Hardwood Hustle

When it comes to parents, most coaches are frustrated dealing with difficult parents, or handling stressful parent situations, but today the team shares solutions and tools you can use to lead parents better and have a more fulfilling coaching experience.

To run or not to run? This week, TJ and Sam discuss the pros and cons of being a fast paced transition team. They also share the things you should be considering as a coach when deciding on your approach to transition offense.

As coaches, our teams need us to be at our best, but we get pulled in a lot of different direction, lack the support, and too often fall short. This week, we're joined by Cody Royle, a professional Aussie Rules Football Coach who is passionate about challenging the status quo in coaching and helping great coaches stay in the game. He's the author of Where Others Won't, and The Tough Stuff, and joins us today to give coaches tips on how to lead well, avoid burnout, and stay focused on your mission. Website: https://www.codyroyle.com/ Twitter: @codyroyle

We all know being a great communicator is essential to being a great leader and coach. Our players are always depending on us to give them the what, how, and why, in a clear and efficient manner. It's true, most also coaches assume they're good communicators. In this episode, Sam and TJ will help you take the guessing out of it and gauge where you're at with 5 tips to help you become a better communicator.

This week TJ, Sam, and Lisa dive into the state of coaching and what you can do to combat the challenges you're facing as a coach. We play an important role and have a tremendous opportunity to impact young people and influence our communities for the better. But we need to find ways to be the best version of ourselves and make sure we're on the right track personally and professionally. That's where the 3 P's come in.

This week we're joined by a special guest, Coach Bob Starkey. He's coached both men's and women's college basketball for almost 40 years and is returning this upcoming season to LSU as the associate head coach. In this episode he shares from his wealth of knowledge and experiences around coach development, specifically around teaching and motivating players and helping them reach their potential.

This week, TJ and Sam discuss how to go about improving basketball IQ on your team. For some of us, this is one of our biggest headache watching our players take bad shots, turn the ball over, and making poor decisions on both ends of the floor. In this episode we attack those frustrations with better methods for teaching the game so you can get the biggest return on investment.

This week, we're once again joined by our friend and DIII men's coach of the year, Head Coach Josh Merkel from Randolph-Macon. In the last 3 seasons they've sustained their winning ways compiling a 100-7 record. We interviewed him last spring to talk about building his program, and this year we get the inside scoop on their national championship run and how they mapped out their season from start to finish. Lots to learn in this episode about how to lead your program at a high level.

This week, Sam and Lisa discuss how a coach leads their players when it comes to development, role identification and building relationships. Mapping out the development process for your team and your players is a big step forward for coaches. In this episode we share how you can start developing plans, creating opportunities, and evaluating progress.

This week we're joined by John Leonzo to break down the Dribble Drive Motion Offense. John Leonzo is an assistant coach at Wright State and is known in the basketball world for sharing his learnings and giving back to the game. After listening you'll not only understand the Dribble Drive offense better you'll also walk away with best practices for any offensive system you run.

This week we're excited to have Greg Sheley join Sam and myself for a conversation about success at the junior college level, the one thing he wishes he would could go back and tell his younger self about hiring a staff, and how to prepare for the big games. In his 30 year career, his teams have won 5 NWACC championships and he's accumulated over 700 wins. We can't wait to have you learn from his experiences in this episode.

We're joined by Coach Matt Sayman to talk about his unique story as a player with Baylor Basketball, how he's learned perspective as a high school coach at Grapevine Christian and developed his offensive run and gun philosophy. Check out the latest release of Matt's book, The Leftovers.

This week TJ and Sam cover what coaches are doing to be successful come tournament time and what they're seeing right now from top teams specifically around in-game coaching and strategies.

This week TJ and Sam tackle 3 interesting topics in coaching right now. Starting off with the handshake lines. How should coaches approach this aspect of the game with their teams? Is it time to do without or double down?  Next they discuss how coaches develop better teams and teammates. With the emphasis on individualism, we need the ability to get outside of ourselves more than ever. And lastly, love him or hate him, hear what TJ and Sam think about Coach K's career and impact on the game.

In this episode we're joined by Patrick Touhey, president at Elite Performance Too – E, and author of Create Forever Teammates. Patrick mentors both coaches and players to help them reach their potential, combat unnecessary adult interventions, and bring back the enjoyment in sports experiences that too often is missing. In this episode and in his book, Patrick gives coaches ideas and strategies to create a positive sports environment and change the tide in our sports culture. Check out the book and the website: https://eliteperformancetoo-e.com