[00:00] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Welcome to another episode of Success for the Athletic Minded Man. Real talk on harnessing your athletic drive for clarity, consistency, and focus in business and life. This is your host. Jim Harsha Jr. And today I’m bringing you an episode where we go into the archives and just like we did in episode four 59, we’re going to hear from four championship coaches, four of the best, not just really good coaches, but some of the greatest of all time.

[00:32] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And so who we’re going to hear from, just like we did in episode 459, we brought you clips from these interviews, these prior interviews with these coaches. And so the four coaches that we heard from then, and we’re going to hear from again. The reason I’m doing this by the way, is because this was such a well received episode.

[00:47] Jim Harshaw Jr.: There’s so much good stuff on these coaches that I want to bring some more to you. So the four coaches. Again, Tom Ryan, he’s the head wrestling coach at Ohio state university. They won the national championship in 2015. This is amidst the reign of terror of Penn state wrestling, who since 2011, I think they’ve won 11 national championships, if I’m not mistaken, 11 national championships since 2011.

[01:12] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And consider there’s a COVID year where there wasn’t a competition there. They’ve only missed a couple of years and to sneak in a national championship. Amidst this reign of terror by Ohio state university wrestling is nothing other than amazing. Penn state’s probably, you know, I think the, actually the most dominant collegiate program in any sport currently.

[01:32] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And most likely we’ll, we’ll go on to become one of the historically best collegiate programs in any sport in history. So Tom Ryan broke that streak, got a national championship in 2015, uh, as coach, many, many national champions. And so we’re gonna hear from Tom Ryan. We’re also going to hear from Mike Candrea.

[01:47] Jim Harshaw Jr.: He was the head softball coach at the university of Arizona. They went to 23 college world series. He won eight national championships. He was the coach of the Olympic gold medalist team in 2004, just on and on. I can keep rattling off accolades about coach Kendra. The next coach we’re also going to hear from is Sherri Coale.

[02:10] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Sherri was the head basketball coach, women’s basketball coach at Oklahoma university hall of fame coach, won lots of big 12 championships, multiple final fours, multiple medals at the world level coaching for team USA, just an incredible person and one of the best it’s ever. Been in her role in, in the game of women’s basketball.

[02:29] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So incredible. And then also, uh, I should say basketball in general, not just women’s basketball. Lastly, Brian Boland, Brian Boland was the head men’s tennis coach at the university of Virginia. He won four national championships in five years, just an incredible run. And so these are just incredible coaches that we can all learn so much from whether it’s in leadership, failure, or success.

[02:50] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Performance, et cetera, which is what we’re all trying to do is bring our best selves to the world. So here we go. Let’s get into the clips now from my interviews with these four amazing coaches. Now, another theme that we identified is this idea of balancing short term decisions with long term goals.

[03:08] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Sometimes you have to make the hard decision in the short term because it’s the right decision in the longterm. That is not easy. That is not an easy thing to do, especially as a coach, when you’re trying to win games. You’re trying to win a game. Here, now, today, and sometimes winning that game today, putting that player in is maybe not the right thing for the long term vision and goals that they have.

[03:32] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And you, we hear how they handle this and how you can handle this too. Here we go. Balancing short term decisions with long term goals. Let’s hear them. Let’s hear from coach Mike Candrea, the former head softball coach at Arizona university.

[03:46] Mike Candrea: One thing I found with successful people is that they tend to surround themselves with people that are successful, you know?

[03:55] Mike Candrea: And I think when it comes to a team, I think that’s a big piece of it is the type of kid that you’re bringing into your program. And for me, when I first started coaching, it used to be skillset. I’d go out and recruit the kid that had the best skillset in the world. And as I got older, I realized that, you know, there’s, there’s some things that you can’t teach.

[04:15] Mike Candrea: There’s some intangibles that. Kids have to have for your team to be successful and whether it was being competitive or whether it was hard work or whether it was being able to handle failure, you know, the biggest common denominator of all that was character, high character. And so I started recruiting kids of high character because I’m a firm believer that you have to coach the person first to make the athlete.

[04:44] Mike Candrea: You know, and I think that can get you in trouble a lot. If you’re as a young coach, all I worried about was the skill set and I worried about the game, you know, the X’s and O’s, but as I got older, I realized for me to build a team. You know, a culture that I needed to find kids that had high character, that were willing to make other people better, that were able to handle controversy or crisis.

[05:13] Mike Candrea: And good teams are those type of teams. You know, those teams have the right ingredients, but I think the biggest thing is they hold each other accountable.

[05:21] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Let’s hear from head coach Tom Ryan, head coach of the Ohio State University Buckeyes wrestling team.

[05:26] Tom Ryan: Yeah, I would say start with something really small.

[05:28] Tom Ryan: You know, if you’re a high school kid or middle school, clean your room, right? Every day makes your rooms clean. Clean your laundry, do your own laundry, make your own bed, depending on how far off you are, right? From getting to a place where you can build a life. I’ve read this and heard it said, like, if I was going to build a life for myself, what would it look like?

[05:44] Tom Ryan: Start writing. What would my life look like if it went the way I wanted it to go? And then start to do small things that can get you there and stop doing things that aren’t going to get you there something small if you’re being a little aggressive with your internet stop being aggressive with your internet.

[06:00] Tom Ryan: If you’re spending three hours of playing video games, cut it down to one. If you have a sugar addiction, instead of having a double scoop of peanut butter chip. Have a single scoop, like just small little things that instead of setting ourselves up for failure, I would say just small little steps, protect your mind, start reading, even if you don’t like to read, read a paragraph, Google the most inspirational books ever written.

[06:24] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Let’s cut over to Sherri Coale, the former head women’s basketball coach at Oklahoma.

[06:29] Sherri Coale: I remember when we signed Courtney Paris, she was the number one player in the country out of the Bay Area in California. And her, she and her sister, Ashley came and played for us. Courtney was this 6’4 just amazing post player.

[06:43] Sherri Coale: Great hands, finish around the rim, rebound. One of those kids that just has a nose for rebounding. When we signed Courtney, the first thing that we needed to go sign was the best post feeder in the country. We needed a guard who could really get the ball to the post and wanted to get the ball to the post.

[07:00] Sherri Coale: And that’s so important, you know, because she was going to have to defer it. Courtney was going to be our first option every time down the floor. If that didn’t work, there were all kinds of other things that we could go to, but there’s a certain player, a certain mindset that resides in a player who’s good in that environment.

[07:17] Sherri Coale: So it’s not just that they’re talented or that they’re good. It’s tough. It’s that they’re what you need. You have to know what you need and then go get it.

[07:25] Jim Harshaw Jr.: All right. Now, another thing we’ve identified is this concept of discipline, discipline in helping you achieve freedom and success. And listen, we’ve heard this before.

[07:34] Jim Harshaw Jr.: You know, you have to have discipline, but how do these coaches see these championship coaches who are leading teams in challenging competitive environments? How do they see and talk about discipline as a key factor in achieving freedom and success? Let’s hear from the coaches. Let’s hear from Brian Boland, the former head men’s tennis coach at the University of Virginia.

[07:54] Brian Boland: Discipline. Discipline. Discipline. Um, that’s what it’s going to take to be great. You know, I love Tony Bennett’s line. Uh, Tony, who’s obviously coaching the number one, uh, program in the country. Now at the university of Virginia basketball team is a good friend. He always says discipline leads to freedom.

[08:10] Brian Boland: And I think that is one of the greatest quotes ever. I would agree with that in all aspects of leadership, of life. Um, you will have, if you can create discipline and make sure that you’re really attending to the areas that are going to allow you to be your best, uh, I’ll tell you what, like you feel good, you have more peace and you can play freely regardless of the outcome.

[08:34] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Let’s hear from head coach, Tom Ryan, head coach of the Ohio State University Buckeyes wrestling team.

[08:39] Tom Ryan: I’m a big fan of suffering. I think suffering is critical. And I think the kind we choose is the kind we can control. You can’t control unchosen suffering, which is the impetus of the book, which I called it chosen suffering because it was unchosen suffering that leveled me.

[08:55] Tom Ryan: Now the Steiners leveled me, but they didn’t level me. Unchosen suffering really leveled me as a man. So my routine is just work out six times a week, make yourself realize that you’re not that tough. And that you’re vulnerable to things that are really hard. And when things get really hard, you really learn a lot about yourself.

[09:13] Tom Ryan: I believe in getting up early. You know, I think getting up, getting a good start to the day matters. I believe habits of writing down your, I love twos. I think that’s critically important. List out your, I love twos, right? Like all the things you love to do. I think the world we get consumed with just the things that we need to do.

[09:28] Tom Ryan: I need to do this. I need for work. I need to go to this. I need to do that. Like take the time to do the things you love to do. I write them out. They’re written out. I got a list of. Many things I love to do because I think if we don’t plan them right, they’ll never happen. If we don’t at least have them in our, bring them from the subconscious to the conscious, we’ll never do them.

[09:47] Tom Ryan: And we’re just caught every day doing the things we need to do in life becomes mundane and boring and painful, too painful.

[09:55] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Quick interruption. If you like what you’re hearing here and you want to learn how you can implement this into your life, just go to Jim Herschel, jr. com slash apply to see how you can get a free one on one coaching session with me.

[10:08] Jim Harshaw Jr.: That’s Jim Herschel, jr. com. Slash apply now back to the show. Another theme that you identified is the importance of managing expectations and managing pressure. And listen, we all have pressure. I think in sports, you see, and feel this a little bit more acutely because you have fans, you have these players who have invested their lives into this.

[10:31] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And there’s so much pressure in a unique way in a sports setting that is just easy to see and easy to relate to. And now you have different pressures in your life and in your role. And so how do you manage those pressures? How do you manage expectations of your colleagues and those who you lead in these competitive environments in high pressure environments?

[10:51] Jim Harshaw Jr.: All right, let’s hear from the coaches. Let’s hear from coach Mike Candrea, the former head softball coach at Arizona university.

[11:00] Mike Candrea: I look back now and I, there’s a lot of things that I talk to, to people today that I should have listened to back then. Part of that is making sure that you have some type of a balance in your life because it’s hard when you’re achieving greatness or achieving excellence to really have balance.

[11:20] Mike Candrea: It takes a lot to be successful. Yet, on the other hand, I think at the end of the day, if you’re looking at In the scheme of life, it’s only a blip on the screen, you know, that one year or that one game. And so what’s more important is your, your overall wellbeing. So I’ve learned a lot, you know, about maybe some of the decisions I made, but I had to kind of redefine success to me because you can’t define success by winning a national championship every year.

[11:49] Mike Candrea: That’s crazy. But yet there was a time in my career where we were winning it or finishing second every year. And it was like, that was the expectation, you know? And then, then all of a sudden now reality sets in, you have this dry spell for a while, and then when you get to go back to the world series, it’s like, it’s a special moment again, you know?

[12:08] Mike Candrea: So I think, I think the good Lord teaches us those lessons, um, whether we know it or not. I think it’s pretty important that as leaders or as coaches, that we need to make sure that kids understand that it’s a game that we play. And you need to have fun with it, and you need to realize that there’s going to be bigger games that you’re going to have to play when you get into life.

[12:33] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Let’s cut over to Sherri Coale, the former head women’s basketball coach at Oklahoma.

[12:38] Sherri Coale: I wanted to know where they were after a game, where their head was, where their heart was, what they were noticing, again, I’ll use that word. So I just, Made these pieces of paper that were so simple. It was ridiculous.

[12:52] Sherri Coale: They had question number one, what went well and why? And they were to draw a line and write individually on one side and team on the other, because a kid may not play, may not go in the game. That doesn’t mean they’re not responsible for knowing what went well and why. And so they would, if an individual played 40 minutes.

[13:08] Sherri Coale: She would talk about what went well in terms of her own. I was indecisive on the catch. I, uh, thought I did a good job with the free throw line, blah, blah, blah, whatever, but then she would also have to talk about the team. I thought we were noncommittal in our man defense, or we have to have more discipline in blocking out or whatever.

[13:26] Sherri Coale: So there would be those two sides. And then the second question was, what can we do better and how? And that again was individual on one side and team on the other. And I would learn that where they were and what they saw was not necessarily where I was and what I saw and the, the side benefit, the added value that I didn’t really anticipate being so monumental.

[13:50] Sherri Coale: Was I could tell where they were emotionally by how they wrote the words on the page. I could tell by the handwriting. I could tell by the amount or lack thereof, I could tell by the angle of the writing, I just pick it up and go, this kid’s in a bad place. You know, and I call her in the next morning and just say, Hey, talk to me about the game lesson, how you feeling?

[14:13] Sherri Coale: And, um, sometimes I would get one and it would, you know, this kid feels like it was really good and it really wasn’t very good and she’s missing the mark. She’s looking at the wrong things. Her indicators are screwed up. So let’s get in and talk about what the main things really are. So those became such a North star for me in terms of recalibration after a win or a loss, like where do we need to go next?

[14:36] Sherri Coale: All

[14:39] Jim Harshaw Jr.: right. One of the other themes we identify is utilizing resources such as books for personal growth, for professional growth. These coaches are lifelong learners. They’re always looking for ways to learn, ways to grow, ways to get better sharing ideas. And we need to do that too. So let’s hear from the coaches as it relates to how they utilize resources to continue to grow and to continue to get better.

[15:01] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Here we go. Let’s hear from the coaches. Let’s hear from head coach, Tom Ryan, head coach of the Ohio State University Buckeyes wrestling team

[15:09] Tom Ryan: on the way to and from work. What I choose to listen to is chosen. So it’s coming into my brain. I’m going to process it. So the music I listen to the words I listened to the books I read, I don’t even watch scary TV shows.

[15:23] Tom Ryan: I really try to protect my thoughts because I know that ultimately there’s a, there’s a chance that I’ll act on them. Right. And I write, I write a lot. I think writing is really important. Just free writing, not bullet point writing journaling. Yeah. So journaling every day, right? Give it 10 minutes before you go to bed or first thing in the morning.

[15:41] Tom Ryan: Right now I’m going through a book called bill to lead. I have a life coach, right? I’ve got people around me that are pouring into me. I mean, I’m 53. I still need people around me that. Our strong voices, right? The world is way stronger than we think. I mean, the world is powerful and the world wants to consume us.

[15:57] Tom Ryan: So we need people that understand that and help us fight it. So I’m reading a book right now called build to leads a 365. Page book that every day my team’s going through it as well. My freshmen, I go through it with them every day. You read, it’s about a, probably a three minute read. And then you just write whatever emotion, whatever thought, whatever scenario it invokes and just freely write about it.

[16:21] Tom Ryan: Uh, so that’s what I’m going through right now. And I get my student athletes, all my freshmen are doing it as well. We come together once a week and we share and we talk about it. And it’s been powerful and good for them and me.

[16:33] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Let’s hear from Brian Boland, the former head men’s tennis coach at the university of Virginia.

[16:37] Brian Boland: Um, you mentioned John Gordon, um, who’s a friend of mine and I think the world of he, he wrote the, the power of positive leadership, which I’ve used, um, for, you know, with my own opportunities to continue to learn how to lead. Um, I know he’s had a number of other, um, great reads that he’s worked on the energy bus, the carpenter.

[16:56] Brian Boland: There’s so many that I think John, um, has, has written and really provided some fantastic information on leadership and, um, And growth, um, that I think all our, all the listeners would enjoy. Another author that I love is Todd Gunwer, who wrote the book lead for God’s sake, which has had an impact on coaches all over this country and world.

[17:17] Brian Boland: Um, I’ve provided that book, um, to my staff here, the national coaching staff at us tennis. Uh, there’s no doubt that I think that had an impact on us. And that really gets deep into, uh, you know, the purpose and it’s a, it’s a, it’s a great story. Uh, that I think everybody would really enjoy reading. In fact, it was only a few days ago.

[17:36] Brian Boland: They handed it out to one of our head of departments, uh, here, uh, at the, at the home of American tennis. So those are two that I think are, are just tremendous. And of course, there’s so much great information out there, both, um, you know, in terms of on the internet and things you can look up and there’s so much opportunity to learn and access the things these days, but, um, you reading and finding the right books.

[18:00] Brian Boland: People that some of those, you just, they stick with you forever. Um, and those are two, two people that have had massive influence on my thought process with leadership.

[18:12] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So you heard it straight from these coaches. How do they approach life? How do they approach coaching? How do they approach leadership?

[18:19] Jim Harshaw Jr.: How do they approach performance? You had a chance to get inside the heads and hear these different themes, different coaches, different sports, shoot, even different eras, right? Most of these coaches are retired and you’re hearing from them in terms of how they think about success, how they think about failure, how they think about performance.

[18:38] Jim Harshaw Jr.: What are you taking from this? What are you taking to implement into your life? Take action from this. Good luck.

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