SHERRY LEVIN – AUTHOR OF THE BOOK “PRE-GAME: A WINNING MINDSET” – EPISODE 1249

Website – https://sherrylevin.com/

Email –  sherrylevin24@gmail.com

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sherry-levin-76948523/

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Sherry Levin is the author of the new book “Pre-Game:  A Winning Mindset”.  Sherry is a trailblazer in the world of sports and leadership. From being the all-time leading scorer at Holy Cross College to becoming an internationally recognized basketball coach, Sherry’s career reflects her passion for resilience, teamwork, and positivity.

Sherry has been inducted into four Hall of Fames (Holy Cross, Newton North High School, New England Basketball, and Jewish Heritage Athletic). Her coaching record is 420-97. She has won 82% of her games and has earned multiple New England Championships.

Sherry has mentored top-tier athletes, including Aliyah Boston, the #1 WNBA draft pick and Rookie of the Year in 2023.  She has coached Team USA to five gold medals for Maccabi USA at the World Maccabiah Games, Pan Am Maccabi, and European Maccabi Games.

Sherry has also inspired audiences as a motivational speaker, ESPN analyst, and creative leader in video production. A single mother and breast cancer survivor, she embodies the resilience and optimism that underpin Pre-Game.

On this episode Mike & Sherry discuss the significance of resilience, personal accountability, and the empowering mindset that athletes can cultivate to excel in both sports and life. Furthermore, we explore the transformative power of coaching, as Levin shares inspiring anecdotes that highlight the profound impact a coach can have on their players’ journeys. Through a series of compelling anecdotes and reflective insights, Levin expounds on the philosophical underpinnings of coaching that transcend mere sports strategies, instead framing them as vital life skills.  This episode serves not only as an exploration of athletic development but also as a testament to the enduring lessons that extend well beyond the court.

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Get ready to take down some notes as you listen to this episode with Sherry Levin, author of the new book “Pre-Game:  A Winning Mindset”. 

What We Discuss with Sherry Levin

• The pregame speeches in Sherry’s book serve as a framework for imparting life lessons to athletes, demonstrating how sports can parallel broader life challenges and choices
• The importance of resilience and positivity in both sports and life
• How mindset influences outcomes
• Successful athletes possess not only skill but also heart and work ethic
• The concept of choice in sports performance…players must decide to commit fully to their game and efforts
• Coaching extends beyond strategy, focusing on personal connections and the long-term influence coaches have on their players’ lives
• The transformative power of storytelling in coaching
• The significance of gratitude and perspective, shifting from ‘having to’ to ‘getting to’ as a means of enhancing motivation and joy
• The concept of the diamond and pencil illustrates the power of choice in performance, highlighting that the same elements can yield vastly different outcomes based on how they are organized and utilized
• The push or pivot approach in coaching encourages athletes to adapt to changing circumstances, reinforcing the necessity of flexibility and preparedness
• Why Aaliyah Boston exemplifies the perfect blend of natural talent and relentless determination, making her a standout athlete
• Relationships built between coaches and players can yield lifelong impacts, transcending the realm of athletics

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The modules cover things like writing emails to coaches, building an effective highlight tape, using social media well, planning ID camps and visits, and navigating application strategy.

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THANKS, SHERRY LEVIN

If you enjoyed this episode with Sherry Levin let her know by clicking on the link below and thanking her via email LinkedIn.

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TRANSCRIPT FOR SHERRY LEVIN – AUTHOR OF THE BOOK “PRE-GAME: A WINNING MINDSET” – EPISODE 1249

Narrator

00:00:13.360 – 00:00:17.600

The Hoop Heads Podcast is brought to you by Head Start Basketball.

Sherry Levin

00:00:20.800 – 00:01:07.580

The story is that carbon, everything is made of atoms and the carbon, when you arrange the atoms in one way, make the lead of a 10 cent pencil. And when you take those exact same atoms and they’re arranged in a different way and they’re pressurized, they become a priceless diamond.

So for some reason it came into mind that this would be a great pre game speech for a game that we needed to be at our best. So it wasn’t just like hey let’s go be our best, right? Because it is a choice. It’s are you going to die for that ball? Are you not?

Are you going to box out or you’re not? Are you going to be low and play defense? And you could go through every aspect of the game and make that choice.

Mike Klinzing

00:01:08.700 – 00:03:02.220

Sherry Levin is the author of the new book A Winning Mindset. Sheri is a trailblazer in the world of sports and leadership.

From being the all time leading scorer at Holy Cross College to becoming an internationally recognized basketball coach, Sherry’s career reflects her passion for resilience, teamwork and positivity. Levin has been inducted into four hall of Fames, Holy Cross, Newton North High School, New England Basketball and Jewish Heritage Athletic.

Her coaching record is 420 in 97. She has won 82% of her games and has earned multiple New England championships.

Sherry has mentored top tier athletes including Aaliyah Boston, the number one WNBA draft pick and rookie of the year in 2023. She has coached Team USA to five gold medals for Maccabee USA at the World Maccabea Games, Pan Am Maccabee and European Maccabee Games.

Sherry has also inspired audiences as a motivational speaker, ESPN analyst and creative leader in video production.

A single mother and breast cancer survivor, she embodies the resilience and optimism that underpin her book Pregame A Winning Mindset Give with Hoops is the first platform turning basketball analytics into fundraising impact Every stat tells a story and now every story drives sponsorship, engagement and team growth. Programs nationwide are transforming basketball stats into funding power.

Learn to use performance data to attract sponsors, engage fans and raise more with every play.

Give with Hoops will help you raise three times more money for your program as their stat based pledges can consistently outperform traditional fundraisers. Visit givewithhoops.com hoop heads podcast to learn more and take your fundraising to the next level.

Give with Hoops

Don Showalter

00:03:02.220 – 00:03:10.220

hi, this is Don Showalter from USA Basketball and you are listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast

Mike Klinzing

00:03:10.220 – 00:04:40.880

you or an athlete you know Planning to go D3? Check out the D3 recruiting playbook from D3 Direct.

Their playbook gives you a clear step by step roadmap to the recruiting process, what coaches value, key milestones from early high school through application season, and how to build a targeted list of schools that fit your needs. The playbook demystifies researching D3 programs and how to stand out without chasing every camp or showcase.

The modules cover things like writing emails to coaches, building an effective highlight tape, using social media well planning camps and visits, and navigating application strategy. You’ll get templates, checklists and an outreach plan to communicate confidently. Learn how to compare financial packages and avoid common missteps.

By the end, you’ll have a prioritized school list and a decision framework you can use to land your best fit opportunity. Click on the link in the show Notes to get your D3 recruiting playbook from D3 direct.

Get ready to take down some notes as you listen to this episode with Sherry Levin, author of the new book Pregame A Winning Mindset. Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast.

It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co host Jason Sunkle tonight, but I am pleased to be joined by Sherry Levin, longtime basketball coach, broadcaster, player, back in the day, and author of the book Pregame Winning Mindset. A Winning Mindset, Sherry Levin. Sherry, welcome to the Hoop Heads pod.

Sherry Levin

00:04:42.080 – 00:04:44.520

Well, thank you Mike. It is such a joy to be here.

Mike Klinzing

00:04:44.520 – 00:05:16.980

I’m excited about this, absolutely thrilled to have you on.

Looking forward to diving into the book, looking forward to diving into your basketball journey, which has had a lot of different avenues in which you have enjoyed the game, shared the game with others, impacted the game. And we’re going to get into all that as we have a discussion about kind of your life and also the book.

Let’s start with the book itself, give our audience an overview of what the book’s all about and where they can pick up a copy, and then we’ll dive into some of the details.

Sherry Levin

00:05:18.340 – 00:06:46.460

Okay, thank you. And as you mentioned, it’s called Pregame A Winning Mindset. And what I did is kind of a unique perspective on coaching and coaching life lessons.

So as most coaches would say, you know, we teach the X’s and O’s no matter what sport. You teach the skill, you teach the talent. But the real heart of what athletics is is really about life lessons.

And so I just happened to be a storyteller. That’s part of my personality. And I took my pregame speeches, which were not just all, you know, intense. Let’s go get them.

There was a story that I would find it would come to me. I used to say that, you know, my. My daughter actually used to say I was a pregame speech waiting to happen.

And I took my pregame speeches and I organized them as the.

As the anchor for my experiences, whether it be, you know, kind of my life lessons, my story, anecdotes through coaching, and really wrapped around in a bow of positivity. So it’s how to look at things with a lens that you can switch.

You can shift the mindset into something positive, no matter what it is, no matter how you look at it, whether you’re, you know, giving a presentation at work or whether you’re playing a game or whether, you know, you’re having a conference with your. Your child’s teacher, Whatever those lessons are can be really looked at in two different ways and sometimes many different ways.

So I like to say it’s a. It’s a book of a boost of positivity.

Mike Klinzing

00:06:47.660 – 00:06:50.780

All right, where can people get the book before we get into the details?

Sherry Levin

00:06:52.580 – 00:07:17.380

So you can obviously go on Amazon.com and you can buy pregame of winning mindset. I have a website, sherrylevin.com also has a number of different photos, and I’m as.

Articles are coming out, and this podcast will be on my website as well, and different things like that. So, you know, I’m trying to keep that evergreen with. With additions and. And, you know, you can go@sherryleven.com or Amazon.

Mike Klinzing

00:07:18.610 – 00:07:32.770

Let’s start with the idea for the book. When does the first light bulb come on for you and say, hey, maybe I want to write a book. Maybe there’s something here.

Was there one moment, or was it something that kind of built slowly over time?

Sherry Levin

00:07:33.489 – 00:09:42.480

A couple of former players who I’m constant contact with, and they’re now, oh my gosh, in their mid-30s, and it was a little bit around Covid time, and I was talking with them and a couple of different players, and they were telling me that they were at a point in their life where they needed a little assistance, and they were going through a troubling time, and they thought of me, and they thought of the lessons that they had learned from me. There could be no greater compliment from any coach when you hear your players tell you years later that you’re kind of your.

Your voice is still in their head. And with that. And those kind of conversations converged, and they both expressed to me, coach, you need to share your experiences.

You need to share this with others. And it’s kind of like the stories are all in my head. And, you know, I had had lists of all my pregame speeches, and they. They.

When they went on to play in college, some of them would. Would call me up and say, oh, my gosh, I never knew that other coaches didn’t do what you do. Like, it was like, here’s our X’s and O’s.

And then it was a, you know, fire up speech, but it wasn’t wrapped in a bow, and they remember them. And that was kind of the impetus of me gradually kind of sitting with my thoughts, sitting with the stories and getting them out there.

And then I had some people read the first draft, and they say, this is amazing. I love it, but give me more depth. And so then I started to think of stories.

And, you know, we could certainly talk about some, but stories that were relevant to that particular pregame speech, not. And it’s not just a sports book. Like I said, it could be. You’re giving a, you know, presentation to win a pitch in the office.

Like, what does that feel like? And so that’s where, you know, I got to. Got to this point.

And, you know, that to me, the easy part was not necessarily writing it, but it was kind of figuring out which stories were most applicable. Right. And which stories do I put in? And I was an English major in college, so, you know, writing is something that I’ve always loved to do.

The most challenging part is to get people to know what’s out there. So thank you for having me on the.

Mike Klinzing

00:09:42.960 – 00:11:22.610

You are welcome. I know marketing is always the challenge. Right.

It seems like there’s so much good stuff out there, but how do you get it in front of the people that could utilize it? That’s always, always the hardest part.

I know it’s the hardest part with just about anything I do, whether it’s camp or podcast or whatever it may be. So I can certainly relate to. Relate to that without question.

When you go back to the process of putting together the book, one of the things that I always think is a challenge just in my own life, when I go back and try to remember my time as a player, I try to remember certain seasons as a coach. I have one friend who he has.

I would term it a photographic memory for games, things that happen in the locker room, and sometimes I’ll call them out, I’ll be like, dude, you don’t. You don’t really remember that.

Because he’ll say, do you remember in 1997, it was the third quarter against Team X and we were down six and they were pressing, and then we turned it over and they missed the layup. And then I’m like, how do you, how do you remember this?

And obviously, if you do have that kind of memory, it helps you to be able to write a book kind of of the type that you wrote. So where does your memory fall on sort of that scale of how well did you remember it? How much did you talk to other people?

I know you have a little disclaimer at the beginning of the book saying that.

Saying that there may be other people who have a slightly different recollection of these events, which I thought was very honest of you, because again, I know there are things that I look back on and I’m like, pretty sure that’s what happened. And maybe I talked to somebody else and we have a little bit of a different memory. So where’s. Where does your memory fall on that scale?

Sherry Levin

00:11:23.890 – 00:13:03.330

Well, thank you, Michael. You know, for you to remember that. I am definitely looking forward to more conversations about the book.

But, you know, it’s an interesting question because I think the point of the disclaimer, in addition to, yes, we all remember things in a different way, was really looking through the lens. Like, my lens was as the head coach. Right.

The court did not have a 30 second shot clock, and we were playing against a very athletic team, and I didn’t think that we could match their athleticism and their quickness. So I kind of, you know, I’m warming up. I’m like, you know what? There’s no shot clock.

We can just run our continuity until we get a look, try to frustrate them. It ended up working. The result ended up we won the game. It totally frustrated the other team, but that’s how I saw it as the head coach.

How my point guard saw it might have been like, oh, my God, our coach is going completely against what, you know, we’re running team and we’re transition team, get up and down the floor. And now she’s telling us to, you know, play a minute if we can, and run our continuity like so in there.

In that sense, my lens in my memory could be just a different lens of somebody else.

I do remember, you know, a lot of different stories, and it’s just I don’t have a photographic memory, but things that have been important or things that have been experienced and I remember and, and, you know, I. I actually recently saw a woman who. We competed against each other in high school and she went on to play at Virginia, and she recounted to the tee the last.

Like, I got an offensive rebound and I scored, and we won the game by a point with, like, 10 seconds to go.

Mike Klinzing

00:13:03.330 – 00:14:21.460

It’s good stuff. And I think it. We all have, right.

Our perception, as you said, you have your vision of what you think went on, and then somebody else is there seeing the same events, but just is looking at it from a different perspective.

And I do think that that’s really an interesting way to describe it and also to look at it when you’re trying to pull all those memories together and get it into a cohesive form and put the book together. Let’s talk a little bit about you as a kid.

And one of the people that runs through the theme of the entire book is your dad and the influence that he had on you as a person, as an athlete. You’ve got a bunch of different stories in the book about your dad and just the way that he supported you, the way that he was there.

And again, you’re growing up in a time where women’s athletics was not nearly the. The opportunities for young women was not. Were not nearly as great as they are today.

And again, in reading the book, I could just tell, as a dad who has two daughters, the way that he felt like he needed to be able to support you, to get you opportunities to be able to do the things that you love to do. So just talk a little bit about your dad and his influence on you, both as an athlete and just as a human being.

Sherry Levin

00:14:21.620 – 00:16:46.230

One of the best questions, you know, that you could ask me, Mike, you know, he. He was so influential because I think he. He really spoke his truth. And you’re right.

I grew up in, you know, 63 now, and I grew up at a time Title IX came about just before, like, the wave before me, you know, like five years or so before my time. So I was kind of in the second wave of. Of Title nine, and I just was that athletic kid from my first early memories. I was out running around.

They called me Monkey. And I would be on the jungle gym, and I didn’t think of my limitations. It wasn’t something that I remember thinking in those days. I just did it.

Whether it was at recess playing tackle football. And again, much to the chagrin of my mother, who wanted to dress me in dresses every day. I would muddle, right?

And, you know, I played foursquare, and I was good at it. I was a great athlete, and I would sprint against anybody who would sprint against me. And in doing so, I think I just got, you know, I can do that.

Why not? Like, that was. It wasn’t a. Someone is preventing me from doing. Why can’t I do it? Because I’m really good at it. And my dad encouraged that.

And growing up outside of Boston, I. And I am still a forever sports fan of, you know, Celtics, Bruins, Patriots, Red Sox, you name it.

I grew up with, you know, Havoc and Cowan’s and JoJo White were my heroes. Women, not as much, though I do tell a story in the book about Billie Jean King when I was in third grade.

But, you know, I looked up to, you know, Nancy Lieberman when. When they had the first, you know, professional women’s basketball league. And my dad would take me to Salem State to watch that. That league play.

And so whatever advantage he would give me, I think he tried to do that.

And whether it was going to every professional game, which I did, many of them, I don’t want to brag, but I was at the triple overtime, the Phoenix game with the Celtics. There you go. Yes. And I was at the Pudge Fist home run. I mean, so there’s. There’s a lot of history that I find kids necessarily do not have nowadays.

That’s a whole nother. That’s probably another podcast we could have. Mike.

Mike Klinzing

00:16:46.310 – 00:18:28.110

Yeah. I do think that when you look at the influence that a parent can have on their child and do it in a number of ways, right, To.

To be there supporting you, but also just to expose you to, in your case, Boston professional sports, and just what windows that opens up to someone, to have the ability to look at people doing their thing at the highest level, and then obviously you’re able to bring that back and that impacts you.

And I know that you spent a lot of your childhood competing with anyone, but specifically competing with boys, probably more so than most girls do, certainly today. And again, I got the feeling that that ability to compete with the boys was one that you didn’t even necessarily think about that much. It was just.

That was who was in front of you that you could compete with. So you’re like, that’s who I’m gonna. That’s who I’m gonna compete with. Because here they are.

And obviously that had a huge impact on you as an athlete and just your development. And you played multiple sports, which again, is another probably whole podcast that we can talk about in terms of just the need today or the.

The theoretical need that people feel to. To specialize in sports instead of the way it was when you or I Grew up where you just were doing everything.

And even if you weren’t necessarily doing it for your school team, you certainly were doing it out in the backyard or on the driveway or wherever it, wherever it might have been. So tell me a little bit about that multi sport piece of you’re growing up and how you feel like that influenced you as, as an athlete.

Sherry Levin

00:18:29.020 – 00:23:27.900

So one of my earliest memories, and again, kind of a different time of growing up and my, my mom grew up on a dairy farm outside of, you know, like Bridgewater, Middleboro. And they had a July 4th fair, you know, every, every summer. And I think I might have been like four or five.

And all of a sudden they were looking around and like, oh, where did Sheri go? Like, you know, and that was a different time.

And I had entered myself into a race and the next thing they know, they hear on the loudspeaker and the winner of the 50 year dash was Chevy Levin. And you know, I, and I got a 50 cent, you know, half silver dollar. I think I still have that, but I just gravitated to that.

So as you mentioned, the opportunities to, to play and compete for girls were not as readily available as they are now, thank goodness. So, you know, I would play catch with my dad every night. He’d come home from work and you know, we’d go in the backyard and I would play catch.

I was really good baseball player and fourth grade comes along and I wanted to join. There was a sign that said, you know, come to elementary school for signups for little League. I’m like, dad, we gotta go.

So I, we went and we’re in the gym and I’m the only girl and we get up to the front of the line and the guy, the man at the table did not look up. My dad, well, why can’t she play? And she tryouts and such. And the man said, well, here, come out in the hall.

So I remember we went out in the hall and I’m thinking my dad was, you know, he’s going to fix this for me. And essentially the bottom line was that Little League at the time was for boys, though it didn’t say it on the flyer, but it was for boys.

And if I had wanted to join like the farm team, which is like for beginners, then I could do that. And I, we went home and I said, I’m not doing that. I said, I’m probably one of the best players out there. I am not doing that.

That was kind of my first like, okay, what’s going on here? I know I’m better than these kids and obviously as an athlete and you know, girls develop quicker and my hand eye coordination was fabulous.

And again I’d sprint and you know, beat everybody in the, in the park. But it wasn’t something I could do. When I got the sixth grade, that’s when there was a girls. It wasn’t softball, it was like a mid sized ball.

It was a gals league and that’s where I joined that and we wrote a play. When I got to junior high school that was the first chance where you had school teams.

And I went to, it was the first year they were having girls soccer. And I went to the first practice and it was, it was rough. And I remember going home thinking, oh my goodness, this is going to be a challenge for me.

And I was competitive, I’ve always been competitive. It’s in my nature. And that my, and my dad said I offer the boys.

I remember thinking okay, am I going to get, is this going to be another disappointment? And my sister said, oh my type. My, my typing teacher is the, the coach of the, the seventh grade team. I’ll talk to him. You can introduce yourself.

So I went and he said if you can make it, you can play. So a 180. If you can make it, you can play.

Not only did I make it, I was the leading scorer for the seventh, eighth and ninth grade which was the varsity. And I can tell you they were funny, funny exchanges. My teammates were wonderful.

But you know, every now and then the teenage boy would come out when they, we had to do a chest trapping drill and he was going to be with Sherry, right? I mean, you know the humor of that. And they were, would stick up for me when we played against a team that would be, oh, you got a girl on your team.

And they would, you know, stick up for me then. And it just, was just a wonderful experience.

I’m still friends with some of the, you know, the boys that I was teammates with and we ended up winning the city championship, which was once I got to high school then I was fortunate. We had, you know, great high school and I played soccer, basketball, and I ran track and threw the javelin.

So all those sports you talk about what, what, what I learned, you know, you, your mind, your body, different aspects of competitiveness, of, of coaches, of collaboration, of understanding X’s and O’s and how things work together. And you know, track and field was obviously an individual and team sport. But you know, the running and the, and the way your feet work.

I mean I Can’t tell you how many times I would, you know, I won just about every sprint in basketball partly because I knew how to stop and turn without wasting any movement on the court doing a, you know, I mean, it all is, is all combined. So yeah, I had a, a thrilling youth when it came to, to sports.

Mike Klinzing

00:23:29.020 – 00:24:15.970

The opportunity to just participate in so many different things, I just think is something that unfortunately and we’ve lost today.

And it’s one of the things that when I think about my own kids experience and I think about my experience as a kid and there’s good and bad to both experiences, but I definitely would not trade my experience as a kid and my experience in sports growing up through the years with the experience that my own kids have had. And there’s good things about what they’ve experienced.

But I still think again, growing up in the era that I did, I’m very happy that that was the case for me just because I got an opportunity to do and try lots of different things and eventually found my way to basketball.

Sherry Levin

00:24:15.970 – 00:24:16.370

Right.

Mike Klinzing

00:24:16.370 – 00:24:33.980

But again, on the driveway or in the backyard if there was a sport at some point I picked up a racket or a bat or a ball or whatever it was and played it at some point and had the opportunity to do that. And I just, I would never trade that for, for anything as a high school.

Sherry Levin

00:24:33.980 – 00:26:18.000

I think, you know, it’s an interesting point. Yeah, I think, you know, and coaching high school and understanding, you know, the, the, it’s kind of. They moved the finish line, right?

So, so the finish line, you know, I mean, for me, I wanted to earn a college scholarship and I did, I wanted to be the best that I could and I did. The idea of specialization was not yet in the realm of what we all needed to do. So I did, you know, I did decide.

I took my senior year summer and fall and I did not play soccer prior to basketball because I decided like you like, okay, basketball is, that’s going to be it for me. You know, at one point I wanted to be a professional tennis player and another point I wanted to be an Olympic sprinter.

And you know, there was, I dabbled in all of these things until I finally landed on, on basketball. But I see kids now. It’s really, it’s, it’s 12 months a year. And I will tell my players, I’m like, you need to take August off. I understand.

AU, I understand. You know, but you need, your body, your mind, your soul needs some time for yourself and not just playing basketball.

And you know, I think that’s something that I hope more coaches will, will jump on board with that. It can’t be a 12 month, 247 con. They’re going to burn out physically and mentally. And then I’d see them throw a football.

I’m like, oh wait, let me show you how to throw a football or let me show you how to play badminton or tennis or something that’s other than basketball. And that’s like a lost art nowadays, I think really is.

Mike Klinzing

00:26:18.000 – 00:27:26.310

It’s one of those things where I remember the first time I saw. I was this is maybe probably 10, 12, 13 years ago when I started doing some basketball training with kids.

And I remember one day I was in the gym with a couple kids and I looked over in the court next to me there was a guy doing like speed form running training with 7 and 7 and 8 year olds. I remember looking over and being just like, what are we doing here? I learned to run the same way you learned to run, right?

Like chasing people in the neighborhood and running away from people who are throwing apples at me or what. Whatever was going on, that’s how I learned to run.

And I learned to jump over fences and leap off of garage roofs and all these things that we did as kids, that was kind of my athletic training. And now we’ve kind of had to replace that because kids don’t play in the same way that they used to. And so it’s just again, different.

Not necessarily better or worse, but definitely, definitely different. Tell me about your decision to go to Holy Cross. Why Holy Cross?

When you ended up making that decision to go and figure out where you want to go to school or where you’re going to play collegiate basketball.

Sherry Levin

00:27:27.590 – 00:32:11.560

Yeah. So again, different, different time.

It wasn’t, you didn’t, you didn’t sign, you know, two years before you went through the process and you know, I wanted to be close to home. I was recruited. I did receive, you know, some, some other offers from, from schools in the Midwest and down south. But I wanted to be close to home.

I wanted my, my family to come and see me play. So I had a couple Ivy Leagues that I had had gone to, official visits that were, I can. Harvard and Dartmouth.

And each one had something that, you know, it just was not for me. And then I went to BU and BC, which are nearby. And BU’s coach at the time was my AU coach. We used to call it Junior Olympics in those days.

And the BC coach was just let go and they hadn’t hired yet another coach.

This is like the old version of social media where you overhear somebody talking and in the stands that Togo Palazzi was named the head coach of the women’s basketball team at Holy Cross. So I’m going to back up a little bit to my sophomore year in high school. I went to a basketball camp, the Bentley College All Star Basketball Camp.

It was the only camp in August because I used to go away to summer camp for seven weeks where I just had a ball. No stress, no clarinet, no academics, no organized sports. It was just having a ball. That’s the other time where I learned how to play tennis.

So I got home, we had won that game. We were playing in the Boston Garden, first girls team to play in the Boston Garden for the state championship.

And my dad said, overheard that Togo Palazzi was named head coach. So when I was a sophomore and at this camp, I was that kid who sat right underneath the hoop, right in the center, watching every lecture.

And Togo Palazzi was the lecturer. And I remember I was sitting there just with my eyes wide open, just like, oh, my God, this guy. He’s a big Italian guy. He’s intense.

He was pushing the, you know, the people doing the drills.

And I remember going home from that day of camp saying, and I was also that kid that would go to camp during the day and do all the drills at night in my yard. And so I remember my dad got home from work, and I remember saying, you know what? That’s the kind of coach I want to play for someday.

Well, the story goes that he reached out to me because he asked who was not signed. He just got the position, and he wanted, obviously, to do some recruiting. They said, who is not back committed best players in Massachusetts left.

And people said, me. So he called me up and he said, you know, he was pointing the head coach, would I like to come for a visit?

And I said, yes, Actually, my mom and I went. I don’t know why my dad didn’t go. My guess is that he had work, he had his own company and couldn’t go.

But the caveat to all of this is that I’m Jewish.

So when people said, you’re going to a visit at Holy Cross, and I sat in his office and I said to him, and I don’t know where this gumption came from, Mike, but I said, you know, I think I would. And I hadn’t applied, just so keep that in mind. I had not applied. And I. And I said, I would. Would love to play for you.

And he said, well, we are now going to Division 1. We have not given a female a full athletic scholarship at this point.

So I said, well, I have a couple on the table, so if you can match that, then I think I would say, yes, I would come. And so we escorted my mom and I to. To the gym and. And we waited there, and he went and he called the athletic director, Mr. Perry Senior.

I look back at that. It was a different time, but again, I don’t even remember if I did apply.

I’m assuming I did, but I guess they figured if I got into Harvard and Dartmouth, that I could get into Holy Cross. But.

When I see them now, when I see the success, the tradition, the legacy, on the women’s side now, the men’s side, we’re talking Bob Cousy, Tom Heinson, Togo Polazzi, George Kaftan, Jack the Shot Foley, Togo Polazzi, we’re talking the greats of men’s basketball history.

And when I see the women winning the Patriot League, and, you know, last year they played Iowa in or two years ago, oh, my gosh, time flies, you know, with Caitlin Clark, and that was a big deal. You know, it’s wonderful to see knowing that I. That I did have a part in that.

Mike Klinzing

00:32:12.600 – 00:32:48.610

It is really gratifying to be able to feel like you have a connection to the program. And obviously, you had. Were fortunate enough to have a locker room named after you and had a ceremony.

And you go through that story in the book, and again, just one of those special things that will forever tie you to the women’s program at Holy Cross. And again, there’s nothing better than that, especially with the. The type of career that you had.

What’s your favorite memory from your four years at Holy Cross? Could be on the court, could be off the court. You give me your favorite memory from. From your four years there.

Sherry Levin

00:32:49.090 – 00:36:02.120

Coaches all know this. You go through a season, it’s a blur, right? You’re so focused on the next game. You’re so focused.

So I would always make a point to, hey, let’s step back. You know, we’re going into the tournament now. Let’s step back, and let’s go around and share what your favorite memory of that season was.

And to a player, I mean, you know, we would win a lot. So I’m not saying that, you know, winning is great, and that’s why when there’s.

When there’s a time being kept and a score being kept, you want to win.

So I’m not discounting winning, but most of the kids would say something like the bus ride back from wherever or the time we went to the restaurant or bowling or our team bonding at the hotel. You know, there’s something that off the court was the most memorable.

But I think in the four years that I, that, you know, my journey in my career, I think I would have to say the locker room. And you know, Togo was such a, for me, such a person in my soul.

Like he, I used to always feel that he would, was speaking to me and you know, he had some rousing. Some of the things that he would say. You would, you would be, you people would be like, what? Like, I’ll just share one of the funniest things.

He would, he would say he was going to run us so hard our knees would become our ankles. And you’d have to think about that, right? Like, oh, okay.

You know, like things that he would just pull out and, and I think that the time spent with your, with your teammates, you know, a couple months ago I had a, you know, a couple of teammates, we spent a, you know, weekend kind of in, you know, in the Berkshires and we just. You feel like you never leave, right?

Like when you have teammates that you go through and experienced, you know, joy and heartache and discipline and so many different emotions that you experienced with your teammates and with your coach. I mean, Togo was, was certainly someone who then was, was in my life, you know, until his passing.

And in that sense, like, that experience would, would, would really be my, you know, my, my favorite of my four years. And obviously that’s a little bit broader.

Um, you know, I, I mean, I, I, you know, I still hold a scoring record, Mike, which is kind of hard to believe because I didn’t have a three point line and I played with a men’s size basketball, so.

And I was 5 9, a little shorter nowadays, but, you know, at 5 9, I think what I was able to use, which I tried to impart to my players is, you know, there’s more to it. There’s your brain, there’s your, your, your coyness. There’s your, you know, I used to say how to be a great actress, right? Like fakes.

That’s another lost art. Like, oh my gosh. See, kids fake nowadays. It’s like, whoa, let me show you how to do that, right?

Like I used to get to the line seven or eight times a game, right? Because I knew how to play in ways that would make what I had to offer advantageous. So I used to shoot at the top of the key.

That was like one of my go to shots which would have been worth three points, but. But when I played, it was only worth two.

Mike Klinzing

00:36:03.400 – 00:36:07.720

How many. How many more points do you have if there was a 3? Sherry, how many more points do you think you had?

Sherry Levin

00:36:09.000 – 00:36:21.530

Wow. You know what?

The one thing I will say that I was the kind of person that if you told me at some point in my career that I would get three points from a different spot, I would have shot a thousand shots a day.

Mike Klinzing

00:36:21.770 – 00:37:45.420

You would have had to get the coaching staff to believe you that. That that was a good shot. That was. That’s always the. That was always the challenge. I.

It’s funny because I graduated from college in 92, and I recently saw one of my teammates and we talked about just again, how the style of basketball and just the game has shifted in so many ways. And he and I were talking like, you know, we probably both shot, I don’t know, three. Between three and four threes, maybe a game.

And we’re looking at our percentages going. If somebody was shooting these percentages today, I’d have been taking nine or ten threes every single game.

And so we just were kind of talking about again, how the game has evolved and changed. And certainly it’s. It’s much, much different.

And I know that you end up coming to coaching much later in life than a lot of people who finish their playing career and then jump right into coaching. And that was not your path, obviously, again, a different era of women’s sports at the time.

Was there ever any thought at all for you that, hey, maybe someday, if an opportunity would present me. Is present would be presented to me that I might want to coach? Or was that something that was just completely not on your radar?

I know you have a couple different careers that you get involved in before you get to coaching, and we’ll talk about your broadcasting. But was coaching at all on your radar while you were still playing?

Sherry Levin

00:37:46.540 – 00:40:27.680

It was not. And I say that not because I didn’t.

I mean, again, I had a, you know, amazing mentor in, in Togo, but I wanted the ball in my hands and, and when I played, the idea of. Of not was. Was. Was difficult. And so I, you know, I always wanted to be, you know, just back up. You, you. You alluded to broadcasting.

I always wanted to be in. In broadcasting. So I’m fortunate to. To do that and to work as a. In production as well.

So behind the scenes and I worked, you know, in front of the camera. But what the. And I, I ran basketball. So for me, that was kind of my fix, if you will, of like, this is the way, this is how it should be done.

And, you know, I’d get up in front of my, you know, 200, 300 kids and that for that, those weeks and giving lectures at camps was my way of coaching, but not coaching 18. Right.

So it was me being a coach and getting out there in a guest lecture and out of my camps and teaching drills and how to do all that, but it wasn’t coaching 18. So as I went on with my career, my masterclass in coaching was something very few people ever had. And that’s the lens of a broadcaster.

So I was an analyst, but I got to be in everybody’s locker room that is truly the legends of the game, from Pat Summitt to interviewing Tara Van de Vere to Bonnie Henriksen, Jim Foster, Andy Landers, all the great coaches, you know, Leon Barmore and asking them about the game. Right? So game management isn’t something that you just read a book nowadays. It’s not like you go to clinic.

It’s, you know, game management to me is really a feel. Right. And it’s obviously you need knowledge and you, you know, you need the X’s, no’s, but to be able to understand, like, the nuances.

Um, I had a, I had a masterclass being a broadcaster and, and I love that life circumstances. I, you know, I got married. I, I had my daughter, who’s the love of my life. I got divorced and realized I could not travel and be on the road as much.

And that’s where I, I moved back to, to where I grew up outside of Boston. And that’s where I got a call from a friend who needed help as an assistant coach. I was back in Worcester, which is where Holy Cross is.

People found out and then, and I got a call from Worcester Academy to to coach the team. And so that’s how I ended up in the coaching.

Mike Klinzing

00:40:28.160 – 00:40:36.320

There you are. And did you like, did you love it? Did you love it from day one? I mean, was it immediate?

As soon as you got in to it, did you know, like, this is where I’m supposed to be?

Sherry Levin

00:40:37.600 – 00:42:10.190

Yeah, you know, it, it really was because now I was taking all those experiences from, whether it was the summer camp or when I, when I say, like, I, I can remember being in, in, you know, Pat Summit’s office before a game and, you know, like day before, and we’d be interviewing her questions and I would say, you know, at the end of the game, you know, you’re, you’re, you know, You’re a close game. You know, what kind of defense do you think you’re going to be playing? Or, you know, do you have a go to player?

And all of these answers, gosh, I mean, just like, you can’t, you couldn’t get that.

So once I started coaching, I had an audience, and if I can help people, if I can help, dare I say, Aaliyah Boston become the best player that she can be, or Luchi o’ Connor or Letitia Rolle, who is a superstar actress and model, and she to this day will say she would go into, to act, you know, for a role, a part, and she’d get rejected, rejected, rejected. And she would hear my voice. You can do this the next one, the next one. You can keep trying the next one.

And, and, and that’s what, you know, to me, coaching is all about. The wins are great. You know, as I, I said, that’s the second time I said winning is awesome. Right.

There’s nothing wrong with winning, but underneath that. Right. Connecting is, is the thing that I, that I really get charged up from coaching.

So it really was, you know, thank you for asking that from, you know, day one and meeting the girls and talking. Yeah.

Mike Klinzing

00:42:11.070 – 00:44:52.950

One of the things that you say in the book is something that I’ve talked with lots of coaches about on the podcast. In terms of the art of coaching and the science of coaching, right. There’s the science of understanding the X’s and O’s.

And today, probably, I don’t want to say the science is easier, but there’s certainly more access to the science of coaching today than there ever has been. You can probably pick up the phone or email or whatever and ask any coach in the country, hey, how do you do this?

And most of them, you can’t hide anything anymore because you’re on synergy or you’re on a huddle or whatever. So even if you wanted to, you can’t hide it. So coaches are super willing to share that.

And that says nothing about YouTube and Twitter and everywhere else where you can go and you can look at just whatever you want to find, X’s and O’s wise. But what you’re talking about again, is that art of coaching, right? It’s the art of building relationships with your players.

It’s the art of knowing how to get the most out of this player, which might be different from how you get the most out of this player. And so kind of understanding who your players are and what you’re getting out of it.

And then to have Somebody that comes Back to you five years after they’ve graduated, 10 years after they’ve graduated, 20 years after they played for you and pick up the phone and say, hey Coach. Or send you a text, hey, coach. I always say that’s one of the most gratifying things that can ever happen to you as a coach.

As you said, we all love the win. And in the moment, winning is really important. And looking back on things, you enjoy the winning.

But that ability to have an impact on people over the course of their life is, is critically important. And I think it’s one that, when I think about the art of coaching, that’s part of what I consider to be that, to be that art.

And so let’s dive into a couple of the pregame talks from the book that struck a chord with me. And I’ll kind of let you then piggyback off sort of my impression. So I want to start with the very first one in the book. So diamond or pencil.

And I think that this is something that again, when I said earlier that I try to look for things that I can use with my own kids, both as athletes, but also just as people.

One of the things that I try to talk to them about and I haven’t put it in the same contextual format that you have, but again, things are going to happen. You have a choice for how you are going to react to the things that happen in your life.

There are lots of things that come at us in a game, but also in life that we can’t control. What we can control is how we react to them.

So explain the diamond or pencil pregame talk and, and just why that particular one you chose to lead off the book.

Sherry Levin

00:44:53.910 – 00:50:21.100

Yeah, so the diamond or pencil. And again, I, as I mentioned, my daughter would say a pregame speech waiting to happen. And so it originated.

And I was a video producer and had my own video production company and we were recording and you’re in his office and we’re dressed in the set and we’re moving things on his desk. And he had a framed, you know, explanation of a diamond or a pencil. So I was reading it because I was moving it. So I’m like, oh, what is this?

Now this is probably like 10 years before I even became, you know, the coach of a team.

So the story is that carbon, everything is made of atoms and the, the carbon, when you arrange the atoms in one way, make the lead of a 10 cent pencil. And when you take those exact same atoms and they’re arranged in a different way and they’re pressurized. They become a priceless diamond.

So for some reason, it came into mind that this would be like a great pregame speech for a game, that we needed to be at our best. So it wasn’t just like, hey, let’s go be our best, right? It was, I tell the story. And usually it was.

I would tell it every year, one of my favorite ones. And I would tell it every year because it is a choice. It’s, are you going to die for that ball or you’re not? Are you going to box out or you’re not?

Are you going to, you know, get them below and play defense? And you could go through every aspect of the game and make that choice here. We won the championship in New England, which was awesome.

And we were at our team end of year event, and I always edit a highlight video. And so we were at the auditorium and we were leaving, and her mom asked me to stay back. And I spoke with her mom and very sad.

Her father at that point was diagnosed with Alsace, and they weren’t sure if Alicia was going to be able to come back. And the school made it happen, thankfully. So she came back.

And we saw throughout her three years, her father passed her beginning of her senior year, the downturn and what she was dealing with. But she never let on. She always showed up with a smile. She always showed up in.

In a way that you would never know what she was going through personally. And that, to me, was, like, so courageous and so meaningful. Truly, she was the diamond.

And, you know, years later, at her wedding, and I’ve gone to her wedding, they had a beautiful event at the cliffs in Nantucket, Nantasket, Rhode Island. And it was pouring rain and you could not. The clouds were so thick, you could not see.

And she pulled me aside when I was leaving and it was beautiful wedding. And pulled me aside and says, I wouldn’t have got through this, coach, without your words. Because she woke up and it’s pouring rain and you can’t.

But she’s like, you know what? I went out, I had some awesome pictures. I made the best of it. It was awesome. And to me, again, that was just kind of reinforcing. Drop the mic.

As a coach, that’s why you coach, right? That’s why you coach when your players come back and say things like that. So the diamond and the pencil is very special.

But I will tag onto that Mike because.

And we could probably do another podcast on this if you have seen, you know, the Maryland women’s basketball team And Brenda Freeze, who does have a testimony in my book, as well as Alucio Konawa. Did you see this? Did on social media? Yes.

And so while Alucci is one of my favorite people and I had the joy of coaching Aluchi, and Bren is one of my favorite people and very intense. And when I saw that live, because I watched every one of the Lucci’s games for the past three years, and when I saw that live and I.

And then they kept replaying it, of course. And, you know, you could read Brenda’s lips. She was very. She was intense and demonstrative, but very positive. And I saw Alucci just stood there.

Yes, Coach. Yes, Coach. I. Knowing Aluchi, some people would be watching it, going, oh, my God.

Like, a lot of kids would say, you know, turn away and don’t, you know, get in my faith, whatever. But Aluchi, yes. And then snapped out of. She was in a funk, clearly, up to that point.

And it kind of went viral because I think people looked at it like, oh, my God, this is like. And Alucha’s like, I want to be coached hard. And if you come with anything other than your honesty, they will not trust you.

And your goal as a coach is to get them to be their very best, even when their lungs are burning and even when they have a sore ankle and even when they’re tired and you say to them, I need one more. Can you do that? I know you can do it. That’s where that authenticity comes in. So Coach Freeze was who she was. She’s intense. And Alucci is who she is.

She wants to be coached up. And Lucci, in one of her interviews, and I hope you find this funny, but one of her interviews, she talked about the diamond or the pencil.

And the interview was like, with Billie Jean King and Foudy on a podcast. I’m like, lucci, you could have said, my high school coach wrote the book.

Mike Klinzing

00:50:23.740 – 00:50:24.860

That’s funny. That’s.

Sherry Levin

00:50:26.700 – 00:50:34.100

Like, you know, I’m like. But a Lucci reference. The diamond or pumps. So she chose to be the diamond.

Mike Klinzing

00:50:34.100 – 00:52:43.730

Yeah.

And that was a moment that, like you said, resonated with so many people that saw that and you heard so many different interpretations or people’s opinions about what that was or what it wasn’t.

And I think for someone who is an athlete, someone who is a coach, and you watch that, and I think you have a greater understanding than maybe somebody who hasn’t played at a certain level or somebody who just again, maybe isn’t in athletics, looks at it and says that looks more intense than maybe what it should have been.

But I think if you’ve been in a locker room and, and I’ll have conversations with people a lot who maybe they’re just coming through as a parent, right, with their first kid and they’re having their first experience with coaches coaching their children and trying to figure out what that looks like and trying to understand. And there’s, again, there’s all different levels and ways that as coaches we interact and there’s things that are.

Are intense and there are things that maybe are intense but go a different direction than what coach Freeze went. And so I think it’s something that again, if you haven’t been in it, I think it’s easy to misinterpret it and put your own.

Inject your own opinion into it that really isn’t. You’re not really aware of what the actual situation is.

And obviously you had intimate knowledge of both ends of that conversation and under understood what was happening in terms of the dynamic of a player who wants to get better, who wants their coach to hold them accountable and wants their coach to be able to bring the best out of them. And then as you said, you have a coach who wants to do that for their players.

And again, like we talked about a minute ago, understands their player well enough to know what they need in that moment to get them to perform at their best. And I think all those things really go well into that diamond or pencil pregame talk.

And so I think there’s, there’s, there’s tons to be learned from that, Sherry, for sure.

Sherry Levin

00:52:44.990 – 00:54:04.440

Yeah. And, and you know, there’s, there’s time.

And I was thinking, you know, when I was, was coaching a Lucci or you know, knowing, you know, what it does, I might have given her a hug, right? Like, like there’s different. And, and, and I could tell when she was in like deer and headlights, like, she would be so zoned.

I’m like, oh my God, I gotta snap her out of this because she would be so intense. She and great defensive player was the all, all defensive team in as well as first team all star.

And she would like get two fouls if I didn’t like, so I would go smile and put this big fake smile on. And to this day, like, she’s written me notes, says, you know, whenever I, I need to, I think of smiling, right?

So, so there’s cues, demanding, never demeaning, which is two of the phrases like when again, authenticity and demanding, never demeaning. I am I am still confounded these days when.

Whenever I see a coach, like, breaking kids down, I’m like, you think breaking people down is going to rise them up? No, no, no, no, no. That’s not how you do it. But everybody is, you know, has their own thing, and that’s what that’s always been. Been amazed to me.

But there’s. There’s one quote that I would also use as coaches is they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Mike Klinzing

00:54:05.250 – 00:54:54.680

I think there’s no doubt that that ability to understand one another and ability to trust that each of you has the other one’s best interest at heart is really what it’s all about. And when you have that, it allows the relationship to work and for each person to get the most out of the other.

And again, that’s really what it’s all about.

All right, another one that struck me of the pregame talks, another one that I really like that I think is applicable to not just basketball, but is applicable to life, was the push or pivot. Pivot or push and just trying to get an understanding of, okay, I’m in this situation.

Do I need to pivot away from this situation, or is it a situation that I need to push through? So tell me where that one came from and how you’ve applied that at various times in your coaching and in your life.

Sherry Levin

00:54:56.040 – 00:57:30.290

Yeah, you know, that kind of came about through just general life and, And. And. And living it. I mean, because, I mean, you just summed it up right there. There’s.

There’s so many things on a daily basis that you have to make that choice. And as I said at the very beginning, it’s, you know, pregame and winning. Mindset’s a book of how do you shift your mindset into something positive?

It’s not. I really, truly enjoy reinventing myself all the time.

It’s just that’s the way things have kind of come to me, whether it’s been in my control or not. And that’s kind of the idea of what that means. Like, you know, the idea of you’re sticking with something. Where have I applied it?

Gosh, so many different things.

I think in coaching specific, I think the idea of, like, you prepare for a game and, you know, whether it’s, you got your scouts, if you’re allowed, whether it’s, you played the team before and you watched your game, whether you called another coach who played and said, you know, how’d they play you?

So you prepare based on that knowledge and Then how many times do you go about the game and then you’re like, wait a minute, last time they played us all, man. This time they’re playing, they haven’t played zone yet, and now we’re playing zone. So the idea is you got to adjust, right?

Life is about making adjustments.

And I would, I would tell my daughter all the time, if you’re prepared, right, if you are prepared, then no matter what comes at you, you will be able to handle it, right? It doesn’t mean that you know exactly what’s coming at you, but what comes at you, you will be able to handle.

And that goes from, you know, your, your experiences. The idea of losing. I, I say turn an L into a lesson, not a loss. Failure. It’s okay. It’s okay.

And the one thing I, that I, again, another thing I would tell my players is the worst two words to put together. If only. You never want to say, if only I shot more free throw. If only I went to sleep earlier.

If only I, you know, prepared for that presentation the next day at work. If only. You know, those are the two worst words. And so the idea of being able to, to know when to like, okay, you know what?

This, this, this is not working. And I wish the Celtics had done that last night, but. Oh, I just, I just, just.

Mike Klinzing

00:57:31.250 – 00:57:44.660

Oh, yes, you wanted them to stop shooting threes, Is that what you’re saying? When you can’t, when you’re just firing indiscriminately, when they’re not going in.

The Tatum 3, when it was 91.89 was the most horrendous shot selection I think I’ve seen in the playoffs so.

Sherry Levin

00:57:44.660 – 00:58:34.580

Far, you know, and I might have played a little more defense. Okay, so let’s start with like a little more defense.

But yes, because, you know, you’re, as coaches, I, and I Hope like the 99% of the coaches listening would say, yeah, you know what? I might have said, okay, let’s get to the rim, right? Let’s get to the line. Let’s. Something.

How about, how about, you know, one of your mid range shots, which, like beautiful high percentage from mid range, right? We know you can do that. And then you take more threes.

Like there’s just something that needed to, to break the fact that they were just not hitting their threes and they’re a better team. Right? That’s, that’s. So, so anyway, I gotta, I, we, we digressed about basketball strategies, but. So that’s the, that’s the idea of that.

And I Think, pivot or push, you can apply to, to just about anything in life.

Mike Klinzing

00:58:36.290 – 01:00:05.480

Next one, another one that applies to life. And I’ll tell you a funny story from my experience with it. Get to, versus have to.

So I remember there was a time where I don’t remember where I stumbled across that concept. This is probably, yeah, five, six, seven, eight years ago. I don’t know if I read it in a book, I don’t know if I heard it on a pod.

I don’t know where I got it from. But at some point I heard that and I’m like, oh, that’s good. Like, I like that.

And my kids were at the age where they were young enough that I could kind of use that on them, but they were not too young that they didn’t understand it. And so it got to the point where I would kind of be the guy that whenever they said we have to do this, I would just jump in for like a week.

I would always be like, no, you get to.

And it got to the point where they were then doing it to each other to the point of annoyance where one of them would say, oh, I have to go to practice. And they’d be like, no, you get to. And just.

But it definitely got us shifting and thinking about, let’s have some gratitude for the things that we get to do. Not every kid gets a chance to go to practice. Not every kid has a house where they have to take out the garbage.

Not everybody has somebody that’s looking out for them, that’s trying to help them to learn lessons along the way. And so just again, tell me where that idea came into play for you and then how you used it in your coaching.

Sherry Levin

01:00:08.040 – 01:02:48.960

You know, I don’t remember where it came in, where it originated, something like you said, and somewhere I heard it. Along the line.

Where I would, where I would use it is in those strategic moments where, you know, you’re, you’re middle of the season, early February, you’re in those dog days of, you know, two, three games a week, so you don’t have a lot of practice time and you know, you end up end of a practice and you’re like, okay, on the line. The famous three words of every coach on the line. And you get the right, you get the.

And now just as a side note, as a coach, I’m very process oriented coach. So very rarely would I pick out the end game, which are goals, right? And everybody has goals. But I would pick out.

The process to me was much more important, much more valuable. So that’s what I really would focus on. So all my drills would be like compound drills. So if I was working on shooting, we’d be running.

If I was working on ball handling, we’d be running. If I was working on defense, we’d be running. So every drill had a running component. So very rarely would I ever really.

Other than at the end of a practice, like, you know, we would on the line, right? That was where you finish. And I would hear grumbling and then I would say, you don’t have to do this, girls. You get to. You know why?

Because at the end of the game versus, you know, TABOR on Wednesday, sorry, will I use TABOR on Wednesday. You are going to have your legs at the end of the game.

So you get to prepare for that and you get to be able to beat them because then you’re going to get the number one seed and you. And so the idea of the steamroll of you get to. And when you think of that, it completely changes your mindset, right?

I mean, and even like you said, taking out the trash or eating your broccoli, you get to be strong. And so the concept of changing one word and shifting your whole mindset, Gratitude is really important. And I talk about that in the book as well.

Studies prove that if you’re grateful, you tend to be happier and less stressed. The words out of my mouth every morning is when I talk with my daughter, I say, make it a great day.

So just that shift of one word, and there’s nothing wrong with saying have a great day. You’re wishing somebody, have a great day, but it’s a passive activity. Make it a great day. You’re going to own that. So that’s a.

That’s another shift of the word first get and have love that.

Mike Klinzing

01:02:48.960 – 01:03:58.800

It’s a compounding effect, right? It’s one thing that then touches off just a way of looking at my life on a day to day basis that I can take just for this particular moment.

But I can let that roll into lots of other things that I have going on in my day, in my month, in my week, in my year, in my life. And I think that really is where you start to see the start. See the impact.

I want to ask you this is a question that I love to ask to people who get an opportunity to coach high level athletes. And you’ve had an opportunity to coach Aaliyah Boston, one of the best women’s basketball players in the world.

And the question that I always like to ask is, obviously there’s a level of talent and skill and work ethic and all the things that go into being that type of player.

But if you were to point to one or two things that she has that allows her to be the player, the person that she is, to have the success that she’s had, and I’m thinking more along the lines of those intangible things that make her who she is. What, what are those things that. That first spring to mind for you?

Sherry Levin

01:04:01.040 – 01:06:29.440

Great question. I would say the first time that I ever worked out with Aaliyah, I realized very early on that she was a bit of a perfectionist.

And we would do a drill, whether it was, you know, elbow to elbow shooting drill and you know, at 6 5, now she’s 6 5, might have been 64 as a sophomore in high school. You know, I didn’t just keep her on the block because I was coaching Aaliyah to where I knew she wanted to be.

And right from the first start, I even said to a mom in a conversation, I said, I think she could be the best women’s basketball player ever.

I said that it is coming true to fruition because of her skill set, because of the God given things that she was given, in addition to the perfectionist in her made her like if she missed the first shot. We’ll start again, Coach. I’m like, sometimes you don’t have the opportunity to start again, but we’ll do it again. We’ll start again.

You know, so you can do eight or 10, you know, eight, nine or 10. But she always wanted to get it right. And I think her, her internal fortitude and her heart.

When you talk about intangibles, not every player has heart. And I think it meant so much to her from, from deep in the soul. And I credit her, her parents, with giving her the grounding.

She’s very spiritual as well.

So she had with her not only the physical attributes that she just was gifted and her ability to run and her hands and her length of her arms and just her footwork was unrivaled, but she had the heart and I think to have the heart to have the ability to say, show me how, coach. Right, that not every coach, not every, not every kid has. Right. Not every player has.

And yes, as you said, the, the desire to work hard, you know, to get up at 5:30 in the morning, go lift weights, to, you know, come in a gym on a, on an off day. And those are the kind of things that, you know, help make her the player she is.

And, and just I knew very early on that she was going to be extraordinary and she had big dreams and big, big goals. And thank God those have come to fruition, really.

Mike Klinzing

01:06:29.520 – 01:08:48.110

Again, just an honor to be able to have the opportunity to work with a player on that level and to be a part of their journey and contribute to the success that they have. And then obviously you get to see them. And then it goes back to earlier in our conversation.

So you get the Aaliyah Boston and the notoriety that she’s achieved and the success, and yet you have tons and tons of other players that didn’t achieve nearly as much as she has on the basketball court, but yet have achieved, I’m sure, equally as well in their chosen career with their family, as a human being.

And those relationships, I know just from reading your book and hearing you talk tonight that those relationships, I’m sure, are just as important to you as the one that you have with Aaliyah.

And I think that’s what it is to be a coach and again, to put yourself out there, to be able to help other people and to lift them up and to make them better. And I always say that as a coach, what we get to do is use the game of basketball, which we all love, to be able to have an impact on other people.

And that, to me is always what’s special about the game.

I say this all the time, like, basketball has been so good to me, Sherry, that there’s no possible way I could ever give back what the game has given me in terms of just my experiences, the people in my life, just everything. There’s no way I can give back. And so whatever value this podcast has, it pales in comparison to what, what basketball has has given to me.

And I know that again, for, from just our conversation tonight, from reading your book, from just the experiences that you’ve had, that your impact goes in all different directions on the people that you’ve been able to touch and. And be able to have an impact on them as a coach. I want to wrap up by asking you a two part question to finish up.

So when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge? I’m going to make a prediction. I won’t say it out loud, but I’m going to see.

I’m going to see if my prediction is right based on what we talked about. So your biggest challenge.

And then the second part of the question is when you think about what you get to do now every single day, what brings you the most joy so your biggest challenge, looking ahead and then your biggest joy.

Sherry Levin

01:08:50.110 – 01:09:33.369

So, biggest challenge, I think, is going to be to continue to. To fulfill the energy that I get from making a difference. And.

And I stepped away from coaching to, you know, tackle the next thing, which part of it was to write the book and be a consultant in a different way. So I think what I miss most about the coaching is to have that audience on a daily basis. Right. Is to see those.

The, you know, the eyes light up when the light bulb goes off. So the challenge is how do I get that energy for myself on a daily basis? And what was the second part?

Mike Klinzing

01:09:33.609 – 01:09:35.049

The joy. Biggest joy.

Sherry Levin

01:09:36.020 – 01:10:03.460

The biggest joy is from actually what my challenge is. Right.

So the biggest joy I get is when I hear from you how the stories resonated, or when I hear from a player who I really wanted to get and I wasn’t able to get, but she read the book and she said how much the stories resonated with her, and when I hear that, then that’s the joy that I get. So I guess you could say my biggest challenge is also going to be my greatest joy.

Mike Klinzing

01:10:04.820 – 01:10:05.780

It’s well said.

Sherry Levin

01:10:05.780 – 01:10:56.950

But, you know, like, I will. I will just leave you with this because I know it was in the book, but I. I think you believe this as well.

And I go back to Togo, and Togo and my dad were very, very good friends and really knew that they both cared about me and my mom, obviously. But my. My dad and Togo in different lens.

As Togo had asked his coach, Buster Sherry, when he finished Holy Cross, you know, how do I ever repay you for everything that you gave me, that you did for me? And Buster Sherry’s comment to Togo was, do it for somebody else. And I always thought that I was Togo somebody else. And, you know, I held on to that.

And part of the book is. Is dedicated to him. And I think as coaches, the more someone else’s that we can do that for is really why. Why we do what we do.

Mike Klinzing

01:10:57.510 – 01:10:58.710

There’s no question about that.

Sherry Levin

01:10:59.750 – 01:11:00.470

Yeah, there’s.

Mike Klinzing

01:11:00.470 – 01:11:54.550

There’s no doubt. And I think to go along with that.

Another thing that I think about in that vein, Sherry, is that there are times where as a coach, you’re doing things on a daily basis. You’re pouring into your players, your team, and you may not see the results of those things that you did for years.

And in some cases, somebody moves across the country, you may never see the impact that you had because maybe that player isn’t one who’s going to pick up the phone or call you or do things that we would all love to have, but not every person does that.

And so I think sometimes as a coach or my career, which I retired from in October as a teacher, there are days where you show up and you look around and you’re having a tough day and you wonder like, am I, am I having any. Why am I here? Am I having any impact at all?

Sherry Levin

01:11:54.630 – 01:11:55.030

Yeah.

Mike Klinzing

01:11:55.030 – 01:13:03.480

And sometimes you forget that and it goes back to another one of your pregame talks. The ripple in the water. Right.

The pebble hits the water and maybe that ripple is way far away from you by the time it has the impact that improves someone’s life or touches somebody somewhere. And I just think that again, to be able to use the game of basketball, to be able to have that kind of impact, I think is. Is huge.

And it’s just really, again, it’s just a special thing to be able to. To be able to have that impact. And again, for our audience, I would highly recommend going out and picking up a copy of Sherry’s book.

It is extremely well done. If you are a coach, you’re going to love reading the stories. You can incorporate some of them into your own pregame speeches.

But again, the book is called Pregame A Winning Mindset. And you can get it on Amazon. You can go to Sherry’s website, anywhere you want to go to be able to pick it up.

And Sherry, before we go, I want to just once again give people all the different places that they can connect with you. If you want to share, email, share your website again, social media, whatever you feel comfortable with.

And then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.

Sherry Levin

01:13:04.680 – 01:13:33.570

Sure. So sherrylevin.com is my website. I’m on a pregame mindset on Instagram, Sherry Levin on LinkedIn. I do have a Facebook because I am over 60.

That’s also pre game. And Sherry Levin, the book you can get at Amazon, ingramsparks, It’s on Kindle. I will be working on an audio version.

People have asked me and they’re like, it’s pre game speeches. You have to do that.

Mike Klinzing

01:13:33.570 – 01:14:35.430

So, Sherry, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to join us. I really appreciate it. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.

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Narrator

01:14:39.190 – 01:14:40.990

Thanks for listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast presented by Head Start Basketball.