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Taylor Siebert is in his second season as head coach of the high school boys basketball team in Heartland Community Schools (Henderson, Nebraska). He is also founder and CEO of Striv Education and has a long history in video streaming of school sports.
In this conversation, hear about:
- What taylor observed in his decade-plus working around high school sports
- Teaching, motivating, mentoring
- The culture he aims to build
- Getting players to become leaders and stakeholders in the culture
- Top skills to build
- Taylor’s recommended resource – SAVI Coaching: https://savicoach.com
Subscribe to Sideline Sessions to hear the rest of our fall-winter season. We’ll continue to bring you insights from diverse coaches across the sporting landscape. Subscribe here: https://sidelinesessions.transistor.fm/subscribe
About today’s guest
Taylor Siebert is in his second season as head high school boys basketball coach for Heartland Community Schools in Henderson, Nebraska. He is founder and CEO of Striv Education, a company that empowers educators with curriculum and coaching to effectively integrate technology with hands-on learning for students through broadcasting and digital media education.
Connect with Taylor:
About the host
Ross Romano is co-founder of the Be Podcast Network and also hosts The Authority Podcast. He began his career in the pro sports industry before becoming a leading communications, marketing, and management expert working with education companies. He is founder and CEO of September Strategies, a coaching and consulting firm that helps organizations and high-performing leaders in the K-12 education industry communicate their vision and make strategic decisions that lead to long-term success. He also works directly with professionals at all levels, in all industries, coaching them in their pursuit of success.
Are you a professional looking for insights to reach the next level, find a fulfilling new career, or achieve peak performance? You may be a candidate for performance coaching. Schedule an introductory chat here.
Creators & Guests
Host
What is Sideline Sessions?
Designed for coaches, parents and other stakeholders in the world of youth, scholastic, and amateur sports, this show brings you interviews with leaders at the highest levels of their respective sports.
Hear from coaches and performance experts with experience in the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Olympics, and NCAA Division-I, plus those who run elite youth programs, successful high school teams, and more. Hear about their motivations, philosophies, and strategies for success, and take away actionable insights to support the athletes in your life.
Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to another episode here of our first season of Sideline Sessions on the Be Podcast Network. So pleased to have you with us. We've got another great conversation [00:01:00] here today. My guest is Taylor Siebert. Taylor is the founder and CEO of Striv Education.
Strive focuses on empowering educators, integrating digital media and broadcasting education, preparing students for a digital future. And as a coach, he's entering his second year. This year is the high school head boys basketball coach for Heartland Community Schools in Henderson, Nebraska. That's a class C2 school there.
Taylor, welcome to the show.
Taylor Siebert: Yeah. Thanks Ross. Excited to connect.
Ross Romano: Let's start at the beginning. How'd you get interested in coaching? You know, you, so you're relatively new to this role there in the high school, but I'm sure you've been around sports most of your life. You know, what kind of piqued your interest and got you thinking about really getting involved?
Taylor Siebert: Yeah. Like most people, obviously you play the sport and basketball has been my love ever since I can remember or photos that tell me when I didn't remember playing basketball with my dad and my parents just encouraged that throughout and growing up, I wanted to be a teacher and a coach. [00:02:00] And that's just not the path that God had planned for me.
He said, Hey, you want to, you need to be an entrepreneur first, but I always had that desire to coach. And then when I had my own kids, I've got a sixth grader and a third grade son that are now getting into sports. And that's when I. I started getting into coaching was coaching them and developing our youth program here at Heartland around youth basketball.
And through some just crazy stuff, I end up now here in my second year of high school varsity basketball, which I never ever thought would happen. But as a business owner and entrepreneur here in the, in, in the community, I didn't think that would even be possible. And we'll dive into the details that I can go through the story, but.
Just fell in love with the sport of basketball and have a passion and a mission to use basketball to share great values and work ethic with kids and just love seeing the spark that they have when they learn how to dribble, when they learn, when they see that [00:03:00] ball go through the hoop, but there's just so many life lessons in sports.
And teams and how to work with teams that translate what I've seen in the professional world in the marketplace when you get into working with others, those things and to be able to have an influence on youth and prepare them for that through team sports is rewarding like I've never experienced before.
And I've only done a year and a half now, but there's just so many correlations as I am in the business world and going into the school world, there's just so many connections that, that really get me excited about coaching.
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Ross Romano: Yeah. And and you can, tell our listeners a little bit, too, about the work that you do with your company, because I think it's pertinent here that as I mentioned, Strive Education, we may have some folks out there who are familiar with Strive TV the previous branding, but you through that you've been around high school sports for years, right, and seen across multiple [00:04:00] states through the broadcasting work, the live streaming, and I'm just wondering if Due to the different people you interacted with and all you know, all the access you had there, if there were any things that you were observing over the years to say you know, there seems to be something that's missing in a lot of programs that I would love to be able to bring to a program or on the other hand, things that you said, I would really love to get more involved with that.
Right. But certainly you had a clear perspective and a view on what was happening in high school athletics.
Taylor Siebert: Yeah, so I started a company in 2012, solely based around high school sports, live streaming high school sports. And so I kind of took my, after I graduated, I played a little basketball. At NAIA school here in Nebraska, at Doane College, now Doane University and decided to go the business route, like I said, and did sales and did some other stuff, ended up moving back to my hometown and didn't really know [00:05:00] what that was going to look like.
My dad owned an insurance agency, tested the waters there a little bit, but it just didn't light a, didn't spark a light of fire in me. Like I. Like I had hoped and for him too, and so, but I had always been drawn to creating content and doing that kind of throughout high school with buddies of mine in college, it was drawn to marketing, but didn't know how sports and that passion for digital media and creating content would merge until I started a, website here in town called heartlandbeat.
com, which now my mom runs. I started live streaming games. I got a mic and started announcing games, got kids to come up in video games videotape and live stream figured out how to do all of that with technology. And it just kind of a ripple effect is other schools saw that. It was, they're like, Hey, how can we do this?
And this is before automated cameras and all the fancy equipment that we have now, but at the core of what. My mission and passion was I was teaching students [00:06:00] how to be a part of this that maybe weren't involved in sports. So here I was. Sports guy getting the nerds in the school to be connected to sports and draw them to find some purpose in the school.
And it was the speech kids. It was the theater kids. It was the kid who tours ACL or got hurt that, that season that was up announcing the games or kid from the band that wanted to come up and just fell in love with announcing. I kept seeing these kids coming up as we worked with more and more schools.
And so I've always been around students and. you know, then it finally clicked that, hey, I really love basketball. Maybe I could take this same passion and experience I'm having here on the digital media and student broadcasting side and do that on the basketball side too. And then the doors opened up to be the varsity head coach due to some teachers leaving the district and our boys coach went over to girls and because of my work with the youth and I was going to help with.
the boys program. They said, [00:07:00] Hey, we don't have many other options, no offense, but you know, would you be open to that? And it was a no brainer for me. Now my wife would say otherwise but I just, it was truly a calling for me on that. And I've learned so much, appreciate so much, but I'm still so passionate about what happens in the classroom too.
So I now go, I just was today. over at the school with the digital media class. And then I get to see my basketball guys at lunch and congratulate them on the football game. And so I just love being in schools. That's how I built the company. So I traveled across state Nebraska, then did a little bit through another company.
We started class intercom going to Chicago and all over to schools. I just love being in the classroom and giving kids an eye to maybe a career that they had no idea even existed. Oh, I could create social media content and get paid for it. Oh, I could create this really cool video and get paid for it.
And letting, now through my basketball program, letting kids... Students on our team know, yeah, [00:08:00] basketball is amazing, but basketball is not always going to be there. Your knees are going to go out like they did for me. And no not too bad, but you've got to have some other skills to fall back on and teaching that to these these athletes, student athletes, that you've got to have more skills in your tool belt than just basketball.
Basketball's amazing. It'll serve its purpose for a portion of your life. There's so many life lessons in there. Working hard, grit, the culture you're building, how to win. But those all translate in the workplace too. And so that's where our mission is with Strive Education, is to provide curriculum for teachers and a road map.
To build student broadcasting programs and digital media programs and teaching kids. If you can shoot video, you can find a job. If you can edit a podcast for Ross, like this one, you can find a job. You're going to get paid and every industry. Across the world.
Ross Romano: Yeah, I mean, there really are so many, right, so many different [00:09:00] opportunities and professional pathways related to sports or anything else that aren't not everybody's aware of right, and I've done some different content series and interviews around these things, specifically related to sports to say, okay, I mean, I, when I was, in high school playing sports you knew that jobs that existed were athlete, agent, coach, and maybe you had some idea of what the front office did or a scout, something like that.
But what about all the communications people and and PR and marketing and finance and accounting and facilities, right? All these different you know, the things that, that there They're hidden. They're obscure. You know, you're not thinking about, well, these are entire businesses.
These are multi million dollar sometimes billion dollar businesses. There's a lot of things that go on there. If it's something that you really love and you want to be involved in, there's different ways to do that. And [00:10:00] what better time to learn about that than when you're actually in school and you can.
Try your hand at a variety of different things.
Taylor Siebert: Yeah, I'll
add real quick. One little tidbit to piggyback off that. I was at the University of Nebraska yesterday talking to a professor who started six years ago the Sports Media and Communication Program. Went from zero students. It wasn't a thing, right? It was kind of broken up to now 350 students at the university that want to do, have something to do with sports media and communications.
And a lot of those kids are former athletes that they just want to continue to be involved somehow with sports and they don't know what that looks like, but they're learning all those different career paths at the core of that. So it's an exciting it's been fun to see how those have merged together for me and that there's so many other students out there that are trying to figure out those same things.
There's so many opportunities now.
Ross Romano: yeah, absolutely. So, Taylor, how do you define [00:11:00] coaching yourself when you describe what it is, what it means to you? Do you
Taylor Siebert: Yeah, that's a fantastic question. coaching for me is teaching. And that took a while this year for me to really understand that I was so consumed with. First of all, I knew I needed to change the culture from what it was, not that it was bad before. And what Coach Whetton, who was my football coach.
It just was going to be different because I'm a different, I have a different personality than him, a different style. And so I knew I needed to establish that. And so I worked really hard at that, but in the midst of that, I lost, as I reflected back on this last first this last year, I realized I didn't do enough teaching on the court and off the court with the students, because that's really what coaching is just helping guide them.
Let them fail. Let them fall down and figure it out. Instead of trying to micromanage everything. Now, I probably didn't [00:12:00] hold them accountable as much as I should have. I probably let too much fall through the cracks this first year. But I didn't know what I didn't know. And now I know that. So, I'm going to tighten up certain areas.
But that's what teaching is. Is that transfer of knowledge. I had to teach myself what basketball again. I can play basketball, but to explain what I'm thinking about what's happening on the court and why it's important for them to understand that why they need to go up off to a stride stop, which is essentially a two ft jump stop.
One, two, instead of going up off one foot and being totally exposed and the defense knows you're going to go up for a layup as opposed to staying down on two and pump faking, being able to pass, shoot, go up and under. How do I explain the reason why? to them and that at the core of that is teaching them the game of basketball and a lot of it is getting back to the fundamentals you can, I'm not a big X's and O's guy.
I'm a very fundamental guy [00:13:00] and I tried to get probably too much into X's and O's. I could feel myself getting uncomfortable because I didn't know how to explain it because I didn't even know it myself. So I've had to reteach myself basketball and I've had to I pay a guy, I'll give him a shout out, Tyler Costin down in Phoenix, it's called Savvy Coaching, S A V I Coaching, and I pay him monthly to get access to his content for his race and space offense and his lock left defense, and that has been a game changer.
So just like in my business life, I pay for coaching and for professional development. I knew I had to do that on the coaching side so that I am learning so I can transfer that knowledge and explain that. So for me, it comes down to teaching and I'm excited to we're not going to be exactly where I want to be in year two, but year four, once I've got a group of kids that have started with what we're trying to do, they've gone all four years, I'm really excited to see the [00:14:00] Terminology, the roles the culture really build off that.
Ross Romano: Do you use much video or film study in your coaching? Oh,
Taylor Siebert: Yeah, so we use Huddle. We were talking about them on before this, which we, by the time this is released, Strive Education and Huddle have partnered together, which is huge. Huddle's the top in the game as far as video analysis and streaming. And so they break down all your stats. And so, all the kids have access to that.
And we do. We watch film. I can clip certain stuff for them. Matt. That is a game changer. And I watched for just for scouting purposes a lot of video, a lot more, that was a lot more time consuming than I thought it was going to be I didn't know what I didn't know. Right.
And now I know how much time I need to invest in scouting reports and stuff like that. So we're prepared. Now, there's some coaches will go, we're going to run our stuff no matter what they do. Well, you need to know. You need to know what you're going up against, right, as far as personnel, who's gonna, who's gonna do what, but our, the systems we [00:15:00] run are really adaptable to whatever a team is going to do now that I know what I know.
Ross Romano: right. Yeah. I mean, there's certain things and to the point of. You know, coaching being teaching, right? And the various ways in which we learn there's theory and there's practice and there's certain things that you, certain things you learn by doing and certain things you don't understand until you see what it looks like.
And one of the things in basketball that definitely stands out to me in that regard is like trapping on defense, right?
Taylor Siebert: Yeah,
Ross Romano: You don't understand. the importance of that really hard trap or what it looks like when you set a poor until you see it on film and you see what it looks like when it's done poorly and it's easy to get out of there is when it's done really well and You just get a whole new perspective on it then, even if you've practiced it yourself and you're not quite there's something you're missing about, okay why is it so important to do this way?
And a lot of the other stuff too, where, like [00:16:00] same as in the classroom, right? If there are certain subjects that are set up in a particular way, where if you just kind of follow the instructions and do what you're told, you'll come out with a pretty good grade. But then down the line, after you graduate, you won't necessarily know how to make new things out of that knowledge.
You know, you haven't learned the why behind it. Same here, right, where if you draw up a play and everybody just goes to their spots and they do what they're supposed to do, and they just take your word for it, they might execute well, but they're not necessarily learning, like, why is it drawn up that way, what's the strategy, in a way that they can then, one.
Adapt when something goes wrong, right? Or two in the future, they can coach, they can teach, they can iterate and say, okay, we used to have this play on offense that worked really well. Now there's something different happening with the defense. But if we do this will work. And [00:17:00] as everything else, as with the economy and the job, right sports is constantly evolving, right?
I'm sure What worked for your teams when you were playing there's completely new things that teams are doing now.
Taylor Siebert: yeah, what we're doing, what we're doing with our team with this race in space and lock left is, I don't even know this type of, first of all, methodology or type of way to play. Like I, I've watched basketball my entire life and now going through this, what Tyler's stuff that he's created, it's what you see in the NBA.
All right, it's a spread, but basketball is what I've learned that I didn't know playing is all about reads and reacting to different advantage different advantages, right? You're reading the defense, right? Or the defense is trying to stop the offense from doing X, Y, and Z. You can control some of that stuff. You don't just [00:18:00] take what you can get.
You actually have to think. So, when I think about the classroom and what I'm trying to help students understand, and then, and this just kind of unlocked for me literally right now, and what I'm trying to teach to my basketball players. is the four C's, right? Communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking.
They've got to be able to think on the court. I think a lot of coaches are taking that out of the game and not allowing their players to think. They're basically putting so many guardrails and micromanaging them so much, constantly telling them what to do, what play to do, go do this while they're playing.
Kids aren't able to even think on the court. Like, Dang, that's what practice is for is to go through and take them through that once you get to the game You should they should be able to freely think and create and communicate and collaborate And so we'll see how that plays out I'll let you know here in a couple months once our season starts that [00:19:00] if that helps our guys I also like to think about the way we're breaking it down here, I think in a lot of cases people looked at the different elements of coaching and thought about. Teaching piece and the motivation piece, right? For example, they may think about it as two separate things, but really if we think about like what teaching is, right?
Ross Romano: Motivation and it's should be a part of it. So it's kind of all connected and included to figure out, okay, what are the different ways that we are engaging the minds, the thinking the, analysis of our students, our student athletes, having them kind of continuing to grasp a better understanding of what we're doing.
And also tap into the things that uniquely motivate each of them to achieve success for themselves and for the team. And what does that look like? You know, and which can be, I think, particularly challenging, say, at a high school [00:20:00] level of sports where there's an unclear incentive for the best contributions you can make if You're not going to be one of the top performers on the team, right?
Okay. Why do I, why am I here then? Or why am I, why do I continue to show up if I'm the the 10th man or whatever? What what am I getting out of this experience? And these are all the things that as the coach you want you understand that. Everybody's important to the team, but also that each individual needs to feel like they're gaining something out of the experience.
Taylor Siebert: Yeah, I think for what I learned over this last year is that trying to communicate as much as possible what I'm thinking about their role. And that kind of hit midseason is I had a great group of seniors this last year. And so, I wish I would have had them. for four years to [00:21:00] develop those roles out and really get to know them more.
Cause I halfway through the season we lost, we had several overtime games. We had several two point or one possession games at the end and that we just didn't finish and not that. You know, maybe I didn't drop the right play or maybe they were uncomfortable because they thought they were going to screw up because they didn't know what I was thinking, but we just didn't get that trust built the summer before as fast as possible.
I think it comes down to a lot of trust and that 10th guy knowing that. You know, they're the 10th guy for a reason. They understand that, right? And that when their name is called and they're able to come in, that they're ready to go. They've prepared, they've trained, they can trust, they can lean on that training.
And I think that's what I'm really excited about this upcoming season is I've got rules. Defined for each of the guys. Now they may change. They're going to have to adapt. It may not be how we script it every single time, but every kid has a [00:22:00] role on the team. Like you're saying, and an identity that they see that they're valued.
I think that every kid wants to know in any sport in the classroom, they want to see that what their God given talents, their gifts and talents are, that they're valued. in the crowd amongst the world that they know they're important, whether they're the first, the best guy on the team or the worst guy on the team, that they have some value that they're providing to the team.
And as a coach, I've realized that you've got to build those kids up. Even if it's the best kid and you've got to call him out or her and you've got to treat everyone the same. You can't cater to that regardless of talents and you know, grit that they have the work ethic.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've been I don't, I didn't look up you know, your record last year, but there's also the reality.
Taylor Siebert: iT was good enough. I wouldn't have predicted, not that I thought we were going to go undefeated, right? But just the [00:23:00] way it went, I was like, yeah, this is crazy. We just had some crazy games, but it was fun.
Ross Romano: Well, yeah because there's also when you think about when it becomes really challenging is there's one thing where it's can be relatively clear to establish to the second string or the scout team, for example, on the team, that's 20 and three, how they are contributing to making the team better and starter than somebody is also going to be The 10th player on the team that's 1 in 20.
Right? And then it's even more, okay, like, how are we sometimes the odds are just stacked against you, the talent level isn't there there's a variety of reasons why we're not there yet. It's having more success in the wins and losses, but we still need to continue to stay consistent in what we're attempting to achieve here and what we're teaching and motivating so that everybody understands, [00:24:00]
Taylor Siebert: Consistent with everything. And I think that's what I'm trying to establish that as an entrepreneur, I have shiny object syndrome. So I'm like a squirrel. And so I've had to be the most disciplined I've been in my entire life. in this because every practice I want to create a new practice plan or come up with a new drill or do this for this game.
It's like, no, you can't do that. You've got to be consistent. You have to get really good at a couple different things. You can't be good at every single thing. right? The great teams can be, but they still have weaknesses. But what is our identity? What's the culture we're trying to build? And what can we be the best at with the guys that we've got to go to battle with every time, right?
How are we training? What's accountability look like when we train? And does everyone know yet what's expected of them? So
Ross Romano: What are some of the other when we talk about culture building you know, what's the vision that you have in [00:25:00] mind of the type of culture you're looking to build and the You know, intentionality that you would use to go about building that.
Taylor Siebert: Yeah, try to mix in spiritual aspect as well of going, Hey there's more important things than basketball in life, right? Whatever faith or wherever you're walking from that aspect, right? Because kids deal with so much mentally, right? The stresses of schools and things like that. And just kind of step back and go, Hey, what's what does the big picture look like, right?
Yeah, we lost this game, but that is not. the difference between life and death, right? So I really was wanted to make sure that was a part because it had an impact in my life. I wanted to provide that as an opportunity. I think we went to a Husker men's basketball game, Fred Hoiberg's the coach there and they, he does a great job offers free tickets to high school.
So we got to hop in vans and go to a Husker game and eat food. Just be outside of [00:26:00] the traditional elements that we normally get to get this summer. We went to a ton of different team camps, tried to do something out of the state, but we weren't able to pull it off. But I think experiences.
The more experiences you can get together as a team outside of a practice or a game setting is the biggest thing. What is what does it look like when you leave a restaurant? Did you leave it better than the, than what you found it? Are the, are your athletes, are they being polite and respectful to those around them publicly, right?
Just teaching them those types of things. And you don't always get to see that side of your athletes on the court. Right? And so that was really important to me is the meal time, the food, those in between interactions so that you build that trust, you build those relationships. It's all about relation, coaching is all about relationships.
And that's really what life is about and fostering those and just feeding into other humans and building them up, encouraging them, [00:27:00] but also holding them accountable and going, that effort is not good enough. If you have that type of effort when you get into the workplace, you might not be there very well, very long.
You just didn't, you just didn't care. So that's what we're trying to mold in. In our program and we're very infancy stages, right? It's, I've had to learn patience that this stuff doesn't happen overnight. Now you see a coach like Deion Sanders who had some immediate success, right? Who was then humbled here recently, whenever you listen to this, but.
That's not going to stop him from continuing to build a culture that he's trying to build there and holding people accountable and getting good talent, hardworking athletes. And so you just have to, you just gotta be consistent with that, right? I think a lot of people are always looking for the next newest thing to help with that.
And that's not always going to help you.
Ross Romano: Yeah and, and and then to that last point, [00:28:00] right, about the Colorado football team or any team where there's a certain level of notoriety there's people who just don't want to see you succeed for whatever their reasons are, right, and you can't worry about those people. You have to say, like, this is what our vision is, this is what we're building here whatever starting point we're coming from it doesn't all happen overnight, but it doesn't mean we're going to compromise on that.
You know, just because there's setbacks along the way, we believe in what we're doing here and we have to keep working toward that. And we have to tune out the outside noise and criticism and all of the things that because if we're in, inside this, room, if we're clear, communicative, and transparent, and on the same page about what we're working on, what we're building toward, we have to understand that not everybody's going to get that.
Not everybody's going to be invested in that. You know, there's plenty [00:29:00] of folks who right, who, because they didn't they didn't want to have the same level of dedication to things that are hard to do. And having a successful team is hard to do. You know, that it's sometimes it's easier to to try to criticize.
But it it, there's a level of, The sports and particularly a sport like a basketball where you know, you're not wearing a helmet or a mask or everybody's very visible out there. There's a high level of vulnerability to going out there and trying and really giving it your best and understanding that anybody who's there can see you and they can see what you're doing.
You can't hide. Once the ball's in your hands, you have to do something with it, right? And to be able to say, I'm not going to shirk from that. I'm going to go out and give it my best and see what happens. That's not always [00:30:00] easy to do, especially for adolescents. At that age, right?
Taylor Siebert: Yeah, and when the sport, sports are judged by winning and losing most of the time, right? That's what most of the, most people look like, look at. They're not looking at everything we just talked about for the culture. Well, yeah, they keep losing games. They probably then are saying, well, the culture must be pretty bad, right?
And so that's always the tough part. And that was really hard for us last year is what we were developing. And I had a phenomenal, everyone said, when I got into coaching, they were like, geez, wait till you get to deal with the parents and had a phenomenal group of parents who understood the situation I was in, who I was coming in with really no experience, but I had went to the.
to the, this school. I graduated from the same school. And so, but they saw what I was attempting to do. And it just wasn't translating into wins. Like we thought it was going to, right. And that's always the tough part, even for the athlete and going, man, we're doing all this [00:31:00] stuff, but it's not translating.
We're not winning basketball games and getting them to understand that. Yeah. I want to win too, but that is. That's not the bigger purpose of what we're trying to do here. We're trying to create you into men who leave here and go on to college or go into the workforce and start families and be, make an impact in your community wherever you're at.
Hopefully you stay around. Those are, those have a bigger impact and no, no one will remember that this last year's team was 8 and 13, but I hope they remember when they come back and say, yeah, I want to come back to this community, make an impact. I'm going to farm in the community. I'm going to work this business.
I'm going to start my own business. Those. Those stories will get told.
Ross Romano: How have you found that a strong culture and a strong teaching culture and just intentionality and clarity around culture enables and empowers players to become stakeholders and leaders in that culture, leaders of the team and take on those type of roles?[00:32:00]
Taylor Siebert: Yeah, I think I'm still trying to understand that. I've gotten to that place on my. team for my company that's taken over a decade to get there where it's not me having to do everything. And I think I'm still discovering what that looks like from a coaching standpoint of even letting my assistant be able to take on some new responsibilities and letting him do some things that last year I just didn't know what I should have him even being, have him doing.
Right. And so I think I've got to. Let go of some things this upcoming season. I'm excited for that challenge to not feel like I have to do everything and empower my athletes to my student athletes to be more creative, to ask them for more feedback. And I think one of the struggles is that's not a normal thing for high school athletes to be empowered on their team.
The coach typically is micromanaging every single little thing. They don't [00:33:00] really have input on stuff. So when they're asked, that's not even registering with them. So I think I've got to do some training and hopefully them knowing their role, and they can see their role and what they're supposed to be doing.
That sparks some conversations around empowering them. The way we, our style is we don't have a lot of set plays. So it's not like point A to point B. And my point guard is a point A to point B guy. And I have, we had to retrain his mind this summer. We played about 30, 35 games a summer and it started to click and he started to understand within his role, he's called the racker and the racker is supposed to get into that on the NBA.
There's a circle around the free throw line. His job is to get to that spot and then distribute. And no joke, he probably had over 10 assists in one of our summer league games, the most he's ever had in his career, and you could tell it unlocked for him, [00:34:00] and he felt empowered. So, I think, I'm excited this last year it didn't get there, and that's going to be a process for my younger guys to continue to feed into them so that They know what's expected of them and they do feel empowered.
And then I can encourage them instead of getting frustrated with them because they don't they'll know what I'm thinking because they'll know what their role in their identity, our team's identity is.
Ross Romano: Yeah, I mean, those points about, right, the things beyond strictly the wins and losses and the statistics and the growth reminds me and takes it back to important things to be able to do in teaching in general, right? About identifying those micro moments, those micro successes, those formative growth the things that are happening and showing, okay, look you may have missed this because you're frustrated that whatever you didn't get the statistics you wanted today, or we didn't end up winning the game, but [00:35:00] here's an, here's a specific example of something where we improved or made progress or a great play or a great effort and if we compel that, and if, We can repeat that and do that more and more consistently, that leads to the next thing, whether it's a higher grade, whether it's a win, whether it's whatever the case may be but being able to identify and showcase those things as You know, the coach with the view and the observation and also the perspective on where we're trying to get to, right?
And understanding that when you're in the middle of it and you're in the cloud of the game and sometimes you're exhausted, fatigued, you're going up against the team where you're a little bit outmatched and
Taylor Siebert: Oh, you lose total sight of that vision of what we're trying to do, right? The great teams, I think no matter what the situation they're in they still remember that no matter what the score is, I think, [00:36:00] which makes it really special when you have a group like that.
Ross Romano: Yeah, absolutely. So, Taylor, so you mentioned some of these already, but wondering especially I'm sure we have some of our listeners who might might also be newer to coaching, might even be aspiring coaches, right? Looking for opportunities, getting involved. Are there any other resources that you have found to be helpful to you in helping you kind of with your coaching?
Yeah, thank you. Continue to hone your craft and and things that listeners should check out.
Taylor Siebert: Yeah, for sure. I mean, like I did mention Tyler and Savvy coaching his whole mission is to. Help coaches coach better, right, to be the best that they can be. And I'm a big believer in that. I didn't understand that when I first started but Twitter now X has phenomenal coaches that are sharing stuff at all levels.
I've gravitated towards a couple there. All levels of coaching that are sharing different drills. There's so much content out there. It's, you need to figure out. what [00:37:00] you're wanting to do and then go find the content that fits within that instead of letting every drill and every new set that you see video on Twitter or, Hey, this coach did this in the off season and all these different things you could get really lost.
And there's a flood of information out there that coaches are sharing stuff. And some of it's free, some of it you pay for, find something that you're really attracted to that aligns with, you got to have that mission kind of already established that fits within what you're wanting to do. And then go find that content that can be plugged in and not be a distraction.
And so that you're not pulling from all this new stuff all the time. Your guys are going to be, get confused, right? Your team's going to get confused. They're going to see that you're very distracted and then they're going to get distracted. They're not going to buy in. So, find those resources.
I'm happy to be one of those. I don't share much of what I'm doing because I don't feel like I'm at the place to do that. I hope I can at some point share the stuff, all the stuff that I'm curating [00:38:00] and kind of mixing and molding how it works for me. Be able to share that, but. Yeah, different trainers Drew Hanlon Sean can't remember his last name there's some different guys that for individual workout type stuff, and then there's some team stuff.
There's so much there's too much, like I said, and so if you can curate that and find it and filter it for what you need, I think that'd be really great. mentors, other coaches guys that I played with that coached that have given me resources. I'm able to text right now, four to five coaches, boys basketball coaches in the state and say, Hey, we're struggling against a zone offense.
What would you suggest? And so having those mentors, having those connections are massive. I. I thought I could probably do a lot of the stuff on my own, and that's just ignorance. It's prideful, and reach out, ask people for help, ask questions, be curious, don't think that [00:39:00] you have it all figured out because you've Played a bunch of basketball or done this or that the great coaches from what I've experienced are always learning, always taking notes and consuming and iterating to what fits into their program.
Ross Romano: Excellent. Well, Taylor Siebert, thanks so much for coming on SignLine Sessions. Anything else you'd like to have our listeners check out? All the other work you're doing with Strive Education or anything else that's upcoming?
Taylor Siebert: Yeah. Best place to follow what I'm doing. I share a lot about student led broadcasting and digital media and entrepreneurship. A little bit of basketball stuff is on Twitter slash X. I don't know what we're supposed to say now, but I'll say
Ross Romano: Twitter to me.
Taylor Siebert: Yeah, at Taylor Siebert. So you can put that in the show notes.
And then yeah our site if you're an educator listening to this and are passionate about some of the things we're doing around student broadcasting and digital media education, you can go to strive, S T R I V dot education. [00:40:00] And we're helping schools all over the country with that and integrating those admin.
Ross Romano: Perfect. Well, yeah, listeners will put those resources and links in the show notes for you to check out if you'd like to please do subscribe to sideline sessions to hear the rest of our fall season here. We've got a lot of great episodes, coaches from all different sports all over the place. So.
We're going to continue to bring you a variety of conversations there. Please also do visit the podcast. network to learn about all of our shows. We have more than 30 of them now. So there's a lot there for you to check out no matter your role in education or whether you're looking for content on parenting, learning and development anything we have a lot there.
So check that out. Taylor, thanks again for coming on the show.
Taylor Siebert: Thanks so much Ross.