, these great pearls of wisdom. So thank you so much.
Nicholas Conte
Thank you, Mike. Man, I really appreciate it. Appreciate you having me on. And you know that our friendship has continued all these years. You know, you were a bright light during those dark mornings of practice. And so I really appreciate everything you did, and everything you're continuing to do. You're doing a great job, man. Keep it up. And I look forward to listening more to all of your podcasts and seeing your future growth. You've got a very bright future with what you're doing and you're doing a great job.