Don doesn't remember exactly what he said that night either. To be fair, that had been his coaching style since he first entered the profession in 1981 when he served as the linebackers coach for Idaho State before becoming The Citadel's offensive coordinator in 1983.
When he transitioned to high school coaching after Kasey and Ben were born, Don's family-like style of coaching didn't waver. If anything, it strengthened. When coaching younger athletes, Don valued helping the kids grow more than stressing about wins and losses. Sure, he wanted to win, but he wanted to teach his players accountability first and foremost.
It's the same approach he took as a father to Kasey, Ben and Kyle.
"The thing that my wife and I always believed while raising our kids is that we need to make them responsible for themselves because we can't guarantee that we're going to be around tomorrow," Don said. "We tried to make sure that they made each day count. We tried to make sure that they understood that it was their future that they were dealing with. It wasn't our future as parents. It was their future as people. And the level of success that they achieve is going to be up to them.
"That's how we treated our players. And I know Ben saw that when he was young and I think he liked it. Obviously, he's carrying the memory of \[that speech\]. So I think that it's meant a lot to him."
It indeed meant a lot to Ben — from both a personal and professional standpoint. His father's ability to connect deeply with not only his children, but his players, resonated with Ben. He may not have known it yet as a third-grader, but that was Ben's introduction to the style of coaching he would employ in his own career decades later.