The Underground Huddle

A short message meant to encourage, inspire, and serve as a call to action, Thursday Fire is posted weekly. This is the 101st Thursday Fire, written on August 19th, 2021. 

To request a Thursday Fire in print and for business inquiries, please email [email protected]. The mission of TBL Coaching is to build an army of Disciplined Leaders who are present with and positively impact their relationships and their community. Thanks for helping us build the army! 

A short message meant to encourage, inspire, and serve as a call to action, Thursday Fire is posted weekly. This is the 100th Thursday Fire, written on August 12th, 2021. 

To request a Thursday Fire in print and for business inquiries, please email [email protected]. The mission of TBL Coaching is to build an army of Disciplined Leaders who are present with and positively impact their relationships and their community. Thanks for helping us build the army! 

A short message meant to encourage, inspire, and serve as a call to action, Thursday Fire is posted weekly. This is the 99th Thursday Fire, written on August 5th, 2021. 

To request a Thursday Fire in print and for business inquiries, please email [email protected]. The mission of TBL Coaching is to build an army of Disciplined Leaders who are present with and positively impact their relationships and their community. Thanks for helping us build the army! 

A short message meant to encourage, inspire, and serve as a call to action, Thursday Fire is posted weekly. This is the 98th Thursday Fire, written on July 29th, 2021. 

To request a Thursday Fire in print and for business inquiries, please email [email protected]. The mission of TBL Coaching is to build an army of Disciplined Leaders who are present with and positively impact their relationships and their community. Thanks for helping us build the army! 

A short message meant to encourage, inspire, and serve as a call to action, Thursday Fire is posted weekly. This is the 97th Thursday Fire, written on July 22nd, 2021. 

To request a Thursday Fire in print and for business inquiries, please email [email protected]. The mission of TBL Coaching is to build an army of Disciplined Leaders who are present with and positively impact their relationships and their community. Thanks for helping us build the army! 

Alan Stein Jr. is an experienced keynote speaker and author who has spent more than 15 years working with the highest performing basketball players on the planet including Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and Kobe Bryant. Outside of the sports world, Alan has worked with many large businesses including American Express, Pepsi, and Starbucks. A performance coach with a passion for helping others change behaviors, Alan is the host of the Raise Your Game Podcast which follows up his well-known book Raise Your Game: High Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best.

Once per quarter, Ben and Sam Rogers with BUILD Coaching Company host The Underground Huddle - an interview with a prominent leader in sports or business with BUILD clients and other select guests present. All attendees live our mission to build an army of Disciplined Leaders and share our vision to be a resource for and a connector of current and aspiring leaders in small business, sports, and other areas of life. 

For the 3rd Underground Huddle we welcomed Kevin Eastman, who was a head and assistant college basketball coach for over 20 years, and an NBA assistant coach and executive from 2004 – 2016 with the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Clippers. In 2008, Coach Eastman became an NBA Champion when his Celtics defeated Kobe Bryant’s & Phil Jackson’s Lakers in 6 games. On the 2008 team was head coach Doc Rivers and players Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and more. A lifelong learner, Coach Eastman moved right into speaking and writing after his coaching career. In 2018, his book Why The Best Are The Best was published. His many experiences with THE BEST are recounted in the book and those experiences combined with Coach Eastman’s wisdom quickly made the book a best seller. 

Inspired by a magazine article on a flight headed home, Rebecca Powers founded Impact Austin in 2003. A collective giving organization with a simple and inspirational concept – bringing women and their financial resources together to make a profound impact in their region – Impact Austin has given $7.5M to grant recipients and currently has 400 members that each put $1,000 into a grant pool annually. A believer in the simplicity of success, Powers’ first book titled “Trust Your Cape” will be available on Amazon in May 2021. In this book – and in this recording – learn how joy results from taking a leap of faith especially when coupled with grace and grit. 

When asked about the importance of accountability, University of South Carolina Head Football Coach Shane Beamer says that it’s “so huge and we just need to be relentless about it. You can’t pick and choose. I think the minute you say something is important and the minute you put something on a wall that something is going to be important in our program…the minute you let that slide and you don’t make it important, it’s over. We’ve been relentless about that in holding guys accountable. It’s why it’s a core value of what this program is going to be about.” Now in his first head coaching role at the young age of 44, Coach Beamer started his football coaching career as a graduate assistant at Georgia Tech and Tennessee before landing position jobs in the Mississippi State, South Carolina, Virginia Tech, Georgia, and Oklahoma football programs. “I’ve been preparing to be a head coach since I got into coaching” according to Coach Beamer, who also noted that he’s been able to rely on solid relationships built over the years with other football coaches such as Kirby Smart, Lincoln Riley, and Frank Beamer as well as basketball coaches like Sherri Coale, Dawn Staley, and Rob Ehsan, among others.

Former head basketball coach at the University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) Rob Ehsan was fired right after the Conference-USA Tournament was cancelled in March 2020. One of the youngest head coaches in Division 1, Coach Ehsan faced one of his largest fears early in his career on that Friday the 13th. A time in which most undisciplined leaders would pack it in and get comfortable on the benches of mediocrity, Coach Ehsan realized that there is, in fact, resurrection after death. Rob Ehsan – the head basketball coach at UAB – had died; it was time to “let go of the envy, fantasy, the cancerous restlessness.” It was during a multiple-month vacation with his family where Coach Ehsan realized the power of discipline and consistency in his daily habits. A loving husband and a devoted father of three children, listen to Coach Ehsan speak about his journey and how he prioritizes being present with his family despite the demands of his profession. Today, Rob Ehsan serves as an analyst for the Pac-12 Network but don’t be surprised when you see him back in action as a head basketball coach. After all, death is always followed by resurrection.