KELLY FLYNN – FORMER SOUTH SIOUX CITY & FREMONT (NE) HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS’ BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 894

Website – https://nebhalloffame.org/kelly-flynn-south-sioux-city/

Email – kelly.flynn@fpsmail.org

Twitter – @FHSTigerGBB @SSCLadyCards

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Kelly Flynn built a girls basketball dynasty at South Sioux City, ruling Class B for more than a decade, winning 11 state championships – 10 in the 11 years from 1995 to 2005. The Cardinals finished second in 1999. Flynn coached at South Sioux City for 27 years, piling up 508 career wins and 17 state tournament appearances. The Cardinals were nationally ranked for eight years, earning a No. 1 ranking in USA Today in 2001. Flynn was named national Coach of the Year in 2012 and was a national Coach of the Year runner-up in 2003. He coached in the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association All-American Game in 2003 in Atlanta and the McDonald’s All-American Game in 2005 in Indiana.

Flynn finished his career at Fremont High School where he guided the Tigers to 98 wins and the school’s first Class A championship in 2022. Flynn became the sixth girls coach in Nebraska to reach the 600 win mark, finishing with 606 victories.

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Be prepared with a notebook and pen as you listen to this episode with Kelly Flynn, Nebraska High School Hall of Famer and former Girls Basketball Head Coach at South Sioux City and Fremont High Schools.

What We Discuss with Kelly Flynn

• Growing up in South Dakota watching his brother excel in basketball and falling in love with the game
• The demise of outdoor basketball
• The moment he knew that he wanted to be a coach
• Summer basketball in Nebraska
• The 200 hour club he started with his teams in South Sioux City
• Taking the girls head coaching job after having been a boys’ assistant to start his career
• “I took as one of the bigger compliments when people would say those girls play just like the guys And we’d say we take that as a compliment because that’s the style we want to play.”
• “The price of greatness and sacrifice”
• The characteristics of a good assistant coach
• Dividing responsibilities among assistant coaches at a pre-season meeting
• Practice planning and preparation
• Balancing the teams in practice
• “Sometimes the younger ones, I think, feel like not necessarily entitled, but that, when they get to be the juniors and seniors, it’s going to be that same way. And they maybe didn’t realize how much time and how dedicated that group ahead of them was.”
• “I think you start getting confident when you do win games And it makes it a lot more fun. Come and practice when each of the levels are successful.”
• Getting coaches from all levels of your program on the same page philosophically
• “The faster you run with the basketball, the more opportunities you’re going to turn it over. But you have to realize how many more opportunities you’re going to get.”
• Focusing on the fundamentals and always looking for an opportunity to coach your players
• “Instead of trying to have a ton of different drills, try to find drills that are really part of your philosophy and good for your program and then perfect those drills.”
• “It’s not like all year long you have to keep coming up with new drills, new drills, new drills, new drills. You can perfect the ones that you got.”
• Posting your practice plan for players to see
• “If you can put some time into the feeder program and the youth it pays huge dividends.”
• Involving the team in the community through charity works
• Open and up front communication with parents
• “I never liked being yelled at, and we tried not to yell at them.”
• “Let players know that you’re willing to stick around after practice and work with them if they want to.”
• Being a part of your players’ lives by attending their other activities
• “I think probably one of the greatest rewards as a coach is seeing some of your former players go on to be successful.”

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THANKS, KELLY FLYNN

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TRANSCRIPT FOR KELLY FLYNN – FORMER SOUTH SIOUX CITY & FREMONT (NE) HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS’ BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 894

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight. And we are pleased to welcome Kelly Flynn, long time high school girls basketball coach in the state of Nebraska, a Nebraska Hall of Famer. Kelly, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod

[00:00:17] Kelly Flynn: Hey, thanks a lot Mike and Jason.  Glad to be here.

[00:00:22] Mike Klinzing: We are thrilled to have you on. Looking forward to diving into all the things that you’ve been able to do in your coaching career. Get some tips and advice from somebody who is a long time high school coach. Let’s start by going back to when you were a kid, Kelly. Tell me a little bit about how you got into the game of basketball.  What made you fall in love with it?

[00:00:44] Kelly Flynn: Well, growing up in a small town, Parker, South Dakota, we’re the pheasants. I said, we’re the pheasants, mighty, mighty pheasants, everywhere we go. People want to know who we are, but no actually we were big into basketball there. When I was a second grader, I had a brother that got to play in the state tournament.

And then when I was a third grader, I had a brother that got to play in the state championship. He was kind of my idol. And it was a first team All Stater. And it was my brother, Ron, and went on to college to play basketball. And so it was just a deal where we kind of grew up really wanting to be basketball players and we had an outdoor basketball court in a small town And you would head down there just hoping that some guys were playing pickup ball And any chance we could get into the gym, we got to be friends with the custodians And they had let us in sometimes and it wasn’t like it is now where there’s so many different facilities And you were fortunate to get into a gym And it wasn’t like you had to be in a gym because you would play in the playground or you’d play at the outdoor hoops or you’d play on your garage basket.  So, but we grew up wanting to be basketball players.

[00:02:01] Mike Klinzing: Outdoor basketball, unfortunately, Kelly, is almost gone, especially at I’d say the higher levels. You just don’t see when you think about the best high school players, whether it’s on the boy’s side or the girl’s side. Just players just don’t play outside anymore.

It’s a lost art. It’s one that I know just from my own experiences, and I’m sure from yours, from knowing the era that you grew up in and just. It’s gone. It’s so sad to me that outdoor basketball doesn’t exist anymore.

[00:02:29] Kelly Flynn: Yeah, it really is sad because it’s a deal. And I know even as a coach, they would sometimes want to try to get in the gym.

And anytime we could as coaches, we’d want to try to get them in the gym. But sometimes there might be something going on at the school where you weren’t able to and you’d let them know that you can play outside, especially in the summertime. It’s pretty nice And yet you don’t see it very much anymore.

And I try to tell my grandkids that too, that. You know, there’s nothing wrong with getting out there in the driveway and hooping it up.

[00:03:01] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. As you said, the one thing that is nice about the era today is kids definitely have way more access to facilities and gyms than kids did in our era where you almost didn’t have a choice.

If you wanted to play, you had to play outside. Now kids can oftentimes, they have to pay for it. To be able to get into a facility or they have to be on a team or whatever it is, but there certainly is more gym access, which is a positive, but I do all the time whenever I have this conversation, just.

Outside the podcast or certainly on the podcast, I always feel bad for my own kids just in the way that they didn’t grow up in the same era of being able to play as much pickup basketball, whether it was at the park for me or just, as you said, in my driveway playing all the time with kids in the neighborhood from going back to when I’m First, second grade, that was, that was all we did was play basketball in the driveway or play football in the backyard or baseball or whatever it might be.

And so it’s just an era that is long gone. It’s not coming back. And I guess you just have to move on from it, but it’s certainly a different world. Did you play any other sports besides basketball when you were growing up?

[00:04:04] Kelly Flynn: Yeah. Just like what you just said there, you pretty much in a small town played them all.

I mean, we played football in the fall and then we’d play basketball in the winter and then we ran track at the high school because baseball wasn’t a school sport at that time, but then we’d play baseball all summer. But basketball was one of the sports so that we would if there was guys playing in the fall after football practice, we’d jump in and play or summertime, obviously we would And track if we could, if they’d Leave the gym open or if we’d get outside after track, we’d play.

So that was one of the sports that you could play pretty much year round, but each season, you’d just look forward to the new sport starting.

[00:04:48] Mike Klinzing: Do you have a coach from when you were a kid? It could be in any sport, not necessarily even basketball, but when you think back on your time as a young athlete, was there a coach or two that really had a big influence on you or maybe a story that you remember from one of your coaches?

[00:05:05] Kelly Flynn: Yeah, really all my coaches and I’ve told the story before where you know, cause a lot of times with coaches, they do want to know how you got started or when you knew you wanted to be a coach. And I always say I knew when I was really a fourth grader cause that was when my brother Ron went off to college and like you said, before I looked up to him and I asked what he’s going to college for and he was going to be a basketball coach.

And, so I said, well, that’s really what I want to do too. And I really, from that time started just looking at coaches, I think in a different way, knowing that I wanted to try to be like that someday. And I actually, when I was in high school, I got to help out with the seventh and eighth grade basketball, just kind of more probably like a manager, but kind of like an assistant also, And just be around the game And knew when I went to college, I wanted to be a basketball coach.

And so I always ask that with people in the school, like if you know what you want to do, because not everybody does, and I always say there’s nothing wrong with that, because sometimes people are in college and they’re not really sure what they want to do, but there’s nothing wrong with knowing what you want to do either And kind of really focusing on that and setting your mind to it and trying to learn what you want to do.

[00:06:22] Mike Klinzing: When you think about yourself as a coach, and obviously you coach for many, many years, which we’ll get into here in a few minutes. But when you think about just your coaching style, how you approach coaching. Who were the influences or what were some of the influences, something that you took from somebody that coached you that you feel like kind of runs a thread through your coaching career?

[00:06:44] Kelly Flynn: Well, I always had a great deal of respect for all my coaches from middle school to freshman JV And then the varsity, but Gayle Hoover was a really well known coach And had a lot of respect in South Dakota. He won. I don’t know, 500 or 600 games. I remember going back for one of the celebrations And so he was really, really respected and really showed the time commitment And Joel Volz was our football coach, but it was also the assistant basketball. And I always had a lot of respect for him. And then getting into coaching my first year at South Sioux City actually as a student teacher and got to tag around with the boys basketball coaches who I eventually ended up coaching with.

But Ed Wilchin was the head basketball coach And Joe Curl was his assistant and Joe Curl went on to coach at the University of Houston, women’s basketball. But both of those two really opened my eyes to where you don’t just roll out the balls and hope they get up and down the court and make baskets.

I mean, I really got to see some dedication and to be in some of those meetings before the season even started And to see what they’re planning practice wise And talking philosophies And defensive strategies And presses and. And X’s and O’s, it was, I would give a lot of credit to those two for getting me started in the right way.

[00:08:24] Mike Klinzing: Did you always know that high school coaching was where you wanted to be and where you wanted to end up? Or was there ever any thought that, hey, maybe if things break right, I could become a coach in college? Or was it always the, the high school teacher coach route that most attracted you?

[00:08:38] Kelly Flynn: Yeah, the high school was always really attractive to me.  It gave you an opportunity in the summertime to work with kids and you really could see a big jump with kids that wanted to put in a little bit of time in the summer. We always said that you almost get another season in the summer if they really are dedicated. If they come to the open gyms and if you get them in some leagues and you get them in some team camps.

And we did a lot of that at South Sioux and that was back before they had all these club teams and some of that where you would actually have your team. And you would get to coach your team in the summer. And I think that really, really, really helped a lot. Again, that’s kind of another one of those deals that’s, it’s not really on the wayside, but you don’t see it quite as much.

I know when I came to Fremont, each of the players were on a select team. And so it was a little bit harder to really get into some really good team camps that you wanted to bring your group to because they were already playing on, which was good, but it’s also one of those things that’s a little bit different because it’s not your solid seven, eight, 10 players.

[00:09:48] Mike Klinzing: What do your rules look like in Nebraska as far as how much coaching you can do in the off season?

[00:09:53] Kelly Flynn: So in the summer, it’s a lot more lax than it used to be. There’s certain times where it’s a deal where you can only work with four. If you have more than four, you can’t do any coaching.

If you do some individual stuff, you can do that. But summertime though is a little bit more lax, where you can be on the bench during a summer league game. You can take them to team camps. So we did a lot of that. We would take even at Salisbury, even up to three teams.

Sometimes we would just say, we’re going to the Wayne State team camp, or we’re going to Northeast community college team camp and we’d have as many of that sign up. And sometimes we’d have two, three, we even had four teams at one time because we had enough players to, because in the summertime you really want them to be playing.

And so sometimes we’d only put seven on a team, knowing you only had a couple of subs, but they’d all get to play a lot. Then, and Again that didn’t happen quite like that at my stop at Fremont, but again, times have changed a little bit.

[00:10:59] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, for sure. I mean, AAU basketball, when you think about how much it’s exploded in the last 15 years, where you go back again, that 15 year period, 20 year period, and maybe at that point your best player on your team was maybe on an AAU team and everybody else was doing stuff with their high school team or playing on their own. It just wasn’t the opportunity. Whereas now it’s just, it’s incredible. Everybody who wants to play basketball can find a place to play in the spring and in the summer because just the AAU clubs have proliferated.

And I think it’s one of the things that I know we talked about a little bit earlier when we were discussing what it was like for you and I growing up and playing on the playground or playing on the driveway. I think that I always tend to look at that from a male perspective. And clearly it’s a lot harder as a male to find pickup games and find games in the driveway.

And I think on the other side of it, when you start talking about the opportunity for girls to be able to play, I think there’s where there’s really, I don’t think there’s any counter argument against what AAU basketball has provided in terms of girls basketball, those opportunities. Because for a girl, let’s say in.

1990 to be able to find a pickup game of other girls basketball players. That was really, really hard. Now, maybe if you were a good enough girl, you could find some games with guys. But I think now the opportunity that young girls have to be able to play basketball is way, way greater than what it was, I’m sure when you started coaching.

[00:12:27] Kelly Flynn: Oh yeah. Yes, for sure. when I started those first Early years in the 80s, I got to work with like I mentioned, Ed Wilchin and the boys, and then then I also got to work with Joe Curl when he took over the boys program, And then when the girls job opened up, I did take that, and ironically, a few years later, I got to have Ed Wilchin join me as an assistant.

I had been his assistant in the boys, and then he became my assistant in the girls, And we stuck together for a long, long time. He was a big, big part of all those state championships, and Along with Russ Buscher, another one. But when I first started I remember that year I got the job in the summertime and we didn’t have a lot of that stuff going on for summer leagues yet.

And I can remember throwing the basketball on my little kid’s basket on the back of my bike and set up meetings with each one of the girls. Cause I really kind of wanted to see one, if they had a. a basketball hoop available at their house, either on the garage or on a pole. And if they didn’t, we met at the St. Mike’s they had a outdoor court or at the school, whichever was closest to their address. But I basically wanted to really One, get them started in the summertime that you don’t have to wait until November 16th or whenever the season starts to start playing basketball, that if he can get out and do a little bit of ball handling and do the Mikan drill And do some shooting And then it was just a couple of years later where we were able to start getting the open gyms set up and having kids come and play in the summer.

And it really took off. I mean, we started with hat we called a 200 hour club and tried to get them to put the hours in and people started passing the 200 hours and we went to the 300 hour club and even went to a 500 hour club where you kept track of your hours And you tried to put in the time.

And I think it was at a time that it was. different And kids bought into it. And if you put in that kind of time it’s going to make a big difference in a basketball player. We used to, I say, if you, if you put in 100 or 200 hours, you’re going to improve a little bit if you start putting in three, 400 hours, it’s going to be a difference maker.

[00:14:47] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, there’s no question about that. I mean, I think that’s one of the things when you start talking about what makes basketball, basketball so unique and so special is that you do have the opportunity to look, you got to play and you got to be out there with other players. But the reality is if you want to put in time by yourself and work on your game, you don’t really need anyone else to be able to make dramatic improvements, especially when you start talking about middle school players, high school players, their ability to put in time in the offseason to really improve and grow from.

One year to the next. And then you also factor in their physical and emotional maturity as they grow up each year through middle school and high school. I’m sure that over the course of your career, you saw some kids take some huge leaps over the course of the summer, putting in that kind of time.

[00:15:31] Kelly Flynn: Yes. And just become a different player And just see their confidence level. Matter of fact, we’re getting an opportunity to work with 7th and 8th grade right now And we talked about that. We just talked to some of them today that we’re going to be starting in January, but you don’t have to wait until January.

That there’s a lot of things you can do in your own basement And in the wintertime with ball handling And the more comfortable you get with that basketball, obviously the more fun the game becomes and the more confident and the better you become and the better your team gets.

[00:16:10] Mike Klinzing: I was just saying it’s fun to be good. To me, that’s always something that when I start thinking about players and thinking about what it means to be a good player and you have to sometimes, There’s always that statement of kind of, you got to fall in love with the basics and you got to be okay with going through And repping things and doing it over and over again.

And that’s how you get to be a great shooter or you get to be good at any skill, right? Is to. To put that time in and you can’t, you can’t get bored with continuing to work at your game. The best players just keep working on those fundamental things over and over again. And then ultimately when you play the games, if you’re a better player, the game gets to be more fun.

If you’re a better player, you get the ball in your hands more. If you’re a better player, you get to shoot the ball more. If you’re a better player, you probably are going to end up winning more games with your team. And so it all kind of goes back to what you just described that as you improve. The game becomes more fun and I think that’s sort of a universal truth when it comes to the game of basketball.

Let’s work back in time to that beginning part of your career where you’re working with the boys program and the girls job opens up. Had you ever prior to that girls job opening up, had you ever envisioned yourself? Coaching on the girl’s side and just what was your thought process as that job came open?

What were you thinking as you went into the process of, of applying for it and thinking about maybe taking that job?

[00:17:31] Kelly Flynn: Well, one thing I was good friends with the Coaches that were there, and I can see that they were dedicated to the sport And put in some time. And then having my brother Ron at that time be a high school girls basketball coach.

I think all those factors played into it. Ron actually coached my wife. I was a senior in college or a freshman in college when she was a senior in high school. And then we went together all through college And, so I really kind of got to see how much effort that some of my friends were putting in with girls.

But to be honest, I really did think it was going to be a year or two. I actually really enjoyed coaching the boys at the time. The principal came and talked to me about taking that girl’s job And kind of inform me about you don’t get head coaching opportunities all the time And I’ve been assistant for four years and you’re ready to be a head coach.

And this is an opportunity and you can always once you’re a head coach, you, it opens up some doors for you and stuff. So I kind of went in thinking that, and, I found out that I really, really enjoyed it. I mean, I had a group that worked hard And never really looked back. I mean, it was a deal where, except when you said that about the college, because I did look at that a little bit and was offered a job at one time And really thought about it.  But Again, don’t regret that I stayed with high school all the time.

[00:19:03] Mike Klinzing: Did you like right away about coaching the girls and not even necessarily comparing it to your experience with the boys, but was there any particular part of coaching on the girl’s side that you really took to right away when you took that job?

[00:19:17] Kelly Flynn: Well, I think at the beginning, I think there was some things where you always hear about a little more emotional and they maybe cry and stuff like that, but we really, really tried to Coach it just like the boys. And I think a lot of the successful teams you see out there, and the girls now, and it’s so common to see girls teams playing just like the guys, where they’re full court pressing, they’re getting out running transition.

But that really wasn’t the case so much in the eighties it was more even like the Iowa, they had the six on six girls you know, where they just played the half court and for sure that was right across the river from us. They switched that though in like in 1986, 87. So I had a couple of years where we didn’t get to play them, but then they switched over and a lot of it was more of the slow down or, or sprint back, or even in some cases jog back and then play defense. But we really tried to get up in people’s face And way up tempo. And it was probably one of the things that I took as one of the bigger compliments when people would say those girls play just like the guys And we’d say we, we take that as a compliment because that’s the style we want to play.

[00:20:39] Mike Klinzing: What do you remember as being your biggest adjustment from going from an assistant to taking over a program for yourself as a head coach? Obviously, it was a number of years ago, but just what do you remember about that transition?

[00:20:49] Kelly Flynn: I think just that you’re responsible for everything.  I was fortunate to have a couple of Phys. Ed. teachers that were my assistant coaches for a lot of my years. And I never did take it for granted, but didn’t realize how blessed I was. Really until I took this next job where just things that you don’t think of as far as making sure the baskets are down or getting the clock out and getting it set up, having the basketballs out, because they had be in the gym and I was up in the classroom for a lot of the years and then my last 10 years of coaching at South Sioux, I was the activity director, so I was in the office as assistant principal, but when I’d come down for practice at 3:15.

Ed and Russ and the other assistants would pretty much have everything ready to go And it was a great situation. Not that it wasn’t when I got to Fremont, but I remember that very first practice heading in there and realizing that, because I had a couple of assistants that were coming from different schools, so they weren’t there yet, and I was the one that was in the high school, and I realized it’s my responsibility to get that floor swept And the clock on, because we always would have the clock on in the gym, we’d always do everything on the clock, and so we pretty much Every, every single practice would always have the clock hooked up and set up And just even having the baskets down because sometimes when, and if his class, or if they’re doing the volleyball unit, or they’re doing some other units you’d come into the gym and maybe the baskets aren’t down and just the everyday things that fall on the head coach that you’re responsible for.

And then any of the parent issues and stuff like that, that as an assistant, you don’t really have to deal with a lot of those things. And so that was probably the biggest adjustment was just, you really are in charge of the overall program and everything ends up even though you have a good support group with your assistants and you can navigate and give them some different responsibilities as far as the stats. And as far as some of the different things that go along with practice. And I’ve always had really, really good assistance. And so I don’t want to act like you do it all alone because pretty much all at South Sioux and at Fremont we, and I don’t want to say delegated it, but we would talk at the beginning of the season  and the different responsibilities and everybody would itch in and everybody would take a part.

[00:23:29] Mike Klinzing: What do you think in your mind makes a good assistant coach? When you start thinking about somebody that you had on your staff, somebody that you’d want to have on your staff, what are the characteristics in your mind that make up a good assistant coach?

[00:23:39] Kelly Flynn: I think a big thing there is willing to put in the time And knowing the amount of time it takes. We had a saying about the price of greatness, the sacrifice. And I think as a coach, I think you really do have to a lot of time. And we really tried to say that to the players too, that anytime we’d have an early morning practice, which anytime we didn’t have school, we’d usually go early in the morning.

And we’d always talk about the price of greatness and sacrifice and how a lot of your friends are sleeping in today. A lot of your friends aren’t worried about coming back to school cause we’re not in school today, but you guys are here. And kind of trying to let them know that they are paying a price and that we want that to pay off at the end And get them to buy into that.

But I think as an assistant, you really want them to, I always encouraged them to really try to be there on time to really try to be there to welcome the players as they’re coming in to not come in and just sit And. Wait for the time to run to actually coach.

We’re hired to coach. And there’s always things that you can be helping the kids with, whether it be attacking a rebound or whether it be the shooting form or a lot of times just even given that encouragement that Hey, that was a good shot or, Hey, that was close And being there for the kids And trying to build that trust and that relationship with the players. Cause I think that’s really what it’s all about.

[00:25:14] Mike Klinzing: How did you go about delegating responsibilities to your assistant coaches and your staff as you went through your years. Did you break it up where one coach was responsible? Hey, you’re kind of our offensive person.

You’re a defensive person. Was everybody kind of coaching everything? How did you divide up responsibilities?

[00:25:31] Kelly Flynn: Well, like I said, we’d have a meeting at the beginning of the season and I really did that part of it just not to show how much you’re willing to do, but also to let them know that there’s a lot of different responsibilities.

And we’d come up with about 25, 26 different things that we thought were important, whether it be the practice plans or some of those things I mentioned about getting ready for practice, or whether it be the scouting reports or whether it be stats keeping stats during the game or Calling in the scores.

I mean, just a lot of different things And a lot of ’em might even just put, that’s my responsibility. But a lot of them don’t necessarily have to be the head coach responsibility, or it can be even kind of a partnership with two of the assistants or the head coach and one of the assistants, especially if you have an assistant that wants to be a head coach down the road to let them know that these are some things that are expected of the head coach And so we’d always sit down with the 25, 26 different things And just go through each one. Who wants to be a part of that? And sometimes nobody really wanted to be a part of something. And yeah, then you do have to ask for a volunteer. And sometimes there’s three or four that want to be a part of something and you kind of divide it up that way.

But I, I think that was one of the things, and as far as offense and defense, again when I first started out, I just felt like that was something as a head coach, that you’re responsible for both. It really wasn’t at that time like football, where you have a defensive coordinator and offensive coordinator.

But we started getting a pretty good comfort level with Ed Wilchin, my long time assistant, and Russ Fuscher, that they did a lot of stuff with the defense and they were the ones that really kind of convinced me because we did a lot of our drills, they were really offense oriented. And when we started looking at our practice, it was probably about maybe 80-20 as far as the offensive drills compared to the defensive drills. And we started talking about it’s an old cliche, but that offense wins games, but defense wins championships. And that if we really do believe in that we got to start dedicating about half that practice time to defense.

And I think that was really a big improvement in our practices and in our games. Cause we would do every day, we’d have shooting drills on the six outside baskets and then defense in the middle of the court with Ed and Russ And sometimes some of the other assistants over the years.

But and then if they needed a basket, because if we were going to do something, we’d have shooting at five of the baskets and then they would take one of the half court baskets And do the defensive drills. But we would incorporate. Defense into every single practice.

And it maybe wasn’t divided up 50 50, but sometimes it might be 60 40 even on the defensive side. But we really started focusing a lot more on defense and a lot more on our presses. And we found out that that actually really, really helped our offense output because so much of our scoring was off of traps and off of press and off of transition from getting steals.

[00:28:54] Mike Klinzing: How long into your tenure was that, that you started to make that change?

[00:28:57] Kelly Flynn: I would say probably maybe five, six years into the coaching as a head coach. Again, those first few years, it’s a deal where I feel for some of those coaches tthat come right out of college And take a head coaching job.

And I almost did that at a different school. But luckily the South Sioux City job that I had student taught at And had some familiarity with some of those coaches, the biology job opened up that summer and I was able to get into the classroom And they had an assistant coaching position open in football and basketball, and then eventually in track, and so I got to be an assistant in three sports for four years, so that really, I think, it got to be underneath a couple dedicated football coaches and a real dedicated track coach, and then, like I mentioned, the basketball coaches that I got to work under, so I think that really, really prepared me for the future for the responsibilities that a head coach has to take on. But learning that stuff about putting the importance on defense and I would tell any young coach or any new coach that gets into the game to really flip that time and make sure that they are given defense and given transition and given ball handling, obviously.

And a lot of things that you take for granted, like setting screens or like layups. I mean, I think that there’s some art to that, that you really do have to coach and you have to take the time to try to coach it the right way.

[00:30:32] Mike Klinzing: How did you put together your daily practice plan? What did that process look like for you?

Is that you just sitting down and writing it out, thinking about the previous day’s practice, the previous game? Are you taking things off of film? Are you meeting with your assistants to do the plan? Or are you writing the plan and then sharing that with them? Just how did you go about coming up with a practice plan on a daily basis?

[00:30:53] Kelly Flynn: I think that’s a great question. And again when you do coach for almost 40 years, like what I have, it’s a deal where, you do a lot of things different over those years but I was a real big believer in Johnny Wooden. I read a lot of his stuff back in the day And I remember him talking about the amount of time that he puts into a practice plan.

A lot of times preparing the practice, the plan itself takes more time than what practice is. So if you figure a practice for an hour and a half, two hours, he was spending more time. And I don’t know if I actually did that, but I really enjoyed doing practice plans, especially back in the day. And at that time, everything was just handwritten.

And I remember a lot of times sitting down on Saturdays, watching Husker football games and kind of organizing the week. But then each night putting together the practice plan and spending a lot of time not Johnny Wooden type time, but probably an hour a lot of times on the practice.

And then I started getting to where sometimes one of the coaches would maybe say something, we haven’t done this for a while. And so we started, let’s just talk at the end of practice. And I think that really worked for a lot of my ending years at South Sioux. And then that was one thing we did at Fremont was we’d always debrief for a little bit after the players left.

Just. You know, what do you think is important to put in practice tomorrow or at least this week? And then we would always at the beginning of the season kind of set up a calendar how many days before the first game and then how many days before our first tournament and stuff and really try to put together.

And again, that’s something that I always try to tell young coaches that because you get caught up sometimes in trying to get the offense ready or a special play. And we didn’t really spend a whole lot of time on plays and on the offense. We spent a lot, but we would try to make sure that we had an out of bounds play underneath the basket and out of bounds play on the side.

I was always a big believer on not just trying to get the ball in bounds, but that’s the one time that you really do have an opportunity to set up your players where you want them and have your shooter. Maybe you get to take the shot and at least having your rebounders in the rebounding position.

And so we’d spend, but we’d have a practice where we’d make sure that we had the delay game in. If you wanted the delay to score type of deal. Obviously the defense that you were going to run, but we’d always say we’re not going to have everything in obviously by that first game.

Hopefully we’ll have the things that we need to be successful that first game. And that being our transition game running our break with confidence. Maybe a play or two and then slide out underneath, basket out, how to line up for free throws, the, the center jump just a lot of different things, but we’d try to make sure that we had, and then once you do that, once you do set that up, I would always pull that folder out the next year and be able to look at what we had, make sure we had done And you try to take some notes And yeah, that’s it.

I look back at one of our games one of our seasons here at Fremont, where we didn’t have the real go to play at the end of the game. And our first game of the season was a triple overtime, you know? And so after that, we always tried to make sure we’d have that go to play in place.

[00:34:34] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. How do you approach in a practice setting dividing up your players within practice to a maximize the competitiveness of the practice, but also to make sure that the players who are actually going to be out on the floor playing together, get an opportunity to play. And so I guess kind of what I’m asking is.

How often do you have your five starters playing together versus how often do you maybe mix in players six, seven, and eight who you know are going to play with your starters just to be able to get everybody some experience playing together? How did you handle that part of it?

[00:35:12] Kelly Flynn: And there again, it’s one of those deals that’s, I think it really depends on the personnel, on the team that you have.

Cause there was some years that when we were really, really good, where we had maybe have I mean, there are people a lot of times that would say that our second five would have won a lot of games and so when you have that type of depth, you can really put together some really, really good practices.

And when you don’t have that depth, it makes it really, really hard. And now with numbers you know, where a lot of kids, if they’re not a starter, they give up the sport, or they don’t want to put in the time you’re not seeing the numbers like what we used to get. And a lot of times, those kids could, even though they might not be your star or your go to player, they can still be a really, really good practice player.

And they can still be a player that could be that sixth, seventh, eighth player, and even be in your rotation, but they’re maybe not satisfied with that. The thing that it makes it really, really tough practice wise then, because if there’s a big drop off after your five, that’s something that you really got to decide as a coach how important is the timing and the consistency of having the five together, but they’re going to go against a group that’s not going to, And they’re not, they’re not able to press them, or if you’re pressing them, they’re able to steal it from them.

And so sometimes you do have to mix up a couple of your players. And so we really kind of tried to do it, not the exact same every day, but some days we wanted to get the timing And we’d keep our five starters together. There was other times where we’d do what we’d call Queen of the Courts where it might be three or four on a team and then you would mix them up so it’d really be competitive and they’d get after each other.

And then there’s a lot of drills the 11 Girl Break some of the different drills where it’s not necessarily the five starters anyhow, it’s everybody you know, just whatever three happens to get the rebound and the outlets, those three are going against the other two And so you get some different combinations and I think we were pretty good about always kind of trying to get it to where you played enough together where you got the timing and then when we would run a few of those side outs or the out of bounds, again, only four or five minutes we’d usually put on the clock for those.

And even with the feeder program I don’t know if we’re going to get into that or not, but I’d always try to emphasize to those guys, don’t get caught up in trying to run a play. Because It might be different personnel when you have it in there, the defense might be a lot different than what you’re doing at practice And so many times you see coaches get caught up in trying to run a play and they’ll run it and run it And they’ll get frustrated because it’s not perfect And pretty soon they’ve got half of their practice time spent on that one play.

[00:38:06] Mike Klinzing: Right, exactly, exactly. Seen that many, many times. I think what you’re describing is sort of the art of coaching, right, where some seasons. You have to do it one particular way. Other seasons, you have to do it a different way. Somebody on your team gets hurt and boom, suddenly you got to do something a little bit different in practice to tweak it, to keep the competitiveness and keep the cohesion.

I think that’s really when you start talking about what makes a coach a good coach is that the ability to adjust from moment to moment, week to week, game to game, season to season, however you want to look at it, to try to maximize what you’re getting out of your team. And that’s kind of what I hear you saying.

And I think to go along with that, as you’re talking, and I’m listening to what you’re saying, and you’re describing how players today, maybe you’re player 9, 10, 11 on the team, and those kids sometimes drop out of programs. But I think in the programs where, even today, when the programs themselves are very, very successful, and you look again at the success that you had over the course of your career.

Obviously, you didn’t just build a team, you built a program. So when you think about what led to the success of your program, how did you get kids to buy in, to want to be a part of it? Obviously, you’re winning. That helps kids. Want to be part of a winning program, but that’s kind of a chicken and egg type of question.

So when you think about what made girls want to be a part of your program beyond just the winning.

[00:39:37] Kelly Flynn: Like you were saying there obviously if you win a state championship, a lot of times that will create some interest in the younger players, but there again, it doesn’t always end up working out that way.

Sometimes the younger ones, I think, feel like not necessarily entitled, but that, when they get to be the juniors and seniors, it’s going to be that same way. And they maybe didn’t realize how much time and how dedicated that group ahead of them was maybe when they were seventh, eighth, ninth grade, And got the skill level to where it was state championship caliber and the time commitment and all that.

But I also think it’s not just necessarily win the state championship because you see a lot of successful programs they maybe don’t win at all, but they each year get good numbers And they have a lot of fun with it. And There were years we didn’t win it, but I think we still had had a lot of fun and girls wanted to be part of it.

At South Sioux we took a lot of pride in our freshman program and our jv. And again, I’ve mentioned Russ Fisher And Ed Wil And like a Trish Martin who had played for me. I had several different players that that had played and then, and then got to join us on the coaching staff with her and Ashley Robinette and some others.

But it was, always something that we really, whatever level you were at, we really wanted to have an opportunity to have some success. And I think you start getting confident when you do win games And it makes it a lot more fun. Come and practice when each of the levels are successful.

And again, we put a lot of, a lot of pride into the freshman and the JV and we made a big deal out of it when they won their games or when they went undefeated or whatever. several years and we’d keep track of the winning streak And keep track of some of the different things there that made kids want to be part of it.

[00:41:30] Mike Klinzing: Did you guys as a varsity practice with your JV or the varsity practice always separate?

[00:41:34] Kelly Flynn: No, we, we tried to always when we first started at South Sioux, it was just 10th, 11th, and 12th. The freshmen were actually at a different building. And then as the program started to get a little bit better and girls got started earlier sometimes we knew these eighth graders that were going to be freshmen were good enough to play.

And we started trying to lobby for them to be with us. And it was a little bit more difficult when it was at a separate school. Because at that time high school was 10th, 11th, 12th And junior high was 7th, 8th and 9th. And, but we still, even at that time, we still, made it work for us bringing a few of those freshmen, And you had some that were not in favor of that, and there again as a head coach, you have to take some of those hits.

I remember having to talk to the administration about the importance of if a girl’s it is a 9 12 program, and if a girl’s good enough at the 9th grade, in our estimate that we should be able to bring them up, And we did that with several of the girls at that time. And then when they switched and the high school was 9 12, it made it a lot easier.

But we always had our whole program at South Sioux and at Fremont. 9 12 we’d always start out together. We’d always do the warm up together. We’d always do the ball handling together. We’d do a lot of the drills together, but then when we’d really get into the meat of the practice, we would switch off with the JV Varsity on one end and then the Ninth Reserve on the other end.

[00:43:16] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, I think you get the best of both worlds there, right? You get some of that continuity and you get the younger girls to be able to see kind of what it’s all about. They get to be exposed to. You and your varsity coaching staff, you get to see them on a daily basis and interact with them, which obviously builds the relationship side of it.

And then when you have to go and get a little bit more competitive, then you’re splitting up, but you’re all still feeling a part of that same program. I know you mentioned earlier a little bit about your youth program and talking about how you’re trying to get kids early on to get involved and to sort of have that aspiration of someday.

Coming up and playing for the varsity. So talk to me a little bit about your philosophy on the youth program and how’d you try to get young girls involved to make sure that you kind of had that pipeline of kids that You were already building relationships with eventually when they got up to the high school to be a part of your program

[00:44:10] Kelly Flynn: Yeah, and again, it’s going to I think vary with the different schools, the different coaches what the opportunities are there.

Again at South Sioux, it was kind of a, I always called it a perfect storm where we had had some buy in And had a JC organization that really wanted to take the basketball under their wing. And Really made a go of it where we got to practice once or twice a week and then games all on Sunday afternoon and it started out where it was just fifth and sixth grade and then the boys wanted to get started with the third and fourth grade and I remember at the time they didn’t want the girls to do the third and fourth grade just because the fifth and sixth grade scores weren’t real high and they struggled because that was their exposure to it.

But I remember we as a coaching staff really had to tell him that if we started at third and fourth grade that They’ll be better when they get in the 5th and 6th grade, And we convinced them to put it in for 3rd and 4th, And so we had a really good 6th grade program, which doesn’t sound like that big a deal now, because now they’re starting in Kindergarten and 1st grade, but at that time, there really wasn’t any organized basketball until they got into Junior High, and so I think that really helped getting it started.

It doesn’t always necessarily help with the numbers at the upper level though, because Sometimes one, they either, I don’t want to say got burned out, but maybe see the writing on the wall, or, or don’t think that they’re good enough, And sometimes it, it doesn’t always help the numbers, but, but I think it definitely helps the skill level, and by the time they’d get to be 7th and 8th graders, they were getting better, And then when we got to really start working with the 7th and 8th graders, And putting some of that stuff in, especially just the style.

I don’t think at the 7th and 8th grade level, They have to necessarily run the same plays as the high school, but I think it’s important that you have the same style and philosophy. And so we were real big into transitioning and run every chance you get, and we’re real big into pressure defense and trapping every chance you get.

And I think if you buy into something like that and start coaching it the same way And they get a lot of confidence with that. As opposed to, I saw some programs where They maybe let them launch three pointers at the 8th grade level, 7th and 8th, and then all of a sudden a freshman coach he doesn’t want them shooting threes And there’s just difference in the philosophies, and I think you got to get a buy in from the coaches to at least let’s have the same philosophies.

If we’re going to let them shoot threes, let’s, let’s, let’s not do it at an earlier level, and then, and then a year or two that they can’t do it. And same thing with The up tempo or the slow down, whatever your philosophy is.

[00:47:06] Mike Klinzing: How did you get all the coaches across the program onto that same page? What was your process for meeting with them, conveying that message?  How did you do that?

[00:47:18] Kelly Flynn: Again, that’s not always easy because especially if all of a sudden you’re talking on these podcasts, you’re trying to talk to the different coaches out there, but there’s so many different scenarios. There’s a scenario where a young coach comes into a program where they maybe have some parents or some coaches that have done it a long time And it’s maybe worked for them, but maybe not to get them to the top.

And you got a new coach that wants to do it this way, but you got some that maybe are going to buck heads a little bit. And there again, I don’t think I could have done some of those things right away, but as you start to have some success and you start to cause I can remember trying to talk to those younger coaches or not necessarily younger, cause sometimes they’re older than you, especially if you’re a young coach, but they had been there for a while And we’d try to get them to speed it up and get up and down the court and they didn’t really want to because they’d turn it over more.

And so then we really had to, I think sometimes you have to spend some time with your philosophy and convincing them that you are going to turn it over more. The faster you run with the basketball, the more opportunities you’re going to turn it over. But you have to realize how many more opportunities you’re going to get.

So even though you might have 15 turnovers as opposed to 10, you might have 50 opportunities to score as opposed to 25. You know, and the same thing with the trapping defense. There is a little bit of a risk and some maybe don’t want to leave their man to anticipate and trap. And I don’t want to either unless that next player in line is going to anticipate and pick off that pass when, The trap gets set and they throw it to the player that’s open.

You really have to get that buy in, but not only with the players, but I think you have to with your feeder system coaches as well.

[00:49:11] Mike Klinzing: Did you ever go down and teach and do clinics for those coaches at the lower levels?

[00:49:13] Kelly Flynn: Yes. Yes. We felt that was very, very important.  We would try to do that any opportunity we got. We’d always start out at the beginning of the season with kind of getting all the again, I don’t want to call it an intramural program because it was but it was our own kids. It was our own South Sioux 5th grades and 6th grades and 7th grade and 8th grade and actually even 3rd and 4th, but we would try to get the players and the coaches at the beginning and we would try to do I don’t necessarily want to call it a coach’s clinic, but it would be a clinic, but we were doing it for the kids, but we were also really doing it to try to give the coaches some ideas.

And we tried a little bit of that at Fremont. We had the Junior Tigers where we’d try to do some of the different drills. But again, it’s harder when you’re not there for a long, long period of time. Like at South Sioux, again, I was there for about 30 years.

But I see like the BBA and some different organizations kind of doing that with their teams. And I think that’s where you’ll see a lot of success. If you do get the varsity or the head coaches or the high school coaches working with not only the kids, but the feeder program coaches, then.

I’d always try to emphasize to those coaches, there’s, especially at that 8th grade, there’s so many things to coach there. I can remember going to a practice And a coach saying, oh, they’re come over to talk. And I’d say, no, go ahead and coach. I’m just here to watch And I’ll try to help out in any way I can.

Well, they’re just doing the layup drill right now. They’ve got that down. They weren’t doing it right. You know, they were. They were maybe going in going off the wrong foot or they were maybe getting the rebound and then running two or three steps before they’d put a dribble down and then throw it to the player and not maybe throwing it snapping it to the next player and no target hands and I’d say you know.

There’s, again, not trying to be a dictator or anything like that, but there’s a lot of coaching that can go on just with a simple layup drill where you go in and go off the correct foot and you make sure that you hit the corner of the square and the next player in line is, is ready to anticipate the rebound and not let it come down to his waist, but go up and attack it, even if it goes in the net, go up and attack it and just getting those habits formed where you can really kind of tell just watching a layup drill if they’ve been And if they grab that rebound and get to the outlet And snap the pass to a target hand.

And I think fundamentals are very, very important. And I think it starts from something as simple as that.

[00:51:50] Mike Klinzing: That’s a really good point. I think that any coach, especially if you’re coaching at the youth level. You can find things that you can work on, even in, as you said, a very simple drill, like two, okay, you’re going to do two line layups, fine.

So make sure that when those kids are doing that, that you’re watching them, you’re coaching them and that they’re doing things fundamentally correctly, and then you talk about the rebounding and you talk about securing the rebound and then making a pass or dribbling and not traveling. I always think about in a lot of drills, passing is such an overlooked skill that a lot of times you’ll just see the passing is so sloppy in a drill and passing isn’t the focus. And that’s an easy thing that if you’re a coach and you put some emphasis on it and put some eyes on it and put some time into it, that you can be working on passing when the drill isn’t specific to, Hey, this is a passing drill. And so those are, I think the little things that as you get to be more experienced and as you really dial into what you’re trying to do, especially like I said, as a youth coach, I think there’s.

There’s lots of opportunities, as you just described, to be able to teach those fundamentals in ways that maybe aren’t initially obvious. And so I think anybody who’s a high school coach out there, if you do run a youth program, that’s one of the things that I would really try to emphasize to get across to your youth coaches is there’s always opportunities to.

Sort of tighten things up for lack of a better way of saying it and just say, okay, here’s a drill and we’re working on X. But while we’re doing that, make sure you’re snapping a pass and you’re hitting the person right in their target area and that you’re making sure you’re not throwing lollipop passes and all the little things that we all know, but sometimes it’s easy to overlook those.

[00:53:30] Kelly Flynn: Right, and I think the other thing too is that as coaches, I know when I started out I really felt like you had to do something, not necessarily different every day, but come up with different drills, and I remember having the offensive book, and the defensive book, and the play all these different deals, and you’d be looking for drills, and coming up with them, and I can remember again, coming to practice, and you had it in your head how the drill was supposed to be.

But there again you maybe had spent that hour on that practice plan And really kind of figured out exactly the way it was supposed to and then now you’re trying to explain it in a couple minutes to your assistant coaches And maybe they’re not even all there at the time that you’re explaining it to them And it’s and then you’re trying to show it to the players and it’s not going the way you want it to be.

You had wanted it too, and then you scrapped that one, and then the next day you come with a different. And I remember that was an eye opening for me too, because one of my assistants said how many drills do we really need to have? And that was something, again, that I always try to tell young coaches, that instead of trying to have a ton of different drills try to find drills that are really Part of your philosophy and good for your program and then perfect those drills.

And we would have a page of about 10 defensive drills, our favorite defensive drills, 10 of our favorite offensive drills, 10 of our favorite shooting drills, but we maybe would do those the same drill two, three days. a week to where they get it to where it’s sharp. I mean, and they know exactly where to go.

You just have to say the name of the drill and boom, they jumped to the spots And from ninth grade, JV, varsity, they all know the drill. And I think that’s something that’s pretty important as opposed to spending 10 minutes of your practice time trying to show a new drill. Even though, I mean, new drills are important and obviously at the beginning of the season you have to show them, but it’s not like all year long you have to keep coming up with new drills.

New drills, new drills, new drills. You can perfect the ones that you got.

[00:55:49] Mike Klinzing: Did you have a methodology for keeping track of the things that you did from practice to practice, season to season in terms of back in the time, obviously, when you started, computer usage was much lower than it is today. So did you have the old three ring binder full of drills or just how’d you keep kind of catalog the things that you did?

[00:56:08] Kelly Flynn: Yeah, there was a file, cause I would always keep the practice plan. We’d run them off. We’d always make a practice plan and then run off four or five of them, depending on how many assistants we had. And I was a big one on not worrying about if the kids knew what the practice plan was.

I know there’s some coaches that they want to keep it in their folder on their clipboard and maybe the kids not see it to maybe coast on something because this drill is coming up, but we wanted them to know what the drills were going to be or what the practice was going to be and we’d always post one on the bulletin board we’d always have one out on the table at practice And so they’d know and we always had everything timed you know, we’d have the clock and we would pretty much stay right on that.

We would probably post hardly ever go over and we knew what time we were going to end And we had end on time. And I think that was important. And again, that was a Johnny Wooden thing. And. And I think that’s to me, that was important for the kids to know And we’d always tell them that we weren’t going to just line up and run line drills.

We hardly ever did that. Because we really felt like if we practiced hard and practiced the drills that we had set up, that we were going to get in shape and we didn’t have to just line up and just run to run.

[00:57:27] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. I think that’s something that you see a lot more in the game today. I think there’s a lot less coaches that just do running for running sake.

I think you’ll hear a lot more about coaches talking about, Hey, we practice hard. We, we go up and down, we do these things. And if we do that, then we really are getting our conditioning in the midst of also having the ball in our hands and practicing actual skill development, working on decision making and all the things that kind of go into modern basketball.

Tell me a little bit about how you engaged your community as a high school basketball coach, because I think one of the things that When I look around at successful high school basketball programs, you see that they have a lot of support in the community. That could be from faculty, that could be from parents, that could be from just general community members.

But I do think that one of the responsibilities of a head coach is to get the community excited about the program. And as I said before, obviously winning. helps that. What were some things that you did to try to engage the greater community to support your program?

[00:58:38] Kelly Flynn: Well, again, when you coach, like I said, for 30 or 40 years you get an opportunity to do a lot more of those kinds of things.

When you come in and you’re coaching a deal where you’re trying to keep your head above water And you have to focus on that varsity. I mean, obviously that’s important, but I’ve always tried to tell young coaches that if you can put some time into the feeder program and the youth it pays huge dividends and especially if you get to stick around long enough.

And so we always really, really bought into the importance of working with the youth. And like we’ve talked about working with the younger coaches too. And so we are always putting feelers out. And anytime we had talked to somebody, If they talked a little bit about basketball, we’d try to talk them into to at least helping out with the program if they weren’t running it.

But a lot of times it’s good to have a couple of coaches at each of those levels. And then we did back in the day at South Sioux over the years we did a lot of different things with the community with the nursing home going and making cookies with them. And we did things with the quilts.

I mean, just different things that you try to get involved with. We had our basketball team help out with the Cardinal Christmas baskets back in the day. And the ones that the needy families. And so we did different things over the years to try to get involved with the community.

I think we had really, really good community support. We had a tremendous fan base. A lot of times were games where it had been a lopsided score earlier in the year and it was a team that we were going to play again, maybe in a conference tournament or in the district tournament. I thought, oh, there’s not going to be really show up since it was a 30 or 40 point game.

And yet, they’d all be there. It was ironic because the school I coached at now is Fremont where our district tournament was held for a lot of years. And those bleachers would be packed with fans coming down to watch our district games And there again, those times have changed a little bit, but there are still some, communities that really do support their teams.  And that’s great. And we were blessed with that.

[01:00:58] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s awesome. I mean, I think that’s one of the things that’s the most special, right, about high school sports is when you can get your community involved when you’re talking about your students, your faculty, your greater community members. And you can.

It’s always fun to coach and to play in front of a packed house and with bleachers that are full of fans. And that makes it all the more fun. Some of the people that are sitting in the stands are parents. So let me ask you about parents and just how you try to engage the parents in your program to help them to become advocates for your program as opposed to adversaries.

[01:01:33] Kelly Flynn: Well, having lived in that community for all those years and stuff a lot of those people were your friends, but sometimes as a coach the decisions aren’t always favorable for everybody. And there’s a lot of 6th, 7th, 8th players that they maybe see the writing on the wall because they are there at practice, but, but mom or dad maybe think that they should be starting, or there’s that 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th player that they think should be in the rotation, and all of a sudden they’re not getting a whole lot of playing time, or that 13th, 14th player that maybe didn’t get a uniform.

So, you do have those, And those are not easy situations, but I think you just have to be open and honest with them And especially if it’s a younger player that’s not in that role to give them that encouragement that with a little bit more time And continuing to work, they can, they can take one of those positions.

But I’m not going to say that it’s always easy. Those are some things that you have to have some thick skin And as a head coach, you have to know that that’s part of it. But I think the rewards far outnumber those struggles. And especially if you stick with it for years, you learn some different tactics with that.

I think being open and honest and upfront and really trying to communicateis the best answer for that. Again, not always easy, but I think that’s the best.

[01:03:12] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. I think, I always try to use the phrase proactive communication, right? You want to be able to talk to your parents before, build a relationship with them before there’s a potential issue.

That way, when you’re talking to them, you’ve already built that rapport and it makes that conversation, which maybe is a difficult one, and it makes that conversation so much easier when you’ve already established and built that relationship. Talk a little bit about building relationships with. And just how you went about getting to know and understand them, not just as basketball players, but as people so that you could, A, be a part of their life, but B, also coach them better and have them contribute to what you guys ultimately had as a success.

So just building relationships with players. How’d you go about doing that?

[01:04:06] Kelly Flynn: Yeah, I think the relationship building is really, really important. And again there’s so many ways that you can compliment kids, whether it just be in on time or the effort that they put in the time commitment they put in.

The screen that they set in the past that And so we were really big on trying to compliment way more and we tried not to yell at the kids. I never liked being yelled at, and we tried not to yell at them. We told, we’d tell them right off the bat that the only time you’re probably going to hear us yell is if you’re not hustling.

And so we would really get the buy in about the hustle and then if kids are hustling. It’s so easy to compliment them because even if they turn the ball over, it was a good hustle And they’re probably going to get it back. And so I think. Not just the compliments, but I think being there at the beginning of practice to greet them when they’re coming in to not maybe beat them out the door and get the parking lot before they do, but let them know that you’re willing to stick around after practice And work with them if they want to.

And. There again, we would knock off practice a little bit early back in the day, knowing that kids were going to stick around because we’d say practice is over, but we’re not leaving And then back in the day, a lot of times a half hour later, we’d maybe have to say, okay, we are going to put the balls away now it’s time to go.

But I mean, it might be a half hour or more after practice was technically over where now you see it sometimes where practice ends and they’re racing out of the gym. And so I think you want to build that where they want to be part of it. We want to be there. I think the other thing is not just the 90 minutes that you’re at a basketball practice, that there’s other parts of their lives that are important.

And I was really big, especially in my last 13 years, like I mentioned, I was an activity director, so I was expected to be at all the different activities. But even before that, I would try to go to the volleyball games in the fall, and any of our players that were playing volleyball, I would try to go watch them there, and then you could compliment them after the game there, or the next day in the hallway, that, hey, how good they looked, or they had jumping ability, and whether it be softball or then in the spring with track And just being part of their lives whether it be the concert or any of those things, anything that they’re involved with trying to be part of it.

[01:06:44] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. All right. I want to ask you final two part question. So part one is. What are you most looking forward to when it comes to the game of basketball in the next two or three years? So that’s part one. What are you looking forward to? And then part two is when you think about what you’ve gotten to do over the course of your career, what part of it brings you the most joy?

So what are you looking forward to and then your biggest joy?

[01:07:16] Kelly Flynn: Well, I think probably now my, what I’m looking forward to is because it’s a little bit different for me right now because I’m retired as a high school coach. I’m going to help out with seventh and eighth grade. And so that’s going to be not necessarily different for me because I, way back, even with our high school program, we had seventh and eighth in the fall.

And so us high school coaches would get to work with our seventh and eighth graders in the fall. And I think that, again, when I mentioned that about the perfect storm. Not everybody gets to do that. But at that time 7th and 8th grade girls basketball was in the fall and so we were able to work with them.

But I’m getting to work with the 7th and 8th grade in January and February and my biggest thing there is to get them to love the game And to try to get the numbers up. Because again, I think that freshman level is the time where it’s probably one of the most important years for kids to really take part in it because you have your own freshman program.

Freshmen can play up on the JV, they can even play on the varsity if they’re good enough. When you get to be a sophomore, junior, you normally can’t play on the freshman team. And so, again, As a head coach, a lot of times you can only work with the numbers that you get. And we’re blessed with some nice numbers when I was at South Sioux for a lot of years.

But like last year, my last year of coaching a family, we only had 18, that 9 through 12. And that’s not a lot. We took pride in that we had 18 that finished though. What started, finished. And I think that’s important too, because you’ll see some that maybe do start out with big numbers, but a lot of them drop off for whatever reason.

So we’d always try to, whatever we get, we want to make it something that they want to be part of for the whole season. And so that’s kind of my focus this year, that 7th and 8th is to try to get them ready to compete at the high school level, but also to try to get the numbers up. I think probably one of the greatest rewards as a coach is seeing some of your former players go on to be successful.

And like I mentioned earlier, I have had several that were players that I had an opportunity to have assistant coaches over the years. That, and then a couple of them that became the head coach. And a program and that was really rewarding to see them, especially doing some of the same stuff that you had taught them at one time.

[01:09:47] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely.  I mean, I think the opportunity, right, to have an impact on kids and use the game of basketball to do that and then even double the reward when they go in and they are able to sort of follow in your footsteps and get into the coaching profession. I think that’s something special.

And that’s something that all coaches definitely appreciate. Before we wrap up, Kelly, I want to give you a chance to share how can people reach out to you, find out more about you, your career? So maybe share an email that people can reach out to you with. And then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:10:20] Kelly Flynn: Yeah. I always enjoy talking basketball with anybody and everybody, like I mentioned at the beginning, I’m not the most techie. I’ve got things in three ring binders and then files and stuff like that. But a lot of times somebody will ask if I’ve got something that I can. I did have some files, but like when I retired, I  don’t have access to all that, but I am at KFLYNN213@gmail.com. And if anybody does want to email me, I always do get back to everybody. Try to answer any questions. I’ve spent a lot of time with emails. I’ve spent a lot of time on phone calls. I’ve had people invite me for a luncheon and I really do love talking basketball.

So I would be glad to do that with anybody. I’ve always thought about trying to put something together whether it be our Full court press or our half court sting, which we called it, that that I used to give copies to people, but again, I don’t have that just on something that I can send out, but I’d always run them off when we’d go speak at coaches clinics And then the transition game.

I think those were our bread and butter, our pressure defense and our transition game. And when we would do stuff in the summertime, we didn’t spend any time on real X’s and O’s. We would spend it on those couple of things and then setting screens and reading screens, whether it be a screen and roll or whether it be a screen and flare And then go to that way.

[01:12:01] Mike Klinzing: Kelly, we cannot thank you enough 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.

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