Criag Robinson Life after Basketball and what the game can do for you.

Craig is a former D1 assistant coach, head coach , professional player, and current Exec director of the national association of basketball coaches. Learn the recruiting process of a D1 program and what the future might look like.

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You are listening to the CBA podcast. Talk everything basketball from club to high school to AU to college. CBA podcast is brought to you by Chapman Basketball Academy. Your hosts are Terry Massey, Max Johansson and Joe Chapman.

He lost it got it back before it got to me

James on a drive in the lane kicks out Chapman over three is good!

All right, back at it. We're missing Max today. He's kind of battling a little bug. Yeah. A lot of good games this weekend and this week. Friday, Saturday, there was a little bit of, or Friday, there was a little upset, or not really an upset in your mind. Yeah, yeah. It's so, this time of year is so special to me because we've got so many kids that play and there's so many different strategies. And as a coach, you're trying to figure out what the other coaches are thinking and doing.

And as a player, as a 24 class, it's their last class, it's their last go around for championship game, Nicolet and Homestead. That was a battle. Homestead had their chances. I think they were up five or like four minutes to go. They had chances to win that game. And then the girls game, the regional games. It's just been special to watch the different strategies. I really tell you though, this state needs a shot clock.

It's just unbelievable how some of these games, you know, they hold the ball for so long. Well, the first half of a score is 11 to 9 or something. It's like, what are we doing? Yeah. Yeah. And that's what for me, when I'm watching this, is like, man, that you can't really strategize against what's going on because these teams are holding the ball and they stalling or they playing.

they not playing free -flowingly, you know. And then there's times when you're up five with, you know, whatever minutes left and you're like, okay, now it's time to run, just run this thing through because there isn't a shot clock. So it's like, you know, you got to strategize for what's going on with the certain rules of whatever stage that you're in, you know. And unfortunately it works for players and coaches. Sometimes it works against them. And...

For games right now, I see teams that are 12 seed going against a three seed. Well, they trying to slow the game down. They trying to just move the ball, work their system. And a number two or three seed, they trying to press up, like, let's get this game started. So it's a battle of wheels, a battle of adjustments, X and O's. So as a coach, I'm always looking at that stuff. Who's going to make the adjustment? Because this time of year, you can't die on your sword. There's just so many coaches that say, I just got one way of doing that.

If I had to pick a girls game coming up, probably one of the programs that have more CBA girls than any is Grafton matching up against Pee -Wah -Kee. Cedarburg just kind of, well, Cedarburg was out there two top players. Mary and Mimi were out and stuff and they battled pretty good the first half, second half, but those twins are lights out. Yeah. Yeah. And I love those twins. They played the right way from Pee -Wah -Kee. They actually referees too. So they invest back into the game. They are who you want.

want your daughters to be. They play hard. They both go into Michigan State as twins, which is great. Great role models in their community. So they do a good job. So I'm looking forward to watching that game. Before I get going, I just want to give a shout out personally. We have our first coach change of the year. Dave Ross over at Cedarburg, announced his retirement. Winning record, went to state twice as a silver ball. Great coach. Appreciate everything he's done for the program over at Cedarburg. So.

23 years. Yeah, 23 years. And that's to hold any job for 23 years and to change with the times. That's two decades. So to keep changing with the times and keep adjusting to the different people keep walking through your doors every year. That's hard for a high school coach because you get so many new people. You know, your culture kind of starts with the youth and, you know, build it up. So he did 23 years of that. So hopefully the community respects that even if he didn't like his whatever play calls or whatnot.

I mean, you gotta respect someone who gives 23 years of their time with, I mean, making $3 ,000 probably a year, you know, doing that. And so regardless of if we like what he did or not.

respect that he gave 23 years to the program. So we're very blessed and excited to have the guests we have today. I kind of wrote some stuff down, so I'll see if I get this right as some accomplishment. Played forward at Princeton, drafted by the 70 sisters, assistant coach at Northwestern, head coach at Brown University, Oregon State, worked as VP player development for the Bucks and the Knicks.

is currently executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Welcome, Craig Robinson. Thanks, guys. I know we're blessed to have someone with your knowledge and expertise here. And I know Joel is really honored to have you part of the CBA family. So, yeah, no, I'm thank thank you. Thanks for having me first and foremost. And, you know, and I have to say thanks to Joe for welcoming our family into the CBA family since we moved here. So, I mean,

And we were we I think and you would know the history more than I do, but we we might have been one of your first boys teams. Yes. Yes. The second year of the boys flow. Yeah. Was Austin's group. Yeah. Yeah. And now those guys are in eighth grade. Right. And they're playing well in in the W .Y .B .L. tournament and get them and they're they're looking forward to fighting it out at Homestead. So it's it's really been exciting. Yeah. It's just so so amazing to.

see the growth of our players every year, the personnel, they walk through the doors. I think Alston was maybe seven or eight and Aaron was maybe four or five. And they came right in the gym. That's how I met them first is through workouts. I think Wjo maybe told Mrs. Robinson about the workouts that we were doing. That's right. That's right. Well, Joe told Kelly about Joe because we didn't know Joe. I knew of Joe by name only because I followed college basketball. But.

You know the fact that you're from Chicago and we had never met Chicago such a big place But I moved away after I went to college and didn't come back for a while. So It was nice to hook up with somebody who was sort of familiar with you know, same background same Yep, to use your word culture. I got my Chapman culture shirt on today ironically

But it was easy and our kids were used to being in the gym. Right. But I wanted somebody who wasn't afraid to coach them the way they should be coached, not the way people are getting coached today. That's that's sort of a nuanced statement. And you guys know what I'm talking about. But before we get to that, I want to go back to a point you guys were talking about the shot clock. I am a big proponent. The shot clock should be in every state. Yes. And I don't understand.

why Wisconsin doesn't have it because if Illinois can have it and they have way more. Yeah. School and teams and teams Wisconsin should have it and I've heard the well it's a an extra expense in the budget yada yada yada.

You I am sure that I'm busy, but I could find somebody who would sponsor at least the hardware into the school. All these big scoreboards, Acuity, you know, all the all the school. Somebody would do it. Yes. Just to get their name out there yet again. But it's it's it's important from a playing standpoint. We're not preparing these kids for the next level. No.

No, I totally agree. And I think that's the problem. Even Minnesota has the shot clock. So we're the in -between state and we don't have it. And it's just it's hurting our development. It should be in the youth programs. It should be in the high school programs. Now, you are starting to do it. So that's helping our kids. But then they come back and they don't have it. You know, so it just happened in different circumstances. I see different teams. They're up 10, 15 points. They just continue to play the right way. Yeah. And it kind of and in Hurston.

sometimes because they're up with a lead and they continue to play and they miss shots. The other team come down. So it's not real basketball. Right. Should there be a national uniformity on on play? Well, I mean, each state has their own organization and their own rules. Should there be more of a national? It would be nice. But because of the way and in my role now as as head of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, I see it because a good deal of our members are high school coaches and trying to get something through.

on the high school level, you have to deal with each individual state regulatory body, which is a heavy lift. So I understand it. And each school has their own budget and each school has their own budget. Each school district has their own budget. And, you know, people are fighting for different things. And the last thing they're thinking about is sports, let alone shot clock. So it makes it hard. Yeah. But it's it would be nice if every

everybody sort of came to the head of the WIAA. Is that who's in charge? Wisconsin WIAA. If they could just say, hey listen, for the benefit of our players, we want to continue. Because let me tell you, there's more players coming out of Wisconsin than I ever thought being from Chicago, where we always have players coming out of. You don't want that to...

Take a step back, especially on the women's side. The girls are making a move. You don't want to end that because.

they get to college and they can't compete with the rest of the folks who are coming. I wanted to mention that. I know we got a bunch of stuff to talk about. Yeah, yeah. No, that's a good topic to start with though, is this how do we prepare? Because we all have kids and we also are running a business of preparing people for the next level and we're not doing our jobs properly if we're not preparing them for different things. Situational...

Situational is so important to basketball that the naked eye of a fan don't understand. If it's 40, 38, that's a situational with two seconds left on the clock.

You got to learn how to play like that. And unfortunately, a lot of these kids are not being prepared to play like that because it's not a lot of situational stuff that's happening, you know, inside of the game. So that's a great first topic to kind of go with. I want to talk about how you grew up in Chicago. You played and you played at a great high school. Yeah. We want to talk about your high school. Talk about your love and passion for the game and how that started. So I started out like most kids in my neighborhood and I grew up in

Woodlawn in South Shore, so I'm a Southsider.

But I have a West Side story to my game. So I started like most players. I played all the sports and I just played whatever was in season. And and that includes hockey. So I played basketball during the summer. I played football during the fall. I played baseball in the spring and I played funny enough hockey in the winter because back when I was younger, they froze the parks near your house and everybody went ice skating. You played hockey.

So I played all these different sports and I didn't narrow it down to basketball purposefully it just sort of came along and there were there were not a lot of

the youth basketball organizations, but there was one big one, bitty basketball. So that was for those of you don't know, bitty basketball. You played on eight foot rims with a small ball, not even a twenty seven. It's like a twenty. It was like it was a it was a youth ball. Yeah. What they call youth ball now. So it was.

perfectly in it. It was suited for your hand as a little kid. So you didn't have to push your shot like all these kids are doing now. Yeah, that's it for gold. Yep. And so I learned the mechanics a little bit better because I was playing with a ball that was in proportion with my size. But you could only be five, six and play that. And I was I was five, six and seventh grade. So seventh grade was my last year playing. But you could play through eighth grade if you weren't five, six, if you were five, six.

six or under. And so I initially started playing on at the at the Chatham YMCA with Bob Hamburg was my coach who ended up being the great coach at Simeon. Joe knows the school. Simeon was a huge basketball factory and I thought I was going to go to Simeon and my parents were like, because Simeon is a vocational school. You know, vocational schools were not what my parents were aiming at. They were aiming at college preparatory schools. So.

I took the exam to go to Mount Carmel. I ended up going to Mount Carmel High School, which was great school to great school, not in my neighborhood, but close enough where I could go Catholic school. So you had to pay tuition. And so we were invested in my parents were invested in my education more so than athletics. And this was back in the day where, you know, nobody knew if they were going to be a pro until you got drafted. Right. There were no scouting services. What year was that coach? So I graduated from grammar school in 70.

75 okay, and I went from 75 to 79. I graduated Mount Carmel in 79. Okay, and Tried out for the basketball team wasn't recruited They had a bunch of recruited players and I ended up making the freshman team and I was just one of those kids who liked playing basketball And my dad when I was back now, let me step back when I was playing bitty basketball coach Hamburg wasn't

gonna coach bitty anymore so the coach of the martin luther king boys club which was a bitty basketball rival of ours at chatham asked me to play for him now that was on the west side of the city and if you know chicago southsiders were afraid to go to the west side and vice versa and west side is we're afraid to come to the south side so my dad would take me over there

and wait for me while I practiced and then bring me back home. Yep. And it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me because number one, I was exposed to a completely different culture of basketball. They were more handsy, up and down, free physical. It was a rougher game. And I was a South Side kid who was used to a more gentlemanly game. And so that was from a basketball standpoint. It was great. But it was also culturally.

Getting to know some kids who were not from my neighborhood and not being afraid of the West Side correct and that made me confident and as You know Joe basketball is a confidence game It is if you have confidence in yourself and your ability to get better you're going to get better. Yep So that helped me That helped my basketball development. So when I got to Mount Carmel People didn't know about me, but I was I was good enough to make the team not varsity, but I was good enough to make the first

freshman team and then it just worked my way up from there. What do you think about this era of kids want to go right to varsity as opposed to like my era even 20 years I'm 22 years.

from my last high school. Yeah, we worked our way up. You know, I think it's just like everything else that happens in this day and age that people want it sooner. They want it faster than, you know, than everybody else. Right. They want to get to the front of the line. They don't want to know where the line is. They want to know where the front of the line is. Whereas we grew up, we were like, OK, this is the line. You wait in the line and then you'll get your turn. Right. Right. And I think there's two things. There's one thing for sure that I think is that.

playing varsity, you don't want to be the number one 14 year old. You want to be the number one 21 year old. Correct. Because that's when it matters. Correct. Yep. That's when it may be 18. That's when it really matters. And nowadays it's getting to be younger just because everybody's trying to accelerate it. But, you know, most people don't develop like that. Right. OK. The second thing is, is that.

Once now that I've worked at I've worked in high school, college, now the NBA. And now I'm looking at it sort of from a global standpoint. The best way to develop at this game is by playing, not by individual workout, not by practicing. It's by playing. So if you rush to play varsity and you're only playing eight minutes a game, you're slowing your development.

But if you're on the freshman team or on the JV team and you're playing the whole game and the coach is only taking you out to give you a blow and you're going right back in, your game is developing faster than the kid who's playing varsity and not playing as many minutes. So that's where I stand on it. And I tell my kids that and I have them brainwashed so that they think they want to be on the court. So if...

My eighth grader is if Austin is good enough to play varsity and get some time, go ahead. Right. But he knows he better shoot for freshman or JV. So he's playing all the time so that when he gets to be a sophomore or junior, he'll be able to play and stay. So that meant mentality from a guy with your expertise, your background. We talked about this in other podcasts where parents think their kids are more than what they are. We talked about, you know,

high profile parents coaching their kids. I gave Steve Novak as an example. Max, just another player on the floor when we watch him coach. There's no peripheral treatment. And the way you develop your son as a parent first. Yeah, well, Steve and I have gotten to be friends from my time with the Bucs now. And we have similar thoughts on that, because it's so hard.

to be a pro and everybody is aiming their kid at pro. You should be aiming your kid for the next grade he's going to be in. How am I going to make that team or maybe make the next level up? Right. You know, but not you can't be thinking about the NBA. And let me tell you something. Now that I am in this, I'm right on the, you know, working at the N .A .B .C., the coaches association, I'm at the forefront of what's going on in college basketball. And let me tell you what I see with this whole the way the game.

is going.

High school players are going to be less and less recruited. Yes, as we move forward because the way it's set up now and I was a college coach, I would take a ready made college player 100 % as a transfer before I would take up. Yeah, unknown quantity. Yep. And that's all coaches because their jobs are dependent on who they recruit. Yep. So now you just need to be the best player you can be because who knows what that's going to mean for you.

for your college career. Experience, yeah. Experience, that's an even better word. Yeah. It's an even better word. Because you don't know. And that's what we're trying to prepare our kids for now is you don't know where you're going to end up. We got D2 kids that are D1 kids that in this generation, I believe that you should go where you want it and then work up from there. There's people who start.

D1 high level and then they had five different schools in four or five years because they keep transferring. Yeah going different places because of the rules that's in place right instead of going somewhere enjoy it. That's why you see teams like Princeton and some of these teams where they got four or five year guys going against freshmen who keep transferring in and you see these and it's not even upset anymore. Like if I see a Princeton or a Florida Gulf Coast going against a Kentucky or something in round one or two.

and I look down at roster and see four or five seniors as opposed to four or five freshmen. I'm gonna put my money on that team with the four or five seniors on it. Because that's the experience, that's the culture, that's the togetherness. You can't build something with continuing to allow.

you know, people just to come through your door. But coaches are going to do that. You know, a lot of coaches do that. I like Shaka and some of these other coaches that are getting these high school players and say, you know, we're not going to dab too much into that portal. We're going to just grab maybe one if we need one. Right. But we want to kind of develop, you know, some of these players. And Joe, this is if I may, this is why your program is appealing to us is because you understand that. And that's the kind of message you're sending to the kids. Correct.

and me and guys like Steve Novak, we wanna send our kids to places that are...

that are emphasizing the values that we're already putting into our kids. And we want those reinforced when they go to their club experience or to their high school experience. Which is why we remain here in this community. Yeah, and it's so funny you say that. It's like when you want to be around people who know the game, like in and out. It's like, OK. And it's even better when it's not coming from their dad. Yeah.

I want to be the reinforcement for my kid. Not always having to tell them, this is what you got to look out for, these are things you got to, like, I got to do that already, and different things. So if I can get a great mentor, a great coach, to help the development of the youth program and my own kid, that's a win -win situation. And that's what happened with Austin and Aaron, just getting to know you and Kelly and the family.

you're just so down to earth and approachable. And I think that's what catches a lot of people off guard. It's like you're in a gym and they're like, man, I know.

is either that's coach Robinson or that's Michelle Obama's brother. Yeah, right. And it's like people want pictures and autographs and you've always been very kind to people. And thank you. And I think that's what people kind of, you know, they see that part. You sit at the end of the bench or in front of the bench. You're you're you're always grooming coaches, too. You're never the guy who stands up. Yeah, I really I feel like over in the next 10 or 15 years, we're going to have an exodus.

of all these guys who kind of coach when we were coming through. And I'm getting to be one of those older guys now. If I was still coaching, I'd be thinking about, OK, what am I going to do next? And it's such a noble profession. And it has done so much for me. My first coach was my dad, and he wasn't even a coach. But just like we coach our kids, he was supportive and instructive. And then each coach that I've had through club sports,

through high school, through college have have all impacted my life. And I tell people all the time, if it wasn't for those coaches, I wouldn't have the passion for this game that I do. Right. Which leads to me being a pretty decent player. Right. Which has led me now to have some opportunities that I never would have had. And without basketball, I'm here to tell you, I was a good student, but I wasn't good enough to get into Princeton. I was good enough to get in as an athlete. And that changed my life. I mean, it changes.

your life going to the right college. And so that about that a little bit. Yeah. Going to Princeton, your your four years there. Yeah. How was that? That every year you got better, your stats got better. Yeah. So I I had, you know, I was a late bloomer when I graduated from high school. I went into high school. I was like five, 10. Wow. And I grew to about six, three, six, four when I was a senior. So I grew another three inches.

to 6 '7 when I was in college. So I was one of those guys who wasn't going to be the best eighth grader. I wasn't going to be the best junior. I got to be good by the time I was a junior in college. Wow. And I just played for a great coach, Pete Caril at Princeton, who taught me the.

the intellectual part of the game, the analysis of the game as much as he taught me how to be more skillful. And he was a believer in every basketball. Every player could play every position. So I increased my ball handling ability as a six, seven guy back then. And that's not normal. You're in my era. That was every that was a normal. And it's what helped me get drafted. And it's what helped me play overseas. The fact that I was they called me the poor man's match.

I was a six, seven point guard, but that was completely developed playing for for Pete Carrillo at Princeton. And he just was a he was a good motivator. And he could tell when you love the game and he would just keep you to use your time. He would just keep feeding into you as long as you wanted it. And I'd come back to the gym. This was in days where people didn't do individual workouts and I'd be in the gym shooting around and lo and behold, he walked in the door.

and he'd do a workout with me. When people never did workouts like that. And that's what helped me. And then from a non -basketball point of view,

I was recruited by the University of Washington back when it was the pack eight. Now it's the pack two, but it went up to the pack 12. But and I got recruited by Purdue really late to Paul really late when they didn't get I was in the class with Terry Cummings and Teddy Grubbs and those guys. So they were recruiting those guys. And when they didn't get those when Purdue didn't get either one of those guys, they recruited me right at the end. And then University of Texas Arlington, like it was it was it was different back then. It wasn't like one person knew you. Everybody knew you.

You had to hope somebody saw you. Right. And Princeton saw me early on. And and that's how I got there. But from an from from an academic and life, that life skills standpoint, going to Princeton was the best thing that could have happened to me. I got exposed to a high level of academic rigor that I didn't even have at high school. And I was in the honors program at Mount Carmel. It's just completely different when you go to a school like Princeton.

And what it gave to me was the intellectual confidence to compete.

And that's a difference. And that's different. Big difference. When you come out of a place like that and your your good friends or people whose families have been working in different industries at the highest level, it's like it's like playing basketball with a bunch of NBA guys. Yep. Yep. Hundred percent. And I came out of there and I go into an interview and I'd be talking to people and I'd feel like I can do this job. I can do that job. I can do that job. And I probably could do your job. I wouldn't say it, but I felt it because of the exposure.

and the experience that I got off the court. So that was a huge turning point in my life. Yeah. Picking Princeton to go to. And I really I really didn't pick it. My dad helped me pick it because I would have gone to the University of Washington because they had the whole recruiting trip and made the helicopter flight and hotel room and the whole nine yards. And I went to Princeton and I stayed with John Rogers, who's the president of aerial capital management. He played.

at the lab school and he was my host. He's now the largest minority money manager in the country. He stayed on his bed. He stayed on the floor. That's the Princeton way of recruiting. Yeah. But wow, that's pretty cool. Let me tell you, my dad was the one who said he was the one who steered me toward Princeton and it was the best move I could have ever made. Yeah. So like the and I try to tell my kids in different ways. We played Mac Ervin. I shared the story a couple of times.

times on and we're Mac Ervin's from Chicago. Yeah, that's one of the great programs in the state and they got the EYBL tag. We played them in sixth grade and I was just telling my kids who all suburban kids like this ball means something different than it means to you. Like this is life and death, you know, to them. This is a recreational sport for you. This is a hobby. Yeah, this is different, you know. So fast forward, we played that same team.

At our last game as seniors on the same court, it was a dog fight. We ended up losing in overtime by one.

It was a different mentality. That ball meant something. I think I think kids in the suburbs up here kind of take it for granted. This game saves other kids lives in other states and other communities. More kids up here, they take it. I'm great. I'm you know, I can play basketball whenever for other kids in other communities. This game is what they need to actually save them. Yeah. And going to that story is that that ball matters. And when you pick your school and you pick where you're trying to go, now it's time to use what?

that community to what that university is going to give you because that ball mattered that much now you got to use what that

for the rest of your career is what they gonna give you. That Princeton University, Marquette University, they gave me all the tools that I needed once I was done with it. Having a great coach and Coach Kareem, having great teammates, great alumni base. Now you're kinda set for life, for what you learn. So after you went to Princeton, you played in the league. Yeah, I got drafted by the Sixers and then I got cut right as veterans camp was starting. Yeah, the training camp.

and then I went overseas and played for a couple of years in England. Yep. And so tell us about that because I played in England for five years. Yeah. Newcastle. Okay. And I loved England. I played 11 years overseas, five years in Newcastle. Tell us about how that experience helped you grow too. Yeah, that was so the the.

That was such a great experience for me because that was my first time being on my own other than college. Right. And in college really is a safe haven. You're not really on your own. You got so many resources and people looking out for you. But I was on my own. Had to pay for everything for the first time. But I had a tremendous experience in that I replaced the guy because I was in camp. It was already October. So they had started their season. So I replaced an American. And

And when I played there, you were only allowed two Americans on the team and one dual national. So that was somebody who had a both two passports, one from their home country and one from England. And and I went over there and fortunately, the coach there knew of Princeton and the Princeton offense. So he asked me to install some of that stuff. So it was really a comfortable landing spot for me. The other American was Vince Brookings, who played

for the really good Iowa team that went to the Final Four. He and I are still friends.

And he was my height. So we had a pretty decent team. We had a six, nine center. He was six, seven. I was six, seven. We had another six, five guy and a six, three guy. But I ran the point and it was such a a great experience for me because first and foremost, I learned how to manage a game because you have to. And Joe knows this from having played over there. You have to put up your numbers in order to keep getting invited.

it back. Right. And so I had to view the game differently than I did as a college player where I'm just trying to do what the coach says in the game. So I'm trying to win the game, but I'm also breaking the game up into the quadrants that I play. And so I figured if I averaged 20 something points and double digit rebounds, that would be better than 85 % of the guys over there. So I broke the game down in the quadrant. So I was out there trying.

trying to get as many points as I could in each quadrant so that when the game came down to the end, I could just play and not worry about it. So that was one thing that gave me a different way of looking at basketball. And then the other thing was living in a different culture was really neat. And Newcastle wasn't even a division one team when I played there. No, not then. So I played for the Manchester Giants, which is still there. As a matter of fact, it was only

by a Lebanese businessman and...

And Manchester was a great city. It reminded me a little bit of it was like a combination of Gary, Indiana and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So it was like a real industrial area. Blue collar folks had a suburb and and it was it was just wonderful traveling throughout Europe and being able to go to different places so easily. Just it was it was kind of like living on the East Coast. You know, you live on the East Coast. You can get to New York, Boston. Yep. You get down to, you know, North Carolina, get down to Florida really easily. Oh, once you.

hit Europe, you can get around. It's real easy to get around. And people, the last thing I'll say about this is...

It gave me a view of what other people thought about Americans. And I learned that we weren't the end all be all that we thought we were. Correct. Correct. People always assume that the the negative stuff about you as an American, because I even saw it when I was over there. And when people come over and they're tourists, they come over looking for the McDonald's and the Burger King and not wanting to try out new stuff. And I.

was like, Oh, this is the view of Americans you have. No wonder you think how you do. So I spent a lot of time with people and going to dinner and learning their culture and helping them understand that.

You know, tourists are different from people who you'd never gonna meet who are never gonna get a chance to come over here. So it was just a wonderful experience. And again, it helped my development. Because when you come back from an experience like that and you sit down with interviewers and you've got.

a Princeton background, a basketball background, professional player background, and then you've lived in another country for two or three years. Yes. You're set yourself apart from all the other people who are doing the interviews. Yeah. And it really gives you a leg up when you talk to folks. And it also gives you a leg up from where you grew up at. Oh, man. Oh, yes. You go back. Sometimes when I went back home.

And you talk to the same person who was living in the same spots for 20 years. It's like that growth of what you've been through for the last 10 years. You're such a another level and intellectually living. You know, you're thinking different. And and and I think when Muhammad Ali said if you're the same person at 40, if you and if you was at 18, then you lost, you know, 20 years of your life, not doing anything. And you see that, you know,

especially where we're from is, you know, people don't go past their neighborhood, you know, where they live, they stay in their environment. That's what we've been taught is to stay where you're from. And it's safe. It's a safe thing. And now with COVID, everybody is afraid to try stuff. But Joe hit it right on the head. I mean, you know, I'm teaching my kid and I'm sure Joe, you teaching your boys.

Try stuff. Yes. Try stuff. Go to school. Try it. Try taking Mandarin or try taking Spanish or try try all these different things. Yes, because there is way more out there than sort of right. McWine, Wisconsin, you know, or Port Washington. It is my first time going on a flight overseas. I was going to Bogota, Colombia was my first job. And back then they didn't have a translator on the flight.

They just, as soon as you take off, it's all Spanish. And it's all Spanish people around me. And like Coach was saying, we're so naive to other people's countries, and people are naive to us as well. And I'm sitting next to someone.

that didn't speak no English, but what I learned from Marquette taking different things and picking up Q words and body language and what they were trying to verbalize, I needed to know what immigration I needed to go to when we landed.

I didn't know who how my driver would look. I didn't know how Colombian people looked. Yeah, so I get a picture of a Colombian. I'm thinking, you know, he's like look like you, Terry, a little bit. But I get down there. They're darker than me. Yeah. And I'm like, oh.

That's just a culture thing that we have a perception of what people look like and we dive into that. And and that's the cool part, because you get 20, 22 hours by yourself. You only got practice two hours, maybe four if you got two days. What are you doing with all this time to invest? So that goes back into what did you do after you played? You got into Northwestern right away? No, no, I went to I didn't get into coaching until 14 years after I worked in corporate America. So when I came back,

I had no idea what I wanted to do. I knew what I wanted to do before I got the ability to play basketball. I had a summer internship with Procter & Gamble and I was like, okay, this is gonna, they're gonna offer me a job when I graduate. I got, I'm all set and then I, lo and behold, I get drafted and then my whole life changes, right? And it's focused on basketball. So I was thinking maybe I'll go back to Procter & Gamble but then.

My dear friend John Rogers who had was the host on my visit was now an investment manager and he told me about the investment banking arena and that's how I got involved with and did you know anything about investment banking beforehand? Oh, I had only heard about About it that you can make a lot of money. That was it and I didn't know anything about it and So I got a job

working at a bank and applied to business school at the same time because if you wanted to be really good in that business, you had to get your MBA. So I applied and got into the University of Chicago. I went part time and I worked at Dean Witter Reynolds, which was a stock brokerage firm, slash investment bank.

That was my first job after playing and it was all cold calling and trying to get people to sign up and and and and let you do their investments. And I did that for two years and I realized, OK, in order to get where I wanted to get, I had to get this NBA. So I finished up my NBA and that's when I started working at Morgan Stanley as a bond trader. And I was a bond trader for. Almost 14 years. Wow.

And then I had the opportunity and I shouldn't say I shouldn't leave this part out while I was a trader. I was that was when I first started coaching youth basketball. So I was coaching my two older kids. Oh, yeah. Just on the side in little leagues they were playing in. And I got a job at the University of Chicago Lab School, which is called you high.

as their varsity boys basketball coach. Wow. And so I was so my my plan was now now I'm getting to be a planner because I'm getting a little older. I was like, well, if I can make this kind of money for the next 15 years.

I could retire at the age of like 45 ish and then I could teach seventh grade and coach. But I was I do what you want is right. But I had in my mind I'm going to teach seventh grade and coach high school basketball because I like that age at seventh grade because kids still listen to you. And then I coach high school because I had done that. Right. I wasn't thinking about being a college coach. Yeah. I was I was just thinking about all right I need enough money to afford to my kids to go to an Ivy League school.

if they were smart enough to get into. If I could save that up, pay for my house, then I'd be set. I could take any job. It wouldn't matter what it paid. I just need the benefits. And while I'm working for a trading company in Chicago,

Bill Carmody gets the job at Northwestern. And Bill Carmody was the assistant coach at Princeton my senior year. So we had a relationship. And then he became the head coach when Coach Coril retired at Princeton.

And he would come to Chicago to recruit Chicago kids because Chicago's always had a good pipeline to Princeton. And he would say, hey, Craig, take me to the places who are the good players. So I, you know, I was like Joe. I knew all the players. I either played with them or their dads or I played for the coach. I knew the coaches or I played against them. Right. So I was a good resource for him. So we would go to the gyms and I'd be like, OK, that kid's got good enough grades. This kid's great.

aren't good enough but he's a really good ballplayer so if he could get a good score on the SATs or ACTs right we could get him in so he knew that I sort of had the ability to do some recruiting so he gets the job at Northwestern and I call him up to congratulate him and he says

So I call him up to congratulate him. He's busy. He doesn't call me back. He calls me back. I'm on the trading desk. And I was like, oh yeah, coach, I just wanted to congratulate you. And he said, well, look, I'm not calling about that. I'm calling to see if you'd be interested in being one of my assistants. And I said, I'm on the trading floor. Let me call you back. So I hang up the phone.

I go downstairs, I jump in a taxi and I said to the taxi guy, just drive around. I got to make a phone call and I call him back and he offers me the assistant coaching job at Northwestern Division one, Big 10. So that's the thing. Like, you know, our topic is basketball, you know, life after basketball. Right. And look what Princeton.

You know, you talk about your coach and the nuances that you learned there and the integral parts of the game. And and like you said, you know, the life skills you learned up, you could have took it any job you wanted because of those four years of what you learned. Yeah. And every stop from there prepared you for any job investment, bacon, trading docks, all of this stuff. And you didn't know any of that coming from Mount Carmel from the south side. No. And that ball put in your hand and what you learned from there. Yeah. You know, that's.

taking you pretty far. It's changed my life. So basketball helped change my life because without basketball, I don't get to Princeton. Right. You know, and and without basketball, I don't get into coaching. Nobody would give me a coaching job at a college. And it was funny. I went into my partner's at the firm that I was working at Loop Capital Markets in Chicago, and I told the founder of the firm and this was a new firm. I was like employee number 13 or 14. Right. So I was it was I was running.

all of the taxable fixed income. So I had a big job. And I said, Jim, I'm going to resign. And he's like, what are you going to do? I was like, I'm going to go coach basketball. And he looked at me like I had two heads. And he was like, wait.

You're going to be an assistant coach. You're not even going to be the head coach. And I said, yeah, I'm going be assistant coach. And he paused for a minute and he said, hey, Craig, how much them jobs pay? And I said, nowhere near as much as I make here. And he said, are you sure? And everybody thought I was going through a nervous breakdown because I was going through a divorce at the time. And I had two young kids and I had to be around them. I had custody of them. So.

He said, I'm keeping your seat open because just in case you you're not going to be able to live off of what they're going to be paying you. But it was one of those things where the love of the game made me have the confidence that I could do it. Also, to your point, having the intellectual confidence.

that I got from a place like Princeton and Mount Carmel too, but mostly Princeton, I knew if it didn't work out, I could get a job somewhere. Right. Right. And that's the beauty of going to the right college. It gives you options. Yep. Yep.

when you're off the court. So I ended up taking the job and then, you know, 14 years later, I'm like, you know, end up being head coach at Oregon State in the Pac 12. And, you know, parlay that into two years of working for ESPN as an analyst and then into the NBA. I mean, you know, it just opened up a whole new world for me. Unbelievable. Love to get your perspective as a head coach. Sure. A pretty high profile job. Right. Yeah. We have a lot of kids that have a lot of offers in Joe's program.

stuff. Talk about as a coach what you're looking for in these kids. You know what you're looking for as a coach. Yeah Terry there's so many things you're looking for and what I what I try and explain to families now is...

At the baseline, you got to be able to be good enough to play. That's the first thing. So we assume everybody's good enough to play, right? If you're not good enough to play, especially in this day and age where you can get transfers, you're moving on to the next one. So you have to have a certain level of ability to be able to be at the high major level or either the Division I level. But then the second thing is how is this person going to fit in the culture of what we're trying to do?

trying to build there. And that is bigger than the plane. Because when you hold the abilities equal, it's hard to find the right person who's going to fit into your culture the proper way. And when I say culture, it means how you feel about being on time, how hard you work, how you prioritize your academics.

how you prioritize your leisure time, that is the biggest thing. What is this guy gonna do with the other 20 hours that he's not spending with us? Or this young girl, what kind of person is she gonna be? What kind of student is she gonna be? What kind of university community person are you gonna be? Because typically,

the recruits from the basketball and the football teams are the biggest ambassadors for the athletic department and the university as a whole. So you are looking for people who aren't gonna embarrass you in the airport, or on the bus, or in the restaurants, or in the hotels who say please and thank you and know how to put their phones down and talk to people. All of this stuff comes into play when guys like me or guys and girls,

like me are recruiting young student athletes. And when you're recruiting, this might seem like a dumb question, but okay, when you're building a team, are you looking at, okay, like the NFL, I need a running back, I need a guard, are you looking at, I need a point guard, I need a forward, or are you taking the best player available? So first of all, that's not a dumb question. It is a pertinent question, and you have to understand, it depends on where the level you are. Now, if you're Kentucky or Duke, you're usually,

able to look for the best player who fits the position you need. If you're Oregon State like me, like I was, you're looking for the best player you can get. And then you fit your team around that player. Are looking like, OK, this guy's 6 '2", he may be a center in high school, but he may fit better as a forward here in my program. 6 '2 guys would have to be.

a guard. So he better if he's playing center, he better be able to he had better be able to play guard at my level. Right now. When I was at Brown, that's a lower level. So then you're looking at a six to guy. If he can be a swing, you have one, two or two, three, then he's more appealing. So it really depends on where you are. Yeah. And Joe talked about this a little bit earlier. And I can't remember if you if this was before we got on or not. But you talked about.

about fit, sending kids to the place that it fits them. And that's why it's important for these kids to go visit, to talk to the coach, to call up the coach. Find a place that wants you for the player you can be and where they see you going. Your trajectory. Yeah, that'll change everything because if you try and go to a place that just you going for the name, you going for the visit, you know, the amenities.

usually doesn't work and now people are taking those risks now because now there's no consequence in transferring. If you transfer you can play right away. Before you had to sit out a year, now you can play right away so people are making more mistakes because they're reaching for things that aren't as personally.

important to their development. Yeah, we talked about it like because, you know, CBS girls and boys. We say that the boys always look at the game before the school and the girls tend to look at the school before the game. I absolutely believe that. Now, I've got three sons, one daughter. Now, my daughter played at a high level. She played at Princeton, got drafted into the WNBA and played overseas. Very similar to my my trajectory.

she was always going to pick the best academic school.

It's just girls are more mature. That's what they are. They're more mature. And the fact that there's there's not as viable of a professional track for them on the basketball side. Right. It's the smart play. Yes, it's the smart play. And girls are smart at that age and boys are still boys. Right. Yep. Boys will go for the uniform sometimes. I mean, it's just amazing. When I was recruiting guys and they, you know, before NIL and all this stuff,

stuff with the money. I understand guys going where the money was right legally or illegally. I understand that. But don't go for the uniform. You know, don't go for the sneakers because the the the schools that had the Nike and Adidas contracts that was part of their upbringing. It was coming through the A .U. Oh, yeah. Coming through the A .U. scene.

Your your sneaker deal was as important as anything. Yep. Because that was our NIL really. It's like I want to go to a Nike school. Yes. I know I'm going to get Nikes or some teams was Nike elite. I got to get to the Nike elite. You know some programs was Adidas like Adidas hurt my feet. So like when you're you're thinking a little stuff as a guy like the girls are thinking what what school fits better for me. What degree that I'm going to use. What alumni base is going to help me. Why.

there and most and if you do the research on it most girls are set up right after college they know exactly what they want to do boom boom yeah guys are still trying to figure it out like oh I don't know what's next you know girls are they into the profession they want to be in

one or two years right after it's done. Guys, it takes a little longer. That's right. That's right. So you brought up the NIL. And there's a couple things I think kids need to know. OK, with the NIL and the one and done, what is that doing to the college game?

People are saying the college game's hurting, and that's hurting the NBA game. What's your talk on that? So my opinion on all of that is I want people to know that the coaches who are in my organization, which are all NCAA Division I head and assistant coaches, there's some NIA coaches, NCAA Division II Division III coaches, high school coaches, junior college coaches. So we run the gamut. So we represent.

represent 5 ,000 coaches nationwide and internationally. And I'm here to tell you, I can't find too many of them who don't think that the student athletes should get some money for what they generate. All coaches, in my opinion, are for NIL in some way, shape, or form. What's happened is, and Joe and I have talked about this a lot, the...

the culmination of NIL, the new transfer rules, COVID have made this into a tougher road for student athletes, for coaches, for schools, for the whole ecosystem of college sports.

And I say this for a couple of reasons. And one of them I mentioned is that now fewer student athletes are getting recruit, fewer prospective school student athletes, high school students are getting recruited because it's easier to recruit transfers. And as a college coach, I'd recruit a transfer before I would recruit a high school kid if my job was dependent upon. Correct. Correct. I would do that. The second thing is the NIL.

doesn't have enough regulations where it's ending up now to be pay for play. So they're paying kids to come play for their team and they're negotiating minutes and they're negotiating positions and all this kind of stuff, which is bad for, I think it's bad for the student athlete because they're not fully developed yet. They don't know what their position's gonna be. And if they pick the wrong spot,

that's going to hinder their development. So they're going to look to transfer and that's going to slow their development because they got to figure out somewhere else to go. And if that doesn't work, they're going to transfer again. And then we don't even have the numbers on how that's affecting the graduation rates and the progress toward graduate. That was a big thing when we play. We looked at the four or five year like our coaches, who was our coaches at Marquette.

They looked at the 95 % has graduated. Yeah. Four years. Right. You know, that number has to look so totally different now with the rules where you can just keep bouncing around. Yeah. Sure. Graduated. And we have this. So the NCAA hasn't had enough time yet to post that. But when they do, that'll tell us a lot because maybe the data will show it's the same as it was before. But what what I always liked about intercollegiate athletics was that.

Everybody who played sports always had a higher graduation rate than the rest of the students, right? And people didn't that's not intuitive You wouldn't think that intuitively because I know I didn't until I started coach and I was like what right but but to your point

Now that I can look back on it 20 years later, there's a reason why. You're disciplined, you're structured, you're in a box. You're not really a student. And so you're really just in a box of I gotta go A to B to C to D. It's hard to mess it up. It's hard to mess it up. It's hard to mess it up. So I like NIL and I understand why the student athletes should have freedom of movement. And I love the colloquial.

game, we have to figure out how to make it so that it is still manageable so that we don't unintentionally hurt the student athletes' development both on the court and off the court. Should there be a prerequisite on college years playing? So I do think that.

having a 27 year old who's still playing college basketball playing against an 18 year old is a competitive disadvantage. So, you know, I'm still thinking about all of this, but I do think that there should be an upper limit to the age range or how many years you could play, right? So should you get five years?

Right. And you can do those five years any way you can, whether you're an undergrad or grad, but you get five years and then after your fifth year, you got to go play professionally or you have to stop playing. Yeah. That's something like that has to be in place. What is also the do you think there should be a minimum? Yeah, that's what I was about to get at. So I think there you should have a high school degree. Yeah. But if you are a special case,

So let's say you're smart enough to graduate high school early and you're good enough to compete in in yes at the collegiate level. You should be able to. Correct. There's been a couple of cases where I've seen kids who who are seniors that stopped after the basketball season was over.

or before their season and didn't do their senior year because they got the grades or graduated early and they took a spot for for college. There is some cases. And it mostly happens with football because football is one semester. See, college basketball is a two semester sport. So it's it's hard to and high school basketball is too. So it's hard to leave your basketball team in the middle of the season when you got games going on. It's just it's just a hard thing to do. Right.

But if that's what you choose to do, you should be able to do it. I'm not trying to restrict, I'm just trying to do what's smart. And, but.

What I don't like is and I got to say, Wisconsin is one of the bigger places for reclassification. I've never seen so much because I grew up in Chicago. Now there's many more people. We didn't reclassify. That was frowned upon. It was frowned upon if you did that. Like you were you were considered, oh, man, he flunked a grade. And the rule was you couldn't be eight. You couldn't be 19 and still play in high school. And I think that's

rule that's the year to. Yeah. So I don't understand the reclassifying your back a year. Right. Because everybody always catches up. It don't matter. And as a college coach, I want to see you playing with the kids your age or better. Not the kids behind you. Right. Yeah. But but but I to get but to get back to the.

I think age plays a role on the upper end in college. On the lower end, if you're good enough to play, you can play.

But there should be, and I don't know what that age limit should be. Should it be 25? Should it be 24? Should it be 27? I don't know. But I know you have a severe competitive advantage if you have a team full of 24 -year -olds. And it's happening, and you see it today. And this is interesting because I always laugh. And one of my board members of the NABC is John Calipari, who's a coach at Kentucky, good friend of mine.

And John Shire is also I recruited John Shire to go to Northwestern and ended up blowing up and going to Duke. Nobody knew about him until he blew up and then he ended up going to Duke. So I know John Shire for many years. Both of their teams aren't doing as well because they've got high end high school recruits. Yes. Yes. But they're still.

ranked in the top 25. They're good teams, but they have trouble against teams that are veterans. Correct. Because it'd be like if Joe and I will not me at this age, but if Joe and his prime and me and my primer playing against some pros who were 18 years old or 19, we would beat them. Yes. Yes. We would beat them. You can ask Joanne Howard because when Joanne Howard was playing against my men's league team years ago, we beat the breaks off of those guys because they just didn't know how to play.

And we were like professional guys.

And that still happened now. You know, I just got done playing earlier today and you know, me and Travis and Robert Jackson, who's 45, 46, Travis would be 42. I'm 40 and our teammates are 40 and we're going against guys who are in between jobs, European jobs, their home. We beat the brakes off of them. They can't beat you. They can't beat you. And they're like, and we beat them with ball movement, player movement, you know, up screens, away screens. We're doing we don't care. It's about winning as opposed to, you know, scoring, you know, so.

Yeah. And that brings me to my question about NBA. Yeah. Because some of these players, they're 18, 19. I'm hearing Coach Pop and some of these guys are saying we got to start. We're developing players now instead of them coming in and being a little bit more ready than usual. We're spending so much more time. Yeah. Because they go into a Kentucky or Duke and they're 18, 19. And then they come in right. Right. And that's their fault because the NBA chose to come get the young. And that was one of my questions. Yeah.

Like, do you think they should the NBA should have a, you Listen, so it's so hard to make the comparison because the NBA is sort of for profit. Yeah. And the NCAA is not for profit. So you got this business entity over here trying to optimize everything. So they're going to figure out what is best for them. They thought getting the young talent was best for them. It's until they had to spend all this money to develop them and hire guys like me to help with the transition.

from college and sometimes high school to the pro ranks. And how are these kids, like with the NIL, you're 18 and you're getting all this money. And then you're going up with all this money to, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's so hard from...

What I think is the NBA should let the colleges develop the guys. Yes. Yes. Just let the colleges do it. They're doing it for free. And they're getting an education. They're getting an education, but they're maturing. Yeah. But see, it's so competitive to win. Everybody's trying to be right at the margin. So should I take this guy who went over to Europe instead of going through the college ranks? So the NBA has got to they got to think about how they are how they're developing.

their talent. I see it the way I said it earlier is that the way you develop is playing and in college you get a free year of just playing good competition and you're getting good coaching. Right. Right. Not to say that you go to Europe you don't get good coaching or you go international or you go to the G League you don't get good coaching. It's...

The coaches are invested in developing you because as a college coach, I lose my job if I don't develop you. In the pros, you're focused on winning games. There's a difference. So if I'm a coach in the NBA, I'm gonna play the...

seven or eight guys that are going to help me win the game. Hundred percent. The other five got the six. There's 13 on a roster now. Plus two two way guys. I can't develop those guys unless they're playing because in the NBA you play so many games. Yes. You don't have time for practice. Right. So you don't get better at practice like you can when you're in college. Correct. Yeah. So I think that. If an.

My kids are not going to be pros. You know, you know who are pros these days are if Joe's kids have a chance to be pros because His wife was an athlete and he was an athlete. My wife was a division three Softball player so my kids might have a chance but

The pros are the folks who are the NBA guys who marry the WNBA women and have a child or a world class volleyball player or a world class soccer player who are tall, right? Because when I was in college, I was like.

I wonder where all these NBA players are that everybody's talking about. Well, then when I got to the NBA, I was like, oh, they're here. They are. They're in the NBA. It's so different, Terry. Yeah. The the genetic aspect of it is so different. It is not. You almost don't have a chance unless your kid is genetically gifted. Yeah, that gives them through the door. That gets them in there. And then you have to be the hardest working, most diligent one percent maniac to be.

be in the NBA to make up for the lack of genetics. Yes. Yes. No, no. Even if you got the genetics, because it's only so many spots, it's only so many spots. And what people don't know and Joe Joe knows this. You look at the NBA, you look at don't look at the 15 on the roster. Look at the eight who play. Yeah.

And that eight times the 30 team, it's only 240 regular NBA players. Everybody else is interchangeable. Correct. Everybody else can is, is coming in for a couple of years and leaving for a couple of years and trying to hang on. The rest of those dudes are making it. So you're talking about 240 slots. Get your education, get your education. Now you want to dive a little bit into.

You did all of this and I played with Damon Huffman who you coached at Brown and talk about the success of some of your former players and how that kind of, because I see it now as a coach and I look at the Tim Franks of the world and some of these guys and you're like, that's my DNA. So talk about some of the players that came through and that's doing well. It's a really neat feeling Joe and it is.

almost as if they were your own children, not quite because your own children are a little different and you don't like I'm when Joe knows this, when I coach my own kids, I'm the assistant coach and I'm just really trying to help the head coach develop. And and and, you know, now my eighth grader, he's going to be on his own from now on his AAU and his high school coaches that I'm not going to be on the bench. I'm going to get to be the parent parent. But hearing from my former players,

And seeing them, their success gives me just gives me a warm feel. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. You mentioned Damon Huffman and I've got Joe Burton, who's playing overseas. And then I had Jared Cunningham, who played in the NBA, and Eric Moreland played in the NBA. And then Roberto Nelson, who was one of my highest recruits, is now coaching at Oregon State. I mean, it's just and to get calls from those guys with questions on, all right, what should I do now? I'm trying. They're trying to nap.

their careers. But more importantly and more more amusing is when they call me up and they say, Oh, I know what you meant when you were getting on me about this, especially the ones who are in basketball and coaching. Right. And it's just like, you know, it's it's like guys don't figure it out until they're in their thirties. That's just how we are wired. You know, we just develop later. And it's such a nice feeling. And

Coach Corril said this to me when I was graduating, right? I had finally figured out all the stuff and I was, you know, two time Ivy League player of the year. So the game was coming easy to me. And the season was over after my senior year and I went up into his office and I was so used to going to his office and watching film and there was nothing to do. And...

I was sitting there, he was sitting there, Coach Carmody was sitting there, all the assistants were sitting there and I'm leaning back and just nobody's saying anything. And Coach Krill said, finally broke the silence and said, you know, just when you figure it out, the shit's over. Excuse me, I don't even know. But that's what he said. Jones had a couple of problems. It's part of it. And he said it, it was just like he knew.

He put into words because he was he dealt with it every year. Yeah, what I was feeling at the time and I couldn't I couldn't articulate it. And I just love when my players realize, man, this is this is over. It's like we had such a wonderful experience. What do you do when you have because I'm dealing with it now with my twenty four class? OK, and it makes it hard for me when you have a special group that you got to let go. And we all have groups. But when you get your hands on a special man, damn,

Oh, yeah. Like your every day. So Kelly and the kids and I went to Homestead's senior night. Yes. Yes. Yes. I was there for that. Yeah. You were you there for that game and they almost lost. Yeah. Yeah. And I told Sean afterwards because I mean, we know these kids because we've just been following them. Yeah. And it's just it made me get choked up and reminded me.

It's nothing you can do. You just what you what I would say is you you you got to have all your celebrations after the game, because if you do it before the game, the emotions take it out of the players. And you could see it. Yes. Because Sean started a couple of seniors and he and he and then he tried to get the game back into control. And it was it's hard feeling out of control because everybody is in their feelings, in their feelings. And they're trying to win, especially for the seniors. And it's just it's so hard. But just just.

Enjoy it. You know my the one class I have where we were like in tears on senior night. We just tried to enjoy it and and and Send them on because it's not gonna be the end right? It's not gonna be the end you'll see they're gonna always reach back because it's such a it's such a special time for them yet, they're never gonna forget it and they're never gonna forget you and you're gonna have your proud moment because you know Tim is that 1 % that's just

He's different. And when he scores his points in college, you're going to be like, that's my boy. I had a part of that. And you're going to be proud. And a tear might drop in your eye, too. But this is what they do for the other kids. Like, I saw Austin last week in there with Tim. It's like, now it's the...

next group that they're grooming. You know, your legacy is how you leave it and how someone else is inspired by what you do. Yeah. And if I could jump in here, see, this is a part of Joe's culture with the Chapman basketball. Oh, yeah. Club. So from the time I can remember.

My kids have known the older kids in your program. Yep. And they are welcoming. It's not like they're like, all right, little kid, get out of the way. They put up with them. Yeah. And they're slapping them fives. And when they're playing their high school games, they come over and say hello. And, you know, it's really interesting because Austin will have a couple of successes. He's a decent player, but he's not by far the best player in eighth grade, but he's a decent player. And Tim always shouts him out.

because he says, I see that kid in the gym all the time. Now this is Tim Franks, who is in line for one of the finalists for Mr. Basketball. That keeps Austin in the gym. Same with my son. My son went into Homestead at that game. Mike, freshman, knows him.

Trevor used to be with you. Yes. You know, and then we go to the graphing game and, you know, Caleb is a base. Yeah. And it's just awesome. And we should give Sean Crider some credit to because and and Corey, Sean and Corey do a great job of of of welcoming and welcoming the kids who come out of your program. And then the value system is very much the same. Corey coaches in your. Yeah. She coached for us for six years. Yeah. And she.

Coach Crider coached for us for four or five years. Yeah. Yeah, so that's not normal either. That's not normal where where you've got an A .A .U. program that works well with the high school program because usually what I see and I see them from a recruiting standpoint.

The high school coach and the AAU coach aren't working together. Right. Well, look at their programs, too. I mean, they're the best. I mean, the girl side, the boy side, you know, you see the correlation how well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So exciting stuff. And so, you know, you're going to that that's never going to stop. It's not going to be as intense because they're not playing for you anymore, but you're going to have the connection. Yeah. And I think that's the cool part. And lastly, just watching you and youth.

you know, with with the kids is this very inspiring because I don't know, you know, most people and most kids don't know your background. And so when you walk through the door, you're also in there is that they don't know your professional or, you know, head coach career. Right. They know you as a parent. Yeah. You know, and that's pretty cool because you carry yourself as a parent, not as a coach, you know, who coached on that type of level. Well, I tried on that level. I try. I try. I appreciate you. I appreciate you.

notice. And, you know, the way I look at it is there were so many coaches who poured themselves into me and parents and it was a whole community and we lose that in this day and age with social media and just the competitiveness of people trying to get their kid into a certain level. And I just try to uplift as many.

people, kids especially as I can, because I was that kid and my kids are that kid. And my mom said something to me that I've carried with me as a parent and as an adult. She said,

you want to raise your kids to be really nice kids because people will give them more love when they're nice kids than if they're jerks. And I was like, I never thought about that. And so as a parent, I'm trying to teach.

Avery, Leslie, Austin, Aaron, how to behave so that they can get that extra love. And then as an adult, I'm trying to give out more, not just to my kids, but to the kids that I'm coaching and the kids that I see at these tournaments. Just slap in five. Good job. And every now and then I'll get on the refs. Oh, yeah. Every now and then. But even there, I'm trying to I'm trying to encourage all these young folks as we're talking about life after basketball. We.

talked about this. There's going to be a need for referees. And let me tell you for the folks listening to this referees at the college level get paid a whole lot of money for part time work. So they mostly have a job and they're making an extra 150 to 250 on the side.

gig that is fun, in my opinion. So every time I see a young guy officiating, I'm trying to convince him, stick with it. Just stick with it. Go to these camps. Still play basketball, still keep your dream. But when it finally is over, think about officiating if you like this game that much. Yeah, I agree. We did a referee podcast like two weeks ago, and that was one of his advice that he gave a lot of young players. And I've seen a lot of young kids that's getting into refereeing now. So, yeah, that's

That's the cool part. And we want to wrap this up just saying thank you for coming, doing this. I think this is a great podcast. Basketball, you know, life after basketball is a hard transition for 90%.

of people. It is. And we've been fortunate enough that we use the tools that we learned from our high school, college and everywhere in between to help us continue to grow. And the doors that's been open for us, but also it can open for so many people if you're saying please and thank you, if you're being the right person. If you're learning the values that you learned from your college or your high school, if you don't play in college, if you learn those valuable lessons, doors will open just by the nuances,

of what you learned and what people poured into you. That's what you're gonna need in life after basketball. Exactly. But with that too, it's the athlete and the parents to find that program, to find a Joe Chapman as your director, to find a Craig Robinson as your coach.

You got to have those type of people because there are programs out there that are not like Joe Chapman. Yeah. You know what I mean? And yeah, yeah, you're right. We talked about it all the time. And you know, parents gravitate to the shiny new object. Yeah. And if I could if I could give any advice is, you know, just be careful.

And to your point, Terry, do your homework, because if you do your homework, you'll find that Joe Chapman's out there. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Great stuff. Thanks a lot. And thanks a lot, everybody, for listening to the CBA podcast. Have a good day.