MIKE DEWITT – OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 773

Website – https://battlingbishops.com/sports/mens-basketball

Email – mddewitt@owu.edu

Twitter – @OWUHoops

Mike DeWitt just completed his 24^th season as the Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Ohio Wesleyan University where he has compiled a record of 386-249.  Including his time as a head coach at Hiram and Centre College DeWitt has an overall record of 436 – 325 over 29 seasons.

He also served as an assistant men’s basketball coach at Kenyon College for 2 seasons and was an assistant coach at Ohio Wesleyan for 3 seasons prior to that.

During his playing career, DeWitt was a member of 3 conference championship teams. He was a 2-time All-NCAC selection at Ohio Wesleyan and helped the Bishops win NCAC championships in 1985-86 and 1986-87. He began his playing career at Wittenberg University and was a member of the Tigers’ 1982-83 team that reached the NCAA Division III championship game.

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Get ready to jot down some notes as you listen to this episode with Mike DeWitt, Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Ohio Wesleyan University.

What We Discuss with Mike DeWitt

• His very first memory in life – The Willis Reed Game in the 1970 NBA Finals
• His game winning shot during sectionals in his junior year and how that inspired him to improve as a player
• Developing competitiveness
• “We try to make our practices as competitive as possible in five on five situations.”
• Attending Wittenberg out of High School before transferring to Ohio Wesleyan
• Having honest conversations with players
• His early experiences as a D3 assistant coach at Ohio Wesleyan and Kenyon
• “I don’t feel like I know everything right now, even though I’ve been doing this for a long time.”
• “I think that’s one of the great things about this profession is that people will help each other.”
• The importance of serving as a mentor
• His head coaching experiences at Hiram and Centre College
• Developing his assistant coaches into head coaches
• Delegating meaningful things, not just things you don’t want to do
• “You can be a championship coach and still have a great family situation and have a life outside of it.”
• “I don’t think more is always better, but I think smarter is better.”
• “Don’t back down from being good.”
• Tweaking your system to fit your personnel
• Recruiting great guys who fit the culture at Ohio Wesleyan
• Teaching out of 5 on 5 situations
• The self-sustaining nature of player led teams and leadership
• The impact of social media on coaches

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TRANSCRIPT FOR MIKE DEWITT – OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 773

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with my co-host Jason Sunkle Tonight, and we’re pleased to welcome the head men’s basketball coach at Ohio Wesleyan University here in the state of Ohio. Mike DeWitt. Mike, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:12] Mike DeWitt: Thanks, Mike. I’m pleased to join you guys tonight.

[00:00:18] Mike Klinzing: We are excited to have you on. Looking forward to diving into all the things that you’ve been able to do throughout your basketball career. Let’s go back in time to when you were a kid. Tell us a little bit about how you got into the game of basketball and what some of your earliest memories are. The game.

[00:00:35] Mike DeWitt: It’s kind of funny you’ve watched, I knew this question was coming, so I’ve tried to have a really good story about this and my actual first memory as a human was having my parents let me stay up past my bedtime to watch the Knicks Lakers 1970 game seven NBA finals game, which is known as the Willis Reed game at this point where he was injured in game six, didn’t know he was going to play, and he comes out and scores to open the game against Will Chamberlain.

They went on to win the NBA championship that year and that ignited certainly a love for the game of basketball in my life and obviously has led to me making that a profession and a lifelong pursuit. So really dating myself with that, was five years old at the time. I wore my Knicks t-shirt to kindergarten the next day, and everyone thought that was the coolest thing in the world.

But that ignited me to the game of basketball.

[00:01:49] Mike Klinzing: That’s a pretty good memory. Pretty good game to remember as your first memory. Yeah, my first memory as a human being is not quite as exciting. It’s me sitting in a kindergarten bus looking out the window. That’s my first memory. So yours remembering the Willis Reed game is a little bit better story than the one I’ve got.

[00:02:04] Jason Sunkle: Mike, my first memory is jumping off a swing barefoot when I was four or five years old and ended up breaking my foot.

[00:02:17] Mike Klinzing: Mike’s without question is way better.

[00:02:22] Mike DeWitt: We lived in Long Island and it was soon after that we actually moved to Ohio. So I was probably the only Knicks fan in my Ohio hometown.

[00:02:44] Mike Klinzing: Were your parents both basketball fans or…?

[00:02:48] Mike DeWitt: Yeah, my dad was a fan. He wasn’t a coach or anything like that and my mom had very little interest in athletics,  but typical parents, they supported everything I did and every sport I played as I was growing up in Galion. But my dad was a huge New York fan, Yankees. Giants. So when we moved to Ohio, and like I said, everything from basketball to baseball to football, to tennis as I was growing up.

[00:03:42] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, that parental support is huge. It’s funny cause talking about being a New York fan here in the state of Ohio. So for whatever reason, I’ve never really been a Yankees fan, but for some reason I’ve always liked Yankees gear.

So when I was in college, I used to have, I used to have a Yankee starter jacket that I would wear around all the time. And then even during the height of like when the Indians were really good in the nineties, and that was at the age where I was in my mid twenties. So I’d be going out downtown or being around when there were games going on, and I would always wear my Yankees hat.

And even today I still have a Yankees hat that I’ll wear around. And it’s amazing the vitriol that I’m disappointed. Mike, I’m disappointed. I didn’t know. I know. Listen. See, this is what I get all the time, Mike. No matter where I go, people are like, well, and I really like meeting or having this conversation, but man, that hat, I mean, I’m not so sure.

I’m not so sure about that hat. I’m like, oh, it’s just a hat, man. I’m like, I just like the hat. So I can totally relate to if you were expressing your New York fandom, that you were probably getting people that were looking at you a little sideways.

[00:04:45] Mike DeWitt: For sure, but I wouldn’t dare where a Yankees hat in the place I grew up with right now.  So you have a lot more guts than I do.

[00:04:56] Mike Klinzing: I kind of liked it. I kind of liked people coming up to and giving me you giving some business. They’re like, Hey that’s, so, was basketball always number one when you were a kid? I know you mentioned that you were playing lots of things, your parents are getting everywhere, but was basketball from the time you were little, was it always number one or did it evolve that way over time?

[00:05:17] Mike DeWitt: It evolved.  Most people my age did, and I think kids still should do, even though a lot of them don’t. But yeah, basketball played in elementary school and middle school and up in high school. It was my first choice played was secondary to that and around basketball schedule. In a town that was small town Galion in Ohio that was really good in football.

Then actually won the championship at least once during that time. But I was, was basketball through and through, played, winter, spring, summer, fall by myself going the gym on the playgrounds, that kind of stuff. That was definitely my, and I thought high school player was up and was fortunate enough to have, have some success at that.

[00:06:21] Mike Klinzing: What’s your favorite memory from being a high school basketball player? Do you have one that sticks out?

[00:06:24] Mike DeWitt: For sure. So I had a up and down, I guess, success level growing up when I was sixth, seventh grade. I was the best player on all those teams.

And then I stopped growing and everybody else kept growing. Sophomore year at Galion High School, I was second guessing. Could I play at even the high school level. But started growing and by the time I was junior, I was seventh, but we played in the sectional tournament as that year at Ashland University. And back then the sectional tournament was a big deal. It wasn’t just one game. Had win three games, win championship, won in Lexington in AAA, again, dating myself. That was, that was old school level. Big school level. You know, and we, we were playing Lexington at Ashland in there and didn’t, but had baskets. At the end of the game, seconds to go. My high coach asked me the ball and I shot it and made it and won. Won the game, won the championship against team in. That’s awesome. And it was, was every time I, whether it’s recruiting, I tear up, but brings back such great memories.

And frankly, it spurred me on to work even harder at becoming a good player. I didn’t be that guy who made his junior year. Everybody forgot him. So, worked hard over the summer went to a lot of  not open gyms, a lot of playgrounds, that kind of stuff. And had a senior year where points all, I’m all just had it kind of spurred.

[00:09:30] Mike Klinzing: Your passion and excitement. Even today, whatever it is, 35 years later, I can still feel that feeling that you have, and I know that as a player, I can relate to those moments and think about things that happened to me as a player that. When I go back and I think about them, or in some cases I can still watch them on video every once in a while you still kind of get that, you get those goosebumps.

You get that feel like there’s, there’s nothing that ever really replaces that and you kind of no continue to the experience that for somebody who hasn’t gotten to experience those moments as a high school athlete or college athlete or whatever it may be, there’s just nothing like it. And then the fact that you use that as a springboard to be able to continue to improve and use it as a way to motivate yourself to continue to move on in your career, I think is is interesting.

And also something that is not surprising when you start talking about what it means to be a high school basketball player. You’ve talked a couple times, and this is a topic that we’ve talked about Mike a lot on the podcast, is just comparing and contrasting the way that somebody from that era grew up in the game of basketball As a young kid going through sort of.

Youth basketball, which there really wasn’t much youth basketball when you and I were growing up. Yep. Compared to the way kids. Yep. Grow up in the game today where you were driving around and riding your bike and trying to find games and playing pickup basketball or playing on the driveway. And now today kids are in the gym and there’s probably a coach with them and there’s probably parents in the stands and all those things.

So when you think about the two systems and you think about the way that you grew up and you think about the way that kids grow up in the game, just talk a little bit about your feelings about it, whether you want to highlight some of the positives of each system and just sort of what you’ve experienced yourself growing up, and then now what you see as a college coach.

Kind of looking at how the landscape has changed over time.

[00:11:29] Mike DeWitt: You put it very well there. I think there are positives to both ways. The way things were done back in day and the way things are done now wasn’t personal coaches and things like that. It was getting up early in the morning going to the playground going to other towns and finding games and finding gym and shouldn’t playground

and you had to win to stay on or else you weren’t going to play it for two hours. And then those games were competitive and I. That those experiences helped people and players from that era really learn how to play the game. Basketball games, personal workouts, the open gyms they go to, like you said, are supervised by high school coaches. And it’s just a different it’s a different skill development as opposed to what was 20 years have merit. But I think when I’m as a college head college coach, like I, one of the things I have to teach our guys how to be competitive. As they’re growing up, they’re skilled, they’re really good, but they don’t have that I would say as much that inner of knowing how to win you know, desperately at just winning a game. And I think that’s a huge difference between now and what it was back then.

[00:13:23] Mike Klinzing: I could not agree more. You hit it completely. I’ve had this rant so many times on the podcast, in terms of, you look at kids today and you look at how skilled they are, the 12th man on a high school team today, what that kid can do with the ball in their hands in terms of ball handling and the number of kids that can shoot the ball from three point range compared to when you and I were playing in high school where every team had.

Two 30 football kid that just came the screen and rebound. And that kid doesn’t really exist anymore in high school basketball. No. It’s just the players are so much more skilled and yet at the same time, I do feel like that competitiveness piece is one that’s missing. And I do think that there’s, I think the basketball IQ comes and goes with players today.

There are some players that I think have it, but I think there are others that, because they spend so much time with the trainer and just working with some one-on-one and that kind of thing, that they don’t necessarily understand how all the skill they have translates into. Right. Five on five game. And so you start talking about that competitive piece and.

The idea of, Hey, I’m at the playground and if I don’t win, I might have to sit for two hours or I might just pack it in and go home. Whereas a, obviously you’re playing, if you lose, you move to the bracket. If you win, keep going. So there’s don’t feel quite as urgent. I know you probably felt same way, but I know when was playing high school game or it was a summer game or it was a game at camp, whatever.

Like I desperately wanted to win every game cause I just didn’t play nearly as many games with an official and stands as kids do today. Just play way more. And each one of those games was more meaningful and I think that that impacts you in some way. Again, I don’t know that you can necessarily quantify it, but I do think that as you said, that there’s something there.

Obviously you as a college coach, you’re seeing that and being able to try to figure out how to instill that competitiveness. I want to come back a little bit to your plan career, but let’s touch on that competitiveness piece. How do you do that as a coach? How do you try to install more competitiveness?

How do you get your players to become more competitive? What are some of the things that you’ve tried and done and been successful with over the years?

[00:15:48] Mike DeWitt: That’s a great question and I’m not sure I’m very good at it. We try to identify it, I guess when we’re recruiting’s, where we’re is the summer situation, the high school situation, I think you can learn things from both.

From both aspects there. I think when in the AAU thing, you can see skill level, you can see if a kid cares about it. And you can see if kid wants to in that situation as well. And you can also see he doesn’t, I think in a high school situation where it’s much more structured, much more coaching.

You’re going to see kids in a more organized, structured situation and maybe not being able to display their skills as much, but you can see what their impact on winning is. So you try to recruit it and when you get kids in your program My philosophy has developed over the years, because they do get a lot of the individual skill work from, from whoever away from our program is that we try to make our practices as competitive as possible in five on five situations as possible.

So I guess if there’s a way we try to encourage that competitiveness and to develop it, it’s in practice in those situations,

[00:17:31] Mike Klinzing: It’s almost like you’re replacing what you and I might done sort of organically. You’re trying to replace that in the practice setting by just giving kids opportunities to, that makes total sense.

Right. Let’s go back to your journey as a high school player. When do you, when does college basketball get on your radar? Was it something that you always thought, Hey, I want to have an opportunity to play college basketball? Or was it, Hey, I’m not sure I’m really ever going to be cut out for this, but then boom, you.

Hit that you start to work on your game now suddenly maybe it becomes a reality. Just talk about a little bit about your process of how you ended up at Ohio Wesley as a player.

[00:18:10] Mike DeWitt: Yeah, so become worked, hit a shot to help his team win a sectional championship, 18 points a game senior year. And I got some division 1 interest, meaning they know immediately they saw my talent level and called their buddies at the D3 level. And that’s where I was heavily recruited by a lot of division 3 schools. Actually initially went Wittenberg for three. Which process going Wittenberg was I wanted to play in the winning program I could possibly find, and that was the one at the time that was winning a lot.

And had, had a good experience at Wittenberg, but it ended up not working out for me from a time standpoint. And so I transferred to Ohio Wesleyan for last two years.

[00:19:18] Mike Klinzing: How did you use that experience when you’re talking with recruits or talking with your current players about guys who, hey, make sure you find the right fit, and then conversely, when you have maybe who aren’t playing as much as they’d like to, what do you do?

[00:19:41] Mike DeWitt: So program first I’m super honest with them about that. Like, and I never want to keep a kid from transferring. When I was transferring had a certain must been an attitude problem or whatever, and that wasn’t the case. In my case, I didn’t think. And I had a good experience. Going from program to another transfer was super popular. All. If a kid emailed me about discussing a transfer, I felt like I was pretty open and would be pretty open to that opportunity.

Because it’s not always a bad thing. I also feel like as a you on my playing experiences as a coach, like experienced a player way back when every kind of role you could have. I was the last guy who played, I was the best player. I was the guy who had role was freshman, was freshman. The, by the time I was a junior, I wasn’t playing at all.

So I feel like I’ve tried to, and I do try to relate those experiences to our players, and I have a good understanding of where our players are mentally if wherever they’re in program they’re starting, if they’re important to our program. You know, again, having, I think having that experience in my background as a player has helped me relate to everybody on our team because I’ve experienced it.

[00:21:35] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I love that from a standpoint of using your own experiences to be able to relate that to players. And obviously as the older we get, the less maybe relevant those stories become in terms of, but you can still take those ideas and kind of how you felt in each one of those spots and be able to share that with players in a way other than saying, Hey, remember when I was a player?

Cause players obviously Exactly. Players get very, they don’t want to hear, they don’t want to hear about you as a player. You realize that very quickly when you become a coach.

[00:22:02] Mike DeWitt: Yep. And I don’t tell any stories about me as a player, like, but, but in my mind I know, like I’ve been through what this kid is going through.

Like hopefully I can help him.

[00:22:14] Mike Klinzing: That makes complete sense. And I think that the other thing that I really love that you said, and I think it’s so important for coaches, and I know it’s one of the things that, for me early on in my career when I was coaching, it was something that was, I think difficult for me is to be able to have those honest conversations and be very, very blunt about kind where kids stand.

Cause I think young coaches, and I know I was guilty, this is, you kind feel like, I don’t really want to let this kid down and tell him, oh, this is how it’s, and you’re not going to play. And you kind of always want to give him hope. But ultimately after what you end up doing, You end up confusing them. And then when you have players who are confused, then that’s where you get these seeds of doubt and that’s when you get them talking.

I don’t understand what coach is doing, and it just, it breeds a lot of discontent. Whereas if you just come right out and say, Hey, this is where we think you’re deficient, or this is the reason why you’re not playing now, there’s no doubt in the kids’ mind. Plus you give them a blueprint for what they can do to try to earn more or try to work and improve their game.

I think those, those honest conversations to me are critical.

[00:23:23] Mike DeWitt:  I wanted all my players to be happy. I wanted them all to like me. I wanted them to have a great experience in our program. That’s just not realistic sometimes.

Experience, and I use that phrase opposed older experience.

You’re that, that’s okay. Like if they can find another situation that’s better for them, I would encourage to do that and vice versa. But when you’re recruiting,

you don’t want to give young men false expectations about what, how good they’re, or you know, what hope they have to play. Like you just want to lay honest.

[00:24:34] Mike Klinzing: I think players appreciate that. That’s the honest truth is they may not necessarily love that conversation in the moment. Nobody likes to be told, Hey, you’re not good enough, or, this guy’s better than you.

You work on this. Nobody loves to hear that. But I ultimately think that players do appreciate the fact that you’re not trying to play games with them. You’re just coming right out and saying, Hey, here’s how it is. And then that also opens a line of communication, right, where a player can think, feel more comfortable than talking to you because they know that if they come in and they have question for you that they’re answer as opposed to you’re communication’s.

[00:25:19] Mike DeWitt: I feel like a lot of players, they always say they want a coach. You honest And I tell, I’m going to be honest with you.

When you’re dealing with 17, 18 year old kids, or in our case twenty one year old kids, like I’m, I’m backing up what I told you. I’m going to be honest with you. So you need to be able to handle it, relationship to be in our program. If I’m going to coach you.

[00:25:56] Mike Klinzing: What were you thinking about when you were in school? Was coaching kind of always on your radar? You kind of knew that was your career path or was it something that as your career ended you around and to stay involved in the game how, how to coaching?

[00:26:13] Mike DeWitt: Great question.

After I transferred to Ohio Wesleyan, we had some success.  I actually graduated from Ohio Wesleyan with a degree in accounting had a job in accounting for probably a year. But just missed, not necessarily basketball, but just missed being around athletics. So during Ohio Wesleyan’s Championship run that year, when I was, I would

realized, like I as much, I was doing really well as an accountant. Probably profession money. I’m making competitiveness around administration and like a ton, like, not a ton, but several just odd jobs to pay for it. But I also started my career as a volunteer assistant coach at Ohio Wesleyan. Knowing I wanted a master’s degree, sports management, I was going to where that but somewhere along the, that time I fell with coaching you

mater. You know, and learned a lot. Thought I could have an impact. And especially at the division 3 level, I didn’t really have any misconceptions  gradually figured out this was something I could do and something I could like I said, feel like I could have a positive impact on programs and on players and something and fulfill little bit of internal competitiveness that we all have. So yeah, started there, right after I graduated.

[00:28:53] Mike Klinzing: What would you say was something that you were good at when it came to coaching right out of the gate?

It sounds like maybe building relationships and having an impact was something that you initially were attracted to. Is that accurate?

[00:29:05] Mike DeWitt: Definitely. The coach at Ohio Wesleyanat the time was the Hall of Fame coach, who was exceptional at organization. But one of the helped with assistant coach did, was able, able to communicate with the players at the time who were only a couple years younger than me.

And that was probably my main strength at the relationship, my initial role. Then I hopefully, I think did that well enough to, to move on in my career.

[00:29:44] Mike Klinzing: For sure. Your next opportunity is at Kenyon, correct?

[00:29:47] Mike DeWitt: Correct. I went from volunteering at Ohio Wesleyan to a full-time job at Kenyon. I was the full-time in the head, head golf coach, which wasn’t all that bad. Just spent a lot of time doing, driving golf teams to golf courses there, sitting clubhouse

[00:30:19] Mike Klinzing: Every high school basketball coach wants that job.

[00:30:23] Mike DeWitt: I was  extremely lucky to go to Kenyon at a time when they were. On the verge of being unbelievably good. I worked for a coach named, named Bill Brown who there were two Bill Brown’s in division three coaching and one was a longtime coach. Obviously background clearly the opposite of coach at Ohio in terms of organization and you know, at Ohio, coach would practice we would practice at four

and incredibly organized to first practice at Ken. You know, coach was like, well what should we do today? , like, I dunno, what’d you so environment. Myself, and we had some, some really good players. My first year there, I think we were 16 year

Again, the only assistant coach there was given a lot of responsibility, a lot of you know, a lot of stuff thrown on my plate in terms of X’s terms, recruiting of you, everything. Didn’t whatever great. Experience, experience to, to be able to do that on a team that was having a ton of success.

[00:32:13] Mike Klinzing: Did you take notes and start to collect things?

You felt could be valuable to you as you moved on in your career, whether that was moving on, if you were going to be an assistant or, I know eventually here you’re going to get a head job in just a second, but just, did you have a system for sort of cataloging what you were learning or was it maybe less formal at that point?

[00:32:35] Mike DeWitt: It was less formal and I listened to your podcast with Chris Sullivan the other day, and I love Chris, and Chris is way more organized and he was obviously way more organized at a young age.

[00:32:49] Mike Klinzing: He’s got the Google Drive advantage though, Mike, I didn’t. You didn’t have any day.

[00:32:55] Mike DeWitt: Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. It was more me. It was more mental. You know, but I’m sure I did write some stuff down about more x o stuff than anything. But it was just happening so fast and so much was happening at the time that I was trying to everything. Not knowing that that next job was going to be head coaching job, honestly, like I thought I was going to be there for more than two years.

Certainly. And, but the opportunity up taken, throw it in, thrown into a situation at hire where I think some other people had turned the job down. They were coming off a pretty successful year.  Had a successful group that had graduated, won like 18. Mike had the ready for, grateful for the opportunity experiment on the fly, so to speak, at Hiram.

[00:34:13] Mike Klinzing: Alright, so there’s always, when you have this conversation of going from being an assistant to being a head coach, there’s clearly a huge jump. You just talked about it felt unprepared as you take the job. What remember about being overwhelmed by, or being surprised by, or just not being prepared for?

Are there one or two things that stood out that you were like, man, I had no idea this is what it was going to be like?

[00:34:39] Mike DeWitt: Yeah, I mean, there’s so many moments that. That kind. You’re like, oh, oh crap, I’m a head coach now, like, it’s the guys actually like, are trying to do what I say and they like are hanging on my, like, I better be prepared for that, and that’s I want to say was rebuilding. But a lot of guys who hadn’t played in the last couple years, who now it was their turn to get an opportunity and they were super receptive to what I was trying to even was all about. Having relationships with the players and being honest and developing that type of coaching mentality at the time was in the Ohio Conference, which of, in the weren’t very good some wins, but it was you know, just the whole, you had to stay budget like that, no, you can’t do that. So those experience,

[00:36:14] Mike Klinzing: What other things were you doing? Or maybe even do you do as you think about trying to improve as a coach, what are some things that, whether it’s talking to mentors, reading, film, what, what you do at that to able to improve your craft?

[00:36:31] Mike DeWitt: To lot of people about our team, about how, how to be successful at this level, how to recruit that was a big too recruit.

And that, again, that was a step I hadn’t, hadn’t experienced yet. But yeah, using mentors and, and I. Developed into as mentor for a lot of people. And I hope we’ll talk about I, you talking to being able, not being coaches, maybe just being able, being willing to talk to me about what exactly was I doing and how, how can I make myself a better coach? And I, I still to this day feel like you’re the lifelong learner. Like I still do that this day. I’m of things I’m proud of. Don’t feel like I know everything right now, even though I’ve been doing this for a long time.

And if I ever get to that point, I hope somebody tells me and they slap me on the head and say, I don’t know everything. But I think that’s one of the great things about this profession is that people will help each other. And I certainly experienced that as a young coach.

[00:38:05] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. I could not agree more.  That’s one of things that was surprising to Jason and I when we started doing the podcast, but just the fact that people are as open as they are and that they’re willing to share things that they’re doing and be able to, I think what it comes down to is that most people who are coaching at any level, they, they love the game and so, yeah, yeah.

They want their team to be successful, but they also want to see the game of basketball succeed. Want to see the people who are involved in the game of basketball succeed. And that’s one of the things that I’ve found to be, again, the most refreshing with doing the podcast, is just talking to people. And there’s so many people out there at every level that are just willing to share what they know.

Cause they care so much about the game and they want. To lift the game up and when you lift up a person who, especially again, a coach who has more experience, being able to reach back down to a coach who’s just starting out their career and be able to lift them up. Yeah. Why don’t we talk about that right now?

Let’s, before we jump to you moving over to Center as the head coach, talk a little bit about the mentorship that you’ve been able to provide over the course of your career to players. I think this is a good point to do that.

[00:39:19] Mike DeWitt: Yeah. Sure. And like I’m former assistant coaches are preparing people that work, I like to say work with positionsresponsibility. Them more prepared than I was 30 years to become a head coach. And head coach at Ashwood was my first full-time assistant Ohio.

You know, he, he’s always thankful that I gave him his start in coaching. John Vander Wal at Marietta probably has one of the best Division three programs going right now. He was full-time assistant coach, Ellenwood Manchester assistant for seven years. When we were really, really good here recently just won the conference at the, in the Heartland Conference in Indiana. So like, I feel like, like those guys go on and they have success and I’m, I’m proud of that and I think that’s really important. I’ve opportunity basketball, or it was before Covid, but they have young coaches come down, which, and isn’t bad.

Go forward in your career and being super flattered, the NCAA

giving forward to I people back in my younger days who you could, you could call up a division coach and they’d let you come to practice. Like I thought that was the coolest thing did to be that way with, with younger coaches today.

[00:41:54] Mike Klinzing: Easier to do that today in terms of the delegating to your assistants and helping them to grow and develop.

Cause I think that one of the things that, when we’ve talked to other coaches, they’ve told me a little bit about how early in their career, I think when you’re driven to be successful and you’re ambitious, especially when you have a background as an athlete yourself, you kind of want to do things yourself because you think you can do it the best.

And I’ve talked to so many coaches told me hey, when I was younger I wanted to have, I had to control everything. And really my program and my coaching went to another level when I sort of allowed myself to, to give up some of what I used to feel like I had to control. So is that kind of what happened with you over the course of your career with that delegation piece?

[00:42:41] Mike DeWitt: Absolutely. That’s a great point. And when I was at Hiram, and later at Centre, my first couple years I did everything myself, some in the way you wanted to mold it. And then I think as I’ve gone on in my time and been established here at Ohio Wesleyan, I’ve gotten way more comfortable at being able to delegate a lot of things and delegating meaningful things, not just. You know, hey, sending an assistant coach to go recruiting cause I don’t want to go that night, or something like that.

Like that’s not helping a young assistant coach get better. But meeting with the assistant coach every day to have his input, practice planning or letting know we actually have budget can’t do and here’s what it looks like. And so this will help you become a coach. But yet you’re exactly right.

That’s something probably I didn’t, I did not, I shouldn’t say probably. It’s definitely something I did no, you improve yourself and all those things. Like you’re not going to delegate as much as you do later in your coaching career.

[00:44:03] Mike Klinzing: What are some of the bigger picture things that you share with young coaches? Either the ones that are on your staff or just as you mentioned, when you’re giving  a speech.

What does that look like in terms of some of the things that you’re talking with young coaches about?

[00:44:15] Mike DeWitt: I think the one thing is actually have a bigger picture in mind. And not just getting the grind, the grinding and the day-to-day stuff is, is necessary and it’s great, do that. But what is your overall philosophy?

Philosophy, whether it’s the same as mine or different? Mine. You have philosophy about how you build relationships All, everything.

Over the years. Secondly, kind of into is, is have work life balance. You know, it’s not worth it to spend 20 hours day coaching basketball.

You can be a championship coach and still have a great family situation and have a life outside of it. And I think that’s, I think that’s something a lot of people and especially a lot of young coaches need to cause you know, that’s basketball, this, and it’s, yeah, we want to win, we want to do the right things, we want to treat our players the right way.

But you know, you also want to kind of sometimes get away from that a little bit.

[00:45:33] Mike Klinzing: How do you fight that? Because I think especially today, when you look at the ease of being able to just watch film, for example, Compared to when you started your career and you were trying to hit the fast forward button and the rewind button and you were going past the play that you wanted a million times.

I always laugh because I can remember sitting in the locker room as a player, and I can remember doing it as a coach early on in my career too, where you’re trying to watch film with your players and you got the VHS tape and you hit rewind and it goes a minute past the clip you wanted to watch. And it’s just, I just remember it being totally brutal.

And obviously now you have so much more access to be able to watch things. So how do you sort of train yourself, for lack of a better way of saying it, to have that balance, to be able to step away when it’s so easy? Everything’s right there at your fingertips. You can always watch one more, play, one more half, one more game, one more opponent.

How do you train yourself not to do that?

[00:46:29] Mike DeWitt: Yeah, it’s training yourself. It’s self-discipline. It’s.

Focus on basketball from seven to eight tonight or seven to nine, and then you, I’m going to spend time with my wife and daughter, like I’m after, develop self-discipline.

You’re doing couple hours, you’re still doing as much as anybody else. And I think and then you, I don’t think, sometimes, I don’t think more is always better, but I think smarter is better.

[00:47:17] Mike Klinzing: Talk about your experience at Centre and then how that leads to the opportunity to come back to Ohio Wesleyan as the head coach.

[00:47:22] Mike DeWitt: Yeah, so, so at Hiram we my second year at Hiram, we played in a center and for whatever reason we played the two best games and after that game, the athletic director outside the locker room.

You know, like it was a hard was my second year at Hiram my career, like my career record at Hiram was. And I knew we could be better. I didn’t know how much better we could be school of Resources in athletics. They had been the two division three final fours in the recent past back then. So something I was intrigued by interview position had spent and was honestly But I think my I etched when and actually the assistant that I hired at Centre is still their coach. And someone I’m super close to. But so, so moving from Centre to Ohio Wesleyan was kind of interesting. Gone. They were seven or eight year coach was retiring was, it was going to be a job a lot of people went after. And I wasn’t one of them.

I was happy at Centre thought we were on the verge of doing some good before. The job posting was going to close. The athletic director at Ohio Wesleyan called me, was someone, he, he was their men’s soccer coach and athletic director and just legend soccer called He can’t Your resume. I’m, yeah, that’s right.

Dr. Martin. I haven’t it in, I’m not, and he convinced, he goes, just send and come up for interview. The interview went unbelievably well and I got the job and was able to kind of come back to central Ohio at my alma mater.

[00:50:20] Mike Klinzing: Taking over as an alum I think is always special, right? Because you already have a connection to the program, to the campus. You, you feel, I think an extra piece of pride. So when you get there, and coach had been there for 20 years. Yeah. So there’s obviously things that he had been doing that had led to a tremendous amount of success.

And yet I’m sure as you get there that you kind of have your own ideas and things that you want to do. If you think back to that time, what do you remember as being one or two things that you felt like you had to do pretty quickly to start to establish what you wanted do with your program there?

[00:51:02] Mike DeWitt: Yeah.  There were lot of things we had to do. STEM started.  Out in the out in the wild, so speak and getting in the game with high school players that I think we had fallen we had not done that. There were expectations were to try to compete for a championship. My biggest goal, quite frankly, was I wanted to get our program in the conversation with Wittenberg Wooster’s, unbelievable program still is Wittenberg.  My goal is just not even the win championships conversation, have people’s recruit we had to establish a culture that we had, expectations that we were going to compete for championships and not back down from being good. But we wanted, I just wanted to do it also in the right way. And like we talked earlier, being honest where we were, the type of player we wanted to that point.

[00:52:50] Mike Klinzing: At this point, so as you take over that job, it’s your third head coaching position. At that point, do you feel like you had a pretty good handle on philosophically what you wanted to do, both from a basketball standpoint? Now, again, obviously you have to get the right players in there to play the way you want to play.

Right. But from a philosophy standpoint, do you feel like you had a pretty good handle on kind of what you wanted your teams to look like and what you wanted your program to feel like? Or was that something that you didn’t quite get to it until you had been there a few years?

[00:53:28] Mike DeWitt: I probably didn’t get to it until I’d been there a few years, honestly.

I’ve always, at least from basketball standpoint, I think you have to tweak that from year to year depending upon who your personnel is. And so I knew I had a, of how we wanted to play man to man defense. But, but you know, I, I do think you have to tweak that. And we had had my first years, cause the first very first recruit at Ohio was young man named Travis Schwab. He was one of those, everybody wanted to recruit at the division three level. Cause everybody saw the potential he had.

Like I said, I still don’t know why he chose Ohio Wesleyan. But I think it was to help build a program, which he certainly did. System to be able to take advantage of his skillset.

[00:54:52] Mike Klinzing: What about from a culture standpoint? Let’s talk about what you do today to build the type of culture that you want day to day. What does that look like? Building a culture.

[00:55:03] Mike DeWitt: Yep. And that’s why we’ve been successful, honestly. We have a culture. We talked about being honest. We develop trust amongst the players, between the players, between the players and the coaches through that honesty.

We talk about effort and those kind of things when kids visit. Preseason meetings, PowerPoint.  I think at a place like Ohio Wesleyan, that is how you’re going to be successful. We don’t always get the best recruits, but the guys we get are they culture builders, they’re self starters, you can’t spend ton of time in the off-season. So that’s self-motivation aspect is huge for us.

[00:56:11] Mike Klinzing: What does the process look like when you start talking about bringing in the type of players that are going to fit your culture? I always think it’s interesting to kind of go through, cause I think there’s some misconceptions out there about what the recruiting process looks like. So just walk us through from the very first day that you identify or put together your list of players, however long that list might be, the first group of people that you’re going to look at, and then kind of how you funnel that down to eventually the guys that up joining you.

[00:56:43] Mike DeWitt: Sure. We do have a little bit of some academic restrictions at Ohio. It’s not strict as some schools, but certainly more strict than others. So we have take becomes is terms basketball, all this all the time, like. We’ve eliminated recruiting guys if we’ve gone to see them play, whether it’s on the AAU level or the high school level, if quite frankly they’ve acted likes during that process. Whether it’s yelling at officials or yelling at their coaches all the time, stuff like that.

Like those are, they’re not red flags for us, but they’re yellow flags. We really hesitate cause I’m not sure those guys are going to fit with how we want to go about doing things. And I think I think we’ve demonstrated that we don’t always get those who might be a little bit a challenge to coach during their time.

Cause if I’m knowingly going to recruit someone over here who’s a great guy, who might not be a good basketball player, but completely fits our culture as opposed to a really talented person who doesn’t fit our culture, I’m going with that first guy every single time. And that’s something I’ve had to grow into as well, honestly.

I think it’s made our program better that you, cause we recruit guys with the same values and the same belief in our culture. They’re better teammates and we stick together. They’re each other. And I think there’s value in that as opposed to just being super talented.

[00:58:34] Mike Klinzing: Is that more of you guys as a coaching staff, getting a feel for them when you’re watching on tape or high school, whatever…

Then what kind conversations are you having with their high school and coaches?

[00:58:52] Mike DeWitt: It’s conversations with everybody.

I that, I don’t if this has any effect on it, but I like going to high school games and not having a young man know I’m there. Just because I feel like I can get a sense of how that person really acts instead him knowing, he’s going to act a certain way. That gets harder for you tend to, especially what type of player they are, what type of person they’re, and, and get to know their families. Get to know talk to just talk to people, Hey, what, what kind of kid is this kid? And people that you might not think you want to ask just. Because you’re going to get an honest answer with that.

You know, I just feel like that’s again, that’s just the way, the way I’ve done it, the way I believe it. It makes me, I have a clear conscience about the guys in our program. I know I don’t, I’m not going to have any, so I’m not going to have issues I should say. So we try to weed that out as much as we can in terms of attitude and work ethic and being self-motivated.

[01:00:28] Mike Klinzing: How have you built your relationships with high school coaches in the state of Ohio and AAU coaches kind of around the area over the course of time, and how important are those relationships in being able to identify and get information about the players that you’re recruiting?

[01:00:45] Mike DeWitt: Yeah, I think that’s been a process and something I tried to establish from day one at Ohio. We, especially more locally here in central Ohio, but we’ve recruited Akron and Cleveland as well because they’re always going to try and not push their players on you, but encourage you to look at their players. And I think by just saying, I’m not sure he’s good enough, or I’m not sure that’s a good fit quite a bit, but just developing relationships based on honesty’s a good way to live life in any aspect. Being honest with those high coaches about that.

[01:01:52] Mike Klinzing: Anybody that you can have an honest conversation with. And then obviously that helps too. Going both ways, right? If you’re honest with them about their players and say, Hey, this kid can play at this level, or Hey, this kid can’t play at that level. And then you have, conversely, you be able to a high school coach and to they’re has no of being able to play at that level, that mutual trust.

You’ve got a good situation where both parties can benefit from that honest relationship, whereas you can get in trouble really quick if you’re blowing smoke at somebody,

[01:02:29] Mike DeWitt: You know, it’s Right. I think a lot of high school and, and AAU coaches know that too. The college trust them. Sure. And if they’re push a kid on, honestly, it’s not good enough.

Like, and it, it’s it doesn’t work out like that doesn’t speak well for their ability to evaluate For sure. And they don’t want that.

[01:02:51] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. And they also don’t want to, I always think of it too, in terms of if you’re going to push a kid that’s not good enough, then the next time you have a kid who is, that coach isn’t going to trust your evaluation if you’re pushing somebody who’s not at that level.

So I think it’s, it’s something that, again, you’re never going to go wrong with being honest, and sometimes it’s tough, right. Because as maybe the parent wants you to, Push those kids to certain schools or to be able to at least get those kids in front of certain schools. And that’s a hard position I think, sometimes to be in as a high school or AAU coach where, have to conversation.

But that’s certainly not easy one for coaches.

[01:03:36] Mike DeWitt: and I try to keep that in mind too, knowing that, that that high school coach especially probably is in that situation where the parent wants him to get their kid recruited and if he sends me an email and then talks me about that, hopefully he and knows he’s fulfilled that responsibility and then we can move on.

[01:04:00] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely.  School’s no question about that, dealing with us parents is not always is not always . It’s not always, it’s not always the easiest for high school coaches, let’s put it that way. Once you get a player on campus. We talked a little bit earlier about designing your practices to be competitive, but talk a little bit about your practice philosophy, just kind of how you think about organizing a practice.

Maybe how your practices have evolved over time from when you first became a head coach to kind of where they’re now, if they’ve changed and how they’ve changed. So just talk a about practice design and how about that.

[01:04:44] Mike DeWitt: No 15, 20 minutes of warmup stuff with a basketball, preferably, whether that’s shooting or getting up

middle of our practice where we just suit and then we go into our offensive stuff at the end. I’ve evolved, I guess, as a coach to where we don’t do a lot of drills. We do a lot of competitive five on five stuff, and I feel the need to stop it. I will stop it. And correct in a five on five situation, not necessarily a one-on-one situation.

You’re going to ask why I thinking and all. When you have the whole picture in front of them, and in order to keep their attention, I want to have them engaged in the big picture. And so we have tried to go a five on five defensively. We’re, for example, like we’ll put in a 2-3 zone and we’ll throw five guys on offense and tell them to move the basketball and we’ll cover situations as they then we’ll coaches we’ll I think kids want to play, they. Playing with a lot of effort and playing hard. And our guys, like I said, that’s part of our culture and what we do. I also give basically our seniors, but juniors and sophomores,

something that’s going on. And I think that develops leadership which I dig on. And I think that’s one of my, one of my jobs as coach is to develop who are going to successful when they graduate

and have, we have like our second team executing offense and they’re doing it wrong. I don’t mind upperclassmen stops and correct what of his teammates is doing.

You guys respecting their upperclassmen and guys have been through it who have earned the right.

[01:07:45] Mike Klinzing: A player led team, team thing, right? Where It’s not always coming from the coaches. It’s able to come from your players and I think you make a really good point. And I think it’s one that sometimes gets overlooked and that’s, we talk a lot as coaches about, we want more leadership from our team or we need to develop leaders on our team.

And then I think a lot of coaches, and I know I’ve been guilty of this at times, is you are trying to look for leaders and yet at the same time, you don’t always provide the space to be able to be a leader. It kind of goes back to what we talked about with delegating, right? When you’re a young coach, you want to control everything and sort of have your hand in everything.

You can’t really hand off that leadership piece because you feel like, oh, it’s getting away from me. And so I love the idea that you’re allowing your players to be able to step in and sort of fulfill that leadership slash coaching slash mentoring role with the players who are younger. Cause I think providing the space for them to be able to act as leaders, I think is something that we sometimes overlook.

You have to have the opportunity to do that in order to be able to develop as leaders. We can’t just say, Hey, we want more leaders, be a leader. Right? But then we never kids the opportunity space to be able to be a leader, if that makes sense.

[01:09:01] Mike DeWitt: Yeah, I agree. It’s brand assistant coach this year who is great and, and we were doing something like the first couple days of practice and one of my captains.

He basically, after I said something, he came in and taught one of our freshmen like how to postop and where he needed to post and stuff like that. My assistants looking at me like letting is

I’ve had here in terms of wins, losses are, have been player led the best. And so again, that’s something we try to develop. Thee have to be able to do things without telling to do everything.

[01:09:45] Mike Klinzing: So you hope that the lesson is learned and then they start to internalize it and then they’re able to share that with players and that I’m sure goes on and off.

I, you mentioned earlier just talking about how important leadership is level. You just don’t have the opportunity to work with your guys in off season. So you kind of have to depend on developing those leaders in season so that when everybody goes away and you can’t have that contact with them, that those guys become the defacto coaches slash leaders.

Yeah. And making sure everybody’s getting their work in and getting in the gym. So talk about maybe how you just approach those conversations with the leaders on your team, thinking about the off-season.

[01:10:29] Mike DeWitt: Yeah, that’s a, that’s a great point. The best example I can use is this year after our season and strength training and individual workouts and stuff like that. None of which we can be at legally. And so, Got our three, we identified our three captains next year. They already discussed groups of three to lift together and already discuss where they come.

That tells me our culture’s in a good place that we can go forward. But they learned that from the guys from last year who learned that from the previous guys. And so it’s kind of self sustaining.

[01:11:43] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s key. Once you can get in and you’ve been at a place for a few years and guys start to understand what it takes and yeah, what your expectations are, then they can pass that along to the next group, and that’s really how you get a program that continues to be successful year after year.

[01:11:59] Mike DeWitt: Agree. It took a while to build it, honestly. I’m sure it did. Yeah. I’m sure had some, we had some first years, but you’ve hiccups.

[01:12:23] Mike Klinzing: What’s been the biggest change in the coaching profession or the game, or however you want to approach this question, but when you think back to when you first started, to where you are today, what’s been the biggest change that you’ve seen? Whether you want to approach that from college basketball, from your own coaching, just however you want to take that question.

What’s been the biggest change from the start of your career to where you’re now?

[01:12:56] Mike DeWitt:  I think social media has had such an impact on so many aspects of coaching, recruiting. You know, now when a kid commits to you, you have to put together like a little thing they can put on Twitter and Instagram that says they’re committed. Yeah. Like stuff like that. Which I, again, one of the things I look for assistant is somebody can do that’s,

[01:13:33] Mike Klinzing: There’s that delegation.  Something that you don’t mind delegating. Right.

[01:13:54] Mike DeWitt: And their son and that. And I was talking to my practice this year after I would kind step up and do that, but it just has such an effect. Like people a philosophical thing about how it kids growing up today, but they’re everybody I’m going to transfer and all that stuff.

It’s mostly negative, but it can be positive. But it’s just an aspect that coaches have to deal with I think more often.

[01:15:07] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I can’t, growing up as player in This era, when you go back to, let’s start with just from a standpoint of being a high school player who maybe has aspirations of playing college basketball and then just having to scroll through your feed and look at this guy’s, this offer, this, that, and you know, it used to be maybe you knew somebody in your hometown or somebody around you that was going somewhere, but you didn’t know somebody across the state or somebody.

Certainly across the country, you had no idea. Now you have seven access to all that stuff, and so that’s have to have effect. Then I’m level, but you think about what it’s like for. A college athlete who plays at Ohio State to be able to deal with you, play good game and what you see scrolling through your feet and then God forbid you play a bad game.

Yeah, for sure. And what those kids have to deal with and think like I played a game and I’d go back to my dorm and my roommates and say, Hey, good game. Or if I played bad, they’d be like, Hey, you only scored four. What hap what happened? And my whole entire circle was five people. Cared about what I was doing.

And now you look at it, anybody can reach out to you from anywhere and get their opinion in front of you. And I can’t even imagine, yeah. As an athlete trying to deal with all that on normal just pressures and things that go along with being a college athlete. And then for you as a coach, I’m sure having to be able to help your players to navigate that when again, it’s really uncharted territory for all of us.

[01:16:51] Mike DeWitt: Yeah, like the, some of the stuff that see, that they have to deal with on social media from fans. It’s kind of funny, like, so we. Recruit two years ago. Really a local recruit really we’re really happy to get him. He on social media, that

job, like I think what I do is, has worthwhile, but I’m a division three basketball coach. Like we’re a division three basketball program and eight hundred people liked what, that this kid was coming Ohio Wesleyan.

[01:17:43] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s amazing. I mean, I, you see some of the stuff that gets out there when a kid commits or a kid gets this verbal offer.

Yeah. Or even a kid goes on a visit and Yeah, stuffs up. And man, it’s crazy the number of people that, as you said, like it and are seeing it and kids are talking about, yeah, this and that, and it’s kind of amazing. And then you talk about sort of the misinformation of, okay, well what is, what does that mean?

Like this kid got an offer from this, well, what’s that? What does that mean? And then you have this whole thing. It’s just, it’s funny to hear kids talk about it. It’s funny. Read comments and all these things. We’re adults and it’s easy to get seduced by that stuff. And then you think about, man, what would it have been like to be a 17, 19, 20 year old kid and trying to navigate all this stuff?

I mean, it’s a lot to put on their plates. I think talking about social media as a, as a big change, I think you, I think you hit the nail on the head with that one.

[01:18:43] Mike DeWitt: Yeah. And I think the other thing in the profession is that coaches are expected to do so much more than just coach basketball. At least in my experience as a college coach.

Like you have to identify mental health issues, don’t know anything about that. Right. Other stuff like just there’s so many other duties that are kind of we’re expected to handle that we have no training in. That’s a little, sometimes it really is,

[01:19:16] Mike Klinzing: I think education. Both Jason, I are teachers and that’s I have with people in my building all the time.

I will stand and say, well here’s a situation with this kid or this student or this family, and. People are coming to us saying, well you have to try to help or figure this out, or this is what you need to do. And you kind of look at the situation and you say, I’m in no way, shape or form, trained or confident.

Yeah. Be able to deal with that and it just, but to your point, that’s what is being expected of. Yeah. Coaches, it’s what’s being expected of teachers is to be able to handle these situations that really. There’s people that are trained and go to school for years and years Yeah. To be able to help. And the reality is there just isn’t, there isn’t enough of those people around.

And so who are the people that are around? Coaches are around. Teachers are around. Yeah. So we try to step up to the plate in those circumstances. But I’m sure that in your coaching circles, when you talk to other coaches, they’re saying the same thing to you. And I know other teachers are saying the same thing to me.

It’s like we’re not equipped to be able to handle this stuff. And that I, I can only imagine that as you start talking about, obviously all coaches say a small part of my job as a head coach is really the basketball. There’s all these other things that I have to deal with. And I’m sure coaches were saying that back when you first started your coaching, travel it, but now at the same time, you look at what we all have on our plate.

I mean, it’s, it’s crazy.

[01:20:52] Mike DeWitt: Yeah. No, I agree. That’s, it’s. I’ve said it to steal some with some things that I’m just not trained to deal with in my life. Like not what I thought I would be dealing with when I got into coaching.

[01:21:05] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. You thought you were, be coaching hoops instead. You’re like an amateur psychologist.

Right, right. No, for sure, for sure. No doubt’s. Crazy. We’re on towards an hour and a half. Yeah. I want to ask you one file, two part question. So part one, when you think about the next year or two and you look ahead, what’s your biggest challenge? And then second part of the question, when you think about what you get to do every day, and obviously you’ve been at Ohio Wesleyan for a long time, so it’s obviously a place that you love that that brings you a lot of satisfaction.

But what brings you the most joy? So your biggest challenge and your biggest joy?

[01:21:41] Mike DeWitt: Good question. I think the biggest challenge, and I think this is a annual thing, is just maintaining our culture and the way we do things and not letting it slip. Cause it’s has slipped a couple times during my time here and it’s hard to get back.

So I’m very aware of that challenge and hopefully can identify issues, some problems before in Bud, before they even, so I think that’s just an annual challenge that, that we have here is just kind of maintaining our culture. Best part of, I guess, best part of my job said I we practice from 4:30 – 5:45 every day.

My office is, has a window that looks out over the gym and we just.

I hear music blasting in my office and I look out my window and I’ve got three or four guys out there working out, working on whatever, you know. But it’s a time where like you’re developing the relationships that I think are going to lead the success. Like the best part of my day is practice. It’s the hour and half before practice I out with our, and

we don’t individuals with our, I think that’s, that’s really formal and you know, not genuine sometimes, but I think if when you get basketball players on a basketball court, you.

You know, talked about the negative of having to deal with some stuff that, that I’m not trained to deal with. But that’s stuff that I still like in my advanced age.

[01:24:02] Mike Klinzing: We talked about it earlier, right? Those relationships that you build with players, and I think. Having an impact on them, not just as basketball players, but as people. And by getting to know em and spending time with them and hanging out on the basketball floor, as you said, that’s really where you get to know those kids, really where you get to build the relationship that allows you to have the impact that you want to have.

And that really, again, that’s what’s all about. Obviously basketball is an important part of it and at the college level, you have to win in order to keep your job. But ultimately, right, you’re doing it to be able to impact kids with a game that you love and being able to impact them as players, but also being able to impact them off the floor.

Before get out. Mike, I want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you, whether you want to share your email, website, whatever. I know you’re big social media guy, but somehow some, how can people get in touch with you’ll

[01:25:01] Mike DeWitt: My email is mddewitt@owu.edu that’s probably the best to reach out.  Our program has,  I might be able to find it.

[01:25:20] Mike Klinzing: We’ll find it quickly.

[01:25:21] Mike DeWitt: Delegate that to the assistant coach. But yeah, those are best with email and programs, @OWUHoops on Twitter and Instagram.

[01:25:33] Mike Klinzing: Perfect.  Been a lot of fun, Mike. I really enjoyed it. Lot of good things I think we shared with coaches out there, so really appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule tonight to join us and to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.  Thanks!