Day 30 - Sharpen the Saw

Yesterday was the final day of 30 Days to a Championship. I feel great about the foundation that has been established and progress that has been made so far in my first month at Concordia. I know that we are going to be champions here, but I also know that it takes a LOT longer than 30 days to build that. This was the only the beginning and there are still months -- and years -- of hard work left before we get to where we want to be. With all of that in mind I spent some time thinking about what I wanted to accomplish on the last day of my first month as a head coach. Almost everything I hoped to accomplish or address in the first month has happened, but there were still plenty of things I could have either tried to finish or get a head start on yesterday.

Ultimately, the best way I could think of to spend yesterday was to "Sharpen the Saw". I referenced a few of Dr. Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People earlier this month, which is probably the best book I've ever read, and I try to incorporate those habits into my life as often as possible. I made honest efforts to: Be Proactive, Begin With The End In Mind, Put First Things First, Think Win-Win, Seek First To Understand Then To Be Understood, and Synergize. Of the 7 Habits, Sharpen the Saw is the one I always struggle with. As college basketball coaches, we have a 24/7/365 job. There aren't any specific off-days and your phone rings at midnight when a player or recruit needs help. It's so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day responsibilities and recruiting calls and never take some time to make sure the work you are doing is efficient and that you're performing at your best. So yesterday, I worked on what I needed to in the morning and I took the rest of the afternoon to read some articles about coaching and leadership and take care of some personal things. Now, I feel refreshed and I'm ready for the next phase in building a championship program at Concordia.

I appreciate all of the coaches, players, recruits, friends, fans and alumni that read this and followed our team for the last month - Thank you!

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Day 29 - "No"

For some reason my Monday was filled with having to say "No" to a number of different people. As an assistant, you usually aren't the one to make final decisions on things so you are rarely the one delivering the news that people don't want to hear. There were some high school coaches that wanted to get into our shootout this weekend, but we had already reached our capacity. There were a couple of guys who had been interested in joining the staff here, that for one reason or another it was not going to work out here. There were some teams that were planning to play us next season, but we don't have room in our schedule anymore. And, there was even a kid who waited outside my office wanting to walk onto the team next year that I had to talk to about how large our current roster is and the reality of his chances of making the team. It's never easy telling people what they don't want to hear, but I think some of the best coaches I've been around have a way of giving people the honest truth without being condescending or belittling them. Hopefully I was able to do that today.

With our shootout camp this weekend. I have a long night still ahead of me to make sure everything runs smoothly on Saturday!

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Days 24-28 - Weekend Wrap-up

I wasn't able to post updates for the last couple days because I was in Wisconsin for one of my best friends' wedding. We went to school together every year from kindergarten all the way through college. It's hard to believe that we started school together as 5 year-olds in 1989 and were able to stay friends through almost 2 decades of school together. The trip gave me a great opportunity to make some phone calls to recruits and coaches as well as some of our current and incoming players.

Before I left for the wedding I was able to finalize our high school shootout camp, place some gear orders and work on wrapping up our coaching staff situation.

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Day 23 - "An Opportunity a lot of guys never got"

Over the last couple of weeks I have received a lot of texts, calls and e-mails congratulating me on this opportunity. I appreciate every person who has reached out to me, but there was one call in particular that really resonated with me. I returned a call yesterday from a high school coach I used to play against as a player. There are a number of coaches I played against, that without really knowing them well I always had a lot of respect for based on the way they carried themselves and how their teams played. This coach was definitely one of them.

In the message he left, there were two phrases he said that really meant a lot: "You have an opportunity a lot of guys never got" and then he ended the message saying to "work to make the job bigger than it really is". The way he ended the message was just so perfect and fitting, because as I have been saying (and doing) for the last 23 days, my goal is to run this program as if it were a Division I program and to "do more with less". Hopefully, the longer I am here, the bigger and better Concordia basketball becomes.

I also know just how many coaches are out there that have paid their dues longer than I did; have more experience than I do; and probably deserved to be a head coach more than I did. His message was a great reminder of just how lucky I am to have this opportunity and just how important timing and being in the right place at the right time is.

After that conversation I was ready to get to work for the day. One of the biggest things I had to was meet with our player development coach about one of the ideas we had, and I am thrilled to announce we will be having Concordia Elite Camp later this summer on Saturday August 24th. If you are a HS or AAU Coach in the area or know some one who would be interested in some high level instruction from our coaching staff and an opportunity to visit campus and get more information about our university, you should check out the flyer.

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Day 22 - The Last Week

It's hard to believe that this is the last full week of 30 Days to a Championship. I'll be going to one of my friends wedding this weekend, so there's only 7 days left that I'll be in the office of this. I've noticed that with each day I have less to say about what is being done to lay the foundation of this program. That's a great sign because the list of things I hoped to accomplish is getting shorter and shorter, so there is a little bit less to work on each day. A good portion of the foundation has been put in place so most of the days are spent on a lot of areas that have already been covered, and of course, recruiting!

One of the things I am most excited about is that the staff is starting to finally take shape. I had a great conversation with someone over the weekend and he has agreed to join our staff. There are still some things that need to be finalized before I can announce it and make it official, but I am really excited about having him join our program! He is originally from this area, played at the Division I and professional levels and has been coaching at an area high school for the last few years. Adding someone with his combination of playing and coaching experience that knows the local area and talent is a home run hire for us.

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Days 19-21 - Weekend Wrapup

This weekend was a busy one for a variety of reasons. I spent a lot of time on Friday making some adjustments to a lot projects that had been started earlier this month and the deadlines are quickly approaching such as our upcoming camps and finalizing our uniforms for next season. We've got a great field of teams that will be competing in our High School Shootout Camp on June 15th and there's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that still needs finished up to make sure we have an excellent event. Over the weekend we had our first open gym of the summer so it was great to have some of our returning and incoming players back on campus and in the gym.

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Day 18 - Management by handshake

One of the best lessons I learned as an assistant coach was something my boss at Longwood, Coach Gillian, used to say quite a bit: "Management by Handshake". In today's digital age of cell phones, computers, e-mail and even skype it's really easy to avoid talking to people face to face, or even talking to them at all. Anytime you have an uncomfortable message to deliver or you are short on time you can just send an e-mail or text message. Don't get me wrong, the time-saving technology we have is a great resource; it just shouldn't be the only way we communicate with people.

When I was at Longwood, there were many times when I/we could have just sent someone an e-mail to relay whatever message needed to be passed on but Coach would come into the office and tell me we were going over to whatever department it was to tell them in person. Sometimes it might have honestly been something as simple as letting someone know we would see them at the soccer game that night. As an assistant, I really didn't understand why that was important and I am sure this won't be the only thing I didn't understand before becoming a head coach! But now I realize how important it is to take the time to be seen by people; how important it is to take the time to show people you care about them and what they have going on; and most importantly, that we're never too busy to give someone else a little bit of our time.

I spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon yesterday meeting with several people. I could have done all of this over the phone in probably half the amount of time. I could have just sent e-mails back and forth and used even less time. But for different reasons, it was important that I took the time yesterday to sit down across from those people and have real conversations with them. One of those people is actually the first person who is officially going to be a member of the coaching staff here at Concordia - Marv Fox, our Player Development Coach. Coach Fox is a former CUAA player and alum. He was on the staff last year, has a great relationship with our players and runs his own player development company Meticulous Basketball. I'm really excited that he is going to be on staff and can't wait to figure out the rest of the coaching staff in the near future!

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