HEIDI MESSER – OKLAHOMA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY WOMEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 1018

Website – https://okwueagles.com/sports/womens-basketball

Email – hmesser@okwu.edu

Twitter/X – @hmesser1323

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Heidi Messer is in her third season as the Women’s Basketball Head Coach at NAIA Oklahoma Wesleyan University.

From 2017 until joining the Oklahoma Wesleyan staff, Messer was an assistant coach and the women’s basketball strength and conditioning coach at Northeastern State in Oklahoma.  She spent two seasons at the University of Montevallo from 2015 – 2017 and was an assistant coach and the Senior Woman Administrator at Manchester University from 2012 -2014.  Heidi also served as a graduate assistant coach at Georgetown College (Ky.) for two seasons.

Messer played four years of college basketball. She attended Sinclair Community College for two years before attending Grace College, where she played two years and served as team captain during her senior season. She recorded the eighth-most assists in program history while at Grace.

On this episode Mike and Heidi discuss Heidi’s  journey from a young basketball player in Ohio to a college coach, exploring her early influences, the transition from player to coach, and the importance of building relationships with players. Heidi shares insights on leadership, the challenges of coaching, and her preparation for head coaching opportunities, emphasizing the significance of finding her voice in the coaching world. In this conversation, Heidi shares her journey in coaching, emphasizing the importance of being challenged, transformative leadership, and building strong relationships with players. She discusses the surprises of stepping into a head coaching role, her approach to practice planning, and the balance of maintaining high standards while fostering a supportive environment. Ultimately, she highlights the joy she finds in her team and the impact of coaching young athletes.

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Have pen and paper handy before you listen to this episode with Heidi Messer, Women’s Basketball Head Coach at Oklahoma Wesleyan University.

What We Discuss with Heidi Messer

• Her early basketball influences – Michael Jordan and Sheryl Swoops
• The importance of building strong relationships with players for effective coaching
• Transitioning from a player to a coach requires a shift in mindset and approach to the game
• How her experience as a GA at Georgetown (KY) solidified her decision to pursue coaching
• Mental engagement is crucial for coaches, as it impacts team performance and energy levels
• Holding high standards while ensuring players understand the love behind it
• Impacting young women drives her coaching philosophy
• Finding your coaching voice is a challenge for new coaches transitioning from assistants
• Why finding her voice as a coach was a significant shift in her career
• Preparing a monthly plan to keep players focused on long-term goals
• The constant mental engagement required as a head coach
• “The mental aspect of coaching never turns off.”
• The adaptability and constant reflection that is needed to improve team dynamics
• Building a competitive practice environment that fosters energy and teamwork
• Developing a coaching philosophy evolves through experience and personal growth

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THANKS, HEIDI MESSER

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TRANSCRIPT FOR HEIDI MESSER – OKLAHOMA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY WOMEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 1018

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason Sunkle this morning, but I am pleased to be joined by Heidi Messer, the head women’s basketball coach at Oklahoma Wesleyan University. Heidi, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:17] Heidi Messer: Good morning. Thank you. I appreciate you having me on.

[00:00:20] Mike Klinzing: 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 growing up here in the state of Ohio, where I’m from. Tell me a little bit about some of your first experiences.

[00:00:34] Heidi Messer: Yeah. Born and raised in the great state of Ohio.

Grew up in Waynesville, Ohio. Just south of Dayton, kind of north of Cincinnati and was able to kind of fall in love with the game, I think as a means of my brother and dad were doing some work. In the garage one night and I think I was just trying to be I don’t think I was trying to pester him but I was just in the way somehow and I remember my brother giving me a ball and showed me how to put it in a hoop and from there.

 I think I took a liking to it and then I discovered michael jordan and got glued into the Chicago Bulls of the early 90s and I just Absolutely fell in love with the game watching Michael’s passion, I think, and watching his competitive drive. I know when I was little, I tried to emulate it and I just wanted to be as good as Michael Jordan and then shortly thereafter I discovered Cheryl Swoops in the early mid nineties.

So I realized women could play basketball too. And that was pretty exciting for me, but fell in love with the game, played it as much as I could played all the way through high school and really desired to continue that into college.  and that was, that was such a time where it was like the recruiting game has changed so much since even the early 2000s, which is kind of wild, but found an opportunity to play two years of Juco ball at Sinclair Community College before transferring to a four year institution at Grace College in Indiana, where I finished out my career there on the basketball side, played a little soccer there as well.

So I had the blessing of being a two sport athlete, but I’d say it was really kind of in my when I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be a it, I wanted to be the first female in the NBA and that transition I quickly learned I probably wasn’t going to be tall enough and recruited at that level.

So I knew I wanted to stay in, in the game some way, some house. That’s what I think coaching came in. And for me, it really developed out of a passion to want to impact and influence people. That’s something that’s been in my heart. Since I was very young and it’s one of those things that it’s a calling when you can’t quite explain why it was there and throughout my college career, I discovered that coaching was that path I wanted to be in and shortly after starting my student teaching in the middle school and high school setting, I very quickly settled on wanting to know I wanted to go straight to the college or out and get my foot in the college coaching door and really have the opportunity to impact.

Young women in those formative years. Just like I was, I was just coming out of that. And I think I longed for certain things in my coaches and mentors that I didn’t always have. I had some great coaches. They’re just things that I wished I would have had. And so I wanted to really work myself into a path that allowed me to do that in my future.

So that led me to finding a graduate assistant position at Georgetown College in Kentucky, where I spent two years. Into my first job at Manchester university in Indiana division three school, great experience and learned a lot there. Moved on to division two university of Montevallo in Alabama before Northeastern state out here in Oklahoma.

That was my first transition westward. And I was there for five years before I came over to the Oklahoma Wesleyan university.

[00:03:53] Mike Klinzing: Let’s go back in time to when you sort of get the idea that, Hey, maybe I’m not able to make the NBA and. Now you start thinking about coaching. Did that shift the way that you looked at or thought about the game?

Because I think what’s interesting is that we talked to a lot of coaches and there’s some people that have a playing career that they’re just completely focused on being a player and they look at the game from a player perspective and they don’t necessarily flip that mindset and start looking at it as a coach.

So was there a moment where you started looking at it differently? Or did you kind of always look at the game as a coach now when you think back to that time?

[00:04:34] Heidi Messer:  when I think back, I really think about I talked about how Michael Jordan and Cheryl Swoops were early influencers on, on me watching the game.

And I know there were probably more Don Staley was in that mix, Ruthie Bolden. And I remember seeing these guards who had such a presence on the court. And so as a player, I wanted to have that presence. And I’d see them talking to their coaches and I’d see them talking to their teammates. So I Quickly started learning what the coach on the floor looks like.

And I did have good coaches who would tell me, Hey, you’re a point guard. That means you’re the floor general. And that was a responsibility I took with great ownership and pride. And so I think that helped me start to look at it in more of maybe a coaching lens. I don’t know that it was until probably my college years that I started to truly take on that lens of things, of looking at it, but I know At Grace College, I played under Coach Bloom there, and he gave me such great leeway to be an on court coach.

And I remember on dead balls, walking up, talking to him, Coach, Hey, look, we got, this isn’t working. What if we try this?  he gave me a lot of freedom in that way to really let me develop. That niche, I think. And so I think early on, not so much, but as it, as it progressed, as I got older, it started to take on that lens.

[00:05:56] Mike Klinzing: Who did you have conversations with when you started thinking about coaching as a career? Was it coach Bloom? Was it somebody else in your life? Who did you talk to about pursuing coaching as a profession?

[00:06:10] Heidi Messer: To be honest, I talked a little bit with coach Bloom and that was it. I, I really didn’t have too much of a.

Broad circle and a network of coaches.  I was raised in a small Christian high school area. And so a lot of my coaches were people who just love the game, parents, people who wanted to influence and be around the game, things like that. But on the scale that. I wanted to achieve and still desire to achieve.

I really didn’t have a ton of people in my circle at that time to get into that. Coach Bloom was great. He, he talked to me through how to find GA positions. And of course the selfish side of him wanted to keep me around because he knew what I was about to get into, but yeah, it was a very self paved path in a lot of ways.

[00:07:01] Mike Klinzing: Why college coaching? So you go into your student teaching experience. And I’m assuming that you kind of thought maybe that was a route that you were going to go being the high school coach, high school teacher. Was there something about the, the teaching experience that said, Hey, maybe I don’t want to do this.

And college coaching is where I want to go. Or is it more something about. your experience as a college player that as you kind of got into it, you’re like, yeah, I think I’d rather just spend full time doing basketball. Not that you’re full time doing basketball because I understand there’s a lot of administrative non basketball things that you do as a head coach, but just where was your thought process in terms of deciding that college was the route you wanted to go as opposed to high school?

[00:07:40] Heidi Messer:  I think C, all the above. I think for me in the student teaching, I think, again, due to kind of limited knowledge on what the world of college coaching looked like, I think in my head I thought, okay, I need to pursue this health and phys ed degree, get my foot in the door coaching, and I’ll work my way up.

And during the student teaching process, I did middle school and elementary settings. And God bless PE teachers and the elementary setting all across America, because I realized quickly, this is not for me. I need to go straight to college and influence those like myself. So it was very much a combination of my experience as a player, as well as, yeah, this isn’t the setting that I, that I’m passionate about and want to thrive in every day, ?

And so it was very much a combination of the two. Knowing my experiences as a player and a developing collegiate female athlete, what I wanted to influence and impact, and the level at which I wanted to do it, became really clear to me very quickly.

[00:08:47] Mike Klinzing: When you first got that GA job at Georgetown, did  right away that, hey, I’ve made the right decision?

Did you love it from day one? And what were some of the things that you really liked from the very jump of getting there?

[00:09:00] Heidi Messer: Yeah, I did. I, and  it was a unique situation. I actually took a whole year to find my GA position. I, like I said, I didn’t have a ton of contacts. And when I went home that summer after graduating college, I kind of looked around like, wait, how do I get into this thing?

And I reached out to every college coach that had ever recruited me that I had played for, see who they knew and just started sending emails like crazy to find that GA position. It was a former assistant of mine from Sinclair Community College, Andrea McCloskey, she had actually become an assistant at Georgetown College in Kentucky, and she called me late in August.

And she was like, Hey, it’s late. I know this is kind of out of the blue, but are you interested? We’re opening up our GA position again. And I knew it was the, I knew I had made the right decision because I left without, I left without any hesitation. I got that phone call on a Thursday. The head coach, Susan Johnson, called me on a Friday.

I was there Monday for a visit and I was moving my stuff three days later. I mean, it was automatic. And I think I had to take a independent study cause they were already a week and a half into the semester. So I knew it was right from the jump. I knew I loved the setting of it and just being in that environment of like minded people, players who had, like myself, wanted to continue on and play at the collegiate level.

Who still had some development to their game but really just needed people who wanted to mentor and influence them and pour into their game and speak that life into them. I knew it was right from the jump.

[00:10:41] Mike Klinzing: What’s something that you learned that first year that you still carry with you today in terms of who you are as a coach?

[00:10:49] Heidi Messer:  we had a very busy office. Andrea, Coach McCloskey, she was the assistant there and our, our door was always open, players came in, relationships were important, and I knew that’s the kind of office I always wanted to have as an assistant. I knew those relationships were going to be a key piece to any program that I would be a part of or lead.

And for me it plays to my personality a little bit, but I also really truly believe that it’s the X factor.  when you have relationships so strong, they can bear the weight of truth. For me as a coach, it gives me a lot of leeway to coach and be honest with my players on the court and for them to know my genuine interest, passion in helping them succeed.

And they know the same for me, . So, to me, it allows me to be the best coach for them and allows them to be the best player for me. And that’s a process. Takes a lot of time and investment from both me and my players. But that was something I saw early on in that first year. That’s not even an X is an O thing that I think is a massive piece to how I coach and why I coach the way I do.

[00:12:00] Mike Klinzing: Talk a little bit about building those relationships, how you do it, what’s the process, how much you do informally versus. Formally meeting with players and then maybe we’ll circle back to the differences between building a relationship as an assistant coach versus as a head coach. But just start with this in general, how do you go about building those relationships with players that you just described?

[00:12:27] Heidi Messer: For me now in the head coach seat right now, it looks like the recruiting process is the beginning of that. And trying to lay a foundation and  it’s like getting to know anybody whether it’s a friend, somebody you’re interested in dating, a player, a coach, whoever it might be, whatever relationship you encounter in your world, you just kind of gradually get to know them.

Because at the end of the day, while I am a coach recruiting a player, I’m one human getting to know another human. And that always kind of takes precedence for me. And so I just invest in that once I get to campus.  you ask questions, you get to know what drives the people you’re working with, what their interests are, what their values are.

We actually, at the beginning of every year, I hold a team meeting just to go over expectations and guidelines, but they walk out of there with a little bit of a homework assignment. where they have to talk about what their vision is for the year for themselves personally and the team as well as some core values they think they bring to the table every day.

And  it’s, it’s small, but it’s a conversation that allows me to dig in and see, Oh, I didn’t know that you had such aspirations to be a good student because you’re a first generation college student and could graduate first in your family. Or, Oh, I didn’t know you came. into this because you felt like you had so many haters and you really want to succeed in a way to show people you’re more than what they said.

 it’s, it’s so many different things that come to play. And I think just asking those questions, Gives me so much enlightenment to know them on a deeper level. And through that conversation, we get to share and I get to share with my experiences and, and we just connect through that. And I think connection becomes the root of any good relationship.

But for me, that’s what I really tried to implement from the jump. And then you just stay consistent with it as much as you can.

[00:14:25] Mike Klinzing: Do you feel like there was. a change or just more of a challenge to build those relationships as a head coach versus an assistant? Is it just different? Is it not different at all?

Just what’s your experience been like in terms of, again, developing that relationship with your players?

[00:14:43] Heidi Messer: Yeah, I think as the assistant coach, you’re always the safety net. So even if you have to hold them accountable, I think they kind of think you’re doing it on behalf of the head coach. And so they’re like going to let it go.

But  they, as, as the assistant coach, you have more leeway to maintain that relationship in a different capacity as a head coach. I feel like I have good relationships and then there’s days where I’m like, well, they, I don’t know. They may have a short memory. They might’ve blown that out the door.

But again, leaning on the strength of those connections and relationships when they’re back in my office the next day and we’re not talking about practice or they’re coming in for something totally different, it lets  okay. They’re still here. That’s good. That’s the most important thing, and I am too, and always will be for them.

I think you can never, once you take on the head coach title, there’s no getting rid of it, and for them, and the experiences they go through in their 10, 12 years of playing this game, before they get to you, they’ve experienced a lot of head coaches, and they have a perception of what that looks like. So for me, sometimes, I’m trying to break down that perception, and And tell them like, Hey, look, yes, I’m a head coach.

I am going to lead our program to the best of my ability. And that means holding you accountable and having standards, but it also needs when you need Messer or Heidi in the office and not coach Messer, we can shift the dynamic and have a real life conversation because again, we’re human to human, not player to coach all the time.

And I think for me, I really try to get them to understand. You’re also dealing with a whole person, just like you’re more than an athlete. I’m more than just a coach. And we have to remember that about each other through this relationship.

[00:16:30] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. That ability to sort of show the human side of yourself as a coach, I think that’s something, again, maybe you go back to the time when you were a young kid.

I don’t know that that philosophy was as prevalent. In coaching as it is today, where today we have coaches who, again, are much more willing to share of themselves and kind of their personal life and their challenges and their being vulnerable, I guess is a good way to say it. And just letting kids know, like you said, there’s more than just a basketball coach here as a human being.

And I think by Cultivating that and sharing that with players. Then conversely, you get them to be able to open up and share some of the things that you described with you. And now that’s where you’re starting to, as you said, build a real human connection or real relationship. And once you get to that point now.

It allows you to coach those players in such a way that there’s mutual trust on both sides. And that’s how you get the most out of, out of any person. When you have that love respect relationship, however you want to phrase it. And that allows you to coach your team to their fullest capacity. When you were an assistant coach, what were some things that you were doing to prepare yourself for the opportunity to eventually lead your own program?

Were you putting together, again, I always go back to sort of the Old school, three ring binder of, of saving things you like, but obviously now it’s more of the putting together the Google drive of kind of what you envision. You take things you like, you make note of things maybe you don’t like, but just what was your process for preparing for an eventual head coaching opportunity?

[00:18:10] Heidi Messer:  it’s interesting. I, that is one thing I started very early in my college career, even, and it really just started out of a journal taking notes on my to do’s and not to do’s as a head coach. And I think it’s pretty deep now. It’s several pages long. And I think each part of my playing career in college, and then my journey as an assistant, I just, every year I would just jot down a few things that really stood out.

And what’s funny is that a lot of that. Was more about the environment. A lot of it was more about how I saw new coaches come in and not share expectations or share them or command and demand. It was a lot of stuff like that the value of academics. So that started when I was a player in my freshman year, even.

And then I think as an assistant, I continued in that path, but I also started. To recognize more on, in terms of the X’s and O’s stuff I just started being a collector, a collector of scouts, a collector of coaches I worked for because at the end of the day, I didn’t know what kind of team I was going to have in terms of personnel.

And I’m that person. I mean, I’ve, even this year, I’ve changed up quite a bit of our team’s offense because I realized what I’ve been doing the last two years really wasn’t being effective the way I envisioned it and it really didn’t fit our personnel. in the best way. So I’ve really kind of shifted that dynamic and I think you got to have that adaptability as a head coach.

That was something I probably got to observe in, in both directions, good and bad as an assistant. So I just became a collector, I think is the best way to say it. But I think the most influential thing that I did to prepare I stayed a long time. At Northeastern State, five years, and I got a lot of ownership in that program.

I worked under Coach Fala Suyaonoa, and she I told her when I took that job that I wanted my next step to be a head coach, and she jumped right on board with it and allowed me to have a lot of freedom as, as I got to know how she wanted her program to operate, she gave me the reins to different things to exercise my knowledge and ability.

And along with that, I joined the winning leader program, Leader Kit with Jeremy Boone. And if people don’t know who he is, I would highly recommend they go look him up. I know you’ve had Steve on this podcast and he works with Jeremy now as well, but that program developed me as a leader and taught me the importance of having a vision and a roadmap for how to truly build a program and do more than just Okay, let me be a cool coach that’s got good relationships and a good productive practice and win games.

 it really gave some depth to the, to the life of what it means to be a head coach and run a program. So I think that was probably the most influential non X’s and O’s thing that I did. And like I said, other than that, I just became a collector.

[00:21:14] Mike Klinzing: Would you say that that leadership piece, if you look kind of at The time leading up to getting the job at Oklahoma Wesleyan, would you say that that leadership piece is an area where you feel like you grew the most in your coaching?

Is there another area that you might touch on there that you feel like, Hey, when I started, I wasn’t really very good at this, but as I progressed through my time as an assistant that I really improved, I don’t know if you want to take the leadership piece of that or take something else, but just what did you grow in the most?

As a coach from the time you get that first job at Georgetown until you take over your first head coaching position.

[00:21:53] Heidi Messer: I think finding my voice was probably the biggest shift in all those years.  when you work for different people and I, I was quite a bit of a people pleaser early on and I, I would still say I am to a degree, but with some balance to it

[00:22:09] Mike Klinzing: you

[00:22:09] Heidi Messer: know, I just, I just wanted to be a really great worker.

I think early on in my career, I thought, man, Let me be the Chris Daly to a Gino. I’m cool to be an assistant for as long as I can be like, I love this role. I don’t mind being behind the scenes, being the doer, being the conversationalist, being the go between, between players and head coaches. I love that role.

And so that, that was big for me to come out of the behind the scenes. Into finding my voice. I remember the first time I had to run a practice, I was so stressed out and nervous because

[00:22:49] Mike Klinzing: what if

[00:22:49] Heidi Messer: I don’t say what they want me to say? What if I don’t coach this up the way they want me to coach? I was so frantic.

And so I think finding that boldness, that voice, that confidence of like, look, basketball is a simple game. Let’s make sure they’re working hard and cleaning up what our coach wants to clean up, doing what’s going to be beneficial in our program to make us excel when it’s game day. That was a big piece for me.

I was always a leadership nerd, so to speak, read the books, listen to the podcasts, consume, consume, consume, but I needed to apply it and I needed to be challenged to apply it. When I was a player, I loved being coached. I didn’t mind the workouts. I didn’t mind being pushed. I’m an adult. I joined CrossFit for the same reason.

I wanted to be pushed and coached still in my thirties. And so I knew that. I could only consume so much before I needed to be challenged differently. So while I’ve always been into the leadership, the communication, the relational growth, I think the leadership piece was a monumental growth piece when I got challenged to apply it in different ways and to take different approaches to leadership, to be the guide, not the hero, not always tell them the answers to everything that’s in front of them, but to help them find that self discovery for, Oh, this is what helps me succeed.

This is what I truly want. This is what drives me.  I think a lot of times as leaders we We desire to impact them so much that we want to enlighten them and make their path easier and it doesn’t make us a better leader for them and it doesn’t make them a better individual in their path and in their process.

And I think that’s tough. I’m sure I know I still struggle with it, but that, that program taught me to lead differently in a deeper, more meaningful way. That I think did profoundly impact my readiness and my confidence and my voice to then become a head coach. And when I had that recognition, I mean, the Switch flipped and I was like, Oh, it’s time.

Okay. I no longer want to sit in the back seat. I don’t want to be on the side. I see things that I think can help a program that I would like to do and implement in my program. It’s time. Let me send out all the applications. Here we go.  it lit that fire quickly.

[00:25:18] Mike Klinzing: I can totally understand that finding your voice.

And especially as a young coach, you’re stepping in and there’s times where you’re like, I don’t know. I remember when I first started coaching and I’m whatever, 24, 25 years old, and I started out as a JV coach and then I became a varsity assistant. It was the first time I’d ever worked for somebody. And I know there were times just like you described where head coach, sometimes he’d just step out of the office, step into the office to take a phone call.

Sometimes now I look back and I think he probably did it just to make me kind of find my voice and take over the practice. But as you stand there in front of those kids for the first time and be like, okay, now I got to figure out what am I doing? Can I hold them to the same standard that the head coach was doing?

And it takes time to be able to. To find that and to have that confidence. And so I can relate to that experience that you just described. And I think a lot of coaches probably find that to ring true, that you got to really figure out who you are as a coach and get that confidence. And then once you do, then it’s kind of off to the races.

Tell me about the interview at Oklahoma Wesleyan. What do you remember about it? Was there any unique questions or anything that struck you as, Hey, this is kind of a this is the right place for me,

[00:26:29] Heidi Messer:  I don’t, I don’t remember a ton about the interview in particular in terms of questions and things like that.

I remember recognizing the vibe, I might say, like this felt like, Oh, I went to college here.  it had a lot of similarities to Grace College, where I attended. And of course you ask the questions about the scholarships and the league and the conference and all that stuff. You do your research, but I knew I recognized.

The environment. And I really felt like this, this feels familiar and not that, not that I don’t want to say that I felt safe and that’s what made it felt right. But again, I got into college coaching because I wanted to influence and impact college student athletes like myself, and what better way to start that in my career than to do it at a place that mimics the environment I was in.

And so I think for me. Those things that just resonated kind of deep in my core made it very obvious from the jump, like, Oh, this is, this is the right fit. And I there’s always details. And I was a finalist for another job and waiting to hear from them. There’s all those odds and ends that you kind of deliberate.

It was a very long three days of praying and thinking on the job decision. And do I want to stay in Oklahoma? That was a big piece of it.  I’m a, I’m an Ohio girl. I’m from that side of the country and look forward to a time when I might get to get back that way in my career. But it, it was a lot that went into it, but it felt right.

And I learned a long time ago that when, when things just feel right, quote unquote, in your gut. You might want to give it a little bit more credit and give that credit to God leading you and guiding you in the right direction. I think he’s definitely done that and placing me here and opening the door of opportunity because it’s been great thus far and I look forward to more great things here, but yeah, I just when you go through those processes what’s a fit and  what’s not.

[00:28:37] Mike Klinzing: Who are the people that you had to get on board right away with building the program, sort of in the vision that you had? I mean, obviously beyond the players, who within the school community did you have to talk to sell on your vision to get it to where you wanted it to go? Who do you remember talking to in the first couple of weeks of your tenure there?

[00:28:58] Heidi Messer: I’ll be honest in our, in the interview process, I talked to the athletic director and after that. I talked to the players. The players, to me, were the most important piece. And I knew that they obviously hired me and offered me this job because they saw a vision and a passion in me during that interview process.

So once I had it, I was very player focused. I gathered all the information I could and started calling players, texting players, and then saying, Hey, can I give you a call?  at this time or that time to get to know them. That to me I talk about it now as being important, but it truly was important the day I got the job.

Okay. Who are my players? Who’s returning? Who might be on the fence? Who’s coming in? Who’s coming in under someone that didn’t recruit them? How do I get to know them?  they were my first phone calls. And my repeated phone calls it took me about a month or so to find a great fit as an assistant coach.

And I did, I’m very thankful for that. She got on board straight away cause she, she caught my energy and vision. If, if you get around me, you, it won’t take you long. You’ll, you’ll see that I got a lot of energy and passion around this whole thing. And so she got on board very quickly and I just kept emphasizing the importance of our players.

 at the end of the day, I coach 18 to 22 year olds. It doesn’t matter who’s on board with me or, or what I’m doing in the office or what I’m drawing up. If they’re not bought in and invested in the journey for themselves and invested in what we are doing as a program it doesn’t matter. So to me, they’re first and foremost, they’re always the most important.

[00:30:44] Mike Klinzing: Did you talk any basketball with them at that point? Or was it just about the relationship and helping them get to Mike, understand you? Did you talk to them about, Hey, what did you like about the program? What maybe were some of the things that they’d like to see improved? Did you get into those conversations initially or was that maybe a little bit further down the road?

[00:31:03] Heidi Messer: Nope. I took it straight to it when I got on the phone with them. I mean, obviously I talked to them about where they were from and then I went right into, Hey, tell me how your experience there has been thus far. What are some things, because they didn’t get a chance to interview me in that process some head coach interviews They’ll bring in a player panel.

Right. They didn’t that wasn’t the case here. It was the summertime They were all gone off campus. And so it was clearly an administrative Process. So I’m I asked them. What have you liked and disliked? And what’s one thing you wish your head coach knew about you? If you could have, if you could have set this out there before it was me, what’s one thing you wish your head coach knew?

And what’s, what are some things you wish you could have seen previously? Or what, what would you desire to see within a program that you’re a part of? So I went straight to it. To me, I don’t really want to beat around the bush because, I think, although I had a roadmap for how I wanted to build our program and how I wanted to lay things out, like I said, they’re at the core of that.

And so I needed to make sure that I had players in this program who aligned with how I was going to build things and that they would understand it, or I could use the right language that they would understand, Oh yeah, okay, this is different, she’s on board for us. She, she wants to know and connect with us and help us grow and develop.

[00:32:37] Mike Klinzing: Once you have those conversations and you get into the position and you start heading towards that first season, what was the most surprising thing about being a head coach? Maybe something that you didn’t realize, maybe you’ve had a bunch of things. Well, just as you got into that job, obviously, as you’re an assistant, you feel like I’m ready for this.

I have a pretty good feel. I’ve seen and worked for several head coaches at this point, but was there anything that surprised you about being a head coach?

[00:33:16] Heidi Messer: Yes. The thing that surprised me most about that little six inch slide is the fact that it mentally never turns off. It mentally is constant. I was such a doer as an assistant coach and I thought, man, I’m really tired cause my to do list is long and.

 when coach calls and says, Hey, we need this graphic. Okay. All my stuff just went to the back burner. I’m going to do this for her straight away. So she has it, has it on time, has it before she has to ask for it, can review it.  I was that kind of an assistant. So I was, I was very much high sense of urgency and on the go.

Now I have that there’s still plenty of tasks and to do lists, but there’s also a mental component.  I come home in the evenings and I think about, okay, I’m meticulously playing this practice. What were the highs? What were the lows? How were the engagements? What kind of environment did we create today?

Were they stressed out in practice? Is that why their energy was low to start? Was it me? Did I create that? I don’t know. I was in a good mood. I feel you just go through all these things, but how are they going to show up tomorrow? How can I engage with them differently on the front end that might increase their energy?

If I can influence that before they get to the gym, I want to have that opportunity. Oh, our, our ball screen coverage was bad. Oh, I didn’t check our help side. Let me look at it. It just never stops. And I think. For better or for worse, being a coach that is a connector and that those relationships are important to me and that our environment is important to me.

I think it’s worse maybe because I put heavy investment in those things. Whereas I think in my head, I’m like, man, the people that show up, do their exes nose, get in and out of practice and leave, they’re really living. Like I’m the dumb one over here, but I think there’s great value in it. And I believe that it’s going to be used greatly and become something great one day.

But. The energy and the mental game was the thing that I think surprised me the most. And that’s leadership.  I, I grew up in the home of a pastor and he was the lead pastor of a church in Ohio. And my, obviously my mom assisted him in ministry and I swore I would never get into ministry and never be a part of any kind of Marrying a pastor or anything like that.

I was like, I’m out. Count me out. And boy, have I learned that that’s actually just leadership.

[00:35:51] Mike Klinzing: And so

[00:35:51] Heidi Messer: it’s kind of funny. I it creates good conversations with them now because I’m like, Oh, I thought that was just church people acting like that. Okay. But now I know that’s leadership. So.

[00:36:04] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I do think that there is a huge difference in. your mentality and outlook as an assistant coach versus your mentality and outlook as a head coach. And there’s probably lots of things that you can point to as to reasons why, but that feeling a hundred percent is real. I think as an assistant coach, it’s, I don’t know if the word is easier, but you can leave it behind for a little bit when you’re at home or when you walk away from practice, when you are a head coach, every single detail.

Win, loss, practice, situation, everything just sticks with you. And I don’t care. It doesn’t matter what level you’re coaching. I know when I was coaching my kids in third grade rec basketball, and we’d lose a game and I couldn’t sleep for the next 36 hours thinking about what I could have done differently with a bunch of kids that could barely dribble the ball.

So it’s just, you, you feel it so much more as a head coach. There is no, no question about that. You mentioned a little bit just about, again, the preparation and getting ready for practice. Tell me a little bit about your practice planning method. Just how you go about, what time of your day, where do you go?

How do you put together a practice to try to maximize and create the most efficient and competitive practice environment you can for your kids?

[00:37:32] Heidi Messer: Yeah, I think I, I definitely do a kind of a month long outlook. Okay. Where do, where are we going? Where do we need to be at that time? Okay. And then I kind of worked backwards off of that to get to my earlier practices and stuff.

And so for me I think I start pretty, every year I’m going to start pretty fundamental and basic. Hey, let’s build up our transition and floor spacing and make sure we’ve got that squared away from the jump. Let’s work on fundamental defense. So we know we can be solid in these areas that are shell drill.

We know how to deny, like, I’m going to keep a real basic, and then we’re going to kind of build into some more philosophy things that we do. But I think each day for me in practice, I want to engage them competitively. I want to get their communication up. I want to create something, just kind of get their blood flowing.

And that may only be for five or six minutes, but it, it also lets me know, okay, where’s our energy at today? How’s our communication? How’s our focus? It, it tells me a lot, so it’s kind of my opportunity on days when I know I can’t see them beforehand. It kind of gives me something. And from there regardless of how that goes may alter how we approach those next drills, but I like to get into something kind of break down, but also with a competitive element, I want my team competing and playing hard, I want us being able to pick up and defend full court.

A lot of the times I want us playing at a tempo and a quicker pace. And so I think you have to train that sense of urgency and that style of play because it’s very counter counterintuitive for a lot of players to play with a sense of urgency, just to operate with a sense of urgency is counterintuitive to a lot of people probably.

But  I, I live by that and I can’t turn it off sometimes. But  I kind of tailor our practices with some breakdown, some compete. If we need to go back and break something else down, compete, input something new, offensively or defensive, learn it, compete it always comes back to that.

Okay, how can we compete with it? How can we, and  this is still that time of year where even our competition even yesterday we were doing a segment. And I think I blew the whistle every other time they went down the floor. Hold on, everybody freeze. Look at your spacing. Defense, where are you at?

Why are you not in help? Let’s look at this. Hey, look at the dribble entry instead of the pass. It’s denied. Push her through. Hit the back door. Just trying to coach them up in real time without overwhelming them, but finding those teachable moments. Even now, it’s still October. We definitely don’t have it figured out.

And we are in process and I think that’s the important thing is to understand that every day is a process.  I can’t just be looking at the first game and only worrying about that win. I’m thinking about the process of, okay, how are we building something today in our practice and how are we holding it to a standard and level of accountability in our practice today so that in February we are not pulling our hair out because our help side rotation is late.

 what I’m saying? Yeah, absolutely.

[00:40:52] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely.

[00:40:52] Heidi Messer: You just kind of, I think for me, that’s one thing that’s even grown in the last two years. The way I, the way my vision in my forward thinking ness has kind of changed my practice approach and the level of accountability I’m holding my players to even this year I think is better than it has been in the past, doesn’t feel better cause accountability is hard, but,

[00:41:14] Mike Klinzing: you

[00:41:15] Heidi Messer: know, again, I think it’s one of those things where the outcome, the outcome becomes well worth it.

[00:41:21] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. And that’s where it goes back to what you said right at the very beginning of that answer, right? Of planning it out. It’s not just a daily plan. It’s a, it’s a monthly plan. It’s a yearly plan of knowing what you want to get done and how you want to accomplish it. And ultimately, if you have the map and  it may, you may end up taking a detour or two here or there.

But eventually, if  where your destination, destination is, that kind of can get you through the day to day and help you to stay focused on where you and your players and your team need to get to. I want to ask you one final question, two parts. Part one, when you look ahead over the next year, what do you see as being your biggest challenge?

And then part two of the question, when you think about what you get to do every day, what brings you the most joy? So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy.

[00:42:07] Heidi Messer: Ooh, I like those questions a lot. Thanks. Our biggest challenge I think is, oh man that’s a great question I think it is always going to be holding the standard high because that is exhausting and but holding the standard high in a way that they understand it and start to hold the standard for themselves.

And always making sure that they know that love is at the forefront of why I do what I do and why I lead them the way I lead them. That’s something that I can know and experience in my head and my heart. It’s something I can try to lead conversations with and greet them with a smile with every day.

But do they truly know like, Oh, this is why coach is really passionate about us holding the standard and us taking ownership and us making it our own program. So Holding the standard and making sure they know love is the, is paving the path for that. And then I think my greatest joy every day is my team, my players, my staff.

I think the opportunity to have some kind of variation every day that builds around the game of basketball, conversations about life, conversations about the, the links in Liberty Game, the whatever it might be. Just those interactions bring me more joy than they probably even know, because it’s, it’s just fun for them to interact and reciprocate that relational side as well for me.

And to know that it’s always a two way street brings me joy. It makes me feel like I’m doing something right and that they find me approachable and that they know that door is open and they can walk in and talk about whatever, ? And so, yeah. I think they’re the joy of what I get to do. And then obviously just being around the great game of basketball.

[00:44:05] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. It makes sense, right? Using the game to be able to have an impact as a coach. I think that there’s nothing better than using something that you love to be able to have an impact on young people through coaching basketball is a, is a powerful thing. For sure. Before we wrap up, Heidi, I want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you, whether you want to share social media, email, website, whatever you feel comfortable with.

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

[00:44:32] Heidi Messer: Yeah. I’m on Facebook, Heidi Messer. And then, yeah. Twitter and Instagram, although I’ll be up front. I am a terrible Twitter or X whatever we’re calling it now, user. But it’s @hmesser1323 You can find me on either of those with that handle.

And then email is hmesser@okwu.edu. And I love hearing from people. I love engaging in these conversations. So I’d love to hear from anybody who gets a chance to give this podcast a listen.

[00:45:07] Mike Klinzing: Awesome. Heidi, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule this morning to jump on and join us.  Really appreciate it. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.