Welcome back to the state of recruiting's open mic.

I'm Mike Roach of Orange 247 and each week I sit down with a friend or

colleague from the industry to talk about football, recruiting, or anything else going on in the

world. This week's guest is Lancaster High School head coach Chris Gilbert. Coach Gilbert is a pillar

of the Dallas high school scene. He is also a leader in the black community helping young

black coaches advance in their

careers. And he talks with us about his program, his core values as a coach, and how he believes

high school coaches can help span the racial gap in today's troubled world. So please enjoy this

conversation with Lancaster High School's head coach Chris Gilbert.

And now joining me on this week's edition of Open Mic,

it is one of the best high school coaches in the state of Texas,

the god of the grill,

the sultan of the smoker.

It is a great Chris Gilbert, Lancaster High School.

Coach, thanks for joining me today.

Good morning, Roche.

How are you doing, brother? I'm good, are you i'm all right i'm all right just happy happy to be with you thank you for the invite

oh yeah we're so happy to have you on i told um i had dj man on probably three or four weeks ago

and i said i think i want to get gilbert on and he goes oh yeah chris will give you some great

stories so uh we're really excited to have you on, man, one of my favorite coaches and programs out there.

So you guys have always been so kind to us in the media. You know, we appreciate everything.

So really, I just want to start this with, you know, why did you get into coaching? Is it something you wanted to do your whole life? And

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