Nick Saban, Bipolar Disorder and the Mental Health Crisis in College Sports

**SPEAKER_2** (0:07)
This is The Smerconish Podcast for Independent Minds.

**Michael Smerconish** (0:11)
Walt Norley is an old friend of mine. He is the founder, the chairman, the CEO of OnBalance. What's that?
I choose to get into the story this way. I'm looking at a profile, Walter, of you from the Philadelphia Inquirer a year or two ago, and it says this, Walt Norley was in Spanish class, 1980 at the Germantown Academy, when his football coach pulled him into the hallway. There was someone waiting for the star quarterback in the office, coach Jack Turner said. Norley asked him who it was, but Turner told him, just wait. Who came to your Spanish class in 1980?

**Walt Norley** (0:53)
I'm still answering this question from everybody that bumped into the Germantown Academy alumni.
So we walked down, I had people stopping by all the time, and coaches primarily. And coach Turner was pretty tight-lipped about this one. And so we get down, his office is in the basement. We get down there and there's Tony Dorsett, who at the time was at the height of his career. He was the star running back in the NFL. And he's-

**Michael Smerconish** (1:23)
Dallas Cowboys.

**Walt Norley** (1:24)
Dallas Cowboys, mink coat.

**Michael Smerconish** (1:25)
Mink coat.

**Walt Norley** (1:26)
Mink coat, down to the floor, a pair of cowboy boots and jeans. And he's with one of the alumni that brought him in. I'll make a long story short.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:34)
No, please don't. Please don't water.

**Walt Norley** (1:36)
He was the nicest guy. Yeah. And it's a little awkward. We're standing there, he went to Pitt. So this is University of Pittsburgh.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:42)
Recruits are recruiting you to go to Pitt.

**Walt Norley** (1:44)
So he's on a recruiting trip for Pitt to grab me. And they said, well, we're gonna leave you guys alone. So the coach and the booster leave. And so, you know, like kind of awkward talk. And he's like, well, where are you thinking about going? And he goes, look, I'm telling you, you go to Pitt.
I've got a ranch outside in Fort Worth. He said, you come down there.
We have a lot of fun, if you know what I mean. Oh, OK. You know, I'm 18 years old. And I go, yeah, that sounds pretty good. So I said, I want to introduce you to my quarterback coach, who is a biology teacher, and he's in class was breaking. I said, you know, you might want to lose the coat, you know, with the main coat, because to me, he's a superstar. So we're in this speaks to a little private school. We're walking through the hallways. All the lockers are open. He's not a big human, right? He was in a pair of blue jeans. He had a sweater on. He's probably five nine. Right. And good looking guy.
And I was dating somebody at the time. And, you know, and she was not into sports. And I said, you know, Susie, I'd like you to meet Tony Dorsett. And instead of going, oh, my gosh, she went, nice to meet you. Are you a friend of Walt's?

**Michael Smerconish** (2:54)
So I remember living vicariously through the recruiting trips that you took that Kevin Ward, who I was close to, took because he was being recruited at Central Bucks West and and what they, you know, what they would arrange for you, at least as the stories went, things, I guess, have changed. Now they'd be writing you a check, you know, a name, image and likeness check.

**Walt Norley** (3:18)
It's unbelievable. I mean, there's a lot to be said. I have, you know, I live now college athletics and the university world. And so I'm obviously familiar with what's going on and transpiring within NIL and transfer portal and, you know, just without guardrails, you know, regulations. And look, the NCAA had an opportunity to do something even back in my day.
You know, there were the rules and regs were just so draconian that it forced cheating. You know, when you when you look at major college football, and if you look at the NIL challenges going on right now, I mean, it technically every sport within an athletic department is obviously qualifies for NIL. But, you know, the money is in college football and it's in college basketball. But football, basketball, just to give perspective, Michael, it only brings in probably at any big university with TV money, et cetera, probably brings in about 15 to 20 percent of the revenue of what football bring in. So it's driven by college football.

**Michael Smerconish** (4:21)
I'm not surprised.

**Walt Norley** (4:22)
Yeah. But the NCAA, the Ducronian rules with kids I play with both at Ohio State and Georgia, they didn't come from economic backgrounds. And, you know, the ability to fly home to their grandmother's death, that, you know, somebody to help raise them.