 Mark Munoz, here at the C3, here at Calvary Chapel. Mark, where do you live from here, man? I live about 15 to 20 miles south of here in Mission Viejo. Okay, so Mission Viejo, and your son is here and he's gonna be a junior, right? Yeah, he's gonna be a junior, he's gonna be a junior. He started on and off when he was 10 years old but was probably wrestling one day a week because he was playing soccer and baseball. So he just decided to concentrate on wrestling in the eighth grade, and he's here now. And he's wrestled quite a bit since then. He's wrestled in the Freak Show, in that world team trials. In Akron, he's going to Akron and Russell's there? So you got him traveling? Yeah, I got him traveling. He's, you know, I told him I said in order to wrestle, in order to wrestle on the lead level, you got to wrestle the best guys. You can see where you're at and measure yourself. And if you want to be the best guy, then you got to wrestle the best guys. So we travel. We even travel around here. I mean, we travel to seek out who the best guys are and we travel and we wrestle, you know? And so we drive out sometimes two and a half, three hours away to get a good workout in, you know? So that's what we're doing. You know, you're NCA champ for Oklahoma State. Yeah. You fought in multiple leagues, right? No, I just, It was all UFC? It was all UFC, but So you never had to go and play the contract game? No, I never. That's nice, right? Yeah, it's nice. So when you're able to stick with one organization, but basically you're a professional athlete from 1996. You know, when you go to Oklahoma State and you're on scholarship to a couple years ago, right? So it's almost 20 years you're a professional athlete. Yeah. How does your body feel, you know? And as a dad, now the most important thing that there is for guys like us, what's it like to not push your son to maybe you have to make some pains now? Yeah. But what's that like and how do you guide your son from your personal experience? Yeah. So being involved in wrestling since I was 13 years old and getting into the UFC and, you know, you know, being done with the sport for about a year and a half, two years, my body is, I put a lot of miles on it, you know? And having that experience, I actually coach my son in that being able to listen to your body and not just push through all your pains and aches because that's what I did when I was younger. You know, I was like, it just hurts a little bit, but I'm okay, I'm gonna push through it. But now that I'm almost 40 and I'm feeling a lot of aches and pains, you know? So for me, that's, you know, I'm taking the wisdom that I've attained through the years and I'm applying it to my son. Now I never pushed him to wrestling ever. I invited him out to some practices every now and then and he wrestled probably one day a week since he was 10 years old and he was really good in soccer and baseball. And so he got drafted to a national baseball team. I believe he batted like, he batted nine for 12 and I don't think he made a single error on third base and I believe he had like 10 RBIs or something like that. And he comes back and wrestles the freak show and goes 0-2, you know? So you go from being an elite level baseball player to an average wrestler? Yeah, he's an average wrestler, not even average. I mean, he goes to the freak show and wrestles varsity and goes 0-2. I don't believe he scored a single point. Then he went from there to the national cup and his soccer team and their team took fourth place. You know, it's like, it's amazing. You know, and then he comes back, he goes, dad, I want to quit soccer and baseball and I want to wrestle. I go, why in the world do you want to wrestle? You're so good at the other sports. You don't have to pick now. And he goes, well, I love wrestling and I want to wrestle. I go, okay, if you want to wrestle then we got to train with the best guys. We got to wrestle four or five days a week. He committed to that, went back to the freak show. He had over 100 kids in his bracket. He ended up winning it. Really? Yeah, he wins the freak show the very day. Where he was 0-2? Where he was 0-2. That's incredible. So just that experience alone, I told him, I said, but you don't deserve anything on this earth. You know, if you have a sense of entitlement, you're not going to go anywhere. You got to earn everything. Just because you come from a great background with your dad being good at wrestling. That's not going to give you anything. You got to earn it. You got to make your own name. You got to go out there and do it. And so that's what he did. He committed to that. He wrestled. The best guys was practicing four or five days a week and he's making some big gains. So this year being a junior, I think he's going to, you know, we'll see what happens. You know, I told him, regardless of what happens, I'm your dad. I love you. Regardless of whether you win the state or not, I'm going to love you the same. If not even more, you know, because you went out there and you put your heart out there, you know? So yeah, I love being his dad. Sometimes I don't like being his coach, you know? But, you know, I got to let him know. I got to let him know how, you know, how champions are built, how you need to get to that elite level because I do have that wisdom. But I have to separate him. I can't be dad and coach at the same time. It's impossible. You know, I have to turn off the switch sometimes. How do you do it? It's tough, you know, because, you know, I got to love on him. Just like a coach would coach his wrestlers, he's got to love on him. But at the same time, he's got to have some tough love, you know? He can't bail him out of things. He can't say, oh, it's okay. You didn't run today, but, you know, you need to get in shape. No, you don't do that. You know, you do separate it. You, for me, like, I'm a dad and I tell him what he needs to do. But at the same time, I shut that off and I say, hey, bud, let's go out and let's go have some lunch. Spend some time. You know, and we don't talk about wrestling. You know, we talk about other things. You know, we go out and he loves to go out and he loves to go to the beach, hang out the beach. He loves food. So just like me, he couldn't wait all my life. But yeah, I mean, he's, you know, we talk about other things, you know? And to be able to separate those two things are very hard. They're very hard. But at the same time, it's needed. You know, you got to be intentional with how you do that. Because if you're not intentional, then you might be, your conversation might drift back to wrestling, you know? So being intentional, meaning you have to plan your conversation before you even go, you know? Like, what are we gonna talk about? How am I gonna address, you know, things? You know, how am I gonna talk to him about his relationships? How am I gonna talk about school or, you know, other things that are not wrestling? You know, so that's kind of, what I've learned through the years, you know? Like, I'm not gonna force him to wrestle. I'm not gonna force him to be this champion, you know? He's gonna want it for himself. If he wants it for himself, then I'm gonna back him up 100%, you know? But if he doesn't want it, then I can't force him to like it. I can't force him to love it. You know, he's gotta do it on his own. So you look at, you know, speaking of him, a tough love, being a dad and mentorship, you wrestled under John Smith. And I'm on Oklahoma State Overload, by the way. Listen, here's who I've filmed lately. Coleman, Scott's Technique. I've had Daringer. I've had J.O., Jordan Oliver. And then I had John like two and a half weeks ago in Indiana. I'm on Overload, two mil yesterday, right? And I got you in front of me now. So here's, I guess, here's the question. Why are they such amazing technicians? Would be my first question for you. I'm guessing you are too, in looking at it. Why are Oklahoma State guys such amazing technicians? And what have you taken from John Smith, value-wise and applied to fatherhood and life now? So why are you guys amazing technicians first off? I believe, I mean, because the class that I came from, I mean, you got Teague Moore, who's coaching over at American. You have Jamil, coaching over at Stanford. You have, you have, oh, Jeff Reagan. Who is an All-American his fifth year. He's coaching at the Citadel. You have Kevin Ward, who's over at Army. You have, you know, I'm missing others, but there's countless others that are great coaches. Now, John, Coach John Smith, he looks for technical kids because he's technical himself. When I was coming out of high school, I was a big guy, 189 pounder, shooting low single-legs, high crotches and single-legs, pass-by, snap-downs. You know, I was throwing insides and inside trips all in high school already. So I think he liked that. He even commented on that. You know, how is the technician on the map. And so I believe that's who he recruits. Now, having said that, we can't be awesome technicians and teach the technique just coming out of high school. We gotta be able to be mentor. And that's what he does. He mentors us in the way of wrestling camps. When wrestling camps come, he forces us to teach and break down technique so that kids can understand. And that's what we were around the whole time. You know, when we were, I remember sitting when I was a freshman coming in, we had to come in earlier so we can learn the Oklahoma State way, the Cowboy way, you know? And that's how we were going to be developed was Cowboy wrestling style, you know? To be Cowboy tough, the mentality, the perspective, the technique, that's all the stuff we needed to learn. And he was gonna string us along that way. And I learned a tremendous amount from him. You know, how to be tough, you know, how to train hard to be able to get what you want from the sport, how to be able to push yourself technically so that you could actually hit the technique that you learned on the map. Cause a lot of kids or a lot of wrestlers learn something but they never apply it to their stop and never apply it to what they do on the map. So I developed a lot in college over John, over Coach John. He's an unbelievable technician. He's developed tremendously as a coach when I got there and now I mean, his success as a coach speaks for itself. You know, Oklahoma State's a dynasty and it'll continue to be a dynasty when he, you know, if he's the coach. I don't know how much longer he has but I love him as like, he's family. You know, he's, you know, he comes out and he calls me, texts me and he asks me how's my family and that's the type of guy he is. You know, he's really family oriented and you know, it's, I couldn't have asked for a better place to go out of high school. It was tough my first years there but you know, everything's tough in the beginning. You know, you can't have, you know, everything that's worthwhile is gonna be tough. You know, and so for me it was definitely worthwhile. I had a lot of life lessons there. I met my wife there, raised my family there and moved here to California. So yeah, I love my time there. Looking at like what he is, you know, you were there when Joe was born. Jojo, little Joe, not little Jojo anymore. No. But he was born when you were there on the team. Yes. You know, and you saw him raise his kids. He's got five kids. He's got three boys. How have you taken some of those principles and applied it to your family life? Yeah, so I remember when Jojo was coming in the room. Big, blue-eyed, white-haired. I mean, his hair was like white. It wasn't blonde, it was just white. And he had the rice bowl haircut just running around the wrestling room. And from there I was thinking, okay, you know, he's doing that. You know, when I have a son I want him to just kind of be in the wrestling room. You know, wrestling with him. I saw him wrestling with Jojo and you know, and Isabel was in there too. And you know, all his kids were inside the wrestling room and it was just a part of their life. You know, and so, and that's how I applied that. You know, I made sure I brought Trey to the room, but I never, never forced them to get on the mat. You know, all of a sudden he's like, Dad, can I get some wrestling shoes? I'm like, yeah, for sure. Let's get some wrestling shoes. So get your kids around it, you immerse them in it and then they're gonna wanna, they might wanna do it. Yeah. More likely they'll wanna do it. Well, you gotta have all positive experiences. So every time I came home I wrestled with them. You know, I rolled around with them. And then when Nancy two ways were on, I put it on, I'm like, hey bud, look, he shot a double leg. You could shoot a double leg. I mean, this is when they're young. You know, this is when they're six or seven or eight years old, you know, and you know, I would always have positive experiences with wrestling with him. And you know, all of a sudden he's like, Dad, can I go to practice? I'm like, for sure. I had my club then, I'm like, come on out. And he'd wrestle one day a week and then go to baseball and then go to soccer. And probably if that. I mean, he probably never, I mean, there's some weeks at a span where there was two or three weeks that he didn't come to practice, but he still had all positive experiences with wrestling and I believe that's why he wanted to wrestle.