Are there specific areas you focus on?
I try to focus on different areas. One day on the road, I’d focus on communication skills, so I’d go to a school and teach them how to get along with students and the parents of students, and the students I’ll work with at night, what they’re looking for, what are their concerns and solutions and what are their problems. That’s very important. Because in this league, you’re always competing against your buddies, and you’re always competing with the competition that you have on the street.
We talk a lot about communication. It’s always important to say what you mean. If you don’t say what you mean, people aren’t going to come in with a solution. There’s an art to saying what you mean. I always try to tell people when I have a problem or concern that they shouldn’t be afraid to ask me.
The next day, I might talk about finances. Or if I felt frustrated, I could go to a restaurant, talk to the guys there who work there the day they work, what they might want that would be better for me than what I have to work with, what my options are.
I had a great relationship with former owner George Greer and I still have a very good relationship with him. He was very loyal when he came in at a time that was challenging times for the club and also for our players. He said he wanted to win and he got it. He put a lot of the staff together to coach the squad. The guys got their hands dirty. The players got a chance to practice, get better and I think they improved, too.
My dad is a friend of George Greer. He worked in his office at the time, a bank. My dad has coached for 30, 40 years but he also is my coach.
But at the end of the day, what got this club where it is nowadays is the relationships George and I worked out over the years. We have some great relationships and really, you can’t get much better with that kind of support. So I have a lot of trust in that.
When you’re competing for championships, a lot of times you have friendships with all the good coaches. But you also have people outside of coaching that you trust as family members. How important is family?
You have a lot of people that you can look up to and talk to. Just having people around you for 24-
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