December 4, 2025 ⢠52 mins
đď¸ Mike Candrea: Lessons From a Legend
In this episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast, Matt sits down with one of the greatest leaders in the history of college athleticsâMike Candrea, Hall of Fame coach, eight-time NCAA National Champion at the University of Arizona, and former head coach of Team USA Softball.
Coach Candrea opens up about leadership, culture, the changing landscape of the NCAA, the transfer portal, NIL, and what he believes the future of college sports demands from coaches and administrators. This conversation is honest, insightful, and filled with the kind of wisdom you can only get from someone who has lived excellence for more than three decades.
Whether you're a coach, parent, or athlete, this episode will shift the way you see leadership, development, and the purpose behind building programs that matter.
Learn more about Coach Candrea here: https://arizonawildcats.com/sports/softball/roster/coaches/mike-candrea/5249
Explore more tools and resources at CoachMattRogers.com.
Learn more and connect with Matt Rogers here: https://linktr.ee/coachmattrogers
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Welcome back to The SignificantCoaching Podcast.
I'm your host, Matt Rogers.
As I look back on our first twoseasons of the show, I'm
honestly blown away by thecaliber of leaders who've shared
their time and wisdom with meand with all of you coaches and
athletes from NCAA Division one,two, and three NAI.
And the junior college rankshave joined us representing 31
(00:34):
NCAA National Championships, twoformer NFL players, four
standout student athletes, threecollege athletic directors, and
four university presidents.
And countless other coaches whohave dominated their division
levels and conferences foryears.
These conversations have beenrich, humbling, and deeply
(00:56):
meaningful.
I've learned so much, and I'mgrateful for every lesson in
every story that has helpedshape this community.
With that said.
This week's guest has surpassedthem all.
Mike Kendra is the former headsoftball coach at the University
of Arizona in 2021, he turnedhis program over to one of the
(01:17):
great Wildcats who once playedfor him.
Olympian.
Kaitlin Lowe and Coachtransitioned into mentoring and
administrative roles within theU of a athletic department.
But not before completing 34years on the sidelines in
Arizona, compiling a careerrecord of 1,674 wins to only 436
(01:41):
losses and two ties, his totalcareer wins are 1,858, and that
includes eight NCAA nationalChampionships at U of A.
He also led the USA Olympicsoftball team to gold in Athens
in 2004 and the silver medal inBeijing in 2008.
(02:02):
And honestly, I could spend anentire episode just listing his
accomplishments, theAll-Americans and the Olympians
he's coached to put his careerin context.
There is really only one coachin the history of NCAA team
sports who rivals Coach Kendra,and that's the legendary John
Wooden who claimed 10 nationalchampionships at UCLA.
(02:26):
That's the neighborhood MikeKendra lives in.
It is truly rare air.
It was a true honor to spendtime with him.
He humored me by getting deep inthe weeds about the state of the
ncaa, the transfer portal, NIL,and the future of college
sports.
And I expect it will take aboutfive minutes for our listeners
to understand why he is one ofthe great leaders in the history
(02:51):
of college and internationalathletics.
I am confident you'll take asmuch from Coach as I did.
Before we jump into today'sconversation, I encourage you to
check out coach matt rogers.comfor all of our episodes, my
blogs and recruiting andcoaching tools and resources,
including my book, significantrecruiting, the playbook for
prospective college athletes,and my new companion workbook,
(03:13):
the softball recruits journal.
If you enjoy this episode, don'tforget to follow, share, or
comment on your platform ofchoice.
Without further ado, here's myconversation with Hall of Fame
Coach Mike Kendra.
Coach Kres, so great to see youand thanks for being on the
show.
It's my pleasure, Matt, I knowyou're a grandpa and you love
(03:33):
the golf.
How quickly did you get rid ofthat interim ad hat?
When the new VP was hired?
Yeah.
It was thank God it was likefive weeks.
Every day felt like a month,but, I survived it and kept it,
kept the ship afloat and kept itgoing in the right direction and
didn't have to throw anyoneoverboard.
So it was a very good experiencefor me.
(03:54):
I bet it was I did that ad rollfor about nine years at the
lower levels at D three and Dtwo and it just never stops.
You you never get to never get abreather.
It's a crazy world today, It'scompletely different than it was
when I.
Started coaching in 1976, let'sput it that way.
They don't look the same.
No, they don't.
Sure.
You and I share a good friendand Wade Wilson, the head coach
(04:17):
at Texas Lutheran, he introducedus.
I love watching coaches likeWade and you coach.
I, I don't know if you remembersaying this, but I read
somewhere that.
You didn't want to have aprogram where scaring the kids
was your culture.
But you wore your feelings onyour sleeve.
You coach with passion.
It was a calling like I believeit is for me.
(04:39):
Can you still coach that way?
Can you still coach withdiscipline and can you get away
with it today with the portaland everything else?
Yeah.
I think if the good ones rightnow still, it, it's all about
relationships.
That will always be thefoundation of anything that you
do.
So that hasn't changed.
I just think sometimes how yougo about getting to the end
(05:02):
result has changed a little bit,when I first started coaching,
kids were very task oriented.
You tell'em to jump through ahoop and they jump through a
hoop today, they like to ask alot of questions, and so you
have to convince'em that hoopthat they're jumping through is
the right one and it's best forthem.
Yeah.
And and then I think just the.
The information system thatwe're in today has changed so
(05:25):
much kids can have at theirfingertips so much information
and they don't really knowwhether it's good information or
not.
And so that, that's thechallenge, because with social
media now and you can go onYouTube.
You can watch a thousanddifferent golf swings, but you
don't know whether you'regetting good information or not.
So sometimes it, it tends to bean obstacle as far as coaches
(05:47):
are concerned.
But I think the good ones todaythey build relationships that
are built around trust, mutualrespect, and honesty.
I think they have to get to knowthe kid first before they can
push the kid.
They're all a little bitdifferent.
Some need a hug, some need akick in the ass.
But at the end of the day thathasn't changed.
When I first started coaching,you had to figure out what made
(06:09):
each kid work and and I thinkthe aha moment for me was to the
coach, the person first, andthen the athlete can come out.
Yeah.
If I can make them betterpeople.
Then I think I can have a betterchance of making them a better
athlete.
But you can't do the reverse.
I agree.
I'm with you there.
Coach, I'm one of those peoplethat likes to tackle and attempt
(06:31):
to solve those impossibleproblems in the world.
I'm a bit of a glutton of a forpunishment.
Can we talk a little bit aboutclub softball?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Club softball, was thefoundation for my success,
right?
If I look back everything thatwe recruited was from the clubs
and luckily I had some reallygood relationships with some
(06:54):
really good coaches, right?
That did things the right way.
And I knew that when I brought akid into my program that they
were gonna be probably ready tocompete at this level.
And so that was good.
But.
I also have seen the other sideof the coin where parents are
spending so much money on tryingto make their kids a player that
(07:15):
they no longer think that thekid needs to earn the
scholarship.
That they deserve thescholarship.
They feel like they've alreadypaid for it.
They've already paid for it, andI always told parents, really,
if you want to put all yourmoney in your.
A bank account and you can sendyour kid to any school that you,
they want to go to versusspending this money because it,
it is different.
And I think the one aspect thatI've seen in club softball today
(07:40):
is it's become it's become allabout the money.
Yeah.
I wonder how much.
And they're still good ones,don't get me wrong.
There's still coaches that Ihighly respect and teach the
game and teach the skills, andbut there are a lot of them out
there that are forcing familiesto spend a heck of a lot of
money and not getting anythingin return.
(08:00):
Are they getting better?
Who knows?
And to me, that was the.
The most important thing for meis go play for a team that you
know will develop your kid,develop their skills, develop
them as people you know, and itdoesn't really matter whether
you're playing for championshipsor not.
Because at that level it's allabout learning how to play the
(08:21):
game and playing the game theright way.
Then as you move up the ladder,then yes the winning becomes
even more important.
I look, I kinda laugh sometimes'cause I, I see these posts of
these kids at 12 years old witha handful of rings and I'm
wondering, man what are weteaching these kids?
Because what do I have?
At the college level to danglein front of them, they, the
(08:42):
care's gone.
It's no longer just aboutwinning a championship and being
part of a great team.
It's about, self-satisfaction.
What can you do for me?
Yeah.
I wrote a blog a couple weeksago called it was something
about prayers, knowing when yourprayers have been answered.
And that's my biggest concerns.
'cause when I work with kids andparents every day and I'm, when
(09:05):
I speak, it's typically toparents and the high school and
club coaches.
And my concern is, what I'mhearing is I just got a text
today from a kid transfer wantsa transfer.
He got a D three coach, just sawhim in the portal, sent him a
text that said.
I think you are a greatinfluence for our team.
I think you're a differencemaker, not just on the field,
(09:27):
but for who we are as a culture,and the kid texts me and goes,
how do I respond to this coachthat I'm not interested?
Yeah.
We start this journey as parentsand I've got a 16 and a
12-year-old.
And really our goal is I want mykid to enjoy the sport.
I want him to get something outof it.
That's profound.
Being on a team, understandingwhat that work ethic and
(09:49):
accountability and loyalty, whatthat's all about.
And then we dream about themgetting an offer from a coach,
right?
I'll be saying, we like you, wewant you to be a part of our
family.
How do we get back to that?
Is the G outta the bottle?
Are we never gonna get back tothat where kids appreciate when
someone appreciates them?
(10:11):
You know that, that's a goodquestion and I really don't have
a good answer for it becausethings have changed so much
where it's not about the school,it's not about the.
Opportunity to be a part of Ateam and Right, and learn to go
through adversity and grow as aperson and get prepared for life
after softball.
It's just about the what do youhave for me right now?
(10:34):
And, I, that, that's, that wouldbe a tough arena for me to coach
in right now because I was soused to even, I retired in 21,
so even up to that point, thatwas right before.
NIL right before the transferportal.
And I had kids for four yearsand I had a lot of kids that
didn't play a lot their freshmanyear, but they continued to grow
(10:55):
and they ended up being a bigpart of a championship, or a big
part of some success.
And I think those days are longgone because right now it's, if
I don't, if I'm not playing.
Because it's about playing.
If I'm not playing, then I'mleaving.
And unfortunately there's thirdparties out there that are
already negotiating for thesekids so that they already have a
(11:16):
place before they even leave.
And it's an ugly situation rightnow.
And I don't know, was it alwaysthere, even though it was
illegal back then in, in 21before, is it, was it always
there for you though?
Was there always kids that wereworking with a third party even
though they weren't supposed tobe?
I think the third party at thattime was not trying to influence
a kid to transfer and to move.
(11:38):
Maybe they were trying to helpthem navigate through this
experience as a college athlete.
Yeah.
I don't recall that.
Ha.
We had some kids transfer forparticular reasons.
Maybe it's getting back close tohome or something happen at home
and they need to be closer tomom and dad.
Of course.
Or they're, they just didn't fitin and they're not getting a lot
(11:59):
of playing time.
I understand that.
I get that.
Yeah.
But I don't like the negotiatingprior to kids today that are all
Americans that are leaving, thathave had a good experience for
three years and that alarms me alittle bit.
It's you know what?
It's funny because I love ourhomecoming and I love alumni
(12:20):
games, and pretty soon those aregonna be non-existence because
these kids don't even have aplace, or they played one year
and.
And that was it.
They played one year for a coachin a school and they graduated
and that was, they had a seniornight at, after one year.
Yeah.
That's wild to me.
Or they've had, or they've hadyeah, they're, they've gone to
four schools in four years,yeah.
(12:40):
What are you learning from thatother than to to run away from
your problems run away fromadversity?
Run away from the challenge.
And to me, I think that's one ofthe greatest things that we have
to offer kids, is to learn howto be a part of a team and learn
how to handle adversity, learnhow to to better yourself each
and every day, and to earn theopportunity to be successful.
(13:02):
We talk about earning the rightto, to handle pressure.
Right now it's, I don't know howmany kids are earning the right
to be a part of a team.
Agreed.
They're looking for the opendoor and it's not the cash it's
not money in softball right now.
I can tell you right now, theremay be a little money out there,
but it's not life changingmoney.
(13:23):
Now, if you look at men'sfootball and men's basketball,
that's life changing money thatI understand why they're
shopping, because they have avery small window to, for many
of those kids, a very smallwindow to make that opportunity
happen, because they're probablynot gonna play professional
football.
Or basketball.
But softball is just, it'schanged so much.
(13:45):
I go back to 1985 when I firstgot to Arizona.
Man, those kids were playing thegame just to play the game.
That's right.
For the joy enjoyment of playingsoftball.
Because as women, they didn'thave that opportunity.
That was their first opportunityto have a scholarship.
That's right.
And to have a field that wastheirs.
(14:06):
Where today, now we, that's alla given, it's a given that they
have a scholarship, it's a giventhat they're gonna have a great
facility.
So now they're looking for thenext thing on, on their list.
And God knows, for every kidit's a little bit different,
but.
To me it's it's just a differentenvironment right now and takes
me back to my junior collegedays where you recruited one
(14:27):
year at a time.
That's what it's like right now.
I think that's the toughest jobin all of college sports.
Yeah.
Don't you?
Yeah.
When you have a, you gotta bringin a kid.
I I love being a four year coach'cause I had a year to develop.
Maybe halfway through thesophomore year, I was like,
okay, I've got them thinking theright way.
I can use them more and more inmy junior, senior year.
(14:47):
Work ethic was built in.
Junior college coaches.
You gotta do it now.
Yeah.
It's, yeah, it, in fact, thatwas my upbringing, so it taught
me that mindset, but then I fellin love with the four year
school and having a kid for fouryears and see the progress that
they make.
I.
You gotta think about it.
You're bringing a kid in at 17,18 years old.
They're a kid.
(15:08):
Yeah.
And then they leave you as awoman, and to me that was one of
the most magnificent things tolook at with the opportunities
that I had to watch kids grow.
And to me, that was my my prizeat the end was.
God this young lady is ready togo out any and do anything they
want to do and be successfulbecause of what they've learned
(15:31):
about competing and about beingpart of a team.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's changed.
And that's the part for me.
'cause I have a daughter.
I coached women, I coached men.
Yep.
I've done it for both, for along time and I love the fact
that we're getting closer tosome level of equity where we
have young women fighting forwhat the men have always gotten.
(15:52):
Sure.
So I really respect that and Iappreciate that.
But we're already a little bitoff track with the NIL and where
that's headed.
I know you have a wonderful newVice president for athletics,
and I know you're a specialassistant to her.
And I'm not asking deep intoyour conversations, but talk a
little bit for the families andthe high school coaches that are
listening to this becausethere's so much unknown that's
(16:16):
coming.
W we're hearing 10 differentstories every week about where
this is gonna go with the NCAAwith Power four, and then
everything's gonna trickle down.
I'm talking to D three athleticdirectors and presidents right
now that are telling me thatthere are collectives happening,
NIL collectives happening at theD three level in certain areas.
(16:37):
Wow.
Yeah.
So talk a little bit and be asspecific as you want or as
general as you want.
What are some of the.
Big picture conversations you'rehaving on where you want
University of Arizona athleticsto go and how you wanna be a
part of the leadership of thatfuture?
I think the first thing thatcomes to mind right now is the
revenue share.
(16:58):
$20.5 million to open up yourdoors is a pretty significant
amount of money that we have toraise, yeah, some of that might
come from media rights, but.
Truthfully, a lot of that comesfrom donors, comes from people
that, that love your programsthat have followed your program.
And what I'm seeing right now isa little bit of donor fatigue,
(17:19):
they enjoyed it when they weredonating money and putting in
bricks and mortar and watchingfacilities grow.
And but to be able to say thatyou need money to give a kid who
may not be there, but only ayear.
To come up with this milliondollars, whatever it is getting
a little bit difficult.
And so I, I think right now we,things are gonna change.
(17:41):
They're gonna change.
What today is gonna be differentthree years from now.
Conference realignment is a bigdeal.
I think.
There's gonna be, there's gonnabe a few that are playing for.
The marbles and there's gonna bea bunch of us that are just
gonna be fighting like hell tosurvive.
And the one thing we wanted todo is not cut any programs.
(18:02):
We didn't want to cut anypeople, we didn't want to cut
any programs.
And Desiree's done a great jobof taking a deficit that we had
when she arrived$30 million downto five, and after end of this
year, we will be, we'll be even,but now we have another
challenge, and that is revenueshare.
NILI think NIL is a better offtoday than it was last year
(18:26):
because of the collectives aregone, now it's gotta be a
legitimate NIL deal.
It's got, and there's aclearinghouse that's approving
anything over$600.
So all I want is a le I want alevel playing field.
I want to know what the rulesare.
And I think I do too.
Up until right now, we reallydidn't know what the rules were
the last few years.
(18:46):
It was the W Wild West where Ithink we're getting closer now
to at least knowing what therules are.
Yeah.
And if you're, if you wanna playat this level, then it, this is
what it you're gonna have to doto play at this level.
If you don't, then you don'thave to do that.
You don't have to invest 20.5million.
But here's the scary part forme.
(19:11):
In the past we have, I alwaystold people, if you want to help
softball buy season footballtickets, because they were the
engine that provided the revenuefor all other sports.
Football, men's basketball werethe only two revenue producers
that we had.
And we have what, 22 sports, Ithink at this point, that two
(19:36):
sports are trying to fund.
All of these opportunities forall of these kids.
Yeah.
What scares me is now$20.5million.
Were coming up for football andbasketball and a few other
sports.
I'm scared that we're gonna belosing sports.
The Olympic sports are gonnagain less than they were five
(19:57):
years from now because there'ssuch a premium on raising that
20.5.
Football's gonna get themajority of it.
Men's basketball's gonna get apretty good chunk of it.
And then you have to select who,who's going to be involved in
the revenue share.
And at Arizona we're women'sbasketball, of course.
(20:18):
I think around the country, mostpeople are putting money into
women's basketball.
And then it's a crapshoot.
Some people, for us it'sbaseball and softball, right?
Because those are sports that wecan at least put people in the
seats and maybe.
Yeah, bring some revenue back.
But the thing that was scaryabout it all was that, are we
gonna be cutting sports?
(20:39):
Because you see it every day.
People that are dropping sportsbecause they can't afford it,
they can't afford to fund thesesports at a particular level to
compete for a nationalchampionship.
And so you're gonna have acouple choices.
Number one, are you gonna fundthe sports?
Two.
At what level?
(20:59):
So back in the day, we werewhether we knew it or not, we
were kinda regionalized.
Softball, you could go, youcould play anyone that you
wanted to as long as you couldtravel in vans.
Yeah.
That's how I grew up as a coach.
You're pretty much playing inthe west coast.
Now it's coast to coast.
Now we have grown so much thatthere's opportunities from the
east coast of the West coast,and we have conferences now that
(21:21):
include people from the westcoast to the East Coast and the
amount of travel that it takes,the money that it takes to
travel these teams.
Across country to have acompetition, you're gonna have
to decide is it worth it for,football is the easy one.
They don't play a lot of games.
But when you're talking about abaseball program or a softball
program, when you're playing 56games, there's a price tag that
(21:46):
goes along with this conferencerealignment, right?
In traveling cross country.
So I think a lot of thoseanswers are gonna be looked at
and, reviewed and I think today,yesterday we just we had a, we
named our football stadium fornaming rights,$60 million, and
(22:08):
those are the things that wehave to do right now to compete
in, to keep our head abovewater.
But that's tangible.
Yes.
Give, giving$500,000 to a secondstring wide receiver that you
hope becomes the first stringwide receiver.
There's, it's so intangible.
It's, I don't know if I had abillion dollars, I'd have a hard
time giving you money to give itto something that's intangible.
(22:30):
So that's my concern.
Play with me with this.
Is there a reason with all themoney that's coming in from TV
and we have profit sharing wewent through all these lawsuits
that the kids brought and theNCAA was buried under billions
of dollars of lawsuits.
Is there a reason we're not justsaying, we're gonna pay these
(22:51):
kids as employees, we're gonnagive every kid$2,500 a month.
And maybe the longer you'rethere, it goes up.
Maybe it goes from 2000 to2,500, but it's money where you
can go buy clothes, you can goto the movies, you can buy, you
can have a car, maybe you canafford an apartment.
Is there a reason we're notfunneling all of our energy in
(23:12):
that direction?
Or we're saying we're gonna dosome profit sharing, every kid's
gonna get a little piece.
Is there a reason we're notputting all of our energy into
that?
Because I would've loved that ifsomeone who said, Matt, we're
gonna give you, we're gonna payfor your education and give you
$2,000 a month at 18, I would'vedone a back flip for it.
Absolutely.
And in fact, while early on, itwas just a scholarship and, kids
(23:35):
were tickled to death that theywere getting their education
paid for.
And then yeah, I understand it.
When you start looking at thebillion dollar deals that the NC
two A has.
As contracted for women formen's basketball, for instance,
the tournament, right?
And said, Dempsey was a reallygood friend of mine.
He was an AD at Arizona and wenton to be the president of the
(23:55):
NCAA two A.
And I got a chance to listen tohim about some of the challenges
and it's just there's not aperfect world out there.
And the reason why is because,here's my thought.
It's not a perfect world becauseeven today with the media
rights, they're all different.
(24:16):
So the Big 10, the SEC, the ACC, the big 12, the poor PAC 12,
just.
Disintegrated because of thatone fact right there.
That's gotta hurt your heart,doesn't it?
It's a killer.
It is absolutely a killer.
That was your world for fouryears.
That was my world.
That's the world I knew.
And you had to look forward tothose two plane trips to
(24:38):
Washington, Oregon.
Hey, it was a conference ofchampions.
And if that was the importantthing, we were flourishing.
But unfortunately it became amoney thing.
And trying to keep up with theJoneses is awfully tough, so
here's my thought is, if youlook at the model of the NBA and
MLB Yeah, there, they don't haveas much.
(25:05):
Product to sell to TV as collegefootball does, right?
So you would think why didn'tcollege football just combine
everything?
Sign this one big package andthen disseminate the money
accordingly?
Yeah.
But it's never got to that pointyet because of the challenges
(25:25):
with each conference, and sothis is the first step.
The revenue share, I think isthe first step of at least
giving us some rules.
Yeah.
To say this is what it's gonnabe like.
I think it's gonna continue tochange.
Yeah.
We have yet seen the finalversion of what this is all
gonna look like.
But I still think, man, if youlook at Saturday mornings
(25:48):
college football, man, there'sso much on there.
There's so much inventory there.
There is and I don't think thatwe've cashed in on it as much as
we could, but I don't know theanswers.
I don't, I'm not sitting in theroom that's making these big
decisions.
I'm just I missed the days whereyou could count on Arizona and
(26:09):
USC.
You could count on.
Arizona State, UCLA you justknew that was gonna be your
rotation and it was regional, soif you did wanna travel, it was
right.
It was a short flight.
But like you said, you could getin a van, you'd get in a car and
you could go Absolutely.
And those competition was great.
I don't understand why ESPN andFox and all these corporations
(26:29):
aren't going.
Listen, let's get back to that.
We're gonna be equal.
We still want UCLA to play OhioState.
We still want Michigan to playTexas.
Okay.
I don't understand why the TVpeople aren't saying, let's get
back to the regional stuff, andyou can dump more money into
regional, can't you?
The reason why they don't rightnow is because they need the
(26:50):
matchups.
If you look at collegebasketball right now, for the
first time, you look at thematchups of college basketball
early in the season, they'vebeen unbelievable.
We are playing tomorrow atYukon.
Yeah we just played in LasVegas.
We just played in LA againstUCLA.
Yeah, it's gonna be, draw a bignumber whenever those we played
(27:11):
in Las Vegas against Florida.
That was Tommy's openers, and soI think that might be a little
bit of what's ahead.
And here's the other thoughttoo.
Pretty soon you're gonna seethese big programs put together
a tournament where.
They're gonna make money thatthe money's going to the
(27:33):
players.
Yeah.
I don't think we're too far fromthat happening.
You take eight, eight of thebest teams in the country.
You, you play a, four differentsites and then you play like a
pool play.
So you play.
One game at in Seattle, one gamein Vegas, one game in, in
(27:53):
Chicago.
And then the winners play in NewYork.
Yeah.
And the money from that goes tothe pro, the teams to divvy up.
All right.
I'm gonna be, I don't know, I'mnot smart enough to know all the
what's happening.
No, I'm not either.
And I don't ever get into theseconversation expecting that
(28:14):
we're gonna, that we're gonnasolve the world.
We're not.
I like having the conversationbecause for me, if we don't have
the conversation, it's just likepolitics.
If we don't have theconversation, we don't ever get
out of the slump we're in.
Absolutely.
So I'm gonna be a little bit ofthe old man on my lawn telling
the kids to get off, but isthere.
Is there hope for you thateducation's ever gonna be a part
(28:40):
of the conversation again?
That we're gonna care about theclassroom again because Yes,
because no matter what we say,when UCLA's gotta go to Maryland
to play a conference game.
Something's wrong.
The good thing is that COVIDtaught us that we could do a lot
of things online.
Yeah.
It's amazing if you look at thestatistics right now of
(29:03):
different sports and thepercentage of online classes
those kids are taking so thatthey can travel.
Yeah.
I think that's one of theelements that you're seeing
right now.
Our, baseball or softball,probably 70% of the classes they
take are online.
Have to which, which frees uptheir schedule.
So yeah and I think we're tooproud as a university to not say
(29:29):
here's the interesting thing.
In the eighties.
I remember like our GPA man, ifwe had a 2.8 GPA as a team, I
was ecstatic.
That's pretty good.
That's pretty good.
If you look at today's GPAs,they're all in the threes.
3.3, 3.6, and I always say, havewe made school easier?
Or what?
(29:49):
But there's still a premium puton our education with our
student athletes.
Because even if you have, theNIL thing is great, but you have
to educate kids now that they'regetting this money.
You have to educate them.
So they need some financialliteracy on how to deal with
taxes and everything else.
(30:10):
Yeah.
So it's added.
Are you just doing that?
Yes, we are.
Okay.
Absolutely.
What does that look like?
I don't know exactly what itlooks like, but I do know that
we have we spend a lot of.
Time and energy on educating ourstudent athletes and what,
whether it's, we have what'scalled the Katz Program, the
Center for the Athletes TotalSuccess.
(30:32):
Love that we've had that for.
That was said Dempsey's vision,and we had that for many years,
but now it's expanded.
It used to be about resumewriting.
It used to be about making sureevery kid knew how to interview.
Preparing them for life aftertheir sport.
Of course.
Yes.
Now we've added this otherelement, and that is financial
literacy.
We, if we're paying you money,we need you to make sure you
(30:54):
understand how to deal with thismoney.
Yes.
Yeah.
It's like giving a 18-year-old aFerrari, bad things are gonna
happen.
Absolutely.
Could you see a world coachwhere NIL goes into a fund for
when they're done?
Where they have some time togrow that money.
(31:15):
And would I like to, would Ilike to see that?
Yes.
Will it happen?
I don't know.
High in the sky.
Yeah.
I don't know.
There, there's a lot ofchallenges that I don't even
know.
That you don't know that.
Why are these kids not employeesof the university?
There's reasons for it.
I agree.
And I don't want it to go thatway.
(31:36):
I'm not a proponent of that.
No I don't wanna lose the ideaof student athlete.
And maybe I'm hanging on tothings that are un unrealistic.
But I just, I know at Arizona wetake pride in in, in the student
part.
Yeah.
And we provide a lot ofresources for them to be
successful academically.
And I think if you look aroundthe country, I think everyone's
(31:57):
doing that.
There's, every university atthat level is putting a lot of
money into making sure thattheir kids are being successful,
not just on the athletic field,but in the classroom.
It's hard to look in yourfaculty in the eye if you're a
president or a chancellor ifyou're not.
Very tough.
How important was it for youthat.
(32:18):
That classroom experiencethough, and the resident hall
experience and having that truecollege experience, learning how
to deal with conflict dealing,how to deal with chaos, dealing
how to, learning, how to dealwith a roommate that didn't do
what they were supposed to.
Where is that in your eyes?
Are we, is it still there in thepower four?
(32:39):
It's still there.
Yeah.
I think it's still there to apoint.
We still have some kids that areliving in dorms and getting the
college experience that we wereused to seeing back then.
But on the other hand, we have alot of people now that are kinda
skipping that, and they're,they've got their own apartment
and Yeah.
And, they have resources to dothings that we never did.
(33:00):
I remember when I went tocollege, my dad gave me 20
bucks, said Good luck.
And I said, was that, is thatfor the week?
He goes, no that's it.
That's all you're getting.
You're gonna learn how to figureit out because if you're gonna
be successful, it's up to you.
Yeah.
And I think today we we used tohave.
Helicopter parents, and then wewent to the bulldozer parents
where they're bulldozing thekids' path.
(33:21):
And so I, things have changedbut there's some parts of it
that I think are the same, yeah.
There's nothing better than aSaturday afternoon football game
and Yep.
They always talk about athleticsbeing the front door of the
university, and I still thinkthat's very true.
I remember when Luke won thefirst basketball championship
(33:42):
here, the enrollment went up by30%, and you look at Alabama in
the enrollment there.
You can look at Nick Saban, whathe's done for that university.
Yeah.
And I think you see thosestories all over the country.
So it, at college athletics isstill a high priority and I
think will be around for a longtime.
(34:03):
It's just gonna take a differentshapes time.
Different form.
Yeah.
But we still, it's stillentertainment and it's, it's
still.
People having something thatconnects them.
Yeah.
And for us, there's nothingbetter than a college football
game to connect everyone oncampus.
I agree.
(34:23):
I wanna transition a little bit,and this is a good transition
for what you've been talkingabout.
You coached elite players.
You coached Olympic goldmedalist players, and then you
coach those everyday roleplayers those grit and grind
kids that you just loved havinga part of your program.
What separates that athlete whobecomes a pro in life not going
to make money as a softballplayer, but what separates them?
(34:45):
The kids that you've seen thatleft your program, that have
gone on and done really well inlife, they're healthy, they're
happy.
What's, where's that line andwhere's some of those
characteristics for those kids?
If I look at the Olympians, forinstance.
There's one common thread forevery one of those kids, and
that they're great teammates.
Yeah.
So they get it that they're notgonna do it by themselves.
(35:06):
It's gonna take a village tomake it happen.
And they learn how to take careof those people in their
village.
And I think that is a bigdifference because they know how
to utilize their village movingforward in life.
And they're good connectors.
They're, obviously they.
They're competitive and I thinkthat's a, a huge fact.
(35:31):
I don't know of anyone that'sgonna be highly successful
unless they are competitive.
But at the end of the day it's,they know what it's like to be a
part of something that's biggerthan them.
Yeah.
And it I always looked at thosekids every day and I marveled at
them.
I'm going, what makes'em sospecial?
And I, i'd always say they gotgreat eyes.
Yeah, they got great eyes.
(35:51):
They're hitting a 72 mile anhour pitch from 38 feet.
Talk about tough but the biggestthing that, that you saw was
their work ethic.
They're being great teammates.
Understanding the process, veryprocess oriented, because you
know what, when you're playingfor in on an Olympic team,
(36:12):
you're practicing for fouryears, for one week of
competition, you talk aboutlearning how to deal with the
process.
That's it.
You have to put yourself in thatOlympic arena as often as
possible, and sometimes you haveto make those.
Up.
Yeah.
During practice you have to makepractice and so all the little
things that they have to do, Ithink highly prepares them for
(36:36):
success.
Once they're done, was thereanything harder for you than
picking that those 18 people Oh,no.
To be a part of that team?
Have you ever had a biggerchallenge?
Luckily we had a selectioncommittee, I was still at the
end of the day, you, I was, Ione vote.
I was one vote.
But yes you're splitting hairs,truthfully, you are splitting
(36:57):
the hairs there.
There's, I'm sure others that.
Maybe didn't get the opportunitythat could have.
Yeah.
Done quite well.
Yeah.
And that all the time, and Ithink that's still a challenge,
right now is trying to find 18of the best players in the
world.
Because in the United States,most of our softball players are
the best in the world.
(37:18):
Until Yoki Ano came in and beatus in 2008, right?
Yeah.
Japan's phenomenal to watch.
They are meticulous about theirpreparation.
There's not a team that, thatpractices more than them.
Yeah.
And to, to me it's theirmindset.
They're mentally, they are soprepared for whatever's gonna
(37:41):
come their way.
And I think we took from them.
Opportunities to, to do the samething with our program.
That's great.
In 2004 was the first time thatwe actually had an Olympic team
be able to train full time toprepare for the Olympic games.
It's a huge difference.
'cause before that it was just,they would do their thing and
then you'd bring'em together fora camp and then you would go
(38:01):
play the Olympics.
Yeah.
So that's the interesting part.
The other interesting part isthat the average age was 27
years old.
So huge, the maturity.
Absolutely.
The maturity is something youcan't teach, and that's why
it's, that's the differencebetween coaching with the
Olympic team and coaching yourcollege team.
(38:22):
Yeah.
The experience factor.
I was probably a, not probably,I was a soft, lazy kid till I
was about 14 years old.
And I probably didn't.
I had no idea.
I was, I thought I was, yeah.
A good athlete.
And then my parents bought thistiny little restaurant in our, I
grew up in a town of 2000people.
We bought a restaurant and I,all of a sudden was up at six 30
(38:46):
cleaning, cleaning floors,bathrooms, bringing up big tubs
of ice from the basement.
Five times.
I was working a grill for eight,nine hours at a time.
Wow.
And then I was mopping and,cleaning up afterwards we'd
have, in our little restaurant,we'd serve 800 people on a
Saturday morning.
Wow.
And it was at that point asfrustrated I was with the work
(39:07):
and having to do it.
There's nothing I appreciatemore than those four years
working in that restaurant andwho it made me.
How much, when you look at theOlympians and the All Americans
and the national championshipsyou've coached, how much of that
comes from the parents?
Oh, or from, but how much of itcomes from those kids just.
(39:31):
Allowing themselves to get overthat hump, get through that
governor, that's slowing themdown and understanding, here's
my potential.
Is it, is there a nature nurturebalance there?
I think you hit a couple things.
Number one, the parents play abig factor.
Yeah.
Because I don't think, I think,when I recruited, I always went
to the home to see how the kidtreated their parents.
(39:55):
But really, what were thepriorities of the parents?
When I walked in the house, wasit the parents that were talking
all the time?
Or was it the kid that wasasking questions that I was
recruiting?
Because I never wanted to have aparent that was so overbearing
that you felt like they were theones that were being recruited
instead of the kid.
So I think parents, yourupbringing is huge.
(40:17):
You learn so much from.
Your upbringing from work ethicto, for me, my faith comes from
my mom.
I can tell you that right now.
So I think that, that's a hugepart.
When it comes to that.
And then the other part I thinkis just the work ethic part.
And you mentioned it, I thinkkids that understand hard work
(40:38):
and embrace hard work the sky'sthe limit.
It's awfully hard to convince alazy person that, that if they
work hard, they're gonna getbetter.
They're just, they're wired thatway.
They are.
So I think we're all wired alittle bit differently.
I know, I'm a very processoriented person.
(40:59):
I'm, I'm meticulous about beingon time.
The, a lot of the little thingsthat you learned being part of
the team.
And being part of a coach that,that has standards and
expectations, and I've alwaysbeen one that had very high
standards, very highexpectations, and I wasn't.
(41:23):
The biggest thing that I learnedreally, and I coach men and
women, and I think you'veprobably heard this, but men
have to play good to feel good.
Women have to feel good to playgood.
Yes.
I spent a lot of my timeteaching young kids how to feel
good about themselves.
And I think you can't deny that.
And especially in today's world,there's even more, challenges
for our young people growing upwith social media.
(41:45):
See, we, a lot of my career, wedidn't have to worry about
social media.
But today's social media is,it's a fact and it's real.
There's a lot of kids that aresuffering and have mental health
problems because of theexpectations that they're trying
to reach that.
Someone else is channeling theirthoughts on them, and I don't
(42:07):
know how, I don't know how kidscan do it if it, I don't even
look at social media becausethere's nothing really good on
it.
No.
Yeah.
And unfortunately, that's whatour kids live by.
Yeah.
The other day I was at an Arestaurant watching this couple
eat, and both of them were onthe phone the whole entire time.
Never said a word to each other.
(42:28):
Yeah.
And, that's the difference rightnow.
I grew up with a black and whiteTV with rabbit ears, man.
And Yep.
That was our entertainment.
Yeah.
And you know what?
Our entertainment became goingout and playing with our
friends.
That's right.
And today you don't that livingoutside.
I was, I had to be home in darkand that was it.
Yeah.
No one knew where I was for 12hours of the day, but they knew
(42:49):
I was out doing something.
And you look at the parks todayand they're empty.
They are.
You don't see kids.
I'm a former college basketballcoach.
It kills me when I walk past,drive past the park and there's
nobody playing on the courts.
No.
No one playing hoops.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I love it when I walk outside ofmy neighborhood and I see.
Dads and moms playing catch withtheir kids or kids playing catch
and it just brings joy to me.
Oh man.
(43:09):
I remember taking a pasture andwe made our own baseball field
out of it.
Yeah.
And you came home and you gotyour homework done, you got a
chance to go play, and theneveryone would end up being
there and you'd play whiffleball.
You'd play pickle.
The things that we did to learnhow to play the game was
unbelievable because all I hadwas a black and white TV to
emulate.
The people that I watched.
(43:29):
That's right.
I didn't have, I didn't have anylessons.
Yeah.
I was self-taught, trial anderror, and today this game is
still trial and error, butunfortunately people are they
want instant gratification, sothey won't go through the trial
and error.
I agree.
I agree.
And I it's the part of me andit's why I'm even on social
media is I try and teach thesethings.
(43:49):
Yeah.
And it's the reason I'm havingthese conversations with people
like you, I feel like if we'regonna, social media's gonna be a
part of our world, I wanna putsomething good into it.
I wanna put some good messagesand some good ideas and like you
just did for me, I gotta tellyou, coach and I'm not pandering
to you at all.
I live for those moments whenI'm having a conversation like
this where I can take somethingfrom it and go, i'm gonna be a
(44:11):
better coach because of that.
So what you said and I don't,this isn't earth shattering, but
the way you said it and the wayyou came to it, you spent a lot
of time helping kids learn howto feel good about themselves.
I wish somebody would've told methat at 25 when I got my first
head coaching job.
I really do.
I wish that would've been a partof the job description at the
(44:32):
top.
Your job.
Before we win games, before wepractice swinging the bat.
Before we practice ground balls,we're gonna talk about how do we
make these kids feel good aboutthemselves?
Yeah.
Not in an oversaturated way orsaying, you're great, Betty,
you're the best that's everplayed, but.
What are you good at?
Why do you want to be a goodperson?
(44:53):
Why is it important for you tobe a good teammate?
I just, I love that.
And the other thing theOlympians were so good at was
handling failure.
Yeah.
And I think that's another biglesson in life is, failure is a
positive thing.
It depends on how you look atit, but you learn more from
failure than you learn fromsuccess.
And the game of softball's, agame of failure.
(45:15):
Yeah.
And the game of life is a gameof failure.
It's about failure recovery.
Absolutely.
That's the way I look at it.
Absolutely.
I've had to recover from somevery tough things in my life and
I had a choice to make whether Iwas gonna take the high road
with it or let it take the bestof me.
And I think today, young kidsdon't they have some failure and
(45:37):
they panic.
They don't quite understand howthat failure.
Peace fits into their growth.
And their development as a humanbeing.
Who was the player you grew upadmiring?
Mickey Mantle.
Mickey.
Yep.
I didn't know a lot about hispersonal life, but I did like
him as a player.
(45:58):
And in fact, I have a whole rooma whole Yankee room here in my
house.
And Mickey Mantle was my hero.
'cause when I was.
Young, we had a black and whitetv, and the only game you could
really see was the Yankee Gameof the week.
And so I grew up being a diehardYankee fan.
We gravitated from White Plainsin New York.
Okay.
(46:18):
I was gonna ask you in NewOrleans where I was born,
because my dad was a jazzmusician and I grew up watching
the Yankees, and to this day,the Yankees are still a big part
of my life, love it.
That's fantastic.
Yeah.
Do you still play, do you playany instruments?
I don't play, no.
My dad died a frustrated manbecause he had four kids and
none of us had any musicaltalent.
It skipped a whole generation.
(46:38):
Yeah.
That's how I feel.
I was a basketball coach for 25years and none of my kids play
basketball.
Yeah.
So I can relate to that.
I want to end this segment.
I want to talk, I wanna comeback for segment two, a real
quick one and just talk aboutwho you were as a recruiter.
And give some advice to recruitsand families going through that
journey.
And I know you've been out for awhile.
Yeah.
Before we get into that segment,coach, give a piece of advice to
(47:01):
the youth coaches, the clubcoaches, the high school coaches
out there that you think theyjust.
Need to think about a littlebit, make a bigger part of their
world when they're building ateam and running practices.
I, the one thing that I alwaysgo back to my three C's and not
because of my last name, but thefirst thing I always wanted to
be was competent.
(47:21):
So if I could tell young coachesto be a student of the game and
learn as much as they can,because the better, the more
information they have, thebetter information our kids are
gonna get, and that never ends.
We constantly can get better.
So be a student of the game andbring your kids the best
information because if you'regonna teach the game, you gotta
(47:43):
understand the why.
Why am I teaching this way?
And I used to ask myself all thetime, why do I hit the way I
hit?
Why do I throw it away?
I hit and I want my kids to beable to understand that and
explain that, right?
I think the second thing isconsistency.
Consistency I think is a hugepart of championship
environment.
And you as a, an adult has tobring the consistency to your
(48:07):
program.
So young kids don't need drama.
They don't need someone that'shigh one day and low the next
day.
They need someone that's gotsome emotional stability.
And I think another thing thatthe Olympians had is those kids
had emotional stability.
They never got too high, nevergot too low, and then the third
(48:29):
thing, probably the mostimportant thing is your kids
have to know that you care aboutthem as an individual.
So coach the person and then theathlete will come out.
So if every conversation youhave with your kids is about the
game, then you're going down thewrong road.
Find out how they feel, find outhow they're doing.
(48:52):
Find out what they need fromyou.
Ask more questions instead oftalking too much.
Yeah.
I think is a huge thing.
But to me, if I look at the kidsthat I coached number I'm proud
of about a couple things.
Number one, I don't miss abirthday.
The first thing I do everymorning is I have birthdays in
my planner.
I text them a happy birthday,and that's kept me connected
(49:15):
with them forever.
It's amazing.
I'm a part of their family.
I'm a part of their kids growingup, they send me pictures.
It's just phenomenal.
Yeah.
Agreed.
And to me, that was one of thebest things I realized is it
takes just the little things tomake kids feel like you cared
about them.
Because at the end of the day,championships don't change your
(49:37):
life.
I used to think that if I didn'twin a championship, that I was a
failure.
And I realized I can't live mylife that way because it's not
quite that easy.
And I realized the sun came upand went down the same way,
whether I won or I didn't.
So what can I control in my lifethat will make me feel good
about what I'm doing?
(49:58):
That's right.
And that's why I always tellpeople I never worked a day in
my life because I followed mypassion.
I look back at my career and Iwas so blessed.
That, that I picked somethingthat I thoroughly enjoy doing
every day, and I never looked, Inever worried about the past.
I never was a guy that worriedtoo far ahead.
(50:19):
I tried to worry about today,how can I make today better?
How can I get 1% better today?
And if I can get 1% bettertoday, then just imagine where
I'm gonna be 10 years from now.
Yeah it's those three things areI think, important for any
coach.
Those are gold Coach.
Thank you so much for being you.
And yeah, thanks so much forsaying yes to me and sharing
(50:40):
your wisdom with us.
If you're up for it, we'll comeback and those those are your
list and come back on Monday andwe're gonna talk a little bit of
recruiting with Coach.
Pick his brain on how herecruited and what he's seeing
in there.
Thanks, coach.
You bet.
What an absolute gift of aconversation.
Anytime you have the chance tolearn from someone who is led at
the highest levels for as longas Coach Andrea has.
(51:02):
You walk away changed hishumility, his clarity, and his
ability to balance unbelievablecompetitive success with his
deep care for people.
That's what great leadershiplooks like.
I hope this episode challengedyou, encouraged you, and gave
you a fresh perspective on whatit really means to build a
program and a life centered onsignificance.
(51:24):
Don't forget to come back onMonday for part two of my
conversation with Coach Condrewhere we shift the conversation
to college recruiting.
It's a good one.
If you're a school, a club, oran organization looking for help
with recruiting, education,leadership development, or
creating healthier and moreeffective teams, you can
schedule a strategy session withme anytime@coachmattrogers.com.
(51:46):
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for supporting thiscommunity, and thank you for
continuing to invest in yourgrowth as a leader.
Until next time, stay focused onwhat you can control.
Stay humble and keep chasingsignificance.
Welcome back to The SignificantCoaching Podcast.
I'm your host, Matt Rogers.
As I look back on our first twoseasons of the show, I'm
honestly blown away by thecaliber of leaders who've shared
their time and wisdom with meand with all of you coaches and
athletes from NCAA Division one,two, and three NAI.
And the junior college rankshave joined us representing 31
(00:34):
NCAA National Championships, twoformer NFL players, four
standout student athletes, threecollege athletic directors, and
four university presidents.
And countless other coaches whohave dominated their division
levels and conferences foryears.
These conversations have beenrich, humbling, and deeply
(00:56):
meaningful.
I've learned so much, and I'mgrateful for every lesson in
every story that has helpedshape this community.
With that said.
This week's guest has surpassedthem all.
Mike Kendra is the former headsoftball coach at the University
of Arizona in 2021, he turnedhis program over to one of the
(01:17):
great Wildcats who once playedfor him.
Olympian.
Kaitlin Lowe and Coachtransitioned into mentoring and
administrative roles within theU of a athletic department.
But not before completing 34years on the sidelines in
Arizona, compiling a careerrecord of 1,674 wins to only 436
(01:41):
losses and two ties, his totalcareer wins are 1,858, and that
includes eight NCAA nationalChampionships at U of A.
He also led the USA Olympicsoftball team to gold in Athens
in 2004 and the silver medal inBeijing in 2008.
(02:02):
And honestly, I could spend anentire episode just listing his
accomplishments, theAll-Americans and the Olympians
he's coached to put his careerin context.
There is really only one coachin the history of NCAA team
sports who rivals Coach Kendra,and that's the legendary John
Wooden who claimed 10 nationalchampionships at UCLA.
(02:26):
That's the neighborhood MikeKendra lives in.
It is truly rare air.
It was a true honor to spendtime with him.
He humored me by getting deep inthe weeds about the state of the
ncaa, the transfer portal, NIL,and the future of college
sports.
And I expect it will take aboutfive minutes for our listeners
to understand why he is one ofthe great leaders in the history
(02:51):
of college and internationalathletics.
I am confident you'll take asmuch from Coach as I did.
Before we jump into today'sconversation, I encourage you to
check out coach matt rogers.comfor all of our episodes, my
blogs and recruiting andcoaching tools and resources,
including my book, significantrecruiting, the playbook for
prospective college athletes,and my new companion workbook,
(03:13):
the softball recruits journal.
If you enjoy this episode, don'tforget to follow, share, or
comment on your platform ofchoice.
Without further ado, here's myconversation with Hall of Fame
Coach Mike Kendra.
Coach Kres, so great to see youand thanks for being on the
show.
It's my pleasure, Matt, I knowyou're a grandpa and you love
(03:33):
the golf.
How quickly did you get rid ofthat interim ad hat?
When the new VP was hired?
Yeah.
It was thank God it was likefive weeks.
Every day felt like a month,but, I survived it and kept it,
kept the ship afloat and kept itgoing in the right direction and
didn't have to throw anyoneoverboard.
So it was a very good experiencefor me.
(03:54):
I bet it was I did that ad rollfor about nine years at the
lower levels at D three and Dtwo and it just never stops.
You you never get to never get abreather.
It's a crazy world today, It'scompletely different than it was
when I.
Started coaching in 1976, let'sput it that way.
They don't look the same.
No, they don't.
Sure.
You and I share a good friendand Wade Wilson, the head coach
(04:17):
at Texas Lutheran, he introducedus.
I love watching coaches likeWade and you coach.
I, I don't know if you remembersaying this, but I read
somewhere that.
You didn't want to have aprogram where scaring the kids
was your culture.
But you wore your feelings onyour sleeve.
You coach with passion.
It was a calling like I believeit is for me.
(04:39):
Can you still coach that way?
Can you still coach withdiscipline and can you get away
with it today with the portaland everything else?
Yeah.
I think if the good ones rightnow still, it, it's all about
relationships.
That will always be thefoundation of anything that you
do.
So that hasn't changed.
I just think sometimes how yougo about getting to the end
(05:02):
result has changed a little bit,when I first started coaching,
kids were very task oriented.
You tell'em to jump through ahoop and they jump through a
hoop today, they like to ask alot of questions, and so you
have to convince'em that hoopthat they're jumping through is
the right one and it's best forthem.
Yeah.
And and then I think just the.
The information system thatwe're in today has changed so
(05:25):
much kids can have at theirfingertips so much information
and they don't really knowwhether it's good information or
not.
And so that, that's thechallenge, because with social
media now and you can go onYouTube.
You can watch a thousanddifferent golf swings, but you
don't know whether you'regetting good information or not.
So sometimes it, it tends to bean obstacle as far as coaches
(05:47):
are concerned.
But I think the good ones todaythey build relationships that
are built around trust, mutualrespect, and honesty.
I think they have to get to knowthe kid first before they can
push the kid.
They're all a little bitdifferent.
Some need a hug, some need akick in the ass.
But at the end of the day thathasn't changed.
When I first started coaching,you had to figure out what made
(06:09):
each kid work and and I thinkthe aha moment for me was to the
coach, the person first, andthen the athlete can come out.
Yeah.
If I can make them betterpeople.
Then I think I can have a betterchance of making them a better
athlete.
But you can't do the reverse.
I agree.
I'm with you there.
Coach, I'm one of those peoplethat likes to tackle and attempt
(06:31):
to solve those impossibleproblems in the world.
I'm a bit of a glutton of a forpunishment.
Can we talk a little bit aboutclub softball?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Club softball, was thefoundation for my success,
right?
If I look back everything thatwe recruited was from the clubs
and luckily I had some reallygood relationships with some
(06:54):
really good coaches, right?
That did things the right way.
And I knew that when I brought akid into my program that they
were gonna be probably ready tocompete at this level.
And so that was good.
But.
I also have seen the other sideof the coin where parents are
spending so much money on tryingto make their kids a player that
(07:15):
they no longer think that thekid needs to earn the
scholarship.
That they deserve thescholarship.
They feel like they've alreadypaid for it.
They've already paid for it, andI always told parents, really,
if you want to put all yourmoney in your.
A bank account and you can sendyour kid to any school that you,
they want to go to versusspending this money because it,
it is different.
And I think the one aspect thatI've seen in club softball today
(07:40):
is it's become it's become allabout the money.
Yeah.
I wonder how much.
And they're still good ones,don't get me wrong.
There's still coaches that Ihighly respect and teach the
game and teach the skills, andbut there are a lot of them out
there that are forcing familiesto spend a heck of a lot of
money and not getting anythingin return.
(08:00):
Are they getting better?
Who knows?
And to me, that was the.
The most important thing for meis go play for a team that you
know will develop your kid,develop their skills, develop
them as people you know, and itdoesn't really matter whether
you're playing for championshipsor not.
Because at that level it's allabout learning how to play the
(08:21):
game and playing the game theright way.
Then as you move up the ladder,then yes the winning becomes
even more important.
I look, I kinda laugh sometimes'cause I, I see these posts of
these kids at 12 years old witha handful of rings and I'm
wondering, man what are weteaching these kids?
Because what do I have?
At the college level to danglein front of them, they, the
(08:42):
care's gone.
It's no longer just aboutwinning a championship and being
part of a great team.
It's about, self-satisfaction.
What can you do for me?
Yeah.
I wrote a blog a couple weeksago called it was something
about prayers, knowing when yourprayers have been answered.
And that's my biggest concerns.
'cause when I work with kids andparents every day and I'm, when
(09:05):
I speak, it's typically toparents and the high school and
club coaches.
And my concern is, what I'mhearing is I just got a text
today from a kid transfer wantsa transfer.
He got a D three coach, just sawhim in the portal, sent him a
text that said.
I think you are a greatinfluence for our team.
I think you're a differencemaker, not just on the field,
(09:27):
but for who we are as a culture,and the kid texts me and goes,
how do I respond to this coachthat I'm not interested?
Yeah.
We start this journey as parentsand I've got a 16 and a
12-year-old.
And really our goal is I want mykid to enjoy the sport.
I want him to get something outof it.
That's profound.
Being on a team, understandingwhat that work ethic and
(09:49):
accountability and loyalty, whatthat's all about.
And then we dream about themgetting an offer from a coach,
right?
I'll be saying, we like you, wewant you to be a part of our
family.
How do we get back to that?
Is the G outta the bottle?
Are we never gonna get back tothat where kids appreciate when
someone appreciates them?
(10:11):
You know that, that's a goodquestion and I really don't have
a good answer for it becausethings have changed so much
where it's not about the school,it's not about the.
Opportunity to be a part of Ateam and Right, and learn to go
through adversity and grow as aperson and get prepared for life
after softball.
It's just about the what do youhave for me right now?
(10:34):
And, I, that, that's, that wouldbe a tough arena for me to coach
in right now because I was soused to even, I retired in 21,
so even up to that point, thatwas right before.
NIL right before the transferportal.
And I had kids for four yearsand I had a lot of kids that
didn't play a lot their freshmanyear, but they continued to grow
(10:55):
and they ended up being a bigpart of a championship, or a big
part of some success.
And I think those days are longgone because right now it's, if
I don't, if I'm not playing.
Because it's about playing.
If I'm not playing, then I'mleaving.
And unfortunately there's thirdparties out there that are
already negotiating for thesekids so that they already have a
(11:16):
place before they even leave.
And it's an ugly situation rightnow.
And I don't know, was it alwaysthere, even though it was
illegal back then in, in 21before, is it, was it always
there for you though?
Was there always kids that wereworking with a third party even
though they weren't supposed tobe?
I think the third party at thattime was not trying to influence
a kid to transfer and to move.
(11:38):
Maybe they were trying to helpthem navigate through this
experience as a college athlete.
Yeah.
I don't recall that.
Ha.
We had some kids transfer forparticular reasons.
Maybe it's getting back close tohome or something happen at home
and they need to be closer tomom and dad.
Of course.
Or they're, they just didn't fitin and they're not getting a lot
(11:59):
of playing time.
I understand that.
I get that.
Yeah.
But I don't like the negotiatingprior to kids today that are all
Americans that are leaving, thathave had a good experience for
three years and that alarms me alittle bit.
It's you know what?
It's funny because I love ourhomecoming and I love alumni
(12:20):
games, and pretty soon those aregonna be non-existence because
these kids don't even have aplace, or they played one year
and.
And that was it.
They played one year for a coachin a school and they graduated
and that was, they had a seniornight at, after one year.
Yeah.
That's wild to me.
Or they've had, or they've hadyeah, they're, they've gone to
four schools in four years,yeah.
(12:40):
What are you learning from thatother than to to run away from
your problems run away fromadversity?
Run away from the challenge.
And to me, I think that's one ofthe greatest things that we have
to offer kids, is to learn howto be a part of a team and learn
how to handle adversity, learnhow to to better yourself each
and every day, and to earn theopportunity to be successful.
(13:02):
We talk about earning the rightto, to handle pressure.
Right now it's, I don't know howmany kids are earning the right
to be a part of a team.
Agreed.
They're looking for the opendoor and it's not the cash it's
not money in softball right now.
I can tell you right now, theremay be a little money out there,
but it's not life changingmoney.
(13:23):
Now, if you look at men'sfootball and men's basketball,
that's life changing money thatI understand why they're
shopping, because they have avery small window to, for many
of those kids, a very smallwindow to make that opportunity
happen, because they're probablynot gonna play professional
football.
Or basketball.
But softball is just, it'schanged so much.
(13:45):
I go back to 1985 when I firstgot to Arizona.
Man, those kids were playing thegame just to play the game.
That's right.
For the joy enjoyment of playingsoftball.
Because as women, they didn'thave that opportunity.
That was their first opportunityto have a scholarship.
That's right.
And to have a field that wastheirs.
(14:06):
Where today, now we, that's alla given, it's a given that they
have a scholarship, it's a giventhat they're gonna have a great
facility.
So now they're looking for thenext thing on, on their list.
And God knows, for every kidit's a little bit different,
but.
To me it's it's just a differentenvironment right now and takes
me back to my junior collegedays where you recruited one
(14:27):
year at a time.
That's what it's like right now.
I think that's the toughest jobin all of college sports.
Yeah.
Don't you?
Yeah.
When you have a, you gotta bringin a kid.
I I love being a four year coach'cause I had a year to develop.
Maybe halfway through thesophomore year, I was like,
okay, I've got them thinking theright way.
I can use them more and more inmy junior, senior year.
(14:47):
Work ethic was built in.
Junior college coaches.
You gotta do it now.
Yeah.
It's, yeah, it, in fact, thatwas my upbringing, so it taught
me that mindset, but then I fellin love with the four year
school and having a kid for fouryears and see the progress that
they make.
I.
You gotta think about it.
You're bringing a kid in at 17,18 years old.
They're a kid.
(15:08):
Yeah.
And then they leave you as awoman, and to me that was one of
the most magnificent things tolook at with the opportunities
that I had to watch kids grow.
And to me, that was my my prizeat the end was.
God this young lady is ready togo out any and do anything they
want to do and be successfulbecause of what they've learned
(15:31):
about competing and about beingpart of a team.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's changed.
And that's the part for me.
'cause I have a daughter.
I coached women, I coached men.
Yep.
I've done it for both, for along time and I love the fact
that we're getting closer tosome level of equity where we
have young women fighting forwhat the men have always gotten.
(15:52):
Sure.
So I really respect that and Iappreciate that.
But we're already a little bitoff track with the NIL and where
that's headed.
I know you have a wonderful newVice president for athletics,
and I know you're a specialassistant to her.
And I'm not asking deep intoyour conversations, but talk a
little bit for the families andthe high school coaches that are
listening to this becausethere's so much unknown that's
(16:16):
coming.
W we're hearing 10 differentstories every week about where
this is gonna go with the NCAAwith Power four, and then
everything's gonna trickle down.
I'm talking to D three athleticdirectors and presidents right
now that are telling me thatthere are collectives happening,
NIL collectives happening at theD three level in certain areas.
(16:37):
Wow.
Yeah.
So talk a little bit and be asspecific as you want or as
general as you want.
What are some of the.
Big picture conversations you'rehaving on where you want
University of Arizona athleticsto go and how you wanna be a
part of the leadership of thatfuture?
I think the first thing thatcomes to mind right now is the
revenue share.
(16:58):
$20.5 million to open up yourdoors is a pretty significant
amount of money that we have toraise, yeah, some of that might
come from media rights, but.
Truthfully, a lot of that comesfrom donors, comes from people
that, that love your programsthat have followed your program.
And what I'm seeing right now isa little bit of donor fatigue,
(17:19):
they enjoyed it when they weredonating money and putting in
bricks and mortar and watchingfacilities grow.
And but to be able to say thatyou need money to give a kid who
may not be there, but only ayear.
To come up with this milliondollars, whatever it is getting
a little bit difficult.
And so I, I think right now we,things are gonna change.
(17:41):
They're gonna change.
What today is gonna be differentthree years from now.
Conference realignment is a bigdeal.
I think.
There's gonna be, there's gonnabe a few that are playing for.
The marbles and there's gonna bea bunch of us that are just
gonna be fighting like hell tosurvive.
And the one thing we wanted todo is not cut any programs.
(18:02):
We didn't want to cut anypeople, we didn't want to cut
any programs.
And Desiree's done a great jobof taking a deficit that we had
when she arrived$30 million downto five, and after end of this
year, we will be, we'll be even,but now we have another
challenge, and that is revenueshare.
NILI think NIL is a better offtoday than it was last year
(18:26):
because of the collectives aregone, now it's gotta be a
legitimate NIL deal.
It's got, and there's aclearinghouse that's approving
anything over$600.
So all I want is a le I want alevel playing field.
I want to know what the rulesare.
And I think I do too.
Up until right now, we reallydidn't know what the rules were
the last few years.
(18:46):
It was the W Wild West where Ithink we're getting closer now
to at least knowing what therules are.
Yeah.
And if you're, if you wanna playat this level, then it, this is
what it you're gonna have to doto play at this level.
If you don't, then you don'thave to do that.
You don't have to invest 20.5million.
But here's the scary part forme.
(19:11):
In the past we have, I alwaystold people, if you want to help
softball buy season footballtickets, because they were the
engine that provided the revenuefor all other sports.
Football, men's basketball werethe only two revenue producers
that we had.
And we have what, 22 sports, Ithink at this point, that two
(19:36):
sports are trying to fund.
All of these opportunities forall of these kids.
Yeah.
What scares me is now$20.5million.
Were coming up for football andbasketball and a few other
sports.
I'm scared that we're gonna belosing sports.
The Olympic sports are gonnagain less than they were five
(19:57):
years from now because there'ssuch a premium on raising that
20.5.
Football's gonna get themajority of it.
Men's basketball's gonna get apretty good chunk of it.
And then you have to select who,who's going to be involved in
the revenue share.
And at Arizona we're women'sbasketball, of course.
(20:18):
I think around the country, mostpeople are putting money into
women's basketball.
And then it's a crapshoot.
Some people, for us it'sbaseball and softball, right?
Because those are sports that wecan at least put people in the
seats and maybe.
Yeah, bring some revenue back.
But the thing that was scaryabout it all was that, are we
gonna be cutting sports?
(20:39):
Because you see it every day.
People that are dropping sportsbecause they can't afford it,
they can't afford to fund thesesports at a particular level to
compete for a nationalchampionship.
And so you're gonna have acouple choices.
Number one, are you gonna fundthe sports?
Two.
At what level?
(20:59):
So back in the day, we werewhether we knew it or not, we
were kinda regionalized.
Softball, you could go, youcould play anyone that you
wanted to as long as you couldtravel in vans.
Yeah.
That's how I grew up as a coach.
You're pretty much playing inthe west coast.
Now it's coast to coast.
Now we have grown so much thatthere's opportunities from the
east coast of the West coast,and we have conferences now that
(21:21):
include people from the westcoast to the East Coast and the
amount of travel that it takes,the money that it takes to
travel these teams.
Across country to have acompetition, you're gonna have
to decide is it worth it for,football is the easy one.
They don't play a lot of games.
But when you're talking about abaseball program or a softball
program, when you're playing 56games, there's a price tag that
(21:46):
goes along with this conferencerealignment, right?
In traveling cross country.
So I think a lot of thoseanswers are gonna be looked at
and, reviewed and I think today,yesterday we just we had a, we
named our football stadium fornaming rights,$60 million, and
(22:08):
those are the things that wehave to do right now to compete
in, to keep our head abovewater.
But that's tangible.
Yes.
Give, giving$500,000 to a secondstring wide receiver that you
hope becomes the first stringwide receiver.
There's, it's so intangible.
It's, I don't know if I had abillion dollars, I'd have a hard
time giving you money to give itto something that's intangible.
(22:30):
So that's my concern.
Play with me with this.
Is there a reason with all themoney that's coming in from TV
and we have profit sharing wewent through all these lawsuits
that the kids brought and theNCAA was buried under billions
of dollars of lawsuits.
Is there a reason we're not justsaying, we're gonna pay these
(22:51):
kids as employees, we're gonnagive every kid$2,500 a month.
And maybe the longer you'rethere, it goes up.
Maybe it goes from 2000 to2,500, but it's money where you
can go buy clothes, you can goto the movies, you can buy, you
can have a car, maybe you canafford an apartment.
Is there a reason we're notfunneling all of our energy in
(23:12):
that direction?
Or we're saying we're gonna dosome profit sharing, every kid's
gonna get a little piece.
Is there a reason we're notputting all of our energy into
that?
Because I would've loved that ifsomeone who said, Matt, we're
gonna give you, we're gonna payfor your education and give you
$2,000 a month at 18, I would'vedone a back flip for it.
Absolutely.
And in fact, while early on, itwas just a scholarship and, kids
(23:35):
were tickled to death that theywere getting their education
paid for.
And then yeah, I understand it.
When you start looking at thebillion dollar deals that the NC
two A has.
As contracted for women formen's basketball, for instance,
the tournament, right?
And said, Dempsey was a reallygood friend of mine.
He was an AD at Arizona and wenton to be the president of the
(23:55):
NCAA two A.
And I got a chance to listen tohim about some of the challenges
and it's just there's not aperfect world out there.
And the reason why is because,here's my thought.
It's not a perfect world becauseeven today with the media
rights, they're all different.
(24:16):
So the Big 10, the SEC, the ACC, the big 12, the poor PAC 12,
just.
Disintegrated because of thatone fact right there.
That's gotta hurt your heart,doesn't it?
It's a killer.
It is absolutely a killer.
That was your world for fouryears.
That was my world.
That's the world I knew.
And you had to look forward tothose two plane trips to
(24:38):
Washington, Oregon.
Hey, it was a conference ofchampions.
And if that was the importantthing, we were flourishing.
But unfortunately it became amoney thing.
And trying to keep up with theJoneses is awfully tough, so
here's my thought is, if youlook at the model of the NBA and
MLB Yeah, there, they don't haveas much.
(25:05):
Product to sell to TV as collegefootball does, right?
So you would think why didn'tcollege football just combine
everything?
Sign this one big package andthen disseminate the money
accordingly?
Yeah.
But it's never got to that pointyet because of the challenges
(25:25):
with each conference, and sothis is the first step.
The revenue share, I think isthe first step of at least
giving us some rules.
Yeah.
To say this is what it's gonnabe like.
I think it's gonna continue tochange.
Yeah.
We have yet seen the finalversion of what this is all
gonna look like.
But I still think, man, if youlook at Saturday mornings
(25:48):
college football, man, there'sso much on there.
There's so much inventory there.
There is and I don't think thatwe've cashed in on it as much as
we could, but I don't know theanswers.
I don't, I'm not sitting in theroom that's making these big
decisions.
I'm just I missed the days whereyou could count on Arizona and
(26:09):
USC.
You could count on.
Arizona State, UCLA you justknew that was gonna be your
rotation and it was regional, soif you did wanna travel, it was
right.
It was a short flight.
But like you said, you could getin a van, you'd get in a car and
you could go Absolutely.
And those competition was great.
I don't understand why ESPN andFox and all these corporations
(26:29):
aren't going.
Listen, let's get back to that.
We're gonna be equal.
We still want UCLA to play OhioState.
We still want Michigan to playTexas.
Okay.
I don't understand why the TVpeople aren't saying, let's get
back to the regional stuff, andyou can dump more money into
regional, can't you?
The reason why they don't rightnow is because they need the
(26:50):
matchups.
If you look at collegebasketball right now, for the
first time, you look at thematchups of college basketball
early in the season, they'vebeen unbelievable.
We are playing tomorrow atYukon.
Yeah we just played in LasVegas.
We just played in LA againstUCLA.
Yeah, it's gonna be, draw a bignumber whenever those we played
(27:11):
in Las Vegas against Florida.
That was Tommy's openers, and soI think that might be a little
bit of what's ahead.
And here's the other thoughttoo.
Pretty soon you're gonna seethese big programs put together
a tournament where.
They're gonna make money thatthe money's going to the
(27:33):
players.
Yeah.
I don't think we're too far fromthat happening.
You take eight, eight of thebest teams in the country.
You, you play a, four differentsites and then you play like a
pool play.
So you play.
One game at in Seattle, one gamein Vegas, one game in, in
(27:53):
Chicago.
And then the winners play in NewYork.
Yeah.
And the money from that goes tothe pro, the teams to divvy up.
All right.
I'm gonna be, I don't know, I'mnot smart enough to know all the
what's happening.
No, I'm not either.
And I don't ever get into theseconversation expecting that
(28:14):
we're gonna, that we're gonnasolve the world.
We're not.
I like having the conversationbecause for me, if we don't have
the conversation, it's just likepolitics.
If we don't have theconversation, we don't ever get
out of the slump we're in.
Absolutely.
So I'm gonna be a little bit ofthe old man on my lawn telling
the kids to get off, but isthere.
Is there hope for you thateducation's ever gonna be a part
(28:40):
of the conversation again?
That we're gonna care about theclassroom again because Yes,
because no matter what we say,when UCLA's gotta go to Maryland
to play a conference game.
Something's wrong.
The good thing is that COVIDtaught us that we could do a lot
of things online.
Yeah.
It's amazing if you look at thestatistics right now of
(29:03):
different sports and thepercentage of online classes
those kids are taking so thatthey can travel.
Yeah.
I think that's one of theelements that you're seeing
right now.
Our, baseball or softball,probably 70% of the classes they
take are online.
Have to which, which frees uptheir schedule.
So yeah and I think we're tooproud as a university to not say
(29:29):
here's the interesting thing.
In the eighties.
I remember like our GPA man, ifwe had a 2.8 GPA as a team, I
was ecstatic.
That's pretty good.
That's pretty good.
If you look at today's GPAs,they're all in the threes.
3.3, 3.6, and I always say, havewe made school easier?
Or what?
(29:49):
But there's still a premium puton our education with our
student athletes.
Because even if you have, theNIL thing is great, but you have
to educate kids now that they'regetting this money.
You have to educate them.
So they need some financialliteracy on how to deal with
taxes and everything else.
(30:10):
Yeah.
So it's added.
Are you just doing that?
Yes, we are.
Okay.
Absolutely.
What does that look like?
I don't know exactly what itlooks like, but I do know that
we have we spend a lot of.
Time and energy on educating ourstudent athletes and what,
whether it's, we have what'scalled the Katz Program, the
Center for the Athletes TotalSuccess.
(30:32):
Love that we've had that for.
That was said Dempsey's vision,and we had that for many years,
but now it's expanded.
It used to be about resumewriting.
It used to be about making sureevery kid knew how to interview.
Preparing them for life aftertheir sport.
Of course.
Yes.
Now we've added this otherelement, and that is financial
literacy.
We, if we're paying you money,we need you to make sure you
(30:54):
understand how to deal with thismoney.
Yes.
Yeah.
It's like giving a 18-year-old aFerrari, bad things are gonna
happen.
Absolutely.
Could you see a world coachwhere NIL goes into a fund for
when they're done?
Where they have some time togrow that money.
(31:15):
And would I like to, would Ilike to see that?
Yes.
Will it happen?
I don't know.
High in the sky.
Yeah.
I don't know.
There, there's a lot ofchallenges that I don't even
know.
That you don't know that.
Why are these kids not employeesof the university?
There's reasons for it.
I agree.
And I don't want it to go thatway.
(31:36):
I'm not a proponent of that.
No I don't wanna lose the ideaof student athlete.
And maybe I'm hanging on tothings that are un unrealistic.
But I just, I know at Arizona wetake pride in in, in the student
part.
Yeah.
And we provide a lot ofresources for them to be
successful academically.
And I think if you look aroundthe country, I think everyone's
(31:57):
doing that.
There's, every university atthat level is putting a lot of
money into making sure thattheir kids are being successful,
not just on the athletic field,but in the classroom.
It's hard to look in yourfaculty in the eye if you're a
president or a chancellor ifyou're not.
Very tough.
How important was it for youthat.
(32:18):
That classroom experiencethough, and the resident hall
experience and having that truecollege experience, learning how
to deal with conflict dealing,how to deal with chaos, dealing
how to, learning, how to dealwith a roommate that didn't do
what they were supposed to.
Where is that in your eyes?
Are we, is it still there in thepower four?
(32:39):
It's still there.
Yeah.
I think it's still there to apoint.
We still have some kids that areliving in dorms and getting the
college experience that we wereused to seeing back then.
But on the other hand, we have alot of people now that are kinda
skipping that, and they're,they've got their own apartment
and Yeah.
And, they have resources to dothings that we never did.
(33:00):
I remember when I went tocollege, my dad gave me 20
bucks, said Good luck.
And I said, was that, is thatfor the week?
He goes, no that's it.
That's all you're getting.
You're gonna learn how to figureit out because if you're gonna
be successful, it's up to you.
Yeah.
And I think today we we used tohave.
Helicopter parents, and then wewent to the bulldozer parents
where they're bulldozing thekids' path.
(33:21):
And so I, things have changedbut there's some parts of it
that I think are the same, yeah.
There's nothing better than aSaturday afternoon football game
and Yep.
They always talk about athleticsbeing the front door of the
university, and I still thinkthat's very true.
I remember when Luke won thefirst basketball championship
(33:42):
here, the enrollment went up by30%, and you look at Alabama in
the enrollment there.
You can look at Nick Saban, whathe's done for that university.
Yeah.
And I think you see thosestories all over the country.
So it, at college athletics isstill a high priority and I
think will be around for a longtime.
(34:03):
It's just gonna take a differentshapes time.
Different form.
Yeah.
But we still, it's stillentertainment and it's, it's
still.
People having something thatconnects them.
Yeah.
And for us, there's nothingbetter than a college football
game to connect everyone oncampus.
I agree.
(34:23):
I wanna transition a little bit,and this is a good transition
for what you've been talkingabout.
You coached elite players.
You coached Olympic goldmedalist players, and then you
coach those everyday roleplayers those grit and grind
kids that you just loved havinga part of your program.
What separates that athlete whobecomes a pro in life not going
to make money as a softballplayer, but what separates them?
(34:45):
The kids that you've seen thatleft your program, that have
gone on and done really well inlife, they're healthy, they're
happy.
What's, where's that line andwhere's some of those
characteristics for those kids?
If I look at the Olympians, forinstance.
There's one common thread forevery one of those kids, and
that they're great teammates.
Yeah.
So they get it that they're notgonna do it by themselves.
(35:06):
It's gonna take a village tomake it happen.
And they learn how to take careof those people in their
village.
And I think that is a bigdifference because they know how
to utilize their village movingforward in life.
And they're good connectors.
They're, obviously they.
They're competitive and I thinkthat's a, a huge fact.
(35:31):
I don't know of anyone that'sgonna be highly successful
unless they are competitive.
But at the end of the day it's,they know what it's like to be a
part of something that's biggerthan them.
Yeah.
And it I always looked at thosekids every day and I marveled at
them.
I'm going, what makes'em sospecial?
And I, i'd always say they gotgreat eyes.
Yeah, they got great eyes.
(35:51):
They're hitting a 72 mile anhour pitch from 38 feet.
Talk about tough but the biggestthing that, that you saw was
their work ethic.
They're being great teammates.
Understanding the process, veryprocess oriented, because you
know what, when you're playingfor in on an Olympic team,
(36:12):
you're practicing for fouryears, for one week of
competition, you talk aboutlearning how to deal with the
process.
That's it.
You have to put yourself in thatOlympic arena as often as
possible, and sometimes you haveto make those.
Up.
Yeah.
During practice you have to makepractice and so all the little
things that they have to do, Ithink highly prepares them for
(36:36):
success.
Once they're done, was thereanything harder for you than
picking that those 18 people Oh,no.
To be a part of that team?
Have you ever had a biggerchallenge?
Luckily we had a selectioncommittee, I was still at the
end of the day, you, I was, Ione vote.
I was one vote.
But yes you're splitting hairs,truthfully, you are splitting
(36:57):
the hairs there.
There's, I'm sure others that.
Maybe didn't get the opportunitythat could have.
Yeah.
Done quite well.
Yeah.
And that all the time, and Ithink that's still a challenge,
right now is trying to find 18of the best players in the
world.
Because in the United States,most of our softball players are
the best in the world.
(37:18):
Until Yoki Ano came in and beatus in 2008, right?
Yeah.
Japan's phenomenal to watch.
They are meticulous about theirpreparation.
There's not a team that, thatpractices more than them.
Yeah.
And to, to me it's theirmindset.
They're mentally, they are soprepared for whatever's gonna
(37:41):
come their way.
And I think we took from them.
Opportunities to, to do the samething with our program.
That's great.
In 2004 was the first time thatwe actually had an Olympic team
be able to train full time toprepare for the Olympic games.
It's a huge difference.
'cause before that it was just,they would do their thing and
then you'd bring'em together fora camp and then you would go
(38:01):
play the Olympics.
Yeah.
So that's the interesting part.
The other interesting part isthat the average age was 27
years old.
So huge, the maturity.
Absolutely.
The maturity is something youcan't teach, and that's why
it's, that's the differencebetween coaching with the
Olympic team and coaching yourcollege team.
(38:22):
Yeah.
The experience factor.
I was probably a, not probably,I was a soft, lazy kid till I
was about 14 years old.
And I probably didn't.
I had no idea.
I was, I thought I was, yeah.
A good athlete.
And then my parents bought thistiny little restaurant in our, I
grew up in a town of 2000people.
We bought a restaurant and I,all of a sudden was up at six 30
(38:46):
cleaning, cleaning floors,bathrooms, bringing up big tubs
of ice from the basement.
Five times.
I was working a grill for eight,nine hours at a time.
Wow.
And then I was mopping and,cleaning up afterwards we'd
have, in our little restaurant,we'd serve 800 people on a
Saturday morning.
Wow.
And it was at that point asfrustrated I was with the work
(39:07):
and having to do it.
There's nothing I appreciatemore than those four years
working in that restaurant andwho it made me.
How much, when you look at theOlympians and the All Americans
and the national championshipsyou've coached, how much of that
comes from the parents?
Oh, or from, but how much of itcomes from those kids just.
(39:31):
Allowing themselves to get overthat hump, get through that
governor, that's slowing themdown and understanding, here's
my potential.
Is it, is there a nature nurturebalance there?
I think you hit a couple things.
Number one, the parents play abig factor.
Yeah.
Because I don't think, I think,when I recruited, I always went
to the home to see how the kidtreated their parents.
(39:55):
But really, what were thepriorities of the parents?
When I walked in the house, wasit the parents that were talking
all the time?
Or was it the kid that wasasking questions that I was
recruiting?
Because I never wanted to have aparent that was so overbearing
that you felt like they were theones that were being recruited
instead of the kid.
So I think parents, yourupbringing is huge.
(40:17):
You learn so much from.
Your upbringing from work ethicto, for me, my faith comes from
my mom.
I can tell you that right now.
So I think that, that's a hugepart.
When it comes to that.
And then the other part I thinkis just the work ethic part.
And you mentioned it, I thinkkids that understand hard work
(40:38):
and embrace hard work the sky'sthe limit.
It's awfully hard to convince alazy person that, that if they
work hard, they're gonna getbetter.
They're just, they're wired thatway.
They are.
So I think we're all wired alittle bit differently.
I know, I'm a very processoriented person.
(40:59):
I'm, I'm meticulous about beingon time.
The, a lot of the little thingsthat you learned being part of
the team.
And being part of a coach that,that has standards and
expectations, and I've alwaysbeen one that had very high
standards, very highexpectations, and I wasn't.
(41:23):
The biggest thing that I learnedreally, and I coach men and
women, and I think you'veprobably heard this, but men
have to play good to feel good.
Women have to feel good to playgood.
Yes.
I spent a lot of my timeteaching young kids how to feel
good about themselves.
And I think you can't deny that.
And especially in today's world,there's even more, challenges
for our young people growing upwith social media.
(41:45):
See, we, a lot of my career, wedidn't have to worry about
social media.
But today's social media is,it's a fact and it's real.
There's a lot of kids that aresuffering and have mental health
problems because of theexpectations that they're trying
to reach that.
Someone else is channeling theirthoughts on them, and I don't
(42:07):
know how, I don't know how kidscan do it if it, I don't even
look at social media becausethere's nothing really good on
it.
No.
Yeah.
And unfortunately, that's whatour kids live by.
Yeah.
The other day I was at an Arestaurant watching this couple
eat, and both of them were onthe phone the whole entire time.
Never said a word to each other.
(42:28):
Yeah.
And, that's the difference rightnow.
I grew up with a black and whiteTV with rabbit ears, man.
And Yep.
That was our entertainment.
Yeah.
And you know what?
Our entertainment became goingout and playing with our
friends.
That's right.
And today you don't that livingoutside.
I was, I had to be home in darkand that was it.
Yeah.
No one knew where I was for 12hours of the day, but they knew
(42:49):
I was out doing something.
And you look at the parks todayand they're empty.
They are.
You don't see kids.
I'm a former college basketballcoach.
It kills me when I walk past,drive past the park and there's
nobody playing on the courts.
No.
No one playing hoops.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I love it when I walk outside ofmy neighborhood and I see.
Dads and moms playing catch withtheir kids or kids playing catch
and it just brings joy to me.
Oh man.
(43:09):
I remember taking a pasture andwe made our own baseball field
out of it.
Yeah.
And you came home and you gotyour homework done, you got a
chance to go play, and theneveryone would end up being
there and you'd play whiffleball.
You'd play pickle.
The things that we did to learnhow to play the game was
unbelievable because all I hadwas a black and white TV to
emulate.
The people that I watched.
(43:29):
That's right.
I didn't have, I didn't have anylessons.
Yeah.
I was self-taught, trial anderror, and today this game is
still trial and error, butunfortunately people are they
want instant gratification, sothey won't go through the trial
and error.
I agree.
I agree.
And I it's the part of me andit's why I'm even on social
media is I try and teach thesethings.
(43:49):
Yeah.
And it's the reason I'm havingthese conversations with people
like you, I feel like if we'regonna, social media's gonna be a
part of our world, I wanna putsomething good into it.
I wanna put some good messagesand some good ideas and like you
just did for me, I gotta tellyou, coach and I'm not pandering
to you at all.
I live for those moments whenI'm having a conversation like
this where I can take somethingfrom it and go, i'm gonna be a
(44:11):
better coach because of that.
So what you said and I don't,this isn't earth shattering, but
the way you said it and the wayyou came to it, you spent a lot
of time helping kids learn howto feel good about themselves.
I wish somebody would've told methat at 25 when I got my first
head coaching job.
I really do.
I wish that would've been a partof the job description at the
(44:32):
top.
Your job.
Before we win games, before wepractice swinging the bat.
Before we practice ground balls,we're gonna talk about how do we
make these kids feel good aboutthemselves?
Yeah.
Not in an oversaturated way orsaying, you're great, Betty,
you're the best that's everplayed, but.
What are you good at?
Why do you want to be a goodperson?
(44:53):
Why is it important for you tobe a good teammate?
I just, I love that.
And the other thing theOlympians were so good at was
handling failure.
Yeah.
And I think that's another biglesson in life is, failure is a
positive thing.
It depends on how you look atit, but you learn more from
failure than you learn fromsuccess.
And the game of softball's, agame of failure.
(45:15):
Yeah.
And the game of life is a gameof failure.
It's about failure recovery.
Absolutely.
That's the way I look at it.
Absolutely.
I've had to recover from somevery tough things in my life and
I had a choice to make whether Iwas gonna take the high road
with it or let it take the bestof me.
And I think today, young kidsdon't they have some failure and
(45:37):
they panic.
They don't quite understand howthat failure.
Peace fits into their growth.
And their development as a humanbeing.
Who was the player you grew upadmiring?
Mickey Mantle.
Mickey.
Yep.
I didn't know a lot about hispersonal life, but I did like
him as a player.
(45:58):
And in fact, I have a whole rooma whole Yankee room here in my
house.
And Mickey Mantle was my hero.
'cause when I was.
Young, we had a black and whitetv, and the only game you could
really see was the Yankee Gameof the week.
And so I grew up being a diehardYankee fan.
We gravitated from White Plainsin New York.
Okay.
(46:18):
I was gonna ask you in NewOrleans where I was born,
because my dad was a jazzmusician and I grew up watching
the Yankees, and to this day,the Yankees are still a big part
of my life, love it.
That's fantastic.
Yeah.
Do you still play, do you playany instruments?
I don't play, no.
My dad died a frustrated manbecause he had four kids and
none of us had any musicaltalent.
It skipped a whole generation.
(46:38):
Yeah.
That's how I feel.
I was a basketball coach for 25years and none of my kids play
basketball.
Yeah.
So I can relate to that.
I want to end this segment.
I want to talk, I wanna comeback for segment two, a real
quick one and just talk aboutwho you were as a recruiter.
And give some advice to recruitsand families going through that
journey.
And I know you've been out for awhile.
Yeah.
Before we get into that segment,coach, give a piece of advice to
(47:01):
the youth coaches, the clubcoaches, the high school coaches
out there that you think theyjust.
Need to think about a littlebit, make a bigger part of their
world when they're building ateam and running practices.
I, the one thing that I alwaysgo back to my three C's and not
because of my last name, but thefirst thing I always wanted to
be was competent.
(47:21):
So if I could tell young coachesto be a student of the game and
learn as much as they can,because the better, the more
information they have, thebetter information our kids are
gonna get, and that never ends.
We constantly can get better.
So be a student of the game andbring your kids the best
information because if you'regonna teach the game, you gotta
(47:43):
understand the why.
Why am I teaching this way?
And I used to ask myself all thetime, why do I hit the way I
hit?
Why do I throw it away?
I hit and I want my kids to beable to understand that and
explain that, right?
I think the second thing isconsistency.
Consistency I think is a hugepart of championship
environment.
And you as a, an adult has tobring the consistency to your
(48:07):
program.
So young kids don't need drama.
They don't need someone that'shigh one day and low the next
day.
They need someone that's gotsome emotional stability.
And I think another thing thatthe Olympians had is those kids
had emotional stability.
They never got too high, nevergot too low, and then the third
(48:29):
thing, probably the mostimportant thing is your kids
have to know that you care aboutthem as an individual.
So coach the person and then theathlete will come out.
So if every conversation youhave with your kids is about the
game, then you're going down thewrong road.
Find out how they feel, find outhow they're doing.
(48:52):
Find out what they need fromyou.
Ask more questions instead oftalking too much.
Yeah.
I think is a huge thing.
But to me, if I look at the kidsthat I coached number I'm proud
of about a couple things.
Number one, I don't miss abirthday.
The first thing I do everymorning is I have birthdays in
my planner.
I text them a happy birthday,and that's kept me connected
(49:15):
with them forever.
It's amazing.
I'm a part of their family.
I'm a part of their kids growingup, they send me pictures.
It's just phenomenal.
Yeah.
Agreed.
And to me, that was one of thebest things I realized is it
takes just the little things tomake kids feel like you cared
about them.
Because at the end of the day,championships don't change your
(49:37):
life.
I used to think that if I didn'twin a championship, that I was a
failure.
And I realized I can't live mylife that way because it's not
quite that easy.
And I realized the sun came upand went down the same way,
whether I won or I didn't.
So what can I control in my lifethat will make me feel good
about what I'm doing?
(49:58):
That's right.
And that's why I always tellpeople I never worked a day in
my life because I followed mypassion.
I look back at my career and Iwas so blessed.
That, that I picked somethingthat I thoroughly enjoy doing
every day, and I never looked, Inever worried about the past.
I never was a guy that worriedtoo far ahead.
(50:19):
I tried to worry about today,how can I make today better?
How can I get 1% better today?
And if I can get 1% bettertoday, then just imagine where
I'm gonna be 10 years from now.
Yeah it's those three things areI think, important for any
coach.
Those are gold Coach.
Thank you so much for being you.
And yeah, thanks so much forsaying yes to me and sharing
(50:40):
your wisdom with us.
If you're up for it, we'll comeback and those those are your
list and come back on Monday andwe're gonna talk a little bit of
recruiting with Coach.
Pick his brain on how herecruited and what he's seeing
in there.
Thanks, coach.
You bet.
What an absolute gift of aconversation.
Anytime you have the chance tolearn from someone who is led at
the highest levels for as longas Coach Andrea has.
(51:02):
You walk away changed hishumility, his clarity, and his
ability to balance unbelievablecompetitive success with his
deep care for people.
That's what great leadershiplooks like.
I hope this episode challengedyou, encouraged you, and gave
you a fresh perspective on whatit really means to build a
program and a life centered onsignificance.
(51:24):
Don't forget to come back onMonday for part two of my
conversation with Coach Condrewhere we shift the conversation
to college recruiting.
It's a good one.
If you're a school, a club, oran organization looking for help
with recruiting, education,leadership development, or
creating healthier and moreeffective teams, you can
schedule a strategy session withme anytime@coachmattrogers.com.
(51:46):
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for supporting thiscommunity, and thank you for
continuing to invest in yourgrowth as a leader.
Until next time, stay focused onwhat you can control.
Stay humble and keep chasingsignificance.
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