TFTS E29 : Storytellers - Oak Hills Basketball Coach Mike Price

If you want a well rounded athlete, you need to send him to Oak Hills and get him on the basketball team with Coach Mike Price.  His views on hoops is second to none, but his views on life will give your son a foundation that will last a lifetime

On this episode of storytellers, Coach Price talk about hoops and life.  Wow!  What a great episode!

Check out Coach Price on this episode of Tales from the Script.


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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You guys know what's a month away? A month from Uh, it's like
right now, like pretty close toright now, a month away from like
in July and of July. Endof July. My birthday may whether make
you fifty one or fifty fifty one. Yeah, you looking good today,
You're looking really good. But Pat, this is one of the easiest ones

(00:22):
you've ever thrown out there at theOlympics. Man, I think it's like
twenty what is it ly twenty sixthParis Olympics. Yeah, I think it's
about thirty days. So what areyour like, go to mem like do
you follow it? Like? Tellme? Like I sometimes you get excited
about it to a certain extent.Yeah, I mean I think I don't

(00:46):
know how you guys are, butsometimes there's certain events I guess that I
that I followed more than others.Yeah. I'm not the guy who's going
to be sitting there on USA threeon the on the streaming device, watching
the rowing through the rapids, theone man rowing races. I'm not going

(01:07):
to be you know, I'm watchingThere's definitely some obscure Olympic sports, but
the Summer Olympics. Man, there'snothing in my mind more exciting than watching
the track and field one hundred metersDasha, this is swimming summers better than
winter, right, undred per onehundred? Yeah, I don't know a

(01:34):
guy, no, not a figuresating guy, but I mean curling.
Come on, you guys, don'tyou guys don't follow curling. You know
know who the world powers are andcurling the winter. Actually watch stuff like
that for a minute, but I'mnot going to dedicate a long time watching
it. But I'm just I'm justbusting like watching some of that stuff just
to figure it out. Like whatthe hell is this about? That is

(01:57):
the one biathlon skiing and shooting.I mean who doesn't do that on their
their their their family farm somewhere.You know, you go cross country skiing
and then you lay down on yourbelly and you fire a rifle at targets.
Right, you gotta slow your heartrate down to to be accurate with
the guns mane I like Martin wentmode, he was this is this has

(02:17):
already gone off the rails. Buthow does somebody get involved into biathlon in
the winter Olympics? Like how doyou I think you have to be like
somebody moves slow but can like havea little heart beat. Apparently what Martin
said, somebody you know you,you know what you are. You're a
cross country person that can shoot inhigh school, that just could do that,

(02:39):
could do this, Like there's alot, there's a whole like air
rifle is legit, Like there's alot of people that do that, right,
And if you're from a northern stateand you naturally ski, why wouldn't
you pick both of you? Probablydo them both because that's what you do.
If you're five out of that,If you're five out of three million
people who fall into those two categories, I guess then there's a spot for

(03:00):
you in the Olympics. All right, here's a question. Is that is
that fucking crazy sport that I've seeall the time like on reels and tiktoks
where I think it's predominantly played bywomen. It's basketball without a backboard?
What have you seen this sport?I don't even know what it's called,
like, but it's basketball without abackboard and I don't there's no dribbling.

(03:22):
You can't have to look it up. Is that? Like? Hold on,
you're you're going back to your daysat Saint James Funnel ball where used
to throw the ball into the funnel, and then they had four shoots and
then whoever I'm talking about, I'mtalking about the it's a sport. I
think it might be even be anOlympics board. I'm serious, Like,
it's like a basketball without a whoI'm looking it up right now. I've

(03:44):
ever heard I'm gonna look it up. I ever heard it. Okay,
while you're while you're looking, well, you're looking it up. I'm gonna
ask you guys this, what areyour best childhood memories of watching the Olympics.
And for for reference sake, forpeople listening to this, we were
born in nineteen seventy two, okay, so we're all fifty fifty one years
old. Seventy three okay, sowe're all fifty to fifty one years old.

(04:06):
So for me, the first Olympicsthat comes to mind is Los Angeles,
California, nineteen eighty four. GarlLewis four gold medals, Like,
but here's a joiner flowed Joe yeahwas I think she was eighty eight though
I think she was eighty eight andSoul Korea. But but you're getting into

(04:27):
that whole. At that point,we were sixteen. So we're in that
developmental stage of being between twelve sixteenseventeen years old somewhere around there where.
And we've had these discussions before weknew we could name the starting lineup from
the you know, the the nineteeneighty five expos and all that kind of
crazy stuff. But when you reallythink about like Olympic memories, here's one

(04:49):
that jumps out to me, andyour guy's gonna be like what I used
to sit And I was enthralled bywater polo. It never crazy, that
is great what I had never seen. I had never seen water polo before.
And like when I found out peoplethe first time that they're that they're

(05:09):
actually like treading water for reading water, and you wanted to know who the
air rifle person is. Who's thatfriend that you're pulled it stegging out in
the deep bend. Are you hangingon the wall? No? Like that
that that guy you're like And here'sthe here's the thing. We went on
vacation that year to Fort Myers Beach, Florida, and I was like,

(05:30):
I'm going to try to tread waterlike these polo, these water polo guys
to I made it for like twominutes, and these people are out there
with the people being in, pullingthem and beating the hell out of them,
ripping their trunks off, hitting themwith the ball, trying to block
the ball. There's just so manydifferent events underwater. Eighty four and eighty

(05:55):
eight volleyball that was kind of moneyback in the day, volleyball cards crying,
Kari, are you kidding me?That's what we're here for. Those
who Tim was Tim There was aguy named Timmins, like he was a
guy too. Okay, let's let'stalk about I will tell you the guys
in the booth did some research forme. Uh. The name of the
sport that is like basketball without abackboard is called netball, not an Olympic

(06:20):
sport. So I appreciate the peoplein the booth doing some homework for us.
Of course, it's called the mostgenerical netball. While we're on the
topic. While we're on the topicof coverage, can we talk about the
the broadcasters who only appear once everyfour years? Rowdy Gains, what what

(06:45):
does he cover? Marty swimming?Swimming? John Tesh? What does he
cover? Pat John Tesh? Doesn'the do ice skating? Are you skating.
He he does ice skating in thewinter, but what does he cover
in the summer? Something very similar? Gymnastic gymnastic. So how about Mary

(07:10):
lou Retton. Remember that's another onefrom back in the day. Oh yeah,
oh yeah, alright man, theWheaties box, the waies box.
Who was it, Carrie Scrug?Remember when the coach had like she broke
her ankle? Yeah? Was thatwas that? That was a Land of
ninety six, wasn't it. Yeah? I remember, like Tony Tony Ross
heard his ankle playing softball once andI carried him off the field and I

(07:33):
was like, come on, butI'll be your bella cool. I just
picked him off and carried him backto the time out. All right,
So here's a question. Hold on, what what about the time Tony Ross
had dove into third base three daysafter having him second? Yeah it's not
smart. Did you carry him off? Were his time? Yeah? All

(07:56):
right, we're talking we're talking aboutlike, yeah, those were fucking watermelons
for our little buddy. All right, So here's my question. Do you
remember where were you and maybe whatOlympics? This was when Austria. Australia
was talking so much trash in thefour by one and swimming and Phelps was
going after his gold medal record,and then they came back from like a

(08:20):
body length in the last two hundredmeters to win the Olympic. The Olympic
was that twenty twelve London. Ican't remember that, I can remember where
I was. It's one of thosethings where, like, you know,
I'm sitting here watching it with Amy. Michael Phelps was a bad man,

(08:41):
yes, and I was like,we're losing. We're not gonna leave one.
He was on the the podcast wasthe punter freaking the Cold Sky.
He was at mcaelly's podcast last week, shirt off. God see, I'm
like fucking Michael films. Mail isshredded, he said. I thought of

(09:03):
its Pat MacAfee. I thought ofPat mca whatever eighty seven for the background
owner of the starter set, Rememberthe starters? Oh yeah, all of
those things. So but still dudeis still shredded. Like looking good.
I'm like, freaking guys bad ass. I think I had heard somewhere that
in his peak training for the Olympics, he burned so many calories that he

(09:28):
had to eat like twenty thousand caloriesa day training alone. He would burn
over ten to twelve thousand calories.He was eating like whole pizzas, trying
to put so many calories into hisbody. That's like, yeah, yeah,
and so fu. Welcome to Talesfrom the Script, a bad ass

(09:50):
Cincinnati high school sports podcast that featureslocal coaches and athletes. Here are your
hosts, Brett schneeber Hat O'Connor,and Martin Eisley. Okay, friends,

(10:16):
I've got a good friend of minecoming in here with us tonight. He
shut up. He has been ahead basketball coach now entering his many friends,
he's got like one friend. Yeah, entering his thirty first year as
a high school head coach. He'swon over four hundred and twenty five games.

(10:39):
I can't even imagine that. That'sa lot of national anthems. He's
won two boys basketball city championships inCincinnati. This is going to take a
while now, so sit back.He's been a league champion eight times,
a district finalist nine times. He'sbeen a regional runner up. He's been
the city coach of the Year twice. He's he's won the GMC, which

(11:01):
is always tough, four different times. It was the Southwest Ohio District sixteen
Coach of the Year two different times. You look at some of the other
stuff he's done. In nineteen ninetyeight, ninety nine he was the OEHSAA
Sportsman Ethics and Integrity Award winner,And I think that fits imperfect once you
realize how he is. He's founded, he's operated, He's coached in the

(11:22):
Cincinnati AAU boys basketball program, whichwas actually the first AAU program here in
Cincinnati. He's done that for thirtyfive years. This is just a phenomenal
stat He's placed over four hundred highschool players into college basketball. Wow.
Over his career. I mean,that's just you talk about impacting the lives.

(11:43):
He's been a business teacher his entirecareer, an assistant athletic director for
the last twenty five years. Intwenty seventeen, he was the Talbert House
Father of the Year. And thatjust tells you right there about a person
who has devoted his life to helpingto helping young people. Let me introduce

(12:05):
to you a great friend and colleagueof mine for the last twenty four years
at my place of employment, OakKills High School Coach Mike Price. Welcome
in, coach, coach. Thankyou coach. Coach, I'm going to
say, I didn't think was goingto shut up. I didn't think I
told you this was like Tiger Woodsgetting introduced on the tea box. It
was like stop stop. Honestly,this thing that rolled through my head as

(12:26):
well. Congratulations on a fantastic careerand it's not over yet. You're still
going thank you, thank you.Yeah, I still am. I still
love what I'm doing, have thehealth and the opportunity to do it.
Fortunate to be at o Kills wherethere's a lot of supportive people. So,
by the way, Brett, alot of losses too, so a
lot of Winsen, there's a lotof losses there as well. Those are

(12:46):
the rest faults, coach. That'sa rest fault. Yeah, when you've
done it, when you've done itas long as you have, and I've
coached my my span of years too, You're right, there are always a
lot of losses. And let melet me just ask you this, what
do you remember more the wins orthe losses? Probably, uh, some
of the obviously some of the winshave been really special, but probably remember

(13:11):
more of the losses, the onesthat where we thought we were going to
win. I remember a district districtgame where I thought I had a state
championship team. I thought we weregoing to go to state that year,
and and one of our better playerswent one for a team from the field
he went, he went. Hewas a D one player that year.
He went to he went to Miami, had another young man who was that

(13:35):
who was also D one. Gomissed a couple of free throws in the
last minute of the game, andthat that that's one of the losses.
I think I probably remember more thanthe other ones, but probably more than
the losses I would agree. Ican just speak from experience, and in
the one year I was fortunate enoughto be a part of a state championship
team, there were two losses,and I can tell you those two losses.

(13:58):
I can't tell you every other winthat year, but I can tell
you those two losses, and Ican remember specific plays from them from a
football standpoint. But yeah, thoseare games that you think you should have
won. You prepped your team towin, you prepared them to win,
and things didn't go your way atthe end, and a lot of like
you said, I mean, youknow, for us, it was an
interception on the last play of thegame and it should in the end zone.

(14:20):
Yeah, let me ask that.Let me ask that question a little
differently. Is it a better feelingto like go into a game and say
you beat a team that you haveno business feeding. Right, you performed
at your highest and you absolutely hityour potential and you beat a team that
was better than you. Right.Is that better than like the other side
of that coin is like losing agame where you lost to a team that

(14:43):
you know you're better than. Youknow what I mean, Like, which
one's better or worse? Like doesthat make sense? Well? Yeah,
it makes a lot of sense.And I think that I think to your
point, I think it's better towin that game that you maybe didn't think
you could. The kids performed attheir maximum, because I think I'm really
happy for them. I love tosee the joy that they have when they

(15:07):
win a game like that. Andwe've really worked hard to prepare it,
and we have to we have totry to overachieve a lot anyway, And
I don't use that in a negativeterm at all. I think we go
into most games and we never winwarm ups. If you look at our
teams, we don't win. Iknow what you mean by that when you
look at the teams on both ends, we aren't gonna win that battle.
But uh, I just see thejoy the players have. They celebrate and

(15:30):
they really love that, and that'sthat's why I do what I do.
It's more for them than it is, you know. It's all those honors
and anything everything else that Brett listed. I can't even remember half of those,
honestly, and if you ask,if you ask me in person,
I probably couldn't. I can't eventell you how many years I've been head
coach, how many years I've beencoaching. Uh that I can name most

(15:52):
of the kids in terms of whatthey did, I couldn't tell you what
year they played. But it's morefor them. So yeah, I love
those games when we overachiever, wewin a game that we really maybe either
weren't supposed to or it was goingto be close going in anyway, Speaking
of some of the games that youweren't supposed to win, You've coached in
a ton of these these classic games, and like the old blue Chip Classics

(16:14):
down at the Coliseum, I'm surethere had to be a game or two
or three that you took your guysfrom the west Side, all twelve of
them. You rolled in against guyswho are McDonald's all Americans. There has
to be a game or two thatyou went in and found a way to
win. Is that correct? Well, I think it's just recent Brett.
We played. We went to Orlandoa few years ago and in Orlando we

(16:37):
played a team from Chapmanville Chapmanville,West Virginia, and they were a phenomenal
team. They had put placed manyplayers in college. They had won fifty
five games in a row coming intoour game, and they were averaging in
the eighty and they played Auston.Of course it's a I think we won
forty I want to don't quote meon the score, but I think it
was forty seven forty six in overtime, and they thought they went to the

(17:00):
dentist and every one of their teethhad been pulled. I mean, they
were so frustrated because they thought wewere a slow down team. And I
time our possessions in practice. Iknow people won shy clack and that we
really don't have too many possessions thatwould go for shot clack. But we
moved the ball. We tried toget great shots, but they just they

(17:21):
thought that was terrible, and ourkids were so excited because they won that
game. And then not only dowe play them in Orlando and beat them,
we go two years later, wego to Charleston, Charleston, South
Carolina, and we play We playin Charleston, and I'll be darn if
we don't play them again, andI think, oh, no, this
is going to be awful because theyremember that game when we beat them when

(17:45):
we weren't supposed to, and they'rereally good again. I mean, obviously
they didn't win fifty five in arow, but they had won state even
the year we beat them that gamein Orlando. They won the state that
year, so thinking oh, whereare we going to struggle and we beat
them pretty same, only in SouthCarolina. It was really cool to see
because again I don't think that theythought we were gonna win. I I

(18:08):
obviously go into games thinking we're gonnawin if we can do these things that
were set out to do. ButI was a little bit tentive in that
game because I thought, man,they're really going to come after us,
and our kids handled great. Webeat them again, and I really don't
want to play him again. Butthose two I remember as much or more

(18:30):
now, you're right. We playedin events. We played in New York
toll On time with two kids whowent to North Carolina. We played Eddie
Sutton's son down at Louisville Seneca.We beat them. We played Danny Ferry
when he was playing for New Jerseyand the legendary coach up there. But
we've had some great games, somereally good games. I try to always

(18:51):
over schedule us, schedule us againstgood opponents because you know, I want
our kids to to not fear anything. I want us to be able to
take that risk and try to winthose games. Speaking of preparation, take
a minute and just talk about yourstaff, because I've been privy, and
you know, I'll just put hisname out there. Greg Roffis, who's
your associate head coach and you know, a math teacher at Oak Kills.

(19:15):
He's been very generous to me asI've done some broadcasting of high school games,
and a lot of times I'll youknow, it'll be that morning and
I'll say, hey, you gota scattery report you can share with me
and Marty and Patt. I'm tellingyou right now, if you haven't seen
the detail that goes into their scatteryreports, and Coach Price has use my
room sometimes to show film after school, and sometimes I'm sitting in there that

(19:37):
allowed. I think that's against therules. I don't think you're loving that.
Go ahead, well, but buthere's what I just talk about your
staff and in the level of preparationthat they put in the games, and
and why that is so important foryou guys to have success within your program.
Well, I think one of thereasons I coach anyway is to teach
life lessons, and I think beingprepared in anything, whether it's school,

(19:59):
whether it's basketball or sports, orwhatever you're doing, I think it's great
to be prepared, job, interviewwhatever. Greg is phenomenal. I've been
around a lot of people. Tome, he is the best coach in
our program by far. I meanhe should be doing this interview right now.
He's extremely, extremely prepared. He'svery detail oriented. He loves the

(20:19):
game. He's always researching and lookingaround for new ways to do things,
new drills. He's here all thetime, not only with our youth program
but also our high school kids.He's just phenomenal, And you're right,
he'll have before we play games.Now beginning of the season is a little
different because those teams haven't played manygames we'll get into, for example,

(20:41):
tournament time. He might have twelveto fifteen games on one team when we
get to tournament time. I mean, it's almost too much. But again,
we try to be as prepared aswe can be for every situation,
so that's super important. And Gregdoes such a good job with the film
prep. He does our scattering reportsfor us UH for the most part,

(21:03):
and well, we've started to delegatethat to other coaches, trying to help
them too as well, especially someof the younger guys. In terms of
the other guys on our staff,I'm so lucky. I can't tell you
how lucky I am with Sean O'Connell, who is a head coach at Ponts
up in Dayton, head coach atWithrow, assistant at Dayton Dunbar had variety
of experiences in his life. Hehelps me in AAU, He helps me

(21:26):
the last three years in AAU,and he goes everywhere. UH. Just
phenomenal person, good relationship, guy, kids loving, great sense of humor,
loud booming voice that everybody can hear. But he is he is was
really loud just recently, Yes,it was we got that technical donn in
Shelbyville, but he he is theenergy guy sort of on our staff,

(21:48):
I would call him. Then wehave Jason Murphy who is an elder longtime
JV coach there Playton r AU program. Also very very, very detail oriented.
He works in the business world,along with another guy named Carl Jellnix,
who coached at Walnut Hills Saint X, coached in college, played in
college, also works in the businessworld. So I love to have outside

(22:11):
people come in because they give youa different perspective. They give the kids
a different perspective other than just asports or athletic perspective in terms of how
to live your life, what todo or how to be successful, how
to deal with the adversity part,all the things you deal with in sports.
Then we're also lucky to have wehave like seven volunteers in our program,

(22:33):
Pat Godie being one of them.Two just came with us and again
a great outside perspective, a lotof different experience. He'll be a huge
addition. Our freshman coach, NickRazel had been with us for a long
time. He just now had returninghome to Toledo where he took a different
teaching job, but we replaced himwith Zach Muller, who played in our
program also yeah, also a soccercoach as well here in our program.

(23:00):
Brilliant young mind basketball wise, greatrelationship with the young people we have.
Also, besides those guys, wehad Jackson Shreiver come back who played in
our program and as a quarterback atnow Saint Joe. Kyle King came back
last year in health coach, alsoa player same year as Jackson. So

(23:21):
we've we've been very, very fortunateto have good people around our young men.
And again, I like the outsideperspective and the different experiences because it
just helps us teach what we haveto teach besides athletics. So, Coach,
I like what you said earlier aboutthe diversity that comes with thought,
and I think that that's a valuableaspect, especially in that business world like
you were alluding to. So myquestion is, and this is the diversity

(23:42):
in thought and maybe diversity and theway to do things. I've noticed that
you still scout in person and likeI've been like, my son plays high
school basketball and I love to seethat. Is that tell me why you
do that versus film or huddle.First of all, I love your son
too. He's a great competitor.I love how he's an idiot. I

(24:03):
appreciate that I would. But anyway, I like the scout in person,
I see. I think you geta different perspective, uh, in terms
of how the players communicate, youhear calls for We're big on calls.
We try to get teams calls,so if they run sets or different actions.

(24:26):
Uh, you can do that inpersons. It's very, very difficult
to do it on film. Uh. I also like just like to be
there. I think just the inperson perspective is so much different than video.
Sometimes it's hard to tell how quickyoung man is or a team is,
just how they communicate maybe some otherthings. How the players interact with
each other on the other team sometimesthat's important too as well. So I'm

(24:49):
sort of old school that way.I love to go in person and scout
as much as we can. It'sjust it's just not a coach. You
you come with like your your posse. I mean, if you were going
to fuck up some people today,like everyone was gonna be in there,
you're gonna win a rumble like ifyou're four or five deep, and it's
always impressive. Like I said,like you're you're a legend in the Cincinnati

(25:11):
high school basketball world, and likewhen you walk in, it's like,
oh, it's so good to seehim, and it's, uh, you
do such a cool job, andit's it's cool to see like so many
people around you learning from you.Well. But our staff also has a
good saying it's not just the learningpart. Scouting isn't outing And yeah,
yes there's always some place the liketavern on the band over by LaSalle that's

(25:36):
one of our favorites when we gothat direction or uh, we you know,
we'll we'll go all over, butwe we have some favorite spots to
go. So they love to go. And I think they're sort of the
same mindset too that they like tosee kids in person and they love they
just love the game and they loveto be out in athletic events. Coach
Marty, here, can you takeus back to when you were a younger
man and when you decided that acareer and education and coaching was going to

(26:02):
be your path And what influences didyou have when you were a kid that
made you get on that road towhere you started. You know, how
did you get into, you know, wanting to be a coaching teacher.
I think I was. I majorin the county and economics at Wittenberg University,
and I didn't make it through myfreshman year. In terms of playing,

(26:23):
I wasn't very good. I hadachilles ten and ankle injury. That
sort of it bothered me enough thatI didn't I started out my freshman year
and I didn't finish it. ButI was around, For example, Larry
Hunter, really really good coach incollege, and I went to OHIOU from
there in NC State and then finishedup in Western Carolina. He was a

(26:45):
huge influence on me just in termsof the love of coaching. But obviously
it goes back to my parents.My dad was involved in a lot of
basketball. He started some of thelittle league little kids leagues here in the
Oak Hill School District, spent alot of time with me helping me develop.
Because I'm not the grend so you'rea no kills guy. I didn't
realize, Okay, well, I'ma stupid West Sider because I actually live

(27:07):
in the house where I started,that's where my parents lived. I'm back
in that house. My dad actuallywent back to the house where he was
born, and he was born anddied in the same house. So we
are staunched Westsiders. But my dadwas a giver. My mom was always
encouraging us to be involved in sports. She was extremely competitive. You know

(27:27):
how parents play with their kids whenthey're young. She never let us win.
I mean she chose and everything.But my dad my mom. Then
I had my coaches coming up.I had some phenomenal middle school but my
high school coach, Steve Moore,was about his detailed I still have some
of his spiral notebooks, practice plansin spiral notebooks, and kids don't believe

(27:49):
me that we didn't have water breakswhen I played. We'd have three hour
practices, no water break there,and we took salt pills before practice,
and we had to wear elbow padsand knee pads. But he was detail
oriented and he took notes. Everywherehe went to a clinic, he'd be
talking to another coach about a conceptor an offensive system. He was very,

(28:10):
very diligent about being taking notes andbeing detail oriented. So he was
huge. And then, like Isaid, in college, Larry Hunter and
I was just around some other goodpeople. I was around Hans Fry a
little bit because when I was comingout of high school, I got to
play in some All Star games forhim. As I got older, I
came back with Steve Moore, andthen Hep Cronin was maybe one of the

(28:30):
biggest, if not the biggest coachinginfluences on me, because he was very
very good at getting players to playtheir roles and help them understand and parents
often looked at how Help coached andthey maybe didn't agree with his style,
but they didn't understand the relationship hehad with players, and that taught me
a lot. I loved Help andbeing around him, and I was around

(28:52):
Sunny Tutor. I've just been aroundsome really good people who all had their
influences on me. And then I'vebeen lucky enough to in a city where
I was allowed to go to BobHuggins practices, I was allowed to go
into Skip Crosser's practices, Chris Mack, Sean Miller, Thad Mata. Growing
up and coaching AAU, we wereallowed to talk to college coaches back then.

(29:12):
So I've just been around on alot of different people who had all
had some kind of influence on mylife and and helped me get into coaching.
But getting back to the question aboutwhy I was major in accounting,
and I worked in accounting for abouta year and a half and decided that's
not going to be it's a littlebit too boring, and I went to

(29:32):
UC. I was fortunate enough tobe able to volunteer coach at o'kills at
an early age, so I volunteeredwhile I was going to college and I
was still working in accounting. I'dgo in at six in the morning,
worked till about two u take classesor go to practice whatever I had to
do at that time, you know, during those times of the year,
and I just decided that I lovedbeing around coaching basketball. I loved being

(29:55):
around young people. So that's whyI got out of accounting. It was
just a little bit too born.Even though again I love the people I
worked with. I was very fortunateto work with really good people and for
a good company, but just itwas too boring for me. So that's
why I got into teaching and coachingcoach. And you mentioned you mentioned Steve
Moore. I just got to throwthis little tibbot in and you talked about

(30:18):
how detail oriented he was, andhow great of a mind he was.
When I was a young buck andI first started teaching at Oak Hills in
two thousand, I think Coach Moore. They caught him the count because he
was the heads above everybody. Hewas counting heads all the time. And
I ran into him. It wasmy first or second year. I think
he was still subbing at the time. And I ran into him in the

(30:41):
lobby right in front of the office, and I went up and introduced myself
and I told him who my momwas, because he was my mom's like
fifth and sixth grade teacher at Springmyer. And I said, my mom is
Karla Sheidenberger. Now this was thiswould have been back in like nineteen fifty
eight. And I started of o'killsin two thousand and two thousand and one

(31:02):
that school year. And he says, oh, that was a phenomenal team.
Now we're talking forty years later.And he named off, oh,
Carla and Lois Leiylosh and Linda Fryand he started naming the team the girls
on that team from forty two yearsearlier. And I was like, man,

(31:23):
this guy he's something else. Now. He was he was the best.
He was a character. I wasaround him, and he had had
some characters around him now too,there were some back in the day.
Phil Simms was his assistant, andthat coach, coach Phil Simms. That's
how I got my job. Philretired in the middle of the summer in

(31:44):
two thousand. Remember he coached overor tad over fifty years. Right,
he left o'kills. He retired inOhio, and he did he go to
Ryle? Is that where he went? Yeah, he went to Ryle.
But guys, that's how I gothired. Who coach probably just talked about
Phil Simms. He retired late,like he left it like it was like,
actually, I'm telling you, Mike, it was it was like this

(32:07):
week. It was the last weekof June. He puts in his resignation,
retirement, and all of a sudden, I get a call. Because
I'd been in the system, Igot hired two days later. And here
I am, so, yeah,we can, we can we can credit
him for that. But that's Stevewas Uh. He even helped me coach
at AAU. So after after youknow, he he retired from coaching,

(32:30):
he became an administrator and he helpedme coach au. He would go go
pick him up and we'd go totournaments and he go everywhere. And I
was blessed to have him around methen too. His son, Dave Moore
is now the head coach at WestGeorgia. They've been D two, they're
going D one now. But UDay played for me in high school.
But I was blessed to be aroundSteve and his family as well. And

(32:52):
Dave was at Saint Bonaventure for awhile there wasn't he he was, and
he started at Christian Brothers for ayear or so. I went to Saint
Bonaventure and then West Georgia and hehe's had a great career and they're about
ready to move into D one andand he'll be guiding them into that transition.
But he I was just really luckyto be around Steve because I can
tell you so many stories about him. Probably not appropriate for this, but

(33:15):
it's totally appropriate. Let's hear them, ye channel people, Okay, right,
we might have to first of all. First of all, he's called
the Count because he would count roundsof drinks and it would be his turn.
He'd be in the bathroom. That'sthe count, his turn. To

(33:36):
buy would be and he'd be inthe bathroom. But we are we're playing.
We are playing mind Healthy and wehad great games against Mount Healthy back
in the day. That was ourbig rival in the league. And Steve
and his you know, he hadcolorful language and and he is doing his
thing with the referees and players andso forth. And Randy Reynolds, whose

(34:00):
brother Jim coached at Mader for along time, went out West. His
son is now the assistant like ad b O at Xavier. But Randy
Renolds is sitting behind a bench andhe said, he goes, sir,
I don't like your language. Andcount goes, oh, yeah, how
do you like this? Fuck you. There's scores, tables there, the

(34:21):
refereezer there. He and yeah,Steve, Steve did. Steve had a
lot of those, a lot ofthose situations. He had some characters around
him. Uh, Jim a Bearhis two Yeah, yeah, smoking,
Jimmy Cad, Kenny Stiegal was aroundhim. Howard me from me style.

(34:44):
Steve had some real characters around him, like an entourage. And hep did
too. He had some characters aroundOh heps guys, now come on,
yeah, those guys they fell it. Hep over to the south, so
we got to know him that theyou know, by the time we graduated,
Eddie and all those guys we Snack'swas Larry Grayford. He was a

(35:07):
scout for the Cubs. We hadPremium Joe, we had lawyer Joe,
we had something. This guys startedthere with somebody else too. They would
actually like when when Pete Rose PeteJunior was playing for us, they would
come in during our Christmas tournament,they'd check into Carolyn's house. They called
checking in. They would live therefor a whole weekend and during our tournament

(35:27):
stay at Carolyn's house. They playedcards. Carolyn to fix them meals,
took some breakfast and I was theygo with us every game, and there
was some there were some stories inthat too. With with Half, he
sort of did that same thing onetime at Xavier. We're getting killed.
We're getting beat so bad. Butuh, but back when they changed the
rule about getting off the bench,and they told they told us we were
not allowed to be off the bench, he had to set to coach.

(35:51):
Well, most referees didn't enforce that. But we're at Xavier, Saint Axin.
Uh, we have Jerry. Mcclatchy'sa raff and Jerry and Hepp had
got into it one of our Christmastournaments, by the way. So Heapen's
sitting there and go, Jerry,how are you going to enforce the ventural
tonight? Jerry goes, let herof the law, coach, let her
of the law strict letter. Ohmy go. So Hep is sitting on

(36:12):
the bench and all of a suddenthey announced and that it's time to play
national anthem, and they say,well everybody please stand. He goes,
hey, McClatchy, can I getoff the bench now for the national anthem?
And we proceeded to play ay aswe could possibly play. Now,
some of that was probably aided byJerry's calls. I won't tell you it
was or wasn't, but we're downlike forty two to sixteen. At halftime,

(36:35):
we go out into the hallway atSaint's locker room and there is a
big guy out in the hall andhis son and God must have been probably
fifties, his son was probably inthe thirties somewhere, and guy goes,
hey, coach, you don't youdon't like the officiating very much, do
you? And help goes, Nope, I don't. He goes, well,
they're not half as bad as yourteam, So Hepta, that's a

(37:00):
few things to the guy. Guygoes, I'm going out and get get
my gun in my car. I'mgonna come back. I'm gonna come back
in. Hep goes, will youbetter kill me with the first shot,
because if you don't, I'm gonnatake it away from you and shove up
your ass and pull the trigger andblow your friend down that right there,
and there's stuff right there. Andthat was only one. There is probably

(37:22):
there was probably multiple incidents when whenhe thought and it was but he was
the best. He was the bestguy to be around because he, like
I say, taught me so much. But I had such a good time
being around those people and just getreally, really, really a lot of
fun. The little bit that Iknew about that, that I knew about
Hepper, that I learned about HelperI played for. I played in the

(37:44):
Salle's program as a freshman, sophomoreand then again as a senior. And
Hep was Hep was the He wasBill Catie's assist at my freshman year.
He was the head coach. Mysophomore year, and then he was Dan
Fleming's assist at my senior year.And I always I always said this over
the years, there's never been anothercoach that I played for that could break

(38:06):
down the opponent from an X andO standpoint better than Hepchronin we'd get in
a timeout with thirty seconds to goin the game and he'd say, Okay,
they're gonna do this, this,and this, and then what we're
gonna do is we're gonna do this, this, this to counter it,
and then we're gonna go down andwe're gonna run point, crack, dribble,
secondary, reverse whatever it was.You remember, point and crack and

(38:30):
all and dribble and all that stuff. And Patton knows what I'm talking about.
And hep could break that down betterthan anybody. And we, like
you said, he was so goodat building relationships. You may not always
lik him, but you respected it. He knew what the hell he was
doing, yeah, and he knewwhere you stood with him, and he
really cared and and he just wassort of old school, you know,

(38:52):
where how he grew up and wherehe came from, and just back in
back in the day. That's that'show a lot of people coach. You
had characters like Hans Fried, JerryDurger help. You know, they were
all similar in terms of how theycoached, and they told you exactly what
they thought stood. But they weregreat coaches and they were great people,
and they had really positive influences onso many young people. Yeah, and

(39:15):
the kids loved and they had greatrelationships with the players didn't understand, but
the kids didn't. I can't remember. I was playing an aching and I
did something late in the game andthis aching drive up the hill and junior
year I remember this. It wasmy junior year and the first game of

(39:37):
the year we got. It wasa close game, and he was pissed
at me because I I had screwedup fucking royally and he yelled at me
and some of a bitch, andthen the game came down to close,
and I kind of felt like itwas my fault. And then he looked
at the you know, hey,if we don't get this rebound, your
own mother, you're a fucking walkinghome. It was one of those things,
and he's screaming but still looking atme. And I was only on

(39:59):
there for three minutes, but Iscrewed up and we ended up getting the
rebound and winning the game. Andmy car breaks down on the way up
the hill and and like everyone's likenobody cares, Like it's aching, like
nobody's caring. Everyone's driving by me. The only person who stops is HEP
And he said, here's just whatdo you got going on? Brother?
And I go my car. Idon't know what to do. And I'm
like, I'm still afraid. I'mafraid to talk to him. I'm a

(40:22):
coach. I don't know what totell you, Like it's not starting.
Uh, don't worry, my mom'scoming. He sat there with me and
we shot the ship for the nextfifteen minutes. I think if we would
have lost, he might, asyou know, ran me over. But
but no coach, I would onehundred percent agree, one of the one
of the bestst guys for players.I've got countless have stories over my sophomore
in junior year of working with himand how he kind of made me a

(40:44):
man and a better coach and allthose different things. But yeah, couldn't
couldn't agree. I saw, Isaw. I was at a UC game
when Ethan was like in the eighthgrade, when Nick was still what you
see And we're walking close to thecourt and now yell help, what's up?
And he looks at me and hepoints and he's like, come on.
So I'm like what, So meand Ethan go on the court.
This is like about half hour beforethe game and the whole time. Five

(41:07):
minutes later he called me Booby.He thought I was Scott Bubenhoff for the
whole time. I was like,no, I'm Marty, and it's like
Marty, Isaac, you can here, get the funk off the floor.
Just thought I was Scott Bubenhoff forfreaking That's funny, that's good stuff.
Hey, Mike, I want tobring this up. And we talked about

(41:29):
in the introduction the whole your wholecareer with with the AAU when we played
like and I'm saying we pat andI like back in late eighties, early
nineties, I don't remember the AAUscene because I don't really think there was
one. What what brought you tothe to the thought to say, hey,

(41:51):
we need to get involved with thisAAU And then what all went into
starting up your own program and whatmade it so successful for so long?
Well, I think just to getinvolved. Actually again, I was around
so many great people, Dick Burning, Bill Fisher, Earl Edmonds, myself,
Hants. We all sort of gottogether and we decided that and I

(42:15):
got involved with AU because a coupleof my players got invited up to Columbus
and to try out. And backin the day, there were only two
teams. There was Jerry Watson's AllOhio and there was j. T.
Turner, and my two players madeJerry Watson's team, and I remember going
up to the game and it wasmore about Jerry Watson and j. T.
Turner. They stood at half courtonargued with each other the whole time.

(42:36):
They were yelling at each other whilethe game was going on over who
was stealing the other players. Butanyway, we didn't have it down Cincinnati,
so we got together and decided,and since I have no life in
the basketball, they decided, Hey, you're gonna be that. We're gonna
vote you in as AAU chairman.So back back then, there was one

(42:58):
AAU meeting each each year, andat that meeting you elected the AAU chairman,
and it had always been Jerry Watsonbecause nobody else in the state knew.
So all of our coaches joined thoseguys I just named and God blessed
Dick Burning and guys like that.Dick Burning actually helped me with get AAU
started here. But those guys alljoined. We went to the meeting,

(43:19):
they elected me over Jerry Watson andI started bringing the tournament down here to
Cincinnati and our first experience with it. We divided up the city into four
different sections, Northeast, West,and South, and we took high schools
to meet section. We played alittle like round robin tournament. We picked
AAU tournament AAU teams out of thatgroup, and then I coached the oldest

(43:42):
team. Dick Berning actually coached thesixteens. I can't honestly remember who coached
the fifteens, but we actually pickedkids out of that group and we started
AAU team. We brought the tournamenthere and it started sort of small,
like twelve, thirteen, fourteen teams, and it was in the late eighties.
Brett won. He actually did that, and I stayed as chairman for
about ten years. I started ourown program, not very original either,

(44:07):
besides having no life. I calledit Cincinnati AAU. It wasn't elite or
we did have a we did haveCincinnati select so we only had a couple
of programs even in Cincinnati at thattime. Tom Sunderman actually started the Royals
around then, but he didn't reallyget up into the older age groups like

(44:30):
we were. So I was luckyenough, and there was no shoe circuit
back then. There was no Nike, there was no under Armour, there
was no Adidas, there were noneof those teams. So I had one
team and we we would play allyear round, also spring and spring and
summer in aau sometimes we'd play asmany as sixty seventy games. We basically

(44:52):
traveled between Cleveland, Columbus, Ohio, Louisville, Indianapolis, and Fort Wayne
and then we go to Nationals inUH in the late summer, usually in
July, we went down to Orlando. It was in different places to start
with, but it ended to Orlando. I had some great players. I
mean I had I had one teamthat you know where. We had Matt

(45:17):
Sylvester, we had Cornett, wehad Estra Camp, we had Mike Monzare.
I mean, we had holy smokes, I'd have literally five or six.
I had one team here, thisis a team that got the Nationals
finals. We had Adam Waskowski goesto Florida State. He's from Walter.

(45:37):
We had Keith Jackson from Purcell whowent to Xavier. We had Jordan Cornett
go to Notre Dame. We hadMatt Silvester go to Ohio State. We
had Scott Scott Banking go to WakeForest as a walk on. Steve Callahan
went to Cornell Goldsberry from h VanDelia Butler he went to I want to

(45:59):
say Niagara. His older brother wentto UNC Wilmington. But we would the
teams I had each year. Wewould have five, six, seven high
level D one kids each year andthat was a great experience for me to
coach that level and go play againstpeople like that. I mean, we
played in the game, we lostin the finals. JJ Reddick was the

(46:22):
guy who beat us. We playedagainst Jermaine O'Neil. We played against Kobe.
We played against that a lot ofNBA guys throughout my career. But
back then there was no shoe circuit. So whenever we went to Fort Wayne,
for example, then that actually startedto Purdue with West Lafayette, but

(46:43):
we we played against Kobe Bryant there. He played for Philadelphia Freedom. We
played against Allen Iverson down in Louisville. So we played against Jermaine O'Neil.
We played against so many, somany good players. Kevin Garnett. Kevin
Garnett goes down before he's a guardat his height, going down behind his
backs with putting his legs and thebounce passed through the right wing for a

(47:05):
layup in transition, and I said, over our heads. But here,
yeah, I think I think partof not to cut you off, Mike,
but I think part of the reasonthat you beat a lot of those
teams was that you coached those teams. And these guys know that I have
a saying that I live by,and I've lived by it for a long

(47:27):
time. It's a Mike Leech thing. You're either coaching it or allowing it
to happen. And you actually coachthem. You just weren't a travel agent,
you just weren't an organizer. Youactually coached them, and you had
practices multiple times a week throughout thesummer in the spring, and that was
how these guys developed throughout your programfrom the time they were fifteen, sixteen,

(47:50):
seventeen till the time you got themas seventeen eighteen year olds before they
went and played at the high thesehigh major programs. Well, we coached.
I coached back then, and atone point in CINCINNATAU we had seventeen
teams in our program. I alwayscoached the top set. I coached the
top three seventeen year old teams.Right now, I'm coaching four teams.
I have a fifteen to two sixteensand a seventeen. So when we go

(48:13):
to tournaments like last year, Seawanand I coached about one hundred and sixty
games of AU in the summer,so we coached what equivalent of seven and
a half high school seasons. Butback then again no shoe circuit, and
you're right, we practiced usually twicea week because the open gyms were different.
Skill work was different, rules thatwere different. Back then, we
had kids come from OHIOU. Wehad Nate Lenhard come from Ghana Lincoln.

(48:38):
We had Joe Jakobowski come down fromToledo Saint John's and practice twice a week.
Those guys would drive down, Wow, and it was it was pretty
special to be around those people.I was so lucky to be around great
families, committed people and great kids, and we were really good. Yeah,
it sounds like with those with thosenames just sound like so much talent.

(49:00):
So compare AU when you first startedto where it is now, I
mean talent level, I mean justuh, I mean you kind of hit
on a little bit. But itseems like you go anywhere and they are
AAU teams now. So talk tome a little bit about the difference now
compared to where it was. It'sthe same thing. I I I love

(49:21):
baseball and soccer and all that,but I think all those club sports are
now so diluted, and AAU rightnow is diluted. Yeah. I saw
something on Twitter that I sort ofagree with somebody one of those prep And
I'm not sure all those prep recruitingguys know what they're doing anyway. I
don't think half of them know aflare screen from a screen door. But
you might sounds like you might havesaid that before. It might have said

(49:44):
that before. If somebody dunks,if somebody dunks and runs fast all or
blocks the shot, all of asudden, they're rated hot and it doesn't
matter what their basketball IQ is orwhether they can shoot her to the skill
level. But it's so deluted rightnow, there's a lot of teams that
probably shouldn't be playing. But Imean, I love the fact that young
kids love to play sports and clubsports, but I think it's become it's

(50:07):
just become too deluded. There's toomany teams. And I have twelve game,
twelve teams on my game chanp well, thirteen I put one in today,
thirteen baseball teams on game Changer,And so I watched baseball. I
watch kids who can't catch the flyballand baseball playing summer baseball. It's the
same thing in basketball, you havekids. I mean, this year our
AAU team is pretty good. Ilove our kids. We've got a great

(50:29):
seventeen year old group, but we'dbeat teams. I don't think we've had
but fifteen games decided by less thantwenty points, and we just pounded people.
And we aren't. We aren't asgood as our third teams would have
been back in the day when Ifirst started AAU and no no offense.
And the kids who are playing,but they just aren't. I mean,
we had kids on the thirteen andwent to Miami and played at Miami.

(50:52):
We had one of the Wolfs togo to Rollins. We've had kids off
the third team and AAU get scholarshipsback then, and right now we don't
have that level. But it's justso deluded and I like to see the
number of kids playing, but itis it's hard, and I think parents
get the wrong idea too. Likeparents who come play for me, I

(51:13):
try to say one of the firstthings I tell them, I'm not getting
a scholarship, so I cannot guaranteein that I'll help we send out I
have a database of about seven hundredcollege coaches we send out profiles to,
but I can't guarantee your son ofscholarship. And I think they come to
us thinking that's going to happen becausewe have been so lucky. But now
with the portal with NIL, thingshave changed so much. It's very difficult

(51:37):
to get kids those opportunities that Iused to be able to get. And
then the shoe circuit has caused evenmore difficulties because it's even kids who play
in the shoe circuit. I mean, that's one way that teams get people
to come play. Hey, you'regoing to go in the shoe circuit or
I know this coach right, I'mgoing to play at this position. Well,
that isn't going to get a kida scholarship. Even Mike, I'm

(52:01):
I'm glad you. I'm glad youbrought up the NIL and the portal,
And I want to also factor intothat. Even though it's been three four
years COVID, in the extra yearthat guys get with COVID, how has
recruiting changed? And I think parents, if you're listening, you really need
to pay attention to this. Howhas recruiting changed for kids at the Division

(52:24):
one level? Toue to the factof those three things. How has recruiting
changed with with with NIL, theportal and also this extra COVID year which
I think is going to be expiringhere in another year or two. But
how hard has that been to getkids recruited? Well, I'll put you
on a college coach's place. Wouldyou rather have through the porter? Would

(52:45):
you rather have a young man who'splayed two years, lifted for two years,
been coached two years in a collegesituation? Whould you have a high
school cap Well, I'm Sean Miller. If I'm Sean Miller, I'd rather
take Grian Conwell from Indiana State whoshot forty seven percent from three and was
in the program for two years andnow he's coming to be Xavier Musketeer,

(53:07):
rather than, like you say,taking a kid out of I don't know
the name of school in Kentucky somewhereor whatever, but that that's your answer.
It's that way so hard, andI try to see both sides.
If you're a college coach too,you take a high school kid. Let's
say he doesn't play his first yearout of high school. Well, he's
played his whole life, and allof a sudden he's not playing because he's

(53:28):
playing against twenty two to twenty three, twenty four, five, twenty six
year olds. But he's playing againstall he's not playing. So what's he
gonna do. He's gonna transfer right, jump in the portal and go somewhere
else. If you do have successas a freshman, what are you gonna
do? You're gonna look to goto a higher level. So the college
a lot of college coaches right nowin the D two and ani and D
three level are actually recruiting kids insuch a way that they're telling the kids,

(53:52):
hey, come here, be reallygood, and if you're really good,
I'll help you get to the nextlevel. It's a it's a farm
system. I mean that's what it's. It's a Major League Baseball farm system
where you just keep moving up levels. Is there a fix for this?
Can you fix the college or isthis something that we just got to live
with. I think we're gonna haveto live with it for I don't see

(54:14):
any fixed for it. I feelbad for high school kids because right now,
like we went to Shelbyville, Kentuckythis last weekend, and one of
the reasons we went I have twoyoung men in our program who I think
are very recruitable. I think they'dbe really good college player. Uh yeah,
Nate reep And and Henry mcgainn ourpoint guard i've been. Nate's probably
the best athlete I've ever coached atOak Kills. Henry McGain probably has the

(54:36):
best work ethic I've ever had ano'k Kills. And Henry's a little bit
undersized as a point guard, buthe shoots the ball and is as skilled
a kid as i've had. Butright now, we went to Shelby Galling,
I was really disappointed in how manycoaches we're even out watching them play.
And when we've gone to AU tournamentswhere college coaches have been allowed out.
I've been disappointed even the D threecoaches, D two, there's been

(55:00):
there's been D D one coaches whowon't even go off campus right now.
The Radford coach right now, hesaid, I haven't sent my staff off
campus one time this entire recruiting yearin the spring. First of all,
they have to recruit their own guysback, but he just hadn't. They're
they're looking at video, or they'regoing off of recruiting experts, or they're

(55:21):
just simply going with the portal.And that's I just don't know if there's
a fixed for it. I wishI could tell you there is. I
just don't see one right now,other than young men, if you really
want to play, go where youcan play, and that might be D
three. Even though, like Ithink Nate, Nate is a little bit
highering where he's been recruited right now, and I think Henry's been higher than
he's been recruited. But it's notmy choice, and it's I'm not it's

(55:45):
not my job. Yeah, myson played with Nate growing up. Where
is he is he getting some looksfor he's been offered. He's got an
offer from Kentucky West and his otherD two's he's been. He went to
Kent State last week on a visit. But to me, Nate, you
know, in the old days,Nate would have been a low level D

(56:06):
one. Is he six five six? He's about six six right now.
He's easily six. He's easily sixlong. I've never had anybody that he
counts as dunks on our program.He made sure he reminded me he overachieved
on the dunk line. He's sucha good personality too. I love that
gettle. He's if you think he'spersonal, will wait till you see his

(56:27):
brother coming up. Oh boy,he's got a younger brother in eighth grade.
Who who oh. I just waswith him all week in our youth
league and point he a character too. But Henry, to me, is
a definite D two. I've hadother coaches tell me that, but no
offers yet. Some interests, alot of D three interests. But it's
just the way it's working right now. And I think it also makes players

(56:51):
be more patient. And you're gonnasort of have to wait till the end
of the year, you know.I think that's a good message coach for
a kid to say, Look,a D three team that has coached really
well. You're going to be arounda great system. You're going to learn
like that's better for a kid.Then go into like a really bad program

(57:12):
at a higher level where you're goingto be around people like go where you
fit in, Go enjoy college.Go to a place that you're going to
be successful in the classroom and you'regoing to be happy. That's not such
a hard selling point in my mind, right. I mean, I know
kids have people have egos or thinkingI'm not a D three, Well,
what's wrong with that? I know, Well, at first of all,
I don't think most of them knowwhat D three looks like and how good

(57:35):
that level is and how well,yeah, I mean where I went.
I went to Wittenberg, so Iknow, you know I went there and
we had all state, we hadall Americans, we had all city,
everybody was and most most good Dthrees. You're going to have all of
that and more. But I thinkthe kids the other thing I always want
to stress with kids when they cometo us in aau, even in high
school, why do you want togo play? Do you play because you're

(57:59):
gonna guess and that's a status thingor do you play because you fit academically,
it fits who you are, andyou love the game and you love
what you're going to do networking andrelationship wise by playing a sport in college.
And there's only you know, likesix percent of basketball players ever go
play college basketball, right, sothat's six out of one hundred. That's

(58:20):
a it's a special opportunity. It'sa special thing to do. And I
don't know if everybody truly understands whatthat means. And then they all say
we'll go, I'll go anywhere,and know they won't. They typically want
to go where they can play,or they want to go close to home.
But they all say, yeah,I'll go. It doesn't matter how
far or whatever. Yes it does, it does matter. Well is it

(58:40):
time? Is it? Is ittime to jump in? For all?
Right? Coach? We do thisthing on our program every every pod,
and you're going to be in thehot seat here for a minute. It's
one of those things where the firstthing that comes to your mind, that's
that ink block test, the Ruorshacttest. We're going to ask you a
question and what do you see thatI remember that one? Oh so Pat

(59:05):
put him on the hot seat let'sroll with it, all right, coach,
I'm going to assume that there isgoing to be some knowledge outside of
the basketball world, right, I'mgoing to assume that you know exactly so
like he did say, he's prettyboring. I know, I know,
but I'm going to assume that thereare some things that some of these questions
that are that are might I mightstretch you. You might have to use

(59:27):
your imagination in some respects. ButI'm hoping that you get outside the gym
every once in a while. Allright, just what I know you can
answer? Go to order Nick andThoms, go to order Ruben and potato
soup. Oh, the potato soupis ship. They have really good potato

(59:50):
soup there. I was gonna recommendthat if yeah, now, how many
how many times a week? Howmany times of a weeks you go to
Nick and Thoms him, I'm afour. But I also meet Mike Grody.
Mike Groty is a really good Fridaya liver transplant back in back in
January. So I try to meetMike once a week for dinner. I

(01:00:12):
missed this week unfortunately, but soit's usually once for dinner and probably Tuesday
through Friday for lunch. That's prettygood, all right, first question.
He did pretty well on second question, A crush. I need a crush,
some female that you crushed on,celebrity that you freaking just couldn't do
without, like when you were ayounger Mike Price, before you were a

(01:00:36):
coach. Right, so somebody likeyou know, that's better because I've been
really unlucky with all of that.That is a hard one. So someone
you thought, maybe who was hot, like Nancy Sinatra her boot, Yeah,
you know, something like that,Nancy, Nancy Ragon just say no,
No, I've struck out because mostof the women I d it all

(01:01:00):
moved. They all moved up toa different area. They'd two of them
went up to Mason. They gotaway far far from me. They jump
into transfer portal, Yes, gotaway from me, but more up in
Mason. That's a hard one.It would probably have to be, uh

(01:01:21):
be a basketball case. Oh god, gotcha. But she is she is
secretly hot. I mean I couldn'tsee that, right you guys. Dribbling
basketball is making out. I couldsee that. And actually there was one.
There was one who actually moved upto Minster and won some state championships.
So she was all right, wasin the house if that would have
happened, because I wouldn't have wonstate, she would have. And there

(01:01:44):
have been a few arguments about that. All right, favorite cereal either now
or as a kid. Uh CaptainCrunch, God, yes, we were
talking about Captain Crunch today. Littlesometimes rough on your on the top of
your mouth, but uh him good. It's a little rough up. It

(01:02:06):
scratches, it scratches sometimes. Uhso this is And now I'm assuming that
you watch TV or something. Favoriteshow coach? Oh yeah I do.
Andy Griffith, Wow, gotcha.Love love Barney. He's so good.
If you could watch any player liveor dead, who would it be?

(01:02:32):
Free ticket? Free ticket. AfterI got to watch him a little bit
with the Royals, but I wouldlove to be able to watch him again
because I don't think when I watchhim with the Rolls, I really appreciated
all of his accomplishments, and thenI love to be able to I talked
with him, I actually got thecoach with him for a short time,

(01:02:53):
and he was not God. God, I'm sorry for saying he wasn't a
great high school kid coach because heexpected every baby as good as he was
yeah, and uh yeah, andhe was. He was unbelievable as a
person to talk with. But I'dlove to just sit down and talk with
him about his life experience too,because obviously athleticism off the charts, but

(01:03:15):
to talk about his basketball IQ fora minute, like, uh, it
was, it was, it wasincredible. We would you know, he
would stop practice and tell the tellthe players things that you know, I
had never imagined and just think andI even listened to like even uh pro
coaches right now and just we dopodcasts and basketball immersion and different websites,

(01:03:37):
and it just amazes me the thingsthat we don't think about as high school
coaches or we're not even close toin terms of detail and the game itself
and how to how how to perceiveother players and how to how to understand
what what what you can do offensivelyand defensively when you're reguarded by somebody.
Just anything and everything he was.He was phenomenal, but he was also

(01:04:00):
sort of nasty about it with thekids. He probably did it in more
a preaching negative way, like whydon't you understand this that that kind of
way, versus trying to help himAnd I get it because he did play
at such a high level. Butthere's an art of teaching, right,
and sometimes the people, the peoplewho are really really great at it,
they just uh sometimes I think theydon't have the patience for it to teach

(01:04:21):
and skill. Yeah, Bret'll knowthis. I think to be a good
coach you have to be a teacher. And I think to be a teacher,
uh, certainly being a coach helpstoo. I think that both.
Yep, couldn't agree more, couldn'tagree more? Go to snack or nutsts?

(01:04:45):
No, no, no, no, no, any there's a lot
of them. Unfortunately, if youlook at me, you'd understand that you're
good. Usually some kind of depth. Uh, usually like chili cheese dep
right now. Oh yeah, yeah, that's a good one. Chile sometimes
all right, I was thinking orsomething skull or bandits or something like that.

(01:05:08):
Now you're talking about like I didn'tsee, like with a spinner on
the side at the court side.Get some good homeless yeah, get some
tobacco free campus, thank you,thank you? Uh all right, coach.
Do you believe in ghosts? Oh? Uh no, not really.

(01:05:28):
I did when I was young becauseI think my grandparents house had all those
day, that old furniture with thesheets on it. I didn't I was
young. As I got older,I think, yeah, I got.
I think I got a litt buddyrunning around my house. He's like four
or five. I know that he'saround sometimes one hundred percent. I do,
all right, Get two more?Uh? What game show do you

(01:05:50):
think you would do really well init as a guess, as a contestant,
and you being a business guy.I have some some ideas for you,
but I don't want to do Iwant to leave the witness here.
I wish I could say Jeopardy,but I don't know Trivia that well.
But I love Will of Fortune,so Bill of Fortune maybe or the ten
thousand dollars twenty thousand dollars now Pyramid? Yeah, Shark Tank. You fan

(01:06:14):
with the business? Yeah I am, yeah, Yeah, I love that.
That's a good show. That's reallyhere's a hot tip. If you
want to impress someone and you've invidethem over their house, right and then
go to I think Netflix has Jeopardyon it. Just put it on,
watch the episode two or three times, right, and then put it on
and act I gets some TV.Just be like banging out the answers.
Yeah, well what was that groundholeday? That was a great? That

(01:06:35):
was a great. The only wayI have to I have to do that
preparation thing again. That has tobe on somewhere. Last question, you're
of a hot seat coach. Youmentioned a lot of names. Can you
think of the best high school athletethat you saw? It could be a
basketball player, like the best highschool athlete or player that you've seen in

(01:06:57):
the Cincinnati area, best high schoolbasketball player. Yeah, justin Dolman.
Well, uh, I had achance to coach him. Where was the
problem? That's right? Played eightyou for us and I remember uh telling
them that mine and Xavier guys.I said, there's somebody pretty special.

(01:07:18):
He's going to be under the radara little bit. And uh j d
He had a great career at Xavierand Hall of Fame and then went over
to Europe and played over there.I think probably the second best would be
Brandon Hunter, but I didn't coachhim for any more than about a month.
I got to coach him too.I've never had anybody rebound like he
could. And he was a charactertoo, he was he was a character.

(01:07:41):
Mike. I'm not sure if youknow, but Sean Miller on his
podcast he told the story of you, uh of you recommended Justin Dolman to
him and then up he ran itup the flagpole up to coach Mada,
and that was pretty cool. Iwas pretty proud when I was listening.
Every time there's a new episode ofthe Sean Miller pod that comes out.
We had Adam Bauman, who's theco host of it. We had him

(01:08:01):
on a few episodes back and soI listened to every one of their their
pods and I had a little bitof glit in my eye when he was
talking about you recommended Justin Doleman andPat Marty and I are big Xavior fans,
so that was pretty cool. Andthe new thing about back in the
day in au we used to haveopen gym and we were allowed to have
everybody from any school and we literallywould have coaches lined up and you know

(01:08:24):
the new gym Brett, but we'dhave coaches chairs lined up from one baseline
to the other and they'd be playingsideways. But there'd be college coaches from
Ohio State, Xavier, Indiana,or Wake Forest, Florida. They would
come in to watch our open gymbecause again no shoe circuit, but all
those guys and we'd invite everybody elsein Cincinnati who was good too. We

(01:08:45):
had numbers on them. Kathy Ray, Justin Ray's mom, would do a
hospitality room for the coaches. Wow. It was pretty cool to see and
a lot of players got opportunities becauseof the because of those open jumps.
Speaking of Justin, how's how how'she doing? And talk a little bit
about you know how he came upthrough your program and over Thomas Morenow,
yeah, Justin, we were luckyto get him. He came from our

(01:09:09):
lady at Lord's and we don't geta lot of good pro kiel players necessarily,
but Justin came to Kills and cameup through our program. Played AAU
for me as well. Was afootball, basketball player, multi sport kid,
really good quarterback, great punter,had a chance, in fact,
maybe to go to college to punt. Decided to go to Christian Brothers when

(01:09:30):
he graduated, decided he didn't wantto get a real job, so he
wanted to coach, and we gothim at Christian Brothers. He coached a
little bit at Wright State, wentto Mount Saint Joe with Toby and he's
done a great job with Thomas Mooreand sort of transitioned them into D two.
But he's a phenomenal young coach andI love talking with him. He's
really really good, really focused.He's fortunate to have a wife who allows

(01:09:55):
him to do that. His wifeis a lawyer. But just really proud
to him because he had a lotof adversity and in his young life and
and thought through all that to becomewho he is. Now. Yeah,
he was. He was always one. I never had him directly in class
or anything, but uh, buthe was a guy that I'd stop in
the hall and I you know,I'd I'd punch you in the arm as

(01:10:15):
he walked by, and and heknew I was a coach and everything.
And he had a ton of personality. And you can see exactly why he
why he fits in so well atthat level Division three now Division two and
and recruitings everything at that level,and and justin I can see him,
you know, have been very successfuland eventually moving up. I really can't.

(01:10:35):
I had him in class a lotof no doubt. Now, well,
coach, thanks for joining us tonight. This has been awesome. I'm
glad, Pat and Marty got tomeet you. I you know you and
I we we talk a lot inthe mornings, uh, before everybody else
is beating down the doors to getinto the hallways. We're always the first

(01:10:56):
ones there. And and Pat Marty. You guys don't know, but I
pull into the parking lot every morningat seven am, and I've got to
drive by the gym, and whetherit's in season out of season, there's
anywhere from ten to twenty players ofMike's that he has in the gym.
They've got the uh, they've gotthe gun out there getting up extra shots.
They're doing you know, ball handlingdrills just and especially during the season,

(01:11:21):
you know, when when guys couldbe sleeping in and getting rest,
they're in there getting up extra shotsbefore school. And so it's something that
as I drive in, I peekover my left shoulder and there's Coach Price
sitting there at the table and he'sin it to help the kids. And
I think you saw that tonight.And so Mike, thanks thanks a lot.
We we really appreciate you coming onand sharing your stories in your background

(01:11:42):
and all that. It's been alot of fun. Thank you. I've
had a great time thanks, thanksto all for meeting problem. Well,
I will see you, if notsooner, I will see you on Friday,
August ninth when we go back toschool. All Right, I stress
the Friday for a reason, ifyou know what I'm saying. Okay,

(01:12:04):
thanks coach, appreciate it. Havea great rest of your summer. Thanks
coach. All right, I'll start, so, how humble is this guy?
Like as soon as we start talkingabout his staff, he gave all
the credit to his assistance. It'slike, Michael, I'm telling you,
I'm telling you Mike relationships with thekids. He's in it for the right

(01:12:25):
reasons and there's no secret to it. This guy is in it for the
right reasons, and uh, it'sreally really good Rushmore style. Coach might
have been percent were not going toagree with you more and the success follows
people that people really love, Likewhy today you work for him? Why

(01:12:45):
did it work in city of Cincinnati? Why did it work? Because Mike
Price? Because people will follow him. He coaches, He coaches hard.
People see that when when you're whenyour parents, you guys were all parents
of athletes, like you want tofollow, like I want my kid to
play for him because of the waythat they coach, the way that they
treat the players, and uh boy, just a special guy. And you

(01:13:06):
can definitely, uh feel that,you can definitely see that and just like
the passion, just like just andit was just g awesome. And Pat,
here's what I'll tell tell both ofyou guys, Oakill's basketball in the
program. It's not for everybody,and you have to be willing to commit

(01:13:30):
to their program. When I meetby the program is the fact that you're
you're not just going to show upand come to the gym after school and
play basketball. You're gonna commit tothe to the summer program. You're gonna
you're gonna be going to the elementaryschools and you're gonna be reading the second
grade classes, and you're gonna bedoing service projects and you're gonna develop yourself

(01:13:54):
as a total person. And andthat's what his pro that's what the OA
Kills basketball program is about. Andthere's been a lot of people and I'm
not going to give any names oranything, but there's been a lot of
people who have been players, whohave been great athletes that it wasn't for
them and they kind of fell bythe wayside or the parents thought, why
do they need to do all this? Why they need to do all that?

(01:14:15):
Well, as coach said when hefirst started, it's about developing the
entire player, right. How's itwork? Get kills with multi sport athletes?
Mike's great. Mike is great.He he he has and I spent
six years of my coaching career there, and Mike really really enjoys having multi

(01:14:36):
sport athletes. He's had soccer basketballplayers, he's had football basketball players,
he's had basketball baseball players. Hedoes a nice job of working with those
guys and working around their schedules alittle bit. They do a lot of
off season development and like he's like, he told you, they are not

(01:14:58):
going to win the warm up life, So what they have to do is
they have to do a lot ofskill development. And that skill development might
require being in the gym for anhour in the summer after they came from
football workouts, or an hour beforethey go to soccer workouts in the evenings
or whatever it is. But heworks around their schedules and he's very accommodating

(01:15:19):
with that because he realizes that,you know, you only get one go
round, and if you want tobe a multi sport athlete. That's fine,
but we're going to do our bestto develop you as a basketball player
while you're still still developing and preparingto play in your fall sport. So
he's great with that, I meanhe really is. Yeah, without a
doubt, Mount Rushmore. We areon Twitter, TikTok, Insta, and

(01:15:42):
YouTube. Find us on Twitter attf TS Underscore podcast that stands for Tails
from the Script Underscore Podcast. Samewith TikTok TFTs Underscore Podcast, same with
Insta TFTs Underscore podcast, and onYouTube Pals from the Script seven at gmail

(01:16:02):
dot com. While we're at it, we want to take this opportunity to
thank our executive producer, Joe Streckerand Joe Strecker Productions for pushing buttons,
recording, editing, and making usthree idiots sound like we know what we
are doing. No doubt, he'sthe best in the business. Also want
to thank our awesome marketing department headedup by Vice President of Marketing Liz McMahon.

(01:16:29):
She does a great job of makingsure that everything looks great for us.