Speaker 1: You've got to have expectations for how they train, how
Speaker 1: they work, how they treat others, because if you don't
Speaker 1: build those then you're really negating their ability to do
Speaker 1: what I think is getting harder and harder all the time,
Speaker 1: which is to solve your own problems. Because the way
Speaker 1: the world continues to evolve, it becomes so easy to
Speaker 1: not have to be verbal.
Speaker 2: This is the Reform Sports Project, a podcast about restoring
Speaker 2: healthy balance and perspective in all areas of sports through
Speaker 2: education and advocacy. Hi, this is Nick Bonacor from the
Speaker 2: Reform Sports Podcast. Today, I'm speaking with Tom Crane, college
Speaker 2: basketball analyst for ESPN and former Division I head coach.
Speaker 2: Prior to rejoining ESPN in twenty twenty two, Tom served
Speaker 2: as a head men's basketball coach at Georgia, Indiana and Marquette,
Speaker 2: winning over four hundred games throughout his twenty plus coaching career.
Speaker 2: Coach Crean and I discuss what it means to be
Speaker 2: a good teammate, teaching kids how to advocate for themselves,
Speaker 2: elves and make their own decisions, and why it's important
Speaker 2: for kids to grow out of looking at their parents
Speaker 2: for validation while playing coach Tom Creane, Man, I am
Speaker 2: freaking fired up. I'm excited to have you coach. Thanks
Speaker 2: so much for joining.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks for asking me that I appreciate it, and
Speaker 1: then I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate you. I know that we're we're talking
Speaker 2: about something that you're not only experienced with, but it's
Speaker 2: certainly passionate with. And where I want to start with you, coaches,
Speaker 2: is I talked to several and had several guests on
Speaker 2: you know, high level coaches like yourself, and you know,
Speaker 2: especially in the college basketball arena. And you know, I'm
Speaker 2: turning forty four soon, and you know, I grew up
Speaker 2: in a different era. I have six kids who are
Speaker 2: growing up in this time and playing sports, and man,
Speaker 2: even as a parent, it's sometimes challenging. And I want
Speaker 2: to ask you as far as the landscape of coaching
Speaker 2: is concerned. You know, it seems like the word discipline
Speaker 2: and accountability at times gets a bad rap. I feel
Speaker 2: like people tied discipline with like extreme cases. And you know,
Speaker 2: but then I look at some of the most successful coaches,
Speaker 2: whether it be in college basketball or any sport for
Speaker 2: that matter, and it seems like there's always accountability there's
Speaker 2: always energy, there's always passion. How does discipline, accountability and
Speaker 2: those things get misconstrued with kind of people talk about abuse.
Speaker 2: I mean to me, it seems like it's pretty easy
Speaker 2: to separate, but at times there's a fine line. And
Speaker 2: can you kind of get into that a little bit
Speaker 2: where we went wrong and how that took place?
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, because I think discipline is like sacrifice. Those
Speaker 1: words so many times are looked at as four letter words,
Speaker 1: you're not the good ones, and it's and they're so
Speaker 1: far from that. I mean, there's no question that you
Speaker 1: take those words and right away, and so many people
Speaker 1: there's a negative connotation that just it almost puts a
Speaker 1: period at the end of the sentence before you can
Speaker 1: ever get anywhere else, or an exclamation point, And there's
Speaker 1: so many different ways to get it across. And I
Speaker 1: think it's like anything else in this world, You've got
Speaker 1: to continue to find words that register. You got to
Speaker 1: find phrases after you teach something. It's so much about reminders.
Speaker 1: And I think when you look at discipline, when you
Speaker 1: look at sacrifice, when you look at accountability, I think
Speaker 1: you got to look at standards. Hey, it's a really
Speaker 1: cool word right. Standards is a cool word, but it's
Speaker 1: not something it just comes to mind that people just automatically.
Speaker 1: It just registers on what that means. So you have
Speaker 1: to give people, give young people what those standards are.
Speaker 1: And so much of it is the discipline that you
Speaker 1: need to be successful. It is like you mentioned your energy,
Speaker 1: it's your enthusiasm, it's your attention to the things that
Speaker 1: the details in what you're doing. Okay, that inches matter,
Speaker 1: you know, feet matter, whatever it is, you know, body angles,
Speaker 1: all those different things matter, and those become part of
Speaker 1: the standards. And then I think the other thing. It's
Speaker 1: so big. And this is one thing that's really hard
Speaker 1: for coaches at times, it's hard for parents that it's
Speaker 1: okay to have expectations. And it's not expectations of Okay,
Speaker 1: you've got to score twenty, you've got to hit x
Speaker 1: amount of home runs, you've got to be able to
Speaker 1: pass for X amount of yards, you've got to get
Speaker 1: x amount of touches or targets or catches. No, no,
Speaker 1: it's not that. It's the expectation for how you should
Speaker 1: handle things. And to me, the personal part of it
Speaker 1: starts so much, okay, with how you are as a teammate,
Speaker 1: and the expectation that you have or your child or
Speaker 1: your player as a teammate, as somebody then that is coachable,
Speaker 1: as somebody that has the right type of body language,
Speaker 1: the right type of eye contact, you know, all those things.
Speaker 1: Those become expectations that can then lead into Okay, here's
Speaker 1: the amount of work that you have to put in.
Speaker 1: Here's the amount of time you have to spend on this,
Speaker 1: here's the type of things you have to work on,
Speaker 1: and the standards become. Okay, if you're going to get
Speaker 1: better and be a complete basketball player, you can't only
Speaker 1: work on what you're good at. You've got to do
Speaker 1: x amounts maybe with your left hand if you're a
Speaker 1: right handed player, or you've got to do x amount
Speaker 1: shooting free throws, or you've got to do x amount
Speaker 1: when it comes to one on one defense, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: whatever sport is. And you help chet those standards because
Speaker 1: you have expectations of your child or your player to
Speaker 1: do certain things well and right and consistently, and that
Speaker 1: in time turns into being where the production comes from.
Speaker 1: And I think so many times people see expectations as
Speaker 1: X amount of wins, the X amount of results for
Speaker 1: their individual sport, and that, to me is not what
Speaker 1: it is. It's all the things that lead into that
Speaker 1: that then give you a fighting chance or a better
Speaker 1: chance to achieve those results of those individual accolades that
Speaker 1: people like to see you get in your own life.
Speaker 2: I love that word standards, and it's funny. I've never
Speaker 2: really dug into that word, but you know words are
Speaker 2: so powerful. And to take it a step further, sure,
Speaker 2: there's certain standards that you have when you get to college.
Speaker 2: You know, when you're becoming a college athlete, then there's
Speaker 2: certain stands a high school. Is there such thing as
Speaker 2: age appropriate? And I love you to get into that
Speaker 2: because you know, my oldest is eighteen. He's getting ready
Speaker 2: to go wrestle in college. And I also have a
Speaker 2: five year old almost five year old, and I got
Speaker 2: four others in between. And I don't parent my eighteen
Speaker 2: year old the same as I do my five year old.
Speaker 2: Right now, I have standards for all of them, but
Speaker 2: how much does age? Because I want you know, parents
Speaker 2: who may not have a college or or you know,
Speaker 2: high level playing sport experience themselves, are really walking around
Speaker 2: this culture. Coach, like, what do I do you know what,
Speaker 2: I got this at this ex pro who's running this club,
Speaker 2: who's telling me I got to specialize all year long
Speaker 2: at nine in order for my kid to have a shot.
Speaker 2: And then I got this other guy telling me it's okay,
Speaker 2: play everything. And you know, people are confused, their kids
Speaker 2: are gonna miss out, they're afraid.
Speaker 1: How do they.
Speaker 2: Manage being pushed and pulled? And also I would love
Speaker 2: for you to not only speak to the parents of
Speaker 2: how they navigate that, but also to the coaches what
Speaker 2: is age appropriate? Is there a difference how you should
Speaker 2: coach your seventeen U Premier team versus your seven U
Speaker 2: Miss Machene pitch team. For lack of a better express.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely there's a difference. And that's where standards are different.
Speaker 1: Fundamental standards are different, All those things are different. Here's
Speaker 1: three things that I think are relevant to age, and
Speaker 1: especially when when you just said between eighteen and five,
Speaker 1: and I think obviously it's different how you get them across.
Speaker 1: But I think these three things are absolutely crucial no
Speaker 1: matter what age. And first and foremost, okay, from the
Speaker 1: side of being on a team or learning skills, you've
Speaker 1: got to be a teammate you've got to keep teaching
Speaker 1: ways to be a better teammate, and so many times
Speaker 1: being a better teammate, especially when they're younger, is how
Speaker 1: you react. And that's where number two comes in, which
Speaker 1: is incredibly important. What leads into the coachability part of it,
Speaker 1: and that's your body language. There have got to be
Speaker 1: standards and expectations for young people three team teen, high teen,
Speaker 1: college age, whatever it is, especially in pro level, but
Speaker 1: there's got to be You've got to have expectations in demands.
Speaker 1: You've got to be able to make those corrections, make
Speaker 1: those renders, make those adjustments, show it. And so many
Speaker 1: times there's parents they're filming every move their kids make,
Speaker 1: which is not totally wrong. I'm not saying that's negative
Speaker 1: at all, But when's the last time somebody filmed them
Speaker 1: having an interaction with a referee or a teammate or
Speaker 1: on the bench, or showing frustration at a call or
Speaker 1: a non call or something with the homeplate, umpire or
Speaker 1: the referee. Showing those things, you know, the visual tool
Speaker 1: and coaching, and I've coached in college for so long
Speaker 1: that the visual tool of showing somebody not only what
Speaker 1: they're doing well, not only what they're doing right when
Speaker 1: it comes to the actual game, but showing them on
Speaker 1: a bench, showing their reaction to a teammate, showing their
Speaker 1: reaction to a referee, and at times it's private and
Speaker 1: at times it's in front of everybody else because you
Speaker 1: really have to and this is a strong word, but
Speaker 1: it's a very important word. You have to be able
Speaker 1: to pierce people and children and your players at times
Speaker 1: with them really getting the message. And I don't mean
Speaker 1: piercing in a negative, physical nasty at all, but you've
Speaker 1: got to be able to get their attention. They got
Speaker 1: to absorb it, right, because the only way they're going
Speaker 1: to apply it is if they've absorbed it. And what
Speaker 1: you and I absorb as adults, or what you and
Speaker 1: I absorb as coaches, is a lot different than what
Speaker 1: our players absorb. And that's where the age part gets
Speaker 1: so crazy, right, because eighteen to five is a huge difference,
Speaker 1: which you still have to get their attention. So I
Speaker 1: think when you look at being a teammate and all
Speaker 1: the different ways you can build that, when you look
Speaker 1: at your body language, which leads to your coachability, because
Speaker 1: eye contact, how you listen, how you respond, how you talk.
Speaker 1: That's all part of the body language. And then third,
Speaker 1: and this is where I think when it's parents, if
Speaker 1: they're doing it themselves, but when they are studying people
Speaker 1: that are going to be with their children, okay, are
Speaker 1: they helping build them athletically? And in so many cases
Speaker 1: the younger they are, it's flexibility, it's stuability, right, it's
Speaker 1: making sure they're able to function in so many different
Speaker 1: ways athletically. It could be sprints, it could be all
Speaker 1: these different things that are so important to help your
Speaker 1: kids build their athleticism. The strength is a different component,
Speaker 1: and I think so many times people see strength and conditioning,
Speaker 1: is it all encompassing things? No, it's really not training
Speaker 1: ripe speed training, endurance training, flexibility, building your hands, building
Speaker 1: your feet, ankle and foot stability all right, and being
Speaker 1: able to make sure that as you go up the
Speaker 1: ladder that your feet and your ankles are in the
Speaker 1: shape and that you're building those type of things. And
Speaker 1: that's why for me, I've never been caught up with
Speaker 1: our own children, especially my son who played more sports,
Speaker 1: or in recruiting, to have to find a specialist, to
Speaker 1: have to find somebody that will year round with a
Speaker 1: sport because I think that can create a lot if
Speaker 1: you want to do it, it's great, but at some
Speaker 1: point in time throughout that you've got to put the
Speaker 1: fact are they truly having fun with this training? Are
Speaker 1: they truly having fun with the games, or is it
Speaker 1: becoming something that becomes so stressful because that's all they're
Speaker 1: doing that they're not really challenging their mind. And a
Speaker 1: good book to read on that is Ranged by David Epstein.
Speaker 1: It's really really good. It's out in paperback now. There's
Speaker 1: so many books that hit that, but books for me
Speaker 1: and I know you didn't ask this, but I think
Speaker 1: this is really good for parents. Read a book called
Speaker 1: The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle that teaches you so
Speaker 1: much about out people that are in all these different
Speaker 1: places that they might have been specialists, they might not
Speaker 1: have been, but they had the right training. There's a
Speaker 1: book called The gold Mine by Rasmus Ankerson who's from
Speaker 1: the Netherlands. I believe, or I believe it's another those
Speaker 1: but it's a great book where these people they went
Speaker 1: and they dove into why people were successful from certain areas,
Speaker 1: how they trained, and what you find out is it's
Speaker 1: a lot about what we're talking about. It's okay to
Speaker 1: have expectations for your kids. It's okay to have standards
Speaker 1: for your kids. It's how you go about it that's
Speaker 1: the trick, and that's the key.
Speaker 2: David Epstein's fun I had him as a guest on
Speaker 2: last year. Couldn't agree with you more with regard to range.
Speaker 2: He really breaks it down, gives so many examples. It's
Speaker 2: a great episode. I hope everyone, if they haven't listened yet,
Speaker 2: check it out. But what did you first become a
Speaker 2: college head coach?
Speaker 1: What year was it? It was nineteen ninety nine. I
Speaker 1: got my job at Marquette on my thirty third birthday.
Speaker 1: I was coaching at Michigan State. We're getting ready to
Speaker 1: go to the Final four. I accept their job on
Speaker 1: a Wednesday night. We announced it the following Tuesday, and
Speaker 1: I got it on my thirty third birthday. My wife
Speaker 1: and I were sitting there and it was incredible. Meeting
Speaker 1: Web of Bay Athletic director and flown up to East Lansing.
Speaker 1: Bill Kurt's been from thirty three on. So nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: nine two thousand was my first year at Marquette.
Speaker 2: You also coached many above average players, but one in
Speaker 2: particular d Wade, Dwayne Wade. And also, did you coach
Speaker 2: Jimmy Butler too?
Speaker 1: No, I left. Buzz Williams was my assistant, got the job,
Speaker 1: and he recruited and signed Jimmy Butler. I had left
Speaker 1: to go to Indiana. Oh, miss Jimmy by a year.
Speaker 2: Fair enough? Well, I guess Ryle I wanted to ask
Speaker 2: that question. My sophomore year at college playing baseball was
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine. And you know, but since the late nineties,
Speaker 2: early two thousands till now, I believe that there's been
Speaker 2: a dramatic shift. I mean, coach, we often hear and
Speaker 2: I'm sure you see it as well. People especially on
Speaker 2: social media, will say kids are soft these days. You know,
Speaker 2: kids are kids, aren't coacha. But whatever the case is, Well,
Speaker 2: I stand back, I'm a parent, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 2: kids only know what they're taught, you know. To me,
Speaker 2: it's sure if some people may think they're soft, well,
Speaker 2: a lot of times they're cuddled. You know, they're not
Speaker 2: allowed to fail, they're not allowed to struggle, they're not
Speaker 2: put in positions where they have to overcome adversity. How
Speaker 2: much have you seen from your experience of your first
Speaker 2: year of being a college head coach in ninety nine
Speaker 2: at thirty three, you know, till the last time you
Speaker 2: coached in college, and even now where you've seen the
Speaker 2: landscape shift maybe with the kids that you're bringing in,
Speaker 2: and has there been an issue with resiliency as a
Speaker 2: direct result of maybe them being coddled too much versus
Speaker 2: the kids you got early on.
Speaker 1: I think there's some of that, absolutely. I definitely think
Speaker 1: there's some of that. I don't think there's as much
Speaker 1: sometimes as people think. I mean, there is issues, but
Speaker 1: the reasons so many times, and I go back to this,
Speaker 1: the word expectations. I think too many times parents coaches
Speaker 1: when they're younger, they don't have enough expectations for those
Speaker 1: things we're talking about. The expectations become results. The expectations
Speaker 1: become points, they become home runs, they become hits, they
Speaker 1: become goals, they become all wins, right, and you want
Speaker 1: to teach them to win. I'm not saying that at all,
Speaker 1: But I'm also saying that you've got to have expectations
Speaker 1: for how they train, how they work, how they treat others,
Speaker 1: because if you don't build those then you're really really
Speaker 1: negating their ability to do what I think is getting
Speaker 1: harder and harder all the time, which is to solve
Speaker 1: your own problems. Because the way the world continues to evolve,
Speaker 1: and it becomes so easy, okay, to not have to
Speaker 1: be verbal in this world, it becomes so easy to
Speaker 1: not have to talk. It becomes so easy to become
Speaker 1: isolated that you've got to teach them to be able
Speaker 1: to make decisions, to have a feel for what makes
Speaker 1: a decision. I see this in recruiting. I think this
Speaker 1: is definitely happening more and more. That's why there's so
Speaker 1: many different voices in kids' lives. And now with the name,
Speaker 1: image and likeness situation where you can have agents. I
Speaker 1: know of story where a coach may call a young
Speaker 1: person a player that's transferring, and they don't even want
Speaker 1: to discuss it. Call my agent, Call my agent, call
Speaker 1: my parents, and down the road. Then you've got kids
Speaker 1: that aren't truly having to make decisions for what they want.
Speaker 1: And I think that starts at a young age. And
Speaker 1: I think there's way too much acceptance of it's not
Speaker 1: going well for me, Okay, So I'm going to find
Speaker 1: a way to blame. I'm going to find a way
Speaker 1: to be critical. I'm gonna find a way to be negative.
Speaker 1: I'm going to find a way to take that from me.
Speaker 1: And I think when parents allow that to happen, and
Speaker 1: it's always somebody else's fault, it's somebody else's on the team,
Speaker 1: it's the coach isn't doing them right or playing them right.
Speaker 1: When you allow that to happen, it just keeps manifesting
Speaker 1: itself down the road. There are two places, all right,
Speaker 1: where a kid is going to look when he's playing
Speaker 1: on a field, when he's playing on a floor, okay,
Speaker 1: when he's playing in a stadium, when he's playing on
Speaker 1: a court, he's going to be looking at his coach
Speaker 1: or coach is for how they're reacting, and they're going
Speaker 1: to be looking at their parents. And the more that
Speaker 1: they can find a place, okay, where they can feel
Speaker 1: like a victim in the situation, where they can feel like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I'm being wronged and my parents agree with me.
Speaker 1: Or it's not going right for me and my parents
Speaker 1: agree with me. Or I'm not getting the ball enough
Speaker 1: and I can tell my parents agree with me. Those
Speaker 1: are bad things. Those are hard to grow out. If
Speaker 1: I was coaching at Indiana, we had a player that
Speaker 1: had an issue because because you've got to be able
Speaker 1: to grow out of looking at your family, looking at
Speaker 1: your mom and dad as you go down the line
Speaker 1: in sports, you've got to be able to grow out
Speaker 1: of that. But if you become somebody, okay, that goes
Speaker 1: through a period of time where you feel better because
Speaker 1: you look over because they're commiserating with you, all right,
Speaker 1: or they're helping validate you know. It's one thing to clap,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to give at the boys and keep
Speaker 1: going and all those kinds of things. Those things are good,
Speaker 1: but when they look over and see that negative body language,
Speaker 1: it might feel them in a negative way, but it's
Speaker 1: certainly going to bring stress to them. And I had
Speaker 1: an NBA team in to tell and we're talking about
Speaker 1: a player, and he said, tell so and so to
Speaker 1: quit looking at his dad every time he makes a
Speaker 1: play in a game or every time somebody goes wrong,
Speaker 1: because his dad won't be sitting anywhere near the court
Speaker 1: of the NBA. And it was like it was a
Speaker 1: really good point because as you go up the ladder,
Speaker 1: they notice those things. The college coaches that the professional scouts,
Speaker 1: they notice those type of things. So if you allow
Speaker 1: that to manifest itself and they see you in the
Speaker 1: stands complaining and ripping somebody and ripping the refs constantly
Speaker 1: and yelling at the coach, it just brings stress and
Speaker 1: it becomes something that they don't have the tools so
Speaker 1: many times when they're younger to be able to get
Speaker 1: out of because as you and I both know, then
Speaker 1: a lot of times that carries into the car ride,
Speaker 1: and then that becomes even worse because now you're trapped.
Speaker 1: Now the kid is trapped, there's nowhere to go, and
Speaker 1: that's where it becomes so hard and his parents we've
Speaker 1: got to guard against that constantly. Constantly, we have to
Speaker 1: guard against that and help them grow because they are
Speaker 1: going to get wrong, they are going to go through
Speaker 1: hard times, they are going to have bad games, they
Speaker 1: are going to play with selfish teammates, they are going
Speaker 1: to get messed around by a coach here and again.
Speaker 1: But they've got to be able to deal with it
Speaker 1: to have any success moving forward.
Speaker 2: When we come back, Coach Creede and I discuss why
Speaker 2: he believes most parents are only as happy as their
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Speaker 2: Where we left off, Tom and I were about to
Speaker 2: talk about the importance of being able to read your
Speaker 2: kid in order to find the right time to bring
Speaker 2: up difficult conversation. I love how you brought up the
Speaker 2: car ride and you just because that is like such
Speaker 2: a I mean, think about there's no one there, right,
Speaker 2: there's no one, you know, it's your your one on one.
Speaker 2: Everyone's in the moment. You got emotions, you know. I
Speaker 2: remember as a young player. You know, you're sitting there
Speaker 2: and maybe you didn't have a great game, and you
Speaker 2: could just I love my God rest his soul, my father.
Speaker 2: But it was like you wouldn't get mad, but I
Speaker 2: could just tell God what happened, you know, And I
Speaker 2: don't want to explain to shut up dad. You know
Speaker 2: in my head I didn't have it bad. But any
Speaker 2: type of negativity, you just don't want to hear it
Speaker 2: from your parents. At least I didn't. I was lucky though,
Speaker 2: I had a great you know, great parents who didn't
Speaker 2: really give it to me. But my dad was a
Speaker 2: competitor and a coach in his own right. But how
Speaker 2: do you harness that energy, coach, because I mean, listen,
Speaker 2: you're a parent, you're also a coach. You know, you're
Speaker 2: coach for a living I heard a great example. I
Speaker 2: forget which guest said it to me, but talked about
Speaker 2: literally had a visualization of he coaches his kids, you know,
Speaker 2: in the youth game or whatever. And then it's almost
Speaker 2: like he gave an analogy. When I have my hat on,
Speaker 2: I'm coach, but when I get in the car, I
Speaker 2: take my hat off, I'm dad. And I thought that
Speaker 2: was a great, a great way for a young kid
Speaker 2: to be able to understand, right and to set that boundary.
Speaker 2: How do you navigate that? Because parents, you know, we
Speaker 2: get excited, right, we're passionate.
Speaker 1: How do you navigate that energy? That's hard because I've
Speaker 1: made many mistakes and I'm going to tell you this
Speaker 1: is not about do it just as I've done it
Speaker 1: type of thing. I've made those mistakes, and I think
Speaker 1: because we're invested, you have passion. There's an old saying
Speaker 1: that Doc Rivers said to me one time. I don't
Speaker 1: know if he coined it, but he's the one I
Speaker 1: heard it from that a parent is only as happy
Speaker 1: as their unhappy as child. And that is a very
Speaker 1: true statement. I mean, it's any parent understands that completely.
Speaker 1: And it's hard. It's very hard. You're invested, you're passionate.
Speaker 1: You want to see them do well. You want to
Speaker 1: share in their joy, you want to take their pain away,
Speaker 1: all those different things. And I think the things that
Speaker 1: I have learned over a period of time that are
Speaker 1: so important is you have to be able to read
Speaker 1: your kid. You have to be able to read when
Speaker 1: is that time to bring it up? Because anybody says, well,
Speaker 1: don't bring it up. No, I don't agree with that whatsoever.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's part of You've got to have conversations
Speaker 1: if you feel that they're warranted. That's part of parenting,
Speaker 1: that's part of helping them learn. So it's not about that.
Speaker 1: It's really about processing your thoughts okay, and not letting
Speaker 1: emotion and being emotional right take over from the beginning
Speaker 1: it's almost okay, fine. It's like you try to get
Speaker 1: your players to know there are three things. You go
Speaker 1: into a press conference, you meet with a reporter, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got to have a couple of things you can
Speaker 1: go back to, right, And it might be two for some,
Speaker 1: it might be three for another. You know, we always
Speaker 1: try to say, okay, let's make sure when you get stuck, okay,
Speaker 1: when you get into a situation, have a couple of
Speaker 1: things that you can go back to that make sure
Speaker 1: you never leave talking to the press, talking to somebody
Speaker 1: without praising at least two teammates and a coach, right
Speaker 1: and so like, I would always try to get players
Speaker 1: to focus on that rather than the emotional response they
Speaker 1: might give, so that they don't get stuck. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't always work, but you try to give them that
Speaker 1: platform and that organization in their mind. Not the same
Speaker 1: for us as parents. You get a couple of thoughts,
Speaker 1: you're going to wait for the right time, and then
Speaker 1: you do the hardest thing, which is you just breathe.
Speaker 1: You take deep breaths, You get your you help your
Speaker 1: child settle in. Maybe you talk about something else, but
Speaker 1: you breathe, you process, and you just wait for the
Speaker 1: right time, and you do everything you can do. Okay,
Speaker 1: because I know some of my worst moments as a coach,
Speaker 1: and when I went right into the locker room after
Speaker 1: a tough game and start going right. You got to
Speaker 1: be able to process it. There's a reason that a
Speaker 1: lot of great coaches say the best three words you
Speaker 1: can use after a game when you're not feeling right
Speaker 1: is bring it in right, bring it in, and then
Speaker 1: deal with it tomorrow. Well, a lot of times in
Speaker 1: that car ride you're going to deal with it, but
Speaker 1: you can't deal with it immediately. Wait for the timing,
Speaker 1: have your thoughts in process, and then let them talk.
Speaker 1: The best thing to try to do is a parent
Speaker 1: to get that level of engagement going with your kid
Speaker 1: is once it's settled in. Now again, they can't the
Speaker 1: kid is not doesn't get to sit there and fight
Speaker 1: it off and not talk at all. Right that You've
Speaker 1: got to teach them to process their feelings. But you
Speaker 1: can't just give them questions that can be answered with
Speaker 1: a yes or no. You can't give them questions that
Speaker 1: are just one two three word answers. You want to
Speaker 1: try to formulate questions in your head or things that
Speaker 1: you want to ask or things that you want to
Speaker 1: cover that will register with them. And go back to
Speaker 1: that word absorb. You want them to absorb what they're
Speaker 1: hearing so that they can apply it and then you
Speaker 1: kind of take it from there. And I think those
Speaker 1: are some of the most They're hard to do, but
Speaker 1: I think those are some of the best ways to
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: Coach Crean, this is freaking awesome. I can't think, you know,
Speaker 2: where can people get up with you? Follow because you
Speaker 2: put out some amazing content.
Speaker 1: Man, I think my Twitter is at Tom Crean. So
Speaker 1: I didn't do I didn't pay for the blue check,
Speaker 1: but I still let me see what I have here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at Tom Crean. And and I'm on Instagram. I don't
Speaker 1: do a lot with Insta, but that's where it's at
Speaker 1: for the most part. ESPN. This year again for the
Speaker 1: college basketball season, I'll be doing that. But I try
Speaker 1: to think of things that I would want to hear,
Speaker 1: that I would want to know, and I try to
Speaker 1: put those out there. And so I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Nick having a chance to be on with you.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you, coach. That's Tom Cream, ESPN College Basketball Analyst.
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