DJ DAMAZO – GRINNELL COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL ASSISTANT COACH COACH – EPISODE 790

Website – https://pioneers.grinnell.edu/sports/mens-basketball

Email – damazodj@grinnell.edu

Twitter – @DJDamazo

DJ Damazo is a Men’s Basketball Assistant Coach at Grinnell College in Iowa.

Damazo came to Grinnell from the University of Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, where as head coach he brought the team from a 3-17 mark his first season to 12-11 in 2019-20.

Prior to that, DJ was an assistant at his alma mater, Blackhawk High School in Beaver Falls, Pa., and also a graduate assistant at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pa.

Damazo graduated from Geneva College in Pennsylvania where he was a two-year starter on the men’s basketball team and earned a bachelor’s degree in Human Services. 

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Grab your notebook before you listen to this episode with DJ Damazo,  Men’s Basketball Assistant Coach at Grinnell College.

What We Discuss with DJ Damazo

• Growing up in the Blackhawk School District in Pennsylvania where Sean and Archie Milller plated and their Dad, John Miller, was the coach
• Playing outdoor pickup basketball as a high school player
• “That’s the beauty of basketball. It brings people together.”
• His decision to attend Geneva College becausehis father worked there and he got free tuition
• How a concussion led to his start as a college basketball coach
• Making sure your identity is not tied only to basketball
• Coaching at his high school during his last semester at Geneva
• Getting an opportunity to coach at his high school alma mater before becoming a GA at Eastern University
• The importance of a supportive spouse
• “You can have the prettiest sets, you can have this or that, but the players win the games.”
• “Grinnell is an easy brand to sell because of our playing style and the elite academics.”
• Recruiting players through the high academic camps
• Looking for players with “humble confidence”
• “The ability to make quick decisions is so underrated.”
• The uniqueness of the Grinnell system on both offense and defense
• “Guys need to be able to think quickly on their feet and make the correct read while playing as hard as they possibly can.”
• “We want to get a quality shot up within 12 seconds.”
• Using practice film to make teaching points
• “During a film session, if you’re called out positively by making a good play, it really makes your day as a player.”
• His first head coaching job at Valley Forge where he helped engineer a major turnaround
• “There’s so many things that go into a decision as a head coach, every decision you have to think about how it affects so many people..”
• Practice starts with shooting
• Playing to the Grinnell Standard
• “Play for your teammates, play for your school, and play for each other.”
• The challenge of scheduling games at Grinnell
• “Where do we get our shots from and how are we getting our shots?”
• Keeping practices fast paced and short
• Playing fast and playing lots of guys

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THANKS, DJ DAMAZO

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TRANSCRIPT FOR DJ DAMAZO – GRINNELL COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL ASSISTANT COACH COACH – EPISODE 790

[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 are pleased to welcome to the podcast DJ Damazo, assistant men’s basketball coach at Grinnell College in the state of Iowa. DJ, welcome.

[00:00:14] DJ Damazo: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:00:16] Mike Klinzing: We are thrilled to be able to have you on.

We are looking forward to diving into all the things that you’ve been able to do in your basketball coaching career up to this point. Let’s start by going back in time to when you were a kid. Tell me about how you first developed an interest in the game of basketball.

[00:00:32] DJ Damazo: Yeah, so I. Interestingly enough, my oldest son, Malachi, my five year old, he just asked me what my first word was and I texted my mom and dad and interestingly enough it was ball.

And so, like many people you’ve had on this podcast, I’m sure just grew up obsessed with basketball, obsessed with any type of ball. And I just remember from as young as I can remember, having a ball in my hands and grew up in the Blackhawk High School district, which was one of the best programs in the state of Pennsylvania.

Coach John Miller was the head coach there. His two sons are Sean Miller and Archie Miller. And there’s a number of great players and great coaches that have come from that program. So for me, growing up as a young kid watching those guys, they were my role models growing up and just looked up to them and was, became obsessed with the game of basketball from really third grade on and.

Grew up in a rich tradition at Blackhawk and you know, has led me to where I currently am today.

[00:01:36] Mike Klinzing: All right, I’ve got a Sean Miller story for you. I have not told this. This is a new one for Jason. I don’t think I’ve ever told this story on the podcast. So when I was a kid, and so we’re going back to, I don’t know, I was probably 10.

10? Yeah. 50. Yeah, 50. Somewhere in there. Somewhere in there. So I was probably, I don’t know, 10, 11, 12 something, I don’t remember. But at some point, Sean Miller was on, I’m pretty sure he was on maybe the Tonight Show, like doing ball handling drills. And he had this one drill that I had never seen before, and it was where he would take the ball.

So he’d be standing with the ball, he would throw it back up over his head and then reach down between his legs. And catch the ball as it had to clear his backside and then be able to catch the ball underneath. And I remember when I saw that being like, man, like I’ve never, that’s one that I had never I’m doing all the pistol Pete ones and ball handling drills back in the day and that was one that I had never seen.

And I just became obsessed with trying to be able to do that and do it consistently. So it’s one that, it didn’t take me that long to get it, but it took me a long time to be able to do it to the point where I could get it almost every time. Because you have to be, there’s timing, there’s a certain amount of like flexibility that you have to have in order to be able to get down there that low and get and, and reach the ball.

And then the second part of the story is that years later I was working at Mike Fratello’s basketball camp here in Cleveland at the Jewish Community Center in Beachwood, which is suburb of Cleveland And. Somebody, I can’t even remember who it was now, did that and said, okay, if there, if there’s any camper that can come up and do that, you’re going to win whatever.

I think it was a t-shirt or something. And they had a couple kids come up. Nobody really, of the kids really volunteered. There was one or two kids that eventually, I think they called up to try it and nobody could do it. And then I’m like, Hey, I think I can do that. And at the time I was probably, I don’t know, I was probably in my early twenties maybe, and I went out there and had to do it on demand and on my first try I got it.

So I can credit Sean Miller with winning me a Cavs t-shirt from the Czar, Mike Vitello when I got, when I got into my twenties. So that’s my, that’s my one brush with, with Sean Miller. So besides the, send it in Jerome. So also one that is currently on theyou can never see Send it in Jerome enough.

[00:04:21] DJ Damazo: For sure, for sure. And to that point, with that drill that coach Miller, so Sean and Archie’s old man, he created these VHS tapes and I remember seeing in my living room as a third grader doing that exact drill and, and many others. That’s funny. And yeah, they were really the gurus of Western Pennsylvania and really everywhere else.

[00:04:43] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, again, it’s just funny what you remember, why you remember it, and then just all these different little tentacles that spread out that connect us all in the basketball world. It’s kind of amazing. When you got into high school, obviously you’re playing for a program that is super successful.

What do you remember about, as you got older and you became a high school player, how you went about getting better and improving your game? What were some of the things that you were doing to make yourself the best player you could become.

[00:05:15] DJ Damazo: Yeah, I mean again, just like the rich tradition of Blackhawk High School.

You almost felt a pressure of not wanting to let the previous generation or previous team down. So for me, I ended up quitting the other sports that I was playing baseball and soccer in about seventh or eighth grade because wanted to focus on basketball and really we hit it off on the outdoor courts.

Like we were there four or five times a day eighth, ninth grade, 10th grade, on and on the outdoor courts just playing, playing, playing. You know, obviously we did drills and team practices in the summer as much as we could, but I would honestly attribute most to just playing on the outdoor courts and calling up local high school saying we got a run going, Blackhawk will play you guys, or this or that.

And it was, it was the outdoor courts of just long, long battles against friends in other schools that I would attribute it the most to.

[00:06:17] Mike Klinzing: What are your guys that you coach now say to you when you tell them, Hey, we used to play high level basketball outdoors.

[00:06:24] DJ Damazo: That’s not a real thing. We don’t have the right shoes for that, or I don’t, yeah, it’s, it’s an anomaly. Like it’s just, it doesn’t really happen as much anymore, which is, I think it’s just sad. Like I lived for, for those days in the 90 degree weather on the pavement and having scratches all up and down my body and I just, I lived for those moments.

[00:06:47] Mike Klinzing: There’s nothing better than pick up basketball. And I know that it’s been a theme that I’ve talked about numerous times here on the podcast, but I, I look at the way that I grew up in the game and playing outside and playing against people of all different ages and races and just abilities and those games just, they just don’t exist anymore.

And I’m so glad that I grew up in the year that I did not that. The AAU system that we have now has obviously some tremendous benefits to it, and kids have way more access to better facilities than the facilities that certainly that I had access to. And, and I just, but I just look at it and I think about how much I learn about the game of basketball from my pickup basketball experiences.

But not only that, but just how much I learned about myself and about human nature and about how to, how to interact with people that, I think that we lose a lot of that today because kids are always playing with a coach and with kids their own age and in a gym and with mom and dad watching them. And I think it’s, there’s something that’s been lost with the demise of outdoor pickup basketball.

I don’t think it’s ever coming back. I mean, the way our society has changed and the way that. We parent is completely different. But man, I, I’m really glad that I grew up in the era that I did and it sounds like you probably have a similar feeling for that affinity for pickup basketball.

[00:08:11] DJ Damazo: No, I completely agree.

And I think you said that super well. Just the fact that you can have people that are I was in high school, we were playing against guys in their thirties, forties who were like legends themselves in, in Beaver County, which is the county I grew up in. You had younger guys trying to make their mark.

You had people of different, different races, different classes, different everything. And again, that’s the beauty of basketball. Like it, it brings people together and I think that that’s also a piece of it why it was so special.

[00:08:40] Mike Klinzing: Do you have a favorite moment from your high school career?  Something that stands out?

[00:08:43] DJ Damazo: Yeah, I think winning the district championship, which in western pa that’s a big deal. Almost more than the state championship in some ways, just because there’s a lot of pride in Western Pennsylvania. And my junior year, we ended up winning it. Had a really good team.  So I would say that moment was, it stands out.

[00:09:04] Mike Klinzing: So when you think about your journey to being able to play college basketball, was that something that you always knew that you wanted to do? And what was the process like for you in terms of selecting a school and kind of figuring out and going through the recruiting process?

[00:09:22] DJ Damazo: Yeah, so my journey was probably similar to some, but different than others. I wanted to play basketball in college, was recruited by a handful of schools, I would say, but for me, my dad actually worked at Geneva College where I attended. And I knew I was a division three player and I wanted to go to a Christian college, which Geneva College is a Christian college, so I got to go there for free tuition because my dad worked there.

So it was a combination of like those two or three things and it was just the perfect opportunity for me. It was the perfect level for me. And it was a pretty seamless process because it began, like, it was kind of just a shoe in that I was going there because I got the free tuition. It was free.

[00:10:05] Mike Klinzing: You can’t pass that up. That is a, that is a good deal. That that is a sort of under the radar good deal that I’m not sure that everybody out there really knows, but there’s so many schools where if your parent is an employee of that school, that you can go to that school for free.

I’m not sure everybody, I’m not sure the general public knows that.

[00:10:24] DJ Damazo: It’s true. It’s true.

[00:10:26] Mike Klinzing: All right. So at Geneva, what were you thinking when you first got to school? Was coaching already on your radar at this point or? Were you thinking about something else?

[00:10:37] DJ Damazo: Yeah, so originally I was unsure.

I was thinking about potentially being a guidance counselor, teaching, but more so leaning to, like, being a guidance counselor and then maybe potentially coaching high school basketball. So during my sophomore season, about a third of the way through, I got a concussion. It was a pretty bad concussion, and we were rolling, we had a really good team and I didn’t tell the whole truth to our athletic trainer about how serious it was.

And then a couple days later got the same type of deal, same type of concussion. So I went up at the rim and got fouled and I landed on my back and I remember getting up and my left eye was completely foggy and I’m like, okay, this one can I have to tell the truth here? So I get up and so I was obviously pretty messed up and just thought to be a couple week deal where I would have to sit out and a week and a half later was not getting any better at all.

So long story short ended up going to a number of different specialists. This was during the time that Sidney Crosby, the Pittsburgh hockey player, was going through his long concussion battle. And we actually were seeing the same doctor. So it was sort of at that level and I was itching to get back, itching to get back, but I was just not getting better. I had to actually sit in a dark room for a week and a half. I had no technology was not in classes, just a number of different things. So I actually was out a year and a half with my concussion, so I missed the entire rest of my sophomore year, and then missed my entire junior year as well which was obviously very sad, very unfortunate.

But I think during that time, I realized I wanted to get into college coaching. My college coach was very generous and gracious and wanted me to be included in the program. So I was in his office a lot and got to do a lot of behind the scenes things. And I just got the coaching bug as they call it, and obviously a terrible situation not to be able to play the game that you love.

But again, like as a man of faith, I think God worked that out and showed me that my career path is coaching college basketball. So, as rough as it was I’m, I’m actually thankful that it happened and. Because I wouldn’t be here today if it didn’t,

[00:12:59] Mike Klinzing: Why college basketball and not high school at that point, what were you, what, what was it about college basketball that maybe was grab, was it the idea that you could do basketball all day as opposed to having to go and teach or be a guidance counselor and then just do the basketball part of it after school?

Was that your thought process?

[00:13:17] DJ Damazo: Yeah, I think part of it’s all day. And then part of it is I, I grew significantly as a person during my college years. And I think years 18 to 22 are just a very transformational time. And I saw it firsthand, so I just wanted to be a part of that using the game of basketball.

And basketball was my identity as a kid growing up and as a freshman and sophomore. And it’s still obviously a very important thing. But I think for me, like I want to show guys that basketball can be a very, very important thing, but I don’t think it should be your identity necessarily, because it can be taken away from you at any time.

[00:13:55] Mike Klinzing: It’s good that you have the ability to have that perspective of keeping the game where it should be on the priority list. And I think that’s hard to do. It’s hard to do when you’re a player because it becomes sort of all consuming when you think about your performance and games and just how much time you’re putting in to, to maximize it.

And so the experience that you had, although as you said, it may not have been the one that you dreamed about, and it obviously had you would’ve rather been playing clearly and not have to gone through what you went through. But at the same time, it’s given you some experience that you can now relate to players and, and help them to understand sort of where basketball slots.

In their life and they’re able to learn from those experiences that you’ve had. I think that’s a powerful thing when you’re talking about a coach and you’re building relationships with players and, and you can share that with them. I think that’s something that, that means a lot to them and can help those players to better understand and gain that perspective that’s necessary to, to, to just put themselves in the right frame of mind as they approach basketball and school and all the other things that they, that they have to deal with when you eventually graduate, and obviously you kind of got to go behind the curtain with your coach there, Geneva and, and see what the coaching world was all about.

At, at that point. I know you ended up getting a graduate assistant job at Eastern University. Were you at your, did you go back to your high school and coach a little bit while you were still in school or was that immediately following your graduation?

[00:15:31] DJ Damazo: Yeah, so with the concussion piece, I had this basically take a very limited amount of credits for a little bit, so I had ended up graduating a semester later, so I finished in four and a half years.

So during that, that last semester I coached for my high school. So it was a great opportunity to again, be on the court and knowing that I wanted to get to the college level while still being in undergrad and taking colleges. It was great to, to be on the court and communicate with players, run my own drills and, and that kind of stuff.

And my wife, I was engaged at the time. We were engaged at the time she was living in Philadelphia and she had a great job in, we weren’t necessarily completely set on moving to the Philadelphia area. But obviously Philadelphia’s just a great basketball city. So I did primarily look there, but I looked across the country really at any graduate assistantship I could get.

And fortunately enough got. The Eastern job and it was just a tremendous two years of learning and growing.

[00:16:30] Mike Klinzing: Did your wife know what she was getting into?

[00:16:33] DJ Damazo: I don’t think she did fully, but I honestly couldn’t ask for a better coach’s wife man. Like, so during my, during my graduate assistant year, she was working and she was making obviously all the money for us.

I didn’t make anything. I got my tuition paid for, which is great, but wasn’t making any money and she was working full-time, providing for us. And you know, she, she used her lunch break to pick me up in between jobs, to take me to the Colton to to practice and all this stuff. So I couldn’t ask for a better coach’s wife and just a wife.

So I don’t know if she necessarily understood it fully, but she’s just been the ultimate wife and partner in this. She got immersed in it real quick. She sure did. Yeah. She sure did.

[00:17:10] Mike Klinzing: All right. So the experience at Eastern, you talked about just the learning experience that it was, when you think about your time there, what are one or two things that.

You learned during that time that you think still are impacting you today as a coach?

[00:17:25] DJ Damazo:  Yeah, so I, I remember the first week or two of, of the job there, I was sitting with my boss, Nate Stewart. And I was just talking about already oh, I would love to be in Baltimore one day at a job, or I would love to be here at a job.

And I just realize now how ignorant that was. I was just explaining where I wanted to be at, like location wise. And I was two weeks into the job and he’s like, dj, you have a great opportunity here. Just be where your feet are. And, and I know that’s a very common phrase in the coaching world, but it’s just so true.

Like just two weeks in, I was already looking at the next step and like wanting to move on. Not necessarily wanting to move on, bu just thinking about the next step. And for me now, I try to be as grounded as I can and being appreciative of where I am and. I think about that often.

You know, when you get antsy for wanting the next job or this or that. Like you just have to be thankful for we currently are and the impact that you can have currently. And then the second piece is like, again, this is actually also from Nate Stewart and then Eric Elli was my boss the second year.

Because, because Nate transitioned to the athletic director role. But just the importance of the relationships and the recruiting piece. Like I just remember coming in the to Eastern and I had like a full binder of 800 pages of sets and different drills and stuff. And I’m like, looking back now, if someone brought that in me, I’m like, I could care less if you have 800 pages of plays and stuff.

Like what kind of players are you going to get me? And you know, obviously that stuff is important. I’m being, I say that tongue in cheek, but I just learned the value of developing relationships with your current players and loving your current players, and also just making connections in the recruiting world.

And like ultimately players win the games. Like you can have the prettiest sets, you can have this or that, but like the players win the games. And I think those two lessons are always in the, always in my mind. All right,

[00:19:24] Mike Klinzing: So let’s talk a little bit about recruiting. When you think about the different places that you’ve been and you start talking about how do you figure out what players are going to fit both the level of basketball that the team requires, but then also that they’re going to be a good fit for.

The culture and you start talking about intangibles and every place you go, the school’s a little different. The geographic area is different. Obviously you start out in Pennsylvania, now you’re in Iowa, so you have to build a whole new set of relationships with high school coaches and AAU coaches and all that.

Just talk a little bit about what your process has been as a coach and what you think about when you’re trying to recruit a player.

[00:20:09] DJ Damazo: Yeah, so at all three places I’ve been, so I’ve been, I said at Eastern, I was the head coach at the University of Valley Forge, which is a division three School and now I’m an assistant at Grinnell.

So all three of those are sort of niche recruiting, I would say. So Eastern and Valley Forge are Christian Colleges. And then Grinnell is a very high academic liberal arts college. So with all three places, our pool is very, very small by itself because for the first two jobs at Eastern and Valley Forage they have to understand they’re going to a Christian college and they have to desire wanting to go there.

And then for Grinnell we have a, basically an 8% acceptance rate. So with both pools, although very differently, they’re very similar in the sense of we started off with a very small pool. So first of all, I would say identifying that.

[00:20:59] Mike Klinzing: Where do those names come from? So that initial list of players, when you’re talking about, let’s just take Grinnell for example.

So obviously the academics is a huge piece, like can the kid even get into the school? So where does that initial list come from of guys that. You’re going to consider taking a look at?

[00:21:15] DJ Damazo: Yeah, so we go to primarily a handful of camps. They’re called all academic basketball camps. There’s one at Babson College one in Southern California, one in Chicago.

So we hit those. And those are all guys that generally want the high academic D three experience, so we get the bulk of our names from there. Grinnell is just such a brand name nationally just because of our style of play. So we’re always getting people reaching out that way, which is a great way.

And then the most important way, honestly, is just, again, the connections that I’ve made and coach Dave has made throughout our year. So we try to have different pockets of the country. And we hit them pretty often just to say do you have any players? Do you know of any players that would fit our system, that would be able to get in?

And at a younger age, I wanted to know everyone. So I would try to. Superficially form relationships with anyone and everyone, which I think is okay in, in theory. But I think as I’ve matured a little bit and grew older, I kind of just want to have a person in every area. So like, whether that’s Arizona or Southern California, or Chicago land, or Philly area, or Western pa, whatever it is, I kind of have one or two people in those areas that I trust  I think, trust me and I give them a holler once every two weeks just to check in and see if there’s players and see if they’ve seen players or anything like that.

[00:22:47] Mike Klinzing: Well, it’s kind of interesting because when you think about a school like Grinnell or some of the other high academic programs that are scattered throughout the country, you have basically a national. Recruiting base, right? Because the pool of players, as you said, is pretty small. And when you look at your roster or the rosters of these other schools that have a similar academic profile, you’re looking at players that are coming there from all of the country.

Obviously they’re looking for a specific experience in terms of the school itself, but then also with you guys, the way you play and get up and down the floor is something that clearly is a selling point. But from a recruiting, we think about, okay, so the big power five schools, if you’re a North Carolina or a Duke, you can recruit, you can recruit nationally, you’re, you’re not regionally local.

You’re being able to go all over the country and then you start getting into like a mid-major division one. And those schools typically are more regionally recruiting. If you’re a mid-major in Ohio, you’re probably not getting too many kids from California. You’re probably not spending a whole lot of time.

Trying to recruit California. So it’s kind of like you have this top end of the division one where they can recruit nationally, and then you have this high academic division three where they’re going to recruit nationally. It’s kind of interesting when you talk about how do you possibly build those relationships with people all over the country.

And I think your strategy of, I just need to have one person in this area who probably is then connected to multiple people and you kind of get the information that you need, but it’s just, it’s kind of overwhelming, I would think, at least initially at first to figure out how do I, how do I recruit nationally when there’s just so many potential people I could talk to?

And I could see where for yourself that was something that you had to kind of figure out what your system was going to be.

[00:24:35] DJ Damazo: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, just, just looking at the roster as I took the job here I think we have 17 different states represented on our current roster. We have one kid from the state of Iowa.

In fact, the entire college of Grinnell has, like 8% of students are from Iowa. So it was a fun challenge for me, again, to build the network and to get out there and be able to sell the brand. Grinnell is an easy brand to sell again, because with our playing style and the elite academics, it’s an easy brand to sell.

So it was fun getting out there and doing that.

[00:25:10] Mike Klinzing: I’ve asked this to a bunch of coaches recently. It’s become one of my favorite questions just to kind of hear Coach’s perspective on this. When you’re out there and you’re trying to evaluate players, how much do you value watching them with the high school team versus watching them with their a a U team?

Do you have a pre, a preference for one over the other? Do you watch for one thing in one setting and something else in another setting? Just how do you balance those two in terms of your evaluation?

[00:25:40] DJ Damazo: Yeah, that’s a great question. I would say personally at this point, I don’t have a strong preference, again, because of our recruiting structure, so most of the times I’m seeing guys with their AAU team or even at a showcase with a bunch of guys that they just met.

So rarely can I see guys actually with their high school team in person. We do a lot of that on film, which is great. Because again, recruiting from 17 different states and with our budget, unfortunately is not big enough.

[00:26:15] Mike Klinzing: You’re not flying around to see a million high school games over here.

[00:26:18] DJ Damazo: We don’t have the privates jet. I’m hoping we can do that soon, but but yeah, unfortunately I can’t do that yet. So to answer your question, I don’t have a strong preference. I think just seeing them in person though is, is very critical. And then I do love seeing film with their team, with their high school team that is and watching their film and seeing how they interact with their guys and seeing that, I think that is valuable, even if it’s over film.

[00:26:44] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. When you’re looking at, obviously there’s the level of skill and talent that they have to have to be able to play at whatever level it is that they’re being recruited to. But then clearly as coaches, you have things that you look for on the intangible side, things that don’t necessarily relate to that player’s actual basketball ability.

What are some of those things that are important to you, and how do you try to identify those, whether it’s on film or in person?

[00:27:09] DJ Damazo: Yeah. I think obviously being very competitive, wanting to win that, that’s first and foremost just a great attribute to have, how you treat your teammates. You know, are you picking them up?

Do you want to see them succeed when you’re on the bench? Are you, are you cheering for them? The biggest thing I would say though, and it’s hard to define, but it’s easy to see, is what I often describe it as, this humble confidence. So we want someone that’s like humble enough to be on the bench cheering for their teammates to not think they’re too cool for school, but have the confidence to really be a dog in the game at the same time.

So for me, it’s hard to describe what that actually looks like, but when I see it, I know it. If it’s sort of an art,

[00:27:57] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, no, that makes total sense. I mean, as you’re saying that, I can totally picture the type of player that that is, and I can think of players that I’ve known over the years that have that particular attribute.

And so I think what you’re looking for is not a me first guy that is pounding their chest and screaming after every basket. Instead, you’re looking for more of that silent killer, for lack of a better way of saying it. Somebody who’s doing things that. Hey, I know I’m capable of doing this.

I’m going to continue to do it. You’re not going to be able to stop me from doing it. And when I’m not doing it because I’m on the bench or my teammate is doing something, I’m supportive of them and I’m picking them up and I’m doing all the things that a great teammate does. And I think it’s a really good point when you say that you can’t necessarily quantify it.

It’s kind of like basketball iq, right? Like you could sit down in a gym, and I’ve often said this, that you can watch a game and I feel like when I’m watching, I can pick out the kid, okay, this kid has a high basketball iq. And yet I think I might have a hard time explaining that to somebody who’s just a casual fan watching the game.

Because maybe that kid didn’t score at all. And they’re like, how do you know that this kid is the best player on the floor? And it’s right. The little subtle things that they do that you just can’t teach. I’ll give you a great example. So my son has a kid on his AAU team that I think. Probably has one of the highest IQs of any player that I’ve been around in terms of somebody that I’m seeing all the time, whether it’s watching them practice or the games they’re playing.

And he made a play in a tournament a couple weeks ago that I don’t think anybody anywhere would’ve really noticed it. But when I watched it, it was like sort of epitomized kind of what this kid is all about. So he’s about probably five nine, but I would guess he’s probably our lead, the leading shot blocker on our team.

Cause he just can anticipate and block shots. But anyway, there was a pass that was made down low to a player and this kid goes up to block the shot and as he goes up to block the shot, the kid who’s on offense sort of adjusts in mid-air and our kid sees that the kid makes an adjustment where he knows he’s now not going to be able to block the kid’s shot because the kid knows he is there and he’s made an adjustment and in mid-air, our kid.

Goes from, I’m going to try to block this shot to, I’m going to follow him to make sure that he doesn’t get a three point play. And I could see the play, you could see the kid’s mind turning, this is all in like half a second, where he went from, I’m going to block it to, I’m going to make sure he doesn’t get a three point play.

And I just don’t think there are very many kids that can do that yet. I tried to ex, if I tried to explain that to somebody that I was sitting next to, they’d probably look at me like I’m crazy. Which maybe even a few people in our audience are thinking the same thing. But it’s just an example of like a high IQ player.

You could just, there’s something about that that just jumps out at you, if that makes any sense.

[00:31:01] DJ Damazo: That’s just a great point. I think the ability to make quick decisions is so underrated. I think it’s, and you take it for granted whenever you have someone that can do that, or multiple people that can do that.  So I think it’s a great point. Absolutely.

[00:31:18] Mike Klinzing: When you have a team full of high IQ players, there’s so many things that happen. Naturally that you just kind of take them for granted. And then when you watch a team or you have a team that doesn’t have that same feel, I mean, the difference is glaring to somebody who knows and watches and understands how the game is played, the basketball IQ in the field.

And it’s the hardest thing, I’m sure to, it’s the hardest thing to teach, right as a coach, is to be able to help a kid to develop a better feel for the game. It kind of goes back to beginning of our conversation. Like I feel like I developed my feel as a player by playing pickup basketball. That’s how I develop my feel, and that’s a tool that players don’t even have in their toolbox anymore.

So let’s jump into that for a second. When you’re thinking about designing a practice, whether it was when you were a head coach at Valley Forge, or now helping to put together practice plans at Grinnell, How do you help players to develop that feel, that iq, that understanding of making the extra pass or making the right rotation on defense or whatever it is?

I know that IQ encompasses a whole bunch of things, but when you think about trying to develop a player’s feel for the game, what does that look like on the practice floor?

[00:32:36] DJ Damazo: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think it’s especially important for us just again, with our style of play, both of both offensively and defensively.

And I would start off with defensively for those that might not be familiar with the Grinnell system defensively we trap the entire game. We press the entire game and then in the half court we trap the ball the entire game. And some might say we don’t play defense at all.

But I would strongly disagree with that. That’s actually the, the hallmark of the, of the system I would say. But where I’m going with that is the entire. Defensive system is making quick decisions and just having a feel for the game and having a high iq. We, as coaching staff, cannot go over every single press breaker or e every single random movement that an, an opponent will do against us in the in their press offense or in their half court offense.

It’s simply impossible. So guys need to be able to quick think quickly on their feet and make their correct read while playing as hard as they possibly can. So I think just for us, we, we just try to get as many reps as possible in practice in our press, just to, again, Show every type of possible variation that someone will show us.

And they have to just adjust to it on the fly. And I think the IQ develops just because of those reps and we’re playing at a hundred miles an hour every single possession while doing that. So it creates thepace, which we like, and it’s all developed because of the reps that we do in practice.

And I think similarly offensively again, we have a goal, we want to get a quality shot up within 12 seconds. So we want to get an inside out three, within 12 seconds. And again, we, we can’t, we can’t possibly show every type of coverage a defense will show us in any given possession. So this rep after rep going at.

Full speed helps us develop both offensive offensively and defensively. And that sounds pretty simple and basic, but again, with the speed we play at and the style that we play at, I think that’s really the only way to develop the iq. What

[00:34:55] Mike Klinzing: What do those reps look like? Are those five on five where whatever happens, happens?

Are you guys setting up certain situations where maybe you go possession here, possession there, possession there, back and forth, maybe whatever, three times up and down the floor? Is it a five on five scrimmage where you’re stopping it, but there’s really no constraints out there, just how do you design it to try to maximize the number of different situations that your team may or may not see in a game?

[00:35:29] DJ Damazo: Yeah, I would say all of the above actually. So. Okay. One thing I learned from Coach Dave, I learned a ton of things from him, but I think one of the biggest things that I learned is he does not over coach. So he’s not blowing the whistle multiple times during possession. He lets things flow and then we talk about it after.

So whether we’re playing five on five or whether we’re doing like five on four with a disadvantage, and then someone comes in, whatever we’re doing, he lets the action develop and corrects it after and or we correct it after. And I think it’s so important because again, with the amount of possessions that happen in one of our games, it’s impossible for us to yell out what we need or for them to ask am I doing this right?

They have to figure it out on the by themselves. So I think it’s so critical just to allow them to go up and down and figure it out. And then obviously we’re fortunate to have all of our practices filmed and obviously all of our games. But I think the practice film is also critical. So just going back and showing them during during that timeframe of what could you have done here if, if this situation would happen again, or a similar situation would happen again.

I think that piece is also very critical.

[00:36:45] Mike Klinzing: So how much time are you spending as a staff going over that practice film? And then after you answer that, how much of that film are you then sharing with either the team as a whole or. Individual players to go over good decisions, bad decisions, things that they’ve done, just how much time are you spending with that individual practice film on a day-to-day basis?

[00:37:07] DJ Damazo: Yeah, so the coaching staff, we will watch all the live segments multiple times the next day or, or that night even. And we will clip all the offensive possessions, all the defensive possessions and, and watch them multiple times as a staff. And generally, after watching those clips, we’ll sort of have a, a theme offensively or defensively, like, are we not playing hard enough defensively or are we not sharing the ball well enough offensively?

Whatever it might be. And going into the next practice we’ll have sort of that theme or themes and we’ll show just a couple clips to the guys of, of those possessions and say, this, this wasn’t good enough yesterday. This we, we can improve on. Or, this was great yesterday, like continued to do this and build upon this.

You know, we’re not going to be in there for an hour and a half watching film. It’s just going to be a couple clips. Either reinforcing positive play or showing things that we can improve on and how we can do that.

[00:38:05] Mike Klinzing: So you guys consciously try to make a balance between, hey, here’s what we’re doing well, versus, Hey, here’s some things that we can work on.

Is that something that you’re consciously trying to make sure that hey, we’re not being completely negative and only showing the things that we didn’t do well, that we need to improve?

[00:38:18] DJ Damazo: Absolutely. And obviously I think we can do better at it. Just like it’s easy to always see the negatives in it, but I think we both want to show the positives because there obviously is a ton of great things that happens as well.

And we want to reinforce those positive behaviors. And I think during a film session, if you’re called out positively, so if you’re called out by making a good play, it really makes your day as a player. I mean, I remember as a player, my college coach saying like, look at DJ doing this or doing that, and it really brightens your day and it makes you consciously think of that the next time you’re playing.

So I think that’s a great strategy to get guys to buy in and play hard and do things the right way.

[00:39:04] Mike Klinzing: I remember a lot more than negative during film when I was a player. I remember hearing lots more, lots more than negative. I don’t think, again, my perspective may be, may be off, but I, I feel like my coaches.

Preferred to point out the negative as opposed to accentuate the positive. So I definitely think that there’s been a positive trend in that area of coaches trying to recognize the things that players are doing on a positive note as compared to the always just picking out the negatives and the things that, that you can do better.

I think coach, I think players respond better when you have a balance and as you said, when you do get called out for something good, man, that’s a great, that’s a great feeling. And again, it being recognized in front of your teammates also is just a powerful way to build that confidence that you were talking about before as well.

I think that’s something that all players and coaching staffs can, can benefit from. Without question, when you were a head coach, what was the most fun part for you about being the head coach as opposed to the experiences that you’ve had being an assistant?

[00:40:09] DJ Damazo: Yeah, I think just seeing the process come to fruition.

So I took over a significant rebuild during my interview at Valley Forge the president told me during my interview, he said, dj, if you don’t change the culture off the court in one year, I’m shutting down the men’s basketball program and you’re gone. So, as a probably naive 26 year old, I think I was 26 at the time, I’m like, sure, sign me up.

Take, I’ll take the job. And it was a lot of off the court issues we had to deal with. My first two years. A lot of dark moments, like a lot of calling my mentors, a lot of, what am I doing right now? Like, am I going to stick this out? But also lots of positives. Like we started instilling the culture that we wanted.

We started bringing in the players that we wanted. And my first year we went three and 17 or three and 18, something like that. In my second year with basically almost we had some guys from the previous team, but we started bringing in our guys and we actually won one game my second year, but during that second year, I saw so many positive shifts and off the court stuff.

Like we, we raised the team GPA up, like from like a very bad to 3.6. We didn’t get into any issues off the court. We started playing the style that we wanted to play and I could just see it coming, but never having done it as a head coach, I’m like, oh boy, here we go. Year three and.

Year three, we brought in another really good recruiting class and, and we got to above 500 in my third year. So we went from one win to three wins to I think 12 and 11 my third year. And just seeing that process and the seeing the guys that bought in early on was really rewarding. And something that was great for me.

[00:42:12] Mike Klinzing: How did you keep being able to sell the culture? Hey, this is going to work.Because I think it’s easy. This is a question that I always think that guys who do what you were able to do and turn a program around, it takes a special amount of skill and a, and a certain amount of confidence that I’m not sure that every coach is built for.

But what I always am amazed by is, I think before when you first get the job and you’re like, okay, we’re going to turn it around, and you’re selling culture and you’re talking about this and that. Like everybody’s excited. Everybody wants to buy in because you haven’t played a game yet. Right? And then once you start playing games and the one loss record, which from the outside, that’s how people are judging you, you may have other metrics that you and your players and your coaching staff are evaluating, but the reality is that the people on the exterior of your team are judging you by the one loss record.

So what did you do to continue to get guys to buy into what you were doing, what you were building, what you were teaching day in and day out when you weren’t winning? As much as I’m sure everybody would’ve loved to win, if that question makes sense.

[00:43:28] DJ Damazo: Yeah, no, it’s a great question. And I mean, yeah, it was a challenge.

I mean, this, it’s almost like embarrassing, I would say that might be too strong a language, but going into a lab room being like, come to my program. We’ve won four games the last two years. You know, like, how do you how do you do that? But. I think I just believed in what we were doing. I had really strong convictions of where we were heading and just sold division and vision’s just a powerful thing, I think and we got some of the right guys on the bus early in our recruiting class that that were freshmen whenever we had the ultimate turnaround there.

And they were excited about the future because with a turnaround comes, op comes opportunity. So there’s a lot of playing time available for younger guys. So I think that piece of, of playing time plus the vision really it made us be able to get players that helped us to turn it around.

[00:44:29] Mike Klinzing: Clearly being able to upgrade your talent and get better players in helps. And then there’s the other piece of it, taking the players that you inherited and try to get them on board to buy into what you’re doing. And then obviously, Going out on the recruiting trail and being able to bring those players to campus on a day-to-day basis.

When you think about trying to build the culture, obviously at Grinnell, you’re trying to sustain the culture that’s already been established, whereas at Valley Forwards, you were trying to build a new culture. What does it look like day-to-day, whether that’s in the coach’s office, whether that’s on the practice floor, whether that’s on campus, just meeting players and having lunch with them, or check it up on their classes just day-to-day, what does it look like in your mind to build a strong cul culture?

What are some actual actions that you, as a coaching staff have taken at Grinnell or took when you were at Valley Fords to be able to build the kind of cultures that you want to have?

[00:45:31] DJ Damazo: Yeah. I think it’s just completely relationship driven. I think one of the biggest things I learned at from my time at Valley Forge, Is, I don’t think I did a, a great job with the relationships, just because I think, obviously as a head coach, there’s a certain power dynamic there, and as the assistant coach, it’s much easier to develop a really strong relationship because you’re the assistant coach and there’s not the, the power dynamic going on there.

And one regret I have, I think is not figuring out a better way to develop more meaningful relationships as a head coach. And I think if I become a head coach again, like that’s going to be one of the Top priorities for me is how do I develop the, the relationships I have as an assistant coach while I’m a head coach.

You know, in talking about Grinnell specifically here, that’s just been very refreshing to me to be an assistant coach and really uphold the culture that Coach Dave and coach a laid the groundwork for. And it’s just relationship driven. So I have the guys over for dinner probably once every two weeks with my family.

They play basketball with my kids. They babysit my kids. I trust them to do that. I have a handful of guys in, in my office for coffee once a week and, we’re just chatting. We hang out and I help them with jobs, both, I should say. I help the guys that want to get into basketball with jobs.

The other ones are way too smart for me, and I don’t even know what’s going on with that. So I listen to those ones. I listen to those ones. But no, it’s just a relationship driven culture, I think here at Grinnell. And I thought I understood culture. Like I thought we had a decent culture during my final years at Valley Forge, but when I got here, It was really eye-popping for me.

It’s just such a buzzword in coaching. Like everyone talks about culture, but like here, we, I mean we talk about it some, but it’s just sort of, It, it just sort of flows because of the long history of Coach A and, and Coach Dave and this, the standards that are here and it’s, it’s just beautiful to see, like, there’s just a very high standard in really all aspects of life that guys just do because it’s the culture here.

[00:47:56] Mike Klinzing: So how important is it for it to be not just coach driven, but player driven and having good leaders on your team that are able to enforce and perpetuate and pass down that culture? Obviously that’s easier to do at Grinnell where there’s a longer history of success, but clearly that’s something that you were trying to build at Valley Forest.

Just how do you think about that, where you’re empowering the players to build and enforce the culture and that it’s not always coming from the coaches? What. How do you go about doing that? What’s that look like?

[00:48:29] DJ Damazo: Yeah, I think it’s just, again, relationship driven and meeting with the players often. So like, whether it’s these intentional times of having them over to our houses or in the office or they’re, they’re leaving the weight room and you connect with them briefly and you just have a good conversation.

But I think every one of those sort of deposits that you have with a player whether it’s a captain, a leader or not, like, I think that’s building your team culture. And I think those one-on-one meetings are so important. And it just creates buy-in and trust from coach to player and then the players run with it from there.

And that was a big challenge for me at Valley Forge. That’s where we were heading, but. I had a full-time job at Valley Forge.  I was eight to five working in the provost office, and then I was a part-time quote unquote part-time basketball coach. So just the lack of one-on-one meetings I had with the players was just sad because we couldn’t develop the culture to as much as I would like and as what it is here because of that.

[00:49:42] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, no, that makes sense. I think it, obviously when you’re. Doing another job for the majority of your day. It definitely cuts into the amount of time that you can put in to be able to do those things. I can relate to that when it comes to basketball. I have my full-time teaching job all day and I’ve often told people, Hey, that teaching job kind of gets in the way of all the things that I really want to do.

It’s just interesting how that works. So I completely can relate to it. Not exactly the same, but certainly there’s some similarities there. I can relate to the mentality kind of that you, that you expressed right there. When you think about going from being a head coach to being an assistant, so you go from Valley Forge trigonal, what experiences that you had as a head coach have made you come back as a better assistant coach in terms of what the demands that are, that are on a head coach.

How are you better able to meet those as an assistant now that you’ve had an experience as a head coach?

[00:50:44] DJ Damazo: Yeah, I mean, I think just thinking of every decision comprehensively as a head coach and how it affects so many different people was the biggest thing that I could add and help coach Dave with.

So, like as an assistant coach, especially as a young assistant coach, you just think everything should be black and white. Like, why can’t we just have more money in our budget? Or why can’t we do this? Or why can’t we do that? And you think it should just happen, or that the head coach should be able to do this.

But there’s so many things that go into a decision as a head coach, and I think obviously sitting in that seat, you realize that every decision you have to think about how it affects so many people. And I think I was able to still be still push the envelope and still push for things, but understand that everything is not just black and white.

You have to think comprehensively. About every decision. And I think that was the biggest thing that I took away from being a head coach.

[00:51:50] Mike Klinzing: It’s easy, right, to make us make suggestions as an assistant coach or to think, Hey, I know what we should be doing here, and how come coach isn’t making that decision.

And then what we’ve heard from a number of people who have kind of gone back and forth from head coaching jobs to assistant coaching jobs or vice versa, is that once you become a head coach, you realize that there’s a whole lot of other factors that may be at play that the assistant coach just isn’t aware of.

And then ultimately, I think the biggest difference is that the decision is attached to your name when you’re a head coach and it’s not attached to your name as an assistant. And so there’s definitely a different set of pressure and expectations and just things that are pushing and pulling on you when you’re a head coach that you don’t necessarily get to experience or have to experience when you’re an assistant.

[00:52:40] DJ Damazo: Yeah, it’s so true.

[00:52:42] Mike Klinzing: All right, so let’s talk a little bit about Grinnell and the system that you play. We touched on it a little bit in terms of just designing practice to be able to take advantage of what you need to do in order to be able to teach that style. So clearly playing the way you guys do depth is critically important because of how hard you’re asking your guys to play and the pace at which you’re asking them to play.

So how do you guys go about, or think about the player development side of it and making sure that the guys that you have in your program have the necessary skill to be able to play the style that you play at the pace that you play. Obviously there’s a team aspect to it, but there’s also the ability to develop players individually, their skillset.

When their skillset gets better, your team gets better. So how do you guys go about developing individual players skill levels over the course of their four years?

[00:53:38] DJ Damazo: Yeah, so I’ll start with shooting first. So, at the start of every practice our guys shoot a hundred threes. They partner up, shoot a hundred threes, takes 18 minutes, and we track it every single day.

So just getting the reps in for shooting. We’re very particular about how we want the shots up. So from the way we pass, from the way we catch and shoot to everything in between we’re really particular about that. And I think the numbers have shown that guys shooting percentages have increased throughout their time at Grinnell.

And that then  I would also add just, just the number of game like reps that we get in practice daily just helps guys improve. We don’t do fluff drills and we don’t do. I’m not going to specifically say any Joes, but we don’t do fluff drills. I would say that just the pastime or that maybe just the pastime.

So for us, most of our stuff is five on five or five on 0 at the pace that we want to play at. And I think guys just get better at that. And as we talked about the film work with, it just helps guys improve. And to me the best way to improve at playing basketball is, is playing basketball. So we just get a number of reps in and we, as you alluded to, we play a number of guys, we generally play 17 or 18 guys, so not only are they getting the practice reps, but they’re also getting game reps as well  from an early age.

So I think those three things, or three or four things right there helps guys improve throughout their careers.

[00:55:19] Mike Klinzing: Which has to be fun for the kids who are part of your program to know that A They’re going to be giving tons of opportunities to be able to get out on the floor and play, and then they’re also going to be able to get those reps and continue to improve and just have that opportunity to grow.

How much of an adjustment is it for players who are coming into your system for the first time as freshmen, or if they transfer in, what does that look like? Because obviously no matter what high school system you’re coming from, you’re not playing at the breakneck pace that you guys are playing with.

So what’s that adjustment like for new guys into the program?

[00:55:57] DJ Damazo: Yeah. You know, as you said, I think it’s an adjustment for any high school player to come into college with the speed and the physicality of it. But with us, it might even be a step above. And we have a handful of coaches’ kids on our team.

We, I think we have three. Guys on our team that are coaches kids and we always laugh like all these good coaches, kids, habits that you have, you’re probably going to have to forget, or at least a handful of them. So like instead of when a shot goes up, you’re, you’re not running back on defense, you’re actually running forward.

Because we want to press and, and we’re trapping the ball immediately. And different things like that that are sort of basketball truisms, we don’t do those things and we look at the game differently. So I think there’s a lot of things that guys quite, or like, am I really doing this?

Or they, they understand it because they’re talking to their teammates during preseason and they know how vastly different it is. But once they’re actually out there, it still even takes some time for them to, to adjust. But I think, again, with going back to the culture piece, the leaders on our team are fully bought into what we do.

They’re just fully bought into what we do. And they’re going to be correcting guys if they’re not playing as hard as we can, or they’re not doing the, the nuances of the Grinnell system and they’re holding them accountable to that.

[00:57:19] Mike Klinzing: What does that look like? So let’s say that a kid’s not playing as hard as they can, or they’re repeatedly making the same mistake.

How does, how do you teach the guys to hold someone? Accountable, are you teaching that? What does that look like when a player, I’m going to use the word confront, even though that might not be the right word, but how does a player hold another player accountable in your mind? What does that look like?

[00:57:46] DJ Damazo: Yeah, I think for us, we try to structure our captains and it can’t be perfect every year, but we like to structure our captains or just our leadership in general to where we sort of have a fiery person and we sort of have a put your arm around him kind of guy.

So like the fiery guy’s going to be in your face like saying this is what needs to be done. And then there’s going to be another guy, whether it’s a captain or just a leader on the team coming up to him, putting his, putting his arm around his shoulder and saying the same exact message, but just in a more delicate way.

So I think like we’ve intentionally structured our, our captains like that and or just our general leaders like that. And I think that has proven to be very helpful for us. Yeah.

[00:58:30] Mike Klinzing: To be able to know that you’ve got guys in place that can do that, I think is tremendously valuable. Talk a little bit about your relationship with your head coach and what you look for in a mentor, a head coach.

What are some things that you’re hoping to get out of that relationship as an assistant in terms of your development?

[00:58:51] DJ Damazo: Yeah. Coach Dave is the best man. I was in a difficult spot leaving Valley Forge, it was a tough part in my career. I felt burnout and just wasn’t sure what the next steps were and, I had a fairly unique journey.

Like I got a head coaching job very young. I actually went from a ga graduate citizen to a head coach, which is very odd. But as you guys know what the president told me, like not a lot of people wanted that job. So a young person like that, a young naive person like me took the job which is why I got the job so young.

But I sort of skipped a step of going from GA to full-time assistant to head coach, which is sort of the check that most people take. And I sort of felt like I was missing the full-time assistant role and I could learn from a great mentor. SoI was looking for jobs after my third year at Valley Forge.

And I had no relationship with Coach David at all and I tell everyone, like, it’s one of the few examples in the basketball world where I literally just applied to the job. And went through the process and got it with no connection to him. And I think that sort of speaks to who he is. Like he has, he has no ego.

He thinks about life in the game differently. Like he’s not someone like, oh, I have to have four connection points to this guy if I’m going to hire him. Like, we had great talks leading up to it. And it’s worked out great. It’s proven to work out great. And every single day in the office, I learned something from him.

He was actually the head coach of the Reno, big horns, the G League team for two years. So, dealt with a lot of personalities there. And I think that’s the biggest thing. Or one of the biggest things that I learned from him is just dealing with all the different personalities. And just being a great communicator.

I think he’s an elite communicator and an elite motivator and gets guys motivated and in the right direction.

[01:00:50] Mike Klinzing: What’s motivation look like at Grinnell? What does that look like?

[01:00:53] DJ Damazo: Yeah, I think just playing to the standard, playing to the standard Grinnell basketball is built because we tried to play traditional basketball 30 some years ago.

Coach Dave’s dad is the one that invented the system and he he tried to play conventional basketball here and it just, just wasn’t getting it done. So he went extreme you could go extreme two ways in the game of basketball. You can, you can play really, really slow or you can play really, really fast.

And he decided to do the ladder and he admittedly says like he didn’t think it would have any type of encour success, but doing it like there’s this great joy with our, that our guys play with, like they play with great joy. And a lot of it is because we play so many guys. But I think a lot of it is because Coach Dave is a great motivator and gets guys to buy in and play for their teammates, play for their school, and play for each other.

[01:01:49] Mike Klinzing: As you think about sort of the, the yearly calendar of what needs to get done to have a successful college program, right now, you guys are kind of in the post-season experience of sort of wrapping up what you did this past season, and I’m sure starting to look ahead to what you need to do with the remainder of this recruiting season and then getting on into the next actual basketball season.

Talk a little bit about what you’re doing now. It’s April 20th. What are you guys doing on a day-to-day basis in the office during the months of April and May to sort of put a bow on last season and get yourselves ready for next year?

[01:02:32] DJ Damazo: Yeah, so I made a conscious effort, like I wanted to be very organized this off season, so, My previous stops, I had other jobs that were more full-time.

So like last summer was really my first full summer. That was just basketball. And I watched a lot of film.  I did recruiting this and that, but as I got to the fall, I was just like, I felt like that was kind of not wasted, but I could have been better with my time. So going into this off season, I have a list of projects I want to do to, to make sure that I’m making the most of my time here.

So there’s about, I would say, five or six like analytical type projects that I’m working on right now. I have a call list that I have to make certain calls to high school coaches, AAU coaches, coaching friends, and. I enjoy that part. I genuinely enjoy that part. So I just love connecting with people and I just make it an effort to, to hit a certain amount of people each week.

So I would say those are the biggest things, the two of the biggest things. And then the third biggest thing is actually scheduling. It”s very hard for us to get non-conference games because I believe it. Yeah, you guys don’t want to chase us around for, for 40 minutes.

So I am I am burning the midnight oils, calling college coaches to try to get games as well.

[01:04:00] Mike Klinzing: I believe that, that I could totally see where people are. Like, Grinnell. Yeah. I don’t think so. I don’t think we want to, I don’t think we want to, I don’t think we want to deal with that. All right. Analytics, what are you looking at?

What are some things, is there anything that you can share? Something that, some metrics that you feel like are, are critically important to your team success? Whether that’s something that you guys have used in the past or, or something that you’re starting to look at now.

[01:04:22] DJ Damazo: Yeah, I think there’s a few things.

I would say first I’m just trying to see where we get our shots from and how are we getting our shots. So like, ideally we want to create an inside out three so we want to get a paint, touch and spray for a three. So I’m just trying to look at, at all of our possessions where we did that, how we did that, and why we did that essentially, and quantify that.

Offensive Rebounding is also a big piece of what we do. We want to rebound a big chunk of our misses. So I’m, I’m doing a dive into like where our offensive rebounds come, where, what position is it coming from, that type of deal. Just to see if there’s any type of information that can come of that, of if, if we’re getting a corner three and we’re rebounding it 60% of the time, can we generate more corner threes to do that?

You know, I’m just trying to find some type of advantage.

[01:05:19] Mike Klinzing: So are you going through every film, every game?

[01:05:21] DJ Damazo: Yeah. Synergy is obviously very helpful in that, so just, just being able to see the clip certain things that I’m looking for.

[01:05:29] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s amazing how much easier it is to watch film now than it’s ever been, and to be able to cut and slice it however you want, gives coaches a huge advantage than what again, we had 15 or 20 years ago to be able to do that. Now I think that once you learn how to use, whether it’s Synergy or at the high school level, most coaches are probably using Hudl.

Just to be able to get on there and do the things that those particular pieces of software are able to do makes it all that much easier to be able to watch film. Is there anybody out there that you’re watching or looking at to try to get ideas? Is there. A particular team. Maybe you’re watching European basketball, like if you’re trying to get new ideas as a staff or you personally, where are you going to kind of grow your knowledge of the game?

Who are you looking to or where are you trying to find that stuff?

[01:06:17] DJ Damazo: Yeah, so I’m not sure if you guys watched this, but the division two national championship game between Nova Southeastern and West Liberty, that was the best basketball game that I personally have watched May maybe ever, honestly.

So just two teams that pressed the entire game, the playoff tempo, I think it was like 116, 108 or something. Nova Southeastern won it and they, they went undefeated that year. Have a couple of friends on those staffs. Well actually they both just got head coaching jobs. But watching those guys is just outstanding for me and for our program, I think.

So I would say those two would, would stick out the most.

[01:06:53] Mike Klinzing: What are some things that you try to pick up when you’re looking for, when you’re watching a film of another team and, and you’re doing it specifically to try to pick up? Ideas, what kinds of things are you looking for? Are you looking for more big picture team offense stuff that you can, can, can throw in?

Are you looking for maybe a specific set, like a baseline out of bounds or maybe a sideline out of bounds? Are you looking for player development stuff that you can use with your current players to show them, Hey, here’s something that this team does or this player does that you can maybe incorporate into your game?

Or are you kind of doing a little bit of all tat?

[01:07:27] DJ Damazo: I would say a little bit of all that, but I would say primarily just big picture stuff. Like both of those teams are pressing teams. So like how do they get their guys to deny on the wing so well, or how do they get their guys to read this so well that type of stuff.

So I would say all those things for sure. But the big picture stuff I’m just fascinated at. And then it’s sort of drilling deeper into those other things that you mentioned. You can figure that stuff out by calling those guys or just watching even more film.

[01:07:59] Mike Klinzing: How receptive are coaches and I can probably predict this answer based on our experiences with the podcast, but let’s say you’re watching a, a random game and maybe it’s a staff that you don’t know and you just call them up and say, Hey, I want to pick your brain about I saw this action, or I saw this particular way that you guys were doing things.

Is that something that you do? And then when you do that, are there coaches that are receptive to just kind of picking up and having a conversation? I’m sure a lot of people are probably calling you guys.

[01:08:27] DJ Damazo: Yeah, so I would say like almost every single person that I call or reach out to, they’ve been great.

Like, they want to help out. They want to share what they they’re doing and help you out. So, The basketball community is outstanding, particularly if you know someone that knows them and you have that connection point. But I would say just in general, guys are wanting to help out and that’s what makes this profession so great.

And then on the flip side, yeah, like we have a number of people reaching out and just wanting to know the ins and outs of the system. Just at the final four, a few weeks ago, and we had a number of people reach out to us from reach out to me from division one to on just asking about different tidbits of the system.

And most people don’t want to go as extreme as Grinnell, but they’re intrigued by certain elements of it. So they were saying, we watched your film and we’re intrigued by this. Can you just tell me about it? So I think I enjoy sharing as well, so I know that guys are willing to share because I love to share as well.

[01:09:35] Mike Klinzing: What’s the biggest thing that people ask you about? Is there one particular thing that you get asked about more than anything else?

[01:09:41] DJ Damazo: It’s mostly the offensive stuff in, in how we do it. Yeah, just like how do you generate a, a shot that quickly and like if, if you’re missing shots, like how do you continue it on and that kind of stuff.

It’s mostly that type of stuff, I would say.

[01:09:57] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. I would think that there’d be a lot of people that would, as you said, maybe not want to go full on with the entire system, but certainly bits and pieces of what you guys do, I’m sure would be attractive to be able to, to a lot of teams to learn a little bit more about how you guys go about doing what you do and, and, and making sure that they can, that they can replicate that.

One of the things that obviously your team has to do in order to play the way you do is to be in tremendous condition. So what do you guys do from a conditioning? Standpoint, whether that’s during the season, outta season, how do you approach your players’ strength and conditioning and what does that look like to make sure that you guys can play at that breakneck speed. Obviously you’re playing a ton of guys, so that helps, but still in the moments while guys are on the floor, you’re asking them to do things that the average college basketball player is not being asked to do. So how do you get them in peak physical condition to make sure that they’re ready to be able to play within your style?

[01:10:59] DJ Damazo: Yeah, I obviously think of this starts right now, so in, in the off-season as hitting the, hitting the weights hard. We have open gym three times a week. Obviously coaching staff can’t be there, but the captains lead them and, and the captains make sure that it’s at the speed that we want. they don’t play the Grinnell system there, but they play at the pace of the Grinnell system.

So it’s up and down, they say, and they’re making sure that. It’s as fast as it needs to be. And once we get to the season same type of deal we’re hitting the weights hard, we’re doing strength conditioning. But for us as you said, we play a lot of guys itself, which helps. But we also limit practice time.

So we’re not going to be in practice for two hours and 10 minutes, or even an hour and 45 minutes. We try to limit our practices to an hour and to an hour and like 15, 20 minutes because again, while we’re there we’re getting up and down, we’re flying around and we’re not doing any fluff drills.

So I think our guards are fresh throughout the year because we’re not beating them down and going for two hour practices.

[01:12:09] Mike Klinzing: A little different philosophy from how things used to be. I feel like that coaches are a lot smarter now about what they do in terms of keeping their players fresh. I often have.

Told this story that my first year that I was coaching, I was an assistant varsity coach at the school where I currently teach. And I remember we had a staff of, our head coach at the time was probably, he was maybe 30 and I was 25. And then we had another assistant coach who was 22. And there would be days where we’d practice for like three and a half hours.

And I look back on that now, I’m like, God, what were we getting out of those kids after? I mean, we’re not even talking about college players. We’re talking about these are high school kids and you think, what, how valuable could that last whatever hour and a half, two hours have been? Like at one point our why are, why weren’t we just cutting our losses?

And I think the answer was we all just again, two of us were single and we had a lot more time on our hands probably than any of us do at this point. But it’s just, it’s so interesting just how things have shifted. You look at whether it’s at the highest level of the game at the NBA and the way that.

Guys are sitting out games to try to rest their body or injury prevention or however you want to frame it. And then you look back at guys in the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, who are playing 82 games a year and averaging high thirties and minutes, and now there’s almost nobody left that does that because we have a better understanding, I think, of how you try to get peak performance outta your players and you can’t run them into the ground, especially if you’re asking them to play as hard as you guys are during games.

It just feels like you have to have a, you have to have a grip on what their recovery and rest cycles have to be in order for them to be successful.

[01:14:02] DJ Damazo: Yeah. It’s just interesting. I think that point in really like the offensive philosophy, I think, I think coach Dave’s old man, like, was just really ahead of the game and in those two things.

So like, it’s funny watching our offensive basketball. It sort of looks like most teams are playing, it’s five out, it’s fast paced, shooting lots of threes. It sort of looks like normal basketball. And then again with the conditioning piece and like the rest piece and like not overworking guys coach A was doing that 15, 20 years ago.

So I think he was ahead of the curve in both of those things.

[01:14:40] Mike Klinzing: Do you find, and this is one of the things that I think is pretty interesting, is that when you play a particular style and then you play that style as hard as you possibly can, I, I think what you’re hoping to do, and I’ve seen this with some of the teams I’ve coached, and I see it a little bit with my son’s AAU team right now, where they just kind of keep playing and keep playing and keep competing and they go 10 deep and it makes it really difficult for a team to kind of match their.

Intensity level, because Guy 10 is sort of at the same level as guy one in terms of their ability to play hard and play unselfishly. And when you’re sitting on the sidelines, at least watching it as a parent, as a fan, I can kind of tell that like, okay, this team that we’re playing might be able to hang for 10 minutes, maybe they’ll hang for 20 minutes.

But eventually just the style of play and just how hard they’re going makes it really difficult for the opponent to kind of stay with it. I’m guessing that’s kind of the situation that you guys are trying to put your players in that that relentlessness and that pace and that pressure that just never lets up on either side of the floor.

I would think what you guys are trying to do is generate that into an advantage that yeah, maybe teams can stay with us for a half, but. To be able to stay with us for 40 minutes is a whole nother ballgame.

[01:16:16] DJ Damazo: No, that’s exactly it. That’s exactly it. So honestly, whenever a point guard is slicing up our press in the first three to five minutes, like just dribbling through it, we’re almost like welcoming that because generally teams are playing seven, eight guys, and if a point guard’s going to do that for 40 minutes, or is banking on doing that for 40 minutes?

We generally have success in those teams because it’s just not fun. It’s not fun, it’s not sustainable. So no, that’s a great point. And we often make a lot of teams lose because they’re just worn down and we’re just throwing bodies at them.

Playing as hard as they possibly can because the standard’s the standard and we’re doing that for 40 minutes and Yeah, I never went against anything like this, but I can imagine minute 36 as a point guard, like, are these guys ever going to stop pressing me or dogging me?  So it has to get frustrating.

[01:17:14] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it certainly does. I mean, like I said with my son’s AAU team, it’s funny to watch just again, teams that are kind of hanging and then eventually you just see that their spirit kind of gets broken and they stop getting back on defense or they stop running the lanes on offense and suddenly what was the five on five game now has kind of become first four on five at both ends, and then maybe it becomes three on five and before you know it, you kind of just sort of overwhelm that team.

And I think that’s what makes having a unique style of play and then whatever style of play you have when you combine that with trying to get kids to play as hard as they possibly can and play unselfishly. I don’t care what system you have, to me, those are the two most important characteristics of. A team is, do they compete as hard as they can and are they unselfish?

And if you have those two things, then I think whatever system you decide you’re going to implement, I think can be, can be successful. And obviously your style of play is one that is one, a unique, but also one that players love to play in, right? Because you’re getting up and down the floor, you’re getting up shots, you’re playing pressure defense, you’re getting steals.

And that’s just a fun way to play basketball. It’s much more fun to do that than it is to walk the ball up the floor every possession and sit in a two, three zone. Now you can win that way, and there are lots of coaches that have and will continue to win that way. But whenever you talk to players, right, they want to get up and down the floor, they want to take shots and they want to run and press.

And I think that’s the style, style and system that most athletes would want to play. And if they were given a choice,

[01:18:55] DJ Damazo: Well, I completely agree. I think you need to come in and do some of our recruiting talks with us. Cause there you go. I completely agree with that.

[01:19:03] Mike Klinzing: Well, it’s good.  I’m going to work on my script and maybe I’ll share it with you guys after I get it, after I get it perfected.

All right. We are DJ coming up close to an hour and a half. So I want to give you a one final question. So part one, when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge? And then part two, when you think about what you get to do every day, what brings you the most joy?

So your biggest challenge followed by your biggest joy.

[01:19:31] DJ Damazo: Yeah, so, I mean, biggest challenge. We had a down season this year. We had a rough season in terms of wins and losses. And I think just getting guys to believe in where we’re heading and playing to the, getting back to the Grinnell standard is where we’re at.

You know, we’re bringing in a fairly big class, a talented class, and so blending them with our returners is going to be, like any year a unique challenge, but a fun challenge. And I think getting back to the Grinnell standard of excellence is what’s on the forefront of my mind and coach Dave’s mind.

And I think that’s where that’s the biggest challenge ahead.

[01:20:14] Mike Klinzing: All right. And then your biggest joy, what brings you the most joy about what you get to do day in and day out?

[01:20:19] DJ Damazo: I think just honestly going into the office at least once, twice a week, just driving in, I honestly just have to pinch myself.

And I just can’t believe that I get to coach basketball full time. Like as silly as that might sound like just as I’m driving in or doing anything or throughout the day, it happens once or twice a week that I’m like, man, I just can’t believe that I

I have friends making lots and lots of money, a lot more than I could even imagine. And they’re just like, sort of jealous of my career path of like, wow, you get to coach basketball every day. And I’m like, I know. I just don’t take that for granted. So I think it’s just super special and Grinnell’s also just a great family environment like my wife coaches volleyball here.

As I said, I have three kids all under the age of five and bring them into the office pretty routinely. They come to practice pretty often and they just see me in day-to-day settings there, and they know all of our players’ names. They just have a great time with them and it’s just an unbelievable thing to take a step back and think about, wow, I get to coach basketball for a living.

[01:21:33] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s very cool. I mean, I think there’s probably a lot of other things that go into that, but boiling it down simply to, Hey, I get to put on shorts in the t-shirt every day. I get to use the game of basketball that I love to make an impact on the kids that I touch every single day, and. I think there’s nothing better than to be able to use something that you’re passionate about, to be able to have an impact on people.

And I think that was very well said. Before we wrap up, dj, I want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you, find out more about your program at Grinnell, just share social media, website, email, whatever you feel comfortable with. And then after you do that, I will jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:22:14] DJ Damazo: Yeah, so I think email is great.  damazodj@grinnell.edu. Twitter as well. I can get, we get lots of direct messages on Twitter and happy to connect that way as well. My Twitter handle is @djdamazo.

[01:22:32] Mike Klinzing: Awesome. DJ cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to join us.

Really appreciate it. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.