Clive Brewer is the Director of Olympic Strength and Conditioning at the University of Notre Dame where, he is responsible for leading and managing a department focused on maximizing the physical development of Notre Dame’s Olympic sports student-athletes, Prior to his current role, Clive was the Director of Human Performance for Arizona Athletics in Phoenix, and has worked for a number of different sporting organisations including Toronto Blue Jays, Manchester United, Liverpool FC, Columbus Crew, IMG, IAAF, Widnes Vikings & England Rugby League.

Loren Landow is the Director of Football Performance at the University of Notre Dame. Prior to this, Loren served as the head strength and conditioning coach for the Denver Broncos from 2018-2023, and he also owns and directs Landow Performance in Centennial, Colorado, where theyhavce worked with thousands of athletes in all sports to prepare for professional and amateur competition, including NFL, NHL, MLB, UFC, WNBA and Olympic medalists.

QUOTES

"The joke I always use is I'm the world's ugliest bridesmaid. People see the athlete, people see the coach, but they should never see me. We are a guy in the background who's doing a lot of the work and driving things forward, but we ain't that important.”

“And high functioning means that you're able to actually be honest with people, be open with people and them to be open with you too. It's not to respect a hierarchy or anything else. It's like, you have to be open to that critical question asked in the right way, you know, in order to really reflect on what you do and are you doing the best and is there a better way of doing it?”

“I tell my staff, like, we're all going to make mistakes. The goal is not to make the same mistake twice and try to make the mistakes less egregious as we go. So I think part of it is like understanding that it's an okay environment to make a mistake in and we're going to learn from it.”

“But I look at what I call the hat scenario. So the very first exercise I do with my guys is, you know, we understand what hats people wear, right? So there's the blue hat, which is the process hat, right? And there's the green hat, which is the ideas hat. And then there's the red hat, which is the emotional hat. And then there's the yellow hat, is the pleasing people hat. And then there's the black hat, which is, it won't work. And so we explained this, and I use the hats a lot in my scenarios, but the first thing I said to the guys is, just like that, what's your preferred hat? There's no right or wrongs here because each of those is a strength.”

“I think being much more deliberate in terms of creating that environment and realize that my job is to set that up and then stay out of way of it. I've never been good as what I would call the cheerleader coach. I think I've always told players, if I've got to bring the intensity, you're in the wrong job.”

SHOWNOTES

1) Clive and Loren’s update since last episode on the podcast and their new roles at University of Notre Dame

2) Coaching philosophies and how they have evolved over time for Loren and Clive

3) How to frame questions for constructive feedback and the importance of creating an environment to own mistakes

4) The difference between an inter- and mutli-disciplinary performance team

5) The structure of the Notre Dame football and Olympic sport performance staff organisation

6) Tailoring tasks and workflow to staff strengths and the hat analogy for different staff different strengths

7) Demonstrating impact in new environments and obtaining trust through consistency

PEOPLE MENTIONED

John Wagle

Duncan French