Today my guest is Coach Michael Donnelly of Florida Southern University Men’s Basketball. Coach Donnelly and his team are coming off a tremendous year with a 29-2 record, a National DII Player of the year, and unfortunately a postseason cut short due to Coronavirus. Coach Donnelly is in his fifth year at the head of the program and we covered a lot of great things today including multiple practices I think Coaches can take and implement immediately in their own programs. Among other things, Coach Donnelly and I discuss some of the core principles of his program, his intentional locker room arrangements, the importance of buy-in and player leadership on his team, how he utilizes his Captains on a regular basis and how they are involved in decision making, and how he combats some of the struggles in today’s college sports environment. I really enjoyed the conversation and could’ve talked to Coach Donnelly for another hour probably but I’ll get out of the way here so you can enjoy it as well on another episode of The Captains Coach Podcast.

Coach Michael Donnelly of FSU

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Learn more about sports deception in this series on The WHY, WHAT, MODELS, and APPLICATION for sports deception.

Sports Deception Series: Episode 1 - The WHY Behind Deception

Another Sports Philosophy series conversation coming at you today and with that comes another awesome guest for our audience. Dr. Cesar Torres is a professor of Philosophy of Sport at Brockport University. He also happens to be the mentor of our last guest-Dr. Adam Pflegor. If you listened to my conversation with Adam you will definitely hear the similarities and crossover between the two perspectives. But today Dr. Torres and I focus mostly on his opinion of the purpose of sport which he puts so simply and perfectly. We drive that purpose through the rest of our conversation on what effects the belief in that purpose have on how you play the sport to how you coach a sport; how to measure success, things players and coaches take for granted, the important difference between motivations to play sport and the purpose of sport, and so much more. I think today’s conversation with Dr. Torres is one of the most helpful for coaches specifically not just in this series but out of all my conversations on the show. If you buy in to this and explore some of these ideas it becomes pretty difficult to have a shallow or unfinished coaching philosophy. But I’ll get out of the way here and let you listen for yourself. Please enjoy on another episode of The Captains Coach Podcast.

Sports Philosophy Series Episode 7

We have another Sports Philosophy episode for you today. My guest is Adam Pflegor. Adam is a professor in the Sports Administration Department at Belmont University focusing primarily on the Philosophy of Sport and Sport Ethics. Our conversation today centers around Adam’s opinion on what the purpose of sport really is. I won’t give it away here but it leads us into a longer discussion on respect for one’s opponent and the effect your treatment of your opponent has on the rest of your game and approach to the game. The whole conversation really got me thinking about all the secondary and tertiary consequences of how we look at the opponent and what we tell ourselves about our opponents. All of that gets tied back into the larger sports philosophy conversation we are having so it was fun to bring through that lens and along that path. It was an awesome conversation, Adam was a blast to talk to, and we touched on what I think are some helpful ideas to coaches and athletes alike so please sit back and enjoy another episode of The Captains Coach Podcast.

Sports Philosophy Series Episode 6

Coming at ya with another conversation as a part of our Sports Philosophy Series today with my guest Dr. Michael Burke. Dr. Burke is a senior lecturer at Victoria University in Australia. He specializes in philosophy of sport and has a very pragmatic approach in his work. He is a member of both the International Sociology of Sport Association and the International Association for Philosophy of Sport. During our conversation we talk about a variety of things but focus on the purpose of sport and a coach’s role in that purpose, how to develop a coaching philosophy, some of the shortfalls in sports philosophy as well as common pitfalls of coaches. Just like the rest of my conversations during this series this one was so interesting to me and opened up some more thought pathways I otherwise wouldn’t encounter. If you want to learn more about Dr. Burke or his work please visit vu.edu.au and look for his name in the directory. So without further ado please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Michael Burke on The Captains Coach Podcast.

Sports Philosophy Series Episode 5

On our fourth episode of the Sports Philosophy Series I bring you my conversation with Pamela Sailors. Pam is a philosophy professor at Missouri State where she teaches mostly Philosophy of Sport Courses which I have become increasingly intrigued by through these conversations. Pam originally started in the bio-ethics world and moved into sport-ethics and philosophy of sport via the performance enhancing drug conversation. She is extremely passionate about sports and is something she has always loved as you’ll hear in our conversation. Today we’ll cover the three main purposes of sport as Pam sees it and why some other traditional answers may not fit the bill. We also discuss some of Pam’s biggest pet peeves and what she sees wrong in the sports world today, namely, sport as a business and the increasing reliance on technology. Pam also points out some things coaches and administrators may take for granted or may not even think about. She brought up a handful of ideas that are going to keep me occupied and wrestling with for the near future. It was an absolute blast having her on the show so please sit back and enjoy my conversation with Pam Sailors on another episode of The Captains Coach Podcast.

Philosophy of Sport: Key Questions-Emily Ryall

Endure-Alex Hutchinson

Into Thin Air-Jon Krakauer

Touching the Void-Joe Simpson

Coach Michael Donnelly of FSU

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