November 8, 2023 • 35 mins
Jay Bilas is a former professional basketball player turned Emmy-nominated basketball analyst for ESPN and practicing attorney focused on commercial litigation in North Carolina. A prep All-American for Los Angeles, CA and four-year starter at Duke, Jay served as an assistant basketball coach under head coach Mike Krzyzewski, helping guide the team to back-to-back National Championships in 1991 and 1992 while he was attending Duke Law School. A New York Times best-selling author and sought-after keynote speaker, Jay joins Nick to discuss why competitiveness is not an excuse for bad behavior, helping your kids find the right college environment, and why developing meaningful relationships that last beyond the playing days makes sports at any level worthwhile.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You tell young people, hey, work hard and put all
your energy into this and all this stuff. I get
all that, but to me, that's baked in the bottom
line in this is this is supposed to be fun.
Everybody gotten into this for fun. When you go to
a game, that shouldn't be an agonizing experience, like you
want your kid to do well because your kid wants
to do well, not because you know it reflects somehow
(00:25):
on you.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
This is the Reform Sports Project, a podcast about restoring
healthy balance and perspective in all areas of sports through
education and advocacy. Hi, this is Nick Bonacor from the
Reform Sports Podcast. My guest today is Jay billis ESPN
basketball analyst, former professional basketball player and coach at Duke University,
and practicing commercial litigation attorney in North Carolina. While in
(00:49):
law school, Jay served as an assistant coach at Duke
under Mike Rzewski, helping guide the team to back to
back national championships in nineteen ninety one and nineteen ninety two.
In nineteen ninety five, Billis joined and has since become
one of the most popular college basketball analysts, a New
York Times bestselling author, and sought after keynote speaker, Jay
and I discussed why competitiveness is not an excuse for
(01:10):
bad behavior, helping your kids find the right college environment,
and why developing meaningful relationships make sports at any level worthwhile.
I got another awesome guest. This dude is an absolute stud.
We're coming up to his time a year college hoops.
Really really excited and of course being born and raised
in Connecticut, being a diehard Yukonusky fan my whole life.
(01:32):
It's an extra special year going to the men's season,
in particular coming off a national title. But the man,
the myth of legend. I'm pumped to have him, Jay
Billis Jay, thanks so much for hopping on man.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Be great to be with you. Thanks for having me, Yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
And first of all, I want to give a shout
out to Allen Stein Junior for hooking us up. Allen's
come on the show. He's a great dude, does amazing
work and I appreciate him. How did you and Allen connect?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Over the years? We met working Nike Skills Academies. So
Alan and I work together for I don't know how
many years now, maybe twenty, and and you know he
started with us as a you know, exercise physiologist and
working with players, and I knew he was at Damatha uh.
(02:16):
And then you know, he and I started a basketball
camp together. It's got my name on it, but it's
a collaborative effort, and so we've worked together forever. I
love Alan. I think he's the best dude.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I love it, And I'm glad that you that you
went there with the camp because j billis camps and
obviously I had no idea that you and Alan were,
you know, partners in the deal. But you know, one
thing I noticed about your camp, at least on your website.
I love for you to dig in there. There's a
specific part, you know, dedicated to parental education. Why is
the parental education such an important piece, so much so
(02:49):
that you actually have like open clinics and seminars at
your skills camp.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, it's multi multi part. You parents that they usually
go through this only and they have a lot of questions.
It's a difficult process, or at least can seem difficult
because you don't know exactly what's coming at you when
your son or daughter becomes a recruited athlete, a recruitible athlete,
(03:13):
or if you want them to be recruited. It seems
like it's a daunting thing, and you know, you need
some information or at least feel like you do. And
we started the parental programming at our basketball camp very
early on. But you know, selfishly, there were a couple
of reasons for it. One, you know, we wanted to
(03:34):
have good programming and answer questions and be able to
give parents what they needed because we had a lot
of people associated with our camp that knew the process
and they were getting all these questions anyway, so why
not put it together for the parents in a digestible
way that they could really use and then they could
all ask questions and that might prompt further discussion having
(03:57):
everyone together. And honestly and frankly, one of the reasons
we did it was, you know, I didn't go to
a lot of camps when I was a kid, but
I did go to a couple when I was in
high school, and they were these you know, recruiting camps
like five Star. Went to thing called sports World Superstar
Camp on the West Coast where there were you know,
it was nothing but college basketball coaches and all that stuff,
and you know, parents dropped you off. And my parents
(04:21):
didn't stay and watch, and now the parents, not all
of them, but the parents stay and watch, and so
our facilities we have to have places where they can
stay and watch. And the truth is, one of the
reasons we started that was to get the parents away
from the players a little bit and so they could
have some time to just play without being watched every
(04:42):
five seconds. And that's not a negative on parents, because
I think they're invested and you know, they enjoy watching
their kids play. To me, that's a positive. But it's
not a positive all the time. I mean, there are
times when it's good for the players to just be
on their own. They don't have to look over their shoulder,
things like that. We have rules at the camp where
(05:03):
no cheering and you know, no comments to official stuff
like that. The parents are all great about it because
it's not a basketball game. It's a camp, so it's
a little bit different.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So where do you think when you say it's great,
you know in many ways, but at times it can
you know, have an adverse effect. When do you think
over involvement or you know, helicopter parent type thing, When
does that become something where it's a negative or can
you give any specific instances where you're like, dude, this
is a little bit overboard.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I think it's kind of a know it when you
see a thing. And look, every child is different and
every parental relationship is different, so there's no set rules
to this. But I think with anything else in parent
child relationships, where if your kid is worried about you
(05:52):
when they're playing, I mean, this is supposed to be fun.
If they make a mistake and all of a sudden
they're looking up in the stands to see your reaction,
it's great that they know that you're there. I mean,
that's a nice thing. And I can only speak for me.
When I was a player, one of the things I
appreciated about my dad especially was that I didn't get
a lot of feedback from my dad on my play.
(06:15):
My parents cared about did I behave myself and I
did I conduct myself appropriately? Stuff like that. You know,
that was the parental stuff that they were into. How
I played was up to me, and feedback to me
as a player was up to my coaches, and for
the most part they stayed out of that. I mean
they would say good game, and hey, you really played
(06:36):
well and all that stuff. But my dad really wanted
to hear about, Hey, what was said in the locker
room or what was said in the huddle. He liked
stories like that, but he pretty much stayed out of that.
And he was my dad, not my coach. And for me,
when my son was playing au basketball or high school
ball growing up or you know, I didn't tell him
what to do. That wasn't my place. If he came
(06:58):
to me and had had a question, I'd answer it,
but that was his thing, not my thing. And you know,
I was there to support him, not coach him or
you know, be constant feedback. I didn't want there to
be any pressure there because if he didn't want to
play anymore, if he wanted to, you know, play baseball
or soccer or something like that, fine, I was. I
(07:21):
was there to support him, not have him do what
I felt he should do. And so it's it's sort
of walking that line of knowing your kid and and
what's right for him. It's okay to emphasize things, and
but you know I was I probably had the same
experience as most others. You know, you think you know
a little bit about basketball or something, and my son
(07:44):
would come to my camp and that was the only
time I felt like, well, I get to tell him
what I think is because I would do that with
any player at my camp. But it was always better
when somebody else told it to him. If I said something,
it didn't resonate as much as when somebody else said it.
And I remember when he went to college. You know,
(08:05):
I had told him in high school he had said something,
and I said, well, you know it wouldn't wouldn't hurt
you get a little stronger, you know, be a little
bit more physical out there, and you don't need to
go into the weight room. I mean, you do a
hundred push ups in the morning, a hundred night, do
some of these things to get a little bit stronger,
because you know, strength on the court is a good thing.
And after his freshman year at Wake Forest, he played
(08:26):
at wake Forest, he came back and he says, you know, Dad,
I really need to get stronger. And I was like, well,
I wonder where I heard that before. But it doesn't
you know, coming from a parent, it doesn't always resonate,
and so sometimes other voices are actually better.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I could speak to that, you know, when I was
when I was an athlete in high school before college,
my Dad couldn't tell me anything. I knew way more
than him, And of course, in hindsight, you're like would
an idiot, and it's it's tough. You're you're Jay Bilish,
have all this experience, but you're still Dad. And that's
a very common theme. I want to ask, like with
regard to the education piece or maybe the content that
you helped share with the parents, like have you had
(09:01):
to really, you know, adjust here, particularly in the last
few years as the portal and NIL has become such
a now it's mainstream or whatever, but it's really been
it seems like a crash course learning experience. Seems like
the NCAA, everyone's still adjusting, you know, a lot of
most people have no idea how to navigate it. So
is that something that you incorporate in the parental education
(09:22):
do you think you need to? And also, if you
can expand a little bit, like how do you feel
like in a pro and conway, the portal and NIL
are impacting college sports, particularly you know, men's women's basketball.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Well, the short answer to your question is, yes, we
do incorporate all of those things. You know, my input
in it is in helping your child pick the right
school is really the environment you're putting your child into.
And I think sometimes you can get a little wrapped
up and you know, who wants your kid the most?
(09:55):
Will your kid play there? What position? How much playing time? Early?
Things like that, Those things don't really matter as much.
What really matters is the right environment. And that's not
just the locker room. It's not just the team. It
goes to the entire school. And you know, I remember
telling my son when he was looking is you know,
(10:16):
one of the things you need to think about is
what would your happiness look like if you stop playing basketball?
What if you get hurt or what if you decide,
you know, in an odd way, what if you decide
you don't want to play anymore? Is that the right place?
Is that the place you'd want to be, because it's
about more than basketball or whatever sport your child is playing.
(10:37):
And I think you do need to look at the
locker room environment. What's the track record of players who
have been there? Do they come back? Because you know,
you are putting your kid into an environment where other
people are going to impact your kid. But you remember,
I try to emphasize this too. You know, even though
(11:00):
you tell young people hey, work hard and put all
your energy into this and all this stuff. I get
all that, but to me, that's baked in the bottom
line in this is this is supposed to be fun.
Everybody got into this for fun. You know. I play
a lot of golf, and I practice and I work
at it, but I do it because it's fun and
I want to get better at it so I can
(11:22):
enjoy it more. It's not that I'm you know, I'm
putting my entire identity into this kind of thing. And
to me, the parents need to keep that in mind.
When you go to a game, it's fun for you
to watch your kid. It's supposed to be fun. It
shouldn't be an agonizing experience, like you want your kid
to do well because your kid wants to do well,
(11:44):
not because you know it reflects somehow on you. And
I think my parents were that way. They enjoyed going
to the games and watching and being there and being
a part of it. Their investment, you know, going back
to the conducting yourself piece and the behavior piece, Like
my parents got to tell me what to do at home,
like they were boss at home, but when I was out,
(12:06):
somebody else was in charge, and they were pretty respectful
of that, and that was that was a line they
walked that I really appreciated. I think I appreciated at
the time, but definitely after and when I became a parent,
I really appreciated it because that was my thing. It
wasn't their thing, and they were supporting me in something
(12:27):
I wanted to do and enjoyed doing. And it wasn't
for them to be telling me what to do or
how to you know, how to rebound or why didn't
I go after that ball? You know, that's not their thing.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
It's interesting, though, because it seems as though and it
always I guess you can always say it has been
for the select few, where in some instances it's a
business decision. I mean, particularly now where you know, you
have kids signing you know, hundreds of thousand or a
million dollars in some very rare instances and il deals,
and I feel like the numbers and such get thrown
(13:00):
around so much of it. People feel as though it's mainstream.
It's like, well, you know, we got to prepare not
only for potentially this university experience or this collegiate experience,
but a way to market yourself and brand. And I
think that that's all great, But how do you separate,
you know, the business from the fund, Like I guess,
how do you compartmentalize that? Particularly if you're a parent
(13:22):
who doesn't happen maybe you didn't play in college, maybe
this whole athletic thing is a whole new experience for you.
And I feel like for some parents that may have
played collegiate sports or even professional you know, they know
how to kind of navigate that and juggle you know,
the fun piece and the workpiece and all of these things.
But how do you separate the business which is now?
I mean, I mean I've talked to enough coaches they
say it's a business. I mean, it is a business.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, I agree with that, But I think we tend
to overcomplicate this a little bit because when you get
right down to it, everything is a business decision. When
you decide to go on vacation, it's a business decision.
What can we afford, what's the best destination for us,
where should we stay, what's the best value? Things like that,
(14:05):
do we drive or do we fly? You know, all
these things if you look at it that way, their
business decisions. And for any student, let alone an athlete,
for any student. It's a business decision, and it comes
down to how much scholarship money, if any can I get?
What is this going to cost? How far from home?
Will my parents be able to come see me? Things
(14:28):
like that, Can I get home? You know? Do I
want to stay closer to home go further away? Does
this place have the area of study? You know? How
are they ranked in that? You know? What are my
job prospects afterwards? If I go to this place for
an initial job. The truth is most of these things
don't matter as much as we tend to believe. I think,
(14:49):
for I know that my kids. I have two kids,
and their senior year in high school. You know, junior
and senior year was not as pleasant as mine was.
You know, when I was coming out of high school
in the early nineteen eighties, you know, the discussion among
my peers was are you going to college? It wasn't
(15:10):
where are you going? And now it seems like there's
so much status attached to where you go. And I
actually did this with my son. I don't know whether
it resonated with them or not, but I showed them
a list of CEOs of American companies and where they
went to college, and I said, show me the pattern.
You know, there's no pattern to this, and it's it's
(15:30):
not that it's not important where you go to school.
It is important, but it's not outcome determinative. You can
go anywhere and do extraordinarily well. You know, it's just
what's the right place for you. And your question earlier
about nil and the portal. Look, if somebody's making you
an offer out of high school, an NIL offer something
(15:52):
like that, that's fine, you can feel that offer. But
you know, if it's just about money, you take the
highest offer. If it's if it's about fit and where
you go to school and where you're going to be happy,
then maybe you're willing to take less money in order
to go to the place you want to go. So
it's a little bit of sliding scale, and that to me,
(16:13):
the portal is of zero consequence when you're making your decision.
You're not making your decision based upon Okay, you know,
where will I go after this? You know that that
doesn't make any sense. The portal is of zero consequence.
When you're deciding where to go, You go somewhere with
the intention of staying, and if circumstances change, that's fine.
But the way I tell people is is, you know,
(16:36):
when you're coming out of high school and you're deciding
where to go to college, you know that's your decision.
Once you make that decision, you should be all in
and all in for at least that first year. At
the end of the year, then you can make a determination.
Am I happy with this? Do I want to stay?
Should I consider leave it? At the end of the year,
(16:57):
that's fine, And then once you make that decison, then
you need to be all in a gain, you know.
I think those are important distinctions.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
When we come back, Jay and I discuss mental health
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Where we left off, Jay and I were about to
talk about the lessons he learned from Coach k and
what next play means to him. You mentioned the culture.
(18:11):
You know, when you're making the choice of where to
go to school, it's what type of environment is my
child or am I going to be in? And I
think a lot of that has to do with I'm
my oldest son just went to University of North Carolina
at Pembroke Division two school, really good, you know, top
twenty wrestling program, and it was the perfect fit for him.
(18:32):
I mean, he had a relationship that he built with
the coach for years, even when he was in youth.
He'd go there for youth camp and of course went
recruiting time came. You know, the coach got on him
really quick and they had that rapport and we love
the coach and just you could tell the effort, just
a great human being, and I checked all the boxes
for him. When I went to college. I went to
North Carolina wesley And College, a small Division three school
(18:54):
at the time, was a you know, a national powerhouse,
you know, competing for national championships. And at the time
the coach was Mike Fox, who you know, went on
to coach the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill for
twenty two years as a retired you know, retired a
few years ago as a Hall of famers, kind of
one of the best coaches and highly regarded and ever
in college baseball. I had no idea at the time
when I was being recruited by him that that he
(19:15):
was this, you know, going to be a legend. But
I was fortunate to play for this guy, and I
have a relationship to him to this day. I'm forever
thankful for it. You got to play for Mike Krzyzewski,
coach k you know, a legend, right, a legend among legends.
Mount Rushmore type figures in coaching. So parents like often
say or adults say, well, don't go to the coach.
Don't let that be a major factor because coaches leave
(19:37):
programs all the time. I, for one, think that that's
a critical component of the environment, right the coach who's there.
But with that said, with coaches at times, you know,
going to other programs, how important is it for you
or do you think parents should consider that coach because
I think the coach relationship piece of it all is
one of the most key components to success.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Well, I tend to agree with you. I mean, when
I was coming out of high school, I made my
decision based solely upon the coach. And that may not
have been the right thing, it was just the right
thing for me. And when I committed to Duke, I
you know, coach k didn't have the kind of success
that he had later on, and and he was actually
on a little bit of shaky ground at the time,
(20:17):
remember that, and so but but I wanted to play
for him. That made the difference for me. But Duke
was a place I knew I could be happy with
or without basketball. It was just basketball was the most
important thing to me at the time. It doesn't mean
that everything else wasn't important. That was just the most
important thing. And so I think for anybody, you know,
(20:39):
who you play for is important, but it's different for everybody.
You know, every every person may and family may place
a different UH have different priorities. So you know, if
you do go you know, say I went to Duke
because of coach K and after two years he decided
to go coach somewhere else, or he got fired or
(20:59):
whatever decided to leave, then I'd have to make a decision.
But I can't. I didn't feel like making my decision
at the time should be based on speculating out what
could happen. I wanted to be on on what I wanted.
I could always pivot if something did happen, but I
(21:19):
wanted to make the best decision for me at the time.
And so I do think it's important. And it's not
that you don't look at stability or say, hey, you
know this one coach that's recruited me, I like him
the best, but he's only got a year left on
his contract and they haven't renewed him and all that.
You know, those are those are important considerations, but uh,
(21:41):
there's no set rule for it, and that that's the
that's the challenge is you have to you have to
take all these variables into account and make your best decision.
And you know I did that it happens all the time.
It doesn't mean that you can't make a mistake or
circums chances can't change. But you know, if you can play,
(22:04):
you're going to have options. So it's not going to
be that big of a deal. The problem is, or
the challenges I shouldn't say problem, but you know, there
are a lot of parents out there that, you know,
they have a player that really wants it and wants
to be recruited and wants to play at the highest level,
and they're not getting the attention that they maybe feel
that they should be, or they're not getting recruited, and
(22:27):
they think, well, you know, I need to get my
son or daughter seen. And you know, I get these
questions all the time. And I had one parent, this
one sticks out, came up and said, you know, I
need to get my son seen. He hasn't been seen.
And I asked him where do you live and he says, well,
we live in Fairfax, Virginia. And I was like, you've
been seen. Your son's been seen at one he's been
(22:49):
seen here, but he's been seen. You know, if you
were in some the outer reaches of North Dakota, I
could understand. But just because your player hasn't blossomed yet
doesn't mean that he or she's not going to. But
you have to take the circumstances as they are. Perhaps
division two or division three is where you start, and
(23:10):
there are some players that my son was one of,
really good high school player, fringe division one player, very
good Division two player. So his decision was, do I
go division two, where I can play right away and
I'm going to play a lot, or do I go
Division one where I may sit the bench my whole career.
(23:31):
And he decided he wanted to go division one. He
had a wonderful experience. But I told him, I can't
I can't tell you the right answer. You're the one
that's going to have to live with this. And if
being on the floor all the time is important to you,
if that's the most important thing, then you should go
division two. If you want the full experience and the
(23:51):
high level stuff and all that, then go division one
and work your butt off and see what happens. But
you have to prepare yourself for if this doesn't work
out the way you want, are you're still going to
be happy, And he was really happy.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I think that's such a you talked about making the
decision in the present, you know, and taking it. You
can't speculate, you know. You can prepare for the future
the best that you can. But we all get thrown curveballs,
you know, every single day. I'm a father of six.
I mean, God, I'm getting thrown knuckle curves and sliders
and damn everything I can imagine every single day, sometimes
minute by minute. So having a pivot as a parent
(24:25):
is as you know, is just comes with the territory.
And you've interviewed countless amounts of high level college athletes
and professional athletes that have been around some of the
best and competed against some of the best and been
one of the best yourselves. How important is staying present?
How important is being in the moment? Being locked in?
And how do you get locked in for these big moments,
(24:48):
whether it's a big game, a Final four, March madness,
whatever it is, how do you as a competitor and
is this something they should be working on, like staying
present and do you think that helps performance?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Absolutely? To me, it's just sort of priorities in concentration,
and you concentrate on what you're doing at the time.
You know, I remember when I was a high school player,
you know, and you're a kid. You expect this kind
of thing when you're older, that you would have gone
through this. But I had a game one time and
I did not have one of my better games. And afterwards,
(25:20):
my dad said, was something bothering you? And I said, yeah,
you know, I got all this stuff going on, and
I had some tests coming up or all that, and
I was distracted. And that was advice my dad would
give me. He would say, it's okay for you to
throw yourself in one hundred percent to your game because
there's nothing you can do about that test while you're playing.
(25:40):
Worrying about the test while you're playing did you absolutely
no good. You're no better student by worrying about it,
he said. But when the game's over, it doesn't do
you any good to think about the game. After it's over,
move on to the next thing, and then study for
your test and get ready and all that stuff. You know.
His thing was, you know, you prepare when it's time
to prepare, and you perform when it's time to perform.
(26:02):
And even even getting upset after game. If I if
we'd lose a game, and I'd be all fired up,
about losing. He said, what good is that doing you?
He said, you should have been this fired up when
you're playing. He said, being upset after the game didn't
do you, and he good's over and uh and that,
and he was really big on you know, how you
behaved after the game. You know, I think sometimes competitiveness
(26:26):
gets used as an excuse for bad behavior. So you
lose a game and you know you're supposed to shake
hands afterwards and be respectful of your opponent, and somebody
you know, acts inappropriately and says, well, you know we lost.
I'm a competitor. Well the competition's over. You know, the
game was over, so the competition's over. So your competitiveness
(26:49):
doesn't mean anything. After the game. It's time to you know,
be sportsmanlike and accept the results and act appropriately. And
he didn't accept, you know, competitiveness as an excuse behavior.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
That's a great point. I almost feel like the best
competitors know how to turn that switch on and off.
And that's a maturity thing I know I went through
as a as a baseball player. It's like, I don't
have to demonstrate to you how upset I am. You
know what I mean, and make it seem like I
care more than I do. I never haven't really thought
about that in a long time. And I guess from
a mental health piece, this is something I've seen you
on your on your ex or Twitter feed. I know
(27:23):
it's called X Now you talk a lot about you know,
the mental health or you know, we hear that a lot.
You know, the NCAA talking about the importance of mental
healthier coaches and such talk about it. You know, here's
some of the most renowned athletes, Michael Phelps, Simone Biles
and many others, Kevin Love talking about the importance of
mental health and compartmentalizing that. And it's a part of
them working on themselves. How do you, as a as
(27:45):
a parent, or or as you know someone who's around
these athletes, how do you see mental health? And I
guess coaches putting themselves or putting things in place to
help student athletes work on their mental health. And and
and I guess because coming vulnerable enough to talk about
things that maybe twenty five years ago you could potentially
be ostracized for coming out and being vulnerable and showing weakness,
(28:09):
I guess weakness is strength, right, being able to be
vulnerable and show those things. What are ways in which
you're seeing the culture shift to emphasize the positivity and
the strength in being aware of your mental health.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, that's a really important question. I think, you know,
issues for young people of depression, anxiety, things in that
realm are more prevalent than they've ever been, and I
think it's much tougher. I believe anyway, it's much tougher
to be a young person now than it was when
when I was a young person. They have more coming
(28:44):
at them than we did, and more to deal with
with social media, all these things that can be good things,
but they can also be tremendous negatives if they're not
handled the right way. And I look at Maybe this
is overly simplistic, but I kind of look at mental
health of the same way I do with with overall health,
(29:05):
even physical health. That you know, if you're not feeling well,
if you've got some sort of illness, cold, whatever, and
you run down and tired and you don't feel right,
stomach hurts, headache, well, people aren't hesitant to say I
don't feel well. I need I need something here, I
need I need help. You know, I think the stigma
(29:27):
of issues of mental health are largely they've gone away,
but they haven't gone away completely. And I think for
young people, especially when they're dealing with with anything like that,
to be open about it and to seek help is
not a weakness, it's a strength. And I think for parents,
(29:49):
you know, nobody knows their kid better than a parent,
and I think being vigilant and making sure you're staying
on top of you know, is everything okay, because sometimes
you can assume that everything's okay, that your kid's got
it completely together, and then you're you're somehow surprised when
you find out it's not. Their clues and signs and
(30:11):
things where you can you can step in and help,
and uh, I think that's a big part of parenting,
even when they go to college. You know, we had
that experience. I know a lot of parents have, and
you know, stand on top of it as best you
can is important. And reading, you know, reading the te le's,
reading the signs that maybe only you can see, that's
(30:33):
that's vital.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I think there's there's two less things I want to
ask you. I'd be remiss to not say, you know,
you got to play for you know one of the
one of as I mentioned. You know, Coach K just
a legend. Is there a piece of advice that he
gave you when you were playing for me? Even even afterwards,
I'm sure you still have an amazing relationship with them
that has served you throughout life, because I often talk
(30:54):
about how important that coach relationship is, as I mentioned,
and is there something you extracted from playing for that
has served you in life?
Speaker 1 (31:02):
The things that I learned from Coach K and that
I use daily sometimes without even realizing it, they're probably
too numerous to mention. One of the things that he
was really good at and remain so now because it
has been a forty plus year relationship that we've had
and it's evolved over the years. You know, he never
(31:23):
really gave me advice that told me what to do
in decisions that I made, but he was always really
good to help me ask myself the right questions so
that I made an informed, you know, the informed decision.
And usually you make an informed decision, you're going to
make the right decision, at least the right decision for you.
But you know, something that he said all the time
(31:45):
when I was playing was he would constantly say, next
play that whatever, just happened in that play, it's over.
Move on to the next play, positive or negative, whatever
just happened. Quit living in the past. You need to
move on. And that served me pretty well. I say, next,
play myself a lot in daily life.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
And I'll follow up on that. What are things that
you'd recommend parents do as their kids are, you know,
not only going through the recruiting process, but their youth
and amateur sport experience. What should they be looking to
extract aside from the performance piece that'll serve them in life? Like,
how do we as parents teach our kids to extract
these values that we get from sport, from teamwork to
(32:24):
help serve them.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Well, I think there are a couple of things. One,
the relationship piece of participation in anything is the most
important thing that at the end of it. And it's
easy to say when you're pumping up on sixty years old.
You know, I was just at a Hall of Fame
induction for coach k and Johnny Dawkins, one of my
best friends and my teammate from college. And you know,
(32:48):
we weren't sitting around talking about games. You know, was
a relationship thing. We've been friends forever and that's what endures,
and the thing that makes it worthwhile are the people.
And so I think you want to be mindful of
that if you're playing AAU basketball and which is largely
what we're talking about here, the experience is what's the
(33:10):
most valuable. You know, twenty years from now, thirty years
from now, you're not gonna be talking about the second
game you play it on a Saturday in Orlando, you know,
but it's going to be the experiences you had in
the relationships and empathy for your teammates and your coaches,
and the getting to know the parents. That those are
the things that endure and make it worthwhile. And then
(33:32):
the last part, the last thing I'll say on this
is is I think it's important for your kids to
know that no matter what, they're gonna be fine. Whether
they get recruited by the place they've dreamed of or not,
they're gonna be fine. And you know, if you put
all your emotional eggs in that basket, you know there's
(33:53):
nothing but disappointment that follows that, because this stuff, whether
you go exactly where you want it or go somewhere else, uh,
your your dreams will still come true. You just might
not have dreamed it, you know that way, but uh,
you know it may exceed your wildest dreams even though
(34:13):
you you don't wind up where you want it or
what you thought you wanted. This is a pretty you know,
for any kid, this is a this is a really
fun ride if you allow it to be. If you
let other people's expectations or things like that get in
your way, that that's that's when when problems surface.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
J Billis, I can't thank you enough for coming on.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Man.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I love following you love your content. You know, besides
your your x feed, your Twitter feed. Where where can
people find you if they want to? You know, just
just follow everything that you're putting out there.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I think I'm on Instagram, TikTok Uh, there's there's too
much of me out there. But yeah, that J billis
at all those things. You're the man.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I can't thank you enough for coming on.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Bro, appreciate you my pleasure, Dinick, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
That's es Basketball analyst Jbillis. Thanks for listening to the
Reform Sports podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, we would
appreciate it if you took a moment to rate and
review our podcast. As we work to grow our community
of supporters and advocates for more reform sports content. Please
subscribe to our newsletter and blog at Reformsports project dot com.
You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
You tell young people, hey, work hard and put all
your energy into this and all this stuff. I get
all that, but to me, that's baked in the bottom
line in this is this is supposed to be fun.
Everybody gotten into this for fun. When you go to
a game, that shouldn't be an agonizing experience, like you
want your kid to do well because your kid wants
to do well, not because you know it reflects somehow
(00:25):
on you.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
This is the Reform Sports Project, a podcast about restoring
healthy balance and perspective in all areas of sports through
education and advocacy. Hi, this is Nick Bonacor from the
Reform Sports Podcast. My guest today is Jay billis ESPN
basketball analyst, former professional basketball player and coach at Duke University,
and practicing commercial litigation attorney in North Carolina. While in
(00:49):
law school, Jay served as an assistant coach at Duke
under Mike Rzewski, helping guide the team to back to
back national championships in nineteen ninety one and nineteen ninety two.
In nineteen ninety five, Billis joined and has since become
one of the most popular college basketball analysts, a New
York Times bestselling author, and sought after keynote speaker, Jay
and I discussed why competitiveness is not an excuse for
(01:10):
bad behavior, helping your kids find the right college environment,
and why developing meaningful relationships make sports at any level worthwhile.
I got another awesome guest. This dude is an absolute stud.
We're coming up to his time a year college hoops.
Really really excited and of course being born and raised
in Connecticut, being a diehard Yukonusky fan my whole life.
(01:32):
It's an extra special year going to the men's season,
in particular coming off a national title. But the man,
the myth of legend. I'm pumped to have him, Jay
Billis Jay, thanks so much for hopping on man.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Be great to be with you. Thanks for having me, Yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
And first of all, I want to give a shout
out to Allen Stein Junior for hooking us up. Allen's
come on the show. He's a great dude, does amazing
work and I appreciate him. How did you and Allen connect?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Over the years? We met working Nike Skills Academies. So
Alan and I work together for I don't know how
many years now, maybe twenty, and and you know he
started with us as a you know, exercise physiologist and
working with players, and I knew he was at Damatha uh.
(02:16):
And then you know, he and I started a basketball
camp together. It's got my name on it, but it's
a collaborative effort, and so we've worked together forever. I
love Alan. I think he's the best dude.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I love it, And I'm glad that you that you
went there with the camp because j billis camps and
obviously I had no idea that you and Alan were,
you know, partners in the deal. But you know, one
thing I noticed about your camp, at least on your website.
I love for you to dig in there. There's a
specific part, you know, dedicated to parental education. Why is
the parental education such an important piece, so much so
(02:49):
that you actually have like open clinics and seminars at
your skills camp.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, it's multi multi part. You parents that they usually
go through this only and they have a lot of questions.
It's a difficult process, or at least can seem difficult
because you don't know exactly what's coming at you when
your son or daughter becomes a recruited athlete, a recruitible athlete,
(03:13):
or if you want them to be recruited. It seems
like it's a daunting thing, and you know, you need
some information or at least feel like you do. And
we started the parental programming at our basketball camp very
early on. But you know, selfishly, there were a couple
of reasons for it. One, you know, we wanted to
(03:34):
have good programming and answer questions and be able to
give parents what they needed because we had a lot
of people associated with our camp that knew the process
and they were getting all these questions anyway, so why
not put it together for the parents in a digestible
way that they could really use and then they could
all ask questions and that might prompt further discussion having
(03:57):
everyone together. And honestly and frankly, one of the reasons
we did it was, you know, I didn't go to
a lot of camps when I was a kid, but
I did go to a couple when I was in
high school, and they were these you know, recruiting camps
like five Star. Went to thing called sports World Superstar
Camp on the West Coast where there were you know,
it was nothing but college basketball coaches and all that stuff,
and you know, parents dropped you off. And my parents
(04:21):
didn't stay and watch, and now the parents, not all
of them, but the parents stay and watch, and so
our facilities we have to have places where they can
stay and watch. And the truth is, one of the
reasons we started that was to get the parents away
from the players a little bit and so they could
have some time to just play without being watched every
(04:42):
five seconds. And that's not a negative on parents, because
I think they're invested and you know, they enjoy watching
their kids play. To me, that's a positive. But it's
not a positive all the time. I mean, there are
times when it's good for the players to just be
on their own. They don't have to look over their shoulder,
things like that. We have rules at the camp where
(05:03):
no cheering and you know, no comments to official stuff
like that. The parents are all great about it because
it's not a basketball game. It's a camp, so it's
a little bit different.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So where do you think when you say it's great,
you know in many ways, but at times it can
you know, have an adverse effect. When do you think
over involvement or you know, helicopter parent type thing, When
does that become something where it's a negative or can
you give any specific instances where you're like, dude, this
is a little bit overboard.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I think it's kind of a know it when you
see a thing. And look, every child is different and
every parental relationship is different, so there's no set rules
to this. But I think with anything else in parent
child relationships, where if your kid is worried about you
(05:52):
when they're playing, I mean, this is supposed to be fun.
If they make a mistake and all of a sudden
they're looking up in the stands to see your reaction,
it's great that they know that you're there. I mean,
that's a nice thing. And I can only speak for me.
When I was a player, one of the things I
appreciated about my dad especially was that I didn't get
a lot of feedback from my dad on my play.
(06:15):
My parents cared about did I behave myself and I
did I conduct myself appropriately? Stuff like that. You know,
that was the parental stuff that they were into. How
I played was up to me, and feedback to me
as a player was up to my coaches, and for
the most part they stayed out of that. I mean
they would say good game, and hey, you really played
(06:36):
well and all that stuff. But my dad really wanted
to hear about, Hey, what was said in the locker
room or what was said in the huddle. He liked
stories like that, but he pretty much stayed out of that.
And he was my dad, not my coach. And for me,
when my son was playing au basketball or high school
ball growing up or you know, I didn't tell him
what to do. That wasn't my place. If he came
(06:58):
to me and had had a question, I'd answer it,
but that was his thing, not my thing. And you know,
I was there to support him, not coach him or
you know, be constant feedback. I didn't want there to
be any pressure there because if he didn't want to
play anymore, if he wanted to, you know, play baseball
or soccer or something like that, fine, I was. I
(07:21):
was there to support him, not have him do what
I felt he should do. And so it's it's sort
of walking that line of knowing your kid and and
what's right for him. It's okay to emphasize things, and
but you know I was I probably had the same
experience as most others. You know, you think you know
a little bit about basketball or something, and my son
(07:44):
would come to my camp and that was the only
time I felt like, well, I get to tell him
what I think is because I would do that with
any player at my camp. But it was always better
when somebody else told it to him. If I said something,
it didn't resonate as much as when somebody else said it.
And I remember when he went to college. You know,
(08:05):
I had told him in high school he had said something,
and I said, well, you know it wouldn't wouldn't hurt
you get a little stronger, you know, be a little
bit more physical out there, and you don't need to
go into the weight room. I mean, you do a
hundred push ups in the morning, a hundred night, do
some of these things to get a little bit stronger,
because you know, strength on the court is a good thing.
And after his freshman year at Wake Forest, he played
(08:26):
at wake Forest, he came back and he says, you know, Dad,
I really need to get stronger. And I was like, well,
I wonder where I heard that before. But it doesn't
you know, coming from a parent, it doesn't always resonate,
and so sometimes other voices are actually better.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I could speak to that, you know, when I was
when I was an athlete in high school before college,
my Dad couldn't tell me anything. I knew way more
than him, And of course, in hindsight, you're like would
an idiot, and it's it's tough. You're you're Jay Bilish,
have all this experience, but you're still Dad. And that's
a very common theme. I want to ask, like with
regard to the education piece or maybe the content that
you helped share with the parents, like have you had
(09:01):
to really, you know, adjust here, particularly in the last
few years as the portal and NIL has become such
a now it's mainstream or whatever, but it's really been
it seems like a crash course learning experience. Seems like
the NCAA, everyone's still adjusting, you know, a lot of
most people have no idea how to navigate it. So
is that something that you incorporate in the parental education
(09:22):
do you think you need to? And also, if you
can expand a little bit, like how do you feel
like in a pro and conway, the portal and NIL
are impacting college sports, particularly you know, men's women's basketball.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Well, the short answer to your question is, yes, we
do incorporate all of those things. You know, my input
in it is in helping your child pick the right
school is really the environment you're putting your child into.
And I think sometimes you can get a little wrapped
up and you know, who wants your kid the most?
(09:55):
Will your kid play there? What position? How much playing time? Early?
Things like that, Those things don't really matter as much.
What really matters is the right environment. And that's not
just the locker room. It's not just the team. It
goes to the entire school. And you know, I remember
telling my son when he was looking is you know,
(10:16):
one of the things you need to think about is
what would your happiness look like if you stop playing basketball?
What if you get hurt or what if you decide,
you know, in an odd way, what if you decide
you don't want to play anymore? Is that the right place?
Is that the place you'd want to be, because it's
about more than basketball or whatever sport your child is playing.
(10:37):
And I think you do need to look at the
locker room environment. What's the track record of players who
have been there? Do they come back? Because you know,
you are putting your kid into an environment where other
people are going to impact your kid. But you remember,
I try to emphasize this too. You know, even though
(11:00):
you tell young people hey, work hard and put all
your energy into this and all this stuff. I get
all that, but to me, that's baked in the bottom
line in this is this is supposed to be fun.
Everybody got into this for fun. You know. I play
a lot of golf, and I practice and I work
at it, but I do it because it's fun and
I want to get better at it so I can
(11:22):
enjoy it more. It's not that I'm you know, I'm
putting my entire identity into this kind of thing. And
to me, the parents need to keep that in mind.
When you go to a game, it's fun for you
to watch your kid. It's supposed to be fun. It
shouldn't be an agonizing experience, like you want your kid
to do well because your kid wants to do well,
(11:44):
not because you know it reflects somehow on you. And
I think my parents were that way. They enjoyed going
to the games and watching and being there and being
a part of it. Their investment, you know, going back
to the conducting yourself piece and the behavior piece, Like
my parents got to tell me what to do at home,
like they were boss at home, but when I was out,
(12:06):
somebody else was in charge, and they were pretty respectful
of that, and that was that was a line they
walked that I really appreciated. I think I appreciated at
the time, but definitely after and when I became a parent,
I really appreciated it because that was my thing. It
wasn't their thing, and they were supporting me in something
(12:27):
I wanted to do and enjoyed doing. And it wasn't
for them to be telling me what to do or
how to you know, how to rebound or why didn't
I go after that ball? You know, that's not their thing.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
It's interesting, though, because it seems as though and it
always I guess you can always say it has been
for the select few, where in some instances it's a
business decision. I mean, particularly now where you know, you
have kids signing you know, hundreds of thousand or a
million dollars in some very rare instances and il deals,
and I feel like the numbers and such get thrown
(13:00):
around so much of it. People feel as though it's mainstream.
It's like, well, you know, we got to prepare not
only for potentially this university experience or this collegiate experience,
but a way to market yourself and brand. And I
think that that's all great, But how do you separate,
you know, the business from the fund, Like I guess,
how do you compartmentalize that? Particularly if you're a parent
(13:22):
who doesn't happen maybe you didn't play in college, maybe
this whole athletic thing is a whole new experience for you.
And I feel like for some parents that may have
played collegiate sports or even professional you know, they know
how to kind of navigate that and juggle you know,
the fun piece and the workpiece and all of these things.
But how do you separate the business which is now?
I mean, I mean I've talked to enough coaches they
say it's a business. I mean, it is a business.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, I agree with that, But I think we tend
to overcomplicate this a little bit because when you get
right down to it, everything is a business decision. When
you decide to go on vacation, it's a business decision.
What can we afford, what's the best destination for us,
where should we stay, what's the best value? Things like that,
(14:05):
do we drive or do we fly? You know, all
these things if you look at it that way, their
business decisions. And for any student, let alone an athlete,
for any student. It's a business decision, and it comes
down to how much scholarship money, if any can I get?
What is this going to cost? How far from home?
Will my parents be able to come see me? Things
(14:28):
like that, Can I get home? You know? Do I
want to stay closer to home go further away? Does
this place have the area of study? You know? How
are they ranked in that? You know? What are my
job prospects afterwards? If I go to this place for
an initial job. The truth is most of these things
don't matter as much as we tend to believe. I think,
(14:49):
for I know that my kids. I have two kids,
and their senior year in high school. You know, junior
and senior year was not as pleasant as mine was.
You know, when I was coming out of high school
in the early nineteen eighties, you know, the discussion among
my peers was are you going to college? It wasn't
(15:10):
where are you going? And now it seems like there's
so much status attached to where you go. And I
actually did this with my son. I don't know whether
it resonated with them or not, but I showed them
a list of CEOs of American companies and where they
went to college, and I said, show me the pattern.
You know, there's no pattern to this, and it's it's
(15:30):
not that it's not important where you go to school.
It is important, but it's not outcome determinative. You can
go anywhere and do extraordinarily well. You know, it's just
what's the right place for you. And your question earlier
about nil and the portal. Look, if somebody's making you
an offer out of high school, an NIL offer something
(15:52):
like that, that's fine, you can feel that offer. But
you know, if it's just about money, you take the
highest offer. If it's if it's about fit and where
you go to school and where you're going to be happy,
then maybe you're willing to take less money in order
to go to the place you want to go. So
it's a little bit of sliding scale, and that to me,
(16:13):
the portal is of zero consequence when you're making your decision.
You're not making your decision based upon Okay, you know,
where will I go after this? You know that that
doesn't make any sense. The portal is of zero consequence.
When you're deciding where to go, You go somewhere with
the intention of staying, and if circumstances change, that's fine.
But the way I tell people is is, you know,
(16:36):
when you're coming out of high school and you're deciding
where to go to college, you know that's your decision.
Once you make that decision, you should be all in
and all in for at least that first year. At
the end of the year, then you can make a determination.
Am I happy with this? Do I want to stay?
Should I consider leave it? At the end of the year,
(16:57):
that's fine, And then once you make that decison, then
you need to be all in a gain, you know.
I think those are important distinctions.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
When we come back, Jay and I discuss mental health
awareness and the value of learning to stay present before
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Team Snap customers with mid to large size organizations. Welcome back.
Where we left off, Jay and I were about to
talk about the lessons he learned from Coach k and
what next play means to him. You mentioned the culture.
(18:11):
You know, when you're making the choice of where to
go to school, it's what type of environment is my
child or am I going to be in? And I
think a lot of that has to do with I'm
my oldest son just went to University of North Carolina
at Pembroke Division two school, really good, you know, top
twenty wrestling program, and it was the perfect fit for him.
(18:32):
I mean, he had a relationship that he built with
the coach for years, even when he was in youth.
He'd go there for youth camp and of course went
recruiting time came. You know, the coach got on him
really quick and they had that rapport and we love
the coach and just you could tell the effort, just
a great human being, and I checked all the boxes
for him. When I went to college. I went to
North Carolina wesley And College, a small Division three school
(18:54):
at the time, was a you know, a national powerhouse,
you know, competing for national championships. And at the time
the coach was Mike Fox, who you know, went on
to coach the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill for
twenty two years as a retired you know, retired a
few years ago as a Hall of famers, kind of
one of the best coaches and highly regarded and ever
in college baseball. I had no idea at the time
when I was being recruited by him that that he
(19:15):
was this, you know, going to be a legend. But
I was fortunate to play for this guy, and I
have a relationship to him to this day. I'm forever
thankful for it. You got to play for Mike Krzyzewski,
coach k you know, a legend, right, a legend among legends.
Mount Rushmore type figures in coaching. So parents like often
say or adults say, well, don't go to the coach.
Don't let that be a major factor because coaches leave
(19:37):
programs all the time. I, for one, think that that's
a critical component of the environment, right the coach who's there.
But with that said, with coaches at times, you know,
going to other programs, how important is it for you
or do you think parents should consider that coach because
I think the coach relationship piece of it all is
one of the most key components to success.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Well, I tend to agree with you. I mean, when
I was coming out of high school, I made my
decision based solely upon the coach. And that may not
have been the right thing, it was just the right
thing for me. And when I committed to Duke, I
you know, coach k didn't have the kind of success
that he had later on, and and he was actually
on a little bit of shaky ground at the time,
(20:17):
remember that, and so but but I wanted to play
for him. That made the difference for me. But Duke
was a place I knew I could be happy with
or without basketball. It was just basketball was the most
important thing to me at the time. It doesn't mean
that everything else wasn't important. That was just the most
important thing. And so I think for anybody, you know,
(20:39):
who you play for is important, but it's different for everybody.
You know, every every person may and family may place
a different UH have different priorities. So you know, if
you do go you know, say I went to Duke
because of coach K and after two years he decided
to go coach somewhere else, or he got fired or
(20:59):
whatever decided to leave, then I'd have to make a decision.
But I can't. I didn't feel like making my decision
at the time should be based on speculating out what
could happen. I wanted to be on on what I wanted.
I could always pivot if something did happen, but I
(21:19):
wanted to make the best decision for me at the time.
And so I do think it's important. And it's not
that you don't look at stability or say, hey, you
know this one coach that's recruited me, I like him
the best, but he's only got a year left on
his contract and they haven't renewed him and all that.
You know, those are those are important considerations, but uh,
(21:41):
there's no set rule for it, and that that's the
that's the challenge is you have to you have to
take all these variables into account and make your best decision.
And you know I did that it happens all the time.
It doesn't mean that you can't make a mistake or
circums chances can't change. But you know, if you can play,
(22:04):
you're going to have options. So it's not going to
be that big of a deal. The problem is, or
the challenges I shouldn't say problem, but you know, there
are a lot of parents out there that, you know,
they have a player that really wants it and wants
to be recruited and wants to play at the highest level,
and they're not getting the attention that they maybe feel
that they should be, or they're not getting recruited, and
(22:27):
they think, well, you know, I need to get my
son or daughter seen. And you know, I get these
questions all the time. And I had one parent, this
one sticks out, came up and said, you know, I
need to get my son seen. He hasn't been seen.
And I asked him where do you live and he says, well,
we live in Fairfax, Virginia. And I was like, you've
been seen. Your son's been seen at one he's been
(22:49):
seen here, but he's been seen. You know, if you
were in some the outer reaches of North Dakota, I
could understand. But just because your player hasn't blossomed yet
doesn't mean that he or she's not going to. But
you have to take the circumstances as they are. Perhaps
division two or division three is where you start, and
(23:10):
there are some players that my son was one of,
really good high school player, fringe division one player, very
good Division two player. So his decision was, do I
go division two, where I can play right away and
I'm going to play a lot, or do I go
Division one where I may sit the bench my whole career.
(23:31):
And he decided he wanted to go division one. He
had a wonderful experience. But I told him, I can't
I can't tell you the right answer. You're the one
that's going to have to live with this. And if
being on the floor all the time is important to you,
if that's the most important thing, then you should go
division two. If you want the full experience and the
(23:51):
high level stuff and all that, then go division one
and work your butt off and see what happens. But
you have to prepare yourself for if this doesn't work
out the way you want, are you're still going to
be happy, And he was really happy.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I think that's such a you talked about making the
decision in the present, you know, and taking it. You
can't speculate, you know. You can prepare for the future
the best that you can. But we all get thrown curveballs,
you know, every single day. I'm a father of six.
I mean, God, I'm getting thrown knuckle curves and sliders
and damn everything I can imagine every single day, sometimes
minute by minute. So having a pivot as a parent
(24:25):
is as you know, is just comes with the territory.
And you've interviewed countless amounts of high level college athletes
and professional athletes that have been around some of the
best and competed against some of the best and been
one of the best yourselves. How important is staying present?
How important is being in the moment? Being locked in?
And how do you get locked in for these big moments,
(24:48):
whether it's a big game, a Final four, March madness,
whatever it is, how do you as a competitor and
is this something they should be working on, like staying
present and do you think that helps performance?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Absolutely? To me, it's just sort of priorities in concentration,
and you concentrate on what you're doing at the time.
You know, I remember when I was a high school player,
you know, and you're a kid. You expect this kind
of thing when you're older, that you would have gone
through this. But I had a game one time and
I did not have one of my better games. And afterwards,
(25:20):
my dad said, was something bothering you? And I said, yeah,
you know, I got all this stuff going on, and
I had some tests coming up or all that, and
I was distracted. And that was advice my dad would
give me. He would say, it's okay for you to
throw yourself in one hundred percent to your game because
there's nothing you can do about that test while you're playing.
(25:40):
Worrying about the test while you're playing did you absolutely
no good. You're no better student by worrying about it,
he said. But when the game's over, it doesn't do
you any good to think about the game. After it's over,
move on to the next thing, and then study for
your test and get ready and all that stuff. You know.
His thing was, you know, you prepare when it's time
to prepare, and you perform when it's time to perform.
(26:02):
And even even getting upset after game. If I if
we'd lose a game, and I'd be all fired up,
about losing. He said, what good is that doing you?
He said, you should have been this fired up when
you're playing. He said, being upset after the game didn't
do you, and he good's over and uh and that,
and he was really big on you know, how you
behaved after the game. You know, I think sometimes competitiveness
(26:26):
gets used as an excuse for bad behavior. So you
lose a game and you know you're supposed to shake
hands afterwards and be respectful of your opponent, and somebody
you know, acts inappropriately and says, well, you know we lost.
I'm a competitor. Well the competition's over. You know, the
game was over, so the competition's over. So your competitiveness
(26:49):
doesn't mean anything. After the game. It's time to you know,
be sportsmanlike and accept the results and act appropriately. And
he didn't accept, you know, competitiveness as an excuse behavior.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
That's a great point. I almost feel like the best
competitors know how to turn that switch on and off.
And that's a maturity thing I know I went through
as a as a baseball player. It's like, I don't
have to demonstrate to you how upset I am. You
know what I mean, and make it seem like I
care more than I do. I never haven't really thought
about that in a long time. And I guess from
a mental health piece, this is something I've seen you
on your on your ex or Twitter feed. I know
(27:23):
it's called X Now you talk a lot about you know,
the mental health or you know, we hear that a lot.
You know, the NCAA talking about the importance of mental
healthier coaches and such talk about it. You know, here's
some of the most renowned athletes, Michael Phelps, Simone Biles
and many others, Kevin Love talking about the importance of
mental health and compartmentalizing that. And it's a part of
them working on themselves. How do you, as a as
(27:45):
a parent, or or as you know someone who's around
these athletes, how do you see mental health? And I
guess coaches putting themselves or putting things in place to
help student athletes work on their mental health. And and
and I guess because coming vulnerable enough to talk about
things that maybe twenty five years ago you could potentially
be ostracized for coming out and being vulnerable and showing weakness,
(28:09):
I guess weakness is strength, right, being able to be
vulnerable and show those things. What are ways in which
you're seeing the culture shift to emphasize the positivity and
the strength in being aware of your mental health.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, that's a really important question. I think, you know,
issues for young people of depression, anxiety, things in that
realm are more prevalent than they've ever been, and I
think it's much tougher. I believe anyway, it's much tougher
to be a young person now than it was when
when I was a young person. They have more coming
(28:44):
at them than we did, and more to deal with
with social media, all these things that can be good things,
but they can also be tremendous negatives if they're not
handled the right way. And I look at Maybe this
is overly simplistic, but I kind of look at mental
health of the same way I do with with overall health,
(29:05):
even physical health. That you know, if you're not feeling well,
if you've got some sort of illness, cold, whatever, and
you run down and tired and you don't feel right,
stomach hurts, headache, well, people aren't hesitant to say I
don't feel well. I need I need something here, I
need I need help. You know, I think the stigma
(29:27):
of issues of mental health are largely they've gone away,
but they haven't gone away completely. And I think for
young people, especially when they're dealing with with anything like that,
to be open about it and to seek help is
not a weakness, it's a strength. And I think for parents,
(29:49):
you know, nobody knows their kid better than a parent,
and I think being vigilant and making sure you're staying
on top of you know, is everything okay, because sometimes
you can assume that everything's okay, that your kid's got
it completely together, and then you're you're somehow surprised when
you find out it's not. Their clues and signs and
(30:11):
things where you can you can step in and help,
and uh, I think that's a big part of parenting,
even when they go to college. You know, we had
that experience. I know a lot of parents have, and
you know, stand on top of it as best you
can is important. And reading, you know, reading the te le's,
reading the signs that maybe only you can see, that's
(30:33):
that's vital.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I think there's there's two less things I want to
ask you. I'd be remiss to not say, you know,
you got to play for you know one of the
one of as I mentioned. You know, Coach K just
a legend. Is there a piece of advice that he
gave you when you were playing for me? Even even afterwards,
I'm sure you still have an amazing relationship with them
that has served you throughout life, because I often talk
(30:54):
about how important that coach relationship is, as I mentioned,
and is there something you extracted from playing for that
has served you in life?
Speaker 1 (31:02):
The things that I learned from Coach K and that
I use daily sometimes without even realizing it, they're probably
too numerous to mention. One of the things that he
was really good at and remain so now because it
has been a forty plus year relationship that we've had
and it's evolved over the years. You know, he never
(31:23):
really gave me advice that told me what to do
in decisions that I made, but he was always really
good to help me ask myself the right questions so
that I made an informed, you know, the informed decision.
And usually you make an informed decision, you're going to
make the right decision, at least the right decision for you.
But you know, something that he said all the time
(31:45):
when I was playing was he would constantly say, next
play that whatever, just happened in that play, it's over.
Move on to the next play, positive or negative, whatever
just happened. Quit living in the past. You need to
move on. And that served me pretty well. I say, next,
play myself a lot in daily life.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
And I'll follow up on that. What are things that
you'd recommend parents do as their kids are, you know,
not only going through the recruiting process, but their youth
and amateur sport experience. What should they be looking to
extract aside from the performance piece that'll serve them in life? Like,
how do we as parents teach our kids to extract
these values that we get from sport, from teamwork to
(32:24):
help serve them.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Well, I think there are a couple of things. One,
the relationship piece of participation in anything is the most
important thing that at the end of it. And it's
easy to say when you're pumping up on sixty years old.
You know, I was just at a Hall of Fame
induction for coach k and Johnny Dawkins, one of my
best friends and my teammate from college. And you know,
(32:48):
we weren't sitting around talking about games. You know, was
a relationship thing. We've been friends forever and that's what endures,
and the thing that makes it worthwhile are the people.
And so I think you want to be mindful of
that if you're playing AAU basketball and which is largely
what we're talking about here, the experience is what's the
(33:10):
most valuable. You know, twenty years from now, thirty years
from now, you're not gonna be talking about the second
game you play it on a Saturday in Orlando, you know,
but it's going to be the experiences you had in
the relationships and empathy for your teammates and your coaches,
and the getting to know the parents. That those are
the things that endure and make it worthwhile. And then
(33:32):
the last part, the last thing I'll say on this
is is I think it's important for your kids to
know that no matter what, they're gonna be fine. Whether
they get recruited by the place they've dreamed of or not,
they're gonna be fine. And you know, if you put
all your emotional eggs in that basket, you know there's
(33:53):
nothing but disappointment that follows that, because this stuff, whether
you go exactly where you want it or go somewhere else, uh,
your your dreams will still come true. You just might
not have dreamed it, you know that way, but uh,
you know it may exceed your wildest dreams even though
(34:13):
you you don't wind up where you want it or
what you thought you wanted. This is a pretty you know,
for any kid, this is a this is a really
fun ride if you allow it to be. If you
let other people's expectations or things like that get in
your way, that that's that's when when problems surface.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
J Billis, I can't thank you enough for coming on.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Man.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I love following you love your content. You know, besides
your your x feed, your Twitter feed. Where where can
people find you if they want to? You know, just
just follow everything that you're putting out there.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I think I'm on Instagram, TikTok Uh, there's there's too
much of me out there. But yeah, that J billis
at all those things. You're the man.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I can't thank you enough for coming on.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Bro, appreciate you my pleasure, Dinick, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
That's es Basketball analyst Jbillis. Thanks for listening to the
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