Speaker 1: And now move the Sticks with Daniel, Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.
Speaker 2: What's up, everybody.
Speaker 3: Welcome to move the sticks, DJ, Bucky with you.
Speaker 2: Buck.
Speaker 3: Excited about this one. We've been kind of going down
Speaker 3: our personal list of favorite conversations to have and we've
Speaker 3: got another one of our favorites today.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Tom Crean outstanding coach, great leader, and someone who has
Speaker 4: really shared a lot of wisdom with us when it
Speaker 4: comes to building teams the DNA of great players. So
Speaker 4: really excited to kind of revisit those conversations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for those that aren't familiar with coach Crean, you know,
Speaker 3: obviously there's the football connection, the obvious football connection. He's
Speaker 3: married to Joni Harbaugh, the sister of Jim and John Harbaugh,
Speaker 3: so he's in a football family. But Tom was the
Speaker 3: head coach at Marquette and basketball where he coached Dwayne Wade.
Speaker 3: He was an Indiana with had a very successful run
Speaker 3: there from twenty eight to twenty seventeen as he kind
Speaker 3: of turned that program around, and then coaching Anthony Edwards
Speaker 3: at Georgia from twenty eighteen to twenty two was his
Speaker 3: time at Georgia, came across and developed unbelievable player there
Speaker 3: inn Anthony Edwards. So he's had a lot of big time,
Speaker 3: big time talent that he's helped nurture and develop, and
Speaker 3: someone who offers a lot of wisdom in terms of leadership,
Speaker 3: creating a culture, things that we definitely obsessive, obsessive of
Speaker 3: on our podcast. We're always trying to learn and grow
Speaker 3: and he's someone that I think has helped both of
Speaker 3: us in those departments. So, without further ado, here's our
Speaker 3: conversation with Tom Creen. All right, Buck, he's here. Excited
Speaker 3: to have Coach back with us again. Coach, first of all,
Speaker 3: tell us give us a life update here. Where are
Speaker 3: you and what have you been up to?
Speaker 1: Well, the life update is I'm in Lakewood Ranch, Florida,
Speaker 1: which is a suburb of Sarasota. We actually moved here
Speaker 1: when we left Indiana in seventeen and made this our
Speaker 1: permanent home. My son, who was a baseball player at
Speaker 1: the time, went to IMG Academy, and we had been
Speaker 1: in this area because dick by tal would always have
Speaker 1: his Jimmy V Gala and Sarasota and if stay do
Speaker 1: you have a party in this out So we ended
Speaker 1: up being in this neighborhood area. We live a mile
Speaker 1: from him, and we knew even when we went back
Speaker 1: to coaching, this would be our permanent home. So it's
Speaker 1: been great. And then it's just been a lot of
Speaker 1: different media things. ESPN just finished my third year with them,
Speaker 1: did some MBS well, a couple of Peacock games for
Speaker 1: college basketball, Westwood Won Radio.
Speaker 2: I love that I didn't do a lot of games,
Speaker 2: but I got all.
Speaker 1: The way to the Sweet sixteen and the lead eight
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, and now some Sirius xm NBA Radio Draft previews,
Speaker 1: and then I'll be in New York next week for
Speaker 1: their coverage of the draft, and then probably even some
Speaker 1: Summer league. So keeps me busy. And we have a
Speaker 1: daughter in New York, Meghan. I have a son, Riley,
Speaker 1: who's in his fourth year now with the Dallas Mavericks.
Speaker 1: Just got promoted to head video coordinator and player development there.
Speaker 1: My daughter's got her job in New York, and we
Speaker 1: got a twenty year old to just finish their freshman
Speaker 1: year at Auburn. And my wife, Joni, plays a lot
Speaker 1: of tennis.
Speaker 2: I learned a lot about tennis.
Speaker 1: I hear a lot about tennis, and I really don't
Speaker 1: know much about tennis.
Speaker 2: It's great to see her be happy. So it's good.
Speaker 4: Good coach, It's so great you talked about all your
Speaker 4: media things. In fact, I heard the draft preview show.
Speaker 4: I think it was you fran Fascilla breaking out all
Speaker 4: the different guys. And I have to ask you when
Speaker 4: it comes to that, because evaluation was always a part
Speaker 4: of your gig as a coach, but now you're on
Speaker 4: the outside looking at players a little differently. What has
Speaker 4: changed over the last ten years in terms of evaluating players,
Speaker 4: either the types of players that are about to enter
Speaker 4: the league or the gaps that you know that you
Speaker 4: must feel once that once you get that player in
Speaker 4: the league, because he's not going to be a polished
Speaker 4: product that maybe he used to be years ago.
Speaker 1: Well, one thing that's been good for me too, and
Speaker 1: I didn't mention it is spending time being at some
Speaker 1: different camps like John Lucas's camps in Houston or Dallas.
Speaker 1: And just did a Nike Junior eybl camp for rising
Speaker 1: ninth graders. Last week, I did the NBA PA Camp,
Speaker 1: which was basically one hundred and forty of the top
Speaker 1: rising seniors and juniors and what happens is it's so
Speaker 1: great to not only be on the floor with those guys,
Speaker 1: but to see how they think right and.
Speaker 2: See their work.
Speaker 1: And what's really changed is this, there's so much ingrained
Speaker 1: belief that what they're doing, especially when they get into college,
Speaker 1: is the way to do it, and finding people with
Speaker 1: truly growth mindsets right where they want to learn, want
Speaker 1: to change things, want to get better. You didn't really
Speaker 1: think a lot about that ten years ago. Like the
Speaker 1: majority of the people, they might be hard headed, they
Speaker 1: might be difficult to reach, you might have to spend
Speaker 1: extra time, you might have to break down some layers.
Speaker 1: But even at my last couple of years at Georgia
Speaker 1: and again things were changed and COVID had changed and
Speaker 1: the portal and NIL came in my last year, people
Speaker 1: are not as willing or open to change. And now
Speaker 1: the money has changed it even more immensely where people
Speaker 1: feel that the is the right way.
Speaker 2: And I think what.
Speaker 1: Happens in coaching is that too many people are accepting
Speaker 1: that the evaluation process is more than Ever, how does
Speaker 1: it fit your team?
Speaker 2: Where are they at in their career.
Speaker 1: You know whether they're a twenty three year old or
Speaker 1: whether they're an eighteen year old. And then you didn't
Speaker 1: get this with COVID because of the zoom recruiting. Like
Speaker 1: my last team at Georgia had only two players on
Speaker 1: it that I'd ever recruited in person. Everything else was
Speaker 1: of zoom or videos. It was crazy. But now you
Speaker 1: get a chance and it's like speed dating with the
Speaker 1: portal and you don't really a lot of people aren't
Speaker 1: really diving in to does this player want to learn?
Speaker 1: It used to be how do they learn? And now
Speaker 1: it's do they really want to or think that they
Speaker 1: have to? So I think that is big. I think
Speaker 1: how you fit into a team. I think you have
Speaker 1: to look at the levels of coaching that players have had,
Speaker 1: the programs that they've been in, what they've been asked
Speaker 1: to do. I think there's way too much made of numbers.
Speaker 1: And like there's a guy in the I think he's
Speaker 1: going to be the steal of the draft, even if
Speaker 1: he goes in the top ten. Is Carter Bryant from Arizona.
Speaker 1: And if you looked at his numbers and if you
Speaker 1: looked at his usage rate, you wouldn't even have him
Speaker 1: in the draft. But because you can look at him
Speaker 1: on film. You can see the upside. You can see
Speaker 1: the athleticism, you can see the shooting. You can see
Speaker 1: that even when he misses the shot eighty to ninety
Speaker 1: percent of those misses, or in the cylinder of the rim,
Speaker 1: you can look at him and say, this guy is
Speaker 1: going to be a really good player. And based on
Speaker 1: what you've seen so far, I'm not sure there's enough
Speaker 1: of that. But there's way, way, way, way, way too
Speaker 1: much being made of numbers, who's recruiting, who, what the
Speaker 1: price tag is on somebody, and not nearly enough being
Speaker 1: made on do they really want to change and learn,
Speaker 1: how do they fit this program? And are they coming
Speaker 1: in here as an independent contractor are they coming here
Speaker 1: to truly truly help you win.
Speaker 3: I love that coach. I was talking with a Major
Speaker 3: League Baseball general manager a couple months back, and we
Speaker 3: were talking about the workout process and how because baseball
Speaker 3: has become an analytical sport, and he was saying that so
Speaker 3: many of these teams are just so numbers based that
Speaker 3: they don't place value on workout. Said, for us, it
Speaker 3: is a paramount, like we want to be around these
Speaker 3: kids not only to see what they can do, but
Speaker 3: to see if they can adjust based off the information
Speaker 3: that we're giving them when we get our hands on
Speaker 3: them in a workout process. Talk to guys in the
Speaker 3: NFL position coaches as the combine, we've said, it's become
Speaker 3: a buffet, Like I'll do one of these drills. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to do that drill. I'm going to do this.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to do that that these position coaches
Speaker 3: have said. It's never been more important for us to
Speaker 3: go work these kids out and be with them one
Speaker 3: on one. Have you noticed that in basketball? Like what
Speaker 3: type of weight does that carry? To be on the
Speaker 3: court one on one with the player, to be instructing
Speaker 3: them and watching them go through a workout.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's so important.
Speaker 1: And when those rules change that allow you to do that,
Speaker 1: especially like with the grad transfers when that was a
Speaker 1: thing and things of that nature.
Speaker 2: Are people that were seniors.
Speaker 1: The only other way you used to get that is
Speaker 1: if they come to your camp unless you were going
Speaker 1: to be illegal and work them out somewhere. But then
Speaker 1: when they change the rules that you could get with them.
Speaker 1: It was immense because now what I always wanted to
Speaker 1: do is I wanted to go through the film with
Speaker 1: the player. And we had a player at Indiana named
Speaker 1: Max bfl. He'd played four years or three years at
Speaker 1: Michigan with a red shirt. He shot twenty six percent
Speaker 1: from three in his career there. He'd been the sixth
Speaker 1: man of the year on his team. Well, he was
Speaker 1: a grad transfer. He visited US Indiana along with a
Speaker 1: couple other people. We showed his film and we showed
Speaker 1: him why I thought he was a twenty six percent
Speaker 1: career three point shooter. It was his footwork. It was
Speaker 1: catching it off the back foot. It was show there
Speaker 1: wasn't squared up and there was no follow through. Well,
Speaker 1: we showed the film and I mean we showed all
Speaker 1: the misses and his dad was with us, and then
Speaker 1: we went on into the court and the way he
Speaker 1: approached the workout, the way he approached what we were
Speaker 1: trying to show him on in this hour workout, and
Speaker 1: the way he invariably started to shoot the ball. And
Speaker 1: again you couldn't judge the makes at that point, because
Speaker 1: we were trying to show him what we were going
Speaker 1: to work with him on was coming off his hand.
Speaker 1: You judge his missus. And the kid ended up being
Speaker 1: great for us. He was we went to the Sweet sixteen,
Speaker 1: we won the Big Ten. He went from being sixth
Speaker 1: man of the year on the team at Michigan to
Speaker 1: be in sixth man of the year in the Big Ten.
Speaker 1: And he shot forty six percent that year from three
Speaker 1: in one year's time. Like that's an outlier story, but
Speaker 1: in the old days again, that used to be bigger.
Speaker 1: Now it's harder but even more important that you get
Speaker 1: that time to evaluate them. And you've got kids in
Speaker 1: the NBA Draft right now, Like I was reading a
Speaker 1: story about Ace Bailey, whether it's true or half true,
Speaker 1: doesn't even want to go work out for teams. You've
Speaker 1: got certain players in the draft that are they're just
Speaker 1: doing one on oh workouts, And a lot of times
Speaker 1: if you're doing a one on oh workout, there's something
Speaker 1: you don't want somebody to see, right, You're hiding something.
Speaker 1: The kids that will go out and compete in a
Speaker 1: three on three matchup or two on two. The only
Speaker 1: guy that really shouldn't have to do anything working out
Speaker 1: right now is Cooper Flag because it's pretty well a
Speaker 1: lock that he's number one. But the bottom line is
Speaker 1: people are always trying to show you how competitive they
Speaker 1: are or they've got this belief that they don't have
Speaker 1: to show you. And I think at your level in
Speaker 1: the NFL, it's even crazier. But if you don't get
Speaker 1: real live coaches standing, putting guys through, getting their hands
Speaker 1: on them literally, you know, with finding out where their
Speaker 1: strength is, where their leverage, is incredible. Jim had a
Speaker 1: secret ingredient with that. When he was at Michigan. Ben Herbert,
Speaker 1: a strength coach, would literally bring these guys in, go
Speaker 1: through their mechanics, show them on tape or pictures what
Speaker 1: their guys had done, and then like physically, if he
Speaker 1: thought a guy was weak in an area, he might
Speaker 1: stand him up and the guy couldn't budge him right,
Speaker 1: Like little things like that. Like that stuff's worth so
Speaker 1: much more than just sitting there watching film or having
Speaker 1: a conversation over zoom with somebody, because you want to
Speaker 1: see reaction, You want to see how proactive they are.
Speaker 1: But again, and I should have said this at the beginning,
Speaker 1: but one of the greatest upside you have to recruit
Speaker 1: to no matter the sport, to me is their athletic upside.
Speaker 1: It's not just about their skill level, It's not just
Speaker 1: about the level of where they can get in that sport.
Speaker 1: It's what is the level of athletic upside that they
Speaker 1: have that you've got to try to bring out in
Speaker 1: this person because that's where the real growth is that
Speaker 1: an intelligence upside and then certainly a work ethic character upside.
Speaker 4: Coach, I want you to put on your coaching hab
Speaker 4: which is always on. But it's so different now than
Speaker 4: ever watching like college sports, watching college basketball. I grew
Speaker 4: up a Carolina fan, went to North Carolina, so I'm
Speaker 4: used to seeing teams developing four or five years under
Speaker 4: Dean Smith and Roy Williams and those things. Now it
Speaker 4: seems that the college game is very much like the
Speaker 4: pro game and free agency, where you're kind of.
Speaker 2: Dealing with a collection of parts.
Speaker 4: You're trying to put them together four year in when
Speaker 4: as a coach, how do you do that? Because I
Speaker 4: heard you talk about I want guys who are not
Speaker 4: independent contractors, But how do you flesh that out where
Speaker 4: you get them all together? You have your thirteen guys
Speaker 4: and you're like, Okay, we have to be a team
Speaker 4: this year when everyone hasn't been invested in the program
Speaker 4: for three or four years, like yesteryear.
Speaker 2: Summer, summer, is by far.
Speaker 1: The spring has really been wiped out for most teams
Speaker 1: because players are transferring, players are leaving, players are coming in,
Speaker 1: and you don't have them yet. The spring was how
Speaker 1: we built so many of our teams at Marquette and Indiana,
Speaker 1: so many of them. But now it's the summer and
Speaker 1: you get eight weeks inside of that summer, and I
Speaker 1: will say this the biggest edge force multiplier you can have.
Speaker 1: And I know it's this way in football, but it's
Speaker 1: definitely this way in basketball. You've got to have the
Speaker 1: right strength conditioning coach. You've got to have somebody outside
Speaker 1: of you as a coach that can put them into
Speaker 1: some shared adversity that can create different environments like situation
Speaker 1: basketball is. You can't neglect it. During the season. You've
Speaker 1: got to play different situational games, scrimmages down ten or
Speaker 1: to go down six to two to go, you know
Speaker 1: all the different things. Well, now in the summertime, you've
Speaker 1: got to find ways to bring your team together because
Speaker 1: there's still a certain level of fear that if you
Speaker 1: push too hard you're going to lose somebody. Because these
Speaker 1: contracts are so easy to get out of right and
Speaker 1: the rep share is going to change it some, but
Speaker 1: you have got to I think where it's different.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: You've got to get your team to come together and
Speaker 1: really understand what your identity is going to be. So
Speaker 1: if you're going to be a really good transition defense team,
Speaker 1: a really good transition offensive team, a really good rebounding team,
Speaker 1: you can't wait till the fall to start to put
Speaker 1: those things in because they're so new to each other.
Speaker 1: You've got to get them to go through hard things together,
Speaker 1: share some of those really tough things, not only in
Speaker 1: conditioning and strength training, but on the court, and then
Speaker 1: find ways to come together earlier than ever. And here's
Speaker 1: another reason, because no matter what team you have, November
Speaker 1: and December are so imperative to make it the NCAA
Speaker 1: tournament because those are when so many of the of
Speaker 1: the extra tournaments are or the mtes where you play
Speaker 1: three or four games, and now a lot of those
Speaker 1: are going to get replaced by nil driven games, so
Speaker 1: the kids will actually get money from those games. Well,
Speaker 1: there's still big games, right because you need that strength
Speaker 1: to schedule to put you over the edge. So the
Speaker 1: summer and then the early fall have become crazy crucial.
Speaker 1: You've got to get your system in, but you can't
Speaker 1: spend so much time on your system that you lose
Speaker 1: what the identity is. And then you've got to keep
Speaker 1: making sure that this is where that hard part comes in, spacing, shooting, understanding,
Speaker 1: moving without the ball. Oklahoma City is so good. Jalen
Speaker 1: Williams had nine points. He had of his forty, nine
Speaker 1: of his points came off cuts, right, just cuts along right,
Speaker 1: just cuts, reading the defense, random basketball. That's nine of
Speaker 1: his forty just in one area that was not that's
Speaker 1: just instinctive basketball. Got to start making sure where we
Speaker 1: add in that in the summertime. But those are the
Speaker 1: things to me. And when you can look back and
Speaker 1: say you had a productive, but a hard charging summer
Speaker 1: that wasn't perfect, but we got through it and we
Speaker 1: got better, you're making real progress as you get into
Speaker 1: the season.
Speaker 3: Coach, one of the things we've talked about, I think
Speaker 3: we've talked about with you as well as a bunch
Speaker 3: of other coaches we've had on over the years. I
Speaker 3: feel like we're a lot of us are together in
Speaker 3: this pact. Then I feel like we might be losing here.
Speaker 3: And that is the importance that we still feel of
Speaker 3: multi sport athletes as high school players, and it seems
Speaker 3: like every year the number shrinks of these kids that
Speaker 3: are actually participating in more than one sport. Could you
Speaker 3: make a compelling case of why, even in this era
Speaker 3: of travel ball for eight year olds, that there's still
Speaker 3: value in kids playing multiple sports.
Speaker 1: The one thing that we're and you know better than me,
Speaker 1: when they study the NFL draft and look at the
Speaker 1: multi sport athletes, is that really going down or is
Speaker 1: that continuing to stay at a high level.
Speaker 3: It's in the NFL that numbers coming down, but not
Speaker 3: as drastic as it is in other sports, Like if
Speaker 3: you're a baseball player a basketball player, they are making
Speaker 3: those kids go on one track.
Speaker 1: I agree with you, But look at the NFL, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, look at all the different sports.
Speaker 2: I will to the day I don't have.
Speaker 1: A voice left speak on what multi sport athletes is
Speaker 1: all about. I've had too many of them, right, And
Speaker 1: our own children, our own son, and watching that, and
Speaker 1: our son didn't focus on baseball really until his senior year.
Speaker 1: He got drafted by the White Sox at the end
Speaker 1: of his senior year. It was a late pick, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't one of those things where he would go.
Speaker 1: But he played basketball, he played baseball, he did all
Speaker 1: those things. If anything, he didn't play enough other sports.
Speaker 1: Because what you learn, first off, just think of the
Speaker 1: athletic component, which you get with your feet, with your shoulders,
Speaker 1: with your hands, with your hips, with your vision, you know,
Speaker 1: with change it and turning your body. Just the athletic
Speaker 1: component alone is so similar to whatever sport you really
Speaker 1: want that you're going to get better from that. And
Speaker 1: then it's going through the toughness, the competitiveness. So many
Speaker 1: people that get ingrained in one sport sometimes really believe
Speaker 1: they can only they only have to compete and work
Speaker 1: on their terms, right, And that's not what other sports
Speaker 1: teach you. That's not what sports teach. You don't get
Speaker 1: to compete on your terms. You compete on the terms
Speaker 1: that are present, right, and you're either going to compete
Speaker 1: and flourish in that or you're going to get backed off.
Speaker 1: And I think every element that you have is is
Speaker 1: so important. The best basketball football players we had were
Speaker 1: really good in football, but man, they got in that
Speaker 1: gym three, four, sometimes five days a week and just
Speaker 1: shot right like they kept their shooting goal. But they
Speaker 1: were lifting, they were running, they were competing, they were
Speaker 1: being challenged, they were being coached. There was a drive,
Speaker 1: but yet they still got in the gym to work
Speaker 1: some on their game. I loved those guys, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it was soccer, basketball, baseball, basketball, football, basketball never
Speaker 1: really had any wrestling.
Speaker 2: Basketball right at the same time.
Speaker 1: But even tennis, Wes Matthews who we had, who had
Speaker 1: fifteen years in the NBA, was a tremendous soccer player.
Speaker 1: The only thing that kept him from being the best
Speaker 1: soccer player in the city of Madison, Wisconsin, is he
Speaker 1: had a teammate who was the best player in the state.
Speaker 1: Right Like, that's the only thing that kept him. And
Speaker 1: it's like that, I swear to God, I know that
Speaker 1: helped carve out a fifteen year NBA career for him
Speaker 1: because he was so athletic and he had such good movements.
Speaker 1: The functional movement that you get, I mean, that's just
Speaker 1: the athletic part. The mentality it probably outweighs that even
Speaker 1: that much more.
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back
Speaker 3: with our conversation with Tom creen.
Speaker 2: Coach. I'm fascinating.
Speaker 4: I'm watching the NBA Finals and I've been tracking the
Speaker 4: Indiana Pacers throughout the playoffs, and they're playing what is
Speaker 4: different in.
Speaker 2: What Rick Carlisle has traditionally done.
Speaker 4: And I heard you earlier talk about coaches not really
Speaker 4: wanting to deviate from the style. But Rick car parallel,
Speaker 4: it's really done a makeover of his approach when it
Speaker 4: comes to the way that they play. And so I
Speaker 4: have to ask you, because you're playing up tempo and
Speaker 4: you're doing these things. I've heard you talk about the
Speaker 4: importance of strength and conditioning. How important is that too?
Speaker 4: What you want to be able to do on the
Speaker 4: court to have a well conditioned, tough minded team. How
Speaker 4: do you get your strength goes? How do you get
Speaker 4: on the same page with your strength goes seeing this
Speaker 4: is what I want?
Speaker 2: How can you bring that out? Of those players? The
Speaker 2: best ones I had in the meetings.
Speaker 1: And you can make anybody be in the meeting, but
Speaker 1: if they don't want to be in, they're not buying
Speaker 1: in as much. The best ones I've had were in
Speaker 1: the meetings. They were watching the film. I would keep
Speaker 1: them invested in recruiting film, I would keep them invested
Speaker 1: in actually watching game.
Speaker 2: Film I've had and some of the best I had.
Speaker 1: We're all football driven, you know, they came from a
Speaker 1: football background, and you have to be a little careful
Speaker 1: with that, right, well, especially when you're training lower bodies
Speaker 1: and things of that nature with the football basketball training.
Speaker 1: But so much of it, it all starts at the bottom.
Speaker 1: It starts with what you do with people's feet and ankles.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have your trainer, strength coach and
Speaker 1: your team invested in that, it's going to be a
Speaker 1: problem at some point. But having the strength coach involved
Speaker 1: in practice. The worst thing can happen is when the
Speaker 1: strength conditioning coaches think they're an entity unto themselves and
Speaker 1: just work for the athletic department.
Speaker 2: I hate that, right they have to be with you.
Speaker 1: It's like any time you have small group meetings or
Speaker 1: anytime you have this small group leadership, you can't go
Speaker 1: in there with prejudgment. Well a lot of times it's
Speaker 1: not just the leader of the meeting that has can't
Speaker 1: have the prejudgment. You can't have anybody else in there
Speaker 1: that's got pre judgment and that they don't want to
Speaker 1: hear it or it's not their area. I couldn't stand that, right,
Speaker 1: And because that's what kills you. And again, because I
Speaker 1: say that, it's I wanted our coaches at all the
Speaker 1: strength conditioning things. I didn't want them running it. I
Speaker 1: wanted them there in support, right. I didn't want them
Speaker 1: hanging around being on their phone.
Speaker 2: You don't.
Speaker 1: They had times where I told coaches, hey, man, go
Speaker 1: be on your phone out in the hallway. Okay, this
Speaker 1: is these kids are working in here. And and you
Speaker 1: wanted them in support where the players knew that everything
Speaker 1: that they touched, especially when it came to strength and
Speaker 1: athleticism and conditioning and nutrition and taking care of their bodies,
Speaker 1: was important to everyone. And then, and then what happens
Speaker 1: is everybody gets smarter from that. Right, And you might
Speaker 1: have your own area, but ultimately it becomes okay, whether
Speaker 1: it's the meeting, whether it's the practice, whether it's the
Speaker 1: weight room session, whether it's your season, it's all emission, right,
Speaker 1: it's all emission. The meeting might be a mission, the
Speaker 1: practice might be a mission. If you don't have everybody
Speaker 1: locked into what that mission is all about, and that's namely,
Speaker 1: get the players better, more athletic, more in sync, more together,
Speaker 1: you know better, all the way around, you're going to lose, right,
Speaker 1: you're going to lose. And I look at college basketball,
Speaker 1: it's so easy to project if you see somebody practice
Speaker 1: and if you have any idea what their strength conditioning
Speaker 1: coach is all about. And the one thing that I
Speaker 1: want to do when I go see somebody practice now,
Speaker 1: I love if I can see something in the weight room,
Speaker 1: I'll ask to see that because now you're going to
Speaker 1: get You're not only going to learn something, but you're
Speaker 1: going to see who is this important.
Speaker 2: To the highest level.
Speaker 1: Everybody lifts, everybody trains, not everybody's invested in what it
Speaker 1: means daily.
Speaker 3: Coach, how do you find out who the leaders are
Speaker 3: when when you're recruiting kids? We talk about in scouting.
Speaker 3: I've always told the story about Ozzie knwsome had such
Speaker 3: a knack for asking the right question to get to
Speaker 3: the right answers and use the example of when we
Speaker 3: had a bunch of guys from one team successful college program,
Speaker 3: had a bunch of guys in that particular draft and
Speaker 3: asking them who the leader was, they all said the
Speaker 3: same player, except one person said no, it was me.
Speaker 3: And then Ozzy's next question was, Okay, you guys watch
Speaker 3: tape on your own on Tuesday nights, right, other guys
Speaker 3: that told us that, yeah, he goes well who holds
Speaker 3: the clicker? And then of course it was the other
Speaker 3: guy that was Ozzy's way of finding out, Okay, who's
Speaker 3: the kid who's running this whole thing? But how have
Speaker 3: you learned to go find out? You can see what
Speaker 3: these kids are like athletically, some of the work ethics stuff,
Speaker 3: But in terms of trying to find that guy who's
Speaker 3: going to be the pillar leader for your program, how
Speaker 3: do you go about identifying that kid.
Speaker 1: Well outside of your own observation and instincts. I think
Speaker 1: you've got to go find the people that are off script, right,
Speaker 1: And and I think of this in the scouting business
Speaker 1: all the time. It's not about going to talk necessarily
Speaker 1: to the trainer of the football team. It's not necessarily
Speaker 1: about talking to the academic advisor of the football team.
Speaker 1: It's talking about somebody else that's in that same academic
Speaker 1: building that sees the player come through. It's talking about
Speaker 1: the to the student trainer, it's the gas it's the
Speaker 1: quality control guys. It's the people that know the inner
Speaker 1: workings of that player. And I think when you're looking
Speaker 1: at it in high school. A lot of times it's
Speaker 1: it's it's observation to a degree. I love to sit
Speaker 1: across from the bench, right, I love to sit across
Speaker 1: from the benure being the end zone. You want to
Speaker 1: see what kind of eye contact that star that that
Speaker 1: best player has when it's not about them all right,
Speaker 1: when in the huddle, when they're not in in warmups.
Speaker 1: I think leadership can go so many different ways because
Speaker 1: if you get the wrong character person that's leading the way,
Speaker 1: because because others are afraid to challenge that person, that
Speaker 1: becomes a problem as well. The best leaders I've had, okay,
Speaker 1: we're the best teammates because they they knew their game
Speaker 1: might be better, but they never acted like they were better.
Speaker 1: And I think I think if you if you want
Speaker 1: to find the non leader and the one that the
Speaker 1: players will not follow when push comes to shove, it's
Speaker 1: the person that acts privileged. And I think you've got
Speaker 1: to be trying to sniff out privilege, sniff out entitlement,
Speaker 1: see who's enabling. Sometimes the enabling that's just an enabling program.
Speaker 1: Maybe the player doesn't really want to be enabled, but
Speaker 1: maybe they are right because that's the culture of the program. Well,
Speaker 1: can they overcome that? And I think it's it's who's
Speaker 1: doing more than what is required? Okay, who doesn't look
Speaker 1: at extra like it's a burden, who's bringing someone else
Speaker 1: with him? And I don't think you just find that
Speaker 1: out from the people that are at the front of
Speaker 1: the bench. I think you find that out from people
Speaker 1: in the building. I think you find that out from
Speaker 1: other coaches. I think you find that out from somebody
Speaker 1: else in the counseling office. Because everybody has champions, right
Speaker 1: and there's a place for the champion, But you don't
Speaker 1: need to learn about a player by just talking to
Speaker 1: the champion. And then every recruit, every person becomes a
Speaker 1: case study and you're just building up that case and
Speaker 1: is this person who you think they are? But ultimately
Speaker 1: it comes down to trust in your instincts, on your
Speaker 1: own vision for that player, because you've got to see
Speaker 1: an upside for them. Where I've gotten in trouble is
Speaker 1: when I didn't really see the upside, or when I
Speaker 1: listen to somebody else on it, and if I really
Speaker 1: feel it, what you then have to do is you've
Speaker 1: got to not have pre judgment on what you're hearing
Speaker 1: or looking for you got to know what you're looking for.
Speaker 1: Me then you've got to accept what you see, right.
Speaker 1: And I think that's where people get in trouble when
Speaker 1: they're really rooting for somebody or rooting for themselves, to
Speaker 1: be right, they start seeing it through the eyes they
Speaker 1: want to see it with rather than through the reality.
Speaker 1: And that's why you got to look at it enough.
Speaker 1: And usually if it's checking enough boxes, you can work
Speaker 1: through somebody that might get you know, have a bad edge,
Speaker 1: or somebody that doesn't have great eye contact, or you know,
Speaker 1: somebody that's maybe a little bit selfish. But man, they
Speaker 1: compete and they play hard in basketball. A lot of
Speaker 1: times people that compete with the ball really think they're competing, right,
Speaker 1: But they are, but they're not doing all the other things.
Speaker 1: And now you've got to be able to judge in
Speaker 1: the leadership, can we get them to understand how important
Speaker 1: it is that they do the other things and how
Speaker 1: much they respect their teammates doing.
Speaker 2: The other things.
Speaker 1: And then the last thing I'll say about that with
Speaker 1: the leadership part, when you look out on the floor
Speaker 1: and the game or the practice and it's a tight deal,
Speaker 1: do they feel safer with that player? Because do they
Speaker 1: feel safer, Do they raise the level of the players
Speaker 1: not just because they're good, but because those players feel
Speaker 1: better because they're out there with them, or are they
Speaker 1: dropping their head that doing the scouting preparation. I love
Speaker 1: watching the benches of when guys are taking shots and coaches.
Speaker 1: Some coaches don't realize how bad their body language is
Speaker 1: when their stars are taking shots, and.
Speaker 2: I don't think they have any idea.
Speaker 1: It's like that's telling you something, right, it's the whole
Speaker 1: staff man, Like that's telling you there's an issue here.
Speaker 1: And you may not be privileged to seeing it at
Speaker 1: all in practice, but there is an issue. And then
Speaker 1: you've got to dig even deeper. And I think that's
Speaker 1: you look at you look at what your eyes say.
Speaker 1: You look at what the people that you really trust say,
Speaker 1: You look at what the numbers say. And when those
Speaker 1: things all kind of intertwine, now you've got a pretty
Speaker 1: good idea of what you got. But if you've got
Speaker 1: to exclude something, exclude the numbers, look at what your
Speaker 1: eyes saying, what the people you trust that would know.
Speaker 4: Say, Yeah, because you've been unique in terms of the
Speaker 4: dogs that you've coached. Right from Dwyane Wade, Anthony Edwards,
Speaker 4: Victor Oladipo, how you develop what's the common denominator in
Speaker 4: the great players that you've encountered along your way.
Speaker 1: Eventually they never looked at the extra work as extra.
Speaker 1: It became part of who they were, right it. You know,
Speaker 1: Bill Parcells used to say, you know, do you have
Speaker 1: a routine or are you committed?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And I think that's what happens. There's very few players
Speaker 1: that will not grow into a routine. There's very few
Speaker 1: players that will not do what's required. But the commitment
Speaker 1: exceeds all distractions, It exceeds your doubts, it exceeds you
Speaker 1: getting discouraged. I mean, you keep coming. That's what you're
Speaker 1: looking for. And I think that's what your vision's got
Speaker 1: to be able to have. Like we were visioned for
Speaker 1: a player on their worst days, you got to still
Speaker 1: see it right and you still got to drive it
Speaker 1: out of them when they don't want you to, and
Speaker 1: that becomes something that's important. But I think ultimately the
Speaker 1: best players had a tremendous desire to be in a gym.
Speaker 1: They really learned to want to be watching extra film,
Speaker 1: not saying they watched extra film on their phone in
Speaker 1: their dorm, but actually being in the building or being
Speaker 1: in the film room watching the film, there was no
Speaker 1: real They didn't have time constraints on when they were
Speaker 1: getting in the gym. They were just going to make
Speaker 1: sure that they were in there. And then I think
Speaker 1: the other two big things the ones I've had because
Speaker 1: they were great teammates, They've had a really really high
Speaker 1: level of empathy for other people. And my best players
Speaker 1: have not been privileged. You know, whether it was Anthony
Speaker 1: Edwards who was number one, or vic Aladipo had one
Speaker 1: one scholarship offer right like, they were not privileged. I've
Speaker 1: never dealt well with privileged. I've had some, and I've
Speaker 1: had some that was really hard to break the entitlement
Speaker 1: that they felt they should get. But the best players
Speaker 1: I've had that have made the pros of the seventeen
Speaker 1: or eighteen guys that have made the NBA, I probably
Speaker 1: had two that weren't Jim Rats, but the best of
Speaker 1: them were Jim Rats. And I think that's there's a
Speaker 1: passion for it. It's not required anymore and it's not
Speaker 1: a taxi on their mind or their day to get
Speaker 1: in that gym, but they wanted to be driven, and
Speaker 1: they wanted to feel.
Speaker 2: Some pressure internal.
Speaker 1: And they wanted to be competitive, even it was against
Speaker 1: the details of their own game, to get better.
Speaker 2: And I think those are the commonalities I.
Speaker 3: Love, by the way in football, and then the millions
Speaker 3: of scouting reports that we've all Bucky and I have
Speaker 3: written that we still use the term gym rat even
Speaker 3: though technically we're talking about football players on the grass field.
Speaker 3: But that's a third to oh to the basketball world.
Speaker 3: As you can imagine coach in my side gig doing
Speaker 3: the Chargers radio once your brother in law, Jim Harball
Speaker 3: was hired. I get peppered with questions all the time
Speaker 3: from people all in all walks of life, Charger fans
Speaker 3: as well as people in the NFL and people in
Speaker 3: different sports world.
Speaker 2: What's he like?
Speaker 3: What you know, you get to be around him, you
Speaker 3: see every game.
Speaker 2: What's he like?
Speaker 3: And the best way I can describe it is just
Speaker 3: getting to see it. You know, from this vantage point,
Speaker 3: I've always heard of, you know, the tough, hard nosed coach,
Speaker 3: and then I've heard of the players coach, a positive coach,
Speaker 3: and I felt like they were always described as two
Speaker 3: different people. I said to me, I would describe Jim
Speaker 3: as someone who is tough, detail oriented, of that kind
Speaker 3: of tough grinder coach, But he has a very positive
Speaker 3: outlook in praising guys. I mean he'll get T shirts
Speaker 3: for if they do something in one game, he'll get
Speaker 3: T shirts for the whole team. He's constantly reinforcing this
Speaker 3: positive mindset into his team. And that to me stood
Speaker 3: out is I feel like sometimes we feel like you
Speaker 3: got to be one or the other. How important is
Speaker 3: it coach to have the toughness side of it? But
Speaker 3: then also you're just not screaming at players twenty four
Speaker 3: to seven sixty five.
Speaker 1: I think there's I think he's much more running junior
Speaker 1: high football camaraderie mentality than he is the hard side
Speaker 1: business of NFL football. And I say that with all respect.
Speaker 1: He brings the joy out in a very tough, violent, aggressive,
Speaker 1: demanding sport. And he brings it out because he's so competitive.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've been around him now, both of you like.
Speaker 1: The competitiveness does not turn off. It might, it might
Speaker 1: dim the light switch a little bit once off, and
Speaker 1: it never goes to zero. Right, It's never dark, right,
Speaker 1: I mean I swear, I mean it's just it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: And he's never not competitive, and I think with that,
Speaker 1: because he oozes you, you can't be competitive and not
Speaker 1: be confident, right, So like he brings out a high
Speaker 1: level of confidence in you, he brings it. He definitely
Speaker 1: did this at Stanford, and and it was unbelievable watching
Speaker 1: what he did at Stanford. And then I think what
Speaker 1: happened at Michigan, Like he brought out he got them
Speaker 1: to believe they were way better than what they were.
Speaker 1: I might have said this on here before, but the
Speaker 1: first year he got to Stanford, they were playing USC
Speaker 1: and Dick Vermel told my father in law Jack he
Speaker 1: had been to both practices. He said, USC has got
Speaker 1: forty seven to forty eight pros. Jim have one right,
Speaker 1: And it might have been to Vita Pritchard. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what he thought was the one right. Then they
Speaker 1: go on to beat USC that year, right, and then yes, yes,
Speaker 1: And it's like Jim doesn't believe he's going to lose,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't ever take it for granted. And how
Speaker 1: he gets there and and and then because he's so
Speaker 1: sharp and smart, he never lets the last play mentally
Speaker 1: affect his next play.
Speaker 2: And I've seen that firsthand since.
Speaker 1: San Diego, USD, UH Stanford, you could see it at Michigan.
Speaker 1: But I had the privilege to stand behind him a
Speaker 1: couple of times at Stanford and USD, and it was
Speaker 1: unbelievable watching him. I mean, he could get a fifteen
Speaker 1: yarder right, throw the headset, be mad, and boom. He
Speaker 1: was right back in the next play. Now he wasn't
Speaker 1: smiling and cheering, but he was right back in the
Speaker 1: next play. And I think that's John is not as
Speaker 1: demonstrative with that. But John is the same way, and
Speaker 1: that competitiveness that they bring out in you, like Jim.
Speaker 1: Jim is like the coach in junior high that we're
Speaker 1: going to work, we're going to go. But man, you
Speaker 1: know what, at the end of this game, we're going
Speaker 1: over there to get ice cream, right, And like they don't.
Speaker 2: But that's kind of like what you'd imagine.
Speaker 1: I mean, look you see it, Look a look at
Speaker 1: our Herbert and all those guys respond to him. And
Speaker 1: he just said again they had perfect attendants again. He
Speaker 1: told me this the other day. They had perfect attendants
Speaker 1: again in the OTAs. But he got there. I was
Speaker 1: worried because Ben Herbert is so good his strength coach. Right,
Speaker 1: he was paying him over a million dollars at Michigan.
Speaker 1: I really don't know if he ends up taking the
Speaker 1: Chargers job if there would have been a snap who
Speaker 1: and not being able to bring him, But they did, right,
Speaker 1: Like that's his right hand. I asked him one time,
Speaker 1: I said, I said, how is the transition Ben for
Speaker 1: Ben from Michigan to the NFL with the players, And
Speaker 1: he said, it's even been better? Right, and they get
Speaker 1: it waldon Volbay and again, it's all the way across
Speaker 1: the board. When they played for the when they won
Speaker 1: the National championship, they only had two players that year
Speaker 1: that weren't healthy enough to play in the game. I'm
Speaker 1: the entire traveling squad, right, the entire team, and they
Speaker 1: both had been knee surgeries. It had been the offensive
Speaker 1: lineman that got hurt in the O House Ty game,
Speaker 1: and another guy got hurt in the house in the
Speaker 1: Alabama game. He had a full team, right, like Jim
Speaker 1: has that way, man. I mean, he just it's hard
Speaker 1: to describe that. You just feel stronger and more competitive
Speaker 1: and more confident when you're around him. And the fact
Speaker 1: that he's so well versed in all of this now,
Speaker 1: and he's so smart. And Jim has never ever been afraid.
Speaker 1: He's never been afraid to make a change that he
Speaker 1: think wasn't working. I mean, at one point he got
Speaker 1: rid of the whole defensive side of the ball at Stanford, right.
Speaker 1: But he's also never been afraid to bring people that
Speaker 1: maybe other people questioned, or maybe they were misunderstood somewhere,
Speaker 1: maybe they'd been fired somewhere. He believes in him, he's
Speaker 1: got him, and because he's so confident in what he's doing,
Speaker 1: he wants to be around those type of people and
Speaker 1: I think that says a lot for him too.
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back
Speaker 3: with our conversation with Tom creen.
Speaker 4: Well, coach, I want to make sure I give you
Speaker 4: your flowers, because you put off some wonderful things as
Speaker 4: a coach yourself. And I want to talk about the mentality,
Speaker 4: particularly when you're coaching an underdog, because your teams at
Speaker 4: Marquette were not necessarily viewed as the heavyweights. When you're
Speaker 4: coaching a team that is lesser than, or perceived to
Speaker 4: be lesser than, the opponents that they're facing, how do
Speaker 4: you get them to think that they can accomplish all
Speaker 4: the things that the heavyweights can accomplish.
Speaker 2: Well, I think you have to show leading up to that.
Speaker 1: You've got to show why you lost the game in
Speaker 1: so many games, and why you didn't get and why
Speaker 1: you might have lost you might have gotten beat. You
Speaker 1: got to show no, no, we didn't get beat.
Speaker 2: We lost it. Here's why.
Speaker 1: And I think that happens over a period of time.
Speaker 1: And I think you show the good, but I don't
Speaker 1: think you ever stopped showing how you could have buried somebody,
Speaker 1: how you could have come back and won the game.
Speaker 1: And it's not just about the end of the game.
Speaker 1: I think it's a process of building up a mind
Speaker 1: that we have got to not lose this game ourselves
Speaker 1: and beat ourselves, right. And I think when you get
Speaker 1: into the big games, and it's even when you win
Speaker 1: a thirty point game, right, like, they don't want to
Speaker 1: see what they didn't do, but they have to see it.
Speaker 1: They have to see, Man, we won by thirty, we
Speaker 1: could have won by forty. Here's five plays. We won
Speaker 1: by five, we could have won by fifteen, and here's
Speaker 1: five plays. And you just have to do that over
Speaker 1: a period of time and then you got to practice
Speaker 1: that way. And I think for me it's I never
Speaker 1: wanted to feel like I was a underdog to a
Speaker 1: Hall of fame coach or to a great program, to
Speaker 1: a blue blood type of thing or something like that.
Speaker 1: Even when we were in Indiana, we were really in
Speaker 1: train wreck status for the first couple of years to
Speaker 1: try to build through, and even though we lost, we
Speaker 1: didn't go into those games. They may not have deep
Speaker 1: down believed they were going to win, but we were
Speaker 1: trying to prepare and give a plan that said we
Speaker 1: could win. And I think that's you just practice that way.
Speaker 1: I think it all starts in your player development. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've had great coaches, but I wasn't missing individual instructions
Speaker 1: in player development things. So I think that's when you
Speaker 1: build a mindset into your guys of what they're capable of,
Speaker 1: and then when you get into the full practice, full
Speaker 1: mode type of stuff, you're helping them bring that out
Speaker 1: in each other. But I think you just get your
Speaker 1: team to a place where they know that if they're together,
Speaker 1: and it's not about it's not about being afraid to
Speaker 1: make mistakes right. It's not about how many assists we
Speaker 1: get versus how many turnovers we get. Like, that's a
Speaker 1: big one, right, But that's not how you build the
Speaker 1: team going into the game. You've got to have different
Speaker 1: ways to overcome what you're not doing well. And like
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, Game six with the New
Speaker 1: York Knicks and the Pacers, the Knicks got four big
Speaker 1: offensive rebounds that they turned in to putbacks in that game. Well,
Speaker 1: they were probably a better team rebounding team than the Pacers. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: the Pacers got four throw aheads on the break, Okay,
Speaker 1: by getting out and beating the Knickson and transition that
Speaker 1: kind of wiped out or at least evened up the
Speaker 1: offensive rebound. So you're always looking for those things with
Speaker 1: your team leading up to it and figuring giving them
Speaker 1: different ways that they could adjust in the game to
Speaker 1: get those things.
Speaker 3: Coach, this has been so fascinating.
Speaker 2: We could go on forever.
Speaker 3: I just I'm going to hit you with one last
Speaker 3: one here. We have We've talked about the NBA Draft
Speaker 3: that's coming up. We had the NFL Draft back in April.
Speaker 3: I know, like someone like Dwayne Wade has always talked
Speaker 3: about your influence on his life and not just when
Speaker 3: he was playing for you, but then you know, going
Speaker 3: on into his professional career, would what would your advice
Speaker 3: have been to Dwayne Wade? What did you tell Dwayne
Speaker 3: Wade when he was getting ready to embark in his
Speaker 3: rookie season? And then we think about all these rookies
Speaker 3: that are now going to take the field this summer
Speaker 3: for the first time.
Speaker 2: What would your.
Speaker 3: Message be to a rookie getting ready to step into
Speaker 3: a professional locker room?
Speaker 1: What got you here won't get you where you want
Speaker 1: to go? And find the people that are going to
Speaker 1: make sure that they understand that because what happens so
Speaker 1: much right now. And Dwayne was really good with this.
Speaker 1: We had five agents come in and Henry Thomas was
Speaker 1: the first one who passed away a few years ago,
Speaker 1: was phenomenally. He ended up joining CAA, but he just incredible.
Speaker 2: Guy.
Speaker 1: Had Chris Boss, Devin Harris, Sean Livingston, all kinds of
Speaker 1: different NBA players, but he did a great job with Dwayne.
Speaker 1: And the one thing he did he never came in
Speaker 1: and tried to get Dwayne to leave school early. And
Speaker 1: others did, well, you can go train here, you can
Speaker 1: go train there. They didn't read it right. Dwayne had
Speaker 1: a wife, Okay, at that point before Gabrielle, he had
Speaker 1: his son Zaire. He also had a competition going with
Speaker 1: one of our players, Travis Diener, who could have the
Speaker 1: highest GPA that semester. And Travis got a three point
Speaker 1: zero three point oh four and Dwayne got a two
Speaker 1: point nine to six. Right, So like he was, he
Speaker 1: was competing, and nobody understood that. Nobody asked right except Henry.
Speaker 1: Henry understood no, stay right here. And I think what
Speaker 1: happens is when players find someone that is really helping
Speaker 1: them by telling them the truth, having the details, making
Speaker 1: them work and not letting it be easy. They got
Speaker 1: to find them because this draft process can turn you
Speaker 1: right from going into I've got to maintain what I'm
Speaker 1: doing to prepare for the workout, to prepare for the combine,
Speaker 1: to prepare to be drafted high versus get better at
Speaker 1: what I'm going to need. And I think what gets
Speaker 1: lost in the translation between the draft process of the
Speaker 1: end of the season to the draft and even in
Speaker 1: the summertime in a lot of these programs is this
Speaker 1: is what we've got to do to get better. Derek
Speaker 1: Lively two years ago gets drafted by Dallas and my
Speaker 1: son's second year on that staff, and there's a guy
Speaker 1: named Sean Sweeney, just a phenomenal younger coach, and they
Speaker 1: brought Derek Lively into the workouts and if you could
Speaker 1: have seen his left hand, you wouldn't have believed it,
Speaker 1: like it was non existent. And later he said that
Speaker 1: in the NBA Finals is that he he didn't really
Speaker 1: have a left hand when he got there, and all
Speaker 1: that time, you know that left hand wasn't being work
Speaker 1: done right. But from the day after he got in
Speaker 1: on that Friday and that Saturday in the draft, they
Speaker 1: continue to work on his left hand, continue to work
Speaker 1: on his feet, continue to work on his right shoulder,
Speaker 1: to the point where that guy was a starting center
Speaker 1: with real force into the NBA Finals against the Celtics
Speaker 1: that year because you could score with both hands. Greatest
Speaker 1: example I've seen recently of somebody that really understood he
Speaker 1: had to make a jump, and the coaches never stopped
Speaker 1: getting him there. That is a problem, right, because there
Speaker 1: are not enough people that will tell you the truth
Speaker 1: about what you got to get better at and then
Speaker 1: spend the time with you when you don't want to
Speaker 1: do it right. They let them train on their terms,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you get into the game
Speaker 1: and Rick Carlisle or Eric Spostra or Jason Kidding those
Speaker 1: players they can't play you because you didn't get better
Speaker 1: at what they need you to be able to do
Speaker 1: to win a basketball game in November, December and January.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the biggest thing. Don't ever ever
Speaker 1: get away from the fact that you've got to get better,
Speaker 1: no matter how much money you have, no matter where
Speaker 1: you're picked, and if you lose that, somebody's beating you
Speaker 1: out and you don't even know they're coming.
Speaker 4: Coachy, I have one question for you, because you've done
Speaker 4: all kinds of things as a coach. If you were
Speaker 4: talking to a young coach who was coming off a
Speaker 4: difficult season and they needed to bounce back, what would
Speaker 4: you tell them to do to get his team up
Speaker 4: and going following a disappointing season the year before.
Speaker 1: Be in the gym with those guys constantly, right, don't
Speaker 1: leave it to the gas, don't leave it to the assistance.
Speaker 2: Have them in there.
Speaker 1: The players have to see you, they have to see
Speaker 1: you working with them. You have to get to know
Speaker 1: them at a different level, study the film on their
Speaker 1: strengths and weaknesses. Know everybody that you come in that
Speaker 1: you're going to be in charge of the development plan
Speaker 1: for that player and help see it through. And that
Speaker 1: spins off all the one on one meetings, that spins
Speaker 1: off all the little group meetings, that spins off building
Speaker 1: a trust level. Showing up and playing coach and watching
Speaker 1: everybody else do the work is not building a trust level.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the transaction world that we're so
Speaker 1: tough right now. Everybody wants to believe that it's a
Speaker 1: transactional world because of the portal and the nil and
Speaker 1: all that right now, and the ones that still understand
Speaker 1: it's transformational on a daily basis, not just because you
Speaker 1: said it was or because of the culture, are the key.
Speaker 1: And I think that when you're coming off a struggle,
Speaker 1: it's not just about the players that you're with. You've
Speaker 1: got to make everybody in your group, whether they've been
Speaker 1: with you, whether you're hiring somebody new, You've got to
Speaker 1: give them reasons and tools to make sure that they're
Speaker 1: as great as they can possibly be. Because what happens
Speaker 1: a lot of times when you lose, you isolate, right
Speaker 1: you go into your own world. You going to your
Speaker 1: own orbit. And you can't do that, man, you can't
Speaker 1: do it. It's too easy to do, right, Because now,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, when you're questioning your own game
Speaker 1: and you're questioning your own confidence and your own coaching,
Speaker 1: you start to lose that spirit. You start to have
Speaker 1: some doubts, and all of a sudden, you self sabotage
Speaker 1: your little bitself a little bit rather than getting out
Speaker 1: there and being in the environment. And that's so crucial
Speaker 1: and in this day and age, I mean, I go
Speaker 1: back to when Jim was in San Francisco with some
Speaker 1: of the stuff he was dealing with in there, you know,
Speaker 1: with the owner in Trent Bulky, and how it got
Speaker 1: so Jim had to go to them, right, I don't
Speaker 1: mind saying that, Like Jim had to go seek them
Speaker 1: out because people weren't necessarily seeking him out. And it's
Speaker 1: like when you're in trouble, people are afraid to talk
Speaker 1: to you, they're afraid to be around you because then
Speaker 1: you become a little You're not toxic, but they're nervous. Right,
Speaker 1: you can never be afraid to go make it easy
Speaker 1: for somebody to communicate with you and to get better,
Speaker 1: irregardless if they want to help, if they believe it
Speaker 1: or not. You have to do that, and then that
Speaker 1: what that does. And the last thing I would say
Speaker 1: about that, because whatever gave you the most energy as
Speaker 1: a coach is the things you got to get back
Speaker 1: to when you're struggling, just as much as when you're winning,
Speaker 1: because people that win get away from what gave them
Speaker 1: energy too. They get pulled in many different directions. What
Speaker 1: gives you energy, what you love doing the most, You've
Speaker 1: got to even double down and do more of when
Speaker 1: you're struggling, and that feeds your energy, which gives you
Speaker 1: the energy and the passion to help everybody else find
Speaker 1: theirs coach.
Speaker 3: This has been awesome. We got I know Bucky and
Speaker 3: I are on the same page here. We take so
Speaker 3: many notes when we get a chance to visit with you,
Speaker 3: and there's so much carry over and crossover into all
Speaker 3: different sports. And I am excited at learning through this
Speaker 3: conversation today that that you are still coaching, You are
Speaker 3: still you are.
Speaker 1: I go back, Yeah, I go back. I go back
Speaker 1: in the right situation. You know, I could be an
Speaker 1: assistant in the NBA. I think I could do that
Speaker 1: mentally easy.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: I love helping guys get better. And you talk about
Speaker 1: the crossover, It's like, there's so many things that I've
Speaker 1: learned from other sports, especially football, that you apply to basketball.
Speaker 1: I think I've said this on here before, but I
Speaker 1: became such a better coach teaching downhill basketball and ball
Speaker 1: screen basketball after watching Howard Mutt and John Tiernick in
Speaker 1: the Tyernick with the pay with Pacers with the Colts
Speaker 1: run one on one drills with the tackle in the
Speaker 1: edge right and watching the edge have to get around
Speaker 1: point his foot towards the football not get knocked off.
Speaker 1: And I had even deeper discussions with guys like Mike
Speaker 1: Turgervak and Matt Patricia to the point like where getting
Speaker 1: your foot, your shoulder, your hip turned around with that
Speaker 1: lead foot pointed towards the basketball. That's helped guys I've
Speaker 1: coached make a lot more money than they might have
Speaker 1: made otherwise because I learned that from football. And instead
Speaker 1: of stepping a certain way, getting that foot around to
Speaker 1: point towards the quarterback or the football, well that's exactly
Speaker 1: what pointing towards the rim is. There's so many little
Speaker 1: ideals like that. That's what I've always gotten my energy.
Speaker 1: So the crossover part is unbelievable. And what you guys do,
Speaker 1: who you are and what you do and where you
Speaker 1: do it at with the NFL network is just absolutely awesome.
Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate you so much. And being around Howard
Speaker 3: mud for the time I was with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of stories, a lot of Howard mud
Speaker 3: stories I could tell you, but man, he was.
Speaker 1: I got his book right behind me up there. The
Speaker 1: book is right behind me. I know you guys have
Speaker 1: read that.
Speaker 2: Oh he is. He is incredible.
Speaker 3: Again, It's sad that we lost him, but he was
Speaker 3: just a wonderful, wonderful guy. He came across as across
Speaker 3: as a curmudgeon, but he cared and his players absolutely
Speaker 3: loved him. And he made a lot of guys with
Speaker 3: limited athletic ability a lot of money coach.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: And for me when I was young, before I ever
Speaker 1: met him, And one of the greatest things was living
Speaker 1: in Indiana, being around Tom Telesco, being around Chris Pouleian
Speaker 1: and certainly Bill Polian, Tony Dunge, but being around those assistants,
Speaker 1: Tom Moore was alleged well Howard mud I grew up
Speaker 1: in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Howard was from Midland, Michigan. It's
Speaker 1: twenty five minutes from where I grew up. So when
Speaker 1: you names like that that you don't even know, like
Speaker 1: when you meet them, you're like meeting It's like meeting Gandhi, Right,
Speaker 1: I mean, like it's like, come on, like you're meeting
Speaker 1: somebody that's incredible, And that was awesome to me. But
Speaker 1: that's why when that book came out, view from the
Speaker 1: O line, there's a lot of coaching. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of basketball in there. There's a lot of basketball in
Speaker 1: Tom Moore's book. I mean, there's so many things to
Speaker 1: take from other sports that I've never understood why more
Speaker 1: don't do it. I get somewhat obsessive with it, but
Speaker 1: I don't understand why more don't do it, because it's
Speaker 1: really all the same.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: You're trying to get people to be better at what
Speaker 1: they are, and you're trying to give them the details
Speaker 1: and techniques and mindset to get.
Speaker 2: There, no doubt.
Speaker 3: Well, coach, you're curious, and that's what we love about you.
Speaker 3: We're the same way, always trying to learn and grow,
Speaker 3: and I feel like we've accomplished both those things today.
Speaker 2: So we appreciate you anytime. Thanks for having me. Thank
Speaker 2: you well, Buck.
Speaker 3: That was that was a fun one, man. I mean, look,
Speaker 3: Eric Musselman's great. You get a chance with Tom Crane.
Speaker 3: I feel like we're scratching this basketball itch. But also
Speaker 3: so much crossover and again another example of a coach
Speaker 3: who definitely pays attention to what's going on in the
Speaker 3: football world and is able to incorporate some of the
Speaker 3: things he's learned from that space to help him in
Speaker 3: a different sport.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So such a great conversation to have with him, and
Speaker 4: just what he's able to add not only his own
Speaker 4: personal anecdotes, but because he knows the Harbors so well
Speaker 4: obviously being the brother in law he knows him, but
Speaker 4: what he's able to share behind the scenes with Jim
Speaker 4: parmbro and contrasted with how John approaches it to me, man,
Speaker 4: the one thing that comes out not only his knowledge,
Speaker 4: but the passion that he has for being good coach
Speaker 4: and paying good forward and working with young people and
Speaker 4: doing all those things.
Speaker 2: I just love it, man.
Speaker 4: I feel so much smarter from having the opportunity to
Speaker 4: listen in for the last half.
Speaker 3: Hour now he is excellent. I know you guys enjoyed
Speaker 3: it as well. Again, we'll have more coming your way
Speaker 3: here as we get through the summer here. Football will
Speaker 3: be here before you know it. In the meantime, we'll
Speaker 3: have some of these fun conversations to go along with
Speaker 3: keeping updated on what's going on very quiet period in
Speaker 3: the on the NFL calendar. So that's gonna do it
Speaker 3: for us today and we'll see you next time right
Speaker 3: here on move sticks.
Speaker 2: M hm m m m m