Speaker 1: Welcome to the Only Ways through a podcast collaboration between
Speaker 1: under Armour and I Heart Radio episode for Muffint McGraw,
Speaker 1: Come Hell or high Water. Leaders are revered for the
Speaker 1: trails they blaze, the respect they come in, and when
Speaker 1: the crisis presents itself, they're giving a choice endure and
Speaker 1: a dad or run. Because when dalt sinks in and
Speaker 1: failure is inevitable, a true leader hunkers down and bears
Speaker 1: the brun of the fight on their shoulders. Throughout her
Speaker 1: career and Notre Dame Hall of Fame women's basketball coach
Speaker 1: Muffet McGraw has inspired her players to accept no substitute
Speaker 1: for victory. She's led her team the non final fours,
Speaker 1: seven championship games, and two national championships over a thirty
Speaker 1: five season career. Only one came with a losing record.
Speaker 1: With the resume like that, there's no wonder she's looked
Speaker 1: at it is one of the greatest of all time.
Speaker 1: But this story is different. This story is about battling adversity.
Speaker 1: It's about rising through failure. Because this season, the Fighting
Speaker 1: Irish have their backs against the wall. At the time
Speaker 1: of this interview, their record was six and twelve, and
Speaker 1: over the course of the last few weeks things having improved.
Speaker 1: With morale low and their confidence shaking, it'd be easy
Speaker 1: to throw in the towel and focus on next season,
Speaker 1: because it's hard to look at a losing record and
Speaker 1: keep battling. This is something coach McGraw takes the heart.
Speaker 1: She understands that if she wants her players to leave
Speaker 1: their team to victory, she has to lead by example,
Speaker 1: leadership and accountability. They're not about somebody, nobody, anybody. They
Speaker 1: are about a person. Okay. It's not who's got long,
Speaker 1: who's going short, who's up next? It's this happy you're next,
Speaker 1: you got short, Murdoch, get down the floor, you're long.
Speaker 1: That's what leadership is. We're just standing around waiting for
Speaker 1: somebody the rise to the occasion. It's not happening. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's your job. That's your job. You gotta get everybody
Speaker 1: organized when you're sitting back there, get them ready. Who's
Speaker 1: coming up next? Okay? Alright, hard work. Cal Fussman sat
Speaker 1: down with coach McGraw and Notre Dame to hear more. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's a very interesting dynamic because you've had tremendous success
Speaker 1: over the years. I think in the last twelve years,
Speaker 1: you're in the top every year, and then this year,
Speaker 1: this season comes about very different. Has this season been
Speaker 1: practiced for you? I prefer this success to what we're
Speaker 1: having now. I've never been in this situation before of
Speaker 1: having lost five starters. We had nobody on the floor
Speaker 1: with any experience. Our most experienced player had blood clots
Speaker 1: in our lungs and wasn't able to play this whole season.
Speaker 1: Our other most experienced player heard her knee the first
Speaker 1: game of the season was out for twelve games. So
Speaker 1: we have no experience on the floor. And I was
Speaker 1: just thinking the other day, you know how when you're
Speaker 1: going through things and the stress of being number one
Speaker 1: and being the team to beat, being every game knowing
Speaker 1: you're supposed to win, that that really weighs having on
Speaker 1: your shoulders. And I think I said at one point,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be great to be the underdog again? And
Speaker 1: my husband said, be careful what you wish for. And
Speaker 1: here we are after a blowout loss to North Carolina
Speaker 1: State coach felt the weather this season close in and
Speaker 1: a post game conference she did something out of character.
Speaker 1: So the season is progressing and then the teams it
Speaker 1: looks like it's starting to go into quicksand here and
Speaker 1: you have a game where you lose by thirty four points?
Speaker 1: What is going on in your mind? And a lot
Speaker 1: of people may have seen the video where the question
Speaker 1: comes to you and it really stops you and brings
Speaker 1: out an emotional side of you. How difficult has this
Speaker 1: been for you? Okay, maybe you have an answer between
Speaker 1: Thursday and today and it's altho like this happens. I
Speaker 1: just I gotta do better. I feel like I can
Speaker 1: fix it, but I didn't. I'm gonna keep trying and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna find an answer and I'm gonna fix it. Sorry.
Speaker 1: I think it was probably a couple of months of
Speaker 1: frustration piling piling over. And while you were taking that
Speaker 1: knife in my heart about the thirty or four point loss,
Speaker 1: you didn't mention it was at home, you know. I
Speaker 1: think probably worse loss in the program. I'm bleeding over here,
Speaker 1: and uh, I knew it was gonna be a tough game, obviously,
Speaker 1: but but my big message to the team compete for
Speaker 1: forty minutes. That's all I want, you know. I thought
Speaker 1: maybe maybe they're feeling the weight of my expectations. Maybe
Speaker 1: they think, God, we're not We're not doing this right
Speaker 1: because we're not winning. And so I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to play hard for forty minutes and
Speaker 1: see what happens. And my god, what happened. A massacre.
Speaker 1: It was one of the hardest things to sit through.
Speaker 1: We were hoping that the clock operator would forget to
Speaker 1: stop the clock and you know, just get the game
Speaker 1: over with. Because our fans have been so instrumental in
Speaker 1: our success. They help us in recruiting, because kids come
Speaker 1: to games, they go, Wow, I want to I want
Speaker 1: to play in front of this crowd, and to disappoint
Speaker 1: them to to come out and not bring our best game. Um,
Speaker 1: I just really I wanted to get to the microphone
Speaker 1: and apologize. You know, thanks for watching this. So I
Speaker 1: appreciate it, but we got to do better, all right,
Speaker 1: Nick got Nick, did you have to allow yourself to
Speaker 1: be vulnerable or we just caught it in the moment? Well,
Speaker 1: this year I've felt like I could burst into tears
Speaker 1: at any moment. You know. It's been that kind of
Speaker 1: season where the frustration, you know, continues to pile up.
Speaker 1: And so I think that trying to get my emotions
Speaker 1: under controls is important. I also, I mean, I have
Speaker 1: a passion for it. I'm competitive and I want to win,
Speaker 1: and I have a really hard time with losing. I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not a really great sport when I lose either.
Speaker 1: And so I think when you give everything you have
Speaker 1: to something and it doesn't pan out, you're gonna be emotional.
Speaker 1: What happened the next practice. Everybody shows up after that.
Speaker 1: Maybe they saw the video, maybe they didn't, but they
Speaker 1: had to hear about it, and they had to know
Speaker 1: that you were really set at the depths. They came
Speaker 1: into that practice and we um I called it somebody
Speaker 1: to come and talk to them. Uh, we have a
Speaker 1: psychologist on campus, so she she talked to them first,
Speaker 1: just kind of about how important your mental game is.
Speaker 1: And we kind of washed all over the the emotion
Speaker 1: of the game and like we were just concentrated on
Speaker 1: and we just lost by forty at home, and so
Speaker 1: how do we get our mind set? That's just thing.
Speaker 1: You lost by thirty four, but you thought it was forty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it could have been fifty. It was it was a lot. Okay,
Speaker 1: that was enough. It's kind of like the stages of grief,
Speaker 1: and I kept saying to her, I just want to
Speaker 1: get too mad, that's all. I just I want to
Speaker 1: be angry. I don't want to be emotional. I don't
Speaker 1: want it to be all this frustration and all this.
Speaker 1: I just want to be like, no, we're better than this,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to fix it. Here's Matt mcgrawis husband.
Speaker 1: It's not that she doesn't want to lose a game.
Speaker 1: She doesn't want to was a possession. She wants to
Speaker 1: run every play the way she envisions that, the way
Speaker 1: we did in practice, and if you don't, that's where
Speaker 1: the stress comes in because she can't figure out, we
Speaker 1: ran that same thing for five days, why are we
Speaker 1: doing it differently now. So even in games like last
Speaker 1: year where we we had a very high i Q
Speaker 1: basketball team with some of the kids out there, it
Speaker 1: was the same thing. I mean, she she would never relax.
Speaker 1: There was never a point we'd be sitting someplace and
Speaker 1: you'd say, does she have a game today? Because she
Speaker 1: looks really relaxed. That never occurs. But does she have
Speaker 1: that high degree of stress? Yeah, But when basketball ends
Speaker 1: and she's working in the garden, she has that same
Speaker 1: degree of stress. And she look it's like, how does
Speaker 1: this look? That looks okay, I don't like it. So
Speaker 1: I just look at the plants and I just she
Speaker 1: just put in there, and I just say, don't get
Speaker 1: comfortable because she's gonna move you. In five minutes. The
Speaker 1: plants become the offense. Once basketball ends, it's there's there's
Speaker 1: no I'd like to tell you this magic with it.
Speaker 1: She's the magic. Okay, she makes it happen. Everybody buys
Speaker 1: into what she does, and I think they buy in
Speaker 1: because she really cares about them and they understand that.
Speaker 1: Here's what I was wondering when I watched the video.
Speaker 1: This is amazing that you were able to make yourself
Speaker 1: so vulnerable. And I'm starting to think what is going
Speaker 1: on in the mind of the players on your team.
Speaker 1: If they were watching that and and here you are,
Speaker 1: probably gone into their homes talk to their parents, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to take care of your kid. You can
Speaker 1: depend on me. And now they're seeing you at a
Speaker 1: table basically weeping and asking for a tissue. And I thought,
Speaker 1: I thought, you know what, there's something very smart about this.
Speaker 1: If I'm one of those players, I may not be
Speaker 1: thinking about me as a victim. I may be thinking
Speaker 1: I got to help the coach. Yeah, I there was
Speaker 1: definitely some of that, and I got I got text
Speaker 1: messages from parents who I've We've got great parents, and
Speaker 1: even one of our recruits parents said it. You know,
Speaker 1: I knew Notre Dame was the place for it, but
Speaker 1: after watching that press conference, I'm even happier that we
Speaker 1: chose to come to Notre Dame. And so there were
Speaker 1: so many uplifting comments. I got so many people texted
Speaker 1: and called, and I got a call from Roy Williams
Speaker 1: the other night just saying like I just won't let
Speaker 1: you know You're not the only one going through this
Speaker 1: this kind of season. And you know, I got an
Speaker 1: email from Brad Stevens you know, hang in there, And
Speaker 1: just so many people reached out to say, like we've
Speaker 1: all been there at one point or another, but you hadn't.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean we've had some down moments. We
Speaker 1: lost by forty at Louisville two years ago and came
Speaker 1: back and won the national championship. That wasn't this kind
Speaker 1: of lost this year, you know, because we're we're struggling
Speaker 1: to find a win. Not fair. And I got nothing
Speaker 1: it's one season starts. How is the last practice before
Speaker 1: opening game. I always have loved practice. I would rather
Speaker 1: practice than play games. Everybody's time to shine is a practice,
Speaker 1: So show me what you got. Game day is probably
Speaker 1: the worst day of the year, every single game day.
Speaker 1: And I look back over over thousand guys. I know
Speaker 1: we're prepared, but I still worry that something's going to
Speaker 1: happen that I didn't prepare them for. Gosh, what if
Speaker 1: they come out in the box someone What if they
Speaker 1: go trying to say, do we work against the traps?
Speaker 1: What if they do this? And so my whole day
Speaker 1: has spent pretty much catastrophizing what's about to happen in
Speaker 1: the game until the ball is actually tipped. That's when
Speaker 1: I relax. So in a normal practice day, your mind
Speaker 1: is filled with possibilities and they're positive. On game day,
Speaker 1: it's possible catastrophe exactly. Now. I see why you like
Speaker 1: practice much better. The Fighting Irish lost the n C
Speaker 1: Double A Championship last year by one point. The previous
Speaker 1: year they wanted. The starting five who brought them there
Speaker 1: all went to the w n b A. That's how
Speaker 1: good they were. And then their veteran players got injured.
Speaker 1: Without those leaders on the court, this year's young team
Speaker 1: lost role models who could teach them how to play
Speaker 1: as a unit and how to handle depression. How does
Speaker 1: an injured player affect practice the next day. It's almost
Speaker 1: like a freak accident At times when it happens, we
Speaker 1: do a lot of prevention for it, but you just
Speaker 1: you just never know your career could be over in
Speaker 1: a day. So I think it brings a little perspective
Speaker 1: to it. But also losing Mix, she was our leader,
Speaker 1: she was our voice, so we got a lot quieter
Speaker 1: after she left. But then you look over on the side,
Speaker 1: you see her an abbey over there, and you think,
Speaker 1: I gotta play a little harder. There's two people on
Speaker 1: the sideline that want to be out here and can't,
Speaker 1: and I have that opportunity that brings us to abbey.
Speaker 1: This is beyond an injury, is a pulmonary embolism. This
Speaker 1: this is serious. You know, we set a prayer for her.
Speaker 1: We all got together and kind of came together in
Speaker 1: that moment. You know, at twenty you have a life
Speaker 1: threatening illness and something so unexpected. Um So I think
Speaker 1: it really made them think a little bit and appreciate
Speaker 1: and not take for granted, at least in that moment
Speaker 1: what they had. Coach McGraw's commitment to the process has
Speaker 1: helped her turn players into leaders. Neil Ivy is one
Speaker 1: of them. She was with coach McGraw for both of
Speaker 1: her n C Double A Championship wins, first as a
Speaker 1: player and then later as an assistant coach. She is
Speaker 1: now one of eleven female assistant coaches in the NBA,
Speaker 1: currently coaching for the Memphis Grade. Least Here's she works
Speaker 1: so tires lely, and she works so hard, And I
Speaker 1: think that adversity and failure can help make you a
Speaker 1: stronger person, stronger player. I mean, I'm going through the
Speaker 1: same thing here. I went from Notre Dame never losing
Speaker 1: to you know, having a twenty two record here. So
Speaker 1: I had to learn how to accept failure because that
Speaker 1: wasn't something that I was very comfortable with. It wasn't
Speaker 1: something that I had gone through. I've lost probably more
Speaker 1: right now that I've lost in maybe twenty years. And
Speaker 1: so instead of placing so much emphasis on wins and losses,
Speaker 1: I'm placing it on how am I getting better? So
Speaker 1: always some type of underlying message or lesson going through
Speaker 1: failure that you might not get winning all the time.
Speaker 1: There's something else that she's learning to something else the
Speaker 1: team is learning by going through what they're going through.
Speaker 1: They have so many questions about what you've been through
Speaker 1: in the last few months. I really like to break
Speaker 1: this down because it enables us to see you back
Speaker 1: coaching at the a real basic level. I think you
Speaker 1: get to the point where you're so consumed with alright,
Speaker 1: last last minute of game, here's some plays we're gonna run.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm trying to figure out how to put
Speaker 1: us in a position to win. It's all about strategy,
Speaker 1: and now there's almost no strategy. I told the reporter
Speaker 1: the other day. My strategy hope they miss, hope we
Speaker 1: make them that. That's that's what my strategy the most basic.
Speaker 1: It's it's completely different and trying to you know, set
Speaker 1: those small goals of we remembered to get in the press.
Speaker 1: Great job, that's that's a step forward for us. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody was in the same defense. That's really good. We
Speaker 1: only ever play zone, but occasionally some of them would
Speaker 1: drift off in a man to man, so those kind
Speaker 1: of little things, you know, there's there's ten seconds left
Speaker 1: on the shock clock. Let's get organized into something that
Speaker 1: we worked on a practice. I heard you did something,
Speaker 1: but I thought it was really unique. You brought in
Speaker 1: a couple of military folks and put the team through
Speaker 1: some kind of training where they went in a swimming
Speaker 1: pool and how to do exercise like put on a hoodie,
Speaker 1: get in pairs, and take off your hoodie in the
Speaker 1: water and transfer it to your partner. Well, our fencing
Speaker 1: team did. Our fencing team is won more national championships,
Speaker 1: I think eleven than anybody here. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: listen to see what he was doing. But if I
Speaker 1: was there, what would I be seeing. Oh, you'd be
Speaker 1: nervous because I can't swim, and I know some of
Speaker 1: them can't swim. They were hanging onto the edge there
Speaker 1: in the deep end, trying to tread water, which you
Speaker 1: know they didn't really want to do. This is a
Speaker 1: couple of them that were very comfortable in the water,
Speaker 1: so they sort of took on the leadership role in
Speaker 1: the water. And they're holding each other up there and
Speaker 1: they're telling each other, Hey, this is what I did
Speaker 1: this time. Here's how I got the sweatshirt off and
Speaker 1: we're not good communicators. So that was something that I
Speaker 1: thought would help us. And you know, you gotta wait
Speaker 1: for everybody. You have a time limit and everybody's got
Speaker 1: to get it done in three minutes. And there were
Speaker 1: plenty of times when we had to do it over
Speaker 1: and over and over again until we all got it
Speaker 1: on the same page, got anywhere over. When you have
Speaker 1: a young team, you don't know what your leadership is
Speaker 1: going to be like. We also have a team that
Speaker 1: really gets along great, which to me is the most
Speaker 1: important thing the team chemistry. However, when they continually talk
Speaker 1: about how much we love each other and how well
Speaker 1: we get along, and I always worry because who's going
Speaker 1: to be that one that's gonna be able to get
Speaker 1: you by the throat and say right now, we need
Speaker 1: your head in the game. So this program was designed
Speaker 1: to make them accountable, to teach them how to be
Speaker 1: accountable not for themselves, but for each other. What is
Speaker 1: it about the practice court that enables somebody to really
Speaker 1: improve if they're not really getting into games. I'm big
Speaker 1: on roles and expectations, and I give them their expect
Speaker 1: These are the three things I need from you this
Speaker 1: year and I go around the circle, not just so
Speaker 1: you know, but so everybody knows. Maybe you're not a
Speaker 1: three point shooter. So when you're open and the fans
Speaker 1: or your parents are screaming for you to shoot it,
Speaker 1: everyone on the team knows. No, that's not her job.
Speaker 1: So I think that's important. So the ones that aren't playing,
Speaker 1: I say, your jobs to make us better at practice.
Speaker 1: Your job is to bring energy. Your job is to
Speaker 1: bring encouragement. I want you to be the you know,
Speaker 1: the leading charge taker, the leading shot plucker, the leader
Speaker 1: of this at practice. Your job is to make us
Speaker 1: better at practice. How do people respond to that? You know,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of them. Everybody wants to contribute.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants to know that they're a part of something
Speaker 1: bigger than themselves. Everybody wants to know. Your role is
Speaker 1: so important. We could not be here without you. And
Speaker 1: we've had a lot of games afterwards where I said,
Speaker 1: you know what, if you didn't do that at practice,
Speaker 1: we would to on that game. You're the reason that
Speaker 1: we won that game. And somebody who didn't get on
Speaker 1: you didn't even get in the game. But they were
Speaker 1: the other teams, you know, shoot her, and they were
Speaker 1: doing a great job at practice of making us find
Speaker 1: her in the zone. I never heard of that before.
Speaker 1: Somebody can win the game without being on the court. Good, okay,
Speaker 1: come on, we can get one on the make too.
Speaker 1: We gotta get a box out, catch it, come on,
Speaker 1: two hands now? How does this translate? People have roles
Speaker 1: in the weight room as well. You know, I let
Speaker 1: the weight and strength coaches determine what what their jobs
Speaker 1: are going to be. You know, we're looking for leadership,
Speaker 1: we're looking for mental toughness. We're trying to build those
Speaker 1: kind of things in the weight room. That's what that's
Speaker 1: what's really important to me is all about who's going
Speaker 1: to take that leadership role. Who's going to hold somebody
Speaker 1: accountable when they're nobody's looking. Are they doing as their best?
Speaker 1: You know, they lifted as much as they can, Are
Speaker 1: they running as hard as they can on every play?
Speaker 1: And that that's something that I think needs to to
Speaker 1: work a little bit better for women. I think that
Speaker 1: we are reluctant sometimes to tell another woman, you know,
Speaker 1: you're not doing that right. I think we're we're more
Speaker 1: known as something that's going to be encouraging and help
Speaker 1: them out. Here's Beth Morgan Cunningham, former player turned assistant
Speaker 1: coach at Notre Dame. She's been by coach McGrath side
Speaker 1: for the last eight years. Here's been We're trying to
Speaker 1: make these kids the best versions of themselves that they
Speaker 1: can possibly be, you know, and maximize everything that they
Speaker 1: possibly can to get themselves to compete at the highest
Speaker 1: level academically, athletically, and then still we have a well
Speaker 1: balanced you know, four years here, so I think, you know,
Speaker 1: breaking it down for us. You know, we have strength
Speaker 1: and conditioning, we have nutritionists, We've got an awesome athletic
Speaker 1: trainer who takes care of them. You know, our doctors
Speaker 1: are medical staff. Every single thing that these kids are involved,
Speaker 1: and you're trying to maximize everything that they can possibly
Speaker 1: do by just giving them the best support staff, the
Speaker 1: best chance possible to excel and compete and do what
Speaker 1: they need to do at the highest level. Michael Samborski
Speaker 1: is the director of Olympic Strength and condition at Notre Dame.
Speaker 1: Along with Beth and arrest of his staff. Michael knows
Speaker 1: that discipline is the key to get back on top.
Speaker 1: He works with coach to develop conditioning programs designed to
Speaker 1: push each athlete through today's adversity and towards their full potential.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants to jump higher, everybody wants to run faster.
Speaker 1: You know that. That's that's no secret. Whatever training program
Speaker 1: that you're really going to dive into, you've got to
Speaker 1: make sure that you're not dabbling into too many different
Speaker 1: training programs all at the same time, trying to get
Speaker 1: a bunch of different things. Focus on one aspect. If
Speaker 1: you want to get faster, get faster, don't try to
Speaker 1: get faster, jump higher, be stronger, squad more all at
Speaker 1: the same time. That's really hard on no matter who
Speaker 1: you are. Talent is incredibly common. We have talent walk
Speaker 1: through the door all the time. This plan is incredibly rare.
Speaker 1: Very rarely are we going to have an athlete that
Speaker 1: walks in here that is at the top of their
Speaker 1: talent level and is also incredibly disciplined. So when you
Speaker 1: combine those two things, that's when you really get a lead.
Speaker 1: What what I really like to see is I like
Speaker 1: to see an athlete that performs at a really high level,
Speaker 1: and they come in the weight room and they absorb
Speaker 1: what I'm telling them, they push themselves to their potential
Speaker 1: I tell my athletes all the time, there's a lot
Speaker 1: going on in everybody's lives. You're not gonna walk into
Speaker 1: a training session and be at your peak every single time.
Speaker 1: Nobody ever expects that. It's got to be okay to
Speaker 1: fail a little bit in my setting. How do you
Speaker 1: put that into somebody two who would normally be encouraging
Speaker 1: to be demanding. Yeah, that's really hard. I think that
Speaker 1: you can't change your personality, and so that's why we
Speaker 1: have more than one captain. We try to have different
Speaker 1: personalities so that and you can't be the bad guy
Speaker 1: all the time. And I think for me, I used
Speaker 1: to have to be the bad guy all the time,
Speaker 1: and now I spread it around my staff. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be the bad guy today. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: the positive one today. You know, you have introvert you
Speaker 1: of extroverts, you have people that are really willing to
Speaker 1: stand up and talk. Skylar Diggins was one of the
Speaker 1: best captains we ever had. She would grab you by
Speaker 1: the jersey and put you in your place immediately, and
Speaker 1: then after the game everything would be great because they
Speaker 1: know she just wants to win. That that's what that's
Speaker 1: all they have to know, and so my question to
Speaker 1: the captains is always do you want to win or
Speaker 1: do you want to be liked? Becauld you can't have
Speaker 1: it both ways, and girls have a really hard time
Speaker 1: with not being liked. Can you see selfishness on a
Speaker 1: practice court? You know, we've we've been really fortunate, and
Speaker 1: I think women in general were very unselfish by nature.
Speaker 1: We are great collaborators, were team players. I think that's
Speaker 1: probably the one thing I've never really had to worry yet.
Speaker 1: And I think the other thing is that when you
Speaker 1: have a score like we had a reque okamawally, she
Speaker 1: was a tremendous score and she had over a hundred assists,
Speaker 1: which is great for a guard that's not a point guard.
Speaker 1: And she was somebody that she liked to shoot and
Speaker 1: everybody knew. But that's her job. Her job is to score. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think your team, your team chemistry, everything
Speaker 1: that happens in the locker room. Um, if you have
Speaker 1: a team that's split, there's some jealousy or some kind
Speaker 1: of division, you're not going to be successful. And so
Speaker 1: in recruiting, we're always looking for unselfish That is number one.
Speaker 1: We want people that want to win that don't care
Speaker 1: about how many points they have. If you're looking at
Speaker 1: the statute immediately after the game to see how many
Speaker 1: points do I have? What, you know, what does my
Speaker 1: stat line look like? That's not the kind of player
Speaker 1: I want. I want the one who's saying how many
Speaker 1: assists did I have? And how many rebounds did I have?
Speaker 1: So there's so many things that I look for, you know,
Speaker 1: that have nothing really to do with the actual skill
Speaker 1: of the game. Because we want leaders, and we want
Speaker 1: people that that the girls are gonna respect, and the
Speaker 1: unselfish part I think is really big too. But you
Speaker 1: have to be competitive, and kids today I don't think
Speaker 1: are as competitive, and so we're trying to find those
Speaker 1: ones that really want to win, that just hate losing.
Speaker 1: Because I don't want to be the only one in
Speaker 1: the locker room crying after a loss. I want to
Speaker 1: I want to look around and see everybody feels the
Speaker 1: same way. And do you ever push people past where
Speaker 1: somebody else's like comparing them to other players? You know,
Speaker 1: I really try not to do that, But I look
Speaker 1: nationally and I'll say, you know, I'm looking at the
Speaker 1: All Americans and here's some of their stats. Are you interested.
Speaker 1: Do you want to look at see what their fielding percentages? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm not trying to compare it. You did them.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I think you're better, But I'm
Speaker 1: just talking about the voters out there. You know, good players,
Speaker 1: you know, they want that competitiveness, They want to be
Speaker 1: compared to the best in the country, and so you know,
Speaker 1: maybe they have a good game. And Killen McBride's a
Speaker 1: great example of this. She was a player who wasn't
Speaker 1: probably a top recruit coming in. She was ranked maybe
Speaker 1: the top forty, but not like a top ten player,
Speaker 1: and I thought she had a lot of potentials. So
Speaker 1: she would have a game and maybe she'd have eighteen
Speaker 1: or twenty points, and I would look at the statute
Speaker 1: and say, you had two rebounds. You had two rebounds.
Speaker 1: Look at the best players in the country. You can't
Speaker 1: be one dimensional. You have to be able to do
Speaker 1: more than one thing. So I think not letting people
Speaker 1: be content with where they are and showing them that
Speaker 1: you can be so much more than that. Kayla was
Speaker 1: one who when she graduated said, you pushed me further
Speaker 1: than I thought I could go. I didn't think I
Speaker 1: could do it, and you kept pushing me to doing
Speaker 1: and so I know in a way they know I
Speaker 1: have confidence in them and they know I believe in them,
Speaker 1: and I think that helps. But I think never letting
Speaker 1: them be content with where they are. Good. Nice job,
Speaker 1: Chris San you got one. Here's coming to you. Here
Speaker 1: you go. That's better. Good. You got one. You're at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the league standings now and there's going
Speaker 1: to be a tournament. So you got a shot, right,
Speaker 1: How do you prepare for this last stretch? If we
Speaker 1: continue to get better than we go into the tournament
Speaker 1: with a little better seed than what we're at right now.
Speaker 1: So that's that's our frost goal. Got to move up
Speaker 1: in the standings. And you know, the losses don't change.
Speaker 1: If you keep winning, you can even that out. And
Speaker 1: I know it's funny because you fail every day. You know,
Speaker 1: you fail in something every day, you make bad choices.
Speaker 1: There's so many things that you can look back on
Speaker 1: and say, why did I do that? You know, I
Speaker 1: I after every game, I look at the film and go,
Speaker 1: you know, why did I stop her out? Why did
Speaker 1: I put her in? Why didn't I press? Why did
Speaker 1: I do this or that? So I think you can
Speaker 1: fail in small ways, but we're failing in a big
Speaker 1: way this year. And that's that's been hard to take.
Speaker 1: And so as people have kind of told me, and
Speaker 1: some of the messages I'm getting is, you know, people
Speaker 1: are still looking at you as a role model, So
Speaker 1: how you're handling this, people are watching that, and you
Speaker 1: forget about that because you get in your own bubble
Speaker 1: and you just you feel like, just we're just so
Speaker 1: bad right now. How do we fix this? So when
Speaker 1: I'm not fixing it, I feel like I'm letting the
Speaker 1: team down, I'm letting the fans down, I'm letting the
Speaker 1: school down, I'm letting the university down, the community. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm taking it so personally, and I've learned
Speaker 1: that you can't. You know, you can't take it personally
Speaker 1: because it's going to make you stronger. And especially when
Speaker 1: we've had success, we know what it looks like, we
Speaker 1: know what it feels like. Failure is um is a
Speaker 1: mindset of growth that you have to say, here's what
Speaker 1: I did wrong. You know, we didn't do work on
Speaker 1: the fundamentals enough. I think when you can see a
Speaker 1: way out, it makes it a little bit easier. But
Speaker 1: if you were ten years in the future looking back
Speaker 1: on this year, what would you have like your practice
Speaker 1: is to accomplish well. I think the biggest thing is
Speaker 1: that we never quit. I think that's the biggest lesson.
Speaker 1: I mean, failure is a part of life. You can't
Speaker 1: you can't grow as a person if you've never experienced failure.
Speaker 1: And these generations, the last two parents have tried to
Speaker 1: fix everything for them, and so they've never handled adversity.
Speaker 1: They've never had to. I would like to think that
Speaker 1: we're teaching them how to handle adversity. We're trying to
Speaker 1: build a little bit of mental toughness so that when
Speaker 1: they get off into life and and how they're going
Speaker 1: to handle things when things go wrong, as they will
Speaker 1: and you're going to fail. But failure can build your
Speaker 1: confidence because when you come back and you have success,
Speaker 1: then you see how hard it was to get there,
Speaker 1: what you had to do to get there. Does it
Speaker 1: feel do you have any gratitude for this year? You
Speaker 1: know I might someday, UM, I would wish this kind
Speaker 1: of your own anyone, UM, But you know what it
Speaker 1: makes me? It makes me think I don't do enough
Speaker 1: for people that are struggling, and when you look at
Speaker 1: the you know, I'll get a text from somebody, and
Speaker 1: sometimes a complete stranger, I'll get a wonderful note from
Speaker 1: and I'll think I gotta do more, you know, get
Speaker 1: out of your bubble. Look around. There's people struggling all
Speaker 1: around us. In a simple act of kindness. I mean,
Speaker 1: just a word of encouragement means so much and it
Speaker 1: goes so far. And I look at all these coaches.
Speaker 1: Is that struggle, you know, with a losing record, And yeah,
Speaker 1: I never thought much about it before, but now I
Speaker 1: understand the struggle, how hard it is, and how how
Speaker 1: easy it is to just text someone, call someone, send
Speaker 1: a note, even on the street, when you see people
Speaker 1: just just being kind to each other. There's so many
Speaker 1: things that are so much more important than this little
Speaker 1: game of basketball. Somehow, I think you're going to come
Speaker 1: through this, Okay. Well, it's nice to look up at
Speaker 1: those final four banners when you're six and twelve or
Speaker 1: whatever we are. You've got seven brands seven. This has
Speaker 1: been the only way is through a podcast collaboration between
Speaker 1: under Armour and Heart Radio. Join us next time to
Speaker 1: hear more stories of athletic performance and what it means
Speaker 1: to push yourself through seven