Great Quotes for Coaches Podcast

Today's episode is another where it is me discussing a quote I find inspirational and meaningful. This quote comes to us from Thomas J. Watson, the former CEO of IBM. His quote is a really good one for leaders to consider they idea that before they lead others, they must first be able to lead themselves.

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For more information to help you on your road to becoming your best, check us out at SlamDunkSuccess.com or email me at [email protected].

Our new background music, starting with Episode 300, is "Pulse of Time - Corporate Rock" by TunePocket.

Our background music for the first 5 years of the podcast was "Dance in the Sun" by Krisztian Vass.

Today's episode is extremely special for me, and I think you will find it so, too. My guest is Bob Kuykendall.  Bob is an English teacher and wrestling coach at Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein, Illinois.  However, what makes it such a special episode for me is that Bob has been my best friend in the world since I was 5 years old.

As he says in the episode, when we were in college (at different schools), and we realized that we were both going into teaching English and coaching, I said, "Wouldn't it be cool if we ended up teaching and coaching at the same school?" Well, that's exactly what happened! I taught and coached with Bob at Carmel for 11 years after we graduated from college. Those were some of the best years of my life in teaching and coaching.

I then fulfilled a lifelong dream and moved to Montana, while Bob stayed on at Carmel teaching English and coaching wrestling. He was an assistant wrestling coach for 26 years! He is one of the most loyal and dedicated people I know, and that statistic kind of bears that out. He has now been the head wrestling coach at Carmel Catholic for the last 13 years.

His quote today, fittingly, comes from the world of the English classroom. Most of us will recognize it from the movie Dead Poet's Society. The teacher, Mr. Keating, played by Robin Williams, quotes Walt Whitman from his poem, "Oh Me! Oh Life!" Keating delivers the line to his English class students, trying to get them to see that they each can contribute something to the world, if they will just work to find what that something is.

Interestingly enough, though, Bob has used this line with his wrestling teams as much as, and maybe even more than, his English classes. When you listen to the episode, you will see how and why. You will also hear some incredibly powerful stories that Bob shares, illustrating how the line impacted his wrestlers and his teams through the years.

If you would like to connect with Bob, you can email him at [email protected]. You can also find him in the directory at the Carmel Catholic High School website, www.carmelhs.org.

Support the show

For more information to help you on your road to becoming your best, check us out at SlamDunkSuccess.com or email me at [email protected].

Our new background music, starting with Episode 300, is "Pulse of Time - Corporate Rock" by TunePocket.

Our background music for the first 5 years of the podcast was "Dance in the Sun" by Krisztian Vass.

Today I discuss a quote that I actually wrote my most recent blog post about over on my SlamDunk Success website. I heard former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer say this quote (or a variation of it) on the sports talk radio show, "The Herd" with Colin Cowherd a couple of months ago. While Dilfer's statement was a variation of another quote, he used it in explaining a point he was making, and it immediately struck me as being similar to even another quote I used to use to try to make a similar point to my students, athletes, and teams. 

So today, you will get THREE QUOTES for the price of ONE! They are all great quotes to help you understand, teach, and instill the importance of the discipline of focusing on the details. Rather than tell you the quotes here, check out the episode to hear all about them.

Support the show

For more information to help you on your road to becoming your best, check us out at SlamDunkSuccess.com or email me at [email protected].

Our new background music, starting with Episode 300, is "Pulse of Time - Corporate Rock" by TunePocket.

Our background music for the first 5 years of the podcast was "Dance in the Sun" by Krisztian Vass.

Today is another episode where we get to hear from a guest coach. Our guest coach is Andy Affholter. I have known Andy since 2002 when I became the Athletic Director for the high school & middle school, along with being the Head Girls' Basketball Coach, in Granger, Washington in the Yakima Valley. Andy was teaching and coaching in our middle school, and we immediately hit it off. Our philosophies on youth/school sports and coaching were so similar that we spent hours talking about coaching, teaching, leadership, & life.

Andy had been a very successful head coach prior to coming to Granger, and I knew that when I stepped down as basketball coach, I wanted him to take over. He promptly took our girls' program to being one of the elite programs in the entire state. He did it at a small public school without a lot of resources and natural born talent by outworking, outplaying, and "outteaming" schools with far greater size, skill, & talent. He coached great kids who bought into his messages about team, and he made Granger into a perennial state power.

His quote today is something I saw him use with his teams throughout my time with him, and it became a mantra for them. His kids understood exactly what it meant and knew they needed to live by it in order for them to be successful. The acronym "EWPA" became synonymous with the concepts in the quote. You will need to listen to the episode to hear what EWPA stands for.

If you would like to connect with Andy to find out more about how he instituted EWPA or how he built the successful team-first culture that he did, you can reach him in a couple of ways. His email address is [email protected]. His school email address is [email protected]. Or you can call the Granger Middle School in Granger, Washington and leave a message with the secretary to have him give you a call. You could also reach out to me, and I could put you in touch with him, too.

No matter which way you choose to do it, I highly recommend you reach out to Andy.  He is a well-spring of coaching knowledge, and he has so many great ideas on building successful team cultures, that I know you will come away with something awesome after you connect with him.

Support the show

For more information to help you on your road to becoming your best, check us out at SlamDunkSuccess.com or email me at [email protected].

Our new background music, starting with Episode 300, is "Pulse of Time - Corporate Rock" by TunePocket.

Our background music for the first 5 years of the podcast was "Dance in the Sun" by Krisztian Vass.

Today's episode is another episode of me talking on my own about a quote. Today's quote comes to us from Ken Horne. As you will hear in the short intro I added to start the episode, I am unsure of which of two different Ken Hornes the quote comes from. However, no matter which Ken said it, it is a great quote for any of you leaders out there who are trying to create a great team experience that attracts others to it. 

Support the show

For more information to help you on your road to becoming your best, check us out at SlamDunkSuccess.com or email me at [email protected].

Our new background music, starting with Episode 300, is "Pulse of Time - Corporate Rock" by TunePocket.

Our background music for the first 5 years of the podcast was "Dance in the Sun" by Krisztian Vass.

Today we get to hear from one of my coaching mentors, Bruce Brown of Proactive Coaching. I have had a few coaching mentors in my life. Like all coaches, I have had long-distance mentors who I have followed and learned from, like Coach K at Duke University. But as far as in-person coaching mentors, while I have coached with many great coaches, learned a ton from many of them, and feel they contributed greatly to who I am as a coach, I have only had a few people who I consider as actual coaching mentors of mine. One of them is Bruce Brown.

Bruce became a mentor for me in the second half of my career after I met him in 2002. While I could write so much about Bruce to explain what has made him such a great mentor to me, space here prevents me from doing so. Suffice it to say that I learned so many new and different ways to deal with kids, parents, fellow coaches, building teams, creating and living by Core Covenants, and so much more from Bruce. I only wish I had met him at the beginning of my career, so I could have implemented the things I learned from him earlier.

In today's episode, you will get a glimpse as to why he has had such a big impact on me. Bruce discusses a quote that he heard very early in his coaching career from a high school football coach in Washington named Rich Rowe. In many ways, it set a tone for Bruce in his coaching and then in his life. The quote is "What you have, give. What you save, you lose forever." I love this quote for a variety of reasons, and you will hear some great ideas that Bruce shares with us, plus a GREAT story about the first time Bruce met Coach John Wooden when Bruce was early in his coaching career.

This quote also fits right in with the servant-leader types of quotes we have had in some of our recent episodes. In fact, it is very close to the quote by Albert Pine that Kathryn Geouge talked about in episode 37, "What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal." I love how many of the quotes we have discussed in our show so far have great connections and can help illustrate and reinforce the other ones.

If you would like to connect with Bruce, he can be reached at [email protected].
To find out all the great things that Proactive Coaching has to offer, check out their website at www.proactivecoaching.info.
You should also check out their Facebook page where over 850,000 people have "Liked" the page and get two or three short nuggets of inspiration everyday - www.facebook.com/proactivecoach.
Twitter - @Proactivecoach

Support the show

For more information to help you on your road to becoming your best, check us out at SlamDunkSuccess.com or email me at [email protected].

Our new background music, starting with Episode 300, is "Pulse of Time - Corporate Rock" by TunePocket.

Our background music for the first 5 years of the podcast was "Dance in the Sun" by Krisztian Vass.

Today's episode is an end-of-year wrap-up of all the quotes that we covered this year. In this episode, I go back over the entire library of 42 quotes that we discussed in our inaugural year of the podcast. For those of you who did not hear all of the quotes this year, this is a great chance for you to hear all of them, so you can decide which episodes you want to go back and listen to in order to get the full explanation and discussion about the quotes.

Support the show

For more information to help you on your road to becoming your best, check us out at SlamDunkSuccess.com or email me at [email protected].

Our new background music, starting with Episode 300, is "Pulse of Time - Corporate Rock" by TunePocket.

Our background music for the first 5 years of the podcast was "Dance in the Sun" by Krisztian Vass.

Today's episode is another episode where it is just me discussing an impactful quote. This quote comes to us from Fran Tarkenton. (If you don't know who Fran Tarkenton is, check out the episode, as I talk a little bit about him and what he meant to me growing up in the 70s.) His quote is another one about leadership, which is a bit of a theme that we have been covering for the last few episodes where it is just me talking (as well as Episode #37 with Kathryn Geouge). Tarkenton said, "Leadership must be demonstrated, not announced." In the episode, I discuss why this is important for us as coaches/leaders to understand. However, I also focus on the reasons why, in many ways, it may be even more important for our players to understand.

Support the show

For more information to help you on your road to becoming your best, check us out at SlamDunkSuccess.com or email me at [email protected].

Our new background music, starting with Episode 300, is "Pulse of Time - Corporate Rock" by TunePocket.

Our background music for the first 5 years of the podcast was "Dance in the Sun" by Krisztian Vass.

Today's episode is a very special one for me. I get to talk to one of my former student-athletes from my first few years of coaching. Chris Mikrut has been a very successful girls' soccer coach at Crown Point High School in Crown Point, Indiana. I haven't spoken with Chris in about 25 years, so this was a lot of fun for me to reconnect with him.

Chris talks about a quote that he started using with the girls in his program that has taken off and been huge for their program and for the kids and parents. While the quote might not seem earth-shattering, it is a great way to rally your team and your kids and to then build your culture.

Chris & I both reminisce a bit and tell a few stories in here, but I think you will find some good nuggets inside those stories, too.  Any of you who have coached for a while will be able to relate to our stories and to the feeling that I get being able to reconnect with Chris.

If you would like to reach out to Chris to ask him about his quote and his culture or anything else, he can be reached at [email protected]. Their Instagram page can be found at @cphsladybulldogsoccer.

Support the show

For more information to help you on your road to becoming your best, check us out at SlamDunkSuccess.com or email me at [email protected].

Our new background music, starting with Episode 300, is "Pulse of Time - Corporate Rock" by TunePocket.

Our background music for the first 5 years of the podcast was "Dance in the Sun" by Krisztian Vass.

Episode 38 is a quote that is a great follow-up to last week's discussion with Kathryn Geouge about her quote. If you heard our discussion, we talked about the importance of being a servant-leader who truly lives by the concept of serving others. (If you didn't hear that episode, make sure you listen to it!) Today's quote gets at the heart of that idea. It is a Japanese proverb that says, "If he works for you, you work for him." Listen to today's episode to hear about this extremely important concept for any of us who lead teams.

Support the show

For more information to help you on your road to becoming your best, check us out at SlamDunkSuccess.com or email me at [email protected].

Our new background music, starting with Episode 300, is "Pulse of Time - Corporate Rock" by TunePocket.

Our background music for the first 5 years of the podcast was "Dance in the Sun" by Krisztian Vass.