The Benas Podcast

Firstly, I have to apologise for my audio, which gives up on my 20mins or so into the podcast, my quality goes down but Coach Itoudis’ works well and that’s the person you need to listen to the most anyway, so please enjoy!

Head Coach Dimitris Itoudis’ path to coaching is an unusual one. After leaving his junior soccer team because his long hair was not in line with the coach’s rules he decided to switch to basketball at a young age and the rest is history. In 1990, he chose the path of studying abroad, outside of Greece and ‘abroad’ meant Zagreb at that time. While studying in Zagreb University and learning the language, he also started to coach in the youth divisions and started to leave his first marks as a coach. After expanding his network in the Balkan region he eventually made his path back to Greece and became the Assistant Coach at PAOK in 1995. After becoming a Head Coach at PAOK in 1996 and making his first appearance in the Cup of Cup Finals he worked his way through Panionios and MENT to eventually become Zeljko Obradovic’s Assistant Coach at PAO, where his biggest successes as an Assistant came (8 Final Four appearances & 5 EL titles). From there it was clear that his time as a Head Coach has come and he arrived to Banvit in 2013, which ended up becoming an unintended short stop-over before taking over CSKA Moscow in 2014, where he still is paving his way to new records. Currently has 6 Euroleague Final Four appearances with 2 titles amongst them.

Dimitris and me had variety of topics today. Beside his background and inspiring story from working as an Ice-Cream company sales representative to becoming a head coach, we talked about what it means to trust your team, when to let go and when to reflect & remind the team of tough losses in order to avoid history repeating itself. What role gut & intuition plays in his decision-making, the relationship he has with his captains, off course we also talked about the expectation from his staff, things he changed his mind on over time as well as what it means to stay persistent when you are working a job and want to be impactful. Lots of GREAT advice for upcoming coaches as well as regular people on what it means to follow your values and principles in life. Listen in to hear all the goodies!

Topics:

- Intro

1st Quarter (Coaching):

- “Trusting the Orchestra”

2nd Quarter (Communication):

- Relationship with Captain

3rd Quarter (Reflections):

- Change in Practice Philosophy

4th Quarter (Philosophy):

- Value System

Finding Dimitris:

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/dimitris_itoudis/

Affiliate Links to Dimitris' favourite books:

“Leaders Eat Last” by Simon Sinek - https://amzn.to/3wryTBB

Support my Podcast on Patreon here (Ačiu!!):

https://www.patreon.com/bmatke

#DimitrisItoudis #cskamoscow #euroleague #champion #headcoach #values #principles #GreekBasketball 

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Andreas Pistiolis is the long time Ast. Coach at CSKA Moscow under the guidance of Coach Dimitris Itoudis. Andreas realized early (age 14) how much he loved coaching & teaching players and found his way into the youth program of Panathinaikos. Soon enough he received an invite by the senior team to join the coaching staff and help Coach Dimitris Itoudis to prepare scouting reports and break down film to help Zeljko Obradovic form a winning dynasty at Panathinaikos. He established himself as the ‘right hand’ of Dimitris Itoudis and followed Coach Itoudis to Banvit in 2013 to become his 1st Assistant there. After just one successful year in Turkey, Andreas joined Coach Itoudis in Russia and off course continued to win titles together. After establishing a winning mentality in Greece & in Turkey he continued his success as the top Assistant in the Russian powerhouse. Since the arrival in Moscow in 2014, Andreas celebrated two Euroleague titles (2016 & 2019) and won 5 VTB championships as well. Andreas gave me the impression of being a very humbled and down to earth personality who knows what he wants in life. On this episode, Andreas and me went on a deep-dive of what it means to be an Assistant Coach at the top level and the duties and expectations that come with it during games and off the court. He opened up about his path to coaching and gave great insights on what the position of an Assistant Coach really means. We had an interesting discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of sharing scouting information with other colleagues, relationship with players, Coaching Staff dynamics and the communication and handling of information in regards to players and coaching staff. Enjoy this very niche episode.

Finding Andreas:

To support my podcast on Patreon click here (Ačiu!!):

#AndreasPistiolis #cskamoscow #euroleague #champion #assistantcoach #duties #GreekBasketball #coaching

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Kostas Chatzichristos has been the Strengths&Conditioning Coach of CSKA Moscow's basketball team the last 7years and was part of the two Euroleague title runs in 2016 & 2019. Kostas studied at the University of Texas before interning at EXOS and going on to take his first job at the University of Georgia. He later returned to Greece to continue his career at Olympiacos B.C. and later at Panionios as the Head of Performance before taking his talents to CSKA in 2014. He's also the co-founder of "Performance22", which is a training and rehab facility for athletes in Athens, Greece. Kostas has a rich history of training high level players such as Sofoklis Schortsanitis & Theodoros Papaloukas.

Topics:

Finding Kostas:

Website - https://kostaschatzichristos.com

Affiliate Links to Kostas' favourite books:

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst: https://amzn.to/3f4SNeD

To support my podcast on Patreon click here (Ačiu!!):

#kostas #chatzichristos #cskamoscow #euroleague #champion #strength&conditioning #mentorship #NoEgo

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Dr Rainer Meisterjahn - Mental Performance Coach for Athletes & Coaches

Rainer Meisterjahn comes from a small town in central Germany by the name of Arpe, where he grew up and picked up the game of basketball. During that time he went to the US for an exchange year and got a taste of the US culture early on. After going back to Germany he knew he eventually had to “scratch the itch” again and applied to a NAIA school in Maine to play basketball and study Sports Psychology. After earning his Bachelors and going back home once again, he eventually decided to stop pursuing his professional player dream and migrated to the US for good in order to get his Master’s and later Ph.D in Sports Science. Rainer later founded Courtex Performance, is based in the U.S. and currently works with NBA athletes like Tobias Harris, WNBA and NCAA players and coaches, as well as European based sports athletes & coaches.

Today we talked about his journey from the early beginnings as a player all the way to helping top notch professionals perfecting their “mental game”. We went through the process of getting your first clients as a mental performance coach, the techniques he uses for “Pre-Game”, “In-Game” & “Post-Game” analysis as well as the basis of his philosophy.

Rainer shared his view on the struggles that players and coaches usually go through and what cues he looks for during the games to understand them better.

All in all a very insightful conversation about the ‘hidden game’ behind the visible game. Below you can find all the topics discussed in order:

Finding Rainer and Courtex Performance here:

Website - https://www.courtexperformance.com

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtexperformance/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/courtexperformance/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/courtexperform

Affiliate Links to Rainer’s favourite books on mental performance:

The Inner Game of Tennis - https://amzn.to/3na9oBw

Mind Gym - https://amzn.to/3vcnTHN

Heads up Baseball 2.0 - https://amzn.to/2QGRslF

The Mindful Athlete - https://amzn.to/3ehx4Qh

To support my podcast on Patreon click here (Ačiu!!):

https://www.patreon.com/bmatke

#rainer #meisterjahn #courtexperformance #mentalperformance #mentalgame #sportspsychology

Sponsors:

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Find “The Benas Podcast”:

Get in touch in the comments below or find me on the links below-

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bmatke/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bmatke/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bmatke3

Kyles Hines - The Definition of a Champion!

Kyle’s journey from a small town named Sicklerville, New Jersey all the way to the top of the mountain of European basketball is a treat for any basketball savant to listen to and get inspired by. Kyle has been a high achiever ever since he came to Europe, winning 4 Euroleague crowns and countless domestic titles across Europe (Germany, Greece, Russia, Italy).

I believe this episode is especially useful for young Americans coming over to Europe or elsewhere and starting their career. Kyle shared some insightful stories about his upbringing and adaptation process in Europe.

Topics:

Follow Kyle on IG - https://www.instagram.com/sirhines42/

Affiliate Link to Kyle’s favorite book:

Sponsors:

Get in touch in the comments below or find me on the links below:

One of the most accomplished coaches in European history agreed to visit with me on my podcast and talk “all things basketball & life”. Coach Messina is in the FIBA Hall of Fame class of 2021, a 4 time Euroleague Champion, 2 time Euroleague Coach of the Year and won countless domestic titles across Europe.

I broke this episode down to 4 quarters….because, well…that’s what I do for a living…:-)

Summary of topics discussed:

Q1: Coaching

Q2: Communication

Q3: Philosophical

Q4: Basketball specific

Follow Ettore:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/et.messina/

Affiliate Link:

Buy Alex Ferguson’s Autobiography here:  https://amzn.to/31vAicY

I would be grateful if you choose to support my podcast (Ačiu!!):

https://www.patreon.com/bmatke

Find me on:

www.bmatke.com

#ettoremessina #coach #milano #euroleaguechamp #basketball #legend

Sponsors:

Not yet :)

What's up everyone, this is just a short intro to the podcast, nothing glorious this time but I hope it's some sort of a ....cliff-hanger...Please subscribe and learn more about the guests.