ARLEN GALLOWAY – WENTWORTH INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 876

Website – https://www.wentworthathletics.com/sports/mbkb/index

Email – gallowaya@wit.edu

Twitter – @ArlenGalloway

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Arlen Galloway is in his 11th season as the Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts where he has won over 100 games during his tenure. Galloway’s 17 wins in 22-23 marked the most in any one of his 10 seasons.

Prior to arriving at Wentworth, Galloway spent two seasons as an Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach in the Ivy League at Cornell University. He also spent two seasons as an Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach at Middlebury College and two as an assistant coach at his alma mater, Kenyon College

During the 2006-07 season Galloway began his coaching career at Washington (Md.) College

A native of Windham, N.H., Galloway was a four-year letterwinner at Kenyon where he played in 99 games over the course of his college career.

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Grab pen and paper before you listen to this episode with Arlen Galloway, Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts.

What We Discuss with Arlen Galloway

• Growing up in New Hampshire and starting out loving football
• Seeing Matt Bonner play as a high school player
• Going to High School at St. Mark’s in Massachusetts
• The story of how he ended up at Kenyon College in Ohio
• Getting his first coaching job as a GA at Washington College in Maryland
• Returning to Kenyon as an assistant coach after one season at Washington
• The importance of working the summer camp circuit to his career
• “Building your experience in working for different people is a great thing.”
• “Basketball is basketball. But you move up levels and then there’s so many other parts of the job.”
• His experience in the Ivy League at Cornell
• Choosing to return to D3 at Wentworth after his D1 experience at Cornell
• “The most important people are the kids in the program.”
• Dealing with decision fatigue as a head coach
• Adjusting your system based on trends and what’s working in your league
• Taking careful notes during the season to help review what’s working and what isn’t
• Studying your own players’ strengths and weaknesses and then tweaking your system to fit them
• Utilizing the new 8 coaching days for D3
• Developing players through their 4 years
• Winning consistently as a program
• Engaging with alumni while coaching the current players and balancing family time
• Watching other teams at all levels practice to grow as a coach

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THANKS, ARLEN GALLOWAY

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TRANSCRIPT FOR ARLEN GALLOWAY – WENTWORTH INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 876

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight, but I am pleased to be joined by Arlen Galloway, the head men’s basketball coach at Wentworth Institute of Technology. Arlen, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:15] Arlen Galloway: Thanks, Mike. Been looking forward to this. Thanks for having me on.

[00:00:17] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. Thrilled to have you on. Looking forward to diving into all the things that you’ve been able to do in your career. Let’s start by going back in time to when you were a kid. Tell me a little bit about some of your first experiences with the game of basketball and what you remember.

[00:00:33] Arlen Galloway: Sure. It’s kind of funny to be honest. I really wasn’t into basketball or sports when I was really young. I think I think the switch was flipped 10 or 11 years old, something around that. But. Honestly, I wasn’t really a kid where somebody put a basketball in my crib or anything like that. I was really active.

I grew up in New Hampshire and played outside a lot. But got to somewhere around 10 or 11 years old in sports. The sports bug kind of got me then. And to be honest… The first sport I really loved was football. And that, that memory is actually pretty clear. Just to tell a short story.

So I said I lived in New Hampshire and we had family. My grandparents lived about an hour away and we would visit decently. And Anybody in the family who was a sports fan was of course a Boston or New England sports fan and I remember it was a Sunday in September and my grandfather was coming to our house and his one requirement was that the Patriots game was on and it was season opener, Patriots Dolphins Dan Marino 500 yards and five touchdowns Drew Bledsoe was the quarterback, I think it was his second year.

And before Tom Brady Drew Bledsoe was a stud. He went for 450 yards and four touchdowns. And I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. All I wanted to do, honestly, was play football. But my parents were not interested in allowing me at a young age to play tackle football.

So I think that actually helped push me into basketball. a little bit more. So started, started playing a lot of basketball and took it really seriously. And my basketball memories when I was young are, like a lot of guys summer camp stuff, mostly in New Hampshire, a few others.

And then growing up in New Hampshire when I did a few years older than me was a guy whose name a lot of people probably Matt Bonner. You know, was pro, I mean, you could argue Matt Bonner, Duncan Robinson, but he was a fantastic high school player. And he played at his public high school in New Hampshire for all four years.

So one of my, one of my memories was every year. When I was in junior high school my grandfather would get me and we would go to the New Hampshire State Tournament semifinals or finals. So in New Hampshire, the state tournament is a little bit later than some other states. It’s like mid March, late March.

And my grandparents lived in Concord, the town where Matt Bonner played at Concord High School. And so Matt Bonner was in every newspaper every week for, it seemed like, three or four years. You know, he was 6’9 incredible player, committed to Florida prior to senior year. But every year was basically could somebody beat Concord High.

So my grandfather and I would drive up to UNH hosted the state semifinals and finals. at Lundholm Gym, which was a big old gym. They’ve, they’ve updated it a little bit, but those are really cool memories for me. I saw some great games. I saw Matt Bonner double teamed from tip off to the end of the game, constantly.

Guy in front of him, guy guarding behind him, and then three guys guarding the four other players. So that was at a young age, certainly something I had not seen before. It kind of reminds me of Jimmy Patsos and Steph Curry back when he was at Davidson. And so anyways, those were a couple of my, my early memories.

[00:04:09] Mike Klinzing: What do you remember about Bonner physically compared to the other high school kids that he was playing against?

[00:04:14] Arlen Galloway: Well, he was taller. That’s one. That always helps. Yeah, it helps. He was, I mean, he was 6’9 6’10 and he could shoot I mean, he was maybe not the quickest guy. in the world, but that was probably his only, his only weakness.

But he could play in the post and he was, he was really, really strong. And he could really step out and shoot and he’d play really hard. He was intense and a competitor. And for his time at Concord High, he really, really developed a reputation in the state and in the area.

I mean, he was a national level player in New Hampshire is made up of a lot of small towns, Concord’s the biggest town. And there’s a lot of stories about his work ethic. He was also valedictorian in his high school class. So he was just one of these one of these guys that, that worked really, really hard at everything.

And you know, certainly a lot of people from my home state liked, enjoyed following his college career and professional career.

[00:05:17] Mike Klinzing: What was the basketball scene like for you as a high school player in terms of finding places to play and get better in the offseason and just in terms of the availability of pickup basketball and how you got better while you were a high school player?

[00:05:33] Arlen Galloway: Yeah, that’s a really good question. You know, I actually, for high school, I did not go to high school in New Hampshire. So I, When I was going into that, that age, that process, my parents made some decisions and we looked at private schools. So I did that whole process, which honestly is like a college application and interview process just for high school.

So as you probably know, New England has a lot of there’s a lot of private schools so I ended up, I attended St. Mark’s School, which is about 30 minutes west of Boston about an hour and a half from where I live, but I, I lived on campus. It was residential, kind of high school, boarding school experience.

So that changed things a little bit because of that, I certainly wasn’t as connected in the town, in the area back home. So I probably did not have as easy of a time. But I worked pretty hard to seek out. A couple of places there’s men’s league, summer leagues, and you know, I would work basketball camps in the summer back home or in Southern New Hampshire and would kind of connect that way.

But a lot of it had to be on my own. To be honest, I never played any AAU. I don’t even know how much. There was, there certainly was there was at least one really, really good program and that was the best players in the state that was like Matt Bonner and some others. It was the Granite State Raiders back then.

But we just were not a family that really was pursuing a lot of you know, travel, kind of youth opportunities around that. In my family, sports were to be pursued through the scholastic experience, if that makes sense. So getting better in the younger years was in my driveway and at camps and then in high school.

And college was, hey, summer leagues and also in my driveway and also at the park down the street. So my family moved one town over a year or two before I went to high school. And hey, that town had a gorgeous outdoor park with four really nice outdoor courts. And I certainly put my time in there.

[00:07:46] Mike Klinzing: What’s your favorite memory from playing high school basketball?

[00:07:48] Arlen Galloway: That’s a great question.  I’ve listened to your podcast, so I kind of I know some of the questions that have come my way, but I can’t point at one. The whole experience for me was, was really, really good. It was a huge part of my growth as a player, but also just kind of as, I think as a person and you know, I think my high school experience is what gave me a chance to be a college player because I was not super talented.

I had Really one strength as a three point shooter, but was no, certainly no great athlete and no great player. But I played in a really, really serious high school program. And in high school, our team at St. Mark’s was everything to me. So I played with kids from all over the country.

Some of our best players were from California, New York City. You know, the, the program had already had a few scholarship players come through there, and then they had a whole lot more after. You know, they won the league a few times. I played for a guy Dave Lubeck, who no longer coaches, which is a shame, but he was an extremely important figure in my life and high school development and, and he just made it so intense in demanding.

And he made St. Mark’s basketball so important to all of us. So I just was in a program with extremely high standards and high expectations. They had won the New England championship in their division the year before I got there. So I went in, I went in 1999 as a sophomore. And myself and one of my classmates were the last two guys cut.

So I was cut my sophomore year. Maybe that that was not a good moment, but I thought that was pretty important. Cause our coach I wasn’t really a recruited guy. I did connect with coach in the process. I’m applying to schools and he certainly made time to make me feel welcome and kind of showcase the program, which the year before I was going to be there was extremely successful.

I believe they won the New England title that year. So for me, it was just the experience. You know, if I had gone to school, I love my home state, but It’s not the highest level of basketball. You know, if I had gone to school back home, I probably would have ended up with more playing time and probably scoring a few more points.

And that experience could also have been very good. But for me, I was just a part of something that was really, really important and really demanding. And it, and at that age. I can’t really put my finger on why, but I just took basketball and sports really, really seriously. And so that was a good fit for me.

I’ve probably never been in as good shape as I was back in high school. Like I was in better shape in high school than I was in college. So it was just really, really competitive. Again, not making the team sophomore year, I had to do everything. I knew I had to really do a lot to move forward and take a step forward.

And then I made the team, I think relatively easy as a junior. But I didn’t play much as a junior. So then that was the next step was, Hey, I gotta take that next step and then senior year I did play. But our two years were by our expectation, slightly disappointing. We always had high standards every year and we just, we probably underachieved a little bit those two years.

And hopefully it’s just a coincidence that I happened to be there involved on the team those two years. So but anyways, they had a great run a few years after that. And have they’ve had some guys end up in the NBA and I made your division one and that’s been fun to follow.

[00:11:11] Mike Klinzing: Did you know that You wanted to play college basketball kind of once you got into hoops, even as you were going through that high school experiences or was it, okay, I got cut as a sophomore.

I’m just focused on, I want to play high school basketball. Where was your mindset at? And then talk a little bit about the decision to go to Kenyon here in the state of Ohio.

[00:11:30] Arlen Galloway: Sure. No, I had very few, I had no thoughts early on. You kind of said it. I was really singularly focused on just contributing to make, first making the team and then trying to contribute and then wanted us to be better and win more.

And I wanted to play in the NEPSEC playoffs and I wanted all these team success things that I saw them have the year before I got there. So for me, it wasn’t really a thought. You know, to be honest, I don’t have a ton of people in my family that, that played college sports and I actually, I didn’t have a concept for how big division three was.

So for me it was after junior year talking to coach a little bit and You know, trying to ask him, Hey, what, just, what should I be doing? And for me, it was more from an angle of, Hey, like I needed a more serious camp. I needed to kind of get out of what I was either build on what I was doing in the summer.

And so he pointed me a couple of directions. And then I ended up at back then all these companies and groups have changed. That I went to a hoop mountain camp, which back then was held at I believe Northfield Mount Hermon. And it was a competitive kind of recruiting style camp for four or five days.

And so that kind of put me in a gym with a lot of other good players and I had to kind of realize, okay where do I stack up? That kind of thing. And I still, that summer, it’s not like I got flooded with recruiting. I all of a sudden got a letter. I mean, this is this was an actual letter in the mail from a small school in Vermont, small state school in Vermont.

And I was floored. I was totally shocked. I didn’t see myself, frankly, as a guy that could play college. So that was not a school that I was interested in for other reasons, but it was kind of a wake up call that, Hey maybe I’ve got a chance maybe I’ve got a chance. And so, so I started to think about it a little bit and more conversations with coach and then college counselor.

In that kind of thing. So that led to a little bit of recruitment. I think I ended up taking really one overnight visit back then. We would never call it an official visit, but now I guess I have to call it I did one visit. At a school and then I didn’t get accepted to that school, which I was surprised by.

But you know, the basketball thing was kind of a piece of my college process, but the recruiting for the very little recruitment I had was very light. So I really had to focus on what do I like as a school? What do I like for location? You know, that kind of thing, if that makes sense. So, and hope that basketball would work out.

What did you think you wanted to do for a career at this point? I had no clue. I had absolutely no clue. I was not I just wasn’t mature enough to think about it. I honestly was just trying to was trying to get better grades and you know, write a good essay for the application and be good in practice.

That’s, I was very, very short, short term goals and thought process. I kind of started to realize what types of classes I liked, what subject matter I liked a little bit more, which was the history classes. I did not excel in math or science and I wasn’t really interested in it. So at least, but I needed I like, like many not my students here, our students come in with very specific ideas for what they want to study, but I needed a general curriculum.

I needed a liberal arts type of atmosphere, academic program.

[00:15:18] Mike Klinzing: So, how does that lead to Kenyon? How do you discover Kenyon for people who aren’t aware of Kenyon here in the state of Ohio? Super high academic school. How do you find it? So,

[00:15:24] Arlen Galloway: You know, went through a process of thinking about just making a school profile of, Hey, what do I want?

With my college counselor and my parents a little bit, and it was kind of really came to smaller schools smaller student population. Liberal arts type of academic curriculum. And… You know, suburban, I was not looking for a city or an urban college experience.

You know, so I, at St. Mark’s is a small school, 320 ish students. And I felt, I felt like I had a really good experience. I think I had a very good kind of development and growth process there. And. I felt like the people I knew, I knew them really well. I thought, I think that was important to me to not be in and every person needs what’s best for them.

I didn’t want to be in a class of a hundred kids like that. So Kenyon got put on the list. So a bunch of, I had a list of schools that kind of fit the criteria. And three were in Ohio or no, sorry, two, two of them were in Ohio. And the funny thing is, I actually deposited, I chose a different school, so I chose a different school.

So, a little bit late in the college process, not too late, but I’d already sent a lot of applications. And then a different teacher, who I had for a number of classes at my high school, came to me and said, Hey, I think you should really look at this school. You’d like it. It was the University of the South in Tennessee, also known as Sewanee.

Sewanee, yep. So I said, okay, sure. You know, fired the common app that way. My dad is from Tennessee originally. We have family there. He’s from outside Knoxville, so. Hey, there’s a familiarity. People down there speak really highly of it. So I got accepted. I didn’t get accepted in some other places that I was interested in.

And like I said, we have family. So, hey, let’s go visit. So after basketball season, during the spring break time, my dad and I made a trip. I went, I went for this accepted student day. And I had an incredible time. I had an incredible time, Mike. I was like, I’m coming here. This place is awesome.

Everybody’s so nice. It’s beautiful. I had had limited contact with the coach, but you know, they just did the visit really well. I stayed in the dorm with some kids and just everybody loved it there. Everybody was like, yeah, you’ll probably make the team. You’ll be fine. No big deal. You know, so I was like, all right, this is great.

I just loved it. And I said, okay, I’m going. And then a couple of weeks later, I got a phone call from, from an admissions officer at Kenyon. And they said, I had been waitlisted. Sorry, I didn’t say that earlier, but I’ve been waitlisted at Kenyon. They called me and said, Hey, are you still interested?

And I said, yeah, yeah, I think so. And he said, okay, well we’re taking you off the waitlist and accepting you and you have 24 hours to let us know. So I went I went and found my coach. I went and found Dave Lubick and I kind of, cause he was the guy that I trusted the most and had the relationship with.

And he happens to be from Chicago. in the Midwest and had really close friends at some point in his life who went to Kenyon and really liked it and he had been there and visited and really liked it. And I just went to him and I just said, Hey, I just got accepted from Kenyon. You know, with Sewanee, I did not have like an official commitment to a coach.

I had told the school I was going, but I didn’t have someone personally that I had told. So coach put his hand on my shoulder. He just looked at me. He said, you’re going to Kenyon. I said, okay. And then honestly, Mike, that was it. I had not, I do, I do, I, that was, I mean, that was, that, that was me, you know You know, rankings aren’t everything and sometimes should are way overblown.

But Kenyon’s ranked in a pretty good place and that looks good for mom and dad. And so, and you know, again, I, and here’s what I do not recommend. I did not visit Kenyon. The first time I stepped foot on campus was moving in freshman year. I was kind of a simple guy. I was going to just make it work, you know?

And I did have some communication with the coach. Very, very, very limited. More like phone tags, to be honest, but he knew my name. And so I said yes. And then that was that.

[00:19:31] Mike Klinzing: What’s the experience like college basketball at Kenyon, the adjustment from high school, just tell me a little bit about your experiences there.

And then we can get into how those experiences I’m assuming led you into thinking that coaching was maybe where you wanted to end up, but talk a little bit about your experience as a player and then how that kind of leads into you getting involved in coaching.

[00:19:50] Arlen Galloway: Yeah, so my high school experience, I might have alluded to this earlier, but my high school experience really, really prepared me.

So the basketball program at that time was not in a great place. And I was just used to working really, really hard and really expecting competition. And I figured that’s what college basketball was like. So I went in in pretty good shape. And in the fall, I worked. out a lot and played pickup and one of my first reactions when I played pickup with the other freshmen and the returning players, I was kind of like, Hey, I can hang like I’m in the mix here.

You know, it wasn’t a huge roster and I just kind of was like, Hey, I think I should be on this team. I think I can, I can be on the team. So that was that was, that was a good feeling, obviously. And then our freshman year was really rough. We did not have a good year at all. And the coach left and the coaching staff left and then they hired a new coach.

And then I played for a guy, Matt Croci who he’s head coach at Wittenberg now. Yes. And you know, so freshman year was, was really rough from, we just, we didn’t have a lot of talent. You know, to be honest, our team needed a higher commitment level. We needed collectively to have a little bit more of a work ethic and a little bit more priority on basketball.

We had some great people on the team. I think we had a lot of guys who basketball was just to, to be really good in college as a team at any level, it doesn’t matter what level, but it really has to be a priority. And I think it kind of fit into people’s lives. But the year round commitment and just the commitment that was needed, I think started to come the next year.

It started to be really enforced and built by, by Matt, by Coach Crocii. So we took a couple steps forward and, and got things moving the right direction in the next couple of years

[00:21:45] Mike Klinzing: years. What is it about that experience at Kenyon that made you kind of think, Hey, coaching might be something…

[00:21:55] Arlen Galloway: Sure.  I didn’t consciously or conscientiously really have this thought back then, but you know, we had a bad team my freshman year. And then in my junior year, we weren’t great either. I mean, we were never, our schedule was pretty tough. That league is great, but you know, we weren’t challenging for NCAA tournament.

And I think what I’m saying is we, wins and losses were not what you dream of. And I still really, really enjoyed the experience.  I still wanted to come back the next day and come back the next year and keep working out and in trying to build the program. So I think that was one thing and, hey, you didn’t win as many games as you want, but I still really enjoyed it.

And so I did not think seriously at all about the college coaching thing until senior year. To be honest, I kind of put off the serious stuff. I did a little. resume work with the place on campus. And then after the season I kind of had an agreement with my parents. I just want to focus on senior year.

I want to focus on senior season. This is the last go around. And after the season, I’ll start to get serious about things. And so I’m probably excited about that. Hey, bought myself some time finally getting a little serious. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the funny thing was back then I’m there in New Hampshire.

I’m all the way in Ohio without a cell phone. So you know, we have a dorm room phone and well senior years as an apartment phone. So. You know, and I was pretty independent. I just didn’t need to at that point you’re a senior and mom and dad trust you and all that stuff. So but yeah, they probably weren’t thrilled when I came home and didn’t have a plan.

So, but I started to think more seriously about it, met with my coach and at the same time I was kind of, yeah, I wasn’t two feet in at first. You know, I think, I think some guys are totally in and then some are trying to dip their toe in the water and that, and that was me.

So I was a political science major. That definitely at times was more focused on hoops than school, but you know, I did enjoy my major. A lot of people who study poli sci go into, go into law school, think about going to law school. There were certainly some people in my program. I have a couple of attorneys in my family, so it was somewhat familiar.

But that was a big commitment. It’s obviously an expensive commitment and I think I made a good decision to not go to law school just as a default. You know, Hey, I didn’t feel passionate about it so I didn’t want to do it. So I went through a job process a little bit. And I honestly, I had a, I mean I developed a plan and I thought it was going to work out really well.

So, so Croce said, Hey, of course I’ll help you try to find something. And he said, if you were to end up around this area we’d love for you to volunteer. Like, Hey, there’s a spot here. If you figure something out. And so I actually applied and I went through this lengthy interview process with this low level entry level Columbus kind of state politics intern aid type position.

And I thought, okay, this, this works. Like I’ll kind of use what I’ve learned a little bit. I’m not a big for being a political science major, really liking it, I’m not really into party politics that much, but hey, I just thought this was sounded like a fit. I can live in Columbus. I can drive to Kenyon via games and practices.

And then kind of at the last minute I got to the final group with that job and it fell through and I, well, it didn’t fall through. I didn’t get it. And that was pretty late. That was right before graduation. So, after graduation I end up back at home on the couch with no plans, and I essentially spent the entire summer you know, sending out hard copy resumes and cover letters to jobs that, I saw posted on ncaa.com and once in a while checking in with my college coach to see if he had heard of anything. So trying to think of if I had one or two division three interview opportunities and then, to be honest, I was also exploring secondary school routes independent school, teaching and coaching jobs and, and I interviewed actually for a couple of those that I probably would have taken.

And I also did not get those jobs. So my first job came about one place that had posted an open assistant job and it was structured as a grad assistant, was Division III, Washington College in Maryland. And I probably sent out 30 plus letters, resumes, cover letters, all that to places that I’d seen, and I think I got two responses.

I think one was a polite, this position is filled, and the other was Rob Nugent at Washington College. Calling me and offering me an interview. And so that was in Maryland. I’m in New Hampshire. And I didn’t quite understand at first some of the lengths you have to go. And he said, well, you have to drive down here and we don’t cover travel for the interview and that kind of thing.

We might be able to find somewhere for you to stay on campus. And I thought about it and kind of politely said, thanks, but no thanks. This was earlier middle of summer and I had some other irons in the fire per se. So then I struck out with stuff, frankly, and I kind of went back to the drawing board and I said maybe that wasn’t a good idea.

Let me call him back. So, I called him back and I said, Hey I changed my mind. If anything is still available, I would be really interested. I’ll make the drop down. I don’t know if I apologized, but I certainly you know, impressed upon him. I was highly interested. And what I didn’t know behind the scene was they actually had two grad assistant positions and another one had just opened and he hadn’t even posted it yet.

And it was just kind of timing, so he felt lucky on his end because he had liked me a month or two before and would have given me an interview then, and now he was probably pulling his hair out because he had to find somebody else, which he didn’t expect late in the summer, and so he said, yeah, sure, you can come down, so I, I drove down.

Stay, they had a little apartment on campus. I stayed there, interviewed with with Rob all day the next day, and then you know, he offered me the position a day or two later, and I took it.

[00:28:09] Mike Klinzing: So you get there, and this is something that… You kind of weren’t, like, again, you hear there’s all different kinds of stories, right, Arlan, where you have dudes who are, man, I’ve been waiting to be a coach since I was six years old and drawing plays on a napkin and all that stuff.

And then you have guys that come to it more like you do, where it’s kind of, you’re playing career ends and you want to be involved in the game or it’s just something that, Hey, this seems like a good opportunity. Let me grab it. So as you get into that first year, do you know right away that, Hey, this is something that I can do?

[00:28:41] Arlen Galloway:   I think it was a little bit of a gradual build, but it, I think it kind of hit me really after my one year at Washington College. So, so that year, so that position I think it’s changed there since then, but at the time almost all of the assistant coach positions at the college were structured as grad assistant positions.

And they had a very small grad program, and so I was taking graduate classes and this was one of the attractions was, like I said, I wanted to be in coaching, but I was kind of one foot in at the time. My, my parents were supportive of it and they were more supportive of it because, hey, you’re still pursuing education.

My parents both completed graduate education and, and were big supporters of, of that. So I was a poli sci major. There was a, history, subject matter, graduate program. And I still in the back of my head thought, maybe, maybe teaching or teaching and coaching could be a future for me. So I saw it as a good opportunity, just a good opportunity to kind of begin graduate school and get experience in coaching.

 So but after that year which was a difficult season for us, which was anticipated we were super, the team was super young and like literally had the 12 freshmen and I think three senior, three seniors and maybe three other returning players. We were so young that the team was really good the year before and they had seven or eight seniors and they had a great team that year.

So it was just a total rebuild. And we won five games, I think. And, and my feeling after the season was that this was really difficult. I had a great time. I, I loved it. You know, I just, I loved it. I loved being at practice. I thought I was getting better in certain areas. You know, for being really young, Rob gave me a lot of responsibility.

I thought I got along with the guys well I just, I felt like I was learning a lot and having a great time. And I loved still having a team and being a part of a team. And I don’t know that I really said anything to anyone, but I think in my mind Hey, if I finish this grad program, cool.

But you know, I think I was really focused on coaching on college coaching at that point.

[00:30:58] Mike Klinzing: So you get an opportunity to go back to your alma mater. How does that happen?

[00:31:00] Arlen Galloway: So I laughed because Matt Croci called me and truth be told, he called me about somebody else. Called me to say hey, not, not to name drop here but he called me and said, hey, I was buddies with Dale.

I’m still friends with Dale Wellman. So I didn’t mention this. Dale was, I know he’s been on your podcast. Dale was our assistant coach my freshman year at Kenyon. So he was young, kind of early on in his coaching career. So he was with us my freshman year. Then he left when the head coach left.

And then when I got that, when I got into coaching, when I was hired at Washington college, I was Rob Nugent, my head coach had been at Williams previously. So he and Dale were in the Williams kind of coaching tree. So he reconnected with me. He reached out to me and just said, Hey, you know been a few years, but like to connect and be in touch and that kind of thing.

So anyways, so he was at Williams. Matt Croci called me and said, Hey, do you have any idea if Dale would be interested? And I said, I don’t think so. I think Dale’s pretty set at Williams. And I said, but I’m kind of interested. And Croci thought I was kind of locked in for another year. So we talked and it was a good fit and went from there.

And that was, that was a difficult decision that the grad program was structured to be two years. You know, I didn’t sign anything. There was no formal commitment. The Kenyan job was full time back then. It was a full time assistant job. Not a super high salary, but you know, really low cost of living in central Ohio.

And I still had that tug a little bit of alma mater of my college coach and alma mater, and it’s still, still kind of had a close relationships there. So, like I said, I wasn’t thinking as much about grad school at that point in time. So. So it seemed like a good fit and we went that direction.

What was it like working for somebody that you played for?

[00:33:03] Mike Klinzing: What was it like working for somebody that you played for?

[00:33:04] Arlen Galloway: It was it was great. We had a good relationship when I played and you know, that of course continued and of course I got to be a part of some of the conversations that you don’t get to see as players and back in the office and, and that kind of thing. And then those conversations are, a lot of them are about some of my friends. I mean, the older guys on the team at Kenny when I went back, were guys I played with and were friends with in college. And that dynamic was hard at times. Certainly it was hard because they knew me as more than a coach.

So I had to be good in terms of trying to walk that line and they were, and they realized they knew, hey, I wanted to coach and. But working for Croci was great. It was great. And so I was there two years with him and very close to this day.

[00:34:05] Mike Klinzing: You had an opportunity at Middlebury for two years before you go to Cornell. Talk about those two stops, what you learned as. An assistant coach at those two places that eventually led to the opportunity that you got at Wentworth?

[00:34:20] Arlen Galloway: Sure. You know, I thought one thing I did really well when I was young and an assistant you know, a couple things was be really pretty honest and a lot of this happens just as you network.

I did a pretty good job, like a lot of guys. You know, in the summer after Washington College, I was out at camps. I was at hoop group a lot. And I just kind of got out there and jumped in the car and threw a bag in there and went wherever I could go and, and start to meet people and, and connect a little bit and the camp scene was fun I just thought it was fun to make a little bit of money and hang out with a bunch of guys your age who were in the same on the same path I’m trying to make it in coaching. And I enjoyed that. And through that you start to just look around and see where guys get jobs. I thought I did a really good job of paying attention to the market and being really honest with myself.

As a guy that don’t have family coaching connections, I wasn’t a great player. In just understanding that I think you’ve got to really work hard and be, of course, be loyal and do the best job in your job where you are. But I think at the same time, you also, you really have to, not to use the word selfish, but I think you really have to look for opportunities because it’s a really competitive saturated industry.

And I think I did a pretty good job of that. And so. Kenyon, I think on the resume was good and it was a great experience. You know Matt was coach of the year, one of the years there. We finished fourth in the NCAC, one year regular season, which was the highest in a long, long time. And then we finished fifth or sixth the next year, but we won a conference tournament game at Wittenberg.

first time also that that had happened in a long, long time. So we had some, some pretty good years, but anyways, I think it I think I was pretty good at looking around, at trying to pay attention and being from New England Middlebury’s in the conference, the nescac which is really a national level group of schools academically and athletically.

And I just saw a lot of people, frankly, getting jobs from that league. If that made sense. You know, look, I just started to think that if I could get to that league as an assistant, that could really help me. in you know, in progressing as, as a college coach. So I had got out there. I had honestly, again, through just connection with Dale Wellman, I’d worked Williams Camp.

They used to run a big, big summer elite camp. I actually had an interview with their head coach at, at one point, and then another candidate was, was hired. And then shortly after, I honestly can’t remember if it was the next summer or if it was that summer, but the Middlebury assistant job was open and I pursued it and was able to get an interview with Jeff Brown and was offered that opportunity and I’d been at Kenyon two years.

And I just felt like it was, it was a a really good move. So I don’t know if that, if that answers your question, but you know, I was so fortunate. I get to Middlebury. The team is loaded. It’d be great. Just as a college their, their athletic success broadly in so many sports is, is so impressive and it’s just a really impressive place in terms of the athletic culture.

I think in the student body and the alumni so that was part of it, but our team was really, really good. And so after my first, to try to answer your question a little bit better, after my first year. At Middlebury we went to the NCAA tournament. We lost in the second round. We lost in the NESCAC final.

And we were very, very good. I think we were 20 something, 24-4 or something along those lines. And I had a couple of opportunities after that year. One was a volunteer assistant job at a different Ivy League school. And one was a second assistant job at a Division II school. And I considered both.

And I said, no I don’t know if that was the right decision. It’s really hard to play right and wrong with these, right? Because you don’t know exactly the result. But we were returning everyone but one guy in our rotation at Middlebury. We had just… Then top 25, we returned everyone in a winning, winning is fun.

We just had great people on our team. Working for coach Brown is a great experience. And so I went back for year two. And then we were even better. We went 28 and two, we beat Williams at Williams and the NASCAC final. We went to the National Final Four for the first time in school history and we lost a close game to St.Thomas and hey won the national championship that year. So that’s one thing that happened that kind of made me realize how difficult this is. Was we had a fantastic year in 202 and end to end great team part or two losses One was to Williams in the regular season We didn’t have our best player and then one was to St.Thomas who won the national championship, you know final d3 poll We were third in the country. I mean it doesn’t get a lot better than that, you know So we had a fantastic year and I thought I’d kind of made some good pro you know a couple worked a couple different places and there was a state school in Vermont Smaller school that had a head coach opening.

And so I kind of thought, hey, I think I have enough of a resume. I wasn’t delusional to think, oh, I’m, I’m a shoe in for this position. By no means. But I thought maybe, especially being in state and with the success of the program I had, maybe I can maybe get involved and have some interview experience.

You know, get a phone interview and that kind of thing. And I didn’t, I didn’t hear at all. I applied. And just kind of thought, Hey, I think the program that I was pursuing had been, had been not very successful and I didn’t hear anything. And so that I think was a little bit of a wake up call of, Hey it’s just so difficult and really have to try to build your resume, build your experience in working for different people is a great thing.

And working at different schools and, and honestly connecting. As you move along and you meet other coaches, other administrators, like those relationships and connections can be so, so valuable. So I kind of realized through that, hey, I might have to keep going. And then Cornell opportunity opened. I went through that process and I said, okay maybe I need to try to try to get to the Ivy league. And I was fortunate that was late, that was kind of late in the summer, but I was fortunate to be offered that opportunity.

[00:41:11] Mike Klinzing: What was the difference from coaching at the division three level to coaching at the division one level at Cornell?

What were some of the things that you kind of had to adjust to?

[00:41:22] Arlen Galloway: I think the biggest difference as a, I mean, at Middlebury, the school as a Kenyan to some degree, but there’s some national draw there, but we didn’t really have at the time of a big budget at Middlebury to really go nationally, if that makes sense.

Camps that attract the kids from different parts of the country, and there’s kids coming to visit. That’s kind of how you would do that. But at Cornell, we really recruited nationally. We had the budget, you know so, so all of a sudden, just the recruiting footprint is, is all over the country and kids from California, kids from Texas all over the place.

So that’s a good experience. You know, I think the biggest difference is it, it really, you It’s, there are some quiet periods, but Division One and Ivy League, even it’s much more of an almost year round experience in terms of in the gym with coaches. You know, if that makes sense. So division three, you just don’t have you know, structured time with the players or players with the coaches as much.

So that’s a big difference. And I wanted that. I wanted more work in the gym. I wanted division three, you come up your time is really team practice and team development and you are division one. There’s your workouts, small group workouts, one on one workouts. And that was something I didn’t have a lot of experience in.

So it was really good for me to do that. When you think

[00:42:49] Mike Klinzing: When you think about your time there and you go through and just consider all the responsibilities that you had and the things that you were able to learn as part of that, what stands out for you as probably the biggest takeaway from your time at Cornell?

[00:43:05] Arlen Galloway: My biggest takeaway it’s a good question.

I mean, I thought I think the basketball world is really, really big and I thought that put me in just helped me realize that. I think I’d been, of course, Ohio for a couple of years, but the East Coast really After that, and it really you know, our head coach, Bill Courtney, who was a great division one player and worked for Jim Larranaga for a long time and, and his kind of getting into a, a different coaching network and his coaching experience, his playing experience overseas, but just being exposed a little bit to the higher levels of, College basketball of division one and learning a lot about it was a, was a really good exposure.

It was really good experience. You know, and then we’re traveling all over the country for non league games. We played a lot of a lot of big TV games at two years there. And that was really good experience. And I think, I think you realize, Hey, basketball is basketball. But you move up levels and then there’s so many other parts of the job.

Like the end, the other parts take up more of your time, to be honest. So obviously there’s just more in terms of there’s more recruiting and people that need your time as a head coach. Obviously there’s like a booster club and there’s appearances and there’s stuff like that, and you’ve got to be all kind of connected as a staff and the schedule and all of that.

So that is also another part is when I was at Kenyon, I was a full time assistant. We had kind of a volunteer, I was at Middlebury. Again, not quite a full time assistant in terms of how it was structured, but I committed myself full time and we had a volunteer. And then at Cornell, I go there and, Hey, you’re part of a staff.

So it’s more people to learn from, to connect with and it’s more of a dynamic I’m going in kind of as the third assistant and those relationships and connections certainly help just as much as, as working for the head coach. So there was a lot it just kind of became a bigger, bigger world and there was a lot more to it to some degree.

You know, the coaching is coaching, but at division three, it’s a little more focused in certain areas. And then division one, there’s just more you have to handle.

[00:45:30] Mike Klinzing: So at some point during your tenure at Cornell, there has to be in your mind at least sort of these two paths that you can take, right?

Because now you’re at Cornell, it’s division one school, you’re in the Ivy league. You’re probably years away if you stay on that track of getting an opportunity to be a head coach, but certainly there was an opportunity based on your resume and the success that you had for you to be able to move up a chair or two at Cornell eventually, or to move to another school and be able to.

Continue to climb that assistance ladder with the idea that you could stay in Division One or with your experience at the Division Three level, and you had already started thinking about applying for those head coaching jobs back when you were at Middlebury, was the job at Wentworth one that, okay, this job opens up and let me see what happens, and I could be happy going in either path?

Or after those two years, did it kind of become clear to you that you wanted to go to Division Three? Just what were you thinking during that time?

[00:46:29] Arlen Galloway: Yeah, it was to be honest, it was… Hey, this is interesting and I want to explore it a little bit. And see if it might be a fit. So you know, I was open to both directions.

I certainly know, and learned of course, a lot more of the, the division one financial upside and certainly how much a couple of years, all of a sudden you can go from one job and be totally, and a lot of, a lot of it is network. And if you’re an assistant coach, does your head coach get another job get offered a job or a promotion?

So I was open minded you know, back, I think they changed it, but back then the third assistant job in the Ivy league was. They restricted earnings or really no salary job and each school tried to kind of help out or make it work. You know, I was paid through some camp funds and then would kind of find some other ways just to survive, but it was really a stepping stone job.

And I think between my two years at Middlebury to taking a Cornell job, I was starting to, because of just working these Ivy League prospect camps, meet more people. and learn a little bit about that because I was trying to figure out what was the next step when I was at Middlebury. So, it’s a funny dynamic because you’re there and you don’t want to root for your friends, the other assistants to leave.

But in a way, if they leave, that’s your easiest path to a more stable coaching situation at that level, if that makes sense. So I was open to you know, I interviewed at for third Assistant and director of Operation Jobs with a couple of division one colleges and programs. And then I was also trying to look at Open Division three opportunities.

And in my head when I went into Cornell, I kind of had a two year clock. I didn’t think it made a lot of sense. I don’t know if, if I had not got the one work job, I don’t know what I was hired in July. Maybe some stuff would’ve happened later, but. It was a little bit of, hey, I’ve been here two years, I’m 29 years old, and it’s very, very simple.

I need to figure something out. I want to stay in coaching. And like you said, I had a lot of Division III experience. I had a little Division I. And Wentworth, there’s some great things about Wentworth. When at first, When I first learned about it, I didn’t know a lot, but when you really, when I really dove into it especially location, location, location, location, it offered so much.

So I went through the whole process and here I am.  

[00:49:14] Mike Klinzing: So obviously Boston is a big draw, but what else about the school made it one that you felt like was attractive someplace that you could build the type of program that you kind of envisioned?

[00:49:24] Arlen Galloway: Well, I think for one, the school Still had, at that time, you could see an upward trajectory, kind of a positive path for the college, for the university.

And that has continued and is continuing. So, I think just the growth of Wentworth was attractive. So, at that time, it was clear that the athletic department was continuing to build a little bit, and I’ve been here 10 years now. And when I was hired in 2013, you still had a lot of part time head coaches.

Men’s basketball was, men’s basketball and women’s basketball were full time, as well as a few others. But we have made a lot of those part time head coaches into full time positions. We have added a lot of sports, we’ve added a few sports, I think three, maybe four. So, just upside, upside was a big part of it.

Location was a big part of it. Comfort and familiarity with the New England area. Certainly was Hey, I said location, but I spent most of my twenties living in a really small towns great places, really small towns. And all my close friends lived in Boston, New York, or Washington DC.

And anytime I had a weekend, I would hit one of those places and hang out, sleep on the couch and visit my friends. So getting close to 30 and an opportunity to be in the Boston area and see a little bit of what I was made of. Being a head coach was definitely an attractive opportunity.

And at the back, the last thing, sorry, I should say my background and I think my upbringing a little bit I think I felt comfortable somewhere where the academic piece was important and that is the case at Wentworth. It’s a very good school and our students. Care about school. And I think while my college experience was very different in terms of location and type of college I just think just school being important, very important to our students and their families was a good fit for me.

[00:51:36] Mike Klinzing: Looking back over your 10 years, when you think about those first few months on the job and kind of what you were thinking about, if you can remember back that far, but thinking about what you felt like you needed to do to be able to build the program compared to When you sit here today and think about what it was that actually was most important, how do those two things compare?

Did you, were you, did you, did you have it right as you were thinking about what it was going to take or did you have it wrong and you ended up having to do something different? Just how do you think about the success that you’ve had and what? Led to you being able to build the program that you have.

[00:52:13] Arlen Galloway: Sure. No, there’s not much overlap, frankly. I had a lot of thoughts back then and, and I think a lot of them are, are different now, but you know, I think I learned a lot. And I think I really approached the first year with an understanding that while I was from New England, Middlebury is way up there.

And I knew that conference well, but. The, our whole world here, our league and a lot of the other schools in Boston city and just the greater area I didn’t know the ins and outs yet. So I knew going in, I was going to have to figure a lot of things out and I was fine that my first year, Hey, let’s make a bunch of mistakes.

Let’s try to make a lot of and, and I meant that in terms of. My recruit I think the things that carried over are, I knew recruiting is going to be super, super important. And I really threw myself into that right away. And then and then part two, obvious one is, Hey, you got to build some relationships and have really strong relationships.

That doesn’t matter where you are. And then a lot of the other stuff has probably, probably changed. Right. But and our school, our school has changed. A little bit, a little bit too. So we’ve got to stay on your toes and make some adjustments. But yeah, I tried to go in open minded and my recruiting approach was really, we’re going to try to recruit anyone we know about just anyone and everyone.

I want a lot, I want honestly to just lose a lot of recruiting battles. I want to figure out who do we lose to? Why do we lose to those places? You know, from a perspective, family and student perspective, where do we not quite what’s the difference when we’re in the final group and be able to kind of hear from people.

So I really just wanted to be broad and cast a huge net in recruiting. And try to learn, try to figure some things out and learn a little bit about how things would go. And then make some adjustments moving forward.

[00:54:22] Mike Klinzing: Would you learn? What were some of the things that maybe early mistakes that you made in terms of recruiting and who you thought you could get in with?  What did that look like?

[00:54:29] Arlen Galloway: I think as the season went on and the year went on, I think one thing I think I focused too much on recruiting during our season and at other times, I think I was constantly always. Trying to figure out how were we going to practice and I was going to get in the car and deal with Boston traffic and get to a high school game.

And I think I just really learned that you gotta be able to focus on the players in your program. Most important people are the kids in your program. They’re already there. That kid playing at that school, he shouldn’t, he doesn’t measure up he’s not in the program yet. Really at times have to just strip it down.

The most important people are the kids in the program. So I think I was trying to… coach and recruit at times and was my attention was a little too divided. So so I think that was a bit paranoia is a strong word, but I’ve just tried a little. Again, trying to have a presence early and get out early and be all over the place and looking back probably wasted some time.

Now in recruiting, you’re always going to spend some time that doesn’t pan out. That’s how it is, you know but I think, I think because of doing some of that early was able to kind of refine our approach and be smarter and more efficient I think in recruiting, I just really wanted to learn from our players what made them choose Wentworth and what did they love about their experience and going to college in Boston.

You know, like I said earlier, myself as a 17 or 18 year old kid, I had no interest in being in the city. But there’s 200,000 college kids in Boston. Clearly there’s something here. They’re having a pretty good time. Boston is obviously a huge sports town. So I just needed to learn the best ways to market and sell the experience here, the school.

The first thing I did when I got on campus was walk to admissions and take the admissions tour. I make every assistant I ever hired do that. First week they’re here, you need to go to admissions, take the tour, hear from the student who’s walking you around, what life is like. Look at some of the places that you wouldn’t as an assistant coach, hey, you want to go to the gym, you want to go to the office, do coaching, do some X’s and O’s and that kind of thing.

You go learn about the school. So when you’re talking to students and families, you can really articulate the strengths of this place. That’s was my approach back then. I think that was a pretty good, pretty good mindset back then.

[00:57:06] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. What about as a head coach being comfortable in your own skin?

Do you feel like right away you kind of had a feel for who you were as a coach or do you feel like again, that was more of something that a year, two years, three years in where you really started to get a grasp on what you wanted to do and who you wanted to be as a head coach?

[00:57:30] Arlen Galloway: Yeah, I think it’s always a process.  I certainly, in some ways, yes, I had some comfort, but I definitely lacked some conviction in certain areas. I definitely and that developed that developed and just in terms of how, how certain things in the program need to go rom practice, even playing style, managing roster and players and player relationship and dynamics.

The biggest challenge for me was just. encountering I would call it decision fatigue as a head coach just the amount of many, many of them small, but the day to day decisions that have to be made just to run the program and players, assistant coaches coming to you in terms of what are we doing with this?

What is the plan for this? And just having a hard time having a little bit of stress over all of that. And then, and now, and then you learn from that now it’s, it’s pretty easy. I know when I want the bus to leave, I know if we’re going to, we’re going to walk through, we’re going to shoot around.

How long is that going to be? And so many other things that as an assistant coach, I didn’t run through my head. Now I think I worked for all head coaches. Have really had a good idea for what they want and maybe I took it for granted that that decision was already made or seemed easy if that makes sense and then when it’s your decision, it does when it’s your decision and It’s your school and sometimes things can be different.

It’s your players and all of a sudden It’s you know, you can get a little stressed. So  that was that was a certain certainly a learning experience.

[00:59:12] Mike Klinzing: Do you delegate more of those decisions? Is it easier to delegate today than it was back when you first started?

[00:59:19] Arlen Galloway: Yeah, delegating and dividing responsibility is definitely a little bit easier now.

I think with a lot of those decisions, with experience now, I know hey, when I look at the schedule, whatever it is, if it’s a schedule conflict, if it’s a game day routine, game day travel, home game routine, all of that stuff, just from experience I think it’s just so much easier.

Sometimes you do something, you learn it doesn’t work, okay, you make a fix. Then that’s easier. Delegation definitely is. Yeah, I think that’s a really good question ’cause you’re making me think back and I think my first year I tried to take on too much. I tried to do too much and you’ve gotta have a great staff.

We have a fantastic staff and we’ve been really lucky to have really, really committed, hardworking, good people who are willing to go above and beyond. And I think we have two assistants who have been with us for six or seven years now, and I feel fortunate that we’ve had so much longevity with them.

[01:00:25] Mike Klinzing: How did you build your style of play in terms of the way you wanted your team to look out on the floor? You can take that offensively, defensively, both, however you want to look at it. But just how did you, when you started to think about what you wanted your teams to look like, how did you build that out?

[01:00:42] Arlen Galloway: So with the head coaches I work for at Washington College, Rob Nugent, Coach Nugent, who unfortunately is not Coaching College anymore. I believe he’s back in the high school game out in Tanna. But Rob was a die hard triangle offense aficionado and Tex Winter disciple. He was, so he was a system guy.

He had his system and there was… There was no discussion ever about doing anything different. This was what we did. This was Washington College basketball. And then so it was, so that’s a really good experience to see. And then the other coaches I worked for were more strength fit more strength based in their approach, trying to build their system around.

That was really the approach that I took when I came in here was trying to, I had an idea just for some things that I liked and felt comfortable teaching. And then after year one, we changed some things and we had a, I’d say a style of play for a few years. And I think it was. You know, a lot of offseason learning for me and just try again, year one, trying to figure out where are we going to recruit from, what are the types of players we can get and want to get that fit here in just trying to look big picture and decide on some things that, that I was comfortable with, that I liked and that fit or likely roster in, then we’ve been so we, for some years we were really, really strong and good defensively, And that was where we kind of built our identity and then it’s adjusted, changed a little bit over there.

So I think a lot of it also is just experience and paying attention to trends, but also your conference and what is successful in your league. And we have been fortunate to have a really great run of good inside players and post players here. So That’s something that’s always been an important piece of what we’ve done is simply post play.

But we’ve had to make some adjustments year to year a little bit just with just what are, what are the other aspects of our offense. So, so a little bit of it is experience here as a head coach.

[01:03:00] Mike Klinzing: What’s the process for taking your system and the way you like to play and looking from one season to the next sort of the tweaks that you’re going to make, obviously you’re looking at personnel, but just what’s the process?

Are you sitting down first by yourself, kind of come up with ideas or you sit down with your assistant coaches? Are you watching film and breaking things down? Just how do you go about thinking about the things that you may want to tweak or change from year to year>

[01:03:28] Arlen Galloway: I think one part of that is during the season, encountering certain challenges or realizing that we’re a little weak in a certain area where we don’t have within our package, within our system you know, a way to use a certain type of player or anything.

And I think I’ve honestly just taken some notes during the season because. And once you get into the throes of January, February, I mean, you don’t have a ton of practice time always. Conference play kind of comes at you pretty fast and installing something that they the one day between a game or something like that, pretty hard.

So just for me kind of keeping track through the season of, hey, what’s something we need to go back and look at? And then in the off season, really just diving into our film and also our statistics. Also trying to have somewhat of a data based approach to I think we can all have our own coaching bias.

And I think taking some time off after the season from thinking about this stuff and then coming back to it. You know, we’re moving at some time. Then in there and then going back to watching film, sometimes you have a different reaction. You’re saying, I don’t even remember that we did that.

Yeah. We tried that. So true. And hey, I mean, it, it, and part of it is a study of your players. So I mentioned we’ve had a few pretty good post players and we had one who had a this is years ago and I was really mad at myself. I, there’s been times where I watch and I realize. And Synergy can help with this now because you can click on I want to watch every guy’s pick and roll or I want to watch every guy’s full screen use and you can run it like that. But I’m just watching film and realizing that this big guy that we have for a right handed guy actually prefers to go over his right shoulder. A ton of right handed guys like to turn left shoulder, right?

So, Just really mad at myself that I, I didn’t, I just didn’t pick up on that that much. And that certainly should be a factor in what block we put them on and what way we run certain things. And so I think a big part of it is just your summer evaluation through, through film, through a lot of film.

And combining that, of course, with we all love to watch film and check out other programs and try to think creatively about. What can we add? What do we need to drop? How can we adjust what we do? So I think it’s mostly an off season process, but for me a lot of times it’s realizing getting to this conference opponent and Something specific that they do I don’t know make it be whatever Fronting the post or doing this or how they guard based on out of bounds and us not really having an answer at that point in time Right.

So realizing, hey, okay, we need to in our, in our preseason and our weeks where we really have a lot of practice and we’re building our system and enforcing habits we need to have an answer for this stuff. So I think that is one thing we’ve done a pretty good job of. What have you done with your eight days?

We use six and we save two. So one we just put on October 14th, which is a Saturday. A lot of gym time on Saturday. So we used, we essentially started the day early and then we used five in late September. So we went on Monday, Tuesday, and then on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And a lot of that was due to gym schedule, but I just liked how it worked out for us.

I liked just having the experience, especially for a new guys of having to go one day and then come right back in the gym the next day and carry over something you learned because you could go ahead, you could go Tuesday, Thursday or Monday, Wednesday for three weeks or four weeks or whatever you want.

I just kind of like putting them together to be honest.

[01:07:24] Mike Klinzing: Do you feel like you’re going to do that same thing again next year because you felt like it worked well?

[01:07:29] Arlen Galloway: Yeah, I think, I mean, if we did the same thing next year, I think I feel okay with it. I think I want to look at the calendar a little bit more, but you know, we, we start school the Thursday after Labor Day here.

That’s later, a little bit later than most places. So Labor Day weekend is kind of move in and then we didn’t do anything as a team except for meat. For the first couple of weeks, I think we just kind of let our guys get moved in, get their feet on the ground get our freshmen kind of move in the right direction and paperwork done and all that stuff.

And then we got to get in the gym. And I thought, and then we stayed away from the long weekend in October and let the kids all kind of go home have that break before we really start the season. So I would try to do something probably similar. You know, we really talked as a program that One of the goals of this is to help improve the time when there aren’t coaches, when you’re in the gym and the coach isn’t there.

Let’s try to improve your captain’s practices, your pickup games by adding a little bit of structure and some concepts that you need to think about. Instead of having a month and a half of pickup games where we’re hopefully we’re using some team concepts and habits, but, you know.

Hopefully, right? Oh, hopefully, right. I think generally there’s some, but definitely not the level that some coaches would like if we if we watched, which we don’t, but yeah, we got to kind of get those practices in and say, Hey, you guys are going to have some chances to be in the gym be, be intentional, be intentional and organized with what you’re doing, run the basic structure of the offense and try to really have some discipline with certain things because you’re going to be held accountable for those things in three or four weeks.

What about the two days that you saved? Really the, the plan there is just to try to jumpstart a player development process. You know, I’m really thankful, happy to have those days. You know, I always feel kind of weird just having a talk with a guy about me to get better at ABC and here are some drills or here’s how you can do that, but not actually be able to go in the gym.

Right. And I don’t you feel like. Really, what’s, what’s the downside? You know, why, why shouldn’t we be able to do that? So really take a lot of pride and we’re really committed to an improvement and player development process. And we’re really proud of a lot of the guys who have come through the program who have not really got, simply got a lot of playing time, not really been high impact players at first, and have grown into really high impact and selling all conference players.

And… So I think that can help us with that. And I just think that’s at the core of how we run the program and communicate to our guys. You know, recruiting is of course, super, super important, but we just, we really impressed emphasize the importance of them improving themselves and their opportunity to get better.

And we just really use a lot of examples of guys who have come through the program and so I think those days can help us with that even more.

[01:10:53] Mike Klinzing: I really think that a number of guys that we’ve talked to, Arlan, about just how they’re going to use their days. I really think that being able to have a couple of those days at the end of the season, as you said, to Really go through with guys and be like, okay, here’s what we want you to work on.

Let’s actually get out on the court and show you what that looks like. I think that’s a really good way to head into your offseason and give your guys some concrete things that they can work on because we can all sit in a coach’s office and talk about it. I think being able to actually see it on the floor and clearly, I’m sure there’s things that you’ve talked with your players about.

During the season about them improving and getting better, but just to kind of be able to put a bow on it, so to speak, at the end of the season and, and really send them off in a positive way to me. I mean, that makes, makes a ton of sense. I want to wrap up asking you one final two part questions. So part one.

When you think about the next year or two ahead of you, what do you see as being the biggest challenge? And then the second part of the question is when you think about what you get to do every day, your biggest joy. So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy.

[01:11:57] Arlen Galloway: If it were acceptable, which it’s not, to steal word for word someone else who’s been on your podcast, I would just.

What Jeff Juron said about commitment to family and balancing out a commitment to program, but I don’t want to do that. So I think my answer in terms of biggest challenge for us, for our program is achieving consistency, greater consistency. So we’ve had some pretty good seasons last year. We consider very good season here.

But we’ve also had some not so good seasons. And I think for us, it’s trying to not get ahead of ourselves, not really rest on what happened in a previous year, but have more consistency, build more consistency as a program, because if you can string together. A bunch of really good years and you have a better chance of breaking through those years, right?

So I think for us that’s it. I think that’s really, it is, is being consistently more competitive and in our conference, which is really, really strong in division three. And your biggest joy. Yeah. Biggest joy. You know, I think I’ve been here 10 years now. I feel a little bit like kind of entering the next phase here.

And by, by that, I mean that You know, we have 10 years of alums and most of them, a lot of, not most of them, but a lot of them live in the greater Boston area. Some of them live in Boston and it’s, it’s a little bit different than if you like, say we’re Kenyon, Hey, maybe you get, if you’re a coach, you maybe get alums back once a year for alumni day, maybe.

Our guys who are around still drop in on Wednesday night conference game, want to catch up after and hang out. So it’s been fun just to see them a little bit more. We have our alumni scrimmage on Saturday, so that’s our current team versus an alumni team. And the odds might be in the alumni team favor, quite frankly.

So just what I’m trying to say is. It’s kind of seeing their growth and development now as people. I was at alumni wedding two weekends ago and I missed one in the summer and that killed me. It was really, really hard. I think as a coach, you think you’re going to be able to go to all this stuff and I have my own family and you can’t and you want to be able to be there for these big moments.

But just being able to kind of watch them grow and develop job promotions, couple of our guys buying houses. Marriages, babies, that kind of thing, just all of that going on and having really good feelings about this experience being an important part of their life. And then at the same time, still being able to be here and coach and develop kind of the next wave of our basketball alums.

Excitement to coach another year. So I think that’s just, that’s a joy. That’s a joy is that our alumni group is loyal and around and it’s just fun to see them. And the big thing here is our commitment as a college to career preparation and job placement and all that. And so all of our guys are pretty early on connected with the alumni who studied the same programs.

That’s kind of a big thing. We have a lot of seniors who typically have job offers signed and committed to like January, something like that. So that’s kind of the joy. That’s the joy is just seeing everybody succeed after their time here while continuing to coach a new group.

[01:15:37] Mike Klinzing: That’s well said. I mean, I always say that getting an opportunity to have an impact on the players that you coach and use the game of basketball to be able to do that. And then obviously for you to feel that by the wedding invites and the, the jobs and the babies and all the things that go along with that.

I mean, it just is, that’s really what it’s all about. You did a really good job of articulating that. Before we wrap up, I want to give you a chance to share how people can get in contact with you, find out more about you and your program. So, you want to share website, social media, email, whatever you feel comfortable with.

And after you do that, I will jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:16:17] Arlen Galloway: Okay. Awesome. My email is GallowayA@wit.edu. So that’s last name, first initial. My cell phone is 603-479-0151. Our program social media, both Instagram and Twitter is the same handle. It’s @witmbb

No spaces. We have a decent amount of activity on Instagram. Not as much on Twitter these days, but yeah, follow our program, reach out to me anytime. The one thing I’ll say you probably have kind of a national reach in terms of your podcast, but the one of the things I should have mentioned earlier that really helped me grow as a coach.

And I’m fortunate. This is, I think this is a great benefit. I hadn’t thought about originally of coaching here is there’s so many colleges and universities here, and I can go to practice, I can walk down the street and go to practice at Northeastern and watch Bill Cohen run practice, who’s a great coach.

So there, there’s so many resources out there, obviously to learn and improve, but I think one of the best is go to practices. If you’re a youth coach, go to high school. If you’re a high school, go to college. Really make, make that effort. Take that time. That has been a huge thing for me.

[01:17:39] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, that’s a great opportunity, especially when you’re close, as you said, that you don’t have to get in the car and drive miles and miles and miles to be able to go and watch a college practice.

And clearly for any coach, I don’t care what level you’re at, to be able to go and watch another team’s practice, it’s always, I think, invaluable to be able to pick up things just in terms of, Hey, maybe you pick up a drill, but I think more importantly, just like how do guys pace their practices. How do we go from and transitioning from this to that?

And what are the roles like for different coaching staffs? And obviously you go see a big division one school and there’s lots of people that are there and have roles. And then you can go watch a division three practice or a high school practice and you get a different feel. And so I think it’s valuable, no matter what level you’re at, to be able to go and learn from, from other coaches, because again, we all kind of get I don’t want to say necessarily stuck, but we have the things that we do and the way we do it.

And I think just to be exposed sometimes gets you to think. And even if you don’t end up necessarily doing a wholesale change, I think there are sometimes just little tweaks or little things that you can pick up that can make a really big difference in what you do. So I think that was a great reminder for coaches that are in the audience of, Hey, if you get an opportunity to go out and watch a practice from another school, do it.

Because I think there’s just a tremendous amount that can be learned from it.

[01:18:57] Arlen Galloway: Yeah, absolutely.

[01:18:59] Mike Klinzing: All right, Arlen, I want to say thanks to you for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to jump out with us. Really appreciate it. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.  Thanks.