DOUG NOVAK – FORMER COACH AT WEST POINT, MISSISSIPPI STATE, & BETHEL UNIVERSITY – EPISODE 825

Website – https://www.coachdougnovak.com/   https://dougnovakbasketball.com/

Email – coachdougnovak@gmail.com

Twitter – @ImmersionVideos

Coach Doug Novak was most recently the Army West Point Men’s Basketball Associate Head Coach.  Previously Novak served as the Mississippi State University Women’s Basketball Head Coach.

​Prior to Mississippi State Novak compiled a 112-52 record in 6 seasons as the Men’s Head Basketball Coach at D3 Bethel University.  He served both The Citadel and Tulane University as a D1 men’s basketball assistant coach for a total of seven seasons after having been the men’s head coach at D2 Anderson University.

Novak spent one season as a men’s assistant coach at Francis Marion following a stint as the head coach at Iowa Western Community College.  Doug began his basketball coaching career as a men’s basketball assistant coach at Roane State Community College.

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Be sure to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Coach Doug Novak.

What We Discuss with Doug Novak

• Growing up in South Dakota and the ball system he used to shoot in the cold
• “I came up with three questions that I would ask those players at the end of the season. What do you like? What’d you learn? And what’s next?”
• “Inside inefficiency will beat you faster than outside competition.”
• “There’s communicated knowledge and there’s revealed knowledge.”
• “I want to eliminate as many things that are going to stop us from growing throughout a season.”
• The importance of a good handshake
• “If you really know your program, you should be able to write it down on a napkin.”
• “I know one of the best ways to get the game to slow down for the kids is for them to work their feet.”
• His experience as a college tennis player
• “Players don’t care any of that stuff. If you can make them better, that’s all they care about.”
• “One of our goals as coaches should be create memorable moments.”
• Habits of movement
• Practice organization
• Center Circle Plays
• Seeing things more clearly after the season is over

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THANKS, DOUG NOVAK

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TRANSCRIPT FOR DOUG NOVAK – FORMER COACH AT WEST POINT, MISSISSIPPI STATE, & BETHEL UNIVERSITY – EPISODE 825

[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 be joined by basketball coaching free agent Doug Novak, who has had a number of interesting stops along the way in his career, and we’re going to touch on a lot of those as we go through the episode.

But Doug, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:21] Doug Novak: Well, thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to be on. Excited,

[00:00:24] Mike Klinzing: looking forward to diving into all the things that you’ve been able to do over the course of your career. Let’s start by going back in time to when you’re a kid. Tell me a little bit about some of your first experiences with the game of

[00:00:36] Doug Novak: basketball.

Well, the first, the first one I actually remember is probably second grade and my older brothers in. 7th junior high and I go to the game and I just remembered the smell of the gym and it stunk, but I, but I, but I loved it and and then you’re watching your older brother and you’re seeing him, he’s a, he played college basketball at Northern state and South Dakota.

He was a good player, all state, and you’re just seeing the attention that he, he, he would get And so you’re kind of excited about it. And then the next layer to that is you, I grew up in South Dakota and he’d be out there practicing in the winter. And I just couldn’t practice with him in the driveway.

I’d have to sit and watch and I could go out there when he was done. But every once in a while I used to get out there and he’d let me rebound. And so that was a big deal. How generous of them. Yes. And so we’d have like three or four balls in the house. They’re warm. And then you’re practicing out there and the balls go dead on you.

That was the old Spalding or Voight, I believe it was. And then, and then you bring them in and you put them by the heater. And they start to explode a little bit, and there’s like little bubbles, these black bubbles that pop out, and actually helps your dribbling but if I didn’t throw him a good pass, then I had to go back in the house and wait.

And so, I don’t know if it was my parents ploy or what, but I just had to sit there and wait. And so, I learned how to throw really good passes, and to be able to stay out on that court with my brother.

[00:02:08] Mike Klinzing: That was your first… First touch of perfectionism right there.

[00:02:12] Doug Novak: It really was. And you never know you know, just like being a parent and we’re going to call a meeting, a family meeting, because this one counts because I’m going to lay down the law of how, how this family is going to work and, and the kids don’t really listen to that one.

They’re listening to some other one that I really wasn’t paying that much attention to. You don’t know what’s going to stick as a kid. You don’t know what’s going to stick as a parent. But it’s, you know, as you look back at a few things, I mean, that’s kind of memorable. That moment starting basketball with my older brother and, and, and being able to throw strikes to him so that I could stay on the floor.

That is so

[00:02:51] Mike Klinzing: true. And that’s a conversation, Doug, we’ve had a couple of times on the podcast about thinking. As a parent, as a coach, as a teacher about the things that you say and what your players or your students or your kids remember, and that it may not be something that you even recall saying. And I always give the example that from my perspective as a player and as a kid, I have things that I remember that my coaches said to me.

I have things that I remember that my parents said to me that I’m sure if I went back to those people. They would have no recollection whatsoever of saying the things that I remember so vividly that continue to this day at age 53 to have an impact on me and who I am. And it’s just a good reminder that when you’re in a position of working with young people that they remember stuff that you probably are never going to recall having said.

And so it’s important to be intentional about the way you communicate.

[00:03:47] Doug Novak: I totally agree with that. And in fact, one thing we we’ve done for the last probably 15 years, wherever I’ve been, It seems like every school wants to do some sort of evaluation with your players. And I never, I never really liked them because I didn’t like the questions.

I didn’t like how they’re worded. It was almost like they were fishing for somebody to say something bad. Yep. So I could either whine and complain about it. Or I could just make up my own. And so I started making up my own. And what I came up with were three questions that I would ask those players at the end of the season.

And it was, what do you like? What’d you like? What’d you learn? And what’s next? And it could be basketball wise, or it could be anything, but what’s next in your life? And when I phrased the questions that way, I got Way more useful information. What did you like? And so, and I, and I have those answers by the time they were freshmen, sophomore, juniors, and seniors, and you could see what they were taking from the program or what they didn’t understand.

Maybe there was a misunderstanding and they could write, they would write all kinds of things. And it might be under the, what did I learn part? But most of them were really positive when you phrase it that way. And, and my whole goal is I wanted useful information, like where are they at this particular stage in their life?

And I thought by asking those open ended questions, I, I got accurate information. And I was surprised a few times by some of the things that they, that they said or what I thought they that there was a misunderstanding of what our program was about. And so if you can get to that, I mean, that’s really important.

[00:05:39] Mike Klinzing: Well, now you can self evaluate, right? You can look at it and say, okay, I thought that this was the message I was getting across. And I’m hearing from one or multiple players that. That’s not what they were hearing or

[00:05:50] Doug Novak: not what they were saying, right? And it, and it’s not in a contentious way. You know, the gloves are down for everybody and, you know, these are just things like for us to move forward, these are three pretty positive things that, that we can work together on and, and really.

You know, sometimes the con you think the competition is the other team you know, some. Most of the time, it’s, it’s, it’s your own team. You know, there’s a saying inside inefficiency will beat you faster than outside competition. And I do believe that so that, so the faster you can get to reality, the faster that you can understand each other and trust and, and have some grace with each other in terms of, I truly want the best for you.

And so it can’t just be words, obviously. I mean, it can start as words. But your actions need to line up and, and there needs to be a consistency throughout that year in order to get it. And, and once, once we’re on the same team and it takes a while, even though you have the same jersey to be on the same team, that’s when that’s when the team takes over from within and, and seasons can be memorable and so much fun.

[00:07:05] Mike Klinzing: Is that something you understood right away as a young coach, or were you a number of years in your career before you kind of came to that realization?

[00:07:12] Doug Novak: I’ve just been blessed by… So many good coaches. And I just figured everybody else had great coaches too. And then, and then you go out recruiting and, and you feel sorry for some of the kids is like, I don’t know how I would have handled some of those situations.

Cause I just wasn’t in them. I, I don’t think I understood it early on because you’re so nervous. Early on in your coaching career of being competent and there’s a fear there that sometimes can keep you away from you getting to your best. Because you’re not necessarily seeing the lessons along the way you’re, you’re trying to prove that you can coach.

You’re trying to prove that you deserve this job. You probably don’t listen very well or as well because you’re trying to prove that you have the answers. And maybe along the way, the older you get, you, I probably have even more questions, but they’re better questions and you’re more secure. With actually trying to find out the accurate answer information but, but yeah, I just, I don’t, that’s a hard step to skip and I think you do have to go through it.

And when, when people say trust your gut, I think of it as something’s not right. I don’t know how to fix it right now, but I, I’m going to trust this feeling that, that I’ve got to do a little bit better job on X, Y, or Z. And it might be X’s and O’s and it might be a player relationship. But there’s usually something in your gut that says like this, something’s not right.

And I, and I try not to go to. Well, these, these kids are terrible. These are bad kids. This is a bad group. I’m probably placing the blame on me first. Which isn’t always the case either. It’s somewhere in between, but, but it’s it takes a while to mature. And I wish you could just do it overnight. And I wish you could snap your fingers or read a book.

But unfortunately there’s, there’s communicated knowledge and there’s revealed knowledge. And so the communicated knowledge that we’re looking at. And I saw Dean Smith inbound with his foreman for years and be so organized and great. And the first time I did it as a head coach, I was playing against Pfeiffer and they trapped my first pass and they threw it back to my power forward and he had eight turnovers.

And, and so I was like, I’m sure it’s good for Dean Smith, but I’m not doing this ever again because the forward was great in the half court. He just wasn’t 90 feet from the basket. And I didn’t have a plan for him. And I made him look bad. And so we never inbounded with a four man again. We always put our second best handler inbounding the ball.

So, if I ever face a Pfeiffer and Dave Davis again, who’s at VMI now as an assistant, I said, I’ll be ready for him. And I never see him again. But I’m scarred, so that was revealed to me so the communicated knowledge, people are telling you what to do and then you play games and, and, and the game will reveal itself.

[00:10:23] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, you got a few, you got a few, you got to feel and figure out who you are as a coach, right? And you feel comfortable doing, you got to learn from all the people that you learn from along the way in your career, but also, as you said, experience is a great teacher. And when you get. Those kinds of negative experiences.

You tend to remember them probably even more so than the positive ones. I’m guessing.

[00:10:47] Doug Novak: I think so. And we, and we talked to our guys about this too, in order to, we’re grateful for a win or a loss, and it’s tough to say sometimes, but if you’re not grateful. It’s hard to get any of the lessons. It’s hard to gain wisdom because I’m blaming a referee.

I’m blaming my players they’re blaming their coaches and they’re becoming, you need, they do that to protect themselves and I get it. Like we all want to do that, but you know, after a win, it’s easy to be grateful. I’m thankful for everything, but after a loss, you know, I’m going to be a baby for a little bit when I come home and then I got to start preparing for practice.

And then I got to change my mindset and say, I’m grateful for LSU for showing me that we couldn’t defend the ball screen on the side yet. They revealed to us that we were just not very good at that yet. And then throw everything else out the pregame meal, all the other things you can make excuses.

So if you can eliminate the outside noise, if you can eliminate all those that you’re trying to protect your ego and get to the. The part, they showed us something and, and we have to be strong enough in character to say, thank you for showing us that, and you beat us this time. And it’s not, we’re not writing the end of the story.

I’m not saying you’re terrible. I’m just saying, thank you. Thank you LSU for showing that, or thank you St. Thomas, you know, whoever the team might be. And that’s a hard thing to do. And sometimes you have to fake it a little bit, but, but I know it’s, it’s, it’s what allows us to grow. And those other things is what stops us from growing.

And I just try, I want to eliminate as many things that are going to stop us from growing throughout a season. As well said, and I think

[00:12:43] Mike Klinzing: it’s interesting to hear you talk about that, Doug, because when I run my basketball camps and Jason can attest to this, that one of the things that I do on the first day of every camp is I talk about how important sportsmanship is at my basketball camp.

And so I’m running them for elementary school kids. And so I talk about having good sportsmanship with your teammates. And then the second group I talk about is having good sportsmanship with your opponents. And one of the things that I always say is. That you have to be thankful for the people that you’re playing against because.

They give you an opportunity to test yourself and see where you are and the results of the game. You’re going to win some, you’re going to lose some, but you’re always going to have respect for your teammates, for your opponents. And I’d be thankful that you had somebody to play against. And I always make the joke of like, Hey, you know, your team go out over there to that basket.

You’re going to play against nobody. You know, how fun would that be, how fun, how fun, how fun is that going to be if you don’t have any to play against? So don’t, don’t get mad at that other team. Don’t, you know, don’t, don’t trash talk that other team. Just go over there and play and compete and find out where you stand and try to beat them.

But if you don’t shake their hand, if you do shake their hand and move on. And I think it’s, you know, it’s something that when you start talking about what. You can learn from sports and from basketball in particular, to me, being able to handle winning and handle losing and handle adversity and handle when things are going well, like those are skills that everybody needs in life because all of our lives have ups and downs and obviously the people who can handle those ups and downs end up having a much better.

A much better outcome in life than, than those who can’t. So I think that was well said that, and it’s just, like I said, it caught my, caught my attention because it’s something that I talk about this summer. I’ll have eight camps. I’m talking about eight times to give that same speech. So really I think an interesting point.

[00:14:34] Doug Novak: So at Bethel University in Minnesota, where I coached for 7 or 8 years great league and you’re getting really good kids. Smart, smart guys. Tough guys. And we go through the handshakes. And I was always so impressed with the other team that you, they’d look you in the eye after a win or a loss and we’d have good handshakes.

Now I’m not 100% sure what we’re doing behind. Cause you know, you usually sometimes need it. So, it hit me, we, we beat a team that was very good and it was, it was one of those dead fish handshakes. After we beat them and I think the head coach came through about trying to rip my arm off first and then it was like dead fish, dead fish.

And I was like, well, that’s not really like our league. And I had to address it with our team. And I said, listen, we’re going to lose one of these and I don’t want you to do that. And so we went through on how to shake hands. And then I’ve always had a technique because I’m about 5’11 And so a lot of the guys, dads that I would recruit or the guys themselves are big guys with big hands.

And one of the worst things ever is to have someone come in and crush your hand. They get the tips of them. And you already got small hands relative to those guys. And so I developed a technique where I’d come in just a little bit high, and then I would take my middle finger and I’d try to get the side of their hand and so I could squeeze it.

Before they could get the rest of my fingers. And so it doesn’t matter if you’re a seven foot or six, nine, you’ll never be able to crush my hand because of my technique. In fact, I just got back from Florida and I did a clinic for for a college, a one day clinic, and that was the first thing that we did with, with those women is I taught them how to shake hands.

Cause when I first took all their hands, when I got in there, they were really soft and I, and I know they’re women and you can say whatever, but I’ve got three daughters and they all know how to shake a firm handshake and I believe in it so much, we put it in our locker room at Bethel, a firm handshake.

And so that was our first thing that we, we talked about before any of our. Starts and stops and stride stops and donuts and all that fun thing. We, we learned how to shake a hand and that one technique of freeing up your, your outside fingers to to shake a hand. I said, I might change your life. I said, do you know how many times you have to shake someone’s hand in an interview or a business meal or whatever?

I said, I, the camp might just, might just be over. Cause what I just gave you is gold. And they thought I was nuts. But, but we use that quite a bit throughout the course of the day. One small thing can have a rippling effect, the, the mundane act of shaking a hand how you’re going to pick a ball up where you’re going to pick the ball up in, in relation to that charge circle restricted area could change your life in terms of how much freedom you have.

By taking care of those mundane details. And it has a rippling effect, like an unbelievable rippling effect on so many things. And you think you need these major adjustments to everything. And usually not, it’s taking care of one of those small details. The problem is. It takes a lot of work as a coach to figure out what it is like.

I just don’t think you can have 17 pillars of success or whatever it is. I mean, it takes a lot of work to get small, wide as easy and deep as hard. And I think this was Lincoln. He said sorry for the long letter. I didn’t have time to write a short one. And. And it makes sense because it, it, it takes some time.

And I, I wish I could have been able to do that at 23 when I had my first head coaching job, everything had the same importance when I was 23. And the older I got, I found out these four things on offense and these four things on defense for me. Are the most important things. These are, these are the acts that I will raise my voice at the other ones.

I’ll whisper. It’s not that they don’t have importance. They’re just not as important.

[00:19:03] Mike Klinzing: Are those things universal in that? No matter what stop you’ve been at, no matter what gender you’re coaching, no matter what the level is that those things cross over, or are there different things for different teams, depending upon the personnel and the makeup of your teams?

[00:19:24] Doug Novak: No, they’re, they’re universal. And so how you might play the, the framework, the structure of how you’re going to play offensively may change with, with who you have what their strengths are, but, but these, these things are like time tested 20 years ago, 20 years from now. Your, your feet, your starts, your stops, your eyes making, making the guy next to you better and then defensive.

We have some simple ones too. But, but it works for every offense and it’s, it’s ultimately it’s what helps you win a game is to be great at those things and there’s so many. So many plays, there’s so many different actions. There’s, there’s, there’s just so much pressure around it that they’re all trying to take you away from, and we say what’s on the napkin.

I guess it, I can’t remember exactly where it started, but I said, if you really know your program, you should be able to write, you should be able to write it down on a napkin not 25 pages, not a book I said, but you should be able to write your four things on the front for offense, four things on the back, and if anybody came into our practice and watched it.

I would hope they would say, boy, this guy really cares about the speed of the pass, the eyes on the rim, the balance part of it, like they, they should be able to know that I’ve, and I’ve walked into gyms and I may not have agreed with, with what that coach believed in, but I knew what he believed in.

Yeah, and and that’s the most important thing because how they are going to play ultimately might be different than how we’re going to play. These are important to me. This allows this frees me up to coach and see look at very little but see a lot when you’re trying to look at a lot. You see very little.

But over the years, these things have always held true and ultimately it’s what gets a player, it helps the player get better and if a player feels like they’re getting better I don’t, they don’t even have to like me. We’ve got a partnership and it’s how we start to develop a relationship. Team building, all that stuff.

I mean, I’m, I’m sure it’s great. I, I really don’t have a lot of use for it. Our team building is done on the basketball floor and how we play offense. It’s, it’s how to build a relationship and how we’re going to talk to each other when, when I don’t pass it to you, when I don’t see you, when you crowd the ball and we have a concept in there.

When we’re driving it do you, do you need help or do you need space? Just like a friend. So when, when we get into this elbow area and we stride stop and we pop it, it’s like me knocking on your door and I’m telling you, Hey, Hey, you want to play and you got an option, you come straight up the sideline or you can go back door, but, but you’re trying to get open so that you and I can play.

That’s how we communicate. So, so I, you know, I hope. At the end, when I’m all done. They said he didn’t coach disposable skills. These are things that can maybe transcend the game of basketball. And it wasn’t good for this one moment in time, some great memorable moments, but there’s more to basketball than just basketball.

[00:23:13] Mike Klinzing: I think the idea that skills can be universal, and what I hear you saying is that there are things that no matter What kind of offense a school might be running, no matter what kind of situation a player might be in, that there are things that if they’re doing these things, that’s going to allow them to be successful.

And then you as a head coach. I love what you said about just being able to have a focus on what it is that you’re actually looking for, and then that allows you to see more. I always tell the story of my first day as a coach. I got done playing and I was the JV coach at a high school. And. My first practice, I walked in and there were 12 kids and did my first drill.

And I got done after five minutes. And I was like, I don’t know what I’m going to ever possibly do. Cause I just saw 500 things that were wrong that I want to fix. And how do I possibly fix if I saw 500 things in five minutes, how am I possibly going to fix this? And it took a long time to be honest, for me to figure out like what.

What can I, I don’t know if let go is the right word, but what can I overlook to focus in on what are the things that are really important? And I think that’s what I hear you saying is you have to figure out as a coach, what’s important to you and really zero in on those things. And when you do inevitably, that’s going to probably take care of some of the other things that you may.

Have overlooked just because you’re getting them to do the things that are most important to you.

[00:24:53] Doug Novak: No, no doubt. And again, if you’re just kind of the, I’ve been doing this for about 33 years now, but like the difference between the first. 10 and the last part of it, it really is, this is where they’re supposed to be today.

And you have like a little bit of a baseline of where guys are supposed to be. Like when, when you start, you want everything in, in, in perfect right away. And then once you really learn how to teach and create habits. It’s like, this is about as good as it’s going to get today. And it wasn’t that good, but it’s, it’s not that far off, like we’re two practices away, or if I’m teaching an individual skill you know, all this stuff is fresh in my mind.

Cause I just got back working with that team. We were working on an inside hand layup. And they had to get their foot in the restricted area because most players don’t know they launched themselves, so they don’t know where they are on the floor when they go to shoot a layup. And so if you, if you can get a foot in the smile.

The odds are that you’re going to have a better chance of finishing it. And it gives them a clear destination of where to get to. But when they, and then they got us pop it by their ear and they’re going to set a screen with their butt. So they’re going to create contact and they’re going to land a little bit staggered, what we’d call our stride stop.

But that inside hand layup can be tough. It’s a really good one. Cause you can put your back basically on the defender. You can make space, because you didn’t really have space, but you create it with your stop. But if you’re trying to do that with your left hand, and that’s your offhand, like, the odds are you’re going to try to cup it, and have a weird angle with your hand, you’re going to be nervous and so you might just try to sneak a couple reps in with your right hand, because nobody wants to look bad.

And so, I had to create a, a, I hate saying this, but basically kind of a safe space with like listen, guys, it’s the middle of the summer and nobody’s watching here. Your coaches aren’t evaluating you. If you can play or you can’t play, they, they brought you in here. So they all think that. So right now, if you shoot it over the backboard, I don’t care.

In fact, it would be nice if you did just, just let it roll off your hand and look over your shoulder as it, as it. Goes over the backboard and then it’s going to, and I can tell you what’s going to happen next. And then you’re going to kind of jam the next one in there, probably just wedge it right in there and you’re going to feel really dumb and that’s okay.

And by the third one, it’s going to hit the side of the rim. It’s going to kind of roll off gently. And I can kind of tell you, it’s almost like a magic trick. I can kind of tell you exactly what’s going to happen and you’re going to make like that fourth or fifth one. And so because just doing it so often, I have a really good idea when I say, Hey, you’re three reps away.

That’s from experience. Now that kid that’s doing it has no idea that he’s three reps away. So I want to be able to create a light at the end of the tunnel. Now this is a little bit of a trick just because I know how it works because I’ve done it with so many kids over 30 years. Is it now they’re like, maybe he knows what he’s talking about because I made it on that next on that third rep.

He said I was three reps away. But I think that’s a, you know, that might, that’s this one small example of. Hey, we were about four reps away and we’re not going to get it today because this is the amount of time that I want to use this and that we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be. And that’s one of the hardest things because you’re going home and you’re doubting yourself always as a coach.

Are we doing the right thing? Did we get enough of this? Are we And I still do it. I still don’t have the answers, but I, but I have a better idea of where you should probably be with this amount of practice and what’s been taught. How

[00:28:54] Mike Klinzing: has that made you feel more? I don’t know if secure, confident, what’s the right word, but as you’ve gone along, you’ve started to get a feel for again, how long it takes to put in this particular individual skill, or you have a team and.

You’re working out a particular concept on offense, and so you have an idea of what that timeline is. How does that improve and help your confidence and then help you, I guess, translate that confidence to your players?

[00:29:23] Doug Novak: Well you know, just some of the comments that I heard, because we would stop. About every 20 or 30 minutes you know, kind of like my end of the year questions what’d you learn?

And so some of the, or what’d you like? And so some of them would say like You actually made us comfortable feeling uncomfortable. And so that was a big deal and I didn’t say that word. I’ve used that before and I really like it. But I was like, that’s pretty sharp that, because I was trying to do that.

Like here’s something that’s uncomfortable. And so anybody that’s out there listening right now, if you just fold your arms. And if like you folded your arms a million times in your life, it’s not that hard. Now try to do it the other way, just, just do it opposite. And, and it’s very awkward and it’s, it’s not a hard act, it’s just different.

And so you, to be able to have people be receptive of coaching and teaching, I want to be able to create an environment is like, I’m not looking for perfection early and I’m okay with some mistakes and you’ll get there and I know that this is going to happen. You know, to answer your question, I think what it’s, what it’s done is it’s freed me up and taken some, some anxiety out, or I don’t, I’ve never been a big temper, not, I mean, I will raise my voice, but it frees you up to see what’s happening and we’re trying to do that with players all the time, is is to get the game to slow down So, I know one of the best ways to get the game to slow down for the kids is for them to work their feet.

And they’re gonna transfer their weight. And they’re trying to shoot it every time they catch it. And if they don’t shoot it when they catch it, they’re gonna stop their shot. We’re never gonna shot fake. But just the act of working your feet in that manner will slow the game down. And they’re only looking at one thing.

They’re looking at that rim. And again, that’s where it goes back to, I’m looking at very little. But I’m seeing a lot, but I’ve been able to slow the game down for them offensively, and then defensively we want to do the opposite. But you also want to be able to do that for yourself as a coach. Like, you’ve got to be able to free up your eyes and, and not get overly emotional.

Maybe you can on excitement for a play a really good play, but just overly emotional with something that went bad. And so I, I, I think over the long, over the long run. I mean, highly emotional stuff, rah, rah, it’s all fine. And I’m not against that. And I get excited like everybody else, but it only lasts so long.

And, and that, that count that relentlessly. Patient teaching that’s helping that player get better every day so that, and then teaching that player to use those skills and gifts and give them away freely expecting nothing in return. We, we have a saying with a lot of our programs, it says me first.

We like to flip words cause I get, I get tired of coaching cliches and hashtags and that kind of stuff. So we give them all t shirts and it says me first, and it’s just massive. And then underneath it in small letters, it says for us, and then we kind of explain them, explain what that means. And we start with a flight attendant.

If you’re taking a flight, they’re, they’re going to tell you to put your oxygen mask on first before you help the person next to you, cause like you’ve got to take care of yourself. But we, you know, we talk about that. In terms of shooting, and that every time you’re catching, it’s me first. It’s my footwork first.

It is, you know, I’m driving this thing to get a layup for me. And, and then those small letters, and I put them in small letters for a reason. For us, because it’s hard to get to. We all kind of get the me first stuff at two years old. We’re, we’re, we’re selfish. It’s, we’re born that way. Me! Mind and we need it for survival in, but as, as hopefully as you maturing in and get a little bit more, have a little bit more wisdom, you find out that these things that you’ve worked on the giving them away and giving away for free for us is where the joy is and it’s hard to get to.

It’s really hard to get to that. So offensively, we want to put some things in place, some conceptual things where we can explain that just, just as we would explain the, the airplane ride. It’s never me first, me second, me third. It’s me first for us passing it 27 times around the perimeter doesn’t make you a good teammate.

In fact, sometimes that’s pretty selfish because you’re giving a bad player the ball with no advantage. You’re a good player. You can make that average player an all conference player. If you’re willing to give up your gifts for free, give them away. That’s

[00:34:37] Mike Klinzing: something that I think when you watch teams play.

And you watch coaches and you watch players who have bought into that concept of the ball moving and making the extra pass and taking the shot when it’s the right shot for your team. Because as you said, sometimes it’s selfish to pass the ball when you should shoot. It’s obviously a rarer trade in basketball than the other way, but clearly there are certainly some players who, who prefer to pass and don’t always take shots that.

You as a coach might want them to do, but I think it’s a really, as you said, it’s a really difficult thing to, to teach. And it’s something that I’m sure you would echo this, that it has to be an emphasis every single moment in order for it to translate into something that happens all the time. I think you can every once in a while, you’re like, Hey, you know, you should have made that pass or, Hey, you got to make the extra pass, but if it’s only something that you bring up occasionally.

It’s never going to sink in versus what you’re talking about is it has to be an integral part of what you do every single moment while you’re coaching your team.

[00:35:51] Doug Novak: Yeah, in order for that to bleed into who they are, that’s why that napkin is so darn important. Because by taking care of those, again, I don’t even know if mundane is the right word.

That, that’s kind of been my buzzword over the summer and talking about it, but in order for, for those things to have life you, you, you take care of that. And really, I just took care of 12 other things, but I didn’t have to coach them. And, and that’s, and that’s probably the hunt as you’re, as you’re trying to find those four things that are important to you.

Do those four things have depth? In, in terms of it solves 10 problems. And, and in shooting sometimes you get, you get guys with weird shots. I, I don’t get them so much. Much in college, you’ll have some minor adjustments, but if you’re dealing with some of the youth basketball when they’re old enough to really start focusing on that, and and if you’re trying to coach everything at once it’s hard to make any progress.

And if you can maybe start with a hand placement or feet for us in college, it’s so much. Footwork and balance and landing on two. And one of the biggest things is we don’t want to be moving when we shoot and we sprint to get stationary. And we’re not moving on any of these three point shots. We want to be still.

And so it’s but, but those napkin things, which might, they kind of seem like ordinary things. And I, I don’t think kids really get tired of some of those. Skill and advantage work and you’re in your change it. They don’t get tired. I think coaches might. And so if I’m one of the most things I’m proud about.

Is that I still get goosebumps over those things that are on the napkin. It’s I I’m in awe and I’m sure those kids I just worked with. I mean, I think they knew by the time it was, I was done. What I was, why I would get goosebumps is because if they could stop in this particular fashion. That allowed them to turn away from the defense that allowed them to set a screen for themselves.

It actually allowed them to have a delayed score and then they could have delayed passing. So they, there were, they had so much freedom.

When you’re teaching those skills

[00:38:24] Mike Klinzing: and you’re giving kids. The ability to unlock something that they couldn’t do before that they couldn’t grasp, or that it’s a process of getting them there. What I hear you saying, and I think it’s something that the best coaches have is you just have an enthusiasm for helping a kid to get better.

And you’re talking about helping a kid to get better here at a basketball skill. But I know from what we’ve talked about to this point that. You’re also, as you said, that these skills are universal and they can translate and you’re having an impact, not just there, but you’re having an impact on them off the floor as well, just through the way that you’re teaching when you bring that kind of enthusiasm for somebody who, who has been in the game for as long as you have to still have the enthusiasm and passion, like anybody who’s been around a coach, a teacher.

A player when you’re talking about from a coach’s perspective, who brings that kind of energy and enthusiasm and passion to me, that’s where the secret sauce lies is. Yes, you can have some of these technical teaching skills and but I do think that when you bring. The passion, it just brings one whole extra element into what it is that you’re trying to do.

And, and I think players feel that when they, when they’re working with a coach that, that has that kind of enthusiasm, it feels like that’s one of the things that when you’re thinking about yourself as a coach, that that’s really important to you. I’m guessing.

[00:40:00] Doug Novak: Yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s what makes me lean forward.

That’s what gives me goosebumps. It’s you know, it’s, it’s a weird deal because. I, I, I won. I was gonna go play basketball at South Dakota State. I was kind of set to go do that, and I ended up picking up tennis late, and then I played at the University of Tennessee, and then I said, I just coached basketball when I was done, and I did, which was kind of a crazy thing to think that you could do.

Somehow I pulled it off. How’d you

[00:40:26] Mike Klinzing: know you wanted to do that? Like how do you go from, obviously basketball’s an important part of your upbringing as you talked about, but then. the tennis piece of it. And so even when you were playing tennis as a college athlete, which you’re playing at the University of Tennessee, so you’re pretty darn good tennis player to be able to do that.

So how do you know that I still want to get back to basketball? What’s that like as you’re competing in one sport and thinking about, Hey, my career, where I want to get to eventually is to coach basketball. So how did you kind of put those two things together?

[00:40:58] Doug Novak: Well, again, if we go back to second grade, the smell of the gym, and then I had to do a little booklet.

And I liked art. In fact, I started out as an art major in college because I knew I was going to coach basketball. I could major in whatever I wanted. I just changed it because it was so it took so long and I cared too much about the art because you got to show it in front of people. And it’s a lot easier not showing.

I had to stay in the studios for three hours. It was taken away from my tennis. I can’t afford anything taking away from my sport. So I changed it to something where it didn’t matter as much. And I changed it to psychology because I thought maybe something like that would help me. I had no idea how much something like that would help you in coaching.

I really thought it was X’s and O’s and it’s both, it’s both, but but yeah, I made a little booklet and, you know, after I finished my NBA career and NFL career and, you know, all these professional things I was going to do. From second grade on, then I was going to be a basketball coach and it was probably my basketball coach and it was my brother and those were the people that I looked up to and when I watched TV and I just gravitated towards, yeah, I gravitated towards a player too, but you know, all of a sudden I’m going to a Bob Knight basketball camp because my friend was from Indiana and I got to go, I got to go watch him and I was just fascinated with it.

And then I think it really took off when I was at the University of Tennessee and my coach started DePalmer Tennis Academy. And then he brought in a guy named Nick Bolateri. And then my coach left for the University of Tennessee, and he gave it all to Nick Bolateri. Bolateri Tennis Academy, and now it’s IMG, which is a…

It’s crazy

[00:42:43] Mike Klinzing: what that’s come become from where it started.

[00:42:45] Doug Novak: It really, you know, it really is. But my coach played football with Burt Reynolds at Florida State. He was an assistant basketball court coach with Hugh Durham for the freshman team. He was a junior college basketball coach and he picked up.

Tennis as an adult and his two children were number one in the world. And so he was like, he was the perfect coach for me and he knew what I wanted in terms of to be a coach someday. And he, he was a man’s man. He looked like Sean Connery. And we had a lot of conversations about coaching and about coaching basketball.

But tennis I was a late, I started late. Everybody starts when they’re, we’re so young and I got, I started to get good really fast and then there was a plateau and, and I had the best in the world to play with and coach me in. And it’s, you know, the details matter, a fraction of an inch of how my racket is facing, the ball is going to go over the fence.

If it’s a little bit down, it’s going to go to the bottom of the net. And then I’m spending my first two years trying to prove. That I belong on that team of, of guys that are going to Wimbledon and, and having U. S. Open titles. I mean, they are so good. I’m so over my head. It’s unbelievable. So for two years, I, I would, I was my worst enemy.

I couldn’t get to my best, and I didn’t think my best was good enough. I was trying to be something else. I could run down balls. I was a basketball player playing tennis. And, and after I settled down a little bit and stopped trying to be like everybody else, I, I played my best tennis. But, you know, maybe some of those experiences helped me in trying to free up somebody else.

And it’s like, I want you to get to your best. And so when we go in to teach a skill, there’s, there’s a, there’s a way we’re going to do it. And there’s a way that I know that’s going to give you the best balance. And, but usually the way I’m going to start it is like you do this when you’re at your best, you, you do this.

You just have no idea why you do it and you have no control when you can do it. So I’m going to show you how to coordinate your feet. So that you can get to the best anytime you want. And then as we go along, you’ll make a blueprint for your own game. So it’s not, you know, like some magician coming in and I’m going to give you this.

And I’ve been doing this for 30 years and you listen to me. Like I do have a lot of experience, but at the same time, this is I want to work with you and I’ve watched you. And these are some things you can do to get to your best more often. And when it’s phrased that way, you’re on the same, then you’re on the same page.

And again, it’s not a competition. I’m not trying to belittle you. I’m trying to bring out the best in you. And, you know, I’ve said this often players, players don’t burn out from, from working hard. They burn out from, from working hard and not going anywhere. Like not, not improving, not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

And I’m not always talking about playing time. I’m talking about just them getting better. And if you can get somebody lost in their game, in the development, and they’re excited about coming back to practice and, and, and have the same feeling that I had as a kid. And cause I kept wondering how good can I get?

And I want everybody that I’m on the floor with, I want them to have that sense of wonder. Like, how good can I get? You don’t have to say it. I just want you to feel like it. And, and I want to end practice on a positive note, even if practice wasn’t great. I’m, I mean, I’m not going to lie to them, but I want them to end on a championship play and tell them why it was a championship play and that we can do more of this.

And, and I want them to see the light at the end of the tunnel. That’s a great point

[00:46:52] Mike Klinzing: that I think it’s sometimes overlooked when you start talking about coaches and how you build. A team. And what makes you ultimately successful as a coach? I think if you talk to any player, I think one of the number one things they want, especially, I know that we’ve talked to a couple guys that have worked in the NBA and they talk a lot about that point that you made that players in the NBA want coaches that are gonna make them better and cuz ultimately the better player you are at the pro level.

The longer your career, the more money you can make and you get an opportunity to continue playing. And if a coach can’t make a player better, then in a lot of cases, the player doesn’t have much use for that particular coach. So from a pro perspective, I know that the guys that we’ve talked to have just said, it’s critical that we as coaches are competent and that we can do the things that we need to do in order to help make our players better.

And if they can make their players better. It doesn’t matter. Players don’t care about your background. If you can know better, if you can make them better. They’re all in. And if you can’t make them better, they don’t care what you’ve accomplished in your career. None of that stuff matters. It matters. Can you make me a better player?

I think that’s really a good point to keep in mind for any level of coaching, but I’ve heard it most often said at the pro

[00:48:23] Doug Novak: level. No, and I, and I heard that exact same thing. It was, it was a Belichick either said it or I read it about him. He was nervous because he’s in the NFL at a young age, maybe about 24.

And he was nervous going out in the giants, coaching those guys. And some older coach came to him and said, listen, they, they don’t care that you didn’t play. They don’t care any of that stuff. If you can make them better, that’s all they care about. And obviously he survived pretty well in the NFL by doing that.

[00:48:53] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. No question about that. So. When you get done playing your tennis at the university of Tennessee, then you go after your master’s degree and you’re, you’re coaching the tennis team. So you’re not yet quite to the basketball floor. What was that experience like coaching the tennis team? And obviously I’m sure that it was something that you really enjoyed and it was coaching, but it wasn’t based on what you said to this point, it wasn’t kind of where you wanted to end up.

So just talk about that process of how you took that job and kind of what it was

[00:49:26] Doug Novak: like for you. Yeah, it’s you know, so I play for the number one team in the country for the best coach in the, in the world and not surprisingly, all my contacts are in tennis now and I’ve got great contacts and it’s, you know, I probably could have gone that route if I wanted to.

And so I’m putting out applications, I’m doing all that thing to get basketball and I’ve worked camps over the summer while I was in college and, you know, trying to set myself up. I couldn’t get anything. So I, I could get the assistant Clemson tennis coaching job, which is a really good job. And I got to coach with another great coach.

And while I’m doing that, I got to be friends with the the basketball coaches at Clemson and Cliff Ellis was there at the time and, and Clemson was, is so small, it’s a little country school. Like you just think this massive place that wins national championships and they have a great stadium and everything, but it’s really a small country feel and all the coaches would go out to eat lunch together.

And so I was eating with Cliff Ellis and his staff and, and they knew my story and I’d worked their camps and, and he and Phil Fulmer, who was the football coach at Tennessee. I got to be pretty good friends with, he was the offensive line coach, but they made some calls to some junior colleges that they were familiar with and they’d coached in the league and that’s how I got my break after coaching tennis.

I was able to get into a an assistant junior college job and a full time counselor. And and then once you’re in. You know, it’s up to you to, to do well and to be able to stay in the game. And so that’s, that’s how it started.

[00:51:07] Mike Klinzing: What do you like about the different levels that you’ve been fortunate enough?

When you think about the different stops that you’ve had along the way, what’s maybe one thing about each of the levels that you’ve been at that you really enjoyed while you were there?

[00:51:23] Doug Novak: Yeah, they’re, they’re all very unique. So six years in junior college they need you in junior college. Maybe in division three, it’s not like they don’t need you.

It’s just, they have really. Sound foundations probably financially probably with, with parents that have been able to help them along the way. So their life, their decision making is pretty good. They’re going to be successful with you or without you. And again, it’s not that you don’t add value.

And you can actually get to the game faster with those guys because they don’t have as many things hindering them. Junior college there’s, there’s some foundational problems. There’s some things that they were missing academically. There were some things they were missing work ethic. And then there’s a mixture of, Hey, this kid was just missing 30 pounds.

Like he had all the other things. And this was back before prep schools. So, so really unique environments 12 ACTs, 30 ACTs and. It doesn’t always, a 30 ACT doesn’t necessarily mean basketball IQ. And a 12 ACT, ACT. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have basketball IQ, you know, it’s how fast you process information.

So for that kid to get to 30 ACT, he had to think a long time, maybe five seconds to get the right answer. It, well, he takes five seconds for everything to give up the ball, he decided to shoot and he’s, you know, type a personality. And then and then. Like being at Mississippi state, a power five type school.

I mean, I, I loved it. It was awesome. I mean, you’re just kind of pinching yourself. Like, are you kidding me? We’re taking private jets everywhere. Like we’re in Oklahoma one second, then we’re home like so fast. It’s not like driving in a bus, you know, six hours across Iowa and a storm and I’m the bus driver and you’re so tired and you got to fill up that van.

It’s van slash bus. And I remember I was, I was so tired. I, I forgot to take the hose out and I started driving in Clarendon, Iowa at two o’clock in the morning. There’s sparks behind me. I’m like, what on earth? And it’s, I was tired. I forgot. It probably wasn’t the safest thing to be doing. But you know, the power five, unfortunately, the thing that I feel for some of those, some of those kids that they get so accustomed for four years.

Of having everything and the being great, it’s harder for them to be grateful because so much is given to them whether it be financially food gear but, but ultimately with. All those levels, all this stuff that you might get at a place, it gets boring. And so when I say it’s harder for them to be grateful, they’re all excited about it at first.

And then, and they’re not they’re excited to see those Cool things that, that are inside your practice facility and you have your own and the walls are just beautiful and then they’re not. And in, in each one of those places, the things that matter the most is what’s happening inside those walls.

What’s happening, you know, if we’re providing things that can add value to them and our team on a consistent basis, we’re relentlessly patient with this stuff. Junior college, power five, division two, men, women, tennis it all becomes the same. And, and once that ball goes up in the jump circle area, it, it doesn’t matter if you’re playing against Michigan State in, in that great venue, or, or you’re at Bethel University with, with some wooden bleachers.

And when I first got there, they were probably the ugliest gym I’ve ever played in. And by the time we left, we, we made it look nice, but it didn’t matter. Yeah, like the joy that those kids had the joy that I had while I was coaching there, it was the same feeling as when you think there would be way better to maybe sit on a bench across from Tom Izzo, which is kind of cool, but it’s just, he’s just a guy and in you’re trying to survive in these games.

It’s, it’s, it’s all

the that I could think of. Yeah. Yeah,

[00:56:04] Mike Klinzing: I think I know what you mean when you talk about just being at the place wherever it is, and when you pour yourself into it, whether it’s as a coach or as a player, that the game that you’re playing against whoever is the most important game that’s in front of you, and yet there’s.

People in another part of the country at another level that don’t care nearly as much about that outcome or that game, right? A lot of cases, depending on the level, there’s people that not only do they not care, but they don’t even know that that game, that rivalry, that season even exists. And I think to your point, and I think it’s a really good one is, is that you, you live, you live your own experiences and those experiences, whether they’re at.

Michigan State or whether they’re at a Division 3 school or a JUCO, those experience, those experiences can still be just as rich and valuable and. Important as the experiences that somebody else is getting at a more well known place because you’re still doing so many of those same things. You’re still bonding.

You’re still getting that personal connection. You’re still a part of a team, which I think any of us who have been involved in sports, when you think about how important it is to, to be a part of a team and a camaraderie that you feel with your. Teammates and the connection between coaches and players and players and players and coaches and coaches and all those kinds of things that just, those are things that are replicable, whether you’re talking about a junior high team, or you’re talking about a team that’s going to play in the, you know, in the division one final four.

I think that the experiences that you can have are. Equally as valuable and equally as memorable to the people who are involved in, if that, if that makes any sense. I, and I think it’s, it’s kind of echoing what you were trying to say.

[00:58:06] Doug Novak: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if one of our goals as coaches should be create memorable moments.

And, you know, we started off this podcast by talking about we don’t know what they are. Right. You don’t know what you’re going to think about. You think it’s about, you know, this shot or this play or whatever, and it ends up being years later, something else. But, but the tension of missing that shot or making the shot or that whole thing, it goes into those memorable moments.

And it’s got to matter in, in that opponent that you’re playing has its shot at bringing out the best in you and the worst. And, and, and that’s a fight to make sure that we’re learning from each one of those things. But, but it really is. It really is create memorable moments. Sometimes I think you can get so far away from what it was like to play and you become too much of a coach.

And I, and I try to remember a little bit in terms of how did I want to be coached? How did I want to be talked to? And would I want to be coached by me right now? And so it just says to kind of check yourself. And I think we all need some sort of protection plan for the worst in us. And that’s one, one way I do that.

And then, you know, our, after a game. Leading into the film for that next session, I’ve got a couple of protection plans that we’re very disciplined with our film. It’s going to be instructional defense, positive defense, instructional offense, positive offense. You know, we’re always going to end with the positive and we’re going to keep them pretty much the same when we’re doing it after practice or evaluating our practices and evaluating games.

And, and that also I want to make sure that I throw in there quite a bit. A great possession where the ball doesn’t go in and he kind of go around the rooms like everybody okay with him taking that shot and everybody shakes their head. Yes. I said that’s a championship play. It just didn’t go in.

Maybe the air conditioner kicked. I don’t know what happened. It doesn’t matter. But if we keep playing like this, the odds will be in our favor and people and kids don’t always understand that especially young because it’s got to go in for it to be a good possession and that’s not true on offense. Yeah.

And some, it’s not true on defense too, because you can do everything right, and they can bank one in on you, and, and then get mad at the defense. No, do it again, do it again, understand the percentages of the game.

[01:00:52] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I’ve seen that, and I think it’s one of the things that, so I have a son who’s going to be…

A senior this upcoming year. And one of the things that I’ve tried to do with him is I’ll sit down and try to watch game film with him and try to get him to understand that exact point that you just made Doug, which is look. We can watch this possession, whether it’s offensively or defensively. I, we tended to watch more defensive possessions.

Cause again, you can kind of see, it’s a little bit clearer as somebody who’s not the coach of his team, kind of what you’re trying to accomplish on defense sometimes than it is what you’re trying to accomplish on offense. But, you know, I could watch the possession and be like, okay, look here. You fought through the screen here and you hedged and cut off a ball handler and then you recovered back to your guy and then you chase the guy again off a, off a pin down and you’re, you’re right there when he catches it, the guy raises up and shoots a three and he makes it, you’re right there.

That’s as good a defense as you’re possibly going to play and the guy just made a great shot. And then conversely, here’s a play where you’re standing, you’re ball watching, guy cuts back door. This is the layup and yeah, it turned out to be a positive play because the kid missed and our team got the rebound, but you didn’t do anything defensively.

That was any good on that play. So which 1 of those is a good defensive possession and which 1 of those is a bad defensive possession. And to your point, you’ve kind of got to and obviously I’m simplifying it down. A little bit, but the point is, is the one that I think you were trying to make, which is it’s about the process.

And if we keep doing the one defensive possession, where we end up with a hand in a guy’s face and he’s taking a jump shot, we’re going to end up with a lot better results than if we keep getting blown by back door. You know, while we’re ball washing. And so I think that to be able to do that with teams and to help them to be able to understand the process and both from an individual player standpoint and from a team standpoint, I think when you get the players to buy into the process, that’s ultimately where you can see the biggest improvement in both individual players and in teams.

[01:03:05] Doug Novak: Well, no doubt, because if you drop your head after. That thing was well contested. You did all navigating screens and he knocked down that shot. And, and if you can somehow get it across to your team is, is hats off to you. Great shot. Do it again. Do it again. There’s, there’s a body posture there. There’s body language that goes with that as opposed to dropping your head in sinking.

Now your defense is going to get a little worse and he’s going to get a little more confident. And if there’s one thing about tennis and basketball. In Tennessee, it really shows up. And because you’re out there all by yourself, there’s nowhere to hide, there’s nowhere to hide and so it’s you know, if you’re, if you’re showing all that emotion, negative emotion and that you’re about ready to break your opponent senses it and one lost point ends up being two or three.

before you get your head back into it. So to be able to stay in those battles. And again, I think it’s so important to show, show the team it’s okay. There’s nothing wrong. You think there’s something wrong because they scored. You think there’s something wrong because we didn’t score. And sometimes there is, and we’re going to point that out.

But there’s a lot of possessions. That’s how we want to play. And they don’t know that and they can’t read your mind. Like you, you kind of need to go overboard and explaining that that’s okay. You’re fine. Like the number of times that you, that I have to say that you’re fine. When they’ve done something well, as opposed to like losing, losing their cool, losing their composure being ready to play to the next play.

And hopefully by the time from a freshman to a senior, like that’s what they’re getting better at. They’re getting better at the skills and the balance and all the stuff we’re teaching too. But that mental piece of staying in the fight in, in You know, like the truth, the true test is, is what you do while you’re trying to get to your best.

What

[01:05:15] Mike Klinzing: about evaluating yourself as a coach and watching yourself on film to make sure that you’re not dropping your head or you’re not just reacting to the outcome of plays, but you’re more focused on the process? Is that something that you have done? You continue to do? Is that part of your repertoire?

[01:05:30] Doug Novak: Nope. I hate looking at myself and I hate hearing my voice. So I’ll never listen. And I could probably be a better speaker if I did. And I could probably have better posture, but I do. I. I, I’m pretty sure I don’t do any of that because I’ve, I watched so many games, you know, whether it be recruiting or, or just games on TV.

And when I see it in somebody else, and sometimes it’s so much easier to see in somebody else. And it’s like, I don’t want to be that. Right. Yeah. And, and, and it’s okay. I’m not going to call anybody out or anything like that. It’s just like, I, I hope I don’t do that. And so I’m overly cautious about being that guy.

And, and I think we’ve all seen him. Is that when somebody throws the ball away, and he throws his arms up in disgust, and walks down there shaking his head. And to me, what he’s saying is, That ain’t me. I taught him better than that. That’s on him. Look at me, guys. I can coach. He’s a bad player. And again, you want to destroy relationships?

You want to not build somebody? You know, and it’s, you know, there’s… Kid taking a bad shot, doing a few things. He’s going to get taken out, but I’d rather not do it right when he does it. I’d like to let him run around just a little bit longer, but I do need to get him out. But you’re trying to save them.

You know, what’s done in practice for me is, is a lot different than what’s done in the games in practice. Nobody’s there. We formed a team where again, we’re trying to keep things safe that we can speak honestly to each other. But when you come to games, you got girlfriends there. You’ve got your parents there.

You, you’ve got your friends and your peers there. The last thing that you need, I’ve done all this stuff on the practice floor. Last thing you need is me showing disappointment to your people. There’s enough pressure. They don’t need that kind of pressure for me. And if I’m going to do it, it’s going to be in a timeout and everybody’s going to be circled around me so that nobody else can hear it.

I, I, again, I didn’t want to be treated like that and I never was. But I’ve seen other players have to go through that and show tremendous toughness tremendous toughness in a blocking out some of that. I just, I just, if I thought it would help us win, cause I do like winning, I would do it. I just don’t think it helps.

I don’t think it helps get the best out of those kids or the team. Player confidence

[01:08:05] Mike Klinzing: is so important to me. I really think that. When you look at what makes a player successful, that ability to have. I think it’s such a huge part of it. And what’s interesting is I think back to my own playing career, and I’m not sure I thought about this very much when I was actually coaching, but now that I’ve done the podcast and then I’ve been a basketball parent, I sit in the stands and I watch and I kind of reflect upon my own career and I think back to, okay, when I was a high school player, I was the best player on my high school team.

And I kind of had. Sort of free reign to do what I wanted to do offensively. And I had the ball in my hands and whatever, and I was never looking over my shoulder to see whether the coach is going to take me out. And so I kind of played free and played with confidence. And then I went to college in my freshman year, I didn’t play.

And I remember that year. When I’d get in for two minutes or four minutes or whatever, I might get in a particular game or zero minutes, but when I get my two or four minutes occasionally, and I’d find myself kind of constantly looking over my shoulder worrying about, Hey, what if I do this, or if I missed a shot, or if I turn it over, or if I get beat on defense, you know, I’m coming out.

And I remember. Again, never feeling like I was at my best because my confidence wasn’t very high. And then my last three years, I think I averaged 37 minutes a game. And basically, unless the game was a blowout in either direction or I was in foul trouble, I kind of knew I was going to play. And obviously I was very fortunate as a college player to be able to get that many minutes and not have to look over my shoulder.

But it’s interesting now as a parent and watching. Both my own kids and other people’s kids and playing on all kinds of different teams that they’ve played on, you see situations where the kid doesn’t have that kind of free reign. And it just does. It’s a different thing dealing with the kid’s confidence.

I think you make a great point of when you as the coach, if you’re putting your head down or you’re shaking your head or you’re throwing your arms up or you’re stomping your feet every time a mistake is made, it makes it really hard for those players to have the kind of confidence they need to do the things that they’re capable of doing, which ultimately right as a player.

And as a team, if you’re a coach, you want to get the most out of every player. And therefore you want to get the most out of your team. And I think when you’re eroding their confidence with body language, which definitely can happen that you’re not getting the best out of your team. And I think that for you.

To talk about, hey, that that’s something that you’re conscious of and intentional about to me, that’s a, that’s a huge plus for anybody on the sideline thinking about how can I get my players more confidence will demonstrate that confidence from the sidelines with your, with your body language and the way you interact with them.

[01:11:02] Doug Novak: Yeah, it’s it, as you were speaking, it’s this unnecessary tension. It’s not a good type of tension and especially on the, on that offensive side. Yeah, we’re, you know, it’s almost like two different games, even though they’re meshed into one, you know, offense, you, you, you want to play free and you want, you’re using words like flowing and, and all of this and defense, like you are, it’s, it’s, you’re making muscles and there’s tension movements and you’re walling up and you’re, you’re, there’s a.

Physicality to it. And not that there isn’t some of that on offense too, but it’s a, it’s a little more fine motor skills and you don’t want people white knuckling their shots and, and when they miss, I don’t want them looking over at me. Cause there’s something else to do. And and again, that’s probably why I say you’re fine.

Stop looking at me.

[01:12:02] Mike Klinzing: All right. What about, what about in the practice setting? Give me an idea of. Of how you like to structure your practices and what those look like. And I know you, we had talked to Chris Oliver, who’s going to come back on. He was on way back at the beginning when we started this thing.

And Chris is going to come on again soon. I know you did an all access practice with him, but just talk a little bit about what you do practice wise.

[01:12:24] Doug Novak: Yeah, the We start out with what we call habits of movement, and again, when I first started, there’s always things that irritate you. And so, guys coming into the gym and just like clowning around.

So you’re young and they’re just like, well that irritates me. And so can you give them something if they’re going to come in? And… Early on in practice, you know, what’s, what’s going to upset me. So I really tried to design the first 15 minutes of things that I can’t get upset. It’s they can’t screw it up.

So we start with the habits of movement and I kind of stole pieces from Jerry Tarkanian and in some of his great defensive. Sliding drills and some of those illegal tapes that got out years ago without a ball and my friend Matt Woodley and I are watching film together and I, I think I pulled one out of the attic and I said, watch this and he just loves defense so much.

I mean, he was, he was just going crazy and I need to be around a guy like that because I think probably a little bit more about the offensive side. You got to be able to do both to win. So I always try to find somebody like a Matt to spend some time with over the summer to, to really get me going on that side.

But, but we came up with that habits of movement, which would be basically, I don’t like stretching that kind of irritated me. It seemed like a waste of time because we stretched for 10 minutes and then they’re still like stretching as we’re trying to go. harder. So this allowed us for, you know, if we talked about tension, a slow tension, we come out watch some film, we come out, we’ll do a slow installation.

I’ll walk through basically half speed. I’m putting in something, something, something every day, there’s something going in or emphasized. And then we start that defensive movement type stuff. And it’s just habits of movement, like learning how to pick up. A leg, to see if you can get better over the course of the year individually with your defense.

Cause we have a ton of things to do that offensively, I just didn’t think I did defensively. And sure enough, it made a world of difference because we kept on getting better defensively individually. And I credit a lot of that with that habits of movement. And then from there, they’re nice and loose, everybody’s feeling good, there’s music going on.

And then we go to some sort of block shooting. We call it two minute drill. And that’s probably the only thing that I ever chart in practice. So they have to make five shots from five spots. It’s, it’s nothing complicated. Three guys, two balls, but they’re, they’re trying to beat, set a record for themselves trying to beat the two minutes and then after the first guy goes, I, I, Sometimes we’ll just scream, whatever we installed at the beginning with no tension, now we have three teams and they have to execute, you know, play a at full speed and if they screw anything up next team.

Next team, and then we go back to the block shooting, the next group goes, and then I’ll, I’ll call out some other speed plays that they have to execute. And the reason I started doing that is because I found that when we put something in, guys were kind of paying attention, and I was having to say this too often, I need your eyes.

Now you’re always going to have to say that a little bit, I need your attention. But if you’re having to say it too much, there might be something wrong with how you’re structuring practice. And what I found is if we do it slow at the beginning, and then they know they’re going to be tested in front of their peers, and they’re not going to have a second chance to get it right, their focus is really good.

Like, they’re really paying attention. Because they know in six or seven minutes, they’re going to be tested in front of everybody. And there’s no yelling or anything. You’re just off. You screwed it up. Next. And then they get together and they kind of try to fix it. And then after, after that, we’ll do a some sort of a…

Kind of a mass skill offensive group work. We’ll do a four baskets where there’s a, a situation that we’re, we’re working on offensively with spacing, and then we go right to situational offense. Well, we’re putting a ball in a certain spot and an advantage, and it might be the balls on the wing. And we’re going to start with a wing, the top quick pitch.

And it’s live after that, but everybody’s got to rotate through to get that one scenario that we’re working on that we might’ve been struggling or we want to get better at. So we call that situational offense and then. Break it down into a couple of defensive things, and then we’re playing. We, we do like to play a lot and probably more so the older I’ve, I’ve gotten is if we don’t test things and that’s what I call live play is testing.

If I don’t test it, I don’t know what’s stuck. It can look good 5 on 0. We don’t do a lot of 5 on 0, but maybe like 4 on 0 choreographed stuff. It looks good. It looks sharp. But until I test it, I don’t know if we’ve actually made any progress. So that’s been a major change. And then at the end of practice, waiting for the we’re not keeping score at the end, but we’re playing some sort of half court game, and we’re waiting for that championship play.

We call them center circle plays, or the guys named it that. And somebody, somebody makes that center circle play, we come to the center circle, we talk about that particular play, a little bit about practice, but each, each one of those guys, it feels like a they keep track of them. I didn’t know they did.

They told me later I had eight center circle plays that year. And some guys, oh, I had 12 and, and, and I said, well, that’s like a, a last second shot. Nobody forgets their last second shot. Game winner is what it’s like. And so everybody on the team is going to get an opportunity to get a center circle play.

And that’s, you know, about two hours, we’re done. I love the

[01:18:32] Mike Klinzing: center circle play. I love the idea of it takes you out on a high note. It makes it positive that even if maybe the practice wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t a great practice. You can still find something positive at the end to be able to draw on, to be able to say, Hey.

This is something that we can build on for the next day and it leaves everybody at least walking out of there with a positive feeling about, about what they’re doing. Do you like to tape, do you tape your practices?

[01:19:01] Doug Novak: Yeah, we tape all of them and I can’t wait to get to them and see what I missed. And you know, I’d start, I’d start up on that practice plan pretty early.

Pretty quickly afterwards. And then just kind of sit on it all day long and make little adjustments and talk to different people. And but yeah, we, we film everything. What are you looking

[01:19:24] Mike Klinzing: for when you go in and you watch a practice film? Are there a couple of things that in particular that you’re watching for?

Are you going back to the napkin? So to speak?

[01:19:33] Doug Novak: Yeah, because when, again, there’s a lot of clips that you can always show and we’re always going to show a few. Every once in a while, you can tell the guys are fried as they’re sitting in the film room or getting ready to watch film. And no matter how much time I spent.

And how great of a presentation I was ready to give, they’re not ready to receive it, and we might just move right on to practice but watch a lot to get to a few small clips to emphasize the, the, the napkin type things you know, a lot of it is playing through mistakes you know, like I said, we, we watch a lot of missed shots.

I’m Yeah. Sounds like I’m okay with missing shots. I want to make them all, but, but I, I also want to teach them how to play good percentage basketball for whatever team we have in. And they, I just don’t think they understand that part that they’re doing the right thing. And obviously we’re going to say when they’re not doing something right, and this is what you need to do.

We always want to give them a solution. A way to get better, but you know, how, how you watch it in the off season, different than, than how you’re watching it in season you know, in season, you don’t know how the story is going to end, you know, after the season, the book really has been written for that team.

So during the season, we’re always telling guys, stop writing, stop trying to write the end of the story. And, and so guys that might be a little bit depressed about not playing or something’s not right, and they, they try to write the end of the story. And I said, we have no idea what’s going to happen.

Focus on these things, like get out of, stay out of your way. Like you, you are the noise. It’s not outside noise. It’s noise inside your head and you’re, you’re focusing on the wrong things. And so we’re clearing it, but after the season it’s different. So then there’s, you know, a watch film of this, of the season.

And, and I try not to have any agenda. And just clear my mind and say what looked good and then just clip whatever looked good and then, and then after that look and see, look, there’s some patterns that showed up and then you keep on breaking it down, breaking it down to see, well, can we repeat these things?

So it’s, it’s just a different mindset and you can see things better at, at the, after the season, after some time you know, competition. Dealing with people on a day to day basis, all of those things can, can cloud your vision and, and after a season you can have a little different perspective, but I, I think there’s, there’s a ton of room to grow each year.

I mean, there has been for me as a coach you know, from taking that approach and looking at film a little differently. Yeah.

[01:22:18] Mike Klinzing: It’s interesting that you talk about. At the different points in sort of the year that you’re looking at the film differently, you’re evaluating, obviously, when you’re in the midst of your season.

There’s a lot of other things that are going on and then you can kind of take a step back and look at it from a wider perspective when you get to the off season and see if there’s any insights that maybe you missed while you were in the throes of your season. And we’re coming up towards an hour and a half, Doug.

And I know that off the top that we were kind of joking about how we were going to introduce you, our little our, our little intro. And we, we came to the conclusion that coaching free agent was kind of where we landed. So just tell us a little bit about where you are. At this moment and what what you think may happen moving forward, and then we’ll we’ll go to 1 final 2 part question that I like to ask everybody, but just kind of where are you at?

What do you think? What’s what’s the next step going to

[01:23:12] Doug Novak: be? Do you think? Yeah, this has been an interesting stage. I’ve had I’ve been blessed to be able to coach for 33 years. And I’ve had like no issues, like it’s just been normal coaching winning, losing that kind of thing. And, and you see your friends along the way lose jobs and you see them at final fours and, and, and I always came back from a final four is the best thing I get to see a few of my friends, but kind of one of the other things is I was always so grateful for whatever job I had, wherever I was, because I saw what.

What the other side looks like and you maybe start taking it for granted a little bit. And I thought I was going to retire at Bethel University. It was 1 of my most favorite jobs. Everything was an alignment. The, the coaches around me. The football coach, the baseball coach, track coach. I mean, they were, they’re the best coaches I’ve ever watched and I, and I go to their practices and learn a ton.

And then the Mississippi state you know, having a chance to coach in the sec popped up out of nowhere, like just kind of a strange, strange situation. And then being able to coach at army West point last year. And it was one of the best seasons in 45 years. And then, you know, we got. Everybody back, it’s going to be fun.

And then the athletic director and the head coach just didn’t see eye to eye on a few things, and all of a sudden I don’t have a job. I was like, I haven’t really experienced this and I probably should have been 33 years. And so now, you know, like a lot of things that it’s hard, but it gives you a little bit more empathy for somebody else.

Dealing with an SEC type player and sometimes an attitude I, I, that gave me an empathy for other coaches that have to work with a player like that on a daily basis. It wasn’t necessarily like that at Bethel, so I couldn’t really answer their questions if they asked me something with this, I would answer them, but now I understood what they’re saying.

Well, I really understand those guys that have lost their jobs along the way. And so. Again, I’m at 56 and my goal would be, I want to go somewhere where I can add value. I’d preferably, I’d like to end my coaching career as a head coach. And you know, I don’t, I don’t really care what level it is, but I want to teach.

That’s what gives me goosebumps. That’s what gets me excited. I like that part of it. And if it’s and if it’s as an assistant, that’s fine too. But is it somewhere where I actually can, is there something that I have that could add value to that particular program? And, you know, it’s getting close. I hope.

That there is something out there, but but if not, maybe there’s a reason and there’s some, you know, usually things happen for a reason and I don’t know I don’t know the direction. I know what I want, but sometimes you don’t always get what you want. So we’ll see next chapter

[01:26:23] Mike Klinzing: is soon to be written.

We’ll figure out what happens. I want to ask you. I want to ask you 1 final question. I think I can. Probably predict the answer after our conversation, but I just want to throw it to you and that question is when you think about what you’ve been able to do in your career and you think about what you get to do day in and day out, what brings you the most joy when it comes to your coaching career?

When you look back on it,

[01:26:54] Doug Novak: You know, at first it was, it was winning and feeling like a big shot when you won and then trying to act like, like you weren’t a big shot, you know, having some, some false humility there. And then, you know, it’s almost like a playing career when you talk about yourself as a freshman or, or coming on to a new team, you know, starting out coaching is like that a little and it changes and you change and the things that you thought were important.

are no longer important. You know, why you got into this game is totally different than why you stayed in the game. Those things that got me into the game initially weren’t strong enough to keep me there. It was these other things that being a part of something bigger than yourself my favorite part of coaching hands down is that you are the coach.

You are providing a frame that this art is going to go onto that you’re creating this. And, and you know, the the brushes and their charcoal are the medium that you’re going to use. You don’t exactly know what the picture is going to look like, but you have an idea in your head. And so you. You’ve created these boundaries to play within and then somewhere along the way, it, it takes a life of itself and those players take charge of the team within and it’s not that you’re not a part of it.

You’re still a part of it. You helped create. Some of those boundaries, but watching a team midway through the year is about when it happens take ownership of the team and talk to each other and bring out the best in each other. You know, these are all things that we’re trying to model and do, but when they start doing it and you got to be able to create some space so they can do it.

It’s that me first for us stuff that it is for us, and it’s it’s so much fun to see them grow that way. And so that that’s brought the greatest joy. So all that stuff about making each one of those better. And everybody gets excited about that. And it’s actually probably good to talk about that in recruiting, but it’s, but it’s not for you.

It’s not just for you. I should say it’s for us. And so that whole growth piece and and then you just hope and pray that there’s something that you did that may impact them later on. It’s not just basketball. Absolutely.

[01:29:40] Mike Klinzing: That is so well said. And I think it captures what coaching is all about, that there’s certainly the basketball piece of it.

There’s certainly the on the floor. There’s certainly the satisfaction winning and helping a player get better on the floor. But I think that long term impact, when you look back and reflect, especially the longer you’ve been in the business, you understand that that long term impact is truly. What it’s all about.

And that’s what people are going to remember. Very few people are going to remember those one loss records and yeah, you might remember some, some memorable wins and you’ll probably remember some tough losses even more so than the memorable wins, but, but certainly your players are going to remember. The impact that that you had and the, and the, the team and the, the, the relationships that became a part of it.

And I think that’s really well said before we wrap up, Doug, I want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you, find out more about you, whether you want to share your website, email, social media, whatever you feel comfortable with. And then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and

[01:30:40] Doug Novak: wrap things up.

Yeah, there’s Chris Oliver came in a few years ago and, and just videoed three straight practices at the beginning of the year. And, and so we were installing some stuff on that one. Those are good things. Then I have a website, coachdougnovak.com. And it’s, I just put whatever, whatever we’re doing, I put it on there.

Any practice drills we have. I’m really bad with technology. I, I had VHSs, I had DVDs, I didn’t know what to do with them. And so we created this website and we just like, it was just for me and a few buddies so that we could look at it. And then and then it’s grown into, I don’t even know what it is, but there’s a lot of good coaching resources out there.

Stuff that I wish I would have had when I was younger. So that’s coachdougnovak.com

[01:31:34] Mike Klinzing: Doug, great stuff. Again, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to jump on with us. Really appreciate it. Wish you the best of luck in finding the next new challenge in front of you in your professional coaching career and to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.

Thanks.