March 3, 2020 • 31 mins
Throughout her career at Notre Dame, Hall of fame women’s basketball coach Muffet McGraw has inspired her players to accept no substitute for victory. She’s led her team to 9 final fours, 7 championship games, and 2 National championships. Over a 35 season career, only one came with a losing record. With a resume like that, it’s no wonder she’s looked at as one of the greatest of all time. But this story is different. This story is about battling adversity. It’s about rising through failure. Because this season, the Fighting Irish have their backs against the wall.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Only Ways through a podcast collaboration between
under Armour and I Heart Radio episode for Muffint McGraw,
Come Hell or high Water. Leaders are revered for the
trails they blaze, the respect they come in, and when
the crisis presents itself, they're giving a choice endure and
(00:23):
a dad or run. Because when dalt sinks in and
failure is inevitable, a true leader hunkers down and bears
the brun of the fight on their shoulders. Throughout her
career and Notre Dame Hall of Fame women's basketball coach
Muffet McGraw has inspired her players to accept no substitute
for victory. She's led her team the non final fours,
(00:45):
seven championship games, and two national championships over a thirty
five season career. Only one came with a losing record.
With the resume like that, there's no wonder she's looked
at it is one of the greatest of all time.
But this story is different. This story is about battling adversity.
(01:05):
It's about rising through failure. Because this season, the Fighting
Irish have their backs against the wall. At the time
of this interview, their record was six and twelve, and
over the course of the last few weeks things having improved.
With morale low and their confidence shaking, it'd be easy
to throw in the towel and focus on next season,
(01:27):
because it's hard to look at a losing record and
keep battling. This is something coach McGraw takes the heart.
She understands that if she wants her players to leave
their team to victory, she has to lead by example,
leadership and accountability. They're not about somebody, nobody, anybody. They
(01:48):
are about a person. Okay. It's not who's got long,
who's going short, who's up next? It's this happy you're next,
you got short, Murdoch, get down the floor, you're long.
That's what leadership is. We're just standing around waiting for
somebody the rise to the occasion. It's not happening. Okay,
that's your job. That's your job. You gotta get everybody
organized when you're sitting back there, get them ready. Who's
(02:08):
coming up next? Okay? Alright, hard work. Cal Fussman sat
down with coach McGraw and Notre Dame to hear more. Okay,
it's a very interesting dynamic because you've had tremendous success
over the years. I think in the last twelve years,
you're in the top every year, and then this year,
(02:34):
this season comes about very different. Has this season been
practiced for you? I prefer this success to what we're
having now. I've never been in this situation before of
having lost five starters. We had nobody on the floor
with any experience. Our most experienced player had blood clots
(02:54):
in our lungs and wasn't able to play this whole season.
Our other most experienced player heard her knee the first
game of the season was out for twelve games. So
we have no experience on the floor. And I was
just thinking the other day, you know how when you're
going through things and the stress of being number one
and being the team to beat, being every game knowing
you're supposed to win, that that really weighs having on
(03:17):
your shoulders. And I think I said at one point,
wouldn't it be great to be the underdog again? And
my husband said, be careful what you wish for. And
here we are after a blowout loss to North Carolina
State coach felt the weather this season close in and
(03:38):
a post game conference she did something out of character.
So the season is progressing and then the teams it
looks like it's starting to go into quicksand here and
you have a game where you lose by thirty four points?
What is going on in your mind? And a lot
(03:59):
of people may have seen the video where the question
comes to you and it really stops you and brings
out an emotional side of you. How difficult has this
been for you? Okay, maybe you have an answer between
Thursday and today and it's altho like this happens. I
(04:28):
just I gotta do better. I feel like I can
fix it, but I didn't. I'm gonna keep trying and
I'm gonna find an answer and I'm gonna fix it. Sorry.
(04:53):
I think it was probably a couple of months of
frustration piling piling over. And while you were taking that
knife in my heart about the thirty or four point loss,
you didn't mention it was at home, you know. I
think probably worse loss in the program. I'm bleeding over here,
and uh, I knew it was gonna be a tough game, obviously,
(05:15):
but but my big message to the team compete for
forty minutes. That's all I want, you know. I thought
maybe maybe they're feeling the weight of my expectations. Maybe
they think, God, we're not We're not doing this right
because we're not winning. And so I said, you know what,
I just wanted to play hard for forty minutes and
see what happens. And my god, what happened. A massacre.
(05:35):
It was one of the hardest things to sit through.
We were hoping that the clock operator would forget to
stop the clock and you know, just get the game
over with. Because our fans have been so instrumental in
our success. They help us in recruiting, because kids come
to games, they go, Wow, I want to I want
to play in front of this crowd, and to disappoint
them to to come out and not bring our best game. Um,
(05:57):
I just really I wanted to get to the microphone
and apologize. You know, thanks for watching this. So I
appreciate it, but we got to do better, all right,
Nick got Nick, did you have to allow yourself to
(06:18):
be vulnerable or we just caught it in the moment? Well,
this year I've felt like I could burst into tears
at any moment. You know. It's been that kind of
season where the frustration, you know, continues to pile up.
And so I think that trying to get my emotions
under controls is important. I also, I mean, I have
a passion for it. I'm competitive and I want to win,
(06:41):
and I have a really hard time with losing. I'm
not I'm not a really great sport when I lose either.
And so I think when you give everything you have
to something and it doesn't pan out, you're gonna be emotional.
What happened the next practice. Everybody shows up after that.
Maybe they saw the video, maybe they didn't, but they
(07:02):
had to hear about it, and they had to know
that you were really set at the depths. They came
into that practice and we um I called it somebody
to come and talk to them. Uh, we have a
psychologist on campus, so she she talked to them first,
just kind of about how important your mental game is.
And we kind of washed all over the the emotion
(07:23):
of the game and like we were just concentrated on
and we just lost by forty at home, and so
how do we get our mind set? That's just thing.
You lost by thirty four, but you thought it was forty. Yeah,
it could have been fifty. It was it was a lot. Okay,
that was enough. It's kind of like the stages of grief,
and I kept saying to her, I just want to
get too mad, that's all. I just I want to
(07:44):
be angry. I don't want to be emotional. I don't
want it to be all this frustration and all this.
I just want to be like, no, we're better than this,
and I'm going to fix it. Here's Matt mcgrawis husband.
It's not that she doesn't want to lose a game.
She doesn't want to was a possession. She wants to
run every play the way she envisions that, the way
(08:06):
we did in practice, and if you don't, that's where
the stress comes in because she can't figure out, we
ran that same thing for five days, why are we
doing it differently now. So even in games like last
year where we we had a very high i Q
basketball team with some of the kids out there, it
was the same thing. I mean, she she would never relax.
(08:26):
There was never a point we'd be sitting someplace and
you'd say, does she have a game today? Because she
looks really relaxed. That never occurs. But does she have
that high degree of stress? Yeah, But when basketball ends
and she's working in the garden, she has that same
degree of stress. And she look it's like, how does
this look? That looks okay, I don't like it. So
(08:46):
I just look at the plants and I just she
just put in there, and I just say, don't get
comfortable because she's gonna move you. In five minutes. The
plants become the offense. Once basketball ends, it's there's there's
no I'd like to tell you this magic with it.
She's the magic. Okay, she makes it happen. Everybody buys
into what she does, and I think they buy in
because she really cares about them and they understand that.
(09:12):
Here's what I was wondering when I watched the video.
This is amazing that you were able to make yourself
so vulnerable. And I'm starting to think what is going
on in the mind of the players on your team.
If they were watching that and and here you are,
probably gone into their homes talk to their parents, Yeah,
(09:33):
I'm going to take care of your kid. You can
depend on me. And now they're seeing you at a
table basically weeping and asking for a tissue. And I thought,
I thought, you know what, there's something very smart about this.
If I'm one of those players, I may not be
(09:53):
thinking about me as a victim. I may be thinking
I got to help the coach. Yeah, I there was
definitely some of that, and I got I got text
messages from parents who I've We've got great parents, and
even one of our recruits parents said it. You know,
I knew Notre Dame was the place for it, but
after watching that press conference, I'm even happier that we
chose to come to Notre Dame. And so there were
(10:15):
so many uplifting comments. I got so many people texted
and called, and I got a call from Roy Williams
the other night just saying like I just won't let
you know You're not the only one going through this
this kind of season. And you know, I got an
email from Brad Stevens you know, hang in there, And
just so many people reached out to say, like we've
all been there at one point or another, but you hadn't.
(10:36):
But yeah, I mean we've had some down moments. We
lost by forty at Louisville two years ago and came
back and won the national championship. That wasn't this kind
of lost this year, you know, because we're we're struggling
to find a win. Not fair. And I got nothing
it's one season starts. How is the last practice before
(11:00):
opening game. I always have loved practice. I would rather
practice than play games. Everybody's time to shine is a practice,
So show me what you got. Game day is probably
the worst day of the year, every single game day.
And I look back over over thousand guys. I know
we're prepared, but I still worry that something's going to
(11:22):
happen that I didn't prepare them for. Gosh, what if
they come out in the box someone What if they
go trying to say, do we work against the traps?
What if they do this? And so my whole day
has spent pretty much catastrophizing what's about to happen in
the game until the ball is actually tipped. That's when
I relax. So in a normal practice day, your mind
(11:45):
is filled with possibilities and they're positive. On game day,
it's possible catastrophe exactly. Now. I see why you like
practice much better. The Fighting Irish lost the n C
Double A Championship last year by one point. The previous
(12:06):
year they wanted. The starting five who brought them there
all went to the w n b A. That's how
good they were. And then their veteran players got injured.
Without those leaders on the court, this year's young team
lost role models who could teach them how to play
as a unit and how to handle depression. How does
(12:31):
an injured player affect practice the next day. It's almost
like a freak accident At times when it happens, we
do a lot of prevention for it, but you just
you just never know your career could be over in
a day. So I think it brings a little perspective
(12:51):
to it. But also losing Mix, she was our leader,
she was our voice, so we got a lot quieter
after she left. But then you look over on the side,
you see her an abbey over there, and you think,
I gotta play a little harder. There's two people on
the sideline that want to be out here and can't,
and I have that opportunity that brings us to abbey.
This is beyond an injury, is a pulmonary embolism. This
(13:15):
this is serious. You know, we set a prayer for her.
We all got together and kind of came together in
that moment. You know, at twenty you have a life
threatening illness and something so unexpected. Um So I think
it really made them think a little bit and appreciate
and not take for granted, at least in that moment
(13:36):
what they had. Coach McGraw's commitment to the process has
helped her turn players into leaders. Neil Ivy is one
of them. She was with coach McGraw for both of
her n C Double A Championship wins, first as a
player and then later as an assistant coach. She is
now one of eleven female assistant coaches in the NBA,
(13:58):
currently coaching for the Memphis Grade. Least Here's she works
so tires lely, and she works so hard, And I
think that adversity and failure can help make you a
stronger person, stronger player. I mean, I'm going through the
same thing here. I went from Notre Dame never losing
to you know, having a twenty two record here. So
(14:18):
I had to learn how to accept failure because that
wasn't something that I was very comfortable with. It wasn't
something that I had gone through. I've lost probably more
right now that I've lost in maybe twenty years. And
so instead of placing so much emphasis on wins and losses,
I'm placing it on how am I getting better? So
always some type of underlying message or lesson going through
(14:39):
failure that you might not get winning all the time.
There's something else that she's learning to something else the
team is learning by going through what they're going through.
They have so many questions about what you've been through
in the last few months. I really like to break
this down because it enables us to see you back
(14:59):
coaching at the a real basic level. I think you
get to the point where you're so consumed with alright,
last last minute of game, here's some plays we're gonna run.
I mean, I'm trying to figure out how to put
us in a position to win. It's all about strategy,
and now there's almost no strategy. I told the reporter
the other day. My strategy hope they miss, hope we
(15:20):
make them that. That's that's what my strategy the most basic.
It's it's completely different and trying to you know, set
those small goals of we remembered to get in the press.
Great job, that's that's a step forward for us. You know,
everybody was in the same defense. That's really good. We
only ever play zone, but occasionally some of them would
(15:42):
drift off in a man to man, so those kind
of little things, you know, there's there's ten seconds left
on the shock clock. Let's get organized into something that
we worked on a practice. I heard you did something,
but I thought it was really unique. You brought in
a couple of military folks and put the team through
(16:04):
some kind of training where they went in a swimming
pool and how to do exercise like put on a hoodie,
get in pairs, and take off your hoodie in the
water and transfer it to your partner. Well, our fencing
team did. Our fencing team is won more national championships,
(16:24):
I think eleven than anybody here. So I wanted to
listen to see what he was doing. But if I
was there, what would I be seeing. Oh, you'd be
nervous because I can't swim, and I know some of
them can't swim. They were hanging onto the edge there
in the deep end, trying to tread water, which you
know they didn't really want to do. This is a
couple of them that were very comfortable in the water,
so they sort of took on the leadership role in
(16:45):
the water. And they're holding each other up there and
they're telling each other, Hey, this is what I did
this time. Here's how I got the sweatshirt off and
we're not good communicators. So that was something that I
thought would help us. And you know, you gotta wait
for everybody. You have a time limit and everybody's got
to get it done in three minutes. And there were
plenty of times when we had to do it over
and over and over again until we all got it
(17:05):
on the same page, got anywhere over. When you have
a young team, you don't know what your leadership is
going to be like. We also have a team that
really gets along great, which to me is the most
(17:27):
important thing the team chemistry. However, when they continually talk
about how much we love each other and how well
we get along, and I always worry because who's going
to be that one that's gonna be able to get
you by the throat and say right now, we need
your head in the game. So this program was designed
(17:47):
to make them accountable, to teach them how to be
accountable not for themselves, but for each other. What is
it about the practice court that enables somebody to really
improve if they're not really getting into games. I'm big
on roles and expectations, and I give them their expect
(18:09):
These are the three things I need from you this
year and I go around the circle, not just so
you know, but so everybody knows. Maybe you're not a
three point shooter. So when you're open and the fans
or your parents are screaming for you to shoot it,
everyone on the team knows. No, that's not her job.
So I think that's important. So the ones that aren't playing,
I say, your jobs to make us better at practice.
(18:30):
Your job is to bring energy. Your job is to
bring encouragement. I want you to be the you know,
the leading charge taker, the leading shot plucker, the leader
of this at practice. Your job is to make us
better at practice. How do people respond to that? You know,
I think a lot of them. Everybody wants to contribute.
Everybody wants to know that they're a part of something
bigger than themselves. Everybody wants to know. Your role is
(18:52):
so important. We could not be here without you. And
we've had a lot of games afterwards where I said,
you know what, if you didn't do that at practice,
we would to on that game. You're the reason that
we won that game. And somebody who didn't get on
you didn't even get in the game. But they were
the other teams, you know, shoot her, and they were
doing a great job at practice of making us find
her in the zone. I never heard of that before.
(19:13):
Somebody can win the game without being on the court. Good, okay,
come on, we can get one on the make too.
We gotta get a box out, catch it, come on,
two hands now? How does this translate? People have roles
(19:34):
in the weight room as well. You know, I let
the weight and strength coaches determine what what their jobs
are going to be. You know, we're looking for leadership,
we're looking for mental toughness. We're trying to build those
kind of things in the weight room. That's what that's
what's really important to me is all about who's going
to take that leadership role. Who's going to hold somebody
accountable when they're nobody's looking. Are they doing as their best?
You know, they lifted as much as they can, Are
(19:55):
they running as hard as they can on every play?
And that that's something that I think needs to to
work a little bit better for women. I think that
we are reluctant sometimes to tell another woman, you know,
you're not doing that right. I think we're we're more
known as something that's going to be encouraging and help
them out. Here's Beth Morgan Cunningham, former player turned assistant
(20:20):
coach at Notre Dame. She's been by coach McGrath side
for the last eight years. Here's been We're trying to
make these kids the best versions of themselves that they
can possibly be, you know, and maximize everything that they
possibly can to get themselves to compete at the highest
level academically, athletically, and then still we have a well
(20:40):
balanced you know, four years here, so I think, you know,
breaking it down for us. You know, we have strength
and conditioning, we have nutritionists, We've got an awesome athletic
trainer who takes care of them. You know, our doctors
are medical staff. Every single thing that these kids are involved,
and you're trying to maximize everything that they can possibly
do by just giving them the best support staff, the
(21:02):
best chance possible to excel and compete and do what
they need to do at the highest level. Michael Samborski
is the director of Olympic Strength and condition at Notre Dame.
Along with Beth and arrest of his staff. Michael knows
that discipline is the key to get back on top.
He works with coach to develop conditioning programs designed to
push each athlete through today's adversity and towards their full potential.
(21:26):
Everybody wants to jump higher, everybody wants to run faster.
You know that. That's that's no secret. Whatever training program
that you're really going to dive into, you've got to
make sure that you're not dabbling into too many different
training programs all at the same time, trying to get
a bunch of different things. Focus on one aspect. If
you want to get faster, get faster, don't try to
get faster, jump higher, be stronger, squad more all at
(21:49):
the same time. That's really hard on no matter who
you are. Talent is incredibly common. We have talent walk
through the door all the time. This plan is incredibly rare.
Very rarely are we going to have an athlete that
walks in here that is at the top of their
talent level and is also incredibly disciplined. So when you
(22:10):
combine those two things, that's when you really get a lead.
What what I really like to see is I like
to see an athlete that performs at a really high level,
and they come in the weight room and they absorb
what I'm telling them, they push themselves to their potential
I tell my athletes all the time, there's a lot
going on in everybody's lives. You're not gonna walk into
a training session and be at your peak every single time.
(22:33):
Nobody ever expects that. It's got to be okay to
fail a little bit in my setting. How do you
put that into somebody two who would normally be encouraging
to be demanding. Yeah, that's really hard. I think that
you can't change your personality, and so that's why we
have more than one captain. We try to have different
(22:55):
personalities so that and you can't be the bad guy
all the time. And I think for me, I used
to have to be the bad guy all the time,
and now I spread it around my staff. I don't
want to be the bad guy today. I'm gonna be
the positive one today. You know, you have introvert you
of extroverts, you have people that are really willing to
stand up and talk. Skylar Diggins was one of the
best captains we ever had. She would grab you by
(23:15):
the jersey and put you in your place immediately, and
then after the game everything would be great because they
know she just wants to win. That that's what that's
all they have to know, and so my question to
the captains is always do you want to win or
do you want to be liked? Becauld you can't have
it both ways, and girls have a really hard time
with not being liked. Can you see selfishness on a
(23:37):
practice court? You know, we've we've been really fortunate, and
I think women in general were very unselfish by nature.
We are great collaborators, were team players. I think that's
probably the one thing I've never really had to worry yet.
And I think the other thing is that when you
have a score like we had a reque okamawally, she
was a tremendous score and she had over a hundred assists,
(23:57):
which is great for a guard that's not a point guard.
And she was somebody that she liked to shoot and
everybody knew. But that's her job. Her job is to score. Yeah,
you know, I think your team, your team chemistry, everything
that happens in the locker room. Um, if you have
a team that's split, there's some jealousy or some kind
(24:21):
of division, you're not going to be successful. And so
in recruiting, we're always looking for unselfish That is number one.
We want people that want to win that don't care
about how many points they have. If you're looking at
the statute immediately after the game to see how many
points do I have? What, you know, what does my
stat line look like? That's not the kind of player
I want. I want the one who's saying how many
assists did I have? And how many rebounds did I have?
(24:41):
So there's so many things that I look for, you know,
that have nothing really to do with the actual skill
of the game. Because we want leaders, and we want
people that that the girls are gonna respect, and the
unselfish part I think is really big too. But you
have to be competitive, and kids today I don't think
are as competitive, and so we're trying to find those
ones that really want to win, that just hate losing.
(25:04):
Because I don't want to be the only one in
the locker room crying after a loss. I want to
I want to look around and see everybody feels the
same way. And do you ever push people past where
somebody else's like comparing them to other players? You know,
I really try not to do that, But I look
nationally and I'll say, you know, I'm looking at the
(25:25):
All Americans and here's some of their stats. Are you interested.
Do you want to look at see what their fielding percentages? Yeah,
I mean I'm not trying to compare it. You did them.
I mean, you know, I think you're better, But I'm
just talking about the voters out there. You know, good players,
you know, they want that competitiveness, They want to be
compared to the best in the country, and so you know,
(25:48):
maybe they have a good game. And Killen McBride's a
great example of this. She was a player who wasn't
probably a top recruit coming in. She was ranked maybe
the top forty, but not like a top ten player,
and I thought she had a lot of potentials. So
she would have a game and maybe she'd have eighteen
or twenty points, and I would look at the statute
and say, you had two rebounds. You had two rebounds.
(26:10):
Look at the best players in the country. You can't
be one dimensional. You have to be able to do
more than one thing. So I think not letting people
be content with where they are and showing them that
you can be so much more than that. Kayla was
one who when she graduated said, you pushed me further
than I thought I could go. I didn't think I
could do it, and you kept pushing me to doing
(26:31):
and so I know in a way they know I
have confidence in them and they know I believe in them,
and I think that helps. But I think never letting
them be content with where they are. Good. Nice job,
Chris San you got one. Here's coming to you. Here
(26:52):
you go. That's better. Good. You got one. You're at
the bottom of the league standings now and there's going
to be a tournament. So you got a shot, right,
How do you prepare for this last stretch? If we
continue to get better than we go into the tournament
with a little better seed than what we're at right now.
(27:14):
So that's that's our frost goal. Got to move up
in the standings. And you know, the losses don't change.
If you keep winning, you can even that out. And
I know it's funny because you fail every day. You know,
you fail in something every day, you make bad choices.
There's so many things that you can look back on
and say, why did I do that? You know, I
I after every game, I look at the film and go,
you know, why did I stop her out? Why did
(27:34):
I put her in? Why didn't I press? Why did
I do this or that? So I think you can
fail in small ways, but we're failing in a big
way this year. And that's that's been hard to take.
And so as people have kind of told me, and
some of the messages I'm getting is, you know, people
are still looking at you as a role model, So
how you're handling this, people are watching that, and you
forget about that because you get in your own bubble
(27:55):
and you just you feel like, just we're just so
bad right now. How do we fix this? So when
I'm not fixing it, I feel like I'm letting the
team down, I'm letting the fans down, I'm letting the
school down, I'm letting the university down, the community. I mean,
I'm just I'm taking it so personally, and I've learned
that you can't. You know, you can't take it personally
because it's going to make you stronger. And especially when
(28:17):
we've had success, we know what it looks like, we
know what it feels like. Failure is um is a
mindset of growth that you have to say, here's what
I did wrong. You know, we didn't do work on
the fundamentals enough. I think when you can see a
way out, it makes it a little bit easier. But
if you were ten years in the future looking back
on this year, what would you have like your practice
(28:41):
is to accomplish well. I think the biggest thing is
that we never quit. I think that's the biggest lesson.
I mean, failure is a part of life. You can't
you can't grow as a person if you've never experienced failure.
And these generations, the last two parents have tried to
fix everything for them, and so they've never handled adversity.
They've never had to. I would like to think that
(29:01):
we're teaching them how to handle adversity. We're trying to
build a little bit of mental toughness so that when
they get off into life and and how they're going
to handle things when things go wrong, as they will
and you're going to fail. But failure can build your
confidence because when you come back and you have success,
then you see how hard it was to get there,
(29:21):
what you had to do to get there. Does it
feel do you have any gratitude for this year? You
know I might someday, UM, I would wish this kind
of your own anyone, UM, But you know what it
makes me? It makes me think I don't do enough
for people that are struggling, and when you look at
the you know, I'll get a text from somebody, and
(29:43):
sometimes a complete stranger, I'll get a wonderful note from
and I'll think I gotta do more, you know, get
out of your bubble. Look around. There's people struggling all
around us. In a simple act of kindness. I mean,
just a word of encouragement means so much and it
goes so far. And I look at all these coaches.
Is that struggle, you know, with a losing record, And yeah,
I never thought much about it before, but now I
(30:05):
understand the struggle, how hard it is, and how how
easy it is to just text someone, call someone, send
a note, even on the street, when you see people
just just being kind to each other. There's so many
things that are so much more important than this little
game of basketball. Somehow, I think you're going to come
through this, Okay. Well, it's nice to look up at
(30:30):
those final four banners when you're six and twelve or
whatever we are. You've got seven brands seven. This has
been the only way is through a podcast collaboration between
(30:50):
under Armour and Heart Radio. Join us next time to
hear more stories of athletic performance and what it means
to push yourself through seven
Welcome to the Only Ways through a podcast collaboration between
under Armour and I Heart Radio episode for Muffint McGraw,
Come Hell or high Water. Leaders are revered for the
trails they blaze, the respect they come in, and when
the crisis presents itself, they're giving a choice endure and
(00:23):
a dad or run. Because when dalt sinks in and
failure is inevitable, a true leader hunkers down and bears
the brun of the fight on their shoulders. Throughout her
career and Notre Dame Hall of Fame women's basketball coach
Muffet McGraw has inspired her players to accept no substitute
for victory. She's led her team the non final fours,
(00:45):
seven championship games, and two national championships over a thirty
five season career. Only one came with a losing record.
With the resume like that, there's no wonder she's looked
at it is one of the greatest of all time.
But this story is different. This story is about battling adversity.
(01:05):
It's about rising through failure. Because this season, the Fighting
Irish have their backs against the wall. At the time
of this interview, their record was six and twelve, and
over the course of the last few weeks things having improved.
With morale low and their confidence shaking, it'd be easy
to throw in the towel and focus on next season,
(01:27):
because it's hard to look at a losing record and
keep battling. This is something coach McGraw takes the heart.
She understands that if she wants her players to leave
their team to victory, she has to lead by example,
leadership and accountability. They're not about somebody, nobody, anybody. They
(01:48):
are about a person. Okay. It's not who's got long,
who's going short, who's up next? It's this happy you're next,
you got short, Murdoch, get down the floor, you're long.
That's what leadership is. We're just standing around waiting for
somebody the rise to the occasion. It's not happening. Okay,
that's your job. That's your job. You gotta get everybody
organized when you're sitting back there, get them ready. Who's
(02:08):
coming up next? Okay? Alright, hard work. Cal Fussman sat
down with coach McGraw and Notre Dame to hear more. Okay,
it's a very interesting dynamic because you've had tremendous success
over the years. I think in the last twelve years,
you're in the top every year, and then this year,
(02:34):
this season comes about very different. Has this season been
practiced for you? I prefer this success to what we're
having now. I've never been in this situation before of
having lost five starters. We had nobody on the floor
with any experience. Our most experienced player had blood clots
(02:54):
in our lungs and wasn't able to play this whole season.
Our other most experienced player heard her knee the first
game of the season was out for twelve games. So
we have no experience on the floor. And I was
just thinking the other day, you know how when you're
going through things and the stress of being number one
and being the team to beat, being every game knowing
you're supposed to win, that that really weighs having on
(03:17):
your shoulders. And I think I said at one point,
wouldn't it be great to be the underdog again? And
my husband said, be careful what you wish for. And
here we are after a blowout loss to North Carolina
State coach felt the weather this season close in and
(03:38):
a post game conference she did something out of character.
So the season is progressing and then the teams it
looks like it's starting to go into quicksand here and
you have a game where you lose by thirty four points?
What is going on in your mind? And a lot
(03:59):
of people may have seen the video where the question
comes to you and it really stops you and brings
out an emotional side of you. How difficult has this
been for you? Okay, maybe you have an answer between
Thursday and today and it's altho like this happens. I
(04:28):
just I gotta do better. I feel like I can
fix it, but I didn't. I'm gonna keep trying and
I'm gonna find an answer and I'm gonna fix it. Sorry.
(04:53):
I think it was probably a couple of months of
frustration piling piling over. And while you were taking that
knife in my heart about the thirty or four point loss,
you didn't mention it was at home, you know. I
think probably worse loss in the program. I'm bleeding over here,
and uh, I knew it was gonna be a tough game, obviously,
(05:15):
but but my big message to the team compete for
forty minutes. That's all I want, you know. I thought
maybe maybe they're feeling the weight of my expectations. Maybe
they think, God, we're not We're not doing this right
because we're not winning. And so I said, you know what,
I just wanted to play hard for forty minutes and
see what happens. And my god, what happened. A massacre.
(05:35):
It was one of the hardest things to sit through.
We were hoping that the clock operator would forget to
stop the clock and you know, just get the game
over with. Because our fans have been so instrumental in
our success. They help us in recruiting, because kids come
to games, they go, Wow, I want to I want
to play in front of this crowd, and to disappoint
them to to come out and not bring our best game. Um,
(05:57):
I just really I wanted to get to the microphone
and apologize. You know, thanks for watching this. So I
appreciate it, but we got to do better, all right,
Nick got Nick, did you have to allow yourself to
(06:18):
be vulnerable or we just caught it in the moment? Well,
this year I've felt like I could burst into tears
at any moment. You know. It's been that kind of
season where the frustration, you know, continues to pile up.
And so I think that trying to get my emotions
under controls is important. I also, I mean, I have
a passion for it. I'm competitive and I want to win,
(06:41):
and I have a really hard time with losing. I'm
not I'm not a really great sport when I lose either.
And so I think when you give everything you have
to something and it doesn't pan out, you're gonna be emotional.
What happened the next practice. Everybody shows up after that.
Maybe they saw the video, maybe they didn't, but they
(07:02):
had to hear about it, and they had to know
that you were really set at the depths. They came
into that practice and we um I called it somebody
to come and talk to them. Uh, we have a
psychologist on campus, so she she talked to them first,
just kind of about how important your mental game is.
And we kind of washed all over the the emotion
(07:23):
of the game and like we were just concentrated on
and we just lost by forty at home, and so
how do we get our mind set? That's just thing.
You lost by thirty four, but you thought it was forty. Yeah,
it could have been fifty. It was it was a lot. Okay,
that was enough. It's kind of like the stages of grief,
and I kept saying to her, I just want to
get too mad, that's all. I just I want to
(07:44):
be angry. I don't want to be emotional. I don't
want it to be all this frustration and all this.
I just want to be like, no, we're better than this,
and I'm going to fix it. Here's Matt mcgrawis husband.
It's not that she doesn't want to lose a game.
She doesn't want to was a possession. She wants to
run every play the way she envisions that, the way
(08:06):
we did in practice, and if you don't, that's where
the stress comes in because she can't figure out, we
ran that same thing for five days, why are we
doing it differently now. So even in games like last
year where we we had a very high i Q
basketball team with some of the kids out there, it
was the same thing. I mean, she she would never relax.
(08:26):
There was never a point we'd be sitting someplace and
you'd say, does she have a game today? Because she
looks really relaxed. That never occurs. But does she have
that high degree of stress? Yeah, But when basketball ends
and she's working in the garden, she has that same
degree of stress. And she look it's like, how does
this look? That looks okay, I don't like it. So
(08:46):
I just look at the plants and I just she
just put in there, and I just say, don't get
comfortable because she's gonna move you. In five minutes. The
plants become the offense. Once basketball ends, it's there's there's
no I'd like to tell you this magic with it.
She's the magic. Okay, she makes it happen. Everybody buys
into what she does, and I think they buy in
because she really cares about them and they understand that.
(09:12):
Here's what I was wondering when I watched the video.
This is amazing that you were able to make yourself
so vulnerable. And I'm starting to think what is going
on in the mind of the players on your team.
If they were watching that and and here you are,
probably gone into their homes talk to their parents, Yeah,
(09:33):
I'm going to take care of your kid. You can
depend on me. And now they're seeing you at a
table basically weeping and asking for a tissue. And I thought,
I thought, you know what, there's something very smart about this.
If I'm one of those players, I may not be
(09:53):
thinking about me as a victim. I may be thinking
I got to help the coach. Yeah, I there was
definitely some of that, and I got I got text
messages from parents who I've We've got great parents, and
even one of our recruits parents said it. You know,
I knew Notre Dame was the place for it, but
after watching that press conference, I'm even happier that we
chose to come to Notre Dame. And so there were
(10:15):
so many uplifting comments. I got so many people texted
and called, and I got a call from Roy Williams
the other night just saying like I just won't let
you know You're not the only one going through this
this kind of season. And you know, I got an
email from Brad Stevens you know, hang in there, And
just so many people reached out to say, like we've
all been there at one point or another, but you hadn't.
(10:36):
But yeah, I mean we've had some down moments. We
lost by forty at Louisville two years ago and came
back and won the national championship. That wasn't this kind
of lost this year, you know, because we're we're struggling
to find a win. Not fair. And I got nothing
it's one season starts. How is the last practice before
(11:00):
opening game. I always have loved practice. I would rather
practice than play games. Everybody's time to shine is a practice,
So show me what you got. Game day is probably
the worst day of the year, every single game day.
And I look back over over thousand guys. I know
we're prepared, but I still worry that something's going to
(11:22):
happen that I didn't prepare them for. Gosh, what if
they come out in the box someone What if they
go trying to say, do we work against the traps?
What if they do this? And so my whole day
has spent pretty much catastrophizing what's about to happen in
the game until the ball is actually tipped. That's when
I relax. So in a normal practice day, your mind
(11:45):
is filled with possibilities and they're positive. On game day,
it's possible catastrophe exactly. Now. I see why you like
practice much better. The Fighting Irish lost the n C
Double A Championship last year by one point. The previous
(12:06):
year they wanted. The starting five who brought them there
all went to the w n b A. That's how
good they were. And then their veteran players got injured.
Without those leaders on the court, this year's young team
lost role models who could teach them how to play
as a unit and how to handle depression. How does
(12:31):
an injured player affect practice the next day. It's almost
like a freak accident At times when it happens, we
do a lot of prevention for it, but you just
you just never know your career could be over in
a day. So I think it brings a little perspective
(12:51):
to it. But also losing Mix, she was our leader,
she was our voice, so we got a lot quieter
after she left. But then you look over on the side,
you see her an abbey over there, and you think,
I gotta play a little harder. There's two people on
the sideline that want to be out here and can't,
and I have that opportunity that brings us to abbey.
This is beyond an injury, is a pulmonary embolism. This
(13:15):
this is serious. You know, we set a prayer for her.
We all got together and kind of came together in
that moment. You know, at twenty you have a life
threatening illness and something so unexpected. Um So I think
it really made them think a little bit and appreciate
and not take for granted, at least in that moment
(13:36):
what they had. Coach McGraw's commitment to the process has
helped her turn players into leaders. Neil Ivy is one
of them. She was with coach McGraw for both of
her n C Double A Championship wins, first as a
player and then later as an assistant coach. She is
now one of eleven female assistant coaches in the NBA,
(13:58):
currently coaching for the Memphis Grade. Least Here's she works
so tires lely, and she works so hard, And I
think that adversity and failure can help make you a
stronger person, stronger player. I mean, I'm going through the
same thing here. I went from Notre Dame never losing
to you know, having a twenty two record here. So
(14:18):
I had to learn how to accept failure because that
wasn't something that I was very comfortable with. It wasn't
something that I had gone through. I've lost probably more
right now that I've lost in maybe twenty years. And
so instead of placing so much emphasis on wins and losses,
I'm placing it on how am I getting better? So
always some type of underlying message or lesson going through
(14:39):
failure that you might not get winning all the time.
There's something else that she's learning to something else the
team is learning by going through what they're going through.
They have so many questions about what you've been through
in the last few months. I really like to break
this down because it enables us to see you back
(14:59):
coaching at the a real basic level. I think you
get to the point where you're so consumed with alright,
last last minute of game, here's some plays we're gonna run.
I mean, I'm trying to figure out how to put
us in a position to win. It's all about strategy,
and now there's almost no strategy. I told the reporter
the other day. My strategy hope they miss, hope we
(15:20):
make them that. That's that's what my strategy the most basic.
It's it's completely different and trying to you know, set
those small goals of we remembered to get in the press.
Great job, that's that's a step forward for us. You know,
everybody was in the same defense. That's really good. We
only ever play zone, but occasionally some of them would
(15:42):
drift off in a man to man, so those kind
of little things, you know, there's there's ten seconds left
on the shock clock. Let's get organized into something that
we worked on a practice. I heard you did something,
but I thought it was really unique. You brought in
a couple of military folks and put the team through
(16:04):
some kind of training where they went in a swimming
pool and how to do exercise like put on a hoodie,
get in pairs, and take off your hoodie in the
water and transfer it to your partner. Well, our fencing
team did. Our fencing team is won more national championships,
(16:24):
I think eleven than anybody here. So I wanted to
listen to see what he was doing. But if I
was there, what would I be seeing. Oh, you'd be
nervous because I can't swim, and I know some of
them can't swim. They were hanging onto the edge there
in the deep end, trying to tread water, which you
know they didn't really want to do. This is a
couple of them that were very comfortable in the water,
so they sort of took on the leadership role in
(16:45):
the water. And they're holding each other up there and
they're telling each other, Hey, this is what I did
this time. Here's how I got the sweatshirt off and
we're not good communicators. So that was something that I
thought would help us. And you know, you gotta wait
for everybody. You have a time limit and everybody's got
to get it done in three minutes. And there were
plenty of times when we had to do it over
and over and over again until we all got it
(17:05):
on the same page, got anywhere over. When you have
a young team, you don't know what your leadership is
going to be like. We also have a team that
really gets along great, which to me is the most
(17:27):
important thing the team chemistry. However, when they continually talk
about how much we love each other and how well
we get along, and I always worry because who's going
to be that one that's gonna be able to get
you by the throat and say right now, we need
your head in the game. So this program was designed
(17:47):
to make them accountable, to teach them how to be
accountable not for themselves, but for each other. What is
it about the practice court that enables somebody to really
improve if they're not really getting into games. I'm big
on roles and expectations, and I give them their expect
(18:09):
These are the three things I need from you this
year and I go around the circle, not just so
you know, but so everybody knows. Maybe you're not a
three point shooter. So when you're open and the fans
or your parents are screaming for you to shoot it,
everyone on the team knows. No, that's not her job.
So I think that's important. So the ones that aren't playing,
I say, your jobs to make us better at practice.
(18:30):
Your job is to bring energy. Your job is to
bring encouragement. I want you to be the you know,
the leading charge taker, the leading shot plucker, the leader
of this at practice. Your job is to make us
better at practice. How do people respond to that? You know,
I think a lot of them. Everybody wants to contribute.
Everybody wants to know that they're a part of something
bigger than themselves. Everybody wants to know. Your role is
(18:52):
so important. We could not be here without you. And
we've had a lot of games afterwards where I said,
you know what, if you didn't do that at practice,
we would to on that game. You're the reason that
we won that game. And somebody who didn't get on
you didn't even get in the game. But they were
the other teams, you know, shoot her, and they were
doing a great job at practice of making us find
her in the zone. I never heard of that before.
(19:13):
Somebody can win the game without being on the court. Good, okay,
come on, we can get one on the make too.
We gotta get a box out, catch it, come on,
two hands now? How does this translate? People have roles
(19:34):
in the weight room as well. You know, I let
the weight and strength coaches determine what what their jobs
are going to be. You know, we're looking for leadership,
we're looking for mental toughness. We're trying to build those
kind of things in the weight room. That's what that's
what's really important to me is all about who's going
to take that leadership role. Who's going to hold somebody
accountable when they're nobody's looking. Are they doing as their best?
You know, they lifted as much as they can, Are
(19:55):
they running as hard as they can on every play?
And that that's something that I think needs to to
work a little bit better for women. I think that
we are reluctant sometimes to tell another woman, you know,
you're not doing that right. I think we're we're more
known as something that's going to be encouraging and help
them out. Here's Beth Morgan Cunningham, former player turned assistant
(20:20):
coach at Notre Dame. She's been by coach McGrath side
for the last eight years. Here's been We're trying to
make these kids the best versions of themselves that they
can possibly be, you know, and maximize everything that they
possibly can to get themselves to compete at the highest
level academically, athletically, and then still we have a well
(20:40):
balanced you know, four years here, so I think, you know,
breaking it down for us. You know, we have strength
and conditioning, we have nutritionists, We've got an awesome athletic
trainer who takes care of them. You know, our doctors
are medical staff. Every single thing that these kids are involved,
and you're trying to maximize everything that they can possibly
do by just giving them the best support staff, the
(21:02):
best chance possible to excel and compete and do what
they need to do at the highest level. Michael Samborski
is the director of Olympic Strength and condition at Notre Dame.
Along with Beth and arrest of his staff. Michael knows
that discipline is the key to get back on top.
He works with coach to develop conditioning programs designed to
push each athlete through today's adversity and towards their full potential.
(21:26):
Everybody wants to jump higher, everybody wants to run faster.
You know that. That's that's no secret. Whatever training program
that you're really going to dive into, you've got to
make sure that you're not dabbling into too many different
training programs all at the same time, trying to get
a bunch of different things. Focus on one aspect. If
you want to get faster, get faster, don't try to
get faster, jump higher, be stronger, squad more all at
(21:49):
the same time. That's really hard on no matter who
you are. Talent is incredibly common. We have talent walk
through the door all the time. This plan is incredibly rare.
Very rarely are we going to have an athlete that
walks in here that is at the top of their
talent level and is also incredibly disciplined. So when you
(22:10):
combine those two things, that's when you really get a lead.
What what I really like to see is I like
to see an athlete that performs at a really high level,
and they come in the weight room and they absorb
what I'm telling them, they push themselves to their potential
I tell my athletes all the time, there's a lot
going on in everybody's lives. You're not gonna walk into
a training session and be at your peak every single time.
(22:33):
Nobody ever expects that. It's got to be okay to
fail a little bit in my setting. How do you
put that into somebody two who would normally be encouraging
to be demanding. Yeah, that's really hard. I think that
you can't change your personality, and so that's why we
have more than one captain. We try to have different
(22:55):
personalities so that and you can't be the bad guy
all the time. And I think for me, I used
to have to be the bad guy all the time,
and now I spread it around my staff. I don't
want to be the bad guy today. I'm gonna be
the positive one today. You know, you have introvert you
of extroverts, you have people that are really willing to
stand up and talk. Skylar Diggins was one of the
best captains we ever had. She would grab you by
(23:15):
the jersey and put you in your place immediately, and
then after the game everything would be great because they
know she just wants to win. That that's what that's
all they have to know, and so my question to
the captains is always do you want to win or
do you want to be liked? Becauld you can't have
it both ways, and girls have a really hard time
with not being liked. Can you see selfishness on a
(23:37):
practice court? You know, we've we've been really fortunate, and
I think women in general were very unselfish by nature.
We are great collaborators, were team players. I think that's
probably the one thing I've never really had to worry yet.
And I think the other thing is that when you
have a score like we had a reque okamawally, she
was a tremendous score and she had over a hundred assists,
(23:57):
which is great for a guard that's not a point guard.
And she was somebody that she liked to shoot and
everybody knew. But that's her job. Her job is to score. Yeah,
you know, I think your team, your team chemistry, everything
that happens in the locker room. Um, if you have
a team that's split, there's some jealousy or some kind
(24:21):
of division, you're not going to be successful. And so
in recruiting, we're always looking for unselfish That is number one.
We want people that want to win that don't care
about how many points they have. If you're looking at
the statute immediately after the game to see how many
points do I have? What, you know, what does my
stat line look like? That's not the kind of player
I want. I want the one who's saying how many
assists did I have? And how many rebounds did I have?
(24:41):
So there's so many things that I look for, you know,
that have nothing really to do with the actual skill
of the game. Because we want leaders, and we want
people that that the girls are gonna respect, and the
unselfish part I think is really big too. But you
have to be competitive, and kids today I don't think
are as competitive, and so we're trying to find those
ones that really want to win, that just hate losing.
(25:04):
Because I don't want to be the only one in
the locker room crying after a loss. I want to
I want to look around and see everybody feels the
same way. And do you ever push people past where
somebody else's like comparing them to other players? You know,
I really try not to do that, But I look
nationally and I'll say, you know, I'm looking at the
(25:25):
All Americans and here's some of their stats. Are you interested.
Do you want to look at see what their fielding percentages? Yeah,
I mean I'm not trying to compare it. You did them.
I mean, you know, I think you're better, But I'm
just talking about the voters out there. You know, good players,
you know, they want that competitiveness, They want to be
compared to the best in the country, and so you know,
(25:48):
maybe they have a good game. And Killen McBride's a
great example of this. She was a player who wasn't
probably a top recruit coming in. She was ranked maybe
the top forty, but not like a top ten player,
and I thought she had a lot of potentials. So
she would have a game and maybe she'd have eighteen
or twenty points, and I would look at the statute
and say, you had two rebounds. You had two rebounds.
(26:10):
Look at the best players in the country. You can't
be one dimensional. You have to be able to do
more than one thing. So I think not letting people
be content with where they are and showing them that
you can be so much more than that. Kayla was
one who when she graduated said, you pushed me further
than I thought I could go. I didn't think I
could do it, and you kept pushing me to doing
(26:31):
and so I know in a way they know I
have confidence in them and they know I believe in them,
and I think that helps. But I think never letting
them be content with where they are. Good. Nice job,
Chris San you got one. Here's coming to you. Here
(26:52):
you go. That's better. Good. You got one. You're at
the bottom of the league standings now and there's going
to be a tournament. So you got a shot, right,
How do you prepare for this last stretch? If we
continue to get better than we go into the tournament
with a little better seed than what we're at right now.
(27:14):
So that's that's our frost goal. Got to move up
in the standings. And you know, the losses don't change.
If you keep winning, you can even that out. And
I know it's funny because you fail every day. You know,
you fail in something every day, you make bad choices.
There's so many things that you can look back on
and say, why did I do that? You know, I
I after every game, I look at the film and go,
you know, why did I stop her out? Why did
(27:34):
I put her in? Why didn't I press? Why did
I do this or that? So I think you can
fail in small ways, but we're failing in a big
way this year. And that's that's been hard to take.
And so as people have kind of told me, and
some of the messages I'm getting is, you know, people
are still looking at you as a role model, So
how you're handling this, people are watching that, and you
forget about that because you get in your own bubble
(27:55):
and you just you feel like, just we're just so
bad right now. How do we fix this? So when
I'm not fixing it, I feel like I'm letting the
team down, I'm letting the fans down, I'm letting the
school down, I'm letting the university down, the community. I mean,
I'm just I'm taking it so personally, and I've learned
that you can't. You know, you can't take it personally
because it's going to make you stronger. And especially when
(28:17):
we've had success, we know what it looks like, we
know what it feels like. Failure is um is a
mindset of growth that you have to say, here's what
I did wrong. You know, we didn't do work on
the fundamentals enough. I think when you can see a
way out, it makes it a little bit easier. But
if you were ten years in the future looking back
on this year, what would you have like your practice
(28:41):
is to accomplish well. I think the biggest thing is
that we never quit. I think that's the biggest lesson.
I mean, failure is a part of life. You can't
you can't grow as a person if you've never experienced failure.
And these generations, the last two parents have tried to
fix everything for them, and so they've never handled adversity.
They've never had to. I would like to think that
(29:01):
we're teaching them how to handle adversity. We're trying to
build a little bit of mental toughness so that when
they get off into life and and how they're going
to handle things when things go wrong, as they will
and you're going to fail. But failure can build your
confidence because when you come back and you have success,
then you see how hard it was to get there,
(29:21):
what you had to do to get there. Does it
feel do you have any gratitude for this year? You
know I might someday, UM, I would wish this kind
of your own anyone, UM, But you know what it
makes me? It makes me think I don't do enough
for people that are struggling, and when you look at
the you know, I'll get a text from somebody, and
(29:43):
sometimes a complete stranger, I'll get a wonderful note from
and I'll think I gotta do more, you know, get
out of your bubble. Look around. There's people struggling all
around us. In a simple act of kindness. I mean,
just a word of encouragement means so much and it
goes so far. And I look at all these coaches.
Is that struggle, you know, with a losing record, And yeah,
I never thought much about it before, but now I
(30:05):
understand the struggle, how hard it is, and how how
easy it is to just text someone, call someone, send
a note, even on the street, when you see people
just just being kind to each other. There's so many
things that are so much more important than this little
game of basketball. Somehow, I think you're going to come
through this, Okay. Well, it's nice to look up at
(30:30):
those final four banners when you're six and twelve or
whatever we are. You've got seven brands seven. This has
been the only way is through a podcast collaboration between
(30:50):
under Armour and Heart Radio. Join us next time to
hear more stories of athletic performance and what it means
to push yourself through seven
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