Episode 15: Hard Work and Resilience with Motivational Speaker and Basketball Coach Cornell Thomas

Jared here, and this week we close out our 3-part series on the “how.” I’m joined by Cornell Thomas, a motivational speaker, author, and basketball coach. Cornell is here to talk about his incredible journey to a professional basketball contract after not picking up a basketball until age 16. You read that correctly. You’re going to learn about how a kid who did not play basketball until he was a junior in high school became a dominant athlete. 

The word of the day is “resilience,” And Cornell Thomas is going to show you how far resilience and a strong work ethic can take you. Be ready to take some important notes on mental toughness, the power of showing up consistently, and why belief is the key to success both on and off the court. 

After Cornell shares his story - which is going to wow anyone with a pulse - I put him on the hot-seat about the recruiting process. You’re going to want to stick around to hear the practical advice he has for young athletes, especially when it comes to self-awareness and gratitude.

The insights you’re about to hear are not just inspiring, they’re also actionable. Most of you have a HUGE head start on Cornell; you simply have to execute his gameplan. Now strap in and give that gameplan a listen.

For more about Cornell:

Follow on TikTok: @cornellthomas96

Follow on IG: @cornellthomas34

Learn more about Cornell’s books and speaking engagements: https://cornellthomas.com/

Cornell’s AAU program - Crossroads Basketball: https://xroadsbasketball.com/

________________

Have a question that you’d like answered by me or a guest?  Have an idea for an episode topic? Have no suggestions but just want to say hello? Email me at [e-mail] 

To obtain more information about my coaching services or to check out the book, visit www.nailtherecruitingprocess.com

Follow me on social media!

Instagram - @NailTheRecruitingProcess
X (Twitter) / TikTok - @JaredTheCoach 

 

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Who would have thought that almost 10 years ago, I run into you at Spooky Nook and I'mlike, you're the hopscotch guy.
No one, by the way, is going to have even the slightest idea what that means.
That's totally fine.
But to see what a silly short film about hopscotch has brought us.

(00:24):
We've both advanced pretty far professionally since those days.
And I'll tell you what, Cornell, I'm super happy to have you here.
Thanks for making time for
man, I'm honored, brother.
That was a great encounter.
That was the first time a coach ever really threw me off guard at any type of event.
So that was a great lead in.
Well, you know, it's funny.
I've had a few coaches come on the podcast and like outright tell me like, hey, this thingI did in my 20s that like kind of helped me.

(00:50):
I shouldn't have done it and you shouldn't do it either.
And something I now know about myself is like, yo, when you're out recruiting, it mightnot be best to like accost a complete stranger and exclusively say like the most random
things you can think of to the stranger.
you you that's what makes you you and that's like when you come across people like me thatappreciate that and like love people that are different because no offense to any coaches

(01:16):
but sometimes you meet the same coach like seven thousand times you just like Give mesomething different.
Like I don't want the business like hello I love the what you do with your team blah blahblah like give me something different.
So that was great
Well, yeah.
Well, you don't get any different than I had no idea you were an AAU coach, but I really,yeah, like here's our connection.

(01:37):
This is really cool.
So yeah.
Well, this is, it's one thing to talk about, hopscotch and a short film called Scotch onthe Rocks, parts one and two.
And maybe one day, yeah, maybe one day you and I will get Chris D 'Alessio on, on apodcast, but until then.
Yeah, until then we are here to talk about basketball.

(01:59):
We're here to talk about a lot of positive psychology that I think you could help with.
And most importantly, we're going to use a big R word over and over again, and that R wordis resilience.
And there's, I want to kind of start here because it kind of goes arm in arm with a pieceof content I shared recently.

(02:21):
So you know this from your own personal experience and evaluating kids.
But something I shared publicly that was met with a little bit of like trepidation andmaybe like a pessimistic response was that like once a coach knows you're good and they're
still recruiting you, like once they know you're good enough, they kind of want to see youfail just to see what your behavior looks like when it's going wrong.

(02:47):
So you are the perfect candidate to start talking about this because
To say things went wrong when you were young with the game of basketball doesn't reallytell the whole story because in a lot of instances, things weren't going any way at all.
So I wanna start there with you.

(03:08):
You have a very unique relationship with the game of basketball that has taken you so far.
Talk to us about how it started and how it became the thing you were most passionate aboutand ready to be resilient.
Yeah, I think the funniest thing, Jared, is that when I go to different schools and talkor camps, etc., they always think that my basketball journey started at like three, four

(03:31):
years old, right?
Because that's what you typically hear.
You know, I was three or four years old, my dad put the basketball in the crib, I've beendoing AAU, none of that stuff.
Like, I've never, ever played an AAU game in my life.
Ever.
Crazy.
So, I started playing basketball when I was 16 years old.
I'm originally from Pesake, New Jersey.
My father was a police officer in city Pesake, New Jersey, and he passed away when I wasfour.

(03:55):
So, when he passed away, he left my mom the job of raising five kids on her own.
So, my mindset in terms of positivity and resilience and grit, it all stems from my mom.
because I just watched her work.
Like I watched her, my mom wasn't a big sit you down, preach to you.
My mom would really talk in kind of sound bites and bullet points like, hey, you know,don't follow the flock.

(04:19):
know, everything happens for a reason.
These are the things that always, that stuck with me when I was growing up.
But because we were, you know, really below the poverty line and we didn't have a lot ofmoney, I didn't have, she didn't have the bandwidth to take us to sports.
So I didn't play any sports really growing up.
I was...
My, you know, when we moved from Passaic to Rockaway, I remember the first sport I everplayed was baseball.

(04:42):
I was on this team, like little league baseball, and it's because my uncle played baseballand he always wanted me to play baseball.
yeah, not a bad sport when you're living in Rockaway.
Yeah.
That's the sport and like when you're when a lot of people that don't know Pasek Pasek'san inner city when we moved to Rockaway My mom moved us out of there for an opportunity

(05:03):
right so she moves out of there because but at the time Pasek was you know was gettingreally bad the educational system the schools were really bad and So she was like all
right.
We have to get them out So she did I don't know I still to this day Jared don't know howshe somehow got five kids out of a of Pasek into Rockaway and I again I played baseball.
I thought okay.
I'll try this baseball thing

(05:24):
like baseball, I've always had a really strong work ethic, again, because when you watchyour mom...
You know go to work at 11 o 'clock at night come back get you ready for school Then go towork again to the second job to the third job if you're paying attention Right through
osmosis something is gonna hit you like something and I'm the youngest of all the boys I'mthe youngest my sister's younger than me, but I'm the youngest right boy So I just paid

(05:48):
attention and really studied my mom and thought to myself well Anything I want to besuccessful at after I have to work at so I remember you know We had an empty lot across
the street from our house in Rockaway And I used to throw rocks in front of my face andhit him with the
the street for hours like hours until like my hands had blisters on them and it's notbecause I was like hey I'm in love with baseball it's just I want to get better at it so I

(06:12):
did that and then going you know seventh grade eighth grade you know ninth grade I playedfreshman football to give it a shot I had no idea what the hell was going on I was getting
hit from different angles I didn't know like I was like Chris Tucker and Rush Hour waslike which one of y 'all hit me I had no idea about schemes
Anything I just went out there and just ran around and then it wasn't until the summer ofmy sophomore year My mom is from this town called Bird's Nest, Virginia, which is like,

(06:38):
you know this big right and Everybody's related to me in Bird's Nest, Virginia like all mycousins.
Everybody's related to me and I remember Yeah, it's a way if people don't believe it yeahBird's Nest yeah For a population 15
Okay.

(06:59):
Yeah.
but back then, like, when you go to Bird's Nest, you're related to everybody, and you're16 years old.
You're like, there's no girls in town.
Right?
Like, everybody's my cousin.
So, I'm like, this is the worst possible landing spot that I could be in right now in thesummer.
But I remember, I have a cousin, his name's Carlos Taylor, and he was a stud three -sportathlete.

(07:20):
Like, he played basketball, football, and track.
And he was in the paper for all three of them.
And for whatever reason,
One day I was sitting on his bed and I looked under his bed and he had all these newspaperarticles about him playing basketball.
And I started to read these articles and it's like, Carlos Taylor scores 37 points, CarlosTaylor...
And I'm watching and I'm like, he's the dude, he's the guy.

(07:44):
he's the...
Yeah, so I'm like, but for me growing up...
I have so many older brothers, no one knew me for anything.
I was so -and -so's little brother.
That's like, who's, that's so -and -so's little brother.
Like, no one ever said, that's Cornell.
He does this, right?
So I'm just...
Yeah, yeah.
And so for me, I'm just thinking to myself, my cousin plays basketball, he's really goodat it.

(08:09):
Maybe I'll start trying to play basketball, and maybe I can be known for something otherthan just being someone's little brother.
Now...
The problem is I've never played the game before.
Ever.
Like when I was a freshman I was 5 '6".
Right?
From freshman to sophomore year I grew 6".
Right, so came back.
Back time, I rocked a high top.

(08:30):
Right, so I was another three or four inches.
So I was like around damn near 6 '2", you know, when I came back from my junior year.
And so when I got home, when we drove home to Rockaway, I walked, I found the nearestcourt, it was like three and a half miles away, because there's no courts or sidewalks in
Rockaway, it's not like Pasek, right, where I can just go down the street and find acourt.
And I remember my first day shooting a basketball, or I'll put this in quotes, shooting abasketball, you

(08:56):
It was just pretty much throwing a basketball out of basket and just watching it go overYeah, yeah hoping praying to God that the ball went in at some point and I'm sitting there
and I did this for about two hours and I just realized like I suck at this like I'mhorrible at this like I'm god -awful and I had and you find this when you and I've seen it

(09:18):
in your podcast There's these chance encounters that you have with people
that for me are not coincidences.
People come into your life for a reason, right?
And as I'm sitting here throwing the basketball up, there's this guy about five footseven, five foot eight, like Filipino guy that comes walking to the court and he goes, my
name is Ray.
Do you want me to show you how to shoot a basketball?

(09:39):
So I guess, like he lived across the street.
So I guess he was watching this kid by himself just throw the ball everywhere but in thehoop.
And he decided for some reason on this day,
to come out and ask if he can show me how to shoot.
And I've always been open to instruction.
And that's one thing I always tell kids.
Like, I've always been open to it.

(10:00):
Even if it's crazy advice, I will give you a platform to tell me the crazy advice.
And what I do with it, I do with it.
But I'll let you, I'll never cut somebody off.
I'm open to learning.
And for the next two hours, this dude showed me how to shoot a basketball, like,correctly.
Right?
Now, he left, I still sucked at basketball.
Right?
By no means was I good.

(10:20):
There's still like, you know, dribbling and passing and playing defense and knowing whereto be, like IQ.
I had none of that.
But...
Yeah, from three feet in, like, my game of horse from right under the basket, I'm smoking13 % of the population.
Like, I'm going to be pretty good.
So...

(10:41):
So I'm working on this and I'm thinking to myself, okay, well, I'll just come here everysingle day for six, seven hours a day and I'll work on what I just learned.
And I always repeat that to the kids that I work with like now and the kids that know thatI get as coach at Blair and at Jude College I say I go there for six seven hours a day So

(11:02):
I'd have to walk three and a half miles and I'd go there from morning to afternoon and allI would do is work on what Rainier showed me what to do and then I'd walk three and a half
miles back so I have a seven seven miles is in that equation and I did that every day forthe whole entire summer and it's
What people don't realize is when you're working at something, right, especially in termsof being great at something, it's a lot of solitude.

(11:32):
You're going be by yourself.
And the reason people stop working is because they can't take that solitude.
They can't take that solitary confinement.
You the trenches to me is being by myself and training and no one waking me up and saying,it's time to go and train or I have a plan for you to work out today.
It's just trying to figure it out.

(11:53):
Right?
So I did that for the whole entire summer.
I was at Morris Hills High School in Rockaway.
And I went to tryouts because I was like, okay, there's a trial.
I'm a junior now in high school.
First trial I've ever been to.
I'm I'm thinking up the joint.
Like when I say that I have like they're doing three man weave.
I've never seen what three man weave before is in my life.

(12:13):
Yeah.
imagine because I still remember like this hand to God Cornell.
I remember being 10 and being at a St.
Peter's CYO travel practice.
And I was told I was good enough to make the B team.
And the first time they were like, we're running three man weave.

(12:33):
I remember being like, what?
So I can't imagine like if I'm 10.
looking at that and being like, get in the back of the line and do not go until you thinkyou're not going to mess this up.
What it must feel like as a junior in high school.
Yeah, and these kids have already had three years of running this right or four years ofrunning this So I'm you're talking about back of the line I'm like almost in the hallway

(12:57):
watching because I'm like, I don't know where I'm supposed to go And so like the troutsare over and when trouts are over, you know, they had that during that time They will put
a list on the wall for your varsity teams
And I, you know, I'm a junior and all my kids, most of the kids in my age or they're on,you know, varsity or whatever.
And I look over and my names, I get cut from varsity.

(13:20):
Right?
So understandably.
And then I look at the JV list and I'm on JV.
So I have no, I have no, I don't know any better.
So I'm like, I'm a junior on JV.
That makes sense.
Like junior, junior varsity.
I guess that's who the juniors play.
Right?
Like I had no idea.
Like no dude.
Like there's sophomores that play varsity fam.
Like you're not.
Like, it's not just specifically for juniors.

(13:42):
It's like you have a freshman on your team.
Right?
So,
Sometimes though it pays to take the world incredibly literally.
Yeah, junior varsity.
Let's go.
Varsity for juniors.
Done.
Yeah.
gonna go crazy here.
And the craziest thing is, like, when we started playing, like I wasn't playing at all.
Like I wasn't starting, I was coming off the bench and, you know, coming off the benchsparingly coming off the bench.

(14:06):
And like my boys that are on the team, you know, they were mostly all of them werestarting.
And I remember going home one day, it after the third or fourth game, and I remember goingwith my mom and she goes, well, how's basketball going?
Because my mom can't watch my games, like she's working all the time.
And I said, you know, mom, I'm not really playing.
And she goes, okay, work harder.

(14:27):
That's it.
No, like the coach sucks.
You know, like your teammates aren't good.
You know, why isn't my baby playing?
None of that.
Just, work harder.
Like just.
Two words, work harder.
And I'm like, huh, okay, I gotta work harder.
And I always say like, back in those days, I feel that everything was on you.

(14:51):
It wasn't on the coach, it wasn't on your teammates.
was what are you doing?
And that self -reflectiveness of like looking in the mirror and saying, this person thatloves me more than anybody on earth isn't coddling me.
She's just basically throwing it at me like, if you work harder, maybe you'll have anopportunity to play more.

(15:12):
And so I'm like, okay, well, I'm gonna just work harder.
I got it.
Say less, mom, I got you.
And I just worked harder and I get in the games here and there.
There was a guy that played in the NBA.
His name was James Bailey.
His nickname was Jumpin' James Bailey.
He played on the Nets.
And he was an assistant coach at one of the schools that we played, JV Coach.
And I'll never, he's big man, like six foot nine, six foot 10, right?

(15:36):
I think he played in the league for like seven, eight years.
And I had no idea, you know, who he was.
And we played a game against his team, our JV team, and I got in at the end and I had likesix points.
I had like two hooks and like you know, pump fake and went like, you know, it's like,cause I played the post back then, you know?
Yeah.
And so at the end of the game, I'm shaking hands with him.

(16:00):
And he shakes my hand and he goes, hey, he goes, you stay with it.
And I'm looking, I'm like, yes, yes, okay, thanks coach.
And then he goes, I found out later on the banquet that like later on the year, he came upto my coach and said, who's that kid?
And he goes, he just started playing basketball.
And he basically said to my coach, like, you know, make sure you stay with them, you know,like keep working with them.

(16:22):
And I didn't find that out till like the end of the school year.
And I was just like, there's, and again, like, there's these people that come across thatgive you like that little nod of encouragement, like, hey, you might not be great right
now, or, you know, but I can see something in you that if you work at it, you can get alittle bit better.
And that's just, I always say that's planting a seed.
And as a coach, you know this, you plant seeds all the time to these kids, positive seeds,like, hey man, like, where you are right now doesn't have to be where you stay.

(16:49):
And so by the time I got to my senior year, that group that was a year ahead of me, had areally good, it was a really good season at my high school.
And when we came back, everybody left except for one kid.
I, huge varsity, I mean, there's, I mean, I'm talking about mass exodus.
There's one guy that played.
And,
You know, we started and obviously, you know, I'm obviously playing varsity because I'm asenior.

(17:13):
There's nothing else they can do with you, right?
So I'm a senior.
And, you know, again, I'm not starting.
I'm like, okay.
In the first game, I get in for like a minute.
So I'm like, well, that's better than last year because I didn't get in at all.
And then that whole entire year, I probably averaged about three minutes, four minutes agame, right?
Barely played.
And my coach sat us down.

(17:33):
I'll never forget this because it's something I carried with me for a little while, ismotivation.
He sat us down at the end of the season and he was going through everybody and he saying,know, Kevin, you're our best shooter and ant, you're gonna be great next year and blah, he
got to me and he said, Cornell, you're gonna be a good businessman.
like nothing basketball related like basically like I was like business yeah I was likeyeah thanks I was like when did we have a talk about me loving business like that's my

(18:06):
first thing that hit my head like when did we sit down and I talk to you aboutmacroeconomics right like I'm like I'm struggling in school like it's a business is not
I'm trying to get out of here right so I was I took that and I was like wow okay
But the thing that I never stopped doing, Jared, I never stopped working.
And that's why I always tell people, despite not playing, despite all the stuff that Imight think was garbage, I never stopped working.

(18:33):
And at the end of my high school, obviously no one's recruiting me.
I'm averaging 0 .001 points per game.
I'm not like Mike Cieszewski, he's not like, yo, who's that kid that never plays?
So I sit down and my mom said, hey, baby boy, she goes, I don't have any money to send youto college.
And just, I've never heard the woman say can't.

(18:53):
Just flat out, I'm sorry, but I cannot see you in college.
And so I sat there and I sat with that for a little bit and I said, okay, I'm gonna worktwo jobs.
I'm gonna take a year off, year and half off if I have to, and then I'll go to a juniorcollege.
I'll pay for a junior college.
And I remember working at a pharmacy, working at Foot Action, back when Foot Action waspopping.

(19:13):
I was working at two places and I went to a school we couldn't afford.
I went to Center University, just basically.
to just have like a shadow course of what college would be.
And the lady that was the admissions woman who was amazing, she goes, know, he can go tosome of these classes, but like, I know that you guys can't afford.
She basically let me go there for a year for free, right?

(19:36):
And so, and Arti, she was an amazing lady.
But the cool thing was at Centenary was I worked in the gym.
So they had a gym called Reeves Gym.
and they had a couple Division I transfers at this Division III school.
So these guys were the best guys I've ever seen at that time.
And they used to talk crazy to me every day.

(19:57):
Like, mean, dunk on me and talk bananas to me.
But they loved me, right?
But it really got me better seeing like the skill level.
Like, I didn't know what a...
Yeah.
Yeah.
okay, this is what I mean.
These guys, this is the first time I saw an up fake.
You know, like I was jumping in the air when guys would up fake me.
Like I'd be like, whoa, like I had no idea.
I like, this is crazy.

(20:18):
Like, you know, I'm going to high school and rock away.
Guys aren't in and out through the leg, sham, got it.
Nobody's doing that.
Like these guys like bink, bink, bink, pull back dribble, right?
Like no one's got any swag to them.
And so I'm playing with these guys and I have a year of training with these guys andgetting murked by these guys every day.
And they used to call me Mr.
Reeves because I was in the gym every day.

(20:38):
I was in the gym all day every day.
And so after that first year, my buddy went to a school called Sussex County College,where I would later coach.
And he goes, hey man, I'm going to Sussex.
You should come with me.
I said, what's Sussex?
He was a JuCo.
I said, okay.
So I go to Sussex.
I meet my coach, Coach Coons.
And if you don't know what JuCo, Junior College is, two -year school.

(21:01):
where I was was a Division III Junior College.
And what happens, no scholarship, no nothing.
But to go there for a year at that time was like $900.
And I was working.
So I'm like, I can afford, I can pay my own way through junior college.
And the way junior college works is basketball is one of the few sports that runs throughtwo semesters.

(21:25):
So at Christmas break, everybody fails off.
Right?
So.
And wouldn't it be funny that that actually started happening at high level D1 too?
But what's a different podcast for a different day?
What you're saying is important.
So when you say, and I wanted to find this for a listener, when you say everybody failsoff, you basically mean nobody goes to classes anymore second semester because they can't

(21:48):
get held accountable for it because they're already out of there at the end of the yearanyway.
That's what you're saying.
also, there's opportunity.
Right?
Like, if you're actually going to class during that first semester, there's, I always tellkids, you're an ankle sprain away from starting.
You're an ankle sprain away from being in the rotation.
Right?

(22:08):
So I did not know how junior college works.
Our first team in the first semester, we looked like the 96 Bulls.
I'm like, we got this cat and this cat.
I didn't start a game the first semester.
But then everybody fell off.
We lost like four guys, three starters.
So guess who got his first starting nod ever?
Like the first time I started in the game, I was 20.

(22:31):
Right?
So like I'm coming in like they call the starting nod.
I didn't even know what to do.
I'm like, do I run out?
Do I slap this guy's hand?
Like what?
But it was the first time I started a game.
And I was like, take the most of this opportunity.
Now I'm starting.
So like these little incremental steps where it's like, OK, I went from never starting agame in high school, now I started a junior college game.
And then the summer of that year, I played in this league in Washington, New Jersey thathad D1 kids, D2 kids, D3 kids.

(22:56):
And it really jumped my game up.
sophomore year, another chance encounter, there was a guy by the name of Walt Hobbs and hewas from Newark.
He played at MCI, Main Central Institute, for this legendary coach back in the day calledMax Good.
I didn't even know what a prep school was.

(23:17):
He came from a prep school and he was like, he didn't start, but he was known in Newark,New Jersey for his ball handling.
And he came up to me and he said,
He goes, yo, if you wanna play college basketball, you're not a forward, bro.
He's like, there's guards out there that are like, because I'm 6 '5", he's like, there'sguards out there that are like 6 '8".
And so he's the first one that showed me how to really handle the bat.

(23:38):
Like if you look at my first semester sophomore tape and my second semester sophomoretape, it doesn't look like the same person.
Like it doesn't even look like the same player.
Like I'm now with, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Obviously, this means you put in work.
Yeah.

(24:00):
when you knew it was time to increase your ball handling to potentially become ascholarship athlete after JuCo, what did your work look like every day to get better at
ball handling?
Because I'm talking to kids about this right now and they truly believe it's like, youknow, I didn't break a sweat, but I put in 25 minutes, bam, get me out of here.
So I'll give you one workout really quick and then I'll tell you what my routine was.

(24:27):
So Iverson was really really like taking off at this time.
And what, yeah, so no, we're 19, so Iverson was drafted in the 96 draft and he was like arookie.
right now and everybody's doing the Iverson cross or the DC cross, is what call it, theHezzy cross.

(24:50):
wanted to, want, Walt had a phenomenal hesitation cross.
So I wanted to have a Hezzy cross.
So we went to this park at 11 o 'clock at night and I had a ball and I started from oneend of the baseline and I would take a dribble and try the hesitation cross.
And whenever I didn't, Dwight would be like, that's not it, that's not it, that's not it.
We were there at Jared from 11 p to 1 .30 a

(25:14):
with me just doing one move, no other moves, but a hesitation cross for over two and ahalf hours.
Until, and at the end of it, basically I can't feel my arms, my hands are all dirty fromthe court, right?
And the next day when I woke up, there's a court the guys were playing in the morning, andthe only move I would allow myself to do was a hesitation cross.

(25:37):
Until I got it.
So when I worked out, we were in the era of wrist weights,
in heavy bowls.
So I would put wrist weights or something we couldn't afford something that have ankleweights on my arms and I would
start from one baseline and I would mini cross, mini cross, mini cross all the way to theother side, mini cross, mini cross all the to the other side, duck walk through the legs

(26:00):
all the to the other side, do it forwards, backwards, sideways, know, V dribbles all theway through, right?
And I'd do all that workout and then I'd take them off and I'd do the same workout withoutthem.
So I didn't lose my handle, I didn't lose my feel, right?
And so it got to the point where my ball handling was getting so much quicker, but Ididn't know when to use the moves.

(26:21):
So the next part of our progression was Walt had all these like Chauncey Billups inColorado, Jacques Vaughn, Brevin Knight, Steph Moraberry in high school.
He had all these clips of these point guards and we'd watch game tape.
over and over.
How does Steph push cross?

(26:41):
this is the way he sets up his push cross.
Chauncey goes behind the back into a curl.
Okay, we're going to do behind the back.
And so we'd watch these moves and we write these moves out and we say, this today, we'regoing to focus on these four moves and combine these four moves together.
We're going to combine in and out, in and out cross, in and out through the legs, in andout behind the back.

(27:02):
And we're going to do those moves, that's it.
And we do those in the finishes.
We do those in the pull -ups.
And we do them every single day.
There's no, I try to tell these kids this, there is no rest day when you start basketballat 16 and you really want to be good.
I've already had 16 years of rest days.

(27:24):
I don't have any rest days in me.
Like I haven't played, yeah I didn't have 400 AAU games under my belt by the time I was13.
Right?
So I'm doing all my stuff and it's like,
But then we have regular practice.
Like this is just our workout before practice.
So practice is mandatory.

(27:45):
Mandatory isn't work to me.
That's not extra work.
Practice is practice.
That's mandatory.
So if you tell me I went to practice six days a week, cool.
What did you do on your own?
That's not extra.
That's the standard.
That's the price of admission.
Practice ain't nothing.
For me, I'm like, practice is nothing.
And so I work my way...

(28:06):
My sophomore year at First Timor Region, First Timor Conference, all these freakingaccolades, right?
I had guys, Jared, that went to school with me, that went to school like out inPennsylvania, and they would, like, one of my boys told me, he goes, yo, he goes, I went
to the Essex game.
I said, yeah, so you hit the game at the end of the game.
He goes, I want to be honest with you.

(28:27):
I went to the Essex game because guys were saying your name was in the paper and Icouldn't believe it was you.
Because I remember you from Centenary.
He goes, I didn't think that that was you.
And he goes, after the Essex game and I saw him, he looked like he saw a ghost.
He was like, what?
What?
Like what?
Because it's four years.
He goes, what have you done in this, three years.

(28:49):
What have you done in these three years where we wouldn't even let you play sometimes?
And now you're the lead guard in this conference, right?
So I told him, said, all I do is work.
I don't party, I don't go out, I don't drink, I don't smoke.
I don't do anything to damage my body outside of eat fast food because I don't know anybetter, right, at that time.
I said, all I do is work out.

(29:10):
And so at the end of that year, I end up getting phone calls.
I'm getting recruited now by these schools.
And here's another lesson for kids that go the JUCO route.
I went to a...
There's this guy named Rick Ball, he used to run this Ball Stars camp.
He used to invite 300 -400 junior college kids to Hagerstown, Maryland.
Back in the days, there's a name Steve Francis.

(29:31):
He played at Allegheny in Maryland.
Steve your franchise.
So the rumor was Steve Francis was going to be at this junior college showcase.
And so the whole court was buzzing.
There's probably like 150, you know, almost close to 200 college coaches there.
I mean, from everywhere, from Florida State to you name it.
And so the way it worked out is you have a team, you're selected to be on a team, and allyour teams play each other running clock for whatever the time was.

(29:58):
So a bunch of cats you don't know, a coach that you don't know.
And my favorite coach, no offense to my junior college coach, because I love him, myfavorite coach of all time was the guy that I had for one week at Coach Maine.
So we're all, me and the guys, we're sitting there, on court, whatever, 706, and we'relike, yo, where's our coach?
Our coach isn't there, all these other teams are practicing.

(30:20):
So we're getting to know each other and I'm on, I'm finding out right away as we'reshooting around and talking, I'm on an elite squad.
Like we're one of the best, we're gonna be one of the best teams here.
This guy's going to FAMU, this guy's going to University of Hartford, like I can see thatwe're gonna be really good.
There's only eight of us.
yeah, yeah.
Like half my team, half our guys are scholarship guys.

(30:44):
And the other two guys are high level D3 guys.
And so our coach comes up, it's in the summer, he comes up in Hawaiian shirt and abriefcase, white dude, right?
Red, like, you know, red hair, beard, like he looks, he does not look like a basketballguy at all.
Comes up and he goes, hey guys, and we're like, are you our coach?
He's like, yeah, he's like, you guys know each other?
He's like, yeah, we all talked.

(31:04):
He goes, all right, I'll see you at the game.
Walks out.
Walks out.
And then he comes back right before the game.
And he's like, what do you guys like to do?
We like to run.
You sure?
Yeah.
Okay, go run and play, share the ball.
Don't be selfish.
Just go play, have fun.
We blew out every team by like 45 points.
we, I mean, we smoked, there's a kid going to LSU, we beat his team by 50.

(31:27):
Like we blew out every team.
And my best game that I played, I probably had like 30 something, little bit over 30.
And Coach Vane looks at me and he calls me out at the end, like last two minutes of thegame, because we're destroying this team.
And he goes, son, can I ask you something?
And I said, yeah, coach, what's up?
He goes, did you graduate junior college?

(31:47):
And I go, no, I just take 12 credits every semester because you need 12 credits to play.
And he goes, after the game, I need to talk to you real quick.
And so the game goes, I slap hands, and I'm thinking to myself, coaches only told me totake 12 credits every semester because that's what you need to play.
I need 24 credits to stay eligible.
And so a bunch of coaches were going up to him and asking who I was.

(32:12):
And so the first thing they were asking, he graduate junior college?
And then now he didn't know.
So he goes, son, you need 61 credits to be able to accept a Division I scholarship.
He goes, can't play Division I basketball.
He's like, you'd have to sit a year, get the credits that you need, and then come.

(32:34):
And I was like, coach, because I'm thinking to myself,
I can't sit because I can't pay, like I can't sit.
I have no money.
Like there's nothing, like there's nothing I cannot sit a year because then who knowswhat's gonna happen.
So I can't, so I'm saying to myself like it's no possible way I can sit.
That sitting is not an option.
So I asked him, I said what else I can do?

(32:55):
He's like well, he said you have a bunch of Division II schools that love you.
He's like you can go to NAIA school and I said what's NAIA?
He goes well, you know, they're kind of independent.
They play Division I's and Division II.
And I said, coach, I can't pay for school.
I need a scholarship.
He's like, you're going to get a scholarship.
He goes, just depends on where you go.

(33:15):
He's like, you're going get a scholarship.
He said, get that out of your mind.
You want to go somewhere that's the right fit.
And so I hug him, and he's just a great dude.
He gives me his number.
One of the guys on that team actually ends up going to his school that he was coaching at,who became one of my best friends.
I'm sitting there and I get a phone call and this guy is like, yeah, know, my name's CoachHoltz.

(33:37):
I'm from Minot State, North Dakota, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And he's talking, I'm not really paying attention.
You know, it's another terrible recruiting thing to do.
Because I had 15 schools that recruited me, so it all started to sound the same.
And I'm just like, what in the world is going on?
This guy say North Dakota?
And I go, Coach, it, now I'm in, I mean, it's late.
Like it's, it's gotta be mid August.

(33:58):
It's like really late.
And I haven't made a decision.
I've never been recruited before in my life.
I have no one helping me.
I have no one saying, this is what you look for.
I mean, I had a coach tell me there are seven and 25.
looked them all up there, 25 and seven.
They're reversed.
There seven and 25.
So I'm like, have no idea what's going on.
And so I said, coach, how much does the school?

(34:21):
He goes, no, everything's free.
You get a full scholarship.
Take care of everything.
And I was like, all right, I'll go.
No idea.
I said, I'll go.
Never saw the gym.
Didn't know what they're known for terms of academically.
Like, I'll go.
So my mom gets home, said, Mom, I'm going to North Dakota to play basketball.
My mom's like, do you know where North Dakota is?

(34:42):
I go, yeah, it's where the monument is.
She says, no dummy, that's president, that's South Dakota.
North Dakota is here.
So she takes out a map, goes, North Dakota's here, you're here.
It's a eight hour flight almost because they stop in Minneapolis and then to get to thesmall towns.
directly, pretty much anywhere.
Yeah.
So I'm like, mom, it's free.
And she was just like, what?

(35:03):
said, college is free.
You don't have pay for anything.
And so we have a moment, right?
And I'm like, welling up, like, this woman doesn't have to pay for pain.
She doesn't worry about paying for anything.
And so I get to North Dakota and I fly into North Dakota and I get off and I meet a of myteammates there in the weight room first day.
It's like five o 'clock at night.
And my coach goes up to me and goes, tomorrow we're going to run about three and a halfmiles.

(35:26):
Right?
Second day, we're running, right?
So again, for you guys that think it's all sweet because you go to the recruiting visitand it's like, Coach loves me.
You're working on it immediately, right?
Especially if they give you money.
Money or no money, it doesn't matter.
You're working on it immediately.
So don't think there's a grace period.
There's no honeymoon.
Honeymoon's over.
Honeymoon was your official visit.
And so he brings me over into our practice gym.

(35:48):
had no idea.
never...
At Sussex County College, we played on like rubber cement.
Like we can sit like...
Yeah, we can sit like 50.
So he brings me into our practice gym and I'm looking and I think it's the main placewhere we play.
And there are seats that go up.
like, this is...
said, coach, this is a great gym.
And I'm like, man, how many people does this sit here?

(36:12):
He goes, we don't play here.
This is our practice gym.
Our gym's across the street.
We play in the dome.
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, -huh, the dome.
And he walks me across the street to an 8 ,000 seat dome.
You know, like the timber wolves and the bucks scrimmaged there when I was there.
I mean, I was like, holy crap.

(36:33):
And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, like, yo, I was at Sussex County CommunityCollege last year or two years, and now I'm in this dome.
playing basketball in front of 8 ,000 people.
I had a great, I met my wife at Minot State.
She played on the girls team.
I come back home, have a good career.
I learned how to shoot at Minot State.
I was a slasher.

(36:55):
And you're talking about work ethic.
And this is why I still can't believe my wife is with me.
I shot with a hitch, a major hitch.
So I would jump and then as I'm coming down, I let the ball go.
Mmm.
I really couldn't shoot past the foul line, right?
And I like, I shot two threes in junior college my two years.

(37:16):
One was a bank, right?
So no, not at all.
I was like this.
And so like...
doesn't necessarily make it better, I was just curious.
So my first year in North Dakota, I broke my fifth metatarsal in my left foot.
So had to red trip my first year.
So I do all this stuff, all this work, break my fifth metatarsal, sit, red trip my firstyear.

(37:39):
But when I got back, my wife rebounded for me.
She's a phenomenal shooter.
She rebounded for me and I say, every time I hitch, tell me hitch.
And I used to break into the gym.
The gym would close at like nine o 'clock at night.
I would break into the gym around like 10 o 'clock, 10 .30, and we'd stay until aftermidnight.
And she'd just rebound for me.
And every time I shot with a hitch, she'd say hitch, and to the point where I'd hear it inmy sleep.

(38:00):
And finally, at the end of my junior season, I got the hitch out.
And it's like, now my range went back like, who knows, gazillion feet.
And so now I went from making two threes to like averaging like three threes a game, andlike, you know, being in the, like I'm in the record books for like free throw, three
point percentage.

(38:20):
Right?
For my nut.
So it's like, and it's all work.
I mean, I used to make 700, 800 makes a day.
A day.
Like 700, 800 makes.
This is the grind.
And it's like, for me, it's not, it wasn't, when people say, man, Cornell, you do a lot ofwork, or you're working out your work.
And I had friends that, really good friends, they were like, hey, we're gonna go acrossthe street to the club.

(38:41):
I'm like, okay, cool.
I'm gonna go shoot 500 makes.
And then tomorrow in practice on Saturday, if you try to guard me, good luck.
Like good luck because I'm destroying all of you.
And sometimes they like not go to the club and come with to the gym.
And sometimes they would still go to the club.
So you just keep working and it's like there comes a certain age where kids start to beheavily influenced by the people around them.

(39:05):
And like if no one's working like you're working, it feels like such a lonely place.
But I always tell kids like it's never crowded on the
on the regular, on the main road, right?
The main road is, I'm sorry, the main road is always crowded.
The road less traveled is never crowded.
So on that main road, you have all your friends, all people that wanna hang out with you,it's all crowded.

(39:30):
On the road less traveled, which means work ethic trenches, there's like two cars there.
Because it's hard, right?
So when I got home, I got...
Started working on with NBA guys like guys I saw you used to see on TV like Eric Murdochand Jason Williams and Derek Coleman and you know all these guys played in this gym is
some of a YMCA and here I am from my not you know state, know University like hey guys,right and I'm playing with these guys took me three months to be able to get a clean shot

(39:54):
off you know going there and then by this time I was good and I'm just I'm loving it.
I'm like, okay this is a new introduction to basketball because as you get up in level thecourt shrinks
because the athleticism is better, everybody's bringing longer.
So the court shrinks.
So now that seven dribble combination has to be a one or two or dribble combination.

(40:15):
And there was a guy that think he coaches at Pingree now, Jason Murdoch.
He was Eric Murdoch's cousin, played with Sham God, played at Providence, played overseasfor a very long time.
We used to play one -on -one.
no dribble, one dribble, two dribble games.
And he used to smack me, because I didn't know how to get my shot off in one dribble ortwo dribbles.

(40:35):
And it really helped me learn how to be more explosive off one or two and work my mid-range game on my pull -up.
And I got a contract to play professional basketball in Lisbon, Portugal.
And I'm like, okay, I'm seven years removed from playing JV, sitting JV at Morris HillsHigh School.
And now I have a contract to play professional basketball.
And then a week before I'm supposed to go, rupture my Achilles.

(40:58):
Right?
So like, yeah.
rupture in your Achilles is a really interesting place to talk about what comes next.
But I want to ask two questions first.
These could be like lightning round questions.
Do you have a degree from minus state?
What's your major in?
Journalism communications.

(41:18):
Did you have, let's just hypothetically say flashback, 16 year old Cornell Thomas.
Is that what 16 year old Cornell Thomas visioned happening?
definitely not, definitely not.
Wherever it was gonna take me because I didn't know what that journey looked like.
had no model of, you play high school, you play college after college.

(41:41):
I had no model of that in front of me.
I didn't know guys.
So for me, at 16, it was just like, I gotta be good, better today, and then tomorrow, andthen tomorrow.
So I was just taking it day to day.
So, now we're here.
You have just poured all of your heart and soul into this one thing.
You rupture your Achilles and this is a time nobody's coming back from Achilles injuriesat this time.

(42:05):
So this is that is a, I'm not trying to say this, you know, harshly, but that's abasketball death sentence at that time of your life.
Is there a point in that grieving where you say to yourself, I've done something like thisbefore, like this sucks, but I can, I can figure something out because I have done this

(42:31):
before.
And if so, how does it happen and what does it look like?
Yeah, so the first initial shock of having a doctor tell you that this is a year injuryand you're probably not going to be 100%.
Like that initial shock at that time I was living with my mom when I came back home.
She's still working a bunch of jobs and my reason for playing professional basketball wasfor me just give me the competition and I can give the money to her.

(42:57):
I don't care about the money like I've never cared about any of the money.
I just want to compete and so I immediately felt like you know I failed her.
Right?
she's still working.
So that, had to deal with that.
I had to deal with one, I failed my mom.
Two, am I going to be able to get back to even close to where I was?
Because at this point in time, my game, I mean, my game feels great.

(43:19):
And then three, I'm by myself because no one's in the house anymore.
So when my mom leaves, I'm sitting here alone with my thoughts.
And it can be a very dark place when you're sitting back and thinking about, I put allthis work in up to this point.
Why would this happen to me?
So you get into why I mean, yeah.

(43:41):
Yeah.
hand to God, when I got my first autoimmune diagnosis after getting COVID really badly, Iignored it and I kept working because I was like, we're going to pretend this isn't
happening.
And then it literally torpedoed me.
And I'll never forget that feeling of being like, I just failed my wife.
I just failed my family.

(44:02):
I, this, the guilt that I'm feeling right now.
about all these people that have made these sacrifices around me and poured into me sothat I could do this, I'm letting all of them down.
So I completely get.
You get into a place, and I always tell people when I talk about depression and yourmindset, etc.

(44:22):
You get into this place where I always describe it as, it's like you're sitting in thebed, the lights are off, you know where the switch is, you know how to physically, you
know how to get up and turn the switch on, but it feels like your legs are like 7 ,000pounds.
Like you just can't, how do I get to the switch?
How do I get to the switch?
And for me, it happened when I was, you know, I see my mom go to her job and I'm sittingthere, you know, I'm crying in my room, I'm pissed off, I'm going through all these

(44:46):
emotions.
and I just started thinking about how we grew up.
I just started thinking about, you know, coming home with lights being off because wecouldn't pay the bill and my mom just handing out.
candles and flashlights, et cetera, you not having any hot water, my mom boiling coldwater, putting it in the bath and mix.
So I'm like, my mom is a solution oriented person.
She's not about problems.
Not like you don't recognize the problems, just she doesn't sit in the problems.

(45:09):
So I'm like, if you were raised by this woman, okay, what is the solution for the problemthat you have right now?
There's nothing you can physically do.
in this hard cast in terms of your legs, you can't jog, you can't run, can't bike, none ofthat stuff.
You can't do it.
So I called my best friend up, my buddy Kevin, who would work out with at the gym, and Isaid, pick me up on Monday.

(45:30):
This is on a Friday.
And he sounded like I died, because he's like a brother.
my dream is like his dream.
When you have close friends, I always tell athletes, when you have people that really careabout you, you go through something, they go through it.
And he goes, Cornell, what do you want me to pick?
I said, just pick me up.
I said, we're going to the gym.
Because that was our routine.
On Monday, we go to the gyms.
And so he picked me up.

(45:50):
And that Monday, for an hour, I shot from a chair.
And it did nothing for my basketball.
It did everything for my sanity.
Everything.
It allowed me to get out the house, do something I love.
And I tried to rebound for him, like just sit in a chair, like pass the ball back to himand he shot his free throws.

(46:11):
But it got me in the gym, it got me in this environment that I love.
And I did that for five, six months, then I got my hard cast and I was able to justbalance myself and stand and shoot.
And then finally I got the cast off after like eight months, nine months, whatever it is.
But what I didn't tell myself when I got fully back is I knew that I wasn't who I was.

(46:34):
Felt it like I lost a step.
I wasn't as vertical as I was like I felt all that but I was like all I knew was Cornellthe basketball player because I was never known for anything so I was like you can't take
my identity from me now people know me for hooping so I'm gonna keep that and I'll neverforget I was start running Sussex County College

(46:56):
Summer camps the basketball camp because my old coach is the athletic director there Hegoes Cornell the guy that used to run our camps has gone.
Can you run camp?
I'm like, yeah How hard is camp camps should be like fine?
And so I loved it because we had all these kids that would come in and we played thisthick play games and I'd be showing them like but you know, is you Sham got a kid.
So I'm all these Sussex County kids like real wiggle moves and stuff and a year goes byand The coach my coach comes up to me goes

(47:24):
Hey, the coach that was here is leaving.
And it's like end of August.
The guy, he just, he left early and he had, he got another job.
He just took off and bounced.
So there's no recruiting, really, really hardly any recruiting.
And he asked me if I take the job and I'm like, no, I was 24.
I was like, I've never coached basketball before and I'm, I'm trying to play.

(47:45):
Like this ain't, this ain't the move.
And I'll never forget.
I was talking to my wife.
And she called me and I said, you never believe what coach asked me to do.
And she goes, what?
said, this dude asked me to coach basketball, be the men's coach here.
She goes, I think you'd be a great coach.
And I hung up on her.
was like, was like, one, like anybody that's not in my dream is you're against me.

(48:06):
And she called my mom up and my mom called me.
And my mom said, this is what you're going to do.
She goes, out of respect for all the things that coach did for you, you're at least goingto go on the interview.
And Jared, I swear to you, I went to the interview and I just sat there like this, likeI'm not coaching this team.
And like three days later, I had an orange whistle around my neck and 15 guys calling mecoach.
It transitioned that fast.

(48:27):
I went from, I'm a basketball player, I'm a basketball player, I left that meeting andsomething told me to coach these guys.
And I started coaching these guys and all these guys are me.
Like literally my same exact situation.
Single parent household or no parent household raised by the grandmothers from thesedifferent areas in New Jersey and Baltimore and New York.
and their parents are dropping them off if they have parents and saying, hey, help my kidbecome a better student, help my son become a man, help him be responsible, I'll see you

(48:55):
in two years.
So this is a really important thing for me.
Our stories in terms of how we got into coaching could not be more opposite, except forone common thing.
And that one common thing was we both had absolutely no idea we would ever be doing it.
I found coaching by accident and the only thing I knew was my favorite thing to do isteach people leadership skills, but I haven't found my favorite classroom.

(49:23):
And then I got networked with Reggie Witherspoon.
the head coach at University of Buffalo at that time on the men's side and I got I gotnetworked with him because of Jim Quitchoff who was his assistant coach and his director
of basketball operations and Jim Quitch is a mentor of mine.
He's the man and I just saw the way they behaved every day and I was like this is where Iteach leadership and Much like you when you were like, I can't see myself doing this, you

(49:50):
know, what do I do?
I took a regular job and I was like, yeah, no, we go back to coaching and
This is interesting to me because...
I don't think it's a fair expectation.
I want to make this clear to our listeners.
I'm not asking everyone listening to this podcast to do what you did.

(50:10):
That what you did was a special kind of crazy in a good way.
But I think if every listener did a quarter of what you did, they would see pretty drasticchange.
And when I think about this, I now think about how much of myself I see in the players Icoach.

(50:31):
Even if I have nothing in common in terms of background, something about theirpersonality, I'm like, that's why I recruited that kid, or that's why that kid's here.
Is that sort of what motivates you into the next chapter of like, now I develop, now Idevelop the future me's and I could be the person that gives them the information that I
didn't have.

(50:51):
Is that kind of where your, what your why is?
Yeah.
I had the blueprint.
They're literally going through the same exact route that I went through once they hitSussex County Community College.
I was here for two years.
Now I can tell you, you need 61 credits to get out of here, Jack.
And I can also tell you, if you're not passing freshman seminar, which is the easiestcourse that we have, how are you going to sit in my office and tell me that you want to

(51:19):
play for J -Ride at Villanova?
Right?
So like a lot of it for me was a reality check for kids because I'd have 6 '2 power 4'sthat saying, I want to go to Villanova and they're averaging five points a game with me.
And I'd be like, listen, I worked at Villanova camps in the summer.
What they have coming is not you.
Their guards are your size or taller and they're McDonald's on Americans.

(51:43):
So let's be a little bit more realistic.
Let's sit down and not chase the division and let's see where your academics and yourbasketball skills, where we can place you.
And I'd have these conversations and I would work, I mean, I used love working Villanovacamps because, know, his, I mean, watching all the guys now, like Kyle Neptune, who's the
head coach of Villanova now, he was the video guy when I used to work camps.

(52:05):
Like he was the, like that's how far back we go, like.
Coach chambers coach ergo who's at Fort Fordham like coach chambers a Florida Gulf Coastright like all these guys that
by the way, has one of the biggest coaching trees in basketball.
Because he allows his guys to be leaders and he allows his guys to have a direct impactinto the program.

(52:27):
If you watch him coach, like Jay Wright, just how far back I go, I messaged Jay Wright onhis Blackberry when I was my first year coach at Sussex County College and I asked if
could go see him practice.
And dude, I can't help him, I don't have guys, I have D3 guys.
This guy said, hey come up.
Now had $200 to my name, Jerry, and I took that $200 to go to Villanova and watch herpractice.

(52:52):
And this is when they had Scotty Reynolds and Cory Fisher.
And I watched her practice and he goes, hey, if you're around tomorrow morning at 6, we'redoing another workout.
I can explain a little bit more what we do.
And I was like, yeah, I'm around.
I got a hotel.
I did not have a hotel.
And I waited.
I found a cheap hotel to stay in that night.

(53:13):
And I my wife, was like, look.
I'm spending some of money that we have because Jay Wright said I can come back and Iwatched and then that led to me working his camps and working with all these great
coaches.
I remember sitting at one of his clinics and it's like me and him and...
Flip Saunders and all these great basketball minds.
it's like Cornell, Thomas and Sussex County Community College just sitting there likewriting notes on every single thing that they talk about.

(53:39):
So I never, when I got to coaching, work ethic, work ethic, always tell kids transfer.
So the work ethic I had for basketball transferred into coaching.
Cause again, I've come, yeah, I'm coming into a new place where I don't, I don't, I knowhow to play.
I don't know how to coach.
So I immersed myself in the coaching.
Any DVD, any book you can think of, any clinic I can go to, I went to.

(54:02):
And it took me a while to figure out the most important lesson that I learned in coachingat an early age is not everybody's you.
And that was a big time lesson.
I feel I was a horrible coach my first three or four years.
Because I couldn't believe that guys weren't in the gym shooting a thousand makes everyweek or two thousand makes.

(54:22):
Why aren't you shooting two thousand makes every week?
You're telling me you want to get a scholarship but you're not working out.
You have a girlfriend that you hang out with all the time but you can't be in the gym.
I'm getting more shots up than you guys.
So it's like you start doing this stuff and it's like, wait a second, they're not you bro.
Not everybody's you.
I got blessed with an All -American for two years, my first two years.

(54:45):
of junior college.
He was a sixth man on a state championship level team and he came by me an average 25, 11and 5.
You know, for two years straight.
But as junior college goes, it's two years.
And he graduated.
So when he graduated, and I ran like, you I was way before Coach Carter.

(55:06):
Like I would, if you're not doing what you're supposed to do, if you're not culturally,you don't fit what we're trying to do, you don't go to class, don't have the right
attitude, I'll let you go.
So my year without my All -American, my first year, we lost every single game.
I kicked off seven guys.
My assistant coach came to my office and said, Quinell, we're not gonna win a game if youkick these guys off.
I said, I don't care.

(55:26):
I was like, our culture's not gonna be compromised.
within that, and then two years later we won, we broke the school record for wins.
And it wasn't because I'm such a great coach, it's because we got culture kids in therethat got the right guys.
So.
I learned so much about leadership, coaching basketball and failing, right?
Just failing over and over and over again and coming home and saying, I could have handledthat situation a lot better.

(55:50):
And apologizing, which I never did my first three years of coaching basketball because Iwas perfect, right?
Like, I didn't make any mistakes.
If you guys lost it's because of what you're doing.
It couldn't be because of me.
I'm great.
And then I realized like,
No, you're wrong.
You're the leader of this ship.
You're making tons of mistakes.
So you have to be able to apologize to your guys.

(56:12):
I got an old school Nintendo 64 that I put in my office.
And we used to play Mario Kart in my office.
Because now the guy's like, Coach is a human being.
He plays Mario Kart.
He's not some just dictator that's making us wake up at 5 .30 in the morning and doingdefensive slides up a hill like this.
We're still doing that, but we can also go into his office and he's accessible and I cantalk to him.

(56:34):
So my whole entire life changed and I realized that I was created to help people and notto be a professional basketball player.
That was just part of the journey.
But everything, it's almost like you travel through life with this bag over your shoulder.
And everything that's in the bag comes with you even if what you're doing changes.
Which is, I think, mission critical.

(56:55):
So you and I talked prior to this podcast and I told you that your mission was to outlinewhat the work in your story looked like.
And I would say you have like, S -ranked that mission.
You have knocked it out of the park.
But before I let you go, I wanna rapid fire.
So if I put you on like Family Feud, Fast Money or something like that and I gave you like30 seconds of response, I want you to rapid fire through these things because now you are

(57:20):
still that coach.
You speak motivationally with people, you coach AAU Ball, you have experience coachingboth young boys and young girls.
Anything that there is in a recruiting process to see, you have now seen.
So I want to lightning round a couple of things with you.
Get your response because I think especially with your lens, because your lens is so workoriented.

(57:42):
I think your responses are gonna be important.
So first thing, I met you with a spooky nook.
So let's say hypothetically, you got a kid on their way to a live period at spooky.
They're about to really be in front of coaches for the first time.
What do want that kid to be thinking about in terms of, cause you know there's like, Igotta do this, this and this to be noticed by a coach.

(58:03):
What do you want them to be thinking about?
Focus on us.
Focus on us.
Don't focus on them.
Whenever you, I've seen it a million times, whenever you project outwardly, like to who'shere, who's watching me, it's never gonna end well.
Focus on us.
Focus on what you've been doing with the team this whole entire time and just go playhard.
Now, if you don't play hard and you're just, I'm gonna turn it on today, you're not gonnaget recruited anyway.

(58:28):
So I always tell the kids, focus on us.
Because if you're doing what you're supposed to do, the coaches are gonna see it.
is, I would tattoo that on myself, but I have enough already.
So next one, a 16 year old, because you could see this in somebody, 16 year old comes intoyour office, coach, I've decided I want to play college basketball.

(58:50):
What is the first thing you say back to that kid?
Okay, why?
Why do you want to play college basketball?
love that so much.
Yeah, because I'm curious of what the intention is, right?
If the intention is like, want to show my friends that I can play basketball, that's notgoing to get you through the trench days, the days where you have to really fight.
But if your intention is, man, I want to play college basketball, one, because I love thegame, two, my parents can't afford to send me to school.

(59:16):
I need this coach.
I met a kid, and I'll tell you about him off camera, I met a kid from Italy that plays atMorris Catholic High School, and he is a phenomenal.
I mean this kid's gonna be a very special college point guard and he said coach back homeif I go back home there's no opportunity for college for me.

(59:37):
That's why I'm here.
You you tell me that you're gonna take a couple days off and this killer with thatmotivation is there like you're a point guard you're gonna take you're gonna take days off
and this kid is is somewhere lurking to play against you one day so it's all intentionlike why do you want to do it then after the why we can figure out the how.

(59:58):
Last one.
I was most certainly an ignorant 16 year old.
I was an ignorant 20 year old.
I was an ignorant 22 year old.
It really got better in grad school.
But I say to you, coach, I hear what you're saying, but I think I can just be good.
I don't think I need to really love this sport to succeed in it at the collegiate level.

(01:00:20):
Your response is what?
You're right.
You're right.
You can go to a very small school where the coach doesn't have a lot of demands andprobably doesn't win a lot and you can probably be decent and play for that school.
Right?
But if you want to play anywhere where coach has demands and wants you to be a greatteammate and wants you to work hard every single day, that attitude is not going to make

(01:00:43):
you make that team.
It's never going to happen.
This is, it's a good place to wrap because I wanna discuss what you just said with you.
I am.
I don't, I, the new Jared is less hyperbolic.
The old Jared would have sworn five times by now and said like the most flippantlyhyperbolic thing.

(01:01:09):
What I'll try to say instead is I am consistently amazed, Cornell, by how many youngpeople think that they can cheat the game or not have an invested relationship with the
game.

(01:01:30):
and are also really resentful and really envious when other people who have a strongerconnection to the game fly by them and get more minutes.
I have to imagine, especially now that you are back in New Jersey and you are working witha lot of kids that come from decent family finances,

(01:01:56):
and go to these places where the family oftentimes is paying for college, I imagine thatis something you see a lot.
Yeah, it's what you said Jared again you talk about tattooing things.
I wish I could bottle up what you just said because gratitude is a verb.
Gratitude is something that you outwardly show.

(01:02:16):
I coached at Blair Academy under Joe Mantagna for seven years and it was one of the bestexperiences I've ever had in my life and I would tell these guys before we had practice,
do you understand where you are?
You have a Hall of Fame coach
You have 16 freaking squash courts.
I didn't even know what the hell squash was before I got here.
It looks like the damn Harry Potter school.

(01:02:39):
And you guys are worried about things that who really cares about, right?
Like these kids don't understand, even as little Jared and as big as your parents comingto your game, do you understand the luxury it is that mommy and dad wanna come, like they
can physically come see you play?

(01:02:59):
they can afford it.
It is of no financial strain.
Bingo.
Right.
I got so fired up my headphones came out.
I got so fired up my...
Yeah.
saw it and I tried to stay no smile, no laugh so that I can screen grab it and hopefullycapture the enthusiasm that I just saw.

(01:03:21):
so, I'm just so fired up.
it's, I don't understand.
Like, I can go, I travel a lot.
You know, when I speak, I go all these different places.
I remember being in the Dominican Republic and we're in this place called Samana andthere's these kids that have these like kind of raggedy baseball uniforms on and they had
this like car tire.

(01:03:41):
tied with some rope around their waist and they're running in this like concrete gravelbaseball field.
But I can drive past seven million basketball courts, seven million baseball fields andsee no one.
They're empty.
Exactly.
It's empty.

(01:04:01):
But yet, when you see the kid that's out there training, working on, now you want to talkcrap about this kid.
Because you're doing the work that you don't want to do.
And this is the kind of world that it's been shaped in.
That's why I love old school kids.
I love kids that come out and work.
There's a kid, and I'll just leave it with this.
There's a kid that played for South Sudan this year, Mario Shyock.

(01:04:22):
I recruited Mario to come to Blair.
Played at Blair for two years.
Then played at Virginia, then went to Iowa State.
Mario, the reason I recruited him, Jarrett, he was one of the top players in Canada.
Okay, great, that's cool.
But I went to see his high school play.
And his high school coach told us to come down and take a look at him.
Because they knew he was bigger than where he was.

(01:04:43):
And he had this little Asian point guard.
This little five foot four Asian point guard.
And so coach was texting me, goes, what do you think?
I said, well, I said hi to Mario and his dad.
Mario seemed a little nervous, which I liked.
Because that means he's not too big time to not feel that okay, a coach from America ishere to watch me.
I said, we're going into the fourth quarter, they're up by a lot.

(01:05:04):
Mario's playing okay, he has 28, eight and eight.
But the best part about this kid is his backup point guard got in that never plays andMuriel is coaching the crap out of this kid and they're up 20.
I said, if we don't get this kid to Blair, I might not come back.
I'm not sure, like, I don't care what we have to do.

(01:05:25):
We need to get this kid to Blair.
Because when he came to Blair from the very first day,
He worked harder than anybody else.
And he was our best guy for two years and worked harder than anybody.
He was in the gym nonstop, went to University of Virginia.
Tony Bennett and his guys did the same thing.
Mario's a gym rat, went to Iowa State, same thing.

(01:05:47):
He's a gym rat, no one's in the gym more than him.
And this is a kid that is like, you know, a pro.
He got drafted like second to last pick in the NBA draft.
Plays in China now.
But like, this is a pro.
This kid is appreciative of anything that you give them all the time.
Thanks coach.
I appreciate it Thanks for waking up with me this morning coach and put me through drillsI appreciate it and then you have kids that aren't a percentage of not even a 2 % of that

(01:06:13):
kid That they feel entitled to all the spoils, but they don't want to work at it
almost like wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
That lack of perspective is what holds a lot of athletes back mentally.
And I struggle with young people about this and, I don't want to overshare, but I'llbasically leave it as my first two years of college coaching were a grad assistantship on

(01:06:40):
top of a grad assistant.
I couldn't even have the title of grad assistant because I was a grad assistant injudicial affairs at the University of Buffalo.
So they called me an administrative intern.
and I did anything I could in the spare time I had.
Then I volunteered for three years.
Then I took a gargantuan pay cut and, you know, started getting into coaching full time.

(01:07:00):
And like at no point in my mind was I like, I am entitled to the next thing because I'vebeen here long enough and I've done this.
I always kind of am like, what I've done is not enough yet for me to have earned the nextthing.
So I might as well figure out how to get better at what I'm doing.
And I think, I hope you would agree with this, but I think, you know, please understandour messaging.

(01:07:29):
We're not saying that you have to be from a single family household to be successful atbasketball, or you have to have no money to be successful at basketball.
What we are saying though is, if you are influencing a young person, parent, grandparent,friend, family member,
Make sure that instead of harping on the immediate results of whatever's happening intheir orbit, that you're having them take perspective of each and every moment so that

(01:07:58):
they're never too big for the moment and the moment is never too big for them.
Is that a fair, fair ask?
fair.
I have two kids, they're 11 and 9, and they've played a total of six basketball games intheir young lives.
All we do is work, and I just like to people like, my gosh, they must work out, no.

(01:08:21):
They do Jiu Jitsu, they do soccer, they do basketball, they do all the things.
Because I'm not a psycho, I've seen crazy parents take the love out of a kid's heart.
for basketball and for other sports.
So we train.
We'll go out this summer.
We train three days a week, four days a week sometimes.
We train for like 30 minutes, 40 minutes.
We make it fun, but we put the work in, right?

(01:08:41):
Like they still ran up grass hills, but they enjoy it.
They roll right back down them, right?
So it's like, it's up to the coaches and to the parents and to the grandparents tounderstand taking someone's passion away.
is one of the worst things you can do to an individual.
And I've seen parents taken away from kids at 10 years old, 11 years old, 12 years old.
I've seen parents tell me that their kids are no good and they're 11.

(01:09:02):
I'm like, started when I was 16.
Imagine if I would've had a parent to tell me that just because I'm not good when I firststarted, I can't do anything with it.
I wouldn't be in front of you right now.
Bingo.
And it's really, you know what?
I really want to end there because what I've found, I'm kind of followed by a lot ofparents and a lot of athletes.
It takes both.

(01:09:23):
You're only as strong as your support system could be.
And to me, one of the most important things that we learned in this interview just now isthat your support system modeled the way for you in terms of their work ethic.
And when you were ready to be bailed out, when you weren't ready in your immature momentsto take that perspective,
Your support system said to you, time to work harder.

(01:09:46):
The secret is there is no secret.
I will, so I'm gonna be blasting links and everything like that in the podcastdescription, but aside from that, where can people find you?
Cornell, Motherlovin Thomas, where can people find you?
They can find me at CornellThomas .com, CrossroadsBasketball .com, or across all socialmedias, just at Cornell Thomas, at CornellThomas34 on Instagram, Cornell Thomas everywhere

(01:10:11):
else.
Shout me out, say what's up, and I'll say hi.
Absolutely.
And he will say hi.
Thank you so much for your time, brother.
Always a pleasure.
you, brother.