In this episode of Move the Sticks, DJ and Bucky are joined by longtime college basketball head coach Tom Crean, who led programs at Marquette, Indiana, and Georgia. The trio explores how the player evaluation process has evolved over the last decade, from what coaches look for to how player development is approached today.
Coach Crean shares insight on the value of building shared adversity early in a team’s journey to help shape identity and culture. He also speaks on the benefits of multi-sport athletes, why we’re seeing a decline in them, and what’s lost when athletes specialize too soon.
The conversation dives into the importance of strength and conditioning, and Crean breaks down the common traits shared by elite athletes he’s coached like Dwyane Wade, Victor Oladipo, and Anthony Edwards.
Plus, Crean offers his perspective on what makes his brother-in-law Jim Harbaugh a special coach, from his unorthodox leadership style to how he brings joy and unity into one of the most physically and mentally grueling sports.
Move the Sticks is a part of the NFL Podcasts Network.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And now move the Sticks with Daniel, Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
What's up, everybody.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Welcome to move the sticks, DJ, Bucky with you.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Buck.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Excited about this one. We've been kind of going down
our personal list of favorite conversations to have and we've
got another one of our favorites today.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
Tom Crean outstanding coach, great leader, and someone who has
really shared a lot of wisdom with us when it
comes to building teams the DNA of great players. So
really excited to kind of revisit those conversations.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Yeah, for those that aren't familiar with coach Crean, you know,
obviously there's the football connection, the obvious football connection. He's
married to Joni Harbaugh, the sister of Jim and John Harbaugh,
so he's in a football family. But Tom was the
head coach at Marquette and basketball where he coached Dwayne Wade.
He was an Indiana with had a very successful run
there from twenty eight to twenty seventeen as he kind
of turned that program around, and then coaching Anthony Edwards
(00:55):
at Georgia from twenty eighteen to twenty two was his
time at Georgia, came across and developed unbelievable player there
inn Anthony Edwards. So he's had a lot of big time,
big time talent that he's helped nurture and develop, and
someone who offers a lot of wisdom in terms of leadership,
creating a culture, things that we definitely obsessive, obsessive of
(01:16):
on our podcast. We're always trying to learn and grow
and he's someone that I think has helped both of
us in those departments. So, without further ado, here's our
conversation with Tom Creen. All right, Buck, he's here. Excited
to have Coach back with us again. Coach, first of all,
tell us give us a life update here. Where are
you and what have you been up to?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Well, the life update is I'm in Lakewood Ranch, Florida,
which is a suburb of Sarasota. We actually moved here
when we left Indiana in seventeen and made this our
permanent home. My son, who was a baseball player at
the time, went to IMG Academy, and we had been
in this area because dick by tal would always have
his Jimmy V Gala and Sarasota and if stay do
(01:57):
you have a party in this out So we ended
up being in this neighborhood area. We live a mile
from him, and we knew even when we went back
to coaching, this would be our permanent home. So it's
been great. And then it's just been a lot of
different media things. ESPN just finished my third year with them,
did some MBS well, a couple of Peacock games for
(02:18):
college basketball, Westwood Won Radio.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I love that I didn't do a lot of games,
but I got all.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
The way to the Sweet sixteen and the lead eight
in Atlanta, and now some Sirius xm NBA Radio Draft previews,
and then I'll be in New York next week for
their coverage of the draft, and then probably even some
Summer league. So keeps me busy. And we have a
daughter in New York, Meghan. I have a son, Riley,
who's in his fourth year now with the Dallas Mavericks.
(02:46):
Just got promoted to head video coordinator and player development there.
My daughter's got her job in New York, and we
got a twenty year old to just finish their freshman
year at Auburn. And my wife, Joni, plays a lot
of tennis.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I learned a lot about tennis.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I hear a lot about tennis, and I really don't
know much about tennis.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
It's great to see her be happy. So it's good.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Good coach, It's so great you talked about all your
media things. In fact, I heard the draft preview show.
I think it was you fran Fascilla breaking out all
the different guys. And I have to ask you when
it comes to that, because evaluation was always a part
of your gig as a coach, but now you're on
the outside looking at players a little differently. What has
changed over the last ten years in terms of evaluating players,
(03:32):
either the types of players that are about to enter
the league or the gaps that you know that you
must feel once that once you get that player in
the league, because he's not going to be a polished
product that maybe he used to be years ago.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Well, one thing that's been good for me too, and
I didn't mention it is spending time being at some
different camps like John Lucas's camps in Houston or Dallas.
And just did a Nike Junior eybl camp for rising
ninth graders. Last week, I did the NBA PA Camp,
which was basically one hundred and forty of the top
rising seniors and juniors and what happens is it's so
(04:06):
great to not only be on the floor with those guys,
but to see how they think right and.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
See their work.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
And what's really changed is this, there's so much ingrained
belief that what they're doing, especially when they get into college,
is the way to do it, and finding people with
truly growth mindsets right where they want to learn, want
to change things, want to get better. You didn't really
think a lot about that ten years ago. Like the
(04:34):
majority of the people, they might be hard headed, they
might be difficult to reach, you might have to spend
extra time, you might have to break down some layers.
But even at my last couple of years at Georgia
and again things were changed and COVID had changed and
the portal and NIL came in my last year, people
are not as willing or open to change. And now
the money has changed it even more immensely where people
(04:57):
feel that the is the right way.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
And I think what.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Happens in coaching is that too many people are accepting
that the evaluation process is more than Ever, how does
it fit your team?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Where are they at in their career.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
You know whether they're a twenty three year old or
whether they're an eighteen year old. And then you didn't
get this with COVID because of the zoom recruiting. Like
my last team at Georgia had only two players on
it that I'd ever recruited in person. Everything else was
of zoom or videos. It was crazy. But now you
get a chance and it's like speed dating with the
portal and you don't really a lot of people aren't
(05:34):
really diving in to does this player want to learn?
It used to be how do they learn? And now
it's do they really want to or think that they
have to? So I think that is big. I think
how you fit into a team. I think you have
to look at the levels of coaching that players have had,
the programs that they've been in, what they've been asked
(05:55):
to do. I think there's way too much made of numbers.
And like there's a guy in the I think he's
going to be the steal of the draft, even if
he goes in the top ten. Is Carter Bryant from Arizona.
And if you looked at his numbers and if you
looked at his usage rate, you wouldn't even have him
in the draft. But because you can look at him
on film. You can see the upside. You can see
the athleticism, you can see the shooting. You can see
(06:17):
that even when he misses the shot eighty to ninety
percent of those misses, or in the cylinder of the rim,
you can look at him and say, this guy is
going to be a really good player. And based on
what you've seen so far, I'm not sure there's enough
of that. But there's way, way, way, way, way too
much being made of numbers, who's recruiting, who, what the
price tag is on somebody, and not nearly enough being
(06:40):
made on do they really want to change and learn,
how do they fit this program? And are they coming
in here as an independent contractor are they coming here
to truly truly help you win.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
I love that coach. I was talking with a Major
League Baseball general manager a couple months back, and we
were talking about the workout process and how because baseball
has become an analytical sport, and he was saying that so
many of these teams are just so numbers based that
they don't place value on workout. Said, for us, it
is a paramount, like we want to be around these
kids not only to see what they can do, but
(07:13):
to see if they can adjust based off the information
that we're giving them when we get our hands on
them in a workout process. Talk to guys in the
NFL position coaches as the combine, we've said, it's become
a buffet, Like I'll do one of these drills. I'm
not going to do that drill. I'm going to do this.
I'm not going to do that that these position coaches
have said. It's never been more important for us to
go work these kids out and be with them one
on one. Have you noticed that in basketball? Like what
(07:35):
type of weight does that carry? To be on the
court one on one with the player, to be instructing
them and watching them go through a workout.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Oh, it's so important.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
And when those rules change that allow you to do that,
especially like with the grad transfers when that was a
thing and things of that nature.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Are people that were seniors.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
The only other way you used to get that is
if they come to your camp unless you were going
to be illegal and work them out somewhere. But then
when they change the rules that you could get with them.
It was immense because now what I always wanted to
do is I wanted to go through the film with
the player. And we had a player at Indiana named
Max bfl. He'd played four years or three years at
(08:14):
Michigan with a red shirt. He shot twenty six percent
from three in his career there. He'd been the sixth
man of the year on his team. Well, he was
a grad transfer. He visited US Indiana along with a
couple other people. We showed his film and we showed
him why I thought he was a twenty six percent
career three point shooter. It was his footwork. It was
catching it off the back foot. It was show there
(08:34):
wasn't squared up and there was no follow through. Well,
we showed the film and I mean we showed all
the misses and his dad was with us, and then
we went on into the court and the way he
approached the workout, the way he approached what we were
trying to show him on in this hour workout, and
the way he invariably started to shoot the ball. And
again you couldn't judge the makes at that point, because
(08:57):
we were trying to show him what we were going
to work with him on was coming off his hand.
You judge his missus. And the kid ended up being
great for us. He was we went to the Sweet sixteen,
we won the Big Ten. He went from being sixth
man of the year on the team at Michigan to
be in sixth man of the year in the Big Ten.
And he shot forty six percent that year from three
(09:17):
in one year's time. Like that's an outlier story, but
in the old days again, that used to be bigger.
Now it's harder but even more important that you get
that time to evaluate them. And you've got kids in
the NBA Draft right now, Like I was reading a
story about Ace Bailey, whether it's true or half true,
doesn't even want to go work out for teams. You've
(09:38):
got certain players in the draft that are they're just
doing one on oh workouts, And a lot of times
if you're doing a one on oh workout, there's something
you don't want somebody to see, right, You're hiding something.
The kids that will go out and compete in a
three on three matchup or two on two. The only
guy that really shouldn't have to do anything working out
(09:58):
right now is Cooper Flag because it's pretty well a
lock that he's number one. But the bottom line is
people are always trying to show you how competitive they
are or they've got this belief that they don't have
to show you. And I think at your level in
the NFL, it's even crazier. But if you don't get
real live coaches standing, putting guys through, getting their hands
(10:20):
on them literally, you know, with finding out where their
strength is, where their leverage, is incredible. Jim had a
secret ingredient with that. When he was at Michigan. Ben Herbert,
a strength coach, would literally bring these guys in, go
through their mechanics, show them on tape or pictures what
their guys had done, and then like physically, if he
(10:42):
thought a guy was weak in an area, he might
stand him up and the guy couldn't budge him right,
Like little things like that. Like that stuff's worth so
much more than just sitting there watching film or having
a conversation over zoom with somebody, because you want to
see reaction, You want to see how proactive they are.
But again, and I should have said this at the beginning,
but one of the greatest upside you have to recruit
(11:04):
to no matter the sport, to me is their athletic upside.
It's not just about their skill level, It's not just
about the level of where they can get in that sport.
It's what is the level of athletic upside that they
have that you've got to try to bring out in
this person because that's where the real growth is that
an intelligence upside and then certainly a work ethic character upside.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Coach, I want you to put on your coaching hab
which is always on. But it's so different now than
ever watching like college sports, watching college basketball. I grew
up a Carolina fan, went to North Carolina, so I'm
used to seeing teams developing four or five years under
Dean Smith and Roy Williams and those things. Now it
seems that the college game is very much like the
(11:48):
pro game and free agency, where you're kind of.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Dealing with a collection of parts.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
You're trying to put them together four year in when
as a coach, how do you do that? Because I
heard you talk about I want guys who are not
independent contractors, But how do you flesh that out where
you get them all together? You have your thirteen guys
and you're like, Okay, we have to be a team
this year when everyone hasn't been invested in the program
for three or four years, like yesteryear.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Summer, summer, is by far.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
The spring has really been wiped out for most teams
because players are transferring, players are leaving, players are coming in,
and you don't have them yet. The spring was how
we built so many of our teams at Marquette and Indiana,
so many of them. But now it's the summer and
you get eight weeks inside of that summer, and I
will say this the biggest edge force multiplier you can have.
(12:37):
And I know it's this way in football, but it's
definitely this way in basketball. You've got to have the
right strength conditioning coach. You've got to have somebody outside
of you as a coach that can put them into
some shared adversity that can create different environments like situation
basketball is. You can't neglect it. During the season. You've
got to play different situational games, scrimmages down ten or
(13:00):
to go down six to two to go, you know
all the different things. Well, now in the summertime, you've
got to find ways to bring your team together because
there's still a certain level of fear that if you
push too hard you're going to lose somebody. Because these
contracts are so easy to get out of right and
the rep share is going to change it some, but
you have got to I think where it's different.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Now.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
You've got to get your team to come together and
really understand what your identity is going to be. So
if you're going to be a really good transition defense team,
a really good transition offensive team, a really good rebounding team,
you can't wait till the fall to start to put
those things in because they're so new to each other.
You've got to get them to go through hard things together,
(13:44):
share some of those really tough things, not only in
conditioning and strength training, but on the court, and then
find ways to come together earlier than ever. And here's
another reason, because no matter what team you have, November
and December are so imperative to make it the NCAA
tournament because those are when so many of the of
the extra tournaments are or the mtes where you play
(14:06):
three or four games, and now a lot of those
are going to get replaced by nil driven games, so
the kids will actually get money from those games. Well,
there's still big games, right because you need that strength
to schedule to put you over the edge. So the
summer and then the early fall have become crazy crucial.
(14:27):
You've got to get your system in, but you can't
spend so much time on your system that you lose
what the identity is. And then you've got to keep
making sure that this is where that hard part comes in, spacing, shooting, understanding,
moving without the ball. Oklahoma City is so good. Jalen
Williams had nine points. He had of his forty, nine
(14:47):
of his points came off cuts, right, just cuts along right,
just cuts, reading the defense, random basketball. That's nine of
his forty just in one area that was not that's
just instinctive basketball. Got to start making sure where we
add in that in the summertime. But those are the
things to me. And when you can look back and
say you had a productive, but a hard charging summer
(15:11):
that wasn't perfect, but we got through it and we
got better, you're making real progress as you get into
the season.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Coach, one of the things we've talked about, I think
we've talked about with you as well as a bunch
of other coaches we've had on over the years. I
feel like we're a lot of us are together in
this pact. Then I feel like we might be losing here.
And that is the importance that we still feel of
multi sport athletes as high school players, and it seems
like every year the number shrinks of these kids that
are actually participating in more than one sport. Could you
(15:40):
make a compelling case of why, even in this era
of travel ball for eight year olds, that there's still
value in kids playing multiple sports.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
The one thing that we're and you know better than me,
when they study the NFL draft and look at the
multi sport athletes, is that really going down or is
that continuing to stay at a high level.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
It's in the NFL that numbers coming down, but not
as drastic as it is in other sports, Like if
you're a baseball player a basketball player, they are making
those kids go on one track.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I agree with you, But look at the NFL, right,
I mean, look at all the different sports.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I will to the day I don't have.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
A voice left speak on what multi sport athletes is
all about. I've had too many of them, right, And
our own children, our own son, and watching that, and
our son didn't focus on baseball really until his senior year.
He got drafted by the White Sox at the end
of his senior year. It was a late pick, so
it wasn't one of those things where he would go.
(16:35):
But he played basketball, he played baseball, he did all
those things. If anything, he didn't play enough other sports.
Because what you learn, first off, just think of the
athletic component, which you get with your feet, with your shoulders,
with your hands, with your hips, with your vision, you know,
with change it and turning your body. Just the athletic
component alone is so similar to whatever sport you really
(16:58):
want that you're going to get better from that. And
then it's going through the toughness, the competitiveness. So many
people that get ingrained in one sport sometimes really believe
they can only they only have to compete and work
on their terms, right, And that's not what other sports
teach you. That's not what sports teach. You don't get
to compete on your terms. You compete on the terms
(17:19):
that are present, right, and you're either going to compete
and flourish in that or you're going to get backed off.
And I think every element that you have is is
so important. The best basketball football players we had were
really good in football, but man, they got in that
gym three, four, sometimes five days a week and just
(17:39):
shot right like they kept their shooting goal. But they
were lifting, they were running, they were competing, they were
being challenged, they were being coached. There was a drive,
but yet they still got in the gym to work
some on their game. I loved those guys, you know,
whether it was soccer, basketball, baseball, basketball, football, basketball never
really had any wrestling.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Basketball right at the same time.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
But even tennis, Wes Matthews who we had, who had
fifteen years in the NBA, was a tremendous soccer player.
The only thing that kept him from being the best
soccer player in the city of Madison, Wisconsin, is he
had a teammate who was the best player in the state.
Right Like, that's the only thing that kept him. And
it's like that, I swear to God, I know that
(18:20):
helped carve out a fifteen year NBA career for him
because he was so athletic and he had such good movements.
The functional movement that you get, I mean, that's just
the athletic part. The mentality it probably outweighs that even
that much more.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back
with our conversation with Tom creen.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Coach. I'm fascinating.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
I'm watching the NBA Finals and I've been tracking the
Indiana Pacers throughout the playoffs, and they're playing what is
different in.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
What Rick Carlisle has traditionally done.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
And I heard you earlier talk about coaches not really
wanting to deviate from the style. But Rick car parallel,
it's really done a makeover of his approach when it
comes to the way that they play. And so I
have to ask you, because you're playing up tempo and
you're doing these things. I've heard you talk about the
importance of strength and conditioning. How important is that too?
What you want to be able to do on the
(19:16):
court to have a well conditioned, tough minded team. How
do you get your strength goes? How do you get
on the same page with your strength goes seeing this
is what I want?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
How can you bring that out? Of those players? The
best ones I had in the meetings.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
And you can make anybody be in the meeting, but
if they don't want to be in, they're not buying
in as much. The best ones I've had were in
the meetings. They were watching the film. I would keep
them invested in recruiting film, I would keep them invested
in actually watching game.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Film I've had and some of the best I had.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
We're all football driven, you know, they came from a
football background, and you have to be a little careful
with that, right, well, especially when you're training lower bodies
and things of that nature with the football basketball training.
But so much of it, it all starts at the bottom.
It starts with what you do with people's feet and ankles.
And if you don't have your trainer, strength coach and
your team invested in that, it's going to be a
(20:10):
problem at some point. But having the strength coach involved
in practice. The worst thing can happen is when the
strength conditioning coaches think they're an entity unto themselves and
just work for the athletic department.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I hate that, right they have to be with you.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
It's like any time you have small group meetings or
anytime you have this small group leadership, you can't go
in there with prejudgment. Well a lot of times it's
not just the leader of the meeting that has can't
have the prejudgment. You can't have anybody else in there
that's got pre judgment and that they don't want to
hear it or it's not their area. I couldn't stand that, right,
(20:46):
And because that's what kills you. And again, because I
say that, it's I wanted our coaches at all the
strength conditioning things. I didn't want them running it. I
wanted them there in support, right. I didn't want them
hanging around being on their phone.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
You don't.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
They had times where I told coaches, hey, man, go
be on your phone out in the hallway. Okay, this
is these kids are working in here. And and you
wanted them in support where the players knew that everything
that they touched, especially when it came to strength and
athleticism and conditioning and nutrition and taking care of their bodies,
was important to everyone. And then, and then what happens
(21:21):
is everybody gets smarter from that. Right, And you might
have your own area, but ultimately it becomes okay, whether
it's the meeting, whether it's the practice, whether it's the
weight room session, whether it's your season, it's all emission, right,
it's all emission. The meeting might be a mission, the
practice might be a mission. If you don't have everybody
locked into what that mission is all about, and that's namely,
(21:43):
get the players better, more athletic, more in sync, more together,
you know better, all the way around, you're going to lose, right,
you're going to lose. And I look at college basketball,
it's so easy to project if you see somebody practice
and if you have any idea what their strength conditioning
coach is all about. And the one thing that I
(22:03):
want to do when I go see somebody practice now,
I love if I can see something in the weight room,
I'll ask to see that because now you're going to
get You're not only going to learn something, but you're
going to see who is this important.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
To the highest level.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Everybody lifts, everybody trains, not everybody's invested in what it
means daily.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Coach, how do you find out who the leaders are
when when you're recruiting kids? We talk about in scouting.
I've always told the story about Ozzie knwsome had such
a knack for asking the right question to get to
the right answers and use the example of when we
had a bunch of guys from one team successful college program,
had a bunch of guys in that particular draft and
asking them who the leader was, they all said the
same player, except one person said no, it was me.
(22:45):
And then Ozzy's next question was, Okay, you guys watch
tape on your own on Tuesday nights, right, other guys
that told us that, yeah, he goes well who holds
the clicker? And then of course it was the other
guy that was Ozzy's way of finding out, Okay, who's
the kid who's running this whole thing? But how have
you learned to go find out? You can see what
these kids are like athletically, some of the work ethics stuff,
But in terms of trying to find that guy who's
(23:05):
going to be the pillar leader for your program, how
do you go about identifying that kid.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Well outside of your own observation and instincts. I think
you've got to go find the people that are off script, right,
And and I think of this in the scouting business
all the time. It's not about going to talk necessarily
to the trainer of the football team. It's not necessarily
about talking to the academic advisor of the football team.
It's talking about somebody else that's in that same academic
building that sees the player come through. It's talking about
(23:31):
the to the student trainer, it's the gas it's the
quality control guys. It's the people that know the inner
workings of that player. And I think when you're looking
at it in high school. A lot of times it's
it's it's observation to a degree. I love to sit
across from the bench, right, I love to sit across
from the benure being the end zone. You want to
(23:51):
see what kind of eye contact that star that that
best player has when it's not about them all right,
when in the huddle, when they're not in in warmups.
I think leadership can go so many different ways because
if you get the wrong character person that's leading the way,
because because others are afraid to challenge that person, that
(24:15):
becomes a problem as well. The best leaders I've had, okay,
we're the best teammates because they they knew their game
might be better, but they never acted like they were better.
And I think I think if you if you want
to find the non leader and the one that the
players will not follow when push comes to shove, it's
the person that acts privileged. And I think you've got
(24:37):
to be trying to sniff out privilege, sniff out entitlement,
see who's enabling. Sometimes the enabling that's just an enabling program.
Maybe the player doesn't really want to be enabled, but
maybe they are right because that's the culture of the program. Well,
can they overcome that? And I think it's it's who's
(24:58):
doing more than what is required? Okay, who doesn't look
at extra like it's a burden, who's bringing someone else
with him? And I don't think you just find that
out from the people that are at the front of
the bench. I think you find that out from people
in the building. I think you find that out from
other coaches. I think you find that out from somebody
else in the counseling office. Because everybody has champions, right
(25:20):
and there's a place for the champion, But you don't
need to learn about a player by just talking to
the champion. And then every recruit, every person becomes a
case study and you're just building up that case and
is this person who you think they are? But ultimately
it comes down to trust in your instincts, on your
own vision for that player, because you've got to see
an upside for them. Where I've gotten in trouble is
(25:42):
when I didn't really see the upside, or when I
listen to somebody else on it, and if I really
feel it, what you then have to do is you've
got to not have pre judgment on what you're hearing
or looking for you got to know what you're looking for.
Me then you've got to accept what you see, right.
And I think that's where people get in trouble when
they're really rooting for somebody or rooting for themselves, to
(26:04):
be right, they start seeing it through the eyes they
want to see it with rather than through the reality.
And that's why you got to look at it enough.
And usually if it's checking enough boxes, you can work
through somebody that might get you know, have a bad edge,
or somebody that doesn't have great eye contact, or you know,
somebody that's maybe a little bit selfish. But man, they
(26:26):
compete and they play hard in basketball. A lot of
times people that compete with the ball really think they're competing, right,
But they are, but they're not doing all the other things.
And now you've got to be able to judge in
the leadership, can we get them to understand how important
it is that they do the other things and how
much they respect their teammates doing.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
The other things.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
And then the last thing I'll say about that with
the leadership part, when you look out on the floor
and the game or the practice and it's a tight deal,
do they feel safer with that player? Because do they
feel safer, Do they raise the level of the players
not just because they're good, but because those players feel
better because they're out there with them, or are they
(27:09):
dropping their head that doing the scouting preparation. I love
watching the benches of when guys are taking shots and coaches.
Some coaches don't realize how bad their body language is
when their stars are taking shots, and.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
I don't think they have any idea.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
It's like that's telling you something, right, it's the whole
staff man, Like that's telling you there's an issue here.
And you may not be privileged to seeing it at
all in practice, but there is an issue. And then
you've got to dig even deeper. And I think that's
you look at you look at what your eyes say.
You look at what the people that you really trust say,
You look at what the numbers say. And when those
(27:44):
things all kind of intertwine, now you've got a pretty
good idea of what you got. But if you've got
to exclude something, exclude the numbers, look at what your
eyes saying, what the people you trust that would know.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
Say, Yeah, because you've been unique in terms of the
dogs that you've coached. Right from Dwyane Wade, Anthony Edwards,
Victor Oladipo, how you develop what's the common denominator in
the great players that you've encountered along your way.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Eventually they never looked at the extra work as extra.
It became part of who they were, right it. You know,
Bill Parcells used to say, you know, do you have
a routine or are you committed?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Right?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
And I think that's what happens. There's very few players
that will not grow into a routine. There's very few
players that will not do what's required. But the commitment
exceeds all distractions, It exceeds your doubts, it exceeds you
getting discouraged. I mean, you keep coming. That's what you're
looking for. And I think that's what your vision's got
(28:43):
to be able to have. Like we were visioned for
a player on their worst days, you got to still
see it right and you still got to drive it
out of them when they don't want you to, and
that becomes something that's important. But I think ultimately the
best players had a tremendous desire to be in a gym.
They really learned to want to be watching extra film,
not saying they watched extra film on their phone in
(29:05):
their dorm, but actually being in the building or being
in the film room watching the film, there was no
real They didn't have time constraints on when they were
getting in the gym. They were just going to make
sure that they were in there. And then I think
the other two big things the ones I've had because
they were great teammates, They've had a really really high
level of empathy for other people. And my best players
(29:30):
have not been privileged. You know, whether it was Anthony
Edwards who was number one, or vic Aladipo had one
one scholarship offer right like, they were not privileged. I've
never dealt well with privileged. I've had some, and I've
had some that was really hard to break the entitlement
that they felt they should get. But the best players
I've had that have made the pros of the seventeen
(29:51):
or eighteen guys that have made the NBA, I probably
had two that weren't Jim Rats, but the best of
them were Jim Rats. And I think that's there's a
passion for it. It's not required anymore and it's not
a taxi on their mind or their day to get
in that gym, but they wanted to be driven, and
they wanted to feel.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Some pressure internal.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
And they wanted to be competitive, even it was against
the details of their own game, to get better.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
And I think those are the commonalities I.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
Love, by the way in football, and then the millions
of scouting reports that we've all Bucky and I have
written that we still use the term gym rat even
though technically we're talking about football players on the grass field.
But that's a third to oh to the basketball world.
As you can imagine coach in my side gig doing
the Chargers radio once your brother in law, Jim Harball
was hired. I get peppered with questions all the time
(30:44):
from people all in all walks of life, Charger fans
as well as people in the NFL and people in
different sports world.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
What's he like?
Speaker 3 (30:49):
What you know, you get to be around him, you
see every game.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
What's he like?
Speaker 3 (30:52):
And the best way I can describe it is just
getting to see it. You know, from this vantage point,
I've always heard of, you know, the tough, hard nosed coach,
and then I've heard of the players coach, a positive coach,
and I felt like they were always described as two
different people. I said to me, I would describe Jim
as someone who is tough, detail oriented, of that kind
(31:13):
of tough grinder coach, But he has a very positive
outlook in praising guys. I mean he'll get T shirts
for if they do something in one game, he'll get
T shirts for the whole team. He's constantly reinforcing this
positive mindset into his team. And that to me stood
out is I feel like sometimes we feel like you
got to be one or the other. How important is
it coach to have the toughness side of it? But
(31:35):
then also you're just not screaming at players twenty four
to seven sixty five.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
I think there's I think he's much more running junior
high football camaraderie mentality than he is the hard side
business of NFL football. And I say that with all respect.
He brings the joy out in a very tough, violent, aggressive,
(32:02):
demanding sport. And he brings it out because he's so competitive.
I mean, you've been around him now, both of you like.
The competitiveness does not turn off. It might, it might
dim the light switch a little bit once off, and
it never goes to zero. Right, It's never dark, right,
I mean I swear, I mean it's just it's unbelievable.
And he's never not competitive, and I think with that,
(32:25):
because he oozes you, you can't be competitive and not
be confident, right, So like he brings out a high
level of confidence in you, he brings it. He definitely
did this at Stanford, and and it was unbelievable watching
what he did at Stanford. And then I think what
happened at Michigan, Like he brought out he got them
to believe they were way better than what they were.
(32:47):
I might have said this on here before, but the
first year he got to Stanford, they were playing USC
and Dick Vermel told my father in law Jack he
had been to both practices. He said, USC has got
forty seven to forty eight pros. Jim have one right,
And it might have been to Vita Pritchard. I'm not
sure what he thought was the one right. Then they
go on to beat USC that year, right, and then yes, yes,
(33:11):
And it's like Jim doesn't believe he's going to lose,
but he doesn't ever take it for granted. And how
he gets there and and and then because he's so
sharp and smart, he never lets the last play mentally
affect his next play.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
And I've seen that firsthand since.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
San Diego, USD, UH Stanford, you could see it at Michigan.
But I had the privilege to stand behind him a
couple of times at Stanford and USD, and it was
unbelievable watching him. I mean, he could get a fifteen
yarder right, throw the headset, be mad, and boom. He
was right back in the next play. Now he wasn't
smiling and cheering, but he was right back in the
(33:52):
next play. And I think that's John is not as
demonstrative with that. But John is the same way, and
that competitiveness that they bring out in you, like Jim.
Jim is like the coach in junior high that we're
going to work, we're going to go. But man, you
know what, at the end of this game, we're going
(34:12):
over there to get ice cream, right, And like they don't.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
But that's kind of like what you'd imagine.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
I mean, look you see it, Look a look at
our Herbert and all those guys respond to him. And
he just said again they had perfect attendants again. He
told me this the other day. They had perfect attendants
again in the OTAs. But he got there. I was
worried because Ben Herbert is so good his strength coach. Right,
he was paying him over a million dollars at Michigan.
I really don't know if he ends up taking the
(34:38):
Chargers job if there would have been a snap who
and not being able to bring him, But they did, right,
Like that's his right hand. I asked him one time,
I said, I said, how is the transition Ben for
Ben from Michigan to the NFL with the players, And
he said, it's even been better? Right, and they get
it waldon Volbay and again, it's all the way across
(34:59):
the board. When they played for the when they won
the National championship, they only had two players that year
that weren't healthy enough to play in the game. I'm
the entire traveling squad, right, the entire team, and they
both had been knee surgeries. It had been the offensive
lineman that got hurt in the O House Ty game,
and another guy got hurt in the house in the
Alabama game. He had a full team, right, like Jim
(35:21):
has that way, man. I mean, he just it's hard
to describe that. You just feel stronger and more competitive
and more confident when you're around him. And the fact
that he's so well versed in all of this now,
and he's so smart. And Jim has never ever been afraid.
He's never been afraid to make a change that he
(35:43):
think wasn't working. I mean, at one point he got
rid of the whole defensive side of the ball at Stanford, right.
But he's also never been afraid to bring people that
maybe other people questioned, or maybe they were misunderstood somewhere,
maybe they'd been fired somewhere. He believes in him, he's
got him, and because he's so confident in what he's doing,
(36:04):
he wants to be around those type of people and
I think that says a lot for him too.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back
with our conversation with Tom creen.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
Well, coach, I want to make sure I give you
your flowers, because you put off some wonderful things as
a coach yourself. And I want to talk about the mentality,
particularly when you're coaching an underdog, because your teams at
Marquette were not necessarily viewed as the heavyweights. When you're
coaching a team that is lesser than, or perceived to
be lesser than, the opponents that they're facing, how do
you get them to think that they can accomplish all
(36:39):
the things that the heavyweights can accomplish.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Well, I think you have to show leading up to that.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
You've got to show why you lost the game in
so many games, and why you didn't get and why
you might have lost you might have gotten beat. You
got to show no, no, we didn't get beat.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
We lost it. Here's why.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
And I think that happens over a period of time.
And I think you show the good, but I don't
think you ever stopped showing how you could have buried somebody,
how you could have come back and won the game.
And it's not just about the end of the game.
I think it's a process of building up a mind
that we have got to not lose this game ourselves
(37:19):
and beat ourselves, right. And I think when you get
into the big games, and it's even when you win
a thirty point game, right, like, they don't want to
see what they didn't do, but they have to see it.
They have to see, Man, we won by thirty, we
could have won by forty. Here's five plays. We won
by five, we could have won by fifteen, and here's
five plays. And you just have to do that over
a period of time and then you got to practice
(37:40):
that way. And I think for me it's I never
wanted to feel like I was a underdog to a
Hall of fame coach or to a great program, to
a blue blood type of thing or something like that.
Even when we were in Indiana, we were really in
train wreck status for the first couple of years to
try to build through, and even though we lost, we
(38:01):
didn't go into those games. They may not have deep
down believed they were going to win, but we were
trying to prepare and give a plan that said we
could win. And I think that's you just practice that way.
I think it all starts in your player development. I mean,
I've had great coaches, but I wasn't missing individual instructions
in player development things. So I think that's when you
(38:21):
build a mindset into your guys of what they're capable of,
and then when you get into the full practice, full
mode type of stuff, you're helping them bring that out
in each other. But I think you just get your
team to a place where they know that if they're together,
and it's not about it's not about being afraid to
make mistakes right. It's not about how many assists we
(38:43):
get versus how many turnovers we get. Like, that's a
big one, right, But that's not how you build the
team going into the game. You've got to have different
ways to overcome what you're not doing well. And like
a couple of weeks ago, Game six with the New
York Knicks and the Pacers, the Knicks got four big
offensive rebounds that they turned in to putbacks in that game. Well,
they were probably a better team rebounding team than the Pacers. Right, Well,
(39:05):
the Pacers got four throw aheads on the break, Okay,
by getting out and beating the Knickson and transition that
kind of wiped out or at least evened up the
offensive rebound. So you're always looking for those things with
your team leading up to it and figuring giving them
different ways that they could adjust in the game to
get those things.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Coach, this has been so fascinating.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
We could go on forever.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
I just I'm going to hit you with one last
one here. We have We've talked about the NBA Draft
that's coming up. We had the NFL Draft back in April.
I know, like someone like Dwayne Wade has always talked
about your influence on his life and not just when
he was playing for you, but then you know, going
on into his professional career, would what would your advice
have been to Dwayne Wade? What did you tell Dwayne
(39:46):
Wade when he was getting ready to embark in his
rookie season? And then we think about all these rookies
that are now going to take the field this summer
for the first time.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
What would your.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Message be to a rookie getting ready to step into
a professional locker room?
Speaker 1 (40:00):
What got you here won't get you where you want
to go? And find the people that are going to
make sure that they understand that because what happens so
much right now. And Dwayne was really good with this.
We had five agents come in and Henry Thomas was
the first one who passed away a few years ago,
was phenomenally. He ended up joining CAA, but he just incredible.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Guy.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Had Chris Boss, Devin Harris, Sean Livingston, all kinds of
different NBA players, but he did a great job with Dwayne.
And the one thing he did he never came in
and tried to get Dwayne to leave school early. And
others did, well, you can go train here, you can
go train there. They didn't read it right. Dwayne had
a wife, Okay, at that point before Gabrielle, he had
his son Zaire. He also had a competition going with
(40:43):
one of our players, Travis Diener, who could have the
highest GPA that semester. And Travis got a three point
zero three point oh four and Dwayne got a two
point nine to six. Right, So like he was, he
was competing, and nobody understood that. Nobody asked right except Henry.
Henry understood no, stay right here. And I think what
happens is when players find someone that is really helping
(41:06):
them by telling them the truth, having the details, making
them work and not letting it be easy. They got
to find them because this draft process can turn you
right from going into I've got to maintain what I'm
doing to prepare for the workout, to prepare for the combine,
to prepare to be drafted high versus get better at
(41:26):
what I'm going to need. And I think what gets
lost in the translation between the draft process of the
end of the season to the draft and even in
the summertime in a lot of these programs is this
is what we've got to do to get better. Derek
Lively two years ago gets drafted by Dallas and my
son's second year on that staff, and there's a guy
named Sean Sweeney, just a phenomenal younger coach, and they
(41:49):
brought Derek Lively into the workouts and if you could
have seen his left hand, you wouldn't have believed it,
like it was non existent. And later he said that
in the NBA Finals is that he he didn't really
have a left hand when he got there, and all
that time, you know that left hand wasn't being work
done right. But from the day after he got in
(42:10):
on that Friday and that Saturday in the draft, they
continue to work on his left hand, continue to work
on his feet, continue to work on his right shoulder,
to the point where that guy was a starting center
with real force into the NBA Finals against the Celtics
that year because you could score with both hands. Greatest
example I've seen recently of somebody that really understood he
(42:32):
had to make a jump, and the coaches never stopped
getting him there. That is a problem, right, because there
are not enough people that will tell you the truth
about what you got to get better at and then
spend the time with you when you don't want to
do it right. They let them train on their terms,
and all of a sudden you get into the game
and Rick Carlisle or Eric Spostra or Jason Kidding those
(42:55):
players they can't play you because you didn't get better
at what they need you to be able to do
to win a basketball game in November, December and January.
And I think that's the biggest thing. Don't ever ever
get away from the fact that you've got to get better,
no matter how much money you have, no matter where
you're picked, and if you lose that, somebody's beating you
out and you don't even know they're coming.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
Coachy, I have one question for you, because you've done
all kinds of things as a coach. If you were
talking to a young coach who was coming off a
difficult season and they needed to bounce back, what would
you tell them to do to get his team up
and going following a disappointing season the year before.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Be in the gym with those guys constantly, right, don't
leave it to the gas, don't leave it to the assistance.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Have them in there.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
The players have to see you, they have to see
you working with them. You have to get to know
them at a different level, study the film on their
strengths and weaknesses. Know everybody that you come in that
you're going to be in charge of the development plan
for that player and help see it through. And that
spins off all the one on one meetings, that spins
off all the little group meetings, that spins off building
(44:07):
a trust level. Showing up and playing coach and watching
everybody else do the work is not building a trust level.
And I think that's the transaction world that we're so
tough right now. Everybody wants to believe that it's a
transactional world because of the portal and the nil and
all that right now, and the ones that still understand
it's transformational on a daily basis, not just because you
(44:28):
said it was or because of the culture, are the key.
And I think that when you're coming off a struggle,
it's not just about the players that you're with. You've
got to make everybody in your group, whether they've been
with you, whether you're hiring somebody new, You've got to
give them reasons and tools to make sure that they're
(44:51):
as great as they can possibly be. Because what happens
a lot of times when you lose, you isolate, right
you go into your own world. You going to your
own orbit. And you can't do that, man, you can't
do it. It's too easy to do, right, Because now,
all of a sudden, when you're questioning your own game
and you're questioning your own confidence and your own coaching,
you start to lose that spirit. You start to have
(45:11):
some doubts, and all of a sudden, you self sabotage
your little bitself a little bit rather than getting out
there and being in the environment. And that's so crucial
and in this day and age, I mean, I go
back to when Jim was in San Francisco with some
of the stuff he was dealing with in there, you know,
with the owner in Trent Bulky, and how it got
so Jim had to go to them, right, I don't
(45:33):
mind saying that, Like Jim had to go seek them
out because people weren't necessarily seeking him out. And it's
like when you're in trouble, people are afraid to talk
to you, they're afraid to be around you because then
you become a little You're not toxic, but they're nervous. Right,
you can never be afraid to go make it easy
for somebody to communicate with you and to get better,
(45:55):
irregardless if they want to help, if they believe it
or not. You have to do that, and then that
what that does. And the last thing I would say
about that, because whatever gave you the most energy as
a coach is the things you got to get back
to when you're struggling, just as much as when you're winning,
because people that win get away from what gave them
energy too. They get pulled in many different directions. What
(46:17):
gives you energy, what you love doing the most, You've
got to even double down and do more of when
you're struggling, and that feeds your energy, which gives you
the energy and the passion to help everybody else find
theirs coach.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
This has been awesome. We got I know Bucky and
I are on the same page here. We take so
many notes when we get a chance to visit with you,
and there's so much carry over and crossover into all
different sports. And I am excited at learning through this
conversation today that that you are still coaching, You are
still you are.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
I go back, Yeah, I go back. I go back
in the right situation. You know, I could be an
assistant in the NBA. I think I could do that
mentally easy.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
I love helping guys get better. And you talk about
the crossover, It's like, there's so many things that I've
learned from other sports, especially football, that you apply to basketball.
I think I've said this on here before, but I
became such a better coach teaching downhill basketball and ball
screen basketball after watching Howard Mutt and John Tiernick in
the Tyernick with the pay with Pacers with the Colts
(47:19):
run one on one drills with the tackle in the
edge right and watching the edge have to get around
point his foot towards the football not get knocked off.
And I had even deeper discussions with guys like Mike
Turgervak and Matt Patricia to the point like where getting
your foot, your shoulder, your hip turned around with that
(47:40):
lead foot pointed towards the basketball. That's helped guys I've
coached make a lot more money than they might have
made otherwise because I learned that from football. And instead
of stepping a certain way, getting that foot around to
point towards the quarterback or the football, well that's exactly
what pointing towards the rim is. There's so many little
ideals like that. That's what I've always gotten my energy.
(48:00):
So the crossover part is unbelievable. And what you guys do,
who you are and what you do and where you
do it at with the NFL network is just absolutely awesome.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
Well, I appreciate you so much. And being around Howard
mud for the time I was with the Philadelphia Eagles.
There's a lot of stories, a lot of Howard mud
stories I could tell you, but man, he was.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
I got his book right behind me up there. The
book is right behind me. I know you guys have
read that.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Oh he is. He is incredible.
Speaker 3 (48:26):
Again, It's sad that we lost him, but he was
just a wonderful, wonderful guy. He came across as across
as a curmudgeon, but he cared and his players absolutely
loved him. And he made a lot of guys with
limited athletic ability a lot of money coach.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Oh, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
And for me when I was young, before I ever
met him, And one of the greatest things was living
in Indiana, being around Tom Telesco, being around Chris Pouleian
and certainly Bill Polian, Tony Dunge, but being around those assistants,
Tom Moore was alleged well Howard mud I grew up
in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Howard was from Midland, Michigan. It's
twenty five minutes from where I grew up. So when
you names like that that you don't even know, like
(49:02):
when you meet them, you're like meeting It's like meeting Gandhi, Right,
I mean, like it's like, come on, like you're meeting
somebody that's incredible, And that was awesome to me. But
that's why when that book came out, view from the
O line, there's a lot of coaching. There's a lot
of basketball in there. There's a lot of basketball in
Tom Moore's book. I mean, there's so many things to
take from other sports that I've never understood why more
(49:25):
don't do it. I get somewhat obsessive with it, but
I don't understand why more don't do it, because it's
really all the same.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Man.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
You're trying to get people to be better at what
they are, and you're trying to give them the details
and techniques and mindset to get.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
There, no doubt.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
Well, coach, you're curious, and that's what we love about you.
We're the same way, always trying to learn and grow,
and I feel like we've accomplished both those things today.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
So we appreciate you anytime. Thanks for having me. Thank
you well, Buck.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
That was that was a fun one, man. I mean, look,
Eric Musselman's great. You get a chance with Tom Crane.
I feel like we're scratching this basketball itch. But also
so much crossover and again another example of a coach
who definitely pays attention to what's going on in the
football world and is able to incorporate some of the
things he's learned from that space to help him in
a different sport.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (50:12):
So such a great conversation to have with him, and
just what he's able to add not only his own
personal anecdotes, but because he knows the Harbors so well
obviously being the brother in law he knows him, but
what he's able to share behind the scenes with Jim
parmbro and contrasted with how John approaches it to me, man,
(50:32):
the one thing that comes out not only his knowledge,
but the passion that he has for being good coach
and paying good forward and working with young people and
doing all those things.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
I just love it, man.
Speaker 4 (50:42):
I feel so much smarter from having the opportunity to
listen in for the last half.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
Hour now he is excellent. I know you guys enjoyed
it as well. Again, we'll have more coming your way
here as we get through the summer here. Football will
be here before you know it. In the meantime, we'll
have some of these fun conversations to go along with
keeping updated on what's going on very quiet period in
the on the NFL calendar. So that's gonna do it
for us today and we'll see you next time right
here on move sticks.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
M hm m m m m
And now move the Sticks with Daniel, Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
What's up, everybody.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Welcome to move the sticks, DJ, Bucky with you.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Buck.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Excited about this one. We've been kind of going down
our personal list of favorite conversations to have and we've
got another one of our favorites today.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
Tom Crean outstanding coach, great leader, and someone who has
really shared a lot of wisdom with us when it
comes to building teams the DNA of great players. So
really excited to kind of revisit those conversations.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Yeah, for those that aren't familiar with coach Crean, you know,
obviously there's the football connection, the obvious football connection. He's
married to Joni Harbaugh, the sister of Jim and John Harbaugh,
so he's in a football family. But Tom was the
head coach at Marquette and basketball where he coached Dwayne Wade.
He was an Indiana with had a very successful run
there from twenty eight to twenty seventeen as he kind
of turned that program around, and then coaching Anthony Edwards
(00:55):
at Georgia from twenty eighteen to twenty two was his
time at Georgia, came across and developed unbelievable player there
inn Anthony Edwards. So he's had a lot of big time,
big time talent that he's helped nurture and develop, and
someone who offers a lot of wisdom in terms of leadership,
creating a culture, things that we definitely obsessive, obsessive of
(01:16):
on our podcast. We're always trying to learn and grow
and he's someone that I think has helped both of
us in those departments. So, without further ado, here's our
conversation with Tom Creen. All right, Buck, he's here. Excited
to have Coach back with us again. Coach, first of all,
tell us give us a life update here. Where are
you and what have you been up to?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Well, the life update is I'm in Lakewood Ranch, Florida,
which is a suburb of Sarasota. We actually moved here
when we left Indiana in seventeen and made this our
permanent home. My son, who was a baseball player at
the time, went to IMG Academy, and we had been
in this area because dick by tal would always have
his Jimmy V Gala and Sarasota and if stay do
(01:57):
you have a party in this out So we ended
up being in this neighborhood area. We live a mile
from him, and we knew even when we went back
to coaching, this would be our permanent home. So it's
been great. And then it's just been a lot of
different media things. ESPN just finished my third year with them,
did some MBS well, a couple of Peacock games for
(02:18):
college basketball, Westwood Won Radio.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I love that I didn't do a lot of games,
but I got all.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
The way to the Sweet sixteen and the lead eight
in Atlanta, and now some Sirius xm NBA Radio Draft previews,
and then I'll be in New York next week for
their coverage of the draft, and then probably even some
Summer league. So keeps me busy. And we have a
daughter in New York, Meghan. I have a son, Riley,
who's in his fourth year now with the Dallas Mavericks.
(02:46):
Just got promoted to head video coordinator and player development there.
My daughter's got her job in New York, and we
got a twenty year old to just finish their freshman
year at Auburn. And my wife, Joni, plays a lot
of tennis.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I learned a lot about tennis.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I hear a lot about tennis, and I really don't
know much about tennis.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
It's great to see her be happy. So it's good.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Good coach, It's so great you talked about all your
media things. In fact, I heard the draft preview show.
I think it was you fran Fascilla breaking out all
the different guys. And I have to ask you when
it comes to that, because evaluation was always a part
of your gig as a coach, but now you're on
the outside looking at players a little differently. What has
changed over the last ten years in terms of evaluating players,
(03:32):
either the types of players that are about to enter
the league or the gaps that you know that you
must feel once that once you get that player in
the league, because he's not going to be a polished
product that maybe he used to be years ago.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Well, one thing that's been good for me too, and
I didn't mention it is spending time being at some
different camps like John Lucas's camps in Houston or Dallas.
And just did a Nike Junior eybl camp for rising
ninth graders. Last week, I did the NBA PA Camp,
which was basically one hundred and forty of the top
rising seniors and juniors and what happens is it's so
(04:06):
great to not only be on the floor with those guys,
but to see how they think right and.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
See their work.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
And what's really changed is this, there's so much ingrained
belief that what they're doing, especially when they get into college,
is the way to do it, and finding people with
truly growth mindsets right where they want to learn, want
to change things, want to get better. You didn't really
think a lot about that ten years ago. Like the
(04:34):
majority of the people, they might be hard headed, they
might be difficult to reach, you might have to spend
extra time, you might have to break down some layers.
But even at my last couple of years at Georgia
and again things were changed and COVID had changed and
the portal and NIL came in my last year, people
are not as willing or open to change. And now
the money has changed it even more immensely where people
(04:57):
feel that the is the right way.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
And I think what.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Happens in coaching is that too many people are accepting
that the evaluation process is more than Ever, how does
it fit your team?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Where are they at in their career.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
You know whether they're a twenty three year old or
whether they're an eighteen year old. And then you didn't
get this with COVID because of the zoom recruiting. Like
my last team at Georgia had only two players on
it that I'd ever recruited in person. Everything else was
of zoom or videos. It was crazy. But now you
get a chance and it's like speed dating with the
portal and you don't really a lot of people aren't
(05:34):
really diving in to does this player want to learn?
It used to be how do they learn? And now
it's do they really want to or think that they
have to? So I think that is big. I think
how you fit into a team. I think you have
to look at the levels of coaching that players have had,
the programs that they've been in, what they've been asked
(05:55):
to do. I think there's way too much made of numbers.
And like there's a guy in the I think he's
going to be the steal of the draft, even if
he goes in the top ten. Is Carter Bryant from Arizona.
And if you looked at his numbers and if you
looked at his usage rate, you wouldn't even have him
in the draft. But because you can look at him
on film. You can see the upside. You can see
the athleticism, you can see the shooting. You can see
(06:17):
that even when he misses the shot eighty to ninety
percent of those misses, or in the cylinder of the rim,
you can look at him and say, this guy is
going to be a really good player. And based on
what you've seen so far, I'm not sure there's enough
of that. But there's way, way, way, way, way too
much being made of numbers, who's recruiting, who, what the
price tag is on somebody, and not nearly enough being
(06:40):
made on do they really want to change and learn,
how do they fit this program? And are they coming
in here as an independent contractor are they coming here
to truly truly help you win.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
I love that coach. I was talking with a Major
League Baseball general manager a couple months back, and we
were talking about the workout process and how because baseball
has become an analytical sport, and he was saying that so
many of these teams are just so numbers based that
they don't place value on workout. Said, for us, it
is a paramount, like we want to be around these
kids not only to see what they can do, but
(07:13):
to see if they can adjust based off the information
that we're giving them when we get our hands on
them in a workout process. Talk to guys in the
NFL position coaches as the combine, we've said, it's become
a buffet, Like I'll do one of these drills. I'm
not going to do that drill. I'm going to do this.
I'm not going to do that that these position coaches
have said. It's never been more important for us to
go work these kids out and be with them one
on one. Have you noticed that in basketball? Like what
(07:35):
type of weight does that carry? To be on the
court one on one with the player, to be instructing
them and watching them go through a workout.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Oh, it's so important.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
And when those rules change that allow you to do that,
especially like with the grad transfers when that was a
thing and things of that nature.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Are people that were seniors.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
The only other way you used to get that is
if they come to your camp unless you were going
to be illegal and work them out somewhere. But then
when they change the rules that you could get with them.
It was immense because now what I always wanted to
do is I wanted to go through the film with
the player. And we had a player at Indiana named
Max bfl. He'd played four years or three years at
(08:14):
Michigan with a red shirt. He shot twenty six percent
from three in his career there. He'd been the sixth
man of the year on his team. Well, he was
a grad transfer. He visited US Indiana along with a
couple other people. We showed his film and we showed
him why I thought he was a twenty six percent
career three point shooter. It was his footwork. It was
catching it off the back foot. It was show there
(08:34):
wasn't squared up and there was no follow through. Well,
we showed the film and I mean we showed all
the misses and his dad was with us, and then
we went on into the court and the way he
approached the workout, the way he approached what we were
trying to show him on in this hour workout, and
the way he invariably started to shoot the ball. And
again you couldn't judge the makes at that point, because
(08:57):
we were trying to show him what we were going
to work with him on was coming off his hand.
You judge his missus. And the kid ended up being
great for us. He was we went to the Sweet sixteen,
we won the Big Ten. He went from being sixth
man of the year on the team at Michigan to
be in sixth man of the year in the Big Ten.
And he shot forty six percent that year from three
(09:17):
in one year's time. Like that's an outlier story, but
in the old days again, that used to be bigger.
Now it's harder but even more important that you get
that time to evaluate them. And you've got kids in
the NBA Draft right now, Like I was reading a
story about Ace Bailey, whether it's true or half true,
doesn't even want to go work out for teams. You've
(09:38):
got certain players in the draft that are they're just
doing one on oh workouts, And a lot of times
if you're doing a one on oh workout, there's something
you don't want somebody to see, right, You're hiding something.
The kids that will go out and compete in a
three on three matchup or two on two. The only
guy that really shouldn't have to do anything working out
(09:58):
right now is Cooper Flag because it's pretty well a
lock that he's number one. But the bottom line is
people are always trying to show you how competitive they
are or they've got this belief that they don't have
to show you. And I think at your level in
the NFL, it's even crazier. But if you don't get
real live coaches standing, putting guys through, getting their hands
(10:20):
on them literally, you know, with finding out where their
strength is, where their leverage, is incredible. Jim had a
secret ingredient with that. When he was at Michigan. Ben Herbert,
a strength coach, would literally bring these guys in, go
through their mechanics, show them on tape or pictures what
their guys had done, and then like physically, if he
(10:42):
thought a guy was weak in an area, he might
stand him up and the guy couldn't budge him right,
Like little things like that. Like that stuff's worth so
much more than just sitting there watching film or having
a conversation over zoom with somebody, because you want to
see reaction, You want to see how proactive they are.
But again, and I should have said this at the beginning,
but one of the greatest upside you have to recruit
(11:04):
to no matter the sport, to me is their athletic upside.
It's not just about their skill level, It's not just
about the level of where they can get in that sport.
It's what is the level of athletic upside that they
have that you've got to try to bring out in
this person because that's where the real growth is that
an intelligence upside and then certainly a work ethic character upside.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Coach, I want you to put on your coaching hab
which is always on. But it's so different now than
ever watching like college sports, watching college basketball. I grew
up a Carolina fan, went to North Carolina, so I'm
used to seeing teams developing four or five years under
Dean Smith and Roy Williams and those things. Now it
seems that the college game is very much like the
(11:48):
pro game and free agency, where you're kind of.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Dealing with a collection of parts.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
You're trying to put them together four year in when
as a coach, how do you do that? Because I
heard you talk about I want guys who are not
independent contractors, But how do you flesh that out where
you get them all together? You have your thirteen guys
and you're like, Okay, we have to be a team
this year when everyone hasn't been invested in the program
for three or four years, like yesteryear.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Summer, summer, is by far.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
The spring has really been wiped out for most teams
because players are transferring, players are leaving, players are coming in,
and you don't have them yet. The spring was how
we built so many of our teams at Marquette and Indiana,
so many of them. But now it's the summer and
you get eight weeks inside of that summer, and I
will say this the biggest edge force multiplier you can have.
(12:37):
And I know it's this way in football, but it's
definitely this way in basketball. You've got to have the
right strength conditioning coach. You've got to have somebody outside
of you as a coach that can put them into
some shared adversity that can create different environments like situation
basketball is. You can't neglect it. During the season. You've
got to play different situational games, scrimmages down ten or
(13:00):
to go down six to two to go, you know
all the different things. Well, now in the summertime, you've
got to find ways to bring your team together because
there's still a certain level of fear that if you
push too hard you're going to lose somebody. Because these
contracts are so easy to get out of right and
the rep share is going to change it some, but
you have got to I think where it's different.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Now.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
You've got to get your team to come together and
really understand what your identity is going to be. So
if you're going to be a really good transition defense team,
a really good transition offensive team, a really good rebounding team,
you can't wait till the fall to start to put
those things in because they're so new to each other.
You've got to get them to go through hard things together,
(13:44):
share some of those really tough things, not only in
conditioning and strength training, but on the court, and then
find ways to come together earlier than ever. And here's
another reason, because no matter what team you have, November
and December are so imperative to make it the NCAA
tournament because those are when so many of the of
the extra tournaments are or the mtes where you play
(14:06):
three or four games, and now a lot of those
are going to get replaced by nil driven games, so
the kids will actually get money from those games. Well,
there's still big games, right because you need that strength
to schedule to put you over the edge. So the
summer and then the early fall have become crazy crucial.
(14:27):
You've got to get your system in, but you can't
spend so much time on your system that you lose
what the identity is. And then you've got to keep
making sure that this is where that hard part comes in, spacing, shooting, understanding,
moving without the ball. Oklahoma City is so good. Jalen
Williams had nine points. He had of his forty, nine
(14:47):
of his points came off cuts, right, just cuts along right,
just cuts, reading the defense, random basketball. That's nine of
his forty just in one area that was not that's
just instinctive basketball. Got to start making sure where we
add in that in the summertime. But those are the
things to me. And when you can look back and
say you had a productive, but a hard charging summer
(15:11):
that wasn't perfect, but we got through it and we
got better, you're making real progress as you get into
the season.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Coach, one of the things we've talked about, I think
we've talked about with you as well as a bunch
of other coaches we've had on over the years. I
feel like we're a lot of us are together in
this pact. Then I feel like we might be losing here.
And that is the importance that we still feel of
multi sport athletes as high school players, and it seems
like every year the number shrinks of these kids that
are actually participating in more than one sport. Could you
(15:40):
make a compelling case of why, even in this era
of travel ball for eight year olds, that there's still
value in kids playing multiple sports.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
The one thing that we're and you know better than me,
when they study the NFL draft and look at the
multi sport athletes, is that really going down or is
that continuing to stay at a high level.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
It's in the NFL that numbers coming down, but not
as drastic as it is in other sports, Like if
you're a baseball player a basketball player, they are making
those kids go on one track.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I agree with you, But look at the NFL, right,
I mean, look at all the different sports.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I will to the day I don't have.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
A voice left speak on what multi sport athletes is
all about. I've had too many of them, right, And
our own children, our own son, and watching that, and
our son didn't focus on baseball really until his senior year.
He got drafted by the White Sox at the end
of his senior year. It was a late pick, so
it wasn't one of those things where he would go.
(16:35):
But he played basketball, he played baseball, he did all
those things. If anything, he didn't play enough other sports.
Because what you learn, first off, just think of the
athletic component, which you get with your feet, with your shoulders,
with your hands, with your hips, with your vision, you know,
with change it and turning your body. Just the athletic
component alone is so similar to whatever sport you really
(16:58):
want that you're going to get better from that. And
then it's going through the toughness, the competitiveness. So many
people that get ingrained in one sport sometimes really believe
they can only they only have to compete and work
on their terms, right, And that's not what other sports
teach you. That's not what sports teach. You don't get
to compete on your terms. You compete on the terms
(17:19):
that are present, right, and you're either going to compete
and flourish in that or you're going to get backed off.
And I think every element that you have is is
so important. The best basketball football players we had were
really good in football, but man, they got in that
gym three, four, sometimes five days a week and just
(17:39):
shot right like they kept their shooting goal. But they
were lifting, they were running, they were competing, they were
being challenged, they were being coached. There was a drive,
but yet they still got in the gym to work
some on their game. I loved those guys, you know,
whether it was soccer, basketball, baseball, basketball, football, basketball never
really had any wrestling.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Basketball right at the same time.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
But even tennis, Wes Matthews who we had, who had
fifteen years in the NBA, was a tremendous soccer player.
The only thing that kept him from being the best
soccer player in the city of Madison, Wisconsin, is he
had a teammate who was the best player in the state.
Right Like, that's the only thing that kept him. And
it's like that, I swear to God, I know that
(18:20):
helped carve out a fifteen year NBA career for him
because he was so athletic and he had such good movements.
The functional movement that you get, I mean, that's just
the athletic part. The mentality it probably outweighs that even
that much more.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back
with our conversation with Tom creen.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Coach. I'm fascinating.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
I'm watching the NBA Finals and I've been tracking the
Indiana Pacers throughout the playoffs, and they're playing what is
different in.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
What Rick Carlisle has traditionally done.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
And I heard you earlier talk about coaches not really
wanting to deviate from the style. But Rick car parallel,
it's really done a makeover of his approach when it
comes to the way that they play. And so I
have to ask you, because you're playing up tempo and
you're doing these things. I've heard you talk about the
importance of strength and conditioning. How important is that too?
What you want to be able to do on the
(19:16):
court to have a well conditioned, tough minded team. How
do you get your strength goes? How do you get
on the same page with your strength goes seeing this
is what I want?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
How can you bring that out? Of those players? The
best ones I had in the meetings.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
And you can make anybody be in the meeting, but
if they don't want to be in, they're not buying
in as much. The best ones I've had were in
the meetings. They were watching the film. I would keep
them invested in recruiting film, I would keep them invested
in actually watching game.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Film I've had and some of the best I had.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
We're all football driven, you know, they came from a
football background, and you have to be a little careful
with that, right, well, especially when you're training lower bodies
and things of that nature with the football basketball training.
But so much of it, it all starts at the bottom.
It starts with what you do with people's feet and ankles.
And if you don't have your trainer, strength coach and
your team invested in that, it's going to be a
(20:10):
problem at some point. But having the strength coach involved
in practice. The worst thing can happen is when the
strength conditioning coaches think they're an entity unto themselves and
just work for the athletic department.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I hate that, right they have to be with you.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
It's like any time you have small group meetings or
anytime you have this small group leadership, you can't go
in there with prejudgment. Well a lot of times it's
not just the leader of the meeting that has can't
have the prejudgment. You can't have anybody else in there
that's got pre judgment and that they don't want to
hear it or it's not their area. I couldn't stand that, right,
(20:46):
And because that's what kills you. And again, because I
say that, it's I wanted our coaches at all the
strength conditioning things. I didn't want them running it. I
wanted them there in support, right. I didn't want them
hanging around being on their phone.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
You don't.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
They had times where I told coaches, hey, man, go
be on your phone out in the hallway. Okay, this
is these kids are working in here. And and you
wanted them in support where the players knew that everything
that they touched, especially when it came to strength and
athleticism and conditioning and nutrition and taking care of their bodies,
was important to everyone. And then, and then what happens
(21:21):
is everybody gets smarter from that. Right, And you might
have your own area, but ultimately it becomes okay, whether
it's the meeting, whether it's the practice, whether it's the
weight room session, whether it's your season, it's all emission, right,
it's all emission. The meeting might be a mission, the
practice might be a mission. If you don't have everybody
locked into what that mission is all about, and that's namely,
(21:43):
get the players better, more athletic, more in sync, more together,
you know better, all the way around, you're going to lose, right,
you're going to lose. And I look at college basketball,
it's so easy to project if you see somebody practice
and if you have any idea what their strength conditioning
coach is all about. And the one thing that I
(22:03):
want to do when I go see somebody practice now,
I love if I can see something in the weight room,
I'll ask to see that because now you're going to
get You're not only going to learn something, but you're
going to see who is this important.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
To the highest level.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Everybody lifts, everybody trains, not everybody's invested in what it
means daily.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Coach, how do you find out who the leaders are
when when you're recruiting kids? We talk about in scouting.
I've always told the story about Ozzie knwsome had such
a knack for asking the right question to get to
the right answers and use the example of when we
had a bunch of guys from one team successful college program,
had a bunch of guys in that particular draft and
asking them who the leader was, they all said the
same player, except one person said no, it was me.
(22:45):
And then Ozzy's next question was, Okay, you guys watch
tape on your own on Tuesday nights, right, other guys
that told us that, yeah, he goes well who holds
the clicker? And then of course it was the other
guy that was Ozzy's way of finding out, Okay, who's
the kid who's running this whole thing? But how have
you learned to go find out? You can see what
these kids are like athletically, some of the work ethics stuff,
But in terms of trying to find that guy who's
(23:05):
going to be the pillar leader for your program, how
do you go about identifying that kid.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Well outside of your own observation and instincts. I think
you've got to go find the people that are off script, right,
And and I think of this in the scouting business
all the time. It's not about going to talk necessarily
to the trainer of the football team. It's not necessarily
about talking to the academic advisor of the football team.
It's talking about somebody else that's in that same academic
building that sees the player come through. It's talking about
(23:31):
the to the student trainer, it's the gas it's the
quality control guys. It's the people that know the inner
workings of that player. And I think when you're looking
at it in high school. A lot of times it's
it's it's observation to a degree. I love to sit
across from the bench, right, I love to sit across
from the benure being the end zone. You want to
(23:51):
see what kind of eye contact that star that that
best player has when it's not about them all right,
when in the huddle, when they're not in in warmups.
I think leadership can go so many different ways because
if you get the wrong character person that's leading the way,
because because others are afraid to challenge that person, that
(24:15):
becomes a problem as well. The best leaders I've had, okay,
we're the best teammates because they they knew their game
might be better, but they never acted like they were better.
And I think I think if you if you want
to find the non leader and the one that the
players will not follow when push comes to shove, it's
the person that acts privileged. And I think you've got
(24:37):
to be trying to sniff out privilege, sniff out entitlement,
see who's enabling. Sometimes the enabling that's just an enabling program.
Maybe the player doesn't really want to be enabled, but
maybe they are right because that's the culture of the program. Well,
can they overcome that? And I think it's it's who's
(24:58):
doing more than what is required? Okay, who doesn't look
at extra like it's a burden, who's bringing someone else
with him? And I don't think you just find that
out from the people that are at the front of
the bench. I think you find that out from people
in the building. I think you find that out from
other coaches. I think you find that out from somebody
else in the counseling office. Because everybody has champions, right
(25:20):
and there's a place for the champion, But you don't
need to learn about a player by just talking to
the champion. And then every recruit, every person becomes a
case study and you're just building up that case and
is this person who you think they are? But ultimately
it comes down to trust in your instincts, on your
own vision for that player, because you've got to see
an upside for them. Where I've gotten in trouble is
(25:42):
when I didn't really see the upside, or when I
listen to somebody else on it, and if I really
feel it, what you then have to do is you've
got to not have pre judgment on what you're hearing
or looking for you got to know what you're looking for.
Me then you've got to accept what you see, right.
And I think that's where people get in trouble when
they're really rooting for somebody or rooting for themselves, to
(26:04):
be right, they start seeing it through the eyes they
want to see it with rather than through the reality.
And that's why you got to look at it enough.
And usually if it's checking enough boxes, you can work
through somebody that might get you know, have a bad edge,
or somebody that doesn't have great eye contact, or you know,
somebody that's maybe a little bit selfish. But man, they
(26:26):
compete and they play hard in basketball. A lot of
times people that compete with the ball really think they're competing, right,
But they are, but they're not doing all the other things.
And now you've got to be able to judge in
the leadership, can we get them to understand how important
it is that they do the other things and how
much they respect their teammates doing.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
The other things.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
And then the last thing I'll say about that with
the leadership part, when you look out on the floor
and the game or the practice and it's a tight deal,
do they feel safer with that player? Because do they
feel safer, Do they raise the level of the players
not just because they're good, but because those players feel
better because they're out there with them, or are they
(27:09):
dropping their head that doing the scouting preparation. I love
watching the benches of when guys are taking shots and coaches.
Some coaches don't realize how bad their body language is
when their stars are taking shots, and.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
I don't think they have any idea.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
It's like that's telling you something, right, it's the whole
staff man, Like that's telling you there's an issue here.
And you may not be privileged to seeing it at
all in practice, but there is an issue. And then
you've got to dig even deeper. And I think that's
you look at you look at what your eyes say.
You look at what the people that you really trust say,
You look at what the numbers say. And when those
(27:44):
things all kind of intertwine, now you've got a pretty
good idea of what you got. But if you've got
to exclude something, exclude the numbers, look at what your
eyes saying, what the people you trust that would know.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
Say, Yeah, because you've been unique in terms of the
dogs that you've coached. Right from Dwyane Wade, Anthony Edwards,
Victor Oladipo, how you develop what's the common denominator in
the great players that you've encountered along your way.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Eventually they never looked at the extra work as extra.
It became part of who they were, right it. You know,
Bill Parcells used to say, you know, do you have
a routine or are you committed?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Right?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
And I think that's what happens. There's very few players
that will not grow into a routine. There's very few
players that will not do what's required. But the commitment
exceeds all distractions, It exceeds your doubts, it exceeds you
getting discouraged. I mean, you keep coming. That's what you're
looking for. And I think that's what your vision's got
(28:43):
to be able to have. Like we were visioned for
a player on their worst days, you got to still
see it right and you still got to drive it
out of them when they don't want you to, and
that becomes something that's important. But I think ultimately the
best players had a tremendous desire to be in a gym.
They really learned to want to be watching extra film,
not saying they watched extra film on their phone in
(29:05):
their dorm, but actually being in the building or being
in the film room watching the film, there was no
real They didn't have time constraints on when they were
getting in the gym. They were just going to make
sure that they were in there. And then I think
the other two big things the ones I've had because
they were great teammates, They've had a really really high
level of empathy for other people. And my best players
(29:30):
have not been privileged. You know, whether it was Anthony
Edwards who was number one, or vic Aladipo had one
one scholarship offer right like, they were not privileged. I've
never dealt well with privileged. I've had some, and I've
had some that was really hard to break the entitlement
that they felt they should get. But the best players
I've had that have made the pros of the seventeen
(29:51):
or eighteen guys that have made the NBA, I probably
had two that weren't Jim Rats, but the best of
them were Jim Rats. And I think that's there's a
passion for it. It's not required anymore and it's not
a taxi on their mind or their day to get
in that gym, but they wanted to be driven, and
they wanted to feel.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Some pressure internal.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
And they wanted to be competitive, even it was against
the details of their own game, to get better.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
And I think those are the commonalities I.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
Love, by the way in football, and then the millions
of scouting reports that we've all Bucky and I have
written that we still use the term gym rat even
though technically we're talking about football players on the grass field.
But that's a third to oh to the basketball world.
As you can imagine coach in my side gig doing
the Chargers radio once your brother in law, Jim Harball
was hired. I get peppered with questions all the time
(30:44):
from people all in all walks of life, Charger fans
as well as people in the NFL and people in
different sports world.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
What's he like?
Speaker 3 (30:49):
What you know, you get to be around him, you
see every game.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
What's he like?
Speaker 3 (30:52):
And the best way I can describe it is just
getting to see it. You know, from this vantage point,
I've always heard of, you know, the tough, hard nosed coach,
and then I've heard of the players coach, a positive coach,
and I felt like they were always described as two
different people. I said to me, I would describe Jim
as someone who is tough, detail oriented, of that kind
(31:13):
of tough grinder coach, But he has a very positive
outlook in praising guys. I mean he'll get T shirts
for if they do something in one game, he'll get
T shirts for the whole team. He's constantly reinforcing this
positive mindset into his team. And that to me stood
out is I feel like sometimes we feel like you
got to be one or the other. How important is
it coach to have the toughness side of it? But
(31:35):
then also you're just not screaming at players twenty four
to seven sixty five.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
I think there's I think he's much more running junior
high football camaraderie mentality than he is the hard side
business of NFL football. And I say that with all respect.
He brings the joy out in a very tough, violent, aggressive,
(32:02):
demanding sport. And he brings it out because he's so competitive.
I mean, you've been around him now, both of you like.
The competitiveness does not turn off. It might, it might
dim the light switch a little bit once off, and
it never goes to zero. Right, It's never dark, right,
I mean I swear, I mean it's just it's unbelievable.
And he's never not competitive, and I think with that,
(32:25):
because he oozes you, you can't be competitive and not
be confident, right, So like he brings out a high
level of confidence in you, he brings it. He definitely
did this at Stanford, and and it was unbelievable watching
what he did at Stanford. And then I think what
happened at Michigan, Like he brought out he got them
to believe they were way better than what they were.
(32:47):
I might have said this on here before, but the
first year he got to Stanford, they were playing USC
and Dick Vermel told my father in law Jack he
had been to both practices. He said, USC has got
forty seven to forty eight pros. Jim have one right,
And it might have been to Vita Pritchard. I'm not
sure what he thought was the one right. Then they
go on to beat USC that year, right, and then yes, yes,
(33:11):
And it's like Jim doesn't believe he's going to lose,
but he doesn't ever take it for granted. And how
he gets there and and and then because he's so
sharp and smart, he never lets the last play mentally
affect his next play.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
And I've seen that firsthand since.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
San Diego, USD, UH Stanford, you could see it at Michigan.
But I had the privilege to stand behind him a
couple of times at Stanford and USD, and it was
unbelievable watching him. I mean, he could get a fifteen
yarder right, throw the headset, be mad, and boom. He
was right back in the next play. Now he wasn't
smiling and cheering, but he was right back in the
(33:52):
next play. And I think that's John is not as
demonstrative with that. But John is the same way, and
that competitiveness that they bring out in you, like Jim.
Jim is like the coach in junior high that we're
going to work, we're going to go. But man, you
know what, at the end of this game, we're going
(34:12):
over there to get ice cream, right, And like they don't.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
But that's kind of like what you'd imagine.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
I mean, look you see it, Look a look at
our Herbert and all those guys respond to him. And
he just said again they had perfect attendants again. He
told me this the other day. They had perfect attendants
again in the OTAs. But he got there. I was
worried because Ben Herbert is so good his strength coach. Right,
he was paying him over a million dollars at Michigan.
I really don't know if he ends up taking the
(34:38):
Chargers job if there would have been a snap who
and not being able to bring him, But they did, right,
Like that's his right hand. I asked him one time,
I said, I said, how is the transition Ben for
Ben from Michigan to the NFL with the players, And
he said, it's even been better? Right, and they get
it waldon Volbay and again, it's all the way across
(34:59):
the board. When they played for the when they won
the National championship, they only had two players that year
that weren't healthy enough to play in the game. I'm
the entire traveling squad, right, the entire team, and they
both had been knee surgeries. It had been the offensive
lineman that got hurt in the O House Ty game,
and another guy got hurt in the house in the
Alabama game. He had a full team, right, like Jim
(35:21):
has that way, man. I mean, he just it's hard
to describe that. You just feel stronger and more competitive
and more confident when you're around him. And the fact
that he's so well versed in all of this now,
and he's so smart. And Jim has never ever been afraid.
He's never been afraid to make a change that he
(35:43):
think wasn't working. I mean, at one point he got
rid of the whole defensive side of the ball at Stanford, right.
But he's also never been afraid to bring people that
maybe other people questioned, or maybe they were misunderstood somewhere,
maybe they'd been fired somewhere. He believes in him, he's
got him, and because he's so confident in what he's doing,
(36:04):
he wants to be around those type of people and
I think that says a lot for him too.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back
with our conversation with Tom creen.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
Well, coach, I want to make sure I give you
your flowers, because you put off some wonderful things as
a coach yourself. And I want to talk about the mentality,
particularly when you're coaching an underdog, because your teams at
Marquette were not necessarily viewed as the heavyweights. When you're
coaching a team that is lesser than, or perceived to
be lesser than, the opponents that they're facing, how do
you get them to think that they can accomplish all
(36:39):
the things that the heavyweights can accomplish.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Well, I think you have to show leading up to that.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
You've got to show why you lost the game in
so many games, and why you didn't get and why
you might have lost you might have gotten beat. You
got to show no, no, we didn't get beat.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
We lost it. Here's why.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
And I think that happens over a period of time.
And I think you show the good, but I don't
think you ever stopped showing how you could have buried somebody,
how you could have come back and won the game.
And it's not just about the end of the game.
I think it's a process of building up a mind
that we have got to not lose this game ourselves
(37:19):
and beat ourselves, right. And I think when you get
into the big games, and it's even when you win
a thirty point game, right, like, they don't want to
see what they didn't do, but they have to see it.
They have to see, Man, we won by thirty, we
could have won by forty. Here's five plays. We won
by five, we could have won by fifteen, and here's
five plays. And you just have to do that over
a period of time and then you got to practice
(37:40):
that way. And I think for me it's I never
wanted to feel like I was a underdog to a
Hall of fame coach or to a great program, to
a blue blood type of thing or something like that.
Even when we were in Indiana, we were really in
train wreck status for the first couple of years to
try to build through, and even though we lost, we
(38:01):
didn't go into those games. They may not have deep
down believed they were going to win, but we were
trying to prepare and give a plan that said we
could win. And I think that's you just practice that way.
I think it all starts in your player development. I mean,
I've had great coaches, but I wasn't missing individual instructions
in player development things. So I think that's when you
(38:21):
build a mindset into your guys of what they're capable of,
and then when you get into the full practice, full
mode type of stuff, you're helping them bring that out
in each other. But I think you just get your
team to a place where they know that if they're together,
and it's not about it's not about being afraid to
make mistakes right. It's not about how many assists we
(38:43):
get versus how many turnovers we get. Like, that's a
big one, right, But that's not how you build the
team going into the game. You've got to have different
ways to overcome what you're not doing well. And like
a couple of weeks ago, Game six with the New
York Knicks and the Pacers, the Knicks got four big
offensive rebounds that they turned in to putbacks in that game. Well,
they were probably a better team rebounding team than the Pacers. Right, Well,
(39:05):
the Pacers got four throw aheads on the break, Okay,
by getting out and beating the Knickson and transition that
kind of wiped out or at least evened up the
offensive rebound. So you're always looking for those things with
your team leading up to it and figuring giving them
different ways that they could adjust in the game to
get those things.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Coach, this has been so fascinating.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
We could go on forever.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
I just I'm going to hit you with one last
one here. We have We've talked about the NBA Draft
that's coming up. We had the NFL Draft back in April.
I know, like someone like Dwayne Wade has always talked
about your influence on his life and not just when
he was playing for you, but then you know, going
on into his professional career, would what would your advice
have been to Dwayne Wade? What did you tell Dwayne
(39:46):
Wade when he was getting ready to embark in his
rookie season? And then we think about all these rookies
that are now going to take the field this summer
for the first time.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
What would your.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Message be to a rookie getting ready to step into
a professional locker room?
Speaker 1 (40:00):
What got you here won't get you where you want
to go? And find the people that are going to
make sure that they understand that because what happens so
much right now. And Dwayne was really good with this.
We had five agents come in and Henry Thomas was
the first one who passed away a few years ago,
was phenomenally. He ended up joining CAA, but he just incredible.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Guy.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Had Chris Boss, Devin Harris, Sean Livingston, all kinds of
different NBA players, but he did a great job with Dwayne.
And the one thing he did he never came in
and tried to get Dwayne to leave school early. And
others did, well, you can go train here, you can
go train there. They didn't read it right. Dwayne had
a wife, Okay, at that point before Gabrielle, he had
his son Zaire. He also had a competition going with
(40:43):
one of our players, Travis Diener, who could have the
highest GPA that semester. And Travis got a three point
zero three point oh four and Dwayne got a two
point nine to six. Right, So like he was, he
was competing, and nobody understood that. Nobody asked right except Henry.
Henry understood no, stay right here. And I think what
happens is when players find someone that is really helping
(41:06):
them by telling them the truth, having the details, making
them work and not letting it be easy. They got
to find them because this draft process can turn you
right from going into I've got to maintain what I'm
doing to prepare for the workout, to prepare for the combine,
to prepare to be drafted high versus get better at
(41:26):
what I'm going to need. And I think what gets
lost in the translation between the draft process of the
end of the season to the draft and even in
the summertime in a lot of these programs is this
is what we've got to do to get better. Derek
Lively two years ago gets drafted by Dallas and my
son's second year on that staff, and there's a guy
named Sean Sweeney, just a phenomenal younger coach, and they
(41:49):
brought Derek Lively into the workouts and if you could
have seen his left hand, you wouldn't have believed it,
like it was non existent. And later he said that
in the NBA Finals is that he he didn't really
have a left hand when he got there, and all
that time, you know that left hand wasn't being work
done right. But from the day after he got in
(42:10):
on that Friday and that Saturday in the draft, they
continue to work on his left hand, continue to work
on his feet, continue to work on his right shoulder,
to the point where that guy was a starting center
with real force into the NBA Finals against the Celtics
that year because you could score with both hands. Greatest
example I've seen recently of somebody that really understood he
(42:32):
had to make a jump, and the coaches never stopped
getting him there. That is a problem, right, because there
are not enough people that will tell you the truth
about what you got to get better at and then
spend the time with you when you don't want to
do it right. They let them train on their terms,
and all of a sudden you get into the game
and Rick Carlisle or Eric Spostra or Jason Kidding those
(42:55):
players they can't play you because you didn't get better
at what they need you to be able to do
to win a basketball game in November, December and January.
And I think that's the biggest thing. Don't ever ever
get away from the fact that you've got to get better,
no matter how much money you have, no matter where
you're picked, and if you lose that, somebody's beating you
out and you don't even know they're coming.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
Coachy, I have one question for you, because you've done
all kinds of things as a coach. If you were
talking to a young coach who was coming off a
difficult season and they needed to bounce back, what would
you tell them to do to get his team up
and going following a disappointing season the year before.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Be in the gym with those guys constantly, right, don't
leave it to the gas, don't leave it to the assistance.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Have them in there.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
The players have to see you, they have to see
you working with them. You have to get to know
them at a different level, study the film on their
strengths and weaknesses. Know everybody that you come in that
you're going to be in charge of the development plan
for that player and help see it through. And that
spins off all the one on one meetings, that spins
off all the little group meetings, that spins off building
(44:07):
a trust level. Showing up and playing coach and watching
everybody else do the work is not building a trust level.
And I think that's the transaction world that we're so
tough right now. Everybody wants to believe that it's a
transactional world because of the portal and the nil and
all that right now, and the ones that still understand
it's transformational on a daily basis, not just because you
(44:28):
said it was or because of the culture, are the key.
And I think that when you're coming off a struggle,
it's not just about the players that you're with. You've
got to make everybody in your group, whether they've been
with you, whether you're hiring somebody new, You've got to
give them reasons and tools to make sure that they're
(44:51):
as great as they can possibly be. Because what happens
a lot of times when you lose, you isolate, right
you go into your own world. You going to your
own orbit. And you can't do that, man, you can't
do it. It's too easy to do, right, Because now,
all of a sudden, when you're questioning your own game
and you're questioning your own confidence and your own coaching,
you start to lose that spirit. You start to have
(45:11):
some doubts, and all of a sudden, you self sabotage
your little bitself a little bit rather than getting out
there and being in the environment. And that's so crucial
and in this day and age, I mean, I go
back to when Jim was in San Francisco with some
of the stuff he was dealing with in there, you know,
with the owner in Trent Bulky, and how it got
so Jim had to go to them, right, I don't
(45:33):
mind saying that, Like Jim had to go seek them
out because people weren't necessarily seeking him out. And it's
like when you're in trouble, people are afraid to talk
to you, they're afraid to be around you because then
you become a little You're not toxic, but they're nervous. Right,
you can never be afraid to go make it easy
for somebody to communicate with you and to get better,
(45:55):
irregardless if they want to help, if they believe it
or not. You have to do that, and then that
what that does. And the last thing I would say
about that, because whatever gave you the most energy as
a coach is the things you got to get back
to when you're struggling, just as much as when you're winning,
because people that win get away from what gave them
energy too. They get pulled in many different directions. What
(46:17):
gives you energy, what you love doing the most, You've
got to even double down and do more of when
you're struggling, and that feeds your energy, which gives you
the energy and the passion to help everybody else find
theirs coach.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
This has been awesome. We got I know Bucky and
I are on the same page here. We take so
many notes when we get a chance to visit with you,
and there's so much carry over and crossover into all
different sports. And I am excited at learning through this
conversation today that that you are still coaching, You are
still you are.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
I go back, Yeah, I go back. I go back
in the right situation. You know, I could be an
assistant in the NBA. I think I could do that
mentally easy.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
I love helping guys get better. And you talk about
the crossover, It's like, there's so many things that I've
learned from other sports, especially football, that you apply to basketball.
I think I've said this on here before, but I
became such a better coach teaching downhill basketball and ball
screen basketball after watching Howard Mutt and John Tiernick in
the Tyernick with the pay with Pacers with the Colts
(47:19):
run one on one drills with the tackle in the
edge right and watching the edge have to get around
point his foot towards the football not get knocked off.
And I had even deeper discussions with guys like Mike
Turgervak and Matt Patricia to the point like where getting
your foot, your shoulder, your hip turned around with that
(47:40):
lead foot pointed towards the basketball. That's helped guys I've
coached make a lot more money than they might have
made otherwise because I learned that from football. And instead
of stepping a certain way, getting that foot around to
point towards the quarterback or the football, well that's exactly
what pointing towards the rim is. There's so many little
ideals like that. That's what I've always gotten my energy.
(48:00):
So the crossover part is unbelievable. And what you guys do,
who you are and what you do and where you
do it at with the NFL network is just absolutely awesome.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
Well, I appreciate you so much. And being around Howard
mud for the time I was with the Philadelphia Eagles.
There's a lot of stories, a lot of Howard mud
stories I could tell you, but man, he was.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
I got his book right behind me up there. The
book is right behind me. I know you guys have
read that.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Oh he is. He is incredible.
Speaker 3 (48:26):
Again, It's sad that we lost him, but he was
just a wonderful, wonderful guy. He came across as across
as a curmudgeon, but he cared and his players absolutely
loved him. And he made a lot of guys with
limited athletic ability a lot of money coach.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Oh, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
And for me when I was young, before I ever
met him, And one of the greatest things was living
in Indiana, being around Tom Telesco, being around Chris Pouleian
and certainly Bill Polian, Tony Dunge, but being around those assistants,
Tom Moore was alleged well Howard mud I grew up
in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Howard was from Midland, Michigan. It's
twenty five minutes from where I grew up. So when
you names like that that you don't even know, like
(49:02):
when you meet them, you're like meeting It's like meeting Gandhi, Right,
I mean, like it's like, come on, like you're meeting
somebody that's incredible, And that was awesome to me. But
that's why when that book came out, view from the
O line, there's a lot of coaching. There's a lot
of basketball in there. There's a lot of basketball in
Tom Moore's book. I mean, there's so many things to
take from other sports that I've never understood why more
(49:25):
don't do it. I get somewhat obsessive with it, but
I don't understand why more don't do it, because it's
really all the same.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Man.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
You're trying to get people to be better at what
they are, and you're trying to give them the details
and techniques and mindset to get.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
There, no doubt.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
Well, coach, you're curious, and that's what we love about you.
We're the same way, always trying to learn and grow,
and I feel like we've accomplished both those things today.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
So we appreciate you anytime. Thanks for having me. Thank
you well, Buck.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
That was that was a fun one, man. I mean, look,
Eric Musselman's great. You get a chance with Tom Crane.
I feel like we're scratching this basketball itch. But also
so much crossover and again another example of a coach
who definitely pays attention to what's going on in the
football world and is able to incorporate some of the
things he's learned from that space to help him in
a different sport.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (50:12):
So such a great conversation to have with him, and
just what he's able to add not only his own
personal anecdotes, but because he knows the Harbors so well
obviously being the brother in law he knows him, but
what he's able to share behind the scenes with Jim
parmbro and contrasted with how John approaches it to me, man,
(50:32):
the one thing that comes out not only his knowledge,
but the passion that he has for being good coach
and paying good forward and working with young people and
doing all those things.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
I just love it, man.
Speaker 4 (50:42):
I feel so much smarter from having the opportunity to
listen in for the last half.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
Hour now he is excellent. I know you guys enjoyed
it as well. Again, we'll have more coming your way
here as we get through the summer here. Football will
be here before you know it. In the meantime, we'll
have some of these fun conversations to go along with
keeping updated on what's going on very quiet period in
the on the NFL calendar. So that's gonna do it
for us today and we'll see you next time right
here on move sticks.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
M hm m m m m
Hosts And Creators
Daniel Jeremiah
Bucky Brooks
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