In just one season, South Ripley went from a middle-of-the-pack team to a 19–0 start, a #1 ranking, and a sectional championship. The difference? A full commitment to mental training.
Assistant coach Tom Beach, a 40-year coaching veteran, joins us to share how implementing MTP Academy transformed the mindset—and the results—of a small-town Indiana basketball team.
“MTP can’t guarantee you championships… but I can guarantee you—we wouldn’t have won a sectional without it.”
If you’ve ever wondered what mental training can really do for your program, this is the episode to hear it from someone who’s seen it firsthand.
Are you an ATHLETE looking to take your training to the next level? Check out our website to learn more about 1-on-1 training opportunities:
mentaltrainingplan.com/athletes
Are you a COACH looking for an affordable year-round mental performance training program? Check out the MTP Academy available through our website:
mentaltrainingplan.com/academy
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of the toughest parts of implementing a mental
performance training program canbe justifying the time.
If you've never done somethinglike this before and you're not,
maybe, totally convinced it'sgoing to work, how do you
explain taking 15 minutes awayfrom practice every single week?
(00:20):
How do you tell your players,your parents, maybe even your
athletic director hey, we'regoing to stop shooting free
throws for a bit to talk aboutbreathing, self-talk and focus?
It can be a hard sell,especially if you're at a small
school on a tight budget, tryingto get over the hump with kids
(00:41):
that are juggling multiplesports.
But today's guest Coach, tomBeach, knows exactly what it
takes to win.
He's spent over 40 yearscoaching high school basketball
in the state of Indiana.
He's been to three statechampionships.
They've won two of them andwhile he never called it mental
(01:02):
performance training, he spenthis entire career teaching the
mental side of the game becausehe knew the best coaches and
players were doing somethingmore than just running drills.
Now what he'll tell you is thatthey had a little bit more of
just a random buffet of you knowvideos that he found, or tools
(01:24):
or resources or podcasts orbooks, and he would just sort of
throw stuff at the wall and seeif anything stuck.
But this year they implementedthe MTP Academy.
They said you know what?
We need a program.
And so in this episode we'retalking about a small public
(01:45):
high school in southern Indiana,south Ripley, where Coach Beach
is now on staff.
Their team had been stuckaround 500 for a couple years.
They felt like they had talentand they had the effort, but
something was still missing.
So they decided to go all in onthe MTP Academy during the
(02:06):
season Not in the offseason,which, if I'm being honest, is
maybe more convenient but theycommitted from week one and what
happened next was nothing shortof how Coach Beach described it
Historic, from unranked tonumber one in the state, from
(02:28):
average, to winning the holidaytournament, the county
championship, the conferencechampionship, the sectional
championship.
I think Coach Beach said itbest when he said the MTP
Academy can't guarantee you achampionship, but I can
guarantee you we don't win asectional championship without
(02:49):
it.
Today's episode is a story aboutbelief, commitment and
transformation.
Can't wait to dive into this.
Hey you, welcome to theCoaching Minds Podcast, the
official podcast of MentalTraining Plan, joined today by
coach Tom Beach, who worked withhis son down at South Ripley
High School.
(03:09):
Tom, I appreciate you joiningus today.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Always a pleasure to be with you, Ben, and thank you
for all that you did for SouthRipley basketball this year.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
For sure.
So you know, I think theaudience is in for a real treat
today.
You know it's one thing to hearlike, hey, here's the theory
behind what we're saying youshould be doing.
But you guys lived it out.
Mtp Academy, you implementedsome weekly mental performance
(03:45):
training tools this season andcertainly saw some great results
, to go along with all of therest of the things that you guys
are doing at South Ripley HighSchool.
Before we dive into that, talkto us just kind of briefly, um,
because you are certainly notnew to coaching basketball.
(04:07):
You are, you're an experiencedcoach who's had a ton of success
.
Talk to us just kind of brieflyabout, maybe, your story, your
past, where you've been and howyou got to where you're at today
well.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Thank you, ben, for that was a really nice way to
say that Tom's really old, but Iappreciate that.
But yeah, I graduated fromPurdue University after
Vincent's Lincoln High Schooland got a job out of college at
Forest Park High School inFerdinand, indiana, which most
(04:42):
people don't know whereFerdinand's at, but they've
heard of Holiday World so it'sright next door.
But I spent 30 years of my lifethere.
I met my beautiful wife andraised two children a son Seve
that you mentioned might have adaughter and had a great career
there at Forest Park.
In those 30 years Learned a lotof things that were good and
(05:05):
learned some things that Iquickly learned to forget and
move on.
And I had some great players,coached freshman basketball, jv
basketball, varsity basketball,was very blessed to have some
outstanding players and parentsand community support there.
We were in three statechampionship games, won two of
(05:27):
those and, like I said, very,very blessed to be there, moved
on from there.
I coached for four years atShelbyville High School and then
coached for six years atAnderson University and then
decided that was a total of 40years that you know, if you do
(05:48):
something for 40 years, eventhough you love it, you think,
okay, maybe it's time for theyoung people to take over and
I'll do something else.
So I was retired for a coupleof years, did some other things.
I'm very I'm active stillactive in the Indiana Basketball
Coaches Association.
The associate executivedirector of that organization,
(06:11):
which we had 2,000 members and Iwas blessed.
Seve, my son, followed in myfootsteps.
I tried to steer him adifferent way but he wouldn't
listen, and he's been a headcoach and assistant coach
followed in my footsteps.
I tried to steer him adifferent way but he wouldn't
listen.
He's been a head coach andassistant coach and has kind of
(06:34):
found his niche now down atSouth Ripley.
He started his own family andfound his wife down there and
has two sons.
That's kept me happy.
He asked me to come back andhelp him.
I, you know I still had thatitch, even though I'm really old
, like you so kindly described.
I still had that itch.
But I didn't want to be thatguy you know in charge anymore,
(07:01):
help the young men to grow andget better and get to talk to
them every day about theirwhatever's going on in their
lives, and that's just a realpleasure.
I get all the fun stuff.
I don't have to deal with thepaperwork and talking to the
principals and admitted ADs andparents and those things.
(07:24):
That.
That you know, and I don't meanthat in a bad way.
I mean SEVY's people are reallygood, but I just don't have to
deal with that stuff.
I get to do the fun stuff.
I get to go to practice andthen I get to go home and stop
somewhere and eat on the wayhome and, um, you know, game
night.
I'm not throwing up or sweatingbullets because I'm going to go
(07:44):
home after the game and thinkabout the next day's practice,
but it's been a real pleasure.
And you know our situation atSouth Ripley.
When Seve asked me to come on,we felt like that physically we
had some talented players, butsomething was just, something
(08:08):
wasn't right and so we weretrying to figure that out.
And, long story short, we foundout about you and and your
program and we really feel likethe entire coaching staff 100%
agrees that your program.
It helped us to do what we didthis last season, um, which was
(08:31):
a historical season for SouthRipley.
It ended a couple weeks earlierthan what we would have liked
but, um, it was still ahistorical season and what we
did and, um, you know, peoplewould say that I had a very
successful coaching career, buteven with that, I was never,
(08:51):
never had a team that did whatwhat this team did.
So it was quite a quite a runthis year and a lot of it is
attributed to what we did withthe mental training program.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
So let's, let's go back to.
You guys reached out maybeearly September ish, and you
know, like you said, you you'vealready won a state championship
before.
You've seen, you know the levelof high school basketball that
it takes to win at that level,and your son was even on one of
(09:30):
those teams.
So it's not like we were tryingto, or I was having to convince
you of, hey, training themental side of the game is also
really important, along withtraining the physical side of
the game, along with trainingthe technique side of the game,
(09:52):
the schematic side of the game.
You guys already knew that.
What were maybe some of thethings that you guys have really
put emphasis on in the pastwhen it came to the mental side
of the game, and maybe whatareas did you feel like
something was still lacking?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
you know, when you do something for 40 years, you see
things.
Um, you know, I I say it likethis there's some of the things
that I did that I didn't call itmental training but we did
those things.
Or you know, I study a lotwhere I read or watch film or
(10:35):
whatever podcast.
You know, professional athletes, division one athletes I worked
for several years with aprogram called Point Guard
College that you just learn allthese things and you have to put
them together and be able torelate them to your players and
(10:55):
your student athletes.
Also, some organization weattempted our second year to do
some mental training.
Seve seriously and jokinglycalled me the mental training
coach and I tried to do someactual things.
(11:18):
I said we've got to dosomething with our players.
That's more than just what wedo in practice.
So we kind of wasted.
I don't know wasted is notcorrect, but it was because I
didn't have the expertise andyou know I'm not trained in
mental training and you know Isaid, oh, you know it was just
(11:42):
kind of hit and miss and oh,this is great, this is.
You know, I searched Googlethis and look for this.
And oh, let's do this this week.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
And let's do this, maybe like a buffet of different
ideas and tools.
Yeah, set them out there infront of your athletes and see
if something sticks.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, yeah, like you said, throwing spaghetti at the
wall.
And you know there were.
There were some things thatwere good, um, but, like I said,
there was no organization,there was no pattern, there was
no um being prepared.
And then you know, yourprogram's kind of broken up into
three sections and it's allorganized and laid out and you
(12:29):
go in an order and it all makessense, and the players
understood, whereas I was like,oh, this week let's talk about
this and next week it's totallyoff the wall somewhere else, and
you know they were being politeto me and paying attention but
it just really wasn't the same.
(12:51):
And then, whereas there was justa total transformation this
year with the guys, you know,they look forward to every
Tuesday, today's class day.
Coach, what's it going to beabout?
You, you know what are we goingto talk about.
And, uh, we're going tocontinue talking about what we
did last week and or whateverthey they were, they got, you
(13:11):
know they were excited about it.
One know what was going tohappen and and then, you know,
from tuesday, tuesday they woulddo hey, coach, you know we
talked the other day in practice, in class, and I did that today
and you know, whatever, whatyou know made my free throws or
whatever it was.
So it was, it was uh.
It was just really neat to seethe maturing process and to see
(13:33):
the guys get excited about aboutthis, because it was organized
and it was well thought out andthey, they knew that this was
serious and they knew the yearbefore.
It was just me going up andsaying, well, let's talk about
whatever.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
I'm glad that you brought up that.
The players were interested,engaged, involved, saw results
from it on the court.
But you know I I'm thinking backto that very first time, that
very first time that you guyshad me come down and actually do
a focus cycle presentation inperson, and Seve almost kind of
(14:14):
prepared me like, hey, you'regoing to have some guys that are
not really all in on this,you're going to have you know,
he's telling me about this kidthat thinks this and you know
maybe some parents that thinkyou should be doing something
different and almost, almostlike, warned me before I got in
there and you know one of your,one of your guys that ended up
being a pretty big playmaker foryou guys this year.
(14:35):
When I was talking with himabout just expectations for the
season it was, you could tell hewas kind of standoffish a
little bit and kind of you know,I don't really, I don't really
know what to expect Almost likea.
To be honest, it was liketalking to a completely
different person when I camedown there just a couple of
(14:56):
weeks ago than it was at thevery start of the season, and I
know that that didn't happen byaccident.
Talk to us a little bit abouthow you got some of those
players to buy in and maybe whenthat light bulb went off that
they were like, oh my goodness,this stuff actually works.
(15:18):
Like we got to take thisserious.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, yeah.
So, like, like you said, whenwe first started, you know, seve
and I we talked a lot and youknow I said it's going to be the
total buy-in from Seve on down.
I said you've got to sell yourAD and principal on it.
You've got to have parentmeetings and sell the parents.
It's got to be a total program.
(15:43):
And you know, like you said,there I mean you got to be
honest there was some questions,there was some hesitations.
Up front, people you know saidhey, shouldn't the boys be in
the gym shooting free throws orwhatever?
(16:03):
And when you're an educator,when you're a coach, you've got
to work on the total package.
You know, when you're aquarterback in football, yeah,
you've got to be really good atknowing where to throw the ball.
But you've got to know what theroutes are that those wide
receivers are running.
(16:24):
You've got to know what holethe are that those wide
receivers are running.
You got to know what, what holethe running back's going to go
into.
Um, and you, you've got to workon the total package.
Um, you can't just show up andplay, play a game of basketball
without going in the weight room.
Yeah, uh, you've got to getphysically stronger.
You've got to get faster, uh,quicker, uh, and.
And you've got to getphysically stronger, you've got
(16:45):
to get faster, quicker andyou've got to be mentally
prepared.
You know, peyton Manning, howmuch time you know he probably
spent more time in the film roomthan he did out on the field,
and so there's all thosecomponents.
And being mentally trained notonly okay, how do I play defense
(17:06):
, how do I shoot, how are myshooting mechanics correct, but
you know also, you know how do Iguard and watch film and how
can I guard, defend this otherplayer on this other team.
But you know what do I do whensomething's not going well.
You know, my perception is thereferee's having a bad night.
(17:27):
He can't make a call.
How do I get through that?
I missed three free throws in arow.
Well, am I going to miss thefourth one because my brain is
fried?
Or how do I handle all thosethings?
You came down and gave a greatpresentation on the focus cycle
and that sold a lot of people inthat room, which then carried
(17:51):
over and as we went through theseason, you could just see
things clicking and things.
You know, we went our firstgame of the season by 50 points
and it was.
It's a rival game that normallywould have come down to maybe a
(18:11):
last second shot.
And the boys walked off thefloor and they're all just
looking at each other and like,okay, you know, that's, that's,
that was pretty cool, and youknow.
And then they move on and wekeep playing and we're 5-0 or
(18:32):
whatever.
And then we're 6-0.
And we play another game that'sa big rival game and you know
we're doing pretty well andwe're winning the game.
And the other team makes a runat us that the two years before,
(18:52):
when they made that run, wewould have folded.
And and here you can see theguys they're just different.
They're picking each other up.
They're talking to themselves,saying their go-to statements,
or they're patting each other onthe back saying, hey, we got
this, we're all right, whereasthe two years before they would
(19:15):
have been calling each othernames or why didn't you pass me
the ball?
Why did you take that shot?
And we ended up winning thatgame.
And it just keeps building.
Then we go to a holidaytournament where we're playing
three teams that are undefeatedin this holiday tournament and
we're a 2A school and the oneteam that wasn't undefeated was
(19:38):
a 4A school that played anextremely good schedule and they
played our schedule.
That would have probably beenundefeated.
So extremely tough tournament.
We win that tournament and theguys just all day.
You face adversity throughgames and through practice and
(20:01):
through all that you just seethem handling things in what I
call the correct way and it'sbecause they were being trained
to do things and think aboutthings the right way and it was
just a joy to watch him to dothat because, you know,
(20:25):
obviously winning the gameshelped.
Obviously them being a year ortwo older helped.
One of the players had a privateconversation with me about his
personal life.
That had nothing to do withshooting free throws or dunks or
whatever, but he said I'm ableto deal with some of this
(20:51):
because of what we're doing onTuesdays.
He said it's helping me.
He said it's still rough, butit's helping me, helping me.
He said it's still rough butit's helping me and that, you
know, it's kind of, you know,brought a tear to my eye because
he was going through some roughstuff and you always want to
(21:12):
help them, but he's got to gothrough it and, uh, he did and
and and this helped him andthat's.
You know, that's the otherjoyful thing about sports, and
what we're kind of talking abouthere is helping young people to
deal with life.
I mean, life's just like abasketball, football, baseball
(21:32):
game.
You're going to have ups anddowns and you've got to deal
with those ups and you've got todeal with the downs and keep
yourself plugging along.
So this was really, reallyhelpful.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
I love that and uh, no, I think that that makes it
easier to when you can look aparent in the eye and say you
know why, why are we, why is myboy in this classroom instead of
in the gym shooting free throwsor, you know, fill in the blank
(22:06):
with whatever else, and it'slike.
Well, because there are theseother skills and tools that they
need to learn, and not onlywill it help them be a better
basketball player, but it'sthings that they're going to be
able to use for the rest oftheir life and that's that's
powerful, and I'm I'm glad to,I'm glad to hear that Tell us,
tell us a little bit about let'sgo into maybe the logistics of
(22:30):
it, because you know when Iwould say probably the biggest
pushback that I get from coacheswho are thinking about like,
like they know we need to dosomething intentional about the
mental side of the game, and Ithink you know there's a lot of
coaches who just say, hey, goread this book or go listen to
(22:54):
this podcast, which I always sayis almost like hey, pressure
free throws are a reallyimportant thing for you to get
better at, so why don't youpractice that at home on your
own or the weight room is reallyimportant, you should lift, so
you know.
Find some time on your own to dothat, versus we have a limited
(23:16):
amount of time together and I'msaying that this 15 minutes
spent in the classroom is soimportant that there's no way
we're going to be skipping it.
Talk to us a little bit about.
I mean there had to have beensome questions, especially early
on, of is this really worthgoing back to every single week.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yes, there was, and that's something that Seve from
the top and he said when we'dhave our staff meetings, he said
we're doing this and he saidit's going to be the most
important thing.
I don't know how many times weheard this in our staff meetings
this is the most importantthing that we're doing this year
for our program.
(24:05):
He stuck to his guns and othercoaches all stuck to their guns
and then you know so, theplayers bought in and the
parents bought in, becauseeverybody knew that, like you
said, every week, sometimestwice a week the logistics thing
, you have to sit down and workit out.
(24:26):
I mean, we've got, I've got aspreadsheet here up on one of my
screens that I'm looking atNovember the 2nd, november the
16th, whatever we're going to dothis, this is what we're going
to do that day.
And you also have to beflexible because sometimes that
15 minutes is supposed to be onTuesday and sometimes we had to
(24:49):
move it to Wednesday because ofgame schedule.
Basketball, football you playevery Friday, but basketball
sometimes you play Tuesday orWednesday, sometimes you play
Friday.
So you have to adjust thatcalendar just a little bit and
be a little bit flexible.
But we had it planned out andknew starting this Tuesday and
(25:10):
every Tuesday basically wasclass day and that 15 minutes it
didn't matter.
Hey, we want to stay on thecourt.
No, we got to go to theclassroom.
We're done on the court today.
We're going to the classroom.
We need to talk about goalsetting or whatever the topic
was.
(25:30):
It was just awesome and the kidsfelt like you were.
You know the way you have yourprogram set up.
They were all.
You know.
It changed from.
They called me OG, which youcan say whatever you think O and
the G stand for.
But you know, instead of OG,what's class about?
(25:51):
It was what's Ben going to talkabout today?
What's Ben going to do for ustoday?
And then to see the excitementon their faces when you showed
up, we didn't tell them you weregoing to come to the ballgame
(26:11):
near the end of the season andthen they saw you walk in the
gym.
Their faces lit up.
And then, when you took thetime to step in the locker room
afterwards, it was like we'd wonthe sectional championship and
we they were jumping up and downand uh, because they got to
know you each week and uh,because of the way you had the
(26:32):
program set up.
So that was cool.
That was really cool to see allthat happen.
Yeah, happen.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yeah, I love hearing that.
And the the head coach buyingin I think is so important and I
think there, I think there'salso a ton of value in, you know
, the head coach, like you said,also has a ton on his plate and
I think in my mind there's aton of value in having someone
(27:01):
else like yourself who is ableto kind of spearhead this,
Because you know, you guys, ifI'm honest, you guys even hopped
in a little bit late, Like,ideally you would have gone
through this program in itscompletion during the summer,
during the offseason, and then,you know, once you got in season
(27:27):
, you would have come back tothese tools.
But you know, you were at whereyou were at.
So there was a, there was alittle bit of learning on the
fly, there was a little bit ofyou know, especially as we got
toward the end of the season,where you know, where you said,
hey, this is coming up, or wejust had this experience, or
(27:47):
this is how we played againstthis team, and now we have this
team coming up, or we havetournament time is around the
corner.
Now, how do we adjust?
What tools do we go back toTalk to us a little bit about.
You know, from your perspective, the value of that
customization, the value ofbeing able to fine tune this the
(28:10):
way you want to.
You know, skip around a littlebit if needed to go back and
talk about things again.
Talk to us a little bit aboutthat because you know you, you
put time and effort into makingsure there was a good plan going
into each and every Tuesdayyeah, that's like you said, that
(28:32):
the head coach obviously hasgot to buy in, but that doesn't
mean the head coach is the one.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Uh, you know bevy said look, you're this coat,
this is your job, take care ofit and and that's, you know, to
be a bark of a good coach.
You know, I, I was, I was shortand slow and and so I hired an
assistant that knew how to teachpost play and I said you teach
(29:01):
those guys how to play in thepost, I'll teach them how to
take it out of bounds orwhatever.
But and so he said, you figurethis out, you know, and do the
prep work and be prepared eachweek.
And then it was, you know, myjob.
I said, okay, this week we'retalking about the music class.
(29:23):
So you know, I contacted allthe coaches.
I said give me your favoriteyou know song from your playlist
or whatever.
And you know the guys had agreat time with that, the
players.
You know, og listens to thatsong and that was fun.
But you try to make it personal.
That was, that was fun, but youtry to make it personal.
(29:46):
You know, you have the classand and the program is set up
and organized, but one of thethings that I tried to do each
week was okay, today we're goingto talk about goal setting and
I tried to make it personal.
You know what I had.
These were my goals, and how doyou know?
You know you have short-termgoals and long-term goals and,
um, you know you can't just sitdown and say, well, we're going
to win a state championship,that's our goal.
(30:08):
Well, that's a goal, but that'show do you get there?
And there's got to be othergoals and cause that's all you
do is say we're going to win astate champion, it's not going
to happen.
And so you got to breakeverything down.
You throw in personal little.
You know, each Tuesday someoneon staff would offer some
personal antidote that theycould share.
(30:29):
That was made it personal, andyou know the guys oh, yeah, that
, oh, I understand that.
I get that.
That was a big thing in thatyou've got to have somebody on
your staff that's going to pushit and make sure it's set up and
ready to go.
You've got to have some kind ofscreen to be able to watch the
(30:52):
two three-minute videos thatyou're going to watch, and
you've got to run off theworksheets so that they're ready
to go.
There's a lot of different ways.
I could tell you how we did it,but you know it's got to work
for your particular situation.
But the big thing is you'rewasting your time and your money
(31:13):
if you just say, well, we'regoing to buy this program.
You know I laughed.
You said, oh, we'll give theguys a book to read.
Well, seve did that.
Because guess who did that?
When he was a player his highschool coach and bought every
player on the team a book andsaid guys, take this home and
(31:34):
read it and and you'll befantastic basketball player.
And well, what happened to thatbook?
It went home and got tossedunder the bed, or some of them
read it.
I was lucky when I was coaching.
I forgot the name of theprogram, but there was a reading
(31:57):
program at the library,librarian at the high school.
You could take tests on onbooks that you read.
Okay, and she put that book,she took that book for me and
created a test.
So I said, okay, you know yousmart alex, you go take your
test and if, if you don't get acertain score, we'll sit and
read the book together.
So they all passed their test.
(32:19):
And but you know this was, itwas just, it was just exciting.
It really was.
But someone's got to takecharge of it, someone's got to
be there to run the thing.
The head coach doesn't havetime to do that Now.
The head coach has to beexcited.
You know, seve jumped in withhis personal stories, uh, talked
(32:43):
about what a jerk his highschool coach was and things that
he made him do, and uh, and theboys thought that was pretty
funny.
But, um, you know, it was the,the coach.
Probably he's got other stuffon his plate trying to figure
out how to be, you know, win theconference championship, um,
how to fill out the paperworkthe ad and the principal need.
(33:07):
Or, you know, make sure the busis ready to go or whatever it
is.
But, um, so find, find somebodythat you trust and give them
the program and follow throughwith it.
Um, you know, you and I talkedabout somebody said, well, we
did this on Tuesday and threemonths later we did it again.
(33:29):
Well, that's not going to work.
I mean, it's just like shootingfree throws.
You said you know, if you onlyshoot free throws on Monday and
never shoot a minute, you're notgoing to make very many, and
(33:49):
it's the same.
With this.
You're training your mind,you're training your body.
You've got to train it.
Um, we were talking before wecame on on live.
I had pt this morning and I goto pt every tuesday morning and
he runs me through the ringer.
But if that's, I don't doanything till next Tuesday.
Getting rung through thatringer is a waste of time.
(34:11):
Yeah, and so that's we.
We, we hit this every Tuesday,but through the rest of the week
we would follow up withwhatever that particular
follow-up needed to be.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Oh, that's a man that's so important.
That was, that was one of thethings you know.
So for me, I was a.
I was a teacher and a coach atWestfield for 15 years before
stepping away to start doingthis full time, and I'll I'll
never forget.
You know I was.
I was speaking with one of thecoaches at Westfield and keep in
mind I mean, this is my almamater.
(34:44):
Like from a, from a loyaltystandpoint, this is where I went
to school, it's where my familywent, it's where my kids are
now going, my wife works in thedistrict, my mom works in the
district.
You know my brother now worksand coaches in the district.
It's the only.
It's the only.
Like I am a shamrock.
(35:04):
And when it was like you know,is it really okay to go?
You know, give this program topotentially our biggest rival.
Right down the road, you know,the the head coach at the time
was like you have to go, youhave to make this available.
Like this is, this is toopowerful, this is going to
(35:27):
change people's lives.
Like you can't just hide thisunder a rock and keep this.
You know you, you need to makethis available.
And when I started to bring upyou know kind of the awkwardness
of well, what if such and suchschool uses it and they beat you
?
His reply was well, that's notgoing to happen because you know
(35:48):
in his mind, they have huddle,they have film, they watch film,
they're going to break downfilm better than any other staff
that they face.
And the same with theirpractices.
Everybody practices.
But to win that championshipyou're going to have to do it a
little bit better.
And in his mind, the mentalperformance training was no
(36:11):
different.
Just having the tool isn'tgoing to magically win you a
championship.
Using the tool, committing tothe tool, bringing it back up
throughout the week, the coachesbuying in, the players buying
in everyone doing it the rightway is when you're really going
to get the most out of it.
(36:32):
Let's talk a little bit moreabout that now Because at the
end of the day, like it or not,we are judged as coaches.
We're judged on did we win thegame or not?
And we talked about it atWestfield all the time.
On Friday night the wholecommunity is going to come out
and they're going to see did Iprepare my position group to
(36:55):
play at the best of theirability?
And we're going to.
We're going to see that.
So let's let's talk about someof those results that you guys
saw, because you had built anentire program.
You were training the body, themind, the, the technique, the
schemes on the court.
Let's talk about some of thoseresults you guys saw.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Well, um, what immediately comes to my mind is
is at the free throw line as ateam.
Um, you know, you have aparticular class called
visualization.
I've always believed in and yousee things happen.
Um, you know, as a coach, Ialways I visualized how am I
(37:44):
going to climb that ladder afterwe win the sectional and how am
I going to cut down that net.
And I saw myself doing that,and that's one that.
That's one of those topics thatwhen you, when you go into that
young people, you sit them downand say, okay, you're going to
(38:05):
do this, they're going to you'regoing to get funny looks,
you're going to get eye rolls,you're going to they're going to
poke through the guy sittingnext to him.
You know, he's lost his mind.
You, you put them in thosesituations and so guy misses a
free throw, you know, and therest of the team standing on on
(38:27):
the baseline and they're allgoing make it, make it, we don't
want to have to run.
And he misses it and everybodyruns it.
But you keep that player thatmissed the free throw and I say,
did you see yourself makingthat before you shot it?
No, coach, I just shot it.
Well, why did you not use thetool that we learned.
(38:51):
And so let's do it again andclose your eyes, shoot the free
throw, make it, and so everybodygets on the baseline again.
You know, and you do differentthings and you hand the guy the
ball and I say, did you make it?
(39:12):
Yes, coach, I did.
In his mind he made it.
Okay, everybody go home, we'renot running, he made it and you
just do.
And you have to train them andover time, and that particular
boy that that I'm thinking ofright now, he went from a 55%
(39:33):
free throw shooter a year ago toan 81 percent free throw
shooter this year.
Wow, and you know the mentalpart was a big part.
Now, obviously, you know heshot on the gun and you know,
and and physically improved, butmentally he walked up.
You know when he's going to thefree throw line.
You know the other teamscouting for a year ago was foul
(39:56):
him.
Yeah, you know, it's the fourthquarter fat put him on the foul
line yeah and this year it wasdon't foul him, yeah and um,
because he had the mentalcapability.
You know.
Now did he still miss a freethrow?
Yeah, but he made more than hemissed, and a year ago that
(40:17):
wasn't the case, and but it justtakes daily, daily practice, um
, of whatever this, that skillis and that's the one that
really sticks out to me is isseeing his improvement and there
were things across the boardthat were were that way for us.
(40:37):
You know a lot of it was.
You know again, how do youtreat your teammates, how do you
react to you know you get a badcall.
It drove me bananas to to watchour boys a year ago when they
(40:58):
would a call would go againstthem and their, their reactions,
and this year I can't say ahundred percent, but you know,
for this year it was like we hadbasketball players because
things are going to happen.
You know the guy's going toblow his whistle and you're
(41:18):
going to disagree with the call.
Well, you're not going tochange the call.
So how do you deal with it?
You're going to miss a freethrow.
How do you deal with it?
There's a session talking aboutpreparing for practice.
Session talking about preparingfor practice.
Guys would say, god, coach, Ididn't really think about you
know, I need to do this spotwhile I'm in the locker room
(41:39):
before coming out to practice.
And I'm like really didn'tthink about that before.
And no, I didn't I.
I just I got out of algebraclass and went and changed my
into my basketball shoes andcame out and ready to play hoops
and I was like, well, no wonderyou played like you did last
(42:00):
year.
So again, it's just teachingthem.
You can't take anything forgranted and you've got to go
through everything and teach itand just reteach it and if you
don't, it's not going to happen.
And that's again.
I felt like with this program itwas such a good thing because
(42:26):
of the organization, becausesometimes you know when you're
playing three games in a week asa coach, you get caught up in.
Okay, do I have the game plan?
Is this?
You know what are we going todo to prepare for this team?
And you still have to do thatspecific preparation.
(42:46):
But really playing Team X is nodifferent than playing Team Y
as far as your generalpreparation.
It's doing all those thingsyour mental and physical, making
yourself get better every dayand then you throw in the little
specific things of okay, thisteam plays zone, so we have to
(43:08):
practice our zone offense alittle more.
Zone, so we have to practiceour zone offense a little more.
But the big things that youknow, like I said, visualizing
making the free throw, you gotto do that every day, yeah.
Um.
Creating your teammate right,you got to do that every day, um
, or it doesn't work yeah, andand you have to, you have to
reinforce the skills.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
They can't just live in a notebook.
They can't just live in anotebook.
They can't just live in aclassroom on a Tuesday.
You have to have thatconversation as the coach of hey
, you know you had this plan.
It doesn't look like you usedthis plan.
Why didn't you use that?
Why didn't you do that?
And you teach them how to dothat.
(43:50):
You hold them accountable to.
Are you using these things thatwe're talking about?
I mean, it's no different thanif you have a film session and
then you point out these thingsbut you never practice those
things, you never talk aboutthem again.
I mean, you're not reallygetting a ton out of that.
You gotta come back to some ofthose things and I think it can
be difficult.
(44:10):
As coaches like you brought up,you know we can sometimes.
We can just expect that playersshould know things.
I know we were.
We were joking on the on thefront end of this episode about
you having a little more lifeexperience than me.
Um, but I I'm certainly.
I am no longer the young coachin the locker room and on a high
(44:34):
school football team for sure,and I'm guilty of you know
there's times where I've been infootball you know I've been
coaching football longer thanmost of these guys have been
alive that I just assume.
Well, you should know this andyou should do this.
And I know we talked about the,the music module, for example.
(44:54):
You know that that's usually onethat it's like if you got a
trim one, if you don't have 19sessions, you know, do we, you
know, maybe get rid of that one?
But you, you guys came back andyou were like this was this was
one of their absolute favorites.
And you know, being able to usemedia to to get your mood, your
emotions right, to be able tocontrol physical energy, kind of
(45:17):
build that up, heading to agame, not get too hyped up ahead
of time, uh, it's, it's just soimportant.
So here we are, you're on theback end of this season as you
look back and you reflect onkind of the season as the whole,
maybe some of the things thatyou were able to accomplish, not
(45:40):
accomplish, and then you startto look at moving ahead into the
future.
What are some of your thoughts,kind of wrapping this up, as
you reflect back on the season?
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Well, one thing, like you mentioned earlier, we
jumped into this a little bitlater than what we would have
liked to.
It ended up being a positive,but we still feel like overall,
it was a negative that we wererushed a little bit, and so one
of the things that we've alreadydiscussed is we're going to
(46:12):
revisit the modules and kind ofdo the program again, not as a
review for the returning players, but we'll have new players
coming in that weren't directly.
They were at your beginning ofthe year when you came and did
(46:33):
that first program.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
But they were in middle school they were doing,
and now they're in high, they'regoing to be part of the high
school team, so everything willbe new to them as far as the
entire program.
So we're going to start earlier.
Spend it won't be as rushed uh.
(46:58):
Spend, uh, it won't be asrushed uh.
And and then and then what's weanticipate will happen is the
guys, the returning players, aregoing to be doing some of the
teaching.
You know, now we're going tosee that carryover and they're
going to.
They're going to talk aboutwhen we talk about fmr.
You know the they're gonna go.
Hey, man, I did this beforeevery free throw, uh, or I did
(47:19):
this before the game and itreally worked.
And those, those young guys,are gonna go.
Oh well, if he's doing that,I'm gonna do to do it.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Yeah, and that's where it's not just some old guy
like us telling them to do it.
It's like oh, the starter, thestar on the high school
basketball team, uses this.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Yeah, yeah.
So that's where we think it'sgoing to be more powerful this
next year, because we'llreinforce it with the older guys
, but they're going to push thatonto the younger guys and we'll
see that and everybody's justgoing to be more enthusiastic
(48:04):
about it.
So that's where we think it'sgoing to go, and, as we revisit
that and bring everybody furtheralong, it's just going to be
even more powerful.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
I know beforehand, tom.
We were talking about some ofthe accomplishments that you
guys were able to achieve as ateam.
Talk to us just a little bitabout how the season unfolded
and what that looked like thisyear.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
We were obviously hoping we would be better,
thought we would be better, andwe actually had an eight-game
improvement over the regular,over the total season.
We had a 10-game improvementfrom the last year in wins and
coming into the season, you know, as as coaches you always play
(48:53):
the game, you know well, I thinkwe'll win 15 games or I think
we'll win 18 games, or I thinkwe'll win 10 games, whatever the
game is that year.
And you know so, this year we,we, we were I think 13 and 11 a
year ago and a year ago and wethought, you know, we'll win 16,
(49:19):
17 games.
We're physically good enough todo that.
If this mental training programworks, that'll help us win
those 16, 17 games.
Win that holiday tournament,which was one of our immediate
goals.
And you know're we start theyear off.
We're not even ranked in any ofthe polls, um and and that.
(49:39):
We know we're starting to getranked and we're moving.
You know we're ninth, we'reseventh, we're fifth.
So we come back from thatholiday tournament and we have
the county tournament, which isa big deal for South Ripley and
obviously all the four countyschools.
It's a big deal.
We win that within a two-weekspan.
(50:00):
You know, I'm starting to think, okay, this stuff's working.
And now, you know, as acoaching staff, we're instead of
talking about how do we dealwith adversity.
Another part of adversity isthe positive stuff.
You know, hey, we're rankednumber five in the state.
Whoopee, we're pretty good.
We've just won the holidaytournament.
(50:22):
We just won the countytournament.
Whoopee, we're pretty good.
You know, but how do you dealwith that?
So now we move on and wecontinue to win.
The guys just keep plugging andwe get to 19-0, and we're
ranked number one in the stateby now at this time in Class 2A.
It was just one of thoseperfect storms we lost, so we're
(50:46):
19-1.
And then we come back.
The next game played reallyreally well.
I mean, the guys were like,okay, we just we didn't handle
things last week really well,let's get back to doing what we
were doing.
And we focused in and finishedthe season really well.
(51:07):
We had to go on the road to theco-favorite, the sectional.
The sectional was on theircourt.
It was a big game.
We beat them with less than asecond to go.
We beat them during the regularseason to win the conference.
So now we have to go play themon their floor for the sectional
(51:29):
championship and we get off toa good start.
We're playing well, we've got alead.
They make a run at usbasketball's game of runs and,
okay, are we going to handlethis year?
Before we would have folded, wenever would have won that game.
Um, we had um like a would havewon that game.
(51:51):
We had like a 12-point lead.
They cut it to five with theball and we get a stop.
We go long story short, we endup winning by 15 and cut down
the nets at the sectional andyou know all these things being
sectional champion, conferencechampion, county tourney
(52:13):
champion, the holiday tournamentchampion, ranked number one in
the state in class 2A thecommunity support just grew and
grew and grew for the team.
It was just really, reallyexciting to see all this happen
for these guys.
We, as a coaching staff, feltlike physically, they could have
done this the year before, butwe weren't there, we weren't the
(52:37):
complete package and we feltlike this year we had the
complete package, physically andmentally, to get the job done
and they just they proved thatweek in and week out and that's
it was just.
It was just a really excitingyear.
You know, the wins werefantastic.
(52:57):
Those trophies and nets wereexciting, but to see those young
men grow and mature mentallywas even more exciting.
Mentally was even more exciting.
(53:23):
And that's, you know, the thewins.
They're fun, you know, givesyou something to talk about.
But what you're really talkingabout is what you mentioned
earlier to see those youngpeople to grow and know that
they're gonna have the tools togo out and be.
You know, in our, our case,we're working with young men, so
hopefully they're going to havethe tools to go out and be.
You know, in our, our case,we're working with young men, so
hopefully they're going to begood husbands and good fathers
and and productive in whateveroccupation they want to spend 40
(53:46):
years of their life doing.
I just feel really blessed andthankful that we were able to
give those boys some tools thatare going to help them for the
next 40 to 50 years.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
What thoughts would you have?
You know, maybe, if a coach issort of on the fence about, you
know, do we do this, do we notdo this?
Is it worth the time, is itworth the money?
You know, what thoughts wouldyou have for a coach that's
maybe in that spot?
Speaker 2 (54:26):
I would tell them don't hesitate, Write the check,
Figure it out.
Don't hesitate, write the check, figure it out.
But if you really want to begood, if you want to walk the
walk that you're talking um, doit.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
So the the last question I always love to ask
guests is knowing what you knownow.
If you could go back and tell ayounger version of yourself
just maybe one piece of advicethat that first year coach, what
would it be?
Speaker 2 (54:58):
Enjoy it.
Enjoy it more, enjoy it more.
It's too easy to get caught upin the negatives.
You know I'm going to throwthis out there and I'm going to
sound like that old guy, but Ido feel bad for the young
coaches.
Um, because of the things thatthey hear and see and their
(55:23):
families go through now thatthose things were there when I
was young, but I didn't have tohear it and see it because there
wasn't the social media and soI didn't have to deal with it.
I could, I could, and they haveto learn how to not deal with
(55:43):
it or to deal with it.
Whatever they're going to do,but enjoy it.
Enjoy it and find the positivesin whatever it is, because you
know, even when you lose, thoseplayers didn't want to lose,
they were trying to win for you,and so find those positives,
(56:06):
correct the negatives, but enjoyit.
Enjoy it and you'll be a lothappier.
Speaker 1 (56:15):
Love that Well, tom.
Thank you so much for takingthe time to join us today and
just talk a little bit aboutyour experience.
Congratulations on a on anoutstanding year and best of
luck to you guys in the futuremoving forward.
Speaker 2 (56:29):
Thank you very much, Ben.
Always a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (56:32):
If you have questions , want to reach out?
Head on over tomentaltrainingplancom.
Click on the contact us buttonat the bottom.
Would love to have aconversation about how we could
help you individually or yourentire team.
And, until next time, make yourplan and put it to work.
One of the toughest parts of implementing a mental
performance training program canbe justifying the time.
If you've never done somethinglike this before and you're not,
maybe, totally convinced it'sgoing to work, how do you
explain taking 15 minutes awayfrom practice every single week?
(00:20):
How do you tell your players,your parents, maybe even your
athletic director hey, we'regoing to stop shooting free
throws for a bit to talk aboutbreathing, self-talk and focus?
It can be a hard sell,especially if you're at a small
school on a tight budget, tryingto get over the hump with kids
(00:41):
that are juggling multiplesports.
But today's guest Coach, tomBeach, knows exactly what it
takes to win.
He's spent over 40 yearscoaching high school basketball
in the state of Indiana.
He's been to three statechampionships.
They've won two of them andwhile he never called it mental
(01:02):
performance training, he spenthis entire career teaching the
mental side of the game becausehe knew the best coaches and
players were doing somethingmore than just running drills.
Now what he'll tell you is thatthey had a little bit more of
just a random buffet of you knowvideos that he found, or tools
(01:24):
or resources or podcasts orbooks, and he would just sort of
throw stuff at the wall and seeif anything stuck.
But this year they implementedthe MTP Academy.
They said you know what?
We need a program.
And so in this episode we'retalking about a small public
(01:45):
high school in southern Indiana,south Ripley, where Coach Beach
is now on staff.
Their team had been stuckaround 500 for a couple years.
They felt like they had talentand they had the effort, but
something was still missing.
So they decided to go all in onthe MTP Academy during the
(02:06):
season Not in the offseason,which, if I'm being honest, is
maybe more convenient but theycommitted from week one and what
happened next was nothing shortof how Coach Beach described it
Historic, from unranked tonumber one in the state, from
(02:28):
average, to winning the holidaytournament, the county
championship, the conferencechampionship, the sectional
championship.
I think Coach Beach said itbest when he said the MTP
Academy can't guarantee you achampionship, but I can
guarantee you we don't win asectional championship without
(02:49):
it.
Today's episode is a story aboutbelief, commitment and
transformation.
Can't wait to dive into this.
Hey you, welcome to theCoaching Minds Podcast, the
official podcast of MentalTraining Plan, joined today by
coach Tom Beach, who worked withhis son down at South Ripley
High School.
(03:09):
Tom, I appreciate you joiningus today.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Always a pleasure to be with you, Ben, and thank you
for all that you did for SouthRipley basketball this year.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
For sure.
So you know, I think theaudience is in for a real treat
today.
You know it's one thing to hearlike, hey, here's the theory
behind what we're saying youshould be doing.
But you guys lived it out.
Mtp Academy, you implementedsome weekly mental performance
(03:45):
training tools this season andcertainly saw some great results
, to go along with all of therest of the things that you guys
are doing at South Ripley HighSchool.
Before we dive into that, talkto us just kind of briefly, um,
because you are certainly notnew to coaching basketball.
(04:07):
You are, you're an experiencedcoach who's had a ton of success
.
Talk to us just kind of brieflyabout, maybe, your story, your
past, where you've been and howyou got to where you're at today
well.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Thank you, ben, for that was a really nice way to
say that Tom's really old, but Iappreciate that.
But yeah, I graduated fromPurdue University after
Vincent's Lincoln High Schooland got a job out of college at
Forest Park High School inFerdinand, indiana, which most
(04:42):
people don't know whereFerdinand's at, but they've
heard of Holiday World so it'sright next door.
But I spent 30 years of my lifethere.
I met my beautiful wife andraised two children a son Seve
that you mentioned might have adaughter and had a great career
there at Forest Park.
In those 30 years Learned a lotof things that were good and
(05:05):
learned some things that Iquickly learned to forget and
move on.
And I had some great players,coached freshman basketball, jv
basketball, varsity basketball,was very blessed to have some
outstanding players and parentsand community support there.
We were in three statechampionship games, won two of
(05:27):
those and, like I said, very,very blessed to be there, moved
on from there.
I coached for four years atShelbyville High School and then
coached for six years atAnderson University and then
decided that was a total of 40years that you know, if you do
(05:48):
something for 40 years, eventhough you love it, you think,
okay, maybe it's time for theyoung people to take over and
I'll do something else.
So I was retired for a coupleof years, did some other things.
I'm very I'm active stillactive in the Indiana Basketball
Coaches Association.
The associate executivedirector of that organization,
(06:11):
which we had 2,000 members and Iwas blessed.
Seve, my son, followed in myfootsteps.
I tried to steer him adifferent way but he wouldn't
listen, and he's been a headcoach and assistant coach
followed in my footsteps.
I tried to steer him adifferent way but he wouldn't
listen.
He's been a head coach andassistant coach and has kind of
(06:34):
found his niche now down atSouth Ripley.
He started his own family andfound his wife down there and
has two sons.
That's kept me happy.
He asked me to come back andhelp him.
I, you know I still had thatitch, even though I'm really old
, like you so kindly described.
I still had that itch.
But I didn't want to be thatguy you know in charge anymore,
(07:01):
help the young men to grow andget better and get to talk to
them every day about theirwhatever's going on in their
lives, and that's just a realpleasure.
I get all the fun stuff.
I don't have to deal with thepaperwork and talking to the
principals and admitted ADs andparents and those things.
(07:24):
That.
That you know, and I don't meanthat in a bad way.
I mean SEVY's people are reallygood, but I just don't have to
deal with that stuff.
I get to do the fun stuff.
I get to go to practice andthen I get to go home and stop
somewhere and eat on the wayhome and, um, you know, game
night.
I'm not throwing up or sweatingbullets because I'm going to go
(07:44):
home after the game and thinkabout the next day's practice,
but it's been a real pleasure.
And you know our situation atSouth Ripley.
When Seve asked me to come on,we felt like that physically we
had some talented players, butsomething was just, something
(08:08):
wasn't right and so we weretrying to figure that out.
And, long story short, we foundout about you and and your
program and we really feel likethe entire coaching staff 100%
agrees that your program.
It helped us to do what we didthis last season, um, which was
(08:31):
a historical season for SouthRipley.
It ended a couple weeks earlierthan what we would have liked
but, um, it was still ahistorical season and what we
did and, um, you know, peoplewould say that I had a very
successful coaching career, buteven with that, I was never,
(08:51):
never had a team that did whatwhat this team did.
So it was quite a quite a runthis year and a lot of it is
attributed to what we did withthe mental training program.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
So let's, let's go back to.
You guys reached out maybeearly September ish, and you
know, like you said, you you'vealready won a state championship
before.
You've seen, you know the levelof high school basketball that
it takes to win at that level,and your son was even on one of
(09:30):
those teams.
So it's not like we were tryingto, or I was having to convince
you of, hey, training themental side of the game is also
really important, along withtraining the physical side of
the game, along with trainingthe technique side of the game,
(09:52):
the schematic side of the game.
You guys already knew that.
What were maybe some of thethings that you guys have really
put emphasis on in the pastwhen it came to the mental side
of the game, and maybe whatareas did you feel like
something was still lacking?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
you know, when you do something for 40 years, you see
things.
Um, you know, I I say it likethis there's some of the things
that I did that I didn't call itmental training but we did
those things.
Or you know, I study a lotwhere I read or watch film or
(10:35):
whatever podcast.
You know, professional athletes, division one athletes I worked
for several years with aprogram called Point Guard
College that you just learn allthese things and you have to put
them together and be able torelate them to your players and
(10:55):
your student athletes.
Also, some organization weattempted our second year to do
some mental training.
Seve seriously and jokinglycalled me the mental training
coach and I tried to do someactual things.
(11:18):
I said we've got to dosomething with our players.
That's more than just what wedo in practice.
So we kind of wasted.
I don't know wasted is notcorrect, but it was because I
didn't have the expertise andyou know I'm not trained in
mental training and you know Isaid, oh, you know it was just
(11:42):
kind of hit and miss and oh,this is great, this is.
You know, I searched Googlethis and look for this.
And oh, let's do this this week.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
And let's do this, maybe like a buffet of different
ideas and tools.
Yeah, set them out there infront of your athletes and see
if something sticks.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, yeah, like you said, throwing spaghetti at the
wall.
And you know there were.
There were some things thatwere good, um, but, like I said,
there was no organization,there was no pattern, there was
no um being prepared.
And then you know, yourprogram's kind of broken up into
three sections and it's allorganized and laid out and you
(12:29):
go in an order and it all makessense, and the players
understood, whereas I was like,oh, this week let's talk about
this and next week it's totallyoff the wall somewhere else, and
you know they were being politeto me and paying attention but
it just really wasn't the same.
(12:51):
And then, whereas there was justa total transformation this
year with the guys, you know,they look forward to every
Tuesday, today's class day.
Coach, what's it going to beabout?
You, you know what are we goingto talk about.
And, uh, we're going tocontinue talking about what we
did last week and or whateverthey they were, they got, you
(13:11):
know they were excited about it.
One know what was going tohappen and and then, you know,
from tuesday, tuesday they woulddo hey, coach, you know we
talked the other day in practice, in class, and I did that today
and you know, whatever, whatyou know made my free throws or
whatever it was.
So it was, it was uh.
It was just really neat to seethe maturing process and to see
(13:33):
the guys get excited about aboutthis, because it was organized
and it was well thought out andthey, they knew that this was
serious and they knew the yearbefore.
It was just me going up andsaying, well, let's talk about
whatever.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
I'm glad that you brought up that.
The players were interested,engaged, involved, saw results
from it on the court.
But you know I I'm thinking backto that very first time, that
very first time that you guyshad me come down and actually do
a focus cycle presentation inperson, and Seve almost kind of
(14:14):
prepared me like, hey, you'regoing to have some guys that are
not really all in on this,you're going to have you know,
he's telling me about this kidthat thinks this and you know
maybe some parents that thinkyou should be doing something
different and almost, almostlike, warned me before I got in
there and you know one of your,one of your guys that ended up
being a pretty big playmaker foryou guys this year.
(14:35):
When I was talking with himabout just expectations for the
season it was, you could tell hewas kind of standoffish a
little bit and kind of you know,I don't really, I don't really
know what to expect Almost likea.
To be honest, it was liketalking to a completely
different person when I camedown there just a couple of
(14:56):
weeks ago than it was at thevery start of the season, and I
know that that didn't happen byaccident.
Talk to us a little bit abouthow you got some of those
players to buy in and maybe whenthat light bulb went off that
they were like, oh my goodness,this stuff actually works.
(15:18):
Like we got to take thisserious.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, yeah.
So, like, like you said, whenwe first started, you know, seve
and I we talked a lot and youknow I said it's going to be the
total buy-in from Seve on down.
I said you've got to sell yourAD and principal on it.
You've got to have parentmeetings and sell the parents.
It's got to be a total program.
(15:43):
And you know, like you said,there I mean you got to be
honest there was some questions,there was some hesitations.
Up front, people you know saidhey, shouldn't the boys be in
the gym shooting free throws orwhatever?
(16:03):
And when you're an educator,when you're a coach, you've got
to work on the total package.
You know, when you're aquarterback in football, yeah,
you've got to be really good atknowing where to throw the ball.
But you've got to know what theroutes are that those wide
receivers are running.
(16:24):
You've got to know what holethe are that those wide
receivers are running.
You got to know what, what holethe running back's going to go
into.
Um, and you, you've got to workon the total package.
Um, you can't just show up andplay, play a game of basketball
without going in the weight room.
Yeah, uh, you've got to getphysically stronger.
You've got to get faster, uh,quicker, uh, and.
And you've got to getphysically stronger, you've got
(16:45):
to get faster, quicker andyou've got to be mentally
prepared.
You know, peyton Manning, howmuch time you know he probably
spent more time in the film roomthan he did out on the field,
and so there's all thosecomponents.
And being mentally trained notonly okay, how do I play defense
(17:06):
, how do I shoot, how are myshooting mechanics correct, but
you know also, you know how do Iguard and watch film and how
can I guard, defend this otherplayer on this other team.
But you know what do I do whensomething's not going well.
You know, my perception is thereferee's having a bad night.
(17:27):
He can't make a call.
How do I get through that?
I missed three free throws in arow.
Well, am I going to miss thefourth one because my brain is
fried?
Or how do I handle all thosethings?
You came down and gave a greatpresentation on the focus cycle
and that sold a lot of people inthat room, which then carried
(17:51):
over and as we went through theseason, you could just see
things clicking and things.
You know, we went our firstgame of the season by 50 points
and it was.
It's a rival game that normallywould have come down to maybe a
(18:11):
last second shot.
And the boys walked off thefloor and they're all just
looking at each other and like,okay, you know, that's, that's,
that was pretty cool, and youknow.
And then they move on and wekeep playing and we're 5-0 or
(18:32):
whatever.
And then we're 6-0.
And we play another game that'sa big rival game and you know
we're doing pretty well andwe're winning the game.
And the other team makes a runat us that the two years before,
(18:52):
when they made that run, wewould have folded.
And and here you can see theguys they're just different.
They're picking each other up.
They're talking to themselves,saying their go-to statements,
or they're patting each other onthe back saying, hey, we got
this, we're all right, whereasthe two years before they would
(19:15):
have been calling each othernames or why didn't you pass me
the ball?
Why did you take that shot?
And we ended up winning thatgame.
And it just keeps building.
Then we go to a holidaytournament where we're playing
three teams that are undefeatedin this holiday tournament and
we're a 2A school and the oneteam that wasn't undefeated was
(19:38):
a 4A school that played anextremely good schedule and they
played our schedule.
That would have probably beenundefeated.
So extremely tough tournament.
We win that tournament and theguys just all day.
You face adversity throughgames and through practice and
(20:01):
through all that you just seethem handling things in what I
call the correct way and it'sbecause they were being trained
to do things and think aboutthings the right way and it was
just a joy to watch him to dothat because, you know,
(20:25):
obviously winning the gameshelped.
Obviously them being a year ortwo older helped.
One of the players had a privateconversation with me about his
personal life.
That had nothing to do withshooting free throws or dunks or
whatever, but he said I'm ableto deal with some of this
(20:51):
because of what we're doing onTuesdays.
He said it's helping me.
He said it's still rough, butit's helping me, helping me.
He said it's still rough butit's helping me and that, you
know, it's kind of, you know,brought a tear to my eye because
he was going through some roughstuff and you always want to
(21:12):
help them, but he's got to gothrough it and, uh, he did and
and and this helped him andthat's.
You know, that's the otherjoyful thing about sports, and
what we're kind of talking abouthere is helping young people to
deal with life.
I mean, life's just like abasketball, football, baseball
(21:32):
game.
You're going to have ups anddowns and you've got to deal
with those ups and you've got todeal with the downs and keep
yourself plugging along.
So this was really, reallyhelpful.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
I love that and uh, no, I think that that makes it
easier to when you can look aparent in the eye and say you
know why, why are we, why is myboy in this classroom instead of
in the gym shooting free throwsor, you know, fill in the blank
(22:06):
with whatever else, and it'slike.
Well, because there are theseother skills and tools that they
need to learn, and not onlywill it help them be a better
basketball player, but it'sthings that they're going to be
able to use for the rest oftheir life and that's that's
powerful, and I'm I'm glad to,I'm glad to hear that Tell us,
tell us a little bit about let'sgo into maybe the logistics of
(22:30):
it, because you know when Iwould say probably the biggest
pushback that I get from coacheswho are thinking about like,
like they know we need to dosomething intentional about the
mental side of the game, and Ithink you know there's a lot of
coaches who just say, hey, goread this book or go listen to
(22:54):
this podcast, which I always sayis almost like hey, pressure
free throws are a reallyimportant thing for you to get
better at, so why don't youpractice that at home on your
own or the weight room is reallyimportant, you should lift, so
you know.
Find some time on your own to dothat, versus we have a limited
(23:16):
amount of time together and I'msaying that this 15 minutes
spent in the classroom is soimportant that there's no way
we're going to be skipping it.
Talk to us a little bit about.
I mean there had to have beensome questions, especially early
on, of is this really worthgoing back to every single week.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yes, there was, and that's something that Seve from
the top and he said when we'dhave our staff meetings, he said
we're doing this and he saidit's going to be the most
important thing.
I don't know how many times weheard this in our staff meetings
this is the most importantthing that we're doing this year
for our program.
(24:05):
He stuck to his guns and othercoaches all stuck to their guns
and then you know so, theplayers bought in and the
parents bought in, becauseeverybody knew that, like you
said, every week, sometimestwice a week the logistics thing
, you have to sit down and workit out.
(24:26):
I mean, we've got, I've got aspreadsheet here up on one of my
screens that I'm looking atNovember the 2nd, november the
16th, whatever we're going to dothis, this is what we're going
to do that day.
And you also have to beflexible because sometimes that
15 minutes is supposed to be onTuesday and sometimes we had to
(24:49):
move it to Wednesday because ofgame schedule.
Basketball, football you playevery Friday, but basketball
sometimes you play Tuesday orWednesday, sometimes you play
Friday.
So you have to adjust thatcalendar just a little bit and
be a little bit flexible.
But we had it planned out andknew starting this Tuesday and
(25:10):
every Tuesday basically wasclass day and that 15 minutes it
didn't matter.
Hey, we want to stay on thecourt.
No, we got to go to theclassroom.
We're done on the court today.
We're going to the classroom.
We need to talk about goalsetting or whatever the topic
was.
(25:30):
It was just awesome and the kidsfelt like you were.
You know the way you have yourprogram set up.
They were all.
You know.
It changed from.
They called me OG, which youcan say whatever you think O and
the G stand for.
But you know, instead of OG,what's class about?
(25:51):
It was what's Ben going to talkabout today?
What's Ben going to do for ustoday?
And then to see the excitementon their faces when you showed
up, we didn't tell them you weregoing to come to the ballgame
(26:11):
near the end of the season andthen they saw you walk in the
gym.
Their faces lit up.
And then, when you took thetime to step in the locker room
afterwards, it was like we'd wonthe sectional championship and
we they were jumping up and downand uh, because they got to
know you each week and uh,because of the way you had the
(26:32):
program set up.
So that was cool.
That was really cool to see allthat happen.
Yeah, happen.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yeah, I love hearing that.
And the the head coach buyingin I think is so important and I
think there, I think there'salso a ton of value in, you know
, the head coach, like you said,also has a ton on his plate and
I think in my mind there's aton of value in having someone
(27:01):
else like yourself who is ableto kind of spearhead this,
Because you know, you guys, ifI'm honest, you guys even hopped
in a little bit late, Like,ideally you would have gone
through this program in itscompletion during the summer,
during the offseason, and then,you know, once you got in season
(27:27):
, you would have come back tothese tools.
But you know, you were at whereyou were at.
So there was a, there was alittle bit of learning on the
fly, there was a little bit ofyou know, especially as we got
toward the end of the season,where you know, where you said,
hey, this is coming up, or wejust had this experience, or
(27:47):
this is how we played againstthis team, and now we have this
team coming up, or we havetournament time is around the
corner.
Now, how do we adjust?
What tools do we go back toTalk to us a little bit about.
You know, from your perspective, the value of that
customization, the value ofbeing able to fine tune this the
(28:10):
way you want to.
You know, skip around a littlebit if needed to go back and
talk about things again.
Talk to us a little bit aboutthat because you know you, you
put time and effort into makingsure there was a good plan going
into each and every Tuesdayyeah, that's like you said, that
(28:32):
the head coach obviously hasgot to buy in, but that doesn't
mean the head coach is the one.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Uh, you know bevy said look, you're this coat,
this is your job, take care ofit and and that's, you know, to
be a bark of a good coach.
You know, I, I was, I was shortand slow and and so I hired an
assistant that knew how to teachpost play and I said you teach
(29:01):
those guys how to play in thepost, I'll teach them how to
take it out of bounds orwhatever.
But and so he said, you figurethis out, you know, and do the
prep work and be prepared eachweek.
And then it was, you know, myjob.
I said, okay, this week we'retalking about the music class.
(29:23):
So you know, I contacted allthe coaches.
I said give me your favoriteyou know song from your playlist
or whatever.
And you know the guys had agreat time with that, the
players.
You know, og listens to thatsong and that was fun.
But you try to make it personal.
That was, that was fun, but youtry to make it personal.
(29:46):
You know, you have the classand and the program is set up
and organized, but one of thethings that I tried to do each
week was okay, today we're goingto talk about goal setting and
I tried to make it personal.
You know what I had.
These were my goals, and how doyou know?
You know you have short-termgoals and long-term goals and,
um, you know you can't just sitdown and say, well, we're going
to win a state championship,that's our goal.
(30:08):
Well, that's a goal, but that'show do you get there?
And there's got to be othergoals and cause that's all you
do is say we're going to win astate champion, it's not going
to happen.
And so you got to breakeverything down.
You throw in personal little.
You know, each Tuesday someoneon staff would offer some
personal antidote that theycould share.
(30:29):
That was made it personal, andyou know the guys oh, yeah, that
, oh, I understand that.
I get that.
That was a big thing in thatyou've got to have somebody on
your staff that's going to pushit and make sure it's set up and
ready to go.
You've got to have some kind ofscreen to be able to watch the
(30:52):
two three-minute videos thatyou're going to watch, and
you've got to run off theworksheets so that they're ready
to go.
There's a lot of different ways.
I could tell you how we did it,but you know it's got to work
for your particular situation.
But the big thing is you'rewasting your time and your money
(31:13):
if you just say, well, we'regoing to buy this program.
You know I laughed.
You said, oh, we'll give theguys a book to read.
Well, seve did that.
Because guess who did that?
When he was a player his highschool coach and bought every
player on the team a book andsaid guys, take this home and
(31:34):
read it and and you'll befantastic basketball player.
And well, what happened to thatbook?
It went home and got tossedunder the bed, or some of them
read it.
I was lucky when I was coaching.
I forgot the name of theprogram, but there was a reading
(31:57):
program at the library,librarian at the high school.
You could take tests on onbooks that you read.
Okay, and she put that book,she took that book for me and
created a test.
So I said, okay, you know yousmart alex, you go take your
test and if, if you don't get acertain score, we'll sit and
read the book together.
So they all passed their test.
(32:19):
And but you know this was, itwas just, it was just exciting.
It really was.
But someone's got to takecharge of it, someone's got to
be there to run the thing.
The head coach doesn't havetime to do that Now.
The head coach has to beexcited.
You know, seve jumped in withhis personal stories, uh, talked
(32:43):
about what a jerk his highschool coach was and things that
he made him do, and uh, and theboys thought that was pretty
funny.
But, um, you know, it was the,the coach.
Probably he's got other stuffon his plate trying to figure
out how to be, you know, win theconference championship, um,
how to fill out the paperworkthe ad and the principal need.
(33:07):
Or, you know, make sure the busis ready to go or whatever it
is.
But, um, so find, find somebodythat you trust and give them
the program and follow throughwith it.
Um, you know, you and I talkedabout somebody said, well, we
did this on Tuesday and threemonths later we did it again.
(33:29):
Well, that's not going to work.
I mean, it's just like shootingfree throws.
You said you know, if you onlyshoot free throws on Monday and
never shoot a minute, you're notgoing to make very many, and
(33:49):
it's the same.
With this.
You're training your mind,you're training your body.
You've got to train it.
Um, we were talking before wecame on on live.
I had pt this morning and I goto pt every tuesday morning and
he runs me through the ringer.
But if that's, I don't doanything till next Tuesday.
Getting rung through thatringer is a waste of time.
(34:11):
Yeah, and so that's we.
We, we hit this every Tuesday,but through the rest of the week
we would follow up withwhatever that particular
follow-up needed to be.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Oh, that's a man that's so important.
That was, that was one of thethings you know.
So for me, I was a.
I was a teacher and a coach atWestfield for 15 years before
stepping away to start doingthis full time, and I'll I'll
never forget.
You know I was.
I was speaking with one of thecoaches at Westfield and keep in
mind I mean, this is my almamater.
(34:44):
Like from a, from a loyaltystandpoint, this is where I went
to school, it's where my familywent, it's where my kids are
now going, my wife works in thedistrict, my mom works in the
district.
You know my brother now worksand coaches in the district.
It's the only.
It's the only.
Like I am a shamrock.
(35:04):
And when it was like you know,is it really okay to go?
You know, give this program topotentially our biggest rival.
Right down the road, you know,the the head coach at the time
was like you have to go, youhave to make this available.
Like this is, this is toopowerful, this is going to
(35:27):
change people's lives.
Like you can't just hide thisunder a rock and keep this.
You know you, you need to makethis available.
And when I started to bring upyou know kind of the awkwardness
of well, what if such and suchschool uses it and they beat you
?
His reply was well, that's notgoing to happen because you know
(35:48):
in his mind, they have huddle,they have film, they watch film,
they're going to break downfilm better than any other staff
that they face.
And the same with theirpractices.
Everybody practices.
But to win that championshipyou're going to have to do it a
little bit better.
And in his mind, the mentalperformance training was no
(36:11):
different.
Just having the tool isn'tgoing to magically win you a
championship.
Using the tool, committing tothe tool, bringing it back up
throughout the week, the coachesbuying in, the players buying
in everyone doing it the rightway is when you're really going
to get the most out of it.
(36:32):
Let's talk a little bit moreabout that now Because at the
end of the day, like it or not,we are judged as coaches.
We're judged on did we win thegame or not?
And we talked about it atWestfield all the time.
On Friday night the wholecommunity is going to come out
and they're going to see did Iprepare my position group to
(36:55):
play at the best of theirability?
And we're going to.
We're going to see that.
So let's let's talk about someof those results that you guys
saw, because you had built anentire program.
You were training the body, themind, the, the technique, the
schemes on the court.
Let's talk about some of thoseresults you guys saw.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Well, um, what immediately comes to my mind is
is at the free throw line as ateam.
Um, you know, you have aparticular class called
visualization.
I've always believed in and yousee things happen.
Um, you know, as a coach, Ialways I visualized how am I
(37:44):
going to climb that ladder afterwe win the sectional and how am
I going to cut down that net.
And I saw myself doing that,and that's one that.
That's one of those topics thatwhen you, when you go into that
young people, you sit them downand say, okay, you're going to
(38:05):
do this, they're going to you'regoing to get funny looks,
you're going to get eye rolls,you're going to they're going to
poke through the guy sittingnext to him.
You know, he's lost his mind.
You, you put them in thosesituations and so guy misses a
free throw, you know, and therest of the team standing on on
(38:27):
the baseline and they're allgoing make it, make it, we don't
want to have to run.
And he misses it and everybodyruns it.
But you keep that player thatmissed the free throw and I say,
did you see yourself makingthat before you shot it?
No, coach, I just shot it.
Well, why did you not use thetool that we learned.
(38:51):
And so let's do it again andclose your eyes, shoot the free
throw, make it, and so everybodygets on the baseline again.
You know, and you do differentthings and you hand the guy the
ball and I say, did you make it?
(39:12):
Yes, coach, I did.
In his mind he made it.
Okay, everybody go home, we'renot running, he made it and you
just do.
And you have to train them andover time, and that particular
boy that that I'm thinking ofright now, he went from a 55%
(39:33):
free throw shooter a year ago toan 81 percent free throw
shooter this year.
Wow, and you know the mentalpart was a big part.
Now, obviously, you know heshot on the gun and you know,
and and physically improved, butmentally he walked up.
You know when he's going to thefree throw line.
You know the other teamscouting for a year ago was foul
(39:56):
him.
Yeah, you know, it's the fourthquarter fat put him on the foul
line yeah and this year it wasdon't foul him, yeah and um,
because he had the mentalcapability.
You know.
Now did he still miss a freethrow?
Yeah, but he made more than hemissed, and a year ago that
(40:17):
wasn't the case, and but it justtakes daily, daily practice, um
, of whatever this, that skillis and that's the one that
really sticks out to me is isseeing his improvement and there
were things across the boardthat were were that way for us.
(40:37):
You know a lot of it was.
You know again, how do youtreat your teammates, how do you
react to you know you get a badcall.
It drove me bananas to to watchour boys a year ago when they
(40:58):
would a call would go againstthem and their, their reactions,
and this year I can't say ahundred percent, but you know,
for this year it was like we hadbasketball players because
things are going to happen.
You know the guy's going toblow his whistle and you're
(41:18):
going to disagree with the call.
Well, you're not going tochange the call.
So how do you deal with it?
You're going to miss a freethrow.
How do you deal with it?
There's a session talking aboutpreparing for practice.
Session talking about preparingfor practice.
Guys would say, god, coach, Ididn't really think about you
know, I need to do this spotwhile I'm in the locker room
(41:39):
before coming out to practice.
And I'm like really didn'tthink about that before.
And no, I didn't I.
I just I got out of algebraclass and went and changed my
into my basketball shoes andcame out and ready to play hoops
and I was like, well, no wonderyou played like you did last
(42:00):
year.
So again, it's just teachingthem.
You can't take anything forgranted and you've got to go
through everything and teach itand just reteach it and if you
don't, it's not going to happen.
And that's again.
I felt like with this program itwas such a good thing because
(42:26):
of the organization, becausesometimes you know when you're
playing three games in a week asa coach, you get caught up in.
Okay, do I have the game plan?
Is this?
You know what are we going todo to prepare for this team?
And you still have to do thatspecific preparation.
(42:46):
But really playing Team X is nodifferent than playing Team Y
as far as your generalpreparation.
It's doing all those thingsyour mental and physical, making
yourself get better every dayand then you throw in the little
specific things of okay, thisteam plays zone, so we have to
(43:08):
practice our zone offense alittle more.
Zone, so we have to practiceour zone offense a little more.
But the big things that youknow, like I said, visualizing
making the free throw, you gotto do that every day, yeah.
Um.
Creating your teammate right,you got to do that every day, um
, or it doesn't work yeah, andand you have to, you have to
reinforce the skills.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
They can't just live in a notebook.
They can't just live in anotebook.
They can't just live in aclassroom on a Tuesday.
You have to have thatconversation as the coach of hey
, you know you had this plan.
It doesn't look like you usedthis plan.
Why didn't you use that?
Why didn't you do that?
And you teach them how to dothat.
(43:50):
You hold them accountable to.
Are you using these things thatwe're talking about?
I mean, it's no different thanif you have a film session and
then you point out these thingsbut you never practice those
things, you never talk aboutthem again.
I mean, you're not reallygetting a ton out of that.
You gotta come back to some ofthose things and I think it can
be difficult.
(44:10):
As coaches like you brought up,you know we can sometimes.
We can just expect that playersshould know things.
I know we were.
We were joking on the on thefront end of this episode about
you having a little more lifeexperience than me.
Um, but I I'm certainly.
I am no longer the young coachin the locker room and on a high
(44:34):
school football team for sure,and I'm guilty of you know
there's times where I've been infootball you know I've been
coaching football longer thanmost of these guys have been
alive that I just assume.
Well, you should know this andyou should do this.
And I know we talked about the,the music module, for example.
(44:54):
You know that that's usually onethat it's like if you got a
trim one, if you don't have 19sessions, you know, do we, you
know, maybe get rid of that one?
But you, you guys came back andyou were like this was this was
one of their absolute favorites.
And you know, being able to usemedia to to get your mood, your
emotions right, to be able tocontrol physical energy, kind of
(45:17):
build that up, heading to agame, not get too hyped up ahead
of time, uh, it's, it's just soimportant.
So here we are, you're on theback end of this season as you
look back and you reflect onkind of the season as the whole,
maybe some of the things thatyou were able to accomplish, not
(45:40):
accomplish, and then you startto look at moving ahead into the
future.
What are some of your thoughts,kind of wrapping this up, as
you reflect back on the season?
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Well, one thing, like you mentioned earlier, we
jumped into this a little bitlater than what we would have
liked to.
It ended up being a positive,but we still feel like overall,
it was a negative that we wererushed a little bit, and so one
of the things that we've alreadydiscussed is we're going to
(46:12):
revisit the modules and kind ofdo the program again, not as a
review for the returning players, but we'll have new players
coming in that weren't directly.
They were at your beginning ofthe year when you came and did
(46:33):
that first program.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
But they were in middle school they were doing,
and now they're in high, they'regoing to be part of the high
school team, so everything willbe new to them as far as the
entire program.
So we're going to start earlier.
Spend it won't be as rushed uh.
(46:58):
Spend, uh, it won't be asrushed uh.
And and then and then what's weanticipate will happen is the
guys, the returning players, aregoing to be doing some of the
teaching.
You know, now we're going tosee that carryover and they're
going to.
They're going to talk aboutwhen we talk about fmr.
You know the they're gonna go.
Hey, man, I did this beforeevery free throw, uh, or I did
(47:19):
this before the game and itreally worked.
And those, those young guys,are gonna go.
Oh well, if he's doing that,I'm gonna do to do it.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Yeah, and that's where it's not just some old guy
like us telling them to do it.
It's like oh, the starter, thestar on the high school
basketball team, uses this.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Yeah, yeah.
So that's where we think it'sgoing to be more powerful this
next year, because we'llreinforce it with the older guys
, but they're going to push thatonto the younger guys and we'll
see that and everybody's justgoing to be more enthusiastic
(48:04):
about it.
So that's where we think it'sgoing to go, and, as we revisit
that and bring everybody furtheralong, it's just going to be
even more powerful.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
I know beforehand, tom.
We were talking about some ofthe accomplishments that you
guys were able to achieve as ateam.
Talk to us just a little bitabout how the season unfolded
and what that looked like thisyear.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
We were obviously hoping we would be better,
thought we would be better, andwe actually had an eight-game
improvement over the regular,over the total season.
We had a 10-game improvementfrom the last year in wins and
coming into the season, you know, as as coaches you always play
(48:53):
the game, you know well, I thinkwe'll win 15 games or I think
we'll win 18 games, or I thinkwe'll win 10 games, whatever the
game is that year.
And you know so, this year we,we, we were I think 13 and 11 a
year ago and a year ago and wethought, you know, we'll win 16,
(49:19):
17 games.
We're physically good enough todo that.
If this mental training programworks, that'll help us win
those 16, 17 games.
Win that holiday tournament,which was one of our immediate
goals.
And you know're we start theyear off.
We're not even ranked in any ofthe polls, um and and that.
(49:39):
We know we're starting to getranked and we're moving.
You know we're ninth, we'reseventh, we're fifth.
So we come back from thatholiday tournament and we have
the county tournament, which isa big deal for South Ripley and
obviously all the four countyschools.
It's a big deal.
We win that within a two-weekspan.
(50:00):
You know, I'm starting to think, okay, this stuff's working.
And now, you know, as acoaching staff, we're instead of
talking about how do we dealwith adversity.
Another part of adversity isthe positive stuff.
You know, hey, we're rankednumber five in the state.
Whoopee, we're pretty good.
We've just won the holidaytournament.
(50:22):
We just won the countytournament.
Whoopee, we're pretty good.
You know, but how do you dealwith that?
So now we move on and wecontinue to win.
The guys just keep plugging andwe get to 19-0, and we're
ranked number one in the stateby now at this time in Class 2A.
It was just one of thoseperfect storms we lost, so we're
(50:46):
19-1.
And then we come back.
The next game played reallyreally well.
I mean, the guys were like,okay, we just we didn't handle
things last week really well,let's get back to doing what we
were doing.
And we focused in and finishedthe season really well.
(51:07):
We had to go on the road to theco-favorite, the sectional.
The sectional was on theircourt.
It was a big game.
We beat them with less than asecond to go.
We beat them during the regularseason to win the conference.
So now we have to go play themon their floor for the sectional
(51:29):
championship and we get off toa good start.
We're playing well, we've got alead.
They make a run at usbasketball's game of runs and,
okay, are we going to handlethis year?
Before we would have folded, wenever would have won that game.
Um, we had um like a would havewon that game.
(51:51):
We had like a 12-point lead.
They cut it to five with theball and we get a stop.
We go long story short, we endup winning by 15 and cut down
the nets at the sectional andyou know all these things being
sectional champion, conferencechampion, county tourney
(52:13):
champion, the holiday tournamentchampion, ranked number one in
the state in class 2A thecommunity support just grew and
grew and grew for the team.
It was just really, reallyexciting to see all this happen
for these guys.
We, as a coaching staff, feltlike physically, they could have
done this the year before, butwe weren't there, we weren't the
(52:37):
complete package and we feltlike this year we had the
complete package, physically andmentally, to get the job done
and they just they proved thatweek in and week out and that's
it was just.
It was just a really excitingyear.
You know, the wins werefantastic.
(52:57):
Those trophies and nets wereexciting, but to see those young
men grow and mature mentallywas even more exciting.
Mentally was even more exciting.
(53:23):
And that's, you know, the thewins.
They're fun, you know, givesyou something to talk about.
But what you're really talkingabout is what you mentioned
earlier to see those youngpeople to grow and know that
they're gonna have the tools togo out and be.
You know, in our, our case,we're working with young men, so
hopefully they're going to havethe tools to go out and be.
You know, in our, our case,we're working with young men, so
hopefully they're going to begood husbands and good fathers
and and productive in whateveroccupation they want to spend 40
(53:46):
years of their life doing.
I just feel really blessed andthankful that we were able to
give those boys some tools thatare going to help them for the
next 40 to 50 years.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
What thoughts would you have?
You know, maybe, if a coach issort of on the fence about, you
know, do we do this, do we notdo this?
Is it worth the time, is itworth the money?
You know, what thoughts wouldyou have for a coach that's
maybe in that spot?
Speaker 2 (54:26):
I would tell them don't hesitate, Write the check,
Figure it out.
Don't hesitate, write the check, figure it out.
But if you really want to begood, if you want to walk the
walk that you're talking um, doit.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
So the the last question I always love to ask
guests is knowing what you knownow.
If you could go back and tell ayounger version of yourself
just maybe one piece of advicethat that first year coach, what
would it be?
Speaker 2 (54:58):
Enjoy it.
Enjoy it more, enjoy it more.
It's too easy to get caught upin the negatives.
You know I'm going to throwthis out there and I'm going to
sound like that old guy, but Ido feel bad for the young
coaches.
Um, because of the things thatthey hear and see and their
(55:23):
families go through now thatthose things were there when I
was young, but I didn't have tohear it and see it because there
wasn't the social media and soI didn't have to deal with it.
I could, I could, and they haveto learn how to not deal with
(55:43):
it or to deal with it.
Whatever they're going to do,but enjoy it.
Enjoy it and find the positivesin whatever it is, because you
know, even when you lose, thoseplayers didn't want to lose,
they were trying to win for you,and so find those positives,
(56:06):
correct the negatives, but enjoyit.
Enjoy it and you'll be a lothappier.
Speaker 1 (56:15):
Love that Well, tom.
Thank you so much for takingthe time to join us today and
just talk a little bit aboutyour experience.
Congratulations on a on anoutstanding year and best of
luck to you guys in the futuremoving forward.
Speaker 2 (56:29):
Thank you very much, Ben.
Always a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (56:32):
If you have questions , want to reach out?
Head on over tomentaltrainingplancom.
Click on the contact us buttonat the bottom.
Would love to have aconversation about how we could
help you individually or yourentire team.
And, until next time, make yourplan and put it to work.
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