Tell Parents the Truth About Playing Time

[0:00] Not everybody's going to play. We're going to play nine guys. So, what I did is we tracked all our preseason stats and I told our parents, "Hey, this is exactly what it looks like on paper. This is exactly what your kid shot. Your kid shot one for 27 in the preseason. There should be no questions based on is he getting on the court or not, but these are the things that I am doing to help him improve and he'll have opportunities during the season to show his improvement." But I think if you're willing to have uncomfortable conversations, um, you you can really build a great relationship. Hey guys, welcome back to the Wear Sport podcast. I'm your host Danch and I'm also the founder of Vesport. Uh, but again, if if you want to know about Vesport, you could go Google up. I'm not going to be pitching about Vport because the next 30, 45 minutes, whatever how much, however much time we talk about is going to be about this

[0:52] uh gentleman with me right here, right now, James. And uh I'm excited to have this conversation. Thanks uh for hopping on, James. Can we start with a quick introduction? Yeah, so my name is James Craig. um on the younger side, actually 28 years old, originally from Rochester, New York. I'm the head coach at Notre Dame here in New York State. Um this is the first year of our prep basketball program. And I'm also I also have some background in the prep basketball, NCAA coaching, and I also am the director of an of a grassroots program that's on the Under Armour circuit. So, I have the flexibility where I've actually touched every every little bit of the the grassroots high school basketball industry. And how many athletes do you work with, James? At school,

[1:41] we have 16 guys on our roster, but between school and my program, I would say on a yearly basis, probably around 50 kids a year. Wow. And how do you guys retain u kids? So, obviously, we're living in a age of distraction. We're living in an age of u you know short attention spans. So what what's the secret sauce behind retention and yeah what strategies do you guys apply? Um it's really big. Experience for me is huge. Um I came up in a program uh called RSBA growing up and the director of that program was all about experience. Um, I remember just just having great experiences, dealing with great management, and that's something that I've I've brought with me. Um,

[2:33] I have great relationships with our parents. I'm really really transparent about everything. Like, I'm not the coach who says we can't have a conversation about playing time. I I care about your kid on the court. I care about your kid off the court. Um, and I'm willing to answer any questions. Um, and that that's the key for me. If you have great relationships, people are more likely to want to stay. they'll believe in what you're building, especially if you have a vision and and plan for their for their young athletes. Amazing. I I want to go deep into this. So you so a big part of what you're mentioning is u I guess maintaining that good communication. What separates good communication versus bad communication? How if someone else is watching this podcast and they want to be better at communicating, what do they do? The first step

[3:22] in my opinion and some people some people really struggle with this is you have to be okay with uncomfortable conversations. Um people want to be told the truth. People always think one thing especially about their athletes. You think one thing about your athlete but you want to be told the truth. So if you can sit down and have a real conversation about hey this is where your kid is today, right? This is where your kid is today but this is a realistic plan that I see for him. these are the steps that I want to do to try to help him get there. And then I want to get your feedback. I want you to tell me what you think. Right now we have a 16 guy roster uh at school. Not everybody's going to play. We're going to play nine guys. So what I did is we tracked all our preseason stats and I told our parents, "Hey, this is exactly what it looks like on paper. This is exactly what your kid shot. Your kid shot one for 27 in the preseason. There should be no questions based

[4:15] on is he getting on the court or not. But these are the things that I am doing to help him improve and he'll have opportunities during the season to show his improvement. But I think if you're willing to have uncomfortable conversations, um you you can really build a great relationship with not just the parents but also the players. And in other words, uh uncomfortable conversations, a big part of that is honesty. So, what you're essentially saying is being honest yet having an action plan or a correction plan on this is where we stand, but this is what we can do to get where we want to be. You got it. You got it. It's very big. Like, if you're going to tell a parent that their kid is not that good, you got to have a plan to get their kid a lot better. They they really appreciate that. And so do the young athletes. I say it all the time. The big thing is we were all

[5:06] athletes before. Uncertainty is the worst thing for a kid between the ages of, you know what I mean, 12 and and really 21 years old. If I can give you certainty of where you are and help you build the plan on where you're going, you're going to believe in what I'm doing and you're going to show up every day giving me your best. Yeah. No, I'm just uh thinking about it even more. And I guess what's what's the role of technology uh James in communication? because I assume a lot of your communication is digital. So, how do you keep up with tons of communication going around? Are there any tools you use? Like what's the role of technology? So, I would say for us it's so weird. The communication is huge and technology helps because we have players from all over. I have

[5:54] kids from China. I have kids from Australia. We're international kids. Yes, international kids. So, we're in different time zones when I'm communicating with their parents. So what's huge for me is g give me a second. So you are you guys have kids like they physically are in other countries? No, no, no. They've come from other countries here and their families are still in families. Okay. Yes. So it's huge. Um being able to communicate with them in terms of like we have group me for big group messages. That way I can put something out at 8:00 a.m. for for everybody to see. And then you know what I mean? What might be 900 p.m. for me I'm getting ready to go to bed is 8 a.m. for somebody in Australia. They have the ability to see it without feeling like they've lost a beat. And then obviously if you deal with international uh anything international,

[6:43] you know, WhatsApp is huge. Um keeping my phone super available anytime somebody needs to get in contact with me um is really a big part of that as well. Yeah. No, that's that's similar. Uh again I I guess sharing our communication stack in Vport. So we have two two things. One is obviously a one-way communication for announcements and stuff. So we have email, SMS and WhatsApp. So we added WhatsApp because obviously so so many parts of the population use WhatsApp and then we have inapp messaging obviously for two two-way communication. So as you were thinking about it uh it just I guess validated uh that we've done something good and the next layer that we've builded built uh James is translation so I want to know more about this from you. So what we've done is essentially

[7:39] you could be sending one message it automatically translates it to the language of the receiver. That's huge man that's huge. You you won't believe how many conversations I'm having where I'm using I'm typing a message in the chat GBT and saying hey translate this for Kobe and Mandarin. Hey translate this for mono in France. So you having some software that takes care of that work. It sounds crazy but if you can I say this all the time. I'm really big on on being efficient with your time. If you can take something off my plate that adds five minutes here, five minutes there, that gives me 20 more minutes to maybe break down film. That gives me 20 more minutes to go work out a kid. So like that is huge. And I don't think there's a lot of people doing that in the industry at the moment. Yeah. No. Ex. Exactly. And I think it's again, you know, people when people

[8:30] are building startups, they all have different motivations. Mine is just simple one line reducing time. That's it. every single action that any person on my team is doing, whether they're sales, marketing, tech, everybody should be aligned on one singular goal. How do we reduce time that you guys spend off coaching? That's it. And that's huge. People don't understand. I'm I'm trying to get my players to understand. I'm trying to get my assistant coaches to understand. Efficiency with your time is the key in in this industry. Being efficient with your time, managing your time. So having anything that can help do that is a gold mine in my opinion. Talking more about this James, we talked about what efficient system is a little bit. Tell me all the inefficient things in the

[9:22] system right now. All the challenges, all the gaps, or in other words, every single thing that's sucking your time right now. I could make a list. Let's make on and on. The first thing I would say truly is having international kids. Uh having a a real successful way to communicate on a consistent basis is number one. I feel like that's something that's huge. It's it just takes time and obviously these guys get better with the language as time goes on. But that is the first thing 100%. In our program um we don't have I say it all the time, time is the most valuable thing in our program. time is very valuable because our school doesn't have three gyms like other schools. So, we have to balance our time out where we practice every single morning at 6:00 a.m. Every morning we

[10:13] get up, we're going at 6:00 a.m. because the gym might be in use after school and I want to give our guys as much time as possible if they want to have extra workouts in. What takes up my time that I'm looking to build on my own is how can I help these guys get better when I'm not in the gym? If I can have something where it's an allin-one shop where I can have workouts per position where these guys don't need me every day and I can be doing something else over here while these guys just can look at it and say, "Okay, this is what coach assigned me to do today." That would finish so much time. The amount of time it takes me to build a weight room workout for these guys. One, if we had a rough day, okay, now we need a recovery day. Now we need it. It just if we have a one-stop shop where there's something out there that can help you save time and build

[11:03] those programs, I think that lifesaver. I I've never done this. So I told you we've recorded 15 podcasts. I have recorded 15. I haven't done this but I want to screen share. I want to show you and I want to get critique from you if this is what you're describing. So we have this component called the learning hub. You tell me is this what you're talking about? Can you see my screen? Yes. So essentially this is a drills tab. So this is I've chosen basketball. So you can drag players uh you can drag coaches etc etc. So you can almost make like a you know like a running animation however you want. Uh and you can add like different steps. So each time you add a step something could be moving the ball could be moving something something. And again essentially

[11:51] it's building you know like a animation. And the second layer to it is a practice builder. What sort of I thought you were describing which is you can take the drills plus other stuff. So you could add a text block, you could add a video, you could add a PDF, you could add a voice recording, u whatever, a whiteboard, anything. So you can almost make a practice plan and or or and we also have AI obviously help you build it faster and then you can assign this plan that you make to athletes. Oh, that's huge. So, on the app, they get a notification that coach James had made this lesson plan and I've been assigned. And then when they see it and as they're doing it, you can also see accountability. So, you can exactly see who did it, when they did it. Uh,

[12:41] and another layer that we recently added is video analytics. So, you could also in real time upload videos as a coach and you can draw on those videos. is you can leave time snap timestamps and a bunch of stuff. So essentially why I wanted to show you this was because I thought this is something along the lines of what you were talking about. So you're you're basically creating a one-stop shop for everything coaches might use seven different platforms for and I think that that's huge and that was my first time taking a look at that. And it's like basically I just explained to you everything that we would need and you just showed me that you have it. That that's what I was thinking. I at the beginning I told you like this next 30 40 minutes aren't about bear sport but as you were speaking about it I almost felt like like you are the audience. Yes. That I'm

[13:33] building this for. Yes. Absolutely. Well, we we can get into this later then. I I'd love for you to get on this. Uh this is good. So you mentioned communication is big. Uh learning hub that I showed you is a big challenge. What what else uh James what else takes up your time? Or we can even take it a step further. If money, time, knowledge weren't constraints, what's the future that you see? like what's a futuristic thing for you that would be insane, you know? Honestly, it I'm it's it's not really in the future because some people have it like at the highest level it's there and I'm talking about more this is from a I'm a very analytics guy. I spend so much time watching film

[14:27] and then what I end up doing is I'm breaking down little details in film that the software doesn't do. Like I'm breaking down how many times people have dive dove on the ground. How many deflections are we getting in transition based on our hands being up verse not when we have opportunities when our hands are down. I feel like the next step if I had an unlimited amount of money and I had the smartest people on the planet I would have them develop a software where coaches whether it's football, basketball, baseball, they can type in what they're looking for in the software. Hey, I want you to tell me how many times and when we dove on the floor in this game versus how many opportunities did we miss and it spits out a number and it spits out a time stamp. I feel like the amount of time I spend watching and breaking down film to get different things I can see that

[15:16] I can share with our guys takes up so much time. I've watched the game three times, but now I got to go find a different thing. Now I got to go find something else. It's like if if somebody made that software. I I I definitely agree. I think video analytics is uh is huge. We have a component of it like I showed you like you could upload and analyze. And then we have another tab. It's called player development. I didn't show you that, but essentially you could keep track of how a player is developing, put in their notes and stuff. And we've added a voice thing. So you don't even need to type anything. you could be on your phone and you say it and it records it. But I I fully agree with you. I think and I I I think the interaction uh James feel free to correct me uh you know if I'm thinking differently but I think the future is deviceless almost uh like you everything I I

[16:13] I can imagine being voice- based where you it automatically like make takes a video you ask the question that you said and it gives you a response verbally or even prints out a PDF for you or something like that. Absolutely. anything that I'm really really like big on anything that saves time. The amount of time it takes me to type something up and then it takes me okay I got a backspace I spelled something wrong. If I can save time having a conversation like I'm really big on this. I love this part of interaction having a conversation. It I just feel like it's more genuine than a player seeing a text. if they can hear my voice and have a conversation, they may have a better understanding of not just what I'm saying, not just the content of what I'm saying,

[17:03] but also the tone of what you're saying as well. And that's huge. Yeah. No, incredible. Well, uh, good to hear that. It I I think it just makes me feel better that the mission I'm on, it's worth it's worth the effort that I'm me and my team are putting in. 100%. Thank you. I I appreciate that. Um I guess moving on from the you know tech tech side and moving uh more towards coaching. What do you think makes a good coach a good coach? Again we talked about communication being a part of it. Anything else that defines a good coach? Uh this is this might be a controversial take. Obviously I'm on the younger side of the coaching business. Long way to go. But to be a good coach,

[17:52] you have to be willing to be wrong. You have to be willing to be wrong. If you always think that you're right, there's not much room for growth. And there are a lot of coaches who who wake up every day and their players are not right. It's it's okay. I see it this way. It doesn't matter how anybody else sees it. Every single day, I text my assistant coaches and I say, "Hey, give me your top 10." And I want to know why they're your top 10. Convince me why my top 10's wrong. I want to be proven wrong every day because it gives me different perspectives. It challenges me every day to be a better coach. I feel like the best coaches wake up every day and they want to know what they did wrong that day so that they can improve for their guys. I wake up every day and it's I'm trying to get better, not for myself. I'm trying to get better for the 16 guys I coach. I want to

[18:40] put them in the best situation to be successful. And to do that, I know I have to challenge myself every day to get better. Wow. Yeah, I I I wouldn't have put it in any other words. I think you did an excellent job. U again, I I think it a lot of it comes down to honesty. You earlier we talked about honesty with others. Here you talked about honesty with yourself. The key theme in both things is honesty. Uh because if you're delusional or you don't accept the reality the way it is, u you wouldn't get where you want to be. Or in in other words, like whenever we use Google maps, Apple Maps ways to get to where we want, it needs to know where we are so that it can Yes, absolutely. That's a great analogy. Uh the two biggest things in our program, if you walked

[19:32] into our gym, our players would tell you, "We want to be tough. We want to be together." But they would say, "Coach Craig cares about one word more than anything, and that's accountability." I'm really big on it. every single day. You're going to be accountable for your actions. I'm going to be accountable for mine and we're going to get better. I think my players more than and I'll say this like any program in the country, my players are okay with confrontation more than anybody else. They respond to it the right way because I'm going to try to hold them accountable every single day. And that's because in life, you have to be accountable for your actions. That's whether you go into the workforce, whether they go on to play in the NBA, it doesn't matter. You have to learn accountability for yourself. And that comes, it starts with me, right? We lose a game, the first thing I have to do is I don't like having big postgame speeches. In high school,

[20:22] I had a coach where we would lose and he wants to talk for 30 minutes after the game. You didn't even watch it. You have no idea what really went wrong. I don't like those speeches cuz I have no clue. I might think we did something wrong, but let me go watch. Let me see what I could have done better. And then I'm going to come back with a plan to get us better. But that takes me stopping and being accountable for my own actions and decisions. I'm going to say something. Uh again, it might be controversial, people might not agree with. Uh I'm also on the younger side. You're 28, I'm 22. Uh so we both I guess in the mid 20s or I'm in the early 20s, you're we we're both young, we both in 20s. A lot of people that I've met that I know of this generation are very sensitive. Yeah. Again, I I don't know how people take this, but I think there's this huge population

[21:15] that's super sensitive. Again, nothing wrong in being sensitive, but how do you overcome that sensitiveness so that they can receive feedback and instead of thinking why did coach James say that to me, they think this is right and this is what I need to do to correct it. Yes. Um I'm working on like I'm very big on communicating but not everybody's the best communicator, right? I had a player uh he's currently playing college basketball and he says this all the time. He tells everybody I've ever coached. He say, "Hey, ignore the first three words out of his mouth and listen to the last seven and he'll have a great message for how you get better." And it's like that's huge because you you he's focusing, okay, I'm not going to be worried about the way

[22:04] he says it. I'm not going to be worried about his first three words of him calling me lazy. I'm going to be worried about, okay, he called me lazy, but he's saying, hey, you got to dive on the ground there. That's an opportunity for us. That's huge. And I'm working through that. I have some really sensitive people between my program. Let's just say that. And we're working through how can you take feedback without taking it to the heart. I I told the kid this the other day, like, I love you to death. I tell my guys, I love you. I want the best for you, right? But for me to get the best out of you, we're going to have to have tough conversations every single day. My team captain yesterday, we have a yoga instructor. Our yoga instructor called me after cuz I wasn't there. She said, "Hey, this was the worst the guys have ever been. They were so unfocused. I walked into the gym and the first person I got on was my team captain. He was perfect in yoga. He was

[22:56] not a he was not a distraction. He was focused." But I said, "Why are you not locked in?" I said, "You're not upholding our standards when I'm not around." And that's unacceptable. I didn't talk to anybody else, right? I only talked to him because I I have to you have to be accountable for our program because he wanted to be a leader for us. And he looked at me and he said, "Coach, you know what? I understand and I apologize." End of conversation. And I know I don't have to talk to him about it again because he he really understands and he does a good job accepting feedback. Yeah. I also don't like working with uh people when they get too defensive because then they're not getting the point because as you also said I think there needs to be a conscious awareness that you have no other incentive of giving them feedback but to improve them

[23:45] and the team like what what are you achieving from giving them harsh feedback or right like any any constructive feedback the only objective is that you want the betterment of them so that there is a betterment of team. That's it. So many exactly what you just said to me. I've never been able to put that into words. And I promise you tomorrow we practice at 6 a.m. That's going to be the first thing I say. I I kid you not, that's a perfect way to say it. I get nothing else out of telling you this other than you're going to get better and we're going to get better. So don't be offended by it. I I love the way you just put that into words. You're you're not making like any money or you're not making like you don't sleep better when you in fact I have I've noticed I'm

[24:36] also obviously you know a leader and I also have siblings. I feel like when I give constructive feedback and someone feels bad, I also feel bad. Like it's not that that night I get better sleep because I know I might have been harsh but the intention was good behind it. There's no other reason. If if people understand, especially my players, one of my guys going through a tough time and if he understands that the tough conversations I have with him, when I come home, I'm talking to I'm talking to my mom, I'm talking to my girlfriend, I'm talking to my mentors. Like, how could I have better said this to them so that maybe it didn't come off as harsh? They don't understand that like this is something that I care about nothing more than I care about you, right? And I'm trying to get the best message across so that you understand it. So, like, absolutely. And

[25:28] what I'll say, man, is you said you're 22. People tell me I'm 45 in a 28-year-old's body. If I'm 45, you might be 50. You're you're wise beyond your years, man. I appreciate it. I I think I've just I don't know. I I think I've made a lot of mistakes and I had the right people, the right coaches uh to guide me starting from my parents, right? I I think they've been super honest with me, especially my uh dad. Moms always have, you know, like a soft corner. Uh but I think my dad has had a big uh role to play in how I've been shaped and I've also played sports myself. So I think I don't know but I I appreciate uh you saying that u but yeah I I think coming coming back to the point honesty is important our job at the end of the day is to be honest with them irrespective

[26:26] of the outcome. If we weren't honest just because of how they might perceive it then we're not doing our job correctly. Absolutely. So, no, I I I I love that, uh, James, and I I can see you're a very genuine person. Like, it's not easy for two people to have this kind of conversation. And we, for the record, we're meeting for the first time. First time ever hearing your voice. Exactly. And we seem so aligned uh on this and I I wish more people thought that way. I think again so so much people are afraid of you know criticism and those kinds of things. It's it's my I guess biggest uh what's the word? Pet peeve. Is that what it's called? It's my biggest pet peeve when people are

[27:16] too sensitive. Again I when this goes out people might be like whoa. But I I don't care honestly like u cool. Uh so I guess what's your uh ambition uh James? What's what are you looking forward to? What what do the next 5 years, 10 years mean for you and where do you want to be? Um that is a question that believe it or not I never answer that question. I have a goal board that hangs on my wall where it has my five and 10 year goals and I look at those every day but I try to remind myself that I have to focus on where I am. 5 years ago, I thought about nothing except for where I would be next. And I feel like when I was there, I wasn't giving the people in the moment the the

[28:06] time, the care, and the focus that they needed. So now, uh, the Nick Sabin documentary just came out and he said something great when he was at Michigan State. He was going to get fired. He met with sports psychologist and there was a message in there that I I literally have started living by. A a possession in basketball is on average 17 seconds. I live I like I live my life the same way I'm going to start coaching basketball. Possession by possession. Every 17 seconds is all I'm focused on. Every day is all I'm focused on. So right now, to answer your question, in the short term, I want to help the group of guys I have right now achieve their goals. And I want to help this school build a program that they can be proud of after I leave. Those are my two goals in the short term. And that starts by showing up every day. And that starts by making sure my staff is on point. And that makes

[28:54] sure making sure my players are on point. And then on top of everything, that means making sure that I'm on point. Um, I have to do those things to help other people. I have, in my opinion, I've been successful in the industries that I'm in. And that's because I do a good job where I am. If I do great by other people, if I continue to do a good job for other people, putting myself forward, being selfless, I feel like I will be blessed in return with the goals that I have in the long term. Love it, James. Love it. And there there's a book, I don't know if you've heard of it, the inner game of tennis. Uh it's a very popular book by Tim something. Uh but I one of the So I used to play tennis and one of the key lessons in that book was you got to focus on the next ball. That's it. What exactly what you were saying those 17 seconds like when you're serving you can't be

[29:44] thinking about the missed point or the upcoming point. Not even in fact that rally the next ball that's coming to you that's all your focus. Uh so I I love your philosophy. You mentioned uh James you apply this in other things that you do. Do you do uh some stuff outside of coaching? Like is this your full-time thing or do you also do something? This is this is my full-time job. I'm blessed to to be paid to be a basketball coach um and build a program. Um, I'm going to be honest. When my mom listens to this, she's probably going to yell at me again because I have no hobbies. This is it for me, man. I am, this is what I do all day. I eat, breathe, sleep. This is basketball. I love it. I I want to be the best that I can be at it. Um, and if I can find a hobby, like that'll be

[30:35] great because everybody keeps telling me I need one. I We We got to meet James. We're two similar. I am the same way like I'm so passionate about sport like I'm breathing sport the moment I wake up it's what we're both on the east coast it's 7:30 I haven't had a meal been working and I'm not tired nope I'm constantly thinking how do we make the website better how do we make the product better how do we you know we started this podcast so I'm also now doing a podcast but when you love something you don't need motivation to do it. I think this whole crap, if I may say, about motivation is a crap. Kids, kids need motivation. We need discipline and passion. That's it. So,

[31:30] my my former head coach, Dominic Parker, the head coach at RIT, and my former head coach, John Z, who was at Vermont Academy, they both said the same thing, and I live by it. You should not, nobody should have to convince you to do more about something that you say you love. I'm like I the worst thing I struggle with people who say they love something, who say they want something, who says this is their goal, but then you need constant reminders about how to get there. Like I walk into the dorms on campus some days and I'm knocking on guys doors at 8:00 p.m. like, "Hey, did you go get extra shots today?" No. Well, you told me you wanted you you wanted a scholarship and I haven't seen you in the gym in four days. I shouldn't have to remind you to go be great. And it frustrates me because listen, I wake up every single day pursuing

[32:22] greatness. Every day I wake up, I'm pursuing greatness. And happily and thankfully for me, I don't get there. If if you get there, if I achieve it too early, I want to stop working. I wake up every day pursuing it. I never get there. And it makes me want to go harder. I love it. I I think what we're both trying to say is hunger. Yes. Hungry people don't need reminders. Hungry people don't need motivation. They just do it. There's there's another uh thing we've been talking a lot of quotes. U Chris or I I don't know some speaker said this. It came on my reels that thinking about doing a thing is not doing a thing. Making a plan about doing a thing is not doing a thing and so forth and so on. only doing the thing is doing the thing. Uh listen, I think Kevin Hart said something very similar. The most successful people are the people who just failed the most

[33:16] because they weren't afraid to keep going. I have failed. I could we could spend a podcast talking about my failures in life, right? And I've just kept going. I'm okay with failing and falling on my face and being absolutely wrong and then waking up the next day and trying it again. you you have to the only way to get there is to start. You got to start. You got to wake up every single day and you got to try it. So that's I'm really huge on that. Yeah. You know you know Roger Federer, have you Yeah. He he had some commencement speech at Stanford. I think he said the same thing like what you just mentioned. I think he only again don't quote me on this but he only like made points on 47% or he only won like 47% of the po something along those lines but 47% or whatever number like you lose more but he's also won among like the top three grand slam champions right so

[34:17] Michael Jordan Kobe Bryant the list can go on you have to be okay with failing in So many people, especially our generation, our generation, in my opinion, is very afraid of failure. That word is like taboo and in our age range, and it's like there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with it. The biggest everybody's going to fail. How do you respond in the best athletes in the world respond the best to failure? Like that's something that Nick Sabin was going to get fired from Michigan State. He was losing games he should have won for a long time and he responded to failure the right way, right? He learned how to respond to failure and it changed the course of his career and now he might be the best coach in college football history. Yeah.

[35:04] Yeah. I think and it's it's visible when someone's doing it for the sake of it and someone's doing it with heart and soul into it. And I'm sure as a coach you can easily differentiate between both. What do you do? Uh James, when you see someone's not hungry, do you keep them on a team or do you try to evoke that emotion or do you like let them go? Like what's your process with that? There's people I can say this, there's people at my job, there's people on my team, there's people around me who are struggling to be around me every day because it's really hard to be around me if you don't show up hungry every day because I am just not that way. Like I'm not wired that way. the people I talk to consistently, I like we're all wired the same way. We just can't stop. We wake

[35:53] up, we can't stop. So when you're not like that, I just can't My brain can't even wrap around people who don't work hard. So like I'm like, it's just Yeah, I struggle with it. I do. It's something I have to get better with. I have to understand that not everybody is like I am, right? That doesn't make me right. That doesn't make me better than them. It doesn't make them worse than me. But I have to learn how to better communicate with people who just I would say aren't as hungry as I am. And the the worst type of person I hate, and I guarantee hate is a strong word I dislike, and I guarantee you can agree with this, are the people that tell you they're hungry, and you know that they're not. Oh, I want it. This is what I want. But you're doing absolutely nothing to get there. And I just those people just ah they just put me face. I 100% agree.

[36:43] And I think if you choose to be part of something and you're not giving it your all, I'd rather have you drop this. Save that time. Go spend with your family or with your girlfriend. They'll appreciate it more. Yes. Like I I also can't process of half in and half out. Like you're wasting so much my time. And forget me for a second. you're wasting so much of your own time that if you like playing video games, then go use that hour or 10 hours or whatever time there, they'll appreciate it more, right? I I might be so bad at this, but like if players ask me for time off or my assistants ask me for time off, I don't know. Go. Just go. I don't even want to be around you. I want to

[37:31] be here every day. If you want to go somewhere else, just see you see you when you get back. I just that's just not me. Like we we have a parent we have we have a couple games over Christmas and we have a parent who wants to bring their kid home for Christmas. They're going to miss I think like five games and parents asking me like, "Hey, is this okay? Will you be No, no, no, no. I'm not I'm not upset. I I'm just like I want people who want to be here all day every day like I do." And is that unreasonable? Maybe. Maybe it is. But those are the people I want to surround myself with. You're running a you're running a business. You're you're running a business right now. You want to be surrounded with people that are are as invested as you are, if not more every day, because that's how you're going to find success with what you're doing. And people ask me,

[38:19] I haven't taken a break in the past two years. I don't want to take a break. I So I told you I live or I don't know if I'm I I live in Atlanta, Georgia. My family is in Southern California. I just went home last week after 3 4 months. I was there for 4 days. I think although I regretted it later a little that I didn't spend enough time with my family as I should have but I was even as I was there on a break I think I spent more time working on sport. Yes. being there which is again from an outside world perspective and even family you know they might think that I'm overwork but the truth is if I did it's it's as important to me as breathing let's just put it that way if if I ask you this question what would you be doing if not where we're sport I have no idea

[39:13] what I would if I wasn't coaching I'd probably be homeless I have no I don't this is all I want every single single day. So, like it's hard for some people to understand that. Like I love the my girlfriend is the love of my life. I'm going to marry her someday. She struggles so much to understand that this is it. Like she supports me, but like she works. She likes to run. She likes to spend time with her family. She likes to go shopping. She can't understand that all I want to do every single day watch basketball, talk about basketball, coach. Like some people can't wrap their minds around the fact that like we're so obsessed. And you know what? Once I achieve the level of success that I want to achieve, then I will take a break. I will take a break. Say that again. That level. I don't know, man. Focusing on the dayto day. 17 seconds. Yes. Focused on

[40:06] these 17 seconds. But I'll know when I get there. And we're going to build a relationship. I like like I've gotten to know you. You'll know when I'm there, too, man. We'll all know. I'm I'm praying for your success, James. Uh I appreciate that. Nobody deserves it more than you do. Uh I think you have so much like I haven't met someone more similar to me than you. I've been in California. I've been at Georgia Tech. I've been here. I feel like I'm speaking to myself. Uh it's good being in a space where somebody understands me. Yeah. because yeah, I think there's less of us out there. Again, this is not I'm not seeing it out of arrogance or any other way. But I just don't see us like many people of us if that makes sense. Like nobody wants to talk about

[41:00] this thing. Everybody wants to be comfortable. They they want to sleep in and they want to uh I don't know play video games or I don't even know what what all people do because I I don't do them. I don't know what people do in their free time that you're absolutely right. But the truth is I think that we and this is why I do it and I talk to my players so much. I talk to my former players. I call them to check in on them. I feel like if we have more people to set the example of what it looks like, we'll have more people who do it. And that is kind of I feel like a lot of people just don't have that example set for them. Like I came from a really good household, don't get me wrong. Like my life I grew up well, but I watched my mom work so hard every single

[41:53] day, every day. So I know nothing else. I know some people who grew up in like their household was like very well off. Like mom and dad came home after work every single day. There were no extra out. So like they're used to an eight hour workday. Like oh I worked eight hours and stuff. I watched my mom work 12, 13, 14 hour shifts, man. So, it's like I watch my mom stay up at night working. I watch her do everything possible to give us the best. So, who am I to not work twice as hard as she did? It's a disservice to all the people that have believed in us and people who have uh played a role in getting us where we are. Absolutely. Uh yeah, it's it's a and it's it's as they say like it's a rent that's due every single day. Every day. Every

[42:44] day. Every 17 seconds as you might say. Literally every possession. Yeah. And and one of my players, my team captain, has something on his phone, his his screen saver on his phone, and like he's built like me. Uh his name's Jaden. He's built like me. And I stole his screen saver because it's true. He most kids have a picture of them shooting a picture of them and their girlfriend. This kid has a black screen and it says do it for mom and he every single day. He said this is every time I look at my phone I remind myself of this is why I'm doing it every single day and you have to he has a why. Well, and that's the question. Some people go through life with absolutely no purpose, right? I know what your why is. You're so invested in wear sport. You know what my why is.

[43:34] How many people can you ask that question to and they'll give you some longlaid out unorganized answer because they have no idea. Yeah. PE people are afraid of uh imbalance. I think that whole concept and it's it's a buzz buzz thing and everybody talks about work life balance. I think u you can't achieve unimproportional or whatever the correct English grammatical word is but like huge success unproport what again whatever without you know being in state of imbalance for a long time I think all the greats that we know we've seen you look at Kobe you look at Michael Jordan Roger Federer the greats of all games, they all share one thing, which is they don't

[44:27] live the same life as all the other athletes. Like, if you do what everybody else is doing, you're going to get what everybody else is getting. It's if you were in my group chat with my friends, they all say the same thing about me. They call me insane. Like, I You have to be You have to be insane to put in the amount of hours and work that we put in for something. But it's the only it I don't know another way to get to where I don't know another way for success. I've watched my life be work hard every single day and I've watched me get everything I've worked for. I don't know anything else. I went through a portion of my life where I I went through lost. I lost my father and I stopped working hard and I stopped working hard and I watched my life start to fall apart and it just reminded me like you you have to just work hard

[45:20] at everything you do. It's the only way. It's the only way. And then when I have a family someday, I want my kids to see every day dad is working super hard for the house. Dad is working super hard for us. My girlfriend doesn't want to work. She wants to be a stay-at-home mom, man. I gotta I gotta do something. The way the economy is right now, I have to be successful. Or what am I going to do? Tell her no. She can't watch her kids all day. Like, I have to. That's why I work hard every day. Yeah. No. Amazing. I I can't appreciate Grock enough that it found you. Yes. That invited you. And um whether it was God's plan or whatever, I am so grateful uh James that I met with you. Um and I learned so much from you and I want to I don't say it to everybody, but I want to stay in touch

[46:16] with you uh off camera. Maybe we can exchange numbers. I'll give you my number right after this, man. But I Yeah, I want to meet you someday. Uh I go to Atlanta every single year in July. We're meeting next time. Uh whether here, California, New York, I don't know, wherever. Uh we'll meet and it's it's going to be, you know, exciting exciting for me. And again, thank you from the bottom of my heart uh for coming and being so open about everything that you spoke about. Any last uh comments or questions? Anything from you before we No, man. Thank you. And and to be honest, I actually needed this more than I think you did. I needed to like I I'm very big in in in

[47:05] like what's meant to be. I needed somebody to talk to about how hard you have to work and I needed somebody to understand me. I needed somebody to be able to look at me and absolutely understand where I'm coming from with my level of sacrifice because right now I'm, you know what I mean? I moved away from my family. My my girlfriend still lives in my hometown. like I'm cheat I'm here by myself and nobody around me understands how much sacrifice it takes. So being on the phone, being on this with you today has reminded me that there are people like that out there and I'm not alone and I just got to keep going every day. So you have given me a refresh. I am good and ready to go. Man, I I appreciate it. I'm the I'm the same. I'm also living alone here in Midtown, Atlanta. My family's uh uh in California. I do obviously you mentioned sacrifice is so big I I think people don't see it.

[47:58] Nobody you know inherently enjoys sacrifice. We are choosing to be away from our loved ones. Uh I have and I'm sure you have done so too. I've sacrificed so many social occasions where all my friends are meeting up or doing something fun and I'm here sitting, you know, working. We're both in apartments by ourselves right now working. That's what we're doing. Exactly. Like you sacrifice sleep, food, peace of mind, uh I don't know, friendships. Uh obviously real ones stay who know that you're on for some reason. Uh but you do lose some I've lost some friendships but I think it's for the good those people like God removed from my life because they it's it's

[48:50] better like as I I think ambitious people like we need people more people like us around us. Anybody that sucks our energy please go away kind of thing. Absolutely. You are you the only pe like the the people closest to you are the people who push you every day. If you surround yourself by people who motivate you, you're going to wake up to want to do something better every day. Yeah.