CORY HEITZ – FOUNDER OF PREP ATHLETICS – EPISODE 494

Cory Heitz

Website – https://prepathletics.com/

Email – coryheitz@gmail.com

Twitter – @PREP_Athletics

Cory Heitz is the Founder of PREP Athletics.  PREP Athletics offers players and their families a trusted source for the world of prep schools. Cory learns the family’s goals, the player’s academic and athletic ability as well as their financial resources and then puts all that information together to choose schools from the PREP Athletics database where this player could potentially succeed.

Cory attended the United States Air Force Academy’s Prep School for a post-grad year before playing at Air Force.

Cory has been an assistant coach at the high school level, worked at John Calipari’s University Of Kentucky Basketball Camp, and helped run Nike Top 48 High School All-Star Camps in Taiwan.

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Get ready to learn as you listen to this episode with Cory Heitz, Founder of PREP Athletics

What We Discuss with Cory Heitz

  • How prep school changed his own trajectory and that of his cousin Brad Miller who played in the NBA
  • The story behind how PREP Athletics got started
  • The process he goes through to help players and their families find the right prep school
  • Why his visits to Prep Schools are so important to his understanding of what a school can offer a prospective student-athlete
  • 4 things a player needs to attend prep school
    1. Talent (not necessarily high major talent)
    2. Good Grades
    3. Finances
    4. A Compelling Story
  • International vs. Domestic Players
  • The different types and tiers of prep schools
  • What a Pop Up School is versus a Brick and Mortar
  • The three questions any prospective player or parent should ask a prep school before enrolling
  • What to look for in a good prep school coach
  • Why he loves to visit prep schools in person and what he learns from those visits
  • The four pillars of prep school benefits – athletic, academic, emotional maturity, and exposure to different cultures
  • The difference between a prep school and a post-grad year
  • How he uses his podcast to bring in people outside his areas of expertise
  • Educating parents on the youth/high school/college basketball experience
  • The challenges facing youth basketball today
  • Overtime, the new high school “pro” league
  • How Covid has afffected recruiting now and in the future
  • Some old school video game talk

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THANKS, CORY HEITZ

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TRANSCRIPT FOR CORY HEITZ – FOUNDER OF PREP ATHLETICS – EPISODE 494

Cory Heitz Raw

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with my cohost Jason Sunkle tonight, and we are pleased to welcome to the podcast from PREP athletics. Cory Heitz. Cory is going to spend some time tonight educating us on the world of prep, school basketball, Cory, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

Cory Heitz: [00:00:18] Mike, Jason, thank you very much for having me on tonight.

Mike Klinzing: [00:00:21] Absolutely. We are thrilled to be able to have you on to learn more about a world that quite honestly, I am not super familiar with. So I’m planning to get educated right along with our audience tonight. Cory, you want to start out by asking you to just share and tell us a little bit about prep, athletics, what it is, where it came from and just give us that elevator pitch and let us people know what they’re going to be in for as they listened to this episode tonight.

Cory Heitz: [00:00:47] Yeah. Well, thanks for letting me explain that, Mike. Me placing kids in the prep school happened by accident. And it first started back in 1993. When my cousin Brad Miller left his high school, [00:01:00] his senior year in Indiana and went to a prep school in Maine. And then after that year, in that environment, he played four years at Purdue and in 14 years in the NBA.

And I actually did a post-grad year myself at the air force academy prep school. And then my only D one options were military academies. So from my post-grad year I then played at Air Force. So what I tell families is without prep schools, my cousin has said this many times, he’s not playing in the NBA and without prep school, I’m not playing D ne basketball for free.

So it’s changed the trajectory of my family. You know, life right for him and I, so back 13 years ago, I actually was coaching in Canada and had a real good player there and said, you know what? This kid could do what I do and do a post-grad year and see what happens. And I placed my first kid actually, ironically, at the same prep school, my cousin Brad went to, and now 13 years later, I’ve turned it into a full consulting business.

And I’ve placed kids at over 37 different prep schools from 19 different countries. And [00:02:00] what I do is there’s a whole landscape out there, Mike of prep, schools post-grad opportunities. And I narrowed them down from a hundred post-grad opportunities to the right fitting three to five. And by right fitting the prep school rules, just like the college world to where central Connecticut state has a different culture.

And as a school and as a basketball team than Duke, then UCLA. Right. So I kind of tell kids, Hey, you might be a low major, or you might be a high major, or you might. Someone who wants to play in the big 10 conference, I kind of do that for the prep school basketball world.

Mike Klinzing: [00:02:35] All right. So you go from you attending a prep school and having it be a benefit to you.

You place your first player. There, obviously there’s a lot of steps to go from that point to where you are now in terms of understanding the whole world, understanding what the different programs offer, who the coaches are, what the schools are all about. So how do [00:03:00] you sort of build that base of knowledge?

Once you start thinking that, Hey, this could be a way that I could have a positive impact on kids and their basketball career.

Cory Heitz: [00:03:09]  Yeah, Mike, it all happened by accident. And that’s a fact after I placed this kid from Canada at the prep school in Maine, he got a full ride to an Indiana. That a year later when the NAIA national championship.

And then I started seeing kids in Kentucky where I was coaching high school ball at the time and said, Hey, I think you might benefit from this too. And I think you might benefit from this as well. And it was me cold calling places and just asking like, Hey, what are you looking for? How much do you guys cost?

And not, not really knowing the whole landscape yet. And then in 2011, I moved to Washington DC to be with my now wife. And I actually got on the high school coaching staff at Gonzaga college high school, which at the time was a top 10 school in the country. I mean, we had guys in that, we had Christian friends on that team who made the shot for Villanova to win the national title.

Brit who wanted a [00:04:00] year later with North Carolina, we had a kid that went to wake forest Dayton, Syracuse, Loyola brown, Mount St. Mary’s Alabama for football, flora, state for football and north for football. All those caliber players were in our program. Which meant every day we had coaches in the gym.

So one of the things I did with Gonzaga was just shake hands and talk to every coach and just tell them about our players. And I made a lot of connections that way. So by the time I wanted to get a little bit more into the prep school world, I reached out to about 20 coaches and I said, Hey, if I’m going to go to new England and visit three programs in a row, Which three should I visit?

And I got a couple consistent schools over and over again. And then I took off on a five day road trip from DC to new England and started hitting two prep schools a day, just to see them in person, just to kind of you know, meet the coach face to face. I didn’t have a consulting business than Mike. I was just trying to figure out.

You know, a little bit more landscape of this world, just so I could help kids for free. Cause I used to try to beg kids to let me help them [00:05:00] for free. And this is before I turned into a consulting business and it just, every year I would take five days off and go hit the road and visit 10 more prep schools.

You know, in one day I went down south from DC and visited Hargrave and fork union and visit the schools in Pennsylvania, Ohio. I’ve been to Florida to visit those down there. So this has not been an overnight process. This is actually taken time. And like I said, before I turned into a business, I was doing it just for the love of the game to find more options for potential kids from Kentucky.

I could help. And just to back up since I am from Kentucky it’s up there with New York city, Washington, DC, Indiana as being basketball meccas, right. So I knew there was tons of talent, Kentucky. Cause I grew up there on a really good team. I played with good players, but it’s kind of a desert to work teams.

The college ranks outside of Kentucky Louisville, Eastern Kentucky, Northern Kentucky, didn’t really fly there. Cause you would fly in from other parts of the country. You get a rental car and only see one player at [00:06:00] one practice. Right? So just not a great way to see a lot of talent at once. So I tried to get as many Kentucky kids you know, talk to as many as I could about a post-grad option and I could speak from experience.

I mean, I’m coming from when I was on in high school the reason I needed a post-grad years because our team was so good, I needed to get more minutes. And so I think I’ve, since over the years, eight players from Kentucky to do a post-grad year and seven of them have gone  because their talent there there’s talent there and it’s a high IQ.

And then I just start expanding and word of mouth started spreading and I started helping kids from Connecticut and from this country, from that country, and then just organically. Doing something I was passionate about and telling people the truth about this world it just, it just got so big and it got so just so many people coming at me, I decided to actually turn into a business and fast forward to now, 13 years later, I absolutely love what I’m doing.

And I’m helping kids from all over the globe and turning a lot of way to Mike. Cause there are a lot of kids that try to get into this prep school world. [00:07:00] And it is a very, a very specific set of requirements you need to have to get into this world.

Mike Klinzing: [00:07:06]  All right. So I want to ask you a question about that, but I want to go backwards.  When did you, how long into the process were you when you started to think, Hey, this could potentially be a business. In other words, what is your mind mindset shift from? Hey, this is just something that I’m finding interesting, and I want to help kids. And it’s just kind of part of what I’m doing as part of my coaching career to a whole new sort of mindset and shift into.

This could potentially be a business. How far into it were you when that shift took place?

Cory Heitz: [00:07:37] Seven years into it. And it was a cold November night and it was in Connecticut. I went to stay with one of my college coaches from air force, just one of my best friends. And he’d give me a lot of advice on this because he runs his AAU team and he’s a former D one player, former D one coach.

And he knows a lot about the game and he [00:08:00] sat there and just yelled at me for two hours, yelled at me in a loving way. But like, Hey man, you’ve spent all this time, all this money, all these, this bandwidth. And he goes, you were doing something and you have a knowledge that people would pay for it.

And at the time I was like, yeah, I just, I don’t, I don’t feel right charging for this. Like how, how can I do that? And he’s like, easy. He goes, there’s people out there that’ll pay you for your knowledge. He goes, Cory, you’ve put in, you’ve done the research. You’ve done the visits. You have experienced placing kids.

You know how the admission process works. Just become a consultant and help families that see the value in this. And it’s much like a mortgage broker as much like a realtor. You know, when we moved here to Denver from Washington DC two years ago we had a realtor to take the entire metroplex of Denver and narrow it down based on our needs to the right couple the couple of neighborhoods that’d be good fits for our price range, what we wanted and factors that were important to us.

So I do that same thing for prep school. Do you want to go to a school and be on a team with 10 other guys? Do you want to go on a team and be [00:09:00] on a roster with maybe one D three kid? Do you want high academics? Do you want basket weaving for classes? Do you want to go to a military school? Do you want to go with an animal like IMG?

So yeah, that conversation with that coach really changed my life. And you know, when I turn it into a business, I felt weird at first, but then I started seeing that, you know what, this is a value I’m bringing the families and those that Check the boxes and qualify for a prep school. You know, I would like to be there to help guide them and help them make the right decision.

Cause this, ultimately it’s just like going to a college. This can be a life changing experience that can change the trajectory of a kid’s life.

Mike Klinzing: [00:09:37] Absolutely. I know that when you go from doing something for free to charging for, for it, there’s a, there’s a mentality that you have to kind of, or an obstacle, a mental block that you kind of have to get over, especially when you have been doing it for free for so long that now to kind of go ahead and think, well, wow, somebody is actually going to pay me for this.

How’d you figure out what to [00:10:00] charge and how did you get over that hesitancy of actually charging people for something that used to you used to do for free?

Cory Heitz: [00:10:06] Yeah, I mean, I, I talked it over with my coach and my starting fee was a thousand dollars and it was $500. And once you signed with the prep school, it was $500 after that.

And even to this day, I’ll still help families out for free. If they, if they can’t afford me or you know, there’s a certain circumstance, but I’ve also found out through trial and error, like some big time players have come to me and say, Hey, I want you to help me. I’ve done it for free knowing they’d be easy to place, but then those guys forget about you real quick, too.

So for me, it’s been a trial and error and now a full disclosure. You know, my fee is $3,000 and it’s $1,500 to start the process. If I decide to take you on as a client, and we’ll get to that in a second and then $1,500. Once you pick a prep school that have put you in front of, but Mike, the thing is that we’re, I don’t feel bad when I own it anymore is a couple of reasons.

One, I can save a family potentially up to $30,000. On tuition, [00:11:00] right? Because I know the market value of these kids now, because I’m constantly in conversation with these prep school coaches. I’m constant conversation constantly in conversations with admission directors. So I know on like a daily basis, kinda like the stock market on what a going rate is for a kid and who has financial aid money right now, who still needs a big man who needs an underclassmen?

I keep up with the zeitgeists of the prep school, basketball world. And what I tell people too is look, they’re 99% of the people that pick a prep school don’t use a consultant. So I was like, you don’t need me just, you can go online, you can make phone calls, you’ll be fine. But if you’re going through me, you’re going to have the best options in front of you.

And guess what? These coaches are going to get back to me very quickly because of the relationships I have with them. And I’m gonna guide you through the whole process. I’m gonna try to save you money, get the best value and put you in a situation that could potentially take you from a T3 player to a potential scholarship player.

So in the big scheme of things, my fee plus prep, school tuition, It might be a real life Vegas gamble if it pays off and gets you a D two or D one [00:12:00] scholarship at the end of the day. So that’s the way I kind of rationalize it. And if, if people don’t want to use me, that’s fine. The internet has every single piece of information I have.

It’s just, I have more time and more miles on the ground. And that’s, that’s what you’re paying for.

Mike Klinzing: [00:12:14] Would you say that you spend more time developing the relationships with prep, school, admissions officers, the schools, themselves and the coaches, and then the players are coming to you, or are you spending more time looking actively for players to recruit to your service?

Which one of those better describes the process that you have? Is it more, Hey, I’ve got this expertise, I’ve got all these relationships and the players now kind of come to you and has that shifted over time? Just talk about the, sort of the balance between those two.

Cory Heitz: [00:12:46] things. Yeah, that’s a great question.

So. I’m going to put 75% of my effort into those relationships with the prep school coaches and their staffs. Because if I don’t have relationships with them, it doesn’t matter. Right. So that’s [00:13:00] gotta be first and foremost. That’s why the visits is so important. So these coaches and mission directors can meet me and look me in the eye.

And you know, this, you, you do business as well on the side, Mike, when you meet someone in person that bond you forge, even if it’s for five minutes, when you call them on the phone in the future, you have that connection to where, if you don’t have that connection, you’re just another voice in the line.

I don’t care what you’re offering them. It’s just not quite the same. So I’ve put a lot of effort and time into that. And my dad we’re business partners in my other business, which is real estate development. And he always has a quote he’s told me, which is you’ve got to make your calls. You’ve got to make your own.

He and I have flown across country before for a half hour meeting, just because we felt that would be worth it in the long run. Right. So I’ve taken that same attitude to the prep school world and meeting these coaches and admission folks and seeing the schools. In fact, just this week I was, I was picking out 10 schools.

Then I need to go visit for the first time this fall, when end up taking my trip there. So I look forward to it. It’s always beautiful in new England, that leaves are [00:14:00] changing and I get to see beautiful prep schools. So to me, that’s, that’s not even work. That’s, that’s fun. Now. As far as finding players go, I don’t proactively go after players, right?

Especially underclassmen, underclassmen. I don’t want to be the guy going in there and pilfering high school rosters to get their kids and place them at prep schools. I don’t care. I don’t have an ego. I don’t care who comes to me. I don’t care if you’re a billionaire. I don’t care if you’re a lottery pick.

I don’t care if you’re terrible. You have to have the check marks to get you in these prep schools, but I don’t have any ego of trying to get the best players. So for me, going to an AAU event or being proactive and reaching out to kids on Twitter I’ve done it on Twitter a couple of times. I don’t like cold calling, but I have done a lot of research on getting my website built up to snuff.

I’ve got a podcast going. I’ve got a lot of contacts around the globe now on every continent to where the more I can let people know that I want, I’m going to be the clearing house, hopefully for prep, school basketball, the more people that can have at least reach out to me and see if this is the right situation for [00:15:00] them.

So my website, when you type in prep school basketball and Google comes up first or second. So I get a lot of people reaching out to me and asking questions and out of about every 20 people that reach out one will qualify for prep school and actually want to go forward with me through that process.

But yeah, to answer your question. Yeah. Majority of the time spent fostering those relationships, keeping up to date on what their needs are, and I’d say the other 25% are getting new clients.

Mike Klinzing: [00:15:25] All right. So you’ve mentioned a couple of times the requirements or qualifications that apply. Has to have in order for a prep school to be a good fit for them.

So why don’t you talk about those boxes that a player has to check off in order for them to make, for it, to make sense for them to consider a prep school?

Cory Heitz: [00:15:43] Okay, great question. And this is the thing I deal with every single day with, with kids and families that reach out to me one, you’ve got to have athletic ability.

It doesn’t have to be you know, high, major ability. It can be the lowest of D3. Like it didn’t even have to be that high, but that’s one thing you have to have that [00:16:00] needs to be compelling to, you’ve got to have good grades and three, you got to have a financial aspect and four, you got to have an interesting story.

So mix all those together. The better you are as a player, the less your grades need to be the less money you need. The worse you are as a player, the more money you’ll need. The better grades you’ll have. The more interesting you’ll need to be. So it’s a weird combination. Have a balance of all those, because you have to think what a prep school admission department’s looking at.

A lot of these prep schools are getting applications from all over the world from very interesting kids, right? So why are they gonna give your kid a roster spot at their school or a placement? And if you’re requesting financial aid, why are they going to give you financial lays? You need, you need to tell them why.

And so I first always go through a coach and I’ll say, Hey, here’s this kid’s highlights. Here’s this transcript. The family can pay X amount of dollars, by the way. He also plays cello and he’s vice president of student council. Let me know if you’re interested or not. And based on [00:17:00] that coach’s needs, position-wise based on the financial aid needed and based on the grades.

And if it’s a compelling story that coach will tell me yes or no, I’m interested. Unfortunately there’s a lot of kids out there that come at me that well, let’s talk about guards. So this year I probably have. 400 people reach out to me and probably six of them were six, seven or higher, the rest of those regards.

Right? So, and this is the same from college. And you know, this is well from your experience, there are go, you throw a stick, you’re gonna hit 10 guards in this world. So what makes you stand out as a guard? All right, right now at this late in the game in may, you’ve got either right at be able to write a check for full tuition or you better have a D one offer or multiple offers in hand to get anywhere near prep, school roster spots, right?

Even in the fall, when there’s still roster spots, financial aid available, it’s so hard to place guards. They’ve got to have a compelling story, right? Like I placed a kid this year from the island of Mauritius. I don’t think it’s in the Indian ocean somewhere. And that kid was five but [00:18:00] 11 a little pipsqueak that wanted to do a post-grad year, but he spoke three languages.

He graduated with his IB degree at a high school. He’s from an island that no prep school has that flag flying in their dining. Right. And he’s a nice kid with a great personality who also plays an instrument very well. So that kid right there paid $30,000 to go to a $65,000 prep school. So this prep school gave him $35,000 in aid because he’s an interesting kid.

That’s going to be part of the culture at the school. And guess what? Kids are going to learn more from a kid from malicious than the school might from a kid from new England, right? So schools want diversity just like colleges, but you need to have some aspect of that. If you’re a big guy, you’ll have a good chance of being placed.

If you’re a big guy with grades even better. If you’re big guy with grades and D one offers from a state, that’s not really represented at the school, you’ll have even more interest and get more money thrown at you, even if you can afford to pay the full tuition. And let me give another example here.

[00:19:00] Mike, last year had a kid from the DC area, played his first two years at DeMatha two other years at a Baltimore Catholic league school, six, eight. 29 act, 3.8 GPA, a African-American kid. And he had a D one offer from Youngstown state, which is up in your neck of the woods. So he has every single bonafide minority, big man, good grades D one offer.

Now here’s the problem. Both his parents are doctors. So is he qualified for financial aid? Not much. Okay. You’d guess not, but he also brings a value to a school, right? So we got him and this is I’m going to, this is a plug here. He got through me and the family was willing to put up $30,000 for a post-grad year.

I got him into a AA school. I’m not gonna mention the one for only $20,000. So that kid there, even though he could have written a check for 65 K, he got a $45,000 scholarship because of everything he brought to the table. So the more of those [00:20:00] categories, you’re interesting in whether it be athletics, academics, finances, and how interesting you are in some combination.

Yeah. You got to think about a prep school. And if a prep school would want to take a kid like that on, and that’s where I’m kind of like a clearing house to where if you come to me and reach out, I’m going to send you a quick questionnaire, ask you a lot of questions, see your transcript, look at your highlights.

And then I’m going to ask you the toughest question I’ve got to ask, which is how much are you willing to invest intuition? If that number is too low, I say, thank you, but I can’t help you get that number comes in about right. Then we’ll move to the next step and I’ll say, Hey, I can help you. Let’s move forward.

So it’s a combination of all those things Mike, that prep schools are looking for. And therefore, that’s what I need to look for in kids. I take on as client,

Mike Klinzing: [00:20:44] how is it working with international versus domestic players? What’s the difference from your perspective? Is there any?

Cory Heitz: [00:20:52] They’re more intriguing to a school

If a school has more, the more diversity of school has the better the school likes. [00:21:00] Right. So when I had that kid from the island of Mauritius, I mean, that schools were licking their chops for him, even though he wasn’t that good and didn’t have $65,000, they were licking their chops because of how that culture of growing up there would potentially spread throughout the school and have everyone learn a little bit more.

So from a culture perspective, schools love it. It also mostly means too that a kid’s going to be bilingual or trilingual, which schools love as well. Now, basketball wise, coaches like it. Because you know, you might get a really good player. You might get a kid that doesn’t hurt your team, but you at least bring a different flavor to your locker room.

And you know, but it’s always a mystery to like a lot of these coaches never see those international kids in person until the day they show up on campus. Right. So it is also a risk as well. So there have been some success stories. There have been some kids that have showed up and been duds, whether they’re my kids or not.

That’s just the reality, but coaches like having a diverse team, they don’t just want kids from one part of the country. It is a prep school. And part of going [00:22:00] to that prep school is being around people from different religions, backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, sexes belief system et cetera, et cetera.

And that’s one of the beauties of prep school is it’s not homogenized. It’s very, very diverse. So do they want foreign kids? Yes. And one thing that’s actually was hurt by COVID is a lot of these schools fund a lot of people through full pay Chinese students, right. And once COVID hit that really hurt.

And some schools out there are known to have half their school from the US and other parts of the world. The other half is from China. And there’s a really weird. Cultural dynamic at the school that just, it’s not as diverse with such a large Chinese contingent in some schools that can’t take all these Chinese now because of the COVID virus are hurting financially.

So it’s a very interesting dynamic that each school has culturally, but normally these schools want as much diversity as possible and they’ll give a kid aid for it. The one other thing I need to mention about that [00:23:00] too, is all kids that apply to us. Prep schools have to fill out a financial aid form, which is similar to what you would do for a college.

Now, the foreign folks that are applying have to do this as well, but they don’t have to submit their us taxes. So a family could be worth a million dollars in Portugal and they might tell a school, well, we only make 65 K a year and the schools can’t verify it. Right? So a lot of foreign kids, maybe they have a lot more money, but since the schools kind of verify their income, they can sometimes get a better deal than maybe they normally should.

Mike Klinzing: [00:23:35] Understood. All right. Next thing. When you start talking about prep schools themselves, how do you break them down in terms of, do you consider them to be in different tiers? I know when we talked, before we got on the podcast, you talked a little bit about pop-up academies and the places like IMG, and then you have high academic schools and military.

Just talk about maybe some of the different categories [00:24:00] that you deal with other schools, and then what types of student athletes fit best in which type of environment?

Cory Heitz: [00:24:06] Yeah. Well, first before I get to the pop-up academies, let’s talk about kind of the break. Just stereotypes, the prep school world, especially for basketball players, you’ve got your high academic schools out there like Exeter, Deerfield, Choate, and these places have been around for hundreds of years, have very, very famous people that have graduated from a very good educations and good basketball as well.

But you have to have certain Ivy league minimum standards on your transcript to even get sniffed at, by these places. Right? So there’s only a certain clientele that wants to go there. And I’ve sent a couple of kids to her and they’re busting their butt in the classroom there versus maybe getting more run on the court.

So it’s, it’s a unique situation going to these hierarchal places. Then you’ve got a lot of prep schools up there. There have, might have 10 D one guys in the roster. That’s your new Hamptons? You’re Northfield, Mount Hermon. You’re Brewster academy. That’s its own animal there. Those are mostly AAA [00:25:00] schools.

Then you’ve got AA schools. We have St. Andrew’s Worcester, Kat. Cushing Kimball union. You might have a one to six D one guys at that level, right? Academics are still good. There’s varying ranges among those schools, but it’s not going to be like your Deerfield, Exeter, where it’s it’s it’s much more competitive.

Then you’ve got your single A’s schools, your class BS and CS. You know, these might have one or two D one guys. Maybe they have three D three guys. Maybe they have no college guys in a roster. So that’s kind of like the bottom tier. That’s like the low major. Then we go over to Pennsylvania and Ohio.

We’ve got a few schools sprinkled around there. You come down to Virginia, you’ve got your fork union, your Hargrave, your mess. And what’s your military academy options. And then you go down to Florida and you’ve got a bunch of pop-up academies, but you’ve also got Mont verdict cademy, which is very nationally known.

And then the beast of a mall, which is IMG academy. The farthest west, you go for legit prep. Schools is Lake forest. And Chicago and that’s about it. Everything else past that [00:26:00] there might be a Wasatch academy or maybe a counter

Mike Klinzing: [00:26:04] Kyle Koncz is from Strongsville. That’s where Jason and I are. So I know

Cory Heitz: [00:26:07] Kyle well, yes.

Mike Klinzing: [00:26:09] I’ve known Kyle since he was, I don’t know. I used to play basketball. His dad I’ve known Kyle since he was five, probably. So yeah, Kyle, since he was six or seven,

Cory Heitz: [00:26:17] so yeah. Well, cool. Well, I’ll be sure to tell him hi, on your all’s behalf advice. Absolutely. Absolutely. So those are the, that’s kind of the breakdown of the legit brick and mortar prep schools.

And that’s one thing I say a lot. Mike is brick and mortar, and now we’re going to get into the part of the conversation, which I love talking about, which is the difference between a brick and mortar preps. And a basketball academy. Now, do you know the difference between the two before I start?

Mike Klinzing: [00:26:44] I could probably guess and speculate, but I’m going to honestly say that I don’t necessarily know the difference in it other than it seems like a pop-up academy would be primarily set up to just field a basketball team and draw in dollars as a result [00:27:00] of said basketball program, which enables the school itself to continue functioning and without a high level basketball team and players becoming a part of that academy that the school itself doesn’t exist.

That’s my. That’s my perspective on what I think it would be, whether I’m right or not. I have no idea.

Cory Heitz: [00:27:17] Yeah. That’s not bad. So one thing there’s a little bit different is you don’t even need a school to do a pop-up academy. So right now you Jason and I could start Cory, Jason and Mike academy in the next 10 minutes, we really could.

We just started put up a Facebook page and then bam, we start telling kids we want them to be in our program. So these pop-up academies are not brick and mortar schools. Okay. The brick and mortar schools had administrations. They have Wikipedia pages, they have financial aid departments, janitorial staff, school nurses, facilities, endowments board of trustees are credited.

I mean, they’re like colleges, the pop-up schools. You know, there’s some of them out there that like Huntington prep they were a basketball program that was associated with St. [00:28:00] Joseph Catholic school in Huntington, West Virginia. So there’s a lot of basketball programs that are connected to Christian schools out there.

And then you can also have a post-grad program that just pops up. They just take postscript players. If you want to take a Juco class online. Great. Do you want to do a CTSA? Sat, prep online. Great. If you don’t want to, that’s fine too. You can do whatever you want. So I just want people to know these two things are not even they both offer post-grad years, but you know, one’s accredited and one is not, and that’s fine.

Look, there are some fine popups out there that are post-grads academies, but there are also some out there that are criminal in what they do. And what I always tell parents is look, just do Google search of the coach of the staff of the program, and then ask a lot of tough questions, do a lot of due diligence.

And even if you do that due diligence you know, these guys are great salesman out there and you know, some of these programs might charge between three and 40,000 to be in them. But some might have a group house kids live in, [00:29:00] some might play 50 games, right? Against other teams where no coaches around Some kids might be on the third team.

Who’s watching that third team. So it’s just, there’s a lot of questions that need to be asked. And I’m working right now on an article that I’m just putting every question on there. I would ask one of these post-grad academies to feel comfortable about sending my son there. If I was looking at one of them and mind you this might be the only chance some kid has Mike.

Like if you’ve got $5,000, that’s it. And you’re looking for a chance. This is your chance, but you have to know going in, like, there’s no guarantees that you’re going to get placed from this. There’s no guarantees. You’re going to have a diverse, diverse food meals every night of the week. There’s no guarantee you’re not going to be a room with six other guys.

There’s no guarantee you’re going to get playing time or seen by coaches. So that’s what I want to educate people on is Hey, go to these places. There are some good ones out there, but these are not prep schools. So do not call them prep schools. They are basketball academies.

[00:30:00] Mike Klinzing: [00:30:01] Three questions. You would tell a parent to ask a perspective school coach person.

Who’s contacting them about a prep school. What’s sort of the top three questions that they should ask.

Cory Heitz: [00:30:14] What’s your, did you place all of your guys last year? I’m not worried about placing the good guys. Did you place the guys at the end of the bench that are paying full price? That’s question number one.

Right. Number two is okay.

Can I talk to families and players that you’ve had in the past and get their reference? Because I want to hear the dirt on what it’s like day to day from someone that’s not pitching me and three,

what am I living in dietary arrangements? Because if you’re not sleeping well, not eating well, that’s going to affect everything else. Now, mind you notice, I didn’t mean. Academics that had mentioned helmet, what team you’re going to be on. You know, if there’s three teams, which team are you going to be on?

Am I giving him the first team that’s playing in the big time events? Or am I going to be on the third [00:31:00] team? How is that determined? And then I mean, I’d asked this blunt question too, have you guys ever been in trouble with the law? Because there are guys out there that have been arrested that are running post-grad programs right now, which is crazy.

So yeah, those would be my top three though.

Mike Klinzing: [00:31:16] And how many people, when you give people that advice, what percentage of players and their parents or their families, do you think really ask those questions? Who end up at one of these academies? If you had to guess?

Cory Heitz: [00:31:26] No idea. I don’t know. I mean, they don’t go through me.

I have no idea what their conversations are with these people, but I every time I meet a coach and I’ve met with these guys, look, I’ve in the old days, I placed a couple kids at these places because I tried to help the kid that only had $5,000. Right. And I did this quite a bit until I got burned three times in one year, one time I had to rescue a kid at midnight and sneak them out.

Because it was such a bad situation that we had no idea. It was like that hell I’ve been around this and I got sold a bill of goods. Right. So if I’m getting duped, what’s your average single mom going to think when this guy’s sweet talking her [00:32:00] at an AAU event so I’m just putting that out there, but it’s it’s, it’s a tough world to navigate, but that’s why I want to talk to as many people as possible and say, you can go to that place.

I just want you to ask tough questions and I want you to know what you’re getting into. And that’s what I say. Every time I’ve talked to a coach, I think I might even ask you this. When I talked to you for the first time, it was like, what’s your pitch? Like, give me your elevator pitch on what, what your program does.

Why should I come. And then you asked for references or where’d you play, or who have you placed in the past. And you can smell real quick because this is a small world, which the basketball world is very small. You can smell real quick, who has knows what they’re talking about and who doesn’t.

And you see these guys out there, Mike, that they’re doing this to try to get a shoe deal, to try to get a guy that goes to a high major program or a low major program where they can get on and be a D one assistant, or they’re going to try to get a kid that goes to the league or go to the pros so they can get a cut of their commission at some point.

[00:33:00] So there are people doing boring work out there that don’t have any ego. Those are the people you want to find, but the guys that are trying to get on the coattails, the good players and get that money. Those are the guys I’d be very wary of.

Mike Klinzing: [00:33:14] All right. So that goes to something you talked about earlier, which is, you yourself doing your research and going on your trips and going to visit these schools and visit with coaches. When you go and visit a coach, what does that visit look like? If it’s a place that you haven’t been before, what does that visit look like? What kinds of things are you doing? What kind of questions are you asking?

Who are you getting to talk to while you’re there and how do you get the kind of access that you need in order to gather your information? How does all that come about and come together so that you can leave there feeling like you have a pretty good handle on what that place is all about?

Cory Heitz: [00:33:48] Yeah, It’s look, these coaches love showing off their places and I love, I love showing up and being getting to see them.

Right. And they’re all a little bit different just like college campuses are. So when I [00:34:00] go to these places, one, I want to meet the coach. Right? Sometimes I meet them at tournaments before I’ve gone to the school. Sometimes I’ve only talked to him on the phone. Sometimes it’s just a text. Yeah. The first time we meet her talk is on that visit.

And I just want to get a general snapshot of the school. So walk me around, show me a dorm, show me a classroom. Let me see what the kids eat and hang out. Let’s see the gym. If I can, I’d love to meet the admission officer, a director of admissions. I’d love to meet the headmaster just so they know who I am.

If my name or one of my kids ever pops up. And then we just sit down and chat. And if it’s in the morning, we usually chat a lot. If it’s in the afternoon, it’s usually before they’ve got an open gym or shoot around. So then I’ll get to see the talent of the players and you know, just how the coach runs practice.

And then if it’s open gym period that probably the college coaches there and I’ll talk to them as well and ask them, Hey, what do you recruited here from a recruited from here before you what’s the type of player that comes out of here. So really I don’t need to do that much extensive work.

I mean, I stopped them places before [00:35:00] for 15 minutes just because it was between point a and point B. And I just wanted to see this. And do a quick hello to the coach and that’s been good, just that face-to-face like I mentioned earlier, but I love it. I mean, like I said, I’m traveling through new England in the fall, leaves are changing and I’m going from one beautiful prep school to the next and it’s just hanging out and just shooting the crap and just getting to know a little bit more about them telling you a little bit more about yourself and just seeing the energy there, because you know, in the future, if I’m connecting a family to that school, I have to give that family kind of a rundown on the school.

Hey, this coach is a young guy with no kids. He’s a former, do you want assistance? He’s a gym rat or, Hey, this coach is a little bit older. He’s in the hall of fame. His kids are grown. He’s just not aspiring as much as he was in the old days. Hey, this, this campus is kind of dusty. You know, it hasn’t been updated in awhile or like other schools, Hey, it’s got eight brand new buildings and a brand new gym because they did a $500 million campaign to [00:36:00] fix up their school.

So all that stuff goes into kind of my database to where, when I talk to families, I give them those differences and similarities between the schools are looking at. So to me, it’s, it’s one of my favorite weeks of the year, Mike, because I get to see these new places. And every time I come out of there, I’m like, golly if I had, if I had a son or a daughter, like where would I send them?

And I’ve seen so many great places, it would be such a hard decision because it’s just, it’s just a world that once you start seeing. It’s it opens you up to something you just like, like now, even I would like go to IMG. I was there a couple of weeks ago. I wish I was 17. Again, it could go down there and do the drills.

They do work out in the workout facilities. They do train with the pros and the preseason like they do. I would love that because that was not available back in 91 and 95 when I was in high school. So it’s just, it’s just a fascinating world. And that’s another thing aside from letting people know the difference between prep, schools, and academies.

I want to let kids know around the world about the prep school option, [00:37:00] because there are so many kids out there that would benefit from this that just outside of the new England area, just really are not that well-informed about it.

Mike Klinzing: [00:37:07] All right. So just share with us. What do you think are the major benefits?

If I’m a high school athlete that is graduating, and again, we could take it out of this weird pandemic year, but just in a normal situation and I’m considering. I’m considering a prep school. What are the biggest benefits that I’m going to derive from taking that year to go to a prep school before I head off the college?

What are the benefits?

Cory Heitz: [00:37:32] Yeah. Yeah. Great question. There’s four parts to this. The first is athletic. So one you’re going to get an extra spring and summer of AAU, right? Which could be huge. Cause you know, the, the, the boy body develops between 17 and 20. You don’t know who’s going to become a man. When you know, I became a man and put on 20 pounds of muscle during my post-grad year, because that’s when my DNA turns.

Some kids are built like that as 10th graders. Some kids don’t hit that until they’re 20. So if you haven’t hit that, that [00:38:00] becoming a man yet, that could happen during that summer, or it could happen during the post-grad year, but you get more exposure in the summer with AAU events, with the leek camps.

And that exposure is going to lead into your open gym period with the prep schools. Let’s talk about the open gym period. And this is something that a lot of people need to know about. Once you arrive on campus in August, up until practice starts in October, you have multiple open gyms every week at your prep schools.

And during that period, college coaches come from every single conference in America to these prep school gyms. And here’s why these prep schools within close distance to each other. All work together to schedule their open gyms at different time. So Brewster academy might have their open gym at seven in the morning, and then Proctor academy, which is 40 miles away might have there at two 30 in the afternoon, and then Kimball union, which is 30 miles away, might have theirs at seven at night.

And that happens all throughout new England. So if I’m a college coach coming from Texas tech, I can go to five days in new England and see [00:39:00] 15 open gyms with all D one players in every single gym. Right? Plus the new England recruiting recruiting report comes out to Adam. Finkelstein puts out in every roster will have a marking on there is this kid high, major, low major D one D two D three his height, his weight, his email, his phone number the schools that have offered them.

So these coaches go into new England and where they can go and see three schools in one day with college ready players that have been away from mom and dad. Or they can go to you know, Lexington sucky and see one kid at one practice, right? So you get much more bang for your buck. So from April, until October, your college exposure is going to be through the roof.

Now there’s no guarantee that that’s going to give you an offer or a scholarship, but you will have more eyeballs on you than if you didn’t do that route plus basketball, you’re still going to be around better teammates. And you probably had your high school, better coaching and better competition in your games.

So that’s the benefit of doing the [00:40:00] athletics and mind you, they usually have a beautiful weight room on campus that you can access anytime you want to, with a strength coach, which a lot of kids don’t have. So that’s an athletic academic. You’re gonna have small class sizes. If you’re a post-grad, you can retake one class that you might not have gotten a good grade in.

You can take basketball. Right. And just mess your way through the year, or you can actually take college credits if the prep school offers it. And I always tell my clients, look, if you can take the college credits, take them. They don’t always transfer to the college you go to, but at least you’re getting your mind ready for doing college level work.

And if you do that, the transition to a college academic classroom is going to be much more seamless. The third thing is emotional maturity. Every time a kid leaves home, they get homesick. I don’t care if it’s to the community college in town or it’s halfway across the world. Now you’re getting your home sickness out of your system at a prep school, which deals with that every single year.

So they know how to handle it. [00:41:00] So once again, when you hit your college campus, the following year, you’re not going to be missing mom and dad like your freshman teammates and classmates are that I haven’t been away from home before. You’ve already been away from home. She’s college coaches know you’re not going to be you know, in the dumps for awhile, like normally happens.

Right? So that’s third. And lastly, like I mentioned earlier, you’re going to be around kids from all different cultures, every time zone, probably every continent. And the story I give on that mic is my first day at prep school, basic training at the air force academy prep school. My roommate was a Navajo Indian named Lawrence Yazzie, and we stayed.

Most of the night when we should have been getting sleep before basic rain started and he was asking me, Hey, what’s it like to be a Catholic kid from Kentucky? And I was asking him, what’s it like to be a Navajo from a reservation in Arizona and mind you, he was also my teammate and he was the first native American they replayed  we’ll fast, forward 20 years.

He was the best man in my wedding. I was the best man in his wedding, right. [00:42:00] Two guys that would never have ever crossed paths without a prep school. So there is that opportunity there to meet someone that could be your best friend, the rest of your life from a culture you would never have otherwise been exposed to.

So those are the four pillars, athletic, academic, emotional maturity, and then the culture.

Mike Klinzing: [00:42:17] I’m assuming that most of the clients that come to you, they’re their number one concern is probably the athletic piece. And then the other ones kind of fall into place. After that, is that correct? Or is that an incorrect assumption?

Cory Heitz: [00:42:28] About 80%. A couple of the other reasons are one, the kid needs to mature and just get away from home and get away from his friends and from his parents. And then the other one is they w they didn’t, they were they’re young for their age. So they might graduate high school at 17 and where everyone else has reclassed already, or was held back in junior high.

This kid needs that year to catch up and be par with his class makes total

Mike Klinzing: [00:42:50] sense. All right. Next question for you. How do you, do you have conversations with college coaches about what [00:43:00] success they’ve had with players from the various prep school? So obviously you can talk to the prep school coach and you can kind of see and look at those experiences.

But then I would guess that you probably want to have at least some conversations with college coaches about, Hey, people from this particular school, when you get kids that come from this school, what are the results? What kind of kids are they turning out? Both in terms. Students athletes, just the people themselves, again, talking about the culture piece of it.

So how many conversations do you have with college coaches about the success that players that they’ve recruited from these prep schools have?

Cory Heitz: [00:43:31] Yeah. I remember when I first went to my college coaching buddies and asked them which prep schools I should go to first, here are a couple of them Wister academy in Worcester, Massachusetts, a couple of famous alumni from there.

Mike Malone, who’s the coach of the Nuggets for Carlisle coach to the mass, the founder of new balance Jarett Jack. So they’ve got a great history. There. It’s an old school prep school in downtown Western mass and every single coach I talked to said, you gotta go. You got to go there and [00:44:00] check that school though.

And I’ve luckily since two kids there so far Brewster academy, which is one, a lot of people know that place is St. Kids. The hell, I think they got 14 or 15 players that played in the NBA. That’s a constant that people said you’ve got to go see. And in Northfield, Mount Hermon in Northfield, Mount Hermon has sent more kids to the Ivy league basketball programs and all the other prep schools combined.

So in the past, like five or seven years, so those are the three programs that were common denominators among college coaches. So when I talked to coaches every coach has a relationships and that’s different among every assistant head coach cross college. But if you’re, if you’re an Ivy league coach, you are gonna make exit or annual pilgrimages to.

Exeter Northfield, Mount Hermon and these other high academic prep schools. So I wouldn’t say there’s one that is a feeder school to another. There might be a, I’d have to think about that a little bit, but think about if your college coach Mike, would you rather take an 18 year old kid who’ve been paying public school [00:45:00] ball or would you rather take a kid that’s been away from home, had a tougher academic environment, most likely be a better coach with better competition daily and practice and in games and gotten over the homesickness.

If you’re asking me on paper, they’re gonna nine times out of 10 take, if the talents, same, they’re going to take the prep school kid, right. Who’s already done that. So every program in America does it, but I know a few years ago the final four was going on. I think, I think 25% of the roster was filled with prep school kids.

Of those four teams. So yeah, college coaches across on a whole love it. And there’s no reason they wouldn’t.

Mike Klinzing: [00:45:39] All right. We talked before the podcast asking a dumb question. So here’s the first question that may or may not be a dumb question. What’s the difference between a post-grad year and a prep school year?

Cory Heitz: [00:45:50] Is there difference between the two? Yes. So think of prep schools as a four year high school, it’s a boarding school. That’s, that’s what a prep school is, is a boarding school. Most of the kids stay on campus [00:46:00] is a few day students that come from the local area to go there, but it is a boarding school.

So ninth through 12th, and then a lot of these schools, not all of them, but about 90% of them have a post-grad year, which is a gap year between graduation and college. And just for your listeners that might not know the NCAA says you have five years to do four years of high school. So you can do that in two different ways.

One, you can do four years of high school, ninth, 10th, 11th, 12th grade, and then a post-grad. So that is five years to do four years of high school. Or you can go freshmen sophomore year at one school transfer to another one and reclass, and then do your sophomore year again, then junior, senior year that’s freshmen, sophomore, sophomore, junior, senior.

That’s four years to do five years. Right. So you can do either or so a post-grad year is just a year at these academies. Now there’s very few, post-grad only academies Brixton academy at Maine with the hall of fame coach up there named  [00:47:00] they’re an all boys, all post-grad school. So just like Calipari every year, they’ve got a re fresh the entire school for every single sport.

Mike Klinzing: [00:47:13] Yeah. Well, that’s a process right there, but the the recruiting and admissions office is going to be really busy, I would think.

Cory Heitz: [00:47:18] Yeah, absolutely. So that’s crazy. They do that, but then, yeah, they’re the only brick and mortar prep school. That’s just post-grad so I hope that answer your quick.

Mike Klinzing: [00:47:25] It did for sure, because I think that there’s, I know for my. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what the difference was. I’m sure there are people out there that same thing we’re a little bit confused about. Okay. What’s the difference between the two and how do you figure out which one is the right one for you?

All right. Give me an idea of the process. When somebody let’s say they discover your website and they’re reaching out and they’re getting in contact with you for the first time, what does that process look like as you’re kind of onboarding them and taking them through your process to help them find the right place and the right fit.

What does the process [00:48:00] look like for your end and for their end?

Cory Heitz: [00:48:02] Yeah. So what I do first is anyone that reaches out to me, I send them a questionnaire back and basically we’re asking for bona Fides. Height, weight, position, GPA, test scores, highlight. High school graduation year. Why do you want to do prep school?

And what do your parents think about it? And then I put my info sheet on there, which includes my price and that then I’ll hear back probably from 50% of the people that get that email price scares off a lot on which is fine. Then I get answers back from people. So if I see they’ve already graduated high school, which happens a lot.

If I see that they’ve got like a 2.0 GPA, they’re five foot five. If I see the highlights in there, not very good, that’s all fine and dandy because my next email that goes out is, Hey, thanks for sending that. To me, prep school costs between 15,060 5,000. What’s the maximum amount you’re willing to invest in this.

And then about 50% of those emails go unreturned, but then I’ll get emails back. And some people say, well, I [00:49:00] want a scholarship. Or some people say, well, I might want to pay 5k or someone might say, well, money’s not an issue. So depending on the factors you talked about earlier, if it’s at six, nine kid with good grades who already has D one offers, but only has 5,000 bucks.

I can work with that because there’s a, there’s a demand for that kind of kid. If there’s a kid that’s five, five, not great grades, but his dad can write a $65,000 check. There’s a place I can find for that. So it really it’s, it there’s a lot of factors that go into, it’s kind of hard to explain. It’s just something that’s kind of in my head, but I kind of know real quick.

If I can find a place for a kid and Mike, if I get a kid that’s kind of questionable, like say six, eight with bad grades and no offers and kind of roll on his 8,000 bucks. And I don’t know if that’s going to work or not. I’ll tell the family, look, let me send this out to five prep schools and see if I get any feedback.

And if I do get feedback, you guys, we can move forward. You can be a client. If I don’t, then I’ve saved you the time and effort of going through [00:50:00] this whole process with me. So that’s kind of the process there. Now, if we both decide that, Hey, I think you’re going to have to go to a prep school. Everything checks out.

You want to work with me. Then we move on to the first phase in being my clients. Now what I do, and this is a great suggestion for any kid out there that wants to get seen by college is that make all my clients and by clients, I mean the player, they have to make their own recruiting website and it does not have to be fancy.

It doesn’t have to be slick. It just have to have the bona Fides on there that a prep school coach needs, height, weight transfer. Social media, contact info, game tape, game halves extracurricular activity, coach’s name, a named schedule, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. All of that stuff needs to be on a website.

And Mike, I promise you, this should only take an hour. These kids are technologically savvy. You can make a website for free on a wix.com and it does not lead to look good at all. In fact, the best [00:51:00] website I’ve ever had was from the worst player I ever as a client. And guess what? That website did not make him any better.

It doesn’t, it doesn’t hide your abilities. So it’s just for informational purpose and it means the kid is not just sitting back and letting me in the parents do all the work. It means they’re involved in it as well. And guess what? With that website, that kid can now send that to any college he wants to.

And guess what if he goes in the summer and bumps up as act two points and has a 20 point 20 rebound game, that’s better than the highlights has got on there. He can update this stuff. So this website’s a living, breathing, recruiting documents. That’s a tool they could use until the day they sign with a college.

So one like I said, the, the down payments do we’ve got to have the website done once I’ve got that. Then I talked to the family about, okay, do you want to be at Brewster and be the 13th man on the team? Do you want to go on a team and be the man? Do you want to go to a military academy? Do you want to spend the 85,000 at IMG?

Or do you want to go to a school with a couple [00:52:00] of D one guys, couple of , which is a good blend of talent. And once I kind of figure that out, figure out the kids’ goals, the finances, the website. That’s when I go through my database of schools and start picking them out. And if I pick out 15 schools, what I’ll do is if I was choosing for that family, here’s where I put the kid.

Here’s where I put them second. Here’s what I put them third. And this is only for me, Mike. I don’t share this with the family. I do not ever tell a family where to go. You know, what I tell them is I might put you in front of five schools and you make the choice. If you go to any of those five schools, they’re going to be great options for you.

It just comes down to the best fit that you guys feel based on your experience of either talking to the coach, visiting the school or the financial package, they, they ended up giving them, right? So that’s what I do is I put them in front of the right fitting five schools out of the hundred that offer a post-grad year, and then I’m there to advocate for the family and walk them through the process the [00:53:00] whole way.

I’m there keeping the coach up to date on what the other schools are saying and just. I’m kind of like a liaison. And then the big day in the prep school ward, if we started working with you in the fall as a client all the, all the prep schools give out their decisions on March 10th, not all of them, but most of them.

So March 10th is a big day in my world. Cause that’s when a prep school will say you were either accepted or you’re not. And if you are accepted, here’s the price of tuition you’re going to have to pay. Now let’s say, I told a kid, Hey you don’t have to pay $30,000. And I’ve told the prep school that they might get three admission letters back.

And one might say, Hey, we’ll take you, but you have to pay 40,000. Another letter might come back and say, Hey, we’ll take you. You can pay 30, but then another principal might come back and say, Hey, we like you so much. You only got to pay 20. And that’s where I help families kind of just have a mirror to them and say, Hey, this one is maybe your favorite school costs 40, but this one’s 20 K less.

How much is going to that school, your number one school worth, is it worth 20 K [00:54:00] more? And sometimes I help negotiate rates down because if you do want to go to that school, that cost 40 K, but you got an offer that a school said, we’ll take you for 20 K. You can use that to get that price down.

And that’s where I can save families potentially tens of thousands of dollars, not guaranteed at all, but just it’s happened in the past. So that’s kind of long winded, but that’s the process right there. And I hope, hope that made sense.

Mike Klinzing: [00:54:27] No, it did, do most players once they sort of narrow down where they’re considering going, do most players in their families take a physical trip to the school before they end up making a decision about where they’re going to go?

Cory Heitz: [00:54:38] Ideally yes, but during COVID no one could visit and some international kids can’t visit and some kids that might not have the means or the schedule can visit. So it’s always better if you can. But what I say to families that can’t is. This is only nine months. If you’re doing a post-grad year, if you’re doing more than a post-grad year, you need to really visit it’s pretty important.

But if you’re getting for nine [00:55:00] months, the most important thing, if price is even, is going to be your relationship with the coach. And why I say that, Mike is that all of these prep schools are beautiful. They’ve all got great academics, dorms, weight rooms, good competition. But that coach is going to be the guy that’s getting you better in skill sessions.

Who’s going to be determining playing time. Who’s going to be calling college coaches on your behalf. So if you don’t have a good feeling about that coach, you shouldn’t go there. But if it, if there’s a guy you bond with over the phone, pretty quickly, you need to really take that into serious consideration.

And to me, the most important point, again, this is price being even among all schools is the prep school coach because they’ve written, these are great coaches, and sometimes it comes down to a gut feeling the best news in my life, in my world, Mike. A family comes to me and says, Cory, we have three great options with three great coaches and three great programs.

And we do not know which one to pick. And to me, I know that’s harrowing [00:56:00] for them, but to me, that’s music to my ears because that means they have either any one of those options that go to they’re going to be just fine. Right. In fact, they’re going to be great. Cause they like all three, it’s going to be a tough decision.

But that to me means I put them in front of the right. Right coaches and right programs. So yeah, it’s important for me to pick on the coach because even if you don’t visit with technology nowadays, they’ve got YouTube videos, they’ve got beautiful campus videos on their website. They’re doing virtual tours.

I mean, you can get a good landscape of the land. And usually these places when you show up in person are prettier than the website,

Mike Klinzing: [00:56:35] It’s amazing what the technology allows us to do today. And I think obviously accelerated by COVID where this stuff was all coming. But just the fact now that. I’m sure all these schools are, are streaming their games.

So if you want to check out what their games look like, and everything’s on YouTube, so you can see style of play, you can see the way the coaches are coaching. And it’s just, it’s incredible to me, the amount of information goes back to what you said about the [00:57:00] player, building a website and building their social media resumes, so to speak and just having all that stuff so that it goes both ways.

Obviously the player makes it easier to check out the school, the coach and what they’re all about versus the, the, obviously the school and the coach can check out the athlete in the same way. It’s just you think back to what it was like when you and I were going back and trying to go through this process completely completely different.

You pretty much had to see, see a kid in person. And there wasn’t a, you the same weather as now. And just trying to evaluate. And it’s just, there’s just so much more information out there. You just have to know how to navigate it. I think, certainly think that that’s where you, and what you’re doing in this world certainly helps people.

Because again, there’s not a whole lot of people who. Are familiar with the system and really what it is and what it’s all about. And I think that there’s, there’s a tremendous need. I always say this is across, across basketball and all different areas. And this is certainly one of them where I think one of the things that we could really, really [00:58:00] improve people’s decision-making is just through education, helping people to understand what it is that they’re going through with actually this podcast started out as Jason, I talking about how to navigate sort of the youth basketball world and how to pick the right a new program and how to know what you’re looking for and how to be a basketball parent.

That’s kind of where we started. And then it morphed into an interview show. But I think that that education piece, there’s so many people that especially if they have it’s their first kid or it’s their only kid that’s kind of going through and is interested in being a college athlete, whether it’s basketball or some other sport, you just think about how confusing it is to navigate all this stuff.

Even when you are a quote unquote expert, there’s still things that. You’re like, am I doing it right? Could I be doing it better? Could I be doing it differently? What should I be doing? And so many people I think are just flying blindly that to be able to provide education to me is the most critical thing that we could do to improve the basketball landscape for players, parents, and [00:59:00] coaches, all the way from elementary school, all the way up through college is just making people more educated about what the process is.

And I think you’re a piece of that.

Cory Heitz: [00:59:08] Absolutely. And I appreciate that. And mind you, like I used to coach high school ball. I used to help my kids try to get seen by college coaches. And now I just spent all of my bandwidth just focused on this prep school world in business. And oh, I don’t know at all, every day I’m learning something new.

Every time I talk to a coach and I get a new nugget, I’m grateful because that makes me that much more better able to help the next kid I talked to. And I liked that if I knew everything right now, it’d be boring. Right. So learning every day. And on your point too. Yeah. Like we had a zoom round table a couple of weeks ago with three AAU experts.

Just because I get that question constantly. What a team should my kid beyond what tournament should we go to? And I don’t know, I don’t delve in that world. So I got three experts on to help explain to people. And hopefully that’ll be evergreen, just like yours. You [01:00:00] did a couple of years ago to help people in that department.

Another question we get a lot is what camps should my kid go to? And I’m going to do a podcast next week with a guy who’s an expert in this and just break down all the camps Hey, if I go to a big time college camp, what’s that like, what’s a D three skill session camp. Like what’s an elite camp, like a what’s point guard college or big man camp.

We’re going to break down that all. And you know, just so parents know from a trusted source, what what to do. I mean, when I was a kid growing up a couple of things about my childhood one, when I grew up, my dad said we’ve got six weeks or one, a basketball game. Pick which ones you want to go to. And we look at a calendar and be like, okay well, this Tennessee texts this week and a west Virginia’s is this week.

And we go to a different camp every week, every summer. And you know, I was a great free throw shooter. And I learned how to shoot free throws correctly at a station, my freshman year of high school at a Tennessee tech camp. So you never know when you’re going to get those nuggets. And so to me, like that was the old school days when there was more [01:01:00] fundamentals and there was less people looking to make a quick buck is a little bit easier back then, but you talk about everyone able to use the internet nowadays.

That’s a good thing and a bad thing because now everyone can use the internet. And that means instead of a coach getting his trusted stores calling about a kid, he might, if you’re duke, they might be having 500 emails a day come in. Right. And my dad he grew up in the late sixties in Northeast India.

I think it was seven feet tall and he wanted to play for UCLA. And back then that’s three times zones away and his coach called a guy and then John wouldn’t hurt about my dad didn’t see tape or film, but John wouldn’t call it. One of his buddies back in Indiana asked about my dad and the guy was like, nah, he’s not good enough to play at UCLA.

And that was it. Word of mouth and trusted crusty Scouts that roam the country. And so that’s where like those guys were crusty. Scouts were gatekeepers. And you know, if that crusty scout liked you, you were golden. And here’s the thing too. Another [01:02:00] story I heard I’m babbling on here, Mike, but in Kentucky when I was coaching there, Pitino is at Louisville and a Pitino showed up to a gym to recruit a kid.

The kid would play his heart out cause he knew Pitino in the gym. But Pitino had this old crusty New York guy that he used to send the gyms on like a Tuesday night in January when no one would be. And he’d sit up in the top balcony and watch the kid and see how he performed with no big time coach in the crowd.

And that would determine if Pitino would offer the kid or not. So all these are little nuggets, just to say, like the more you talk to people, the more information you get, the more you’ll pick up the better it will be if you’re a kid or a parent trying to move forward, because unfortunately of all sports ours might have the shadiest of characters within high school basketball.

I mean, would you agree with that? Or is there a shade, your sport, the basketball that you think I would

Mike Klinzing: [01:02:51] agree? See there. I mean, I think there’s a lot of people that, I mean, there’s a lot of, obviously a lot of great people

Cory Heitz: [01:02:55] and the majority are

Mike Klinzing: [01:02:58] correct, but I do think [01:03:00] you have some bad actors that are out there that are only in it for the money that they can make from it.

And I see, I see people exploiting again, the lack of education on the part of parents and players. What’s important. If you are paying money to go to a fourth-grade showcase where college coaches are going to be there watching your fourth grader play, you’re probably not getting your money’s worth just as a little tip and an example of things that things that I see or you’ll talk to parents am I my third graders, the top ranked player in the Midwest?

Well, okay, great. Like who told you that? And where, where are you getting that? That’s not to say your kid’s not a good player, but you know, we all know that just what you do as a fourth grader, what you do as a sixth grade or whatever it has, has no bearing on ultimately what you can be or not be as a player.

And I still think it comes down to, as I’ve said, a couple of times educating people on what’s real and [01:04:00] what’s not, and the more you can educate people on what’s real and what’s not. And also tell them the truth about recruiting and about playing college basketball. And look, there’s lots of kids who weren’t good enough to play college basketball.

They may not want to put in the time, but people don’t understand the commitment that it takes to play at any level. And also how good you have to be. I mean, I tell people we’ve had tons of division three coaches on here and the number of times that those coaches have said to us, Hey we’re recruiting a kid and they’re kind of blowing us off a little bit and we’re talking to them.

And over the course of that, we say, Hey, have you ever even seen a division three basketball game? Do you have any idea how good our players are? And then those kids will come on campus and play in some pickup games with division three players. And they’re like, holy I mean, these kids are I mean, it’s just, they’re, they’re way better than what you think.

And I, I think that the message that we always try to get across is that if you have an opportunity to play college basketball, and it’s what you want to do anywhere at any level, and you can [01:05:00] find, find the right fit and you can have a great experience because you set it off the top. Like how many of these kids are actually going to go and play professional basketball?

I mean, the percentages. That are going to get an opportunity to do that and get paid to play their sport is minuscule. And that includes the guys that are going to maybe go to Europe and play in some third tier league in Germany for a year or two and not make any real money and a great, great experience.

If you get an opportunity to do that, by all means, go and do it. But if you’re counting on that to set you up financially for the rest of your life, and I just always feel like people are chasing this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and they don’t stop to enjoy the moment where they are. And so they’re always okay.

I’m a sixth grade AAU player. Now I’ve got to make sure that I get to the right high school so I can do this. And then I’m in high school and I’m already worried about college. I’m not even enjoying my high school career because I’m so worried about where I’m going to go to school. And I think all those things is important to make sure that you’re educated and make sure that wherever you are, [01:06:00] whatever stop you are on your journey.

You enjoy it. And to me, if we could get more people doing that and more people understanding the process through people like you actually do understand what it’s all about. I think we would have so many more people that had a positive experience with the game, which therefore reflects well on the game and helps it to grow and helps the game to get better, which is ultimately, I think what we, all, everybody who loves basketball like you and Jason and I, that’s what we want to see.

We want to see the game grow. We want to see the game, be healthy, want to see people having great experiences in the game and not have them fall victim to some of the shady things that we’ve talked about.

Cory Heitz: [01:06:41] Yeah, absolutely.  Joe Mantegna, who’s the head coach of the Blair academy basketball team. And for those that don’t know at one point he had Lou Elding, Charlie Villanova and Royal Ivy on his team.

It’s three NBA players, and he’s one of the best out there. One of those players was committed to duke a [01:07:00] few weeks ago and he gave me the analogy that with all the transfers going on right now, which is a generational thing. College basketball could potentially go the way of boxing in major league baseball to where fans no longer really tune in because it’s just, they can’t keep track of who’s on a team anymore.

There’s no more four year players and a lot of these big time programs and just, it, it dies down except for the hardcore folks until March madness picks up again and think about it. You know, I think the NCA was really at its HEDA. I don’t know. I mean, this is me speaking generationally, but like when duke had Christian later and Bobby Hurley and those guys that you grew up watching year after year I think that’s in basketball is at its peak in now.

You know, me being from Lexington every year now, Calipari is there. The roster completely turns over and me and other fans don’t know who these guys are. We just know that rankings and then within nine months are gone again. And that’s kind of happening in the transfer market now. And I don’t know, who’s advising [01:08:00] everyone on this, but that’s just something that’s a little bit nerve wracking of the future of college basketball that you and I love so much that has provided a lot of opportunity for you.

And I, and I wonder if this, this youth mentality of all or nothing and not enjoying it and training, training, training, and transferring school to try to get to the best spot, to eventually get the pro deal. I wonder if that bottom up kind of approach has been happening in the last 15 years is what’s going to potentially cause the demand.

Of NCAA basketball as we know it. And I don’t know, but when he told me that it was just, it just kind of depressed me. And I was wondering what your thoughts on that were,

Mike Klinzing: [01:08:38] I agree with you a hundred percent. I know speaking for myself and part of it is, again, as you get older and you know, I have three kids and they’re all doing things.

And so when you’re young and you’re single and you have lots of time, you can follow a million different things and be up to date. Like I remember as a kid getting the blue ribbon college basketball yearbook, and going through, and not only knowing all the [01:09:00] college players, but looking at that top 50 high school players and knowing guy number 49, who was some kid out of Macon, Georgia, that I knew his stats and what what coach has said about him and the little blurb that would be in that, in that book all the time.

And I knew everything. And part of that was because when guys went to school, even the very best players they used to call it. You, you were a hardship case. So you left after your junior year. So you were still around for three years. I think about like the Patrick Ewing, Georgetown Hoyas or the Ralph Sanders.

Virginia Cavaliers, or you mentioned the later do blue devils, like those teams that Larry Johnson, even that UNL V team, like those teams, you get to know those guys they’re the best players and they stick around and the core of the group is, is together. And yeah, they changed a little bit around the fringes, but for the most part, the stars were around.

And so now, I mean, one, I don’t know the guys the same way coming in out of high school. Cause I’m not following that world as closely as I did when I was back closer to those guys, his age. But now once they [01:10:00] get there, the stars, like, I mean maybe I watched half a game that Kate, Kate Cunningham played this year and I probably didn’t watch any of them in the regular season.

And then I watched like half of a tournament game. Whereas if it had been the freshmen of the year in 1987, I guarantee I probably would’ve watched that guy play 20 games and it’s just different. So I think the NCAA. I definitely think that its popularity is waning. I think the biggest question mark facing the NCAA and the biggest thing that we’re going to see change is the NBA I know is always talking about behind the scenes, the idea of creating academies and this G league 19 that they put together, the Jalen green and coming out or Congo or whatever that kid’s name is.

Jonathan Camika. That is that’s, that’s the first step and kind of giving guys an alternative to college basketball. And I do think that there’s where there’s money to be made. [01:11:00] It’s likely that something is going to eventually pop up. And so you start thinking about, could you start the prep school model almost, but start it with seventh graders instead of starting it with ninth graders, could you start it with fourth graders instead of starting it with ninth graders?

And if there was money to be made. I could see where it could go that way. And then eventually that just waters down, NCAA basketball to the point where, who knows what that looks like. I have no idea what that looks like, but you can certainly see where the potential for basketball to become more privatized, both at the college level and even at the high school level.

I mean, I’ve had coaches tell me that the high school coaches that they think that high school athletics, as we know it won’t be around in 25 years, that it will be replaced by the club model where you can get better coaching. You can play more games without as many restrictions as these high school, athletic associations are putting on you.

You’re going to get a quote professional coach instead of somebody who’s a [01:12:00] teacher during the day. And then it’s just coaching after school. And I’ve heard all the arguments. And I think they’re, they’re legitimate. I mean, there’s a legitimate chance that that could happen now, whether it does or not. I don’t know, but certainly there’s going to be.

Things popping up that could potentially rival NCAA basketball in high school, basketball in the future. And it will be certainly interesting to see how it goes.

Cory Heitz: [01:12:21] What’s actually, it’s here now. It’s called overtime, right? Yeah. Right.

Mike Klinzing: [01:12:28] That’s Kevin Ollie, right? Kevin, Ollie’s the guy overseeing that. Am I correct?

Cory Heitz: [01:12:32] He’s the coach, but they’ve got a couple of other big time guys. And the kids, the kids that are getting in the team are going to get paid a hundred K a year. If I was a a 17 year old, that sounds like a lot of money. But now as an adult, you’re like, well, that’s not going to last you very long at all.

Especially after taxes, expenses. So I just, and I don’t know how you can tell a pro at 16, whether you’re a big man or a guard. I mean, John Wallace, late bloomer, [01:13:00] a lot of these guys were late bloomers. Taking that a hundred K and then giving up college eligibility to me just seems very risky. And I’ll be very curious to see how it turns out.

And my opinion, as of is capitalistic to where if you want to skip college and go pro do it, go for it. Like I’ve seen in a lot of programs, especially Kentucky, since I follow them so much, the kids that are just they’re just biding their time until they can go to the draft. And it’s not always the best situation.

Right. So I don’t, I don’t mind people doing this and maybe it makes basketball and college more pure in the future. Right. Right.

Mike Klinzing: [01:13:36] You may have, you may honestly have, it may be more similar to a division three product where you have quote, unquote, true student athletes where. No, you’re not having a guy show up for seven months.

And then as soon as their season ends in March, that they stopped going to class and they’re just preparing for the draft and whatever else that you sometimes have with these big time programs. And yeah, there’s a lot of ways. There’s a lot of ways that it could go [01:14:00] NCAA basketball could go away and it could be a hugely negative thing for players that used to be involved in it that go these other routes.

Or you could also see where it could provide another avenue for players who want to go to the professional ranks. It could provide a, a quality roadmap for them to do that. While also leaving behind players who are not interested in that are not good enough for, to take that route and still be able to experience the joy and the fun and all the stuff that goes along with being a college athlete.

So I could see it. I could see it going both ways where you could take this fork in the road where man, that system could turn out really bad for everybody in the game of basketball. And then I, conversely I could see it going a direction. If it was executed correctly, that it could end up maybe having a positive impact where things would just look different.

But they could also be improved. So who knows, who knows what could happen there?

Cory Heitz: [01:14:56] Well, I’ve got a theory on the COVID situation. [01:15:00] All right, I’m ready. Tell me. Thanks. So with all these transfers happening with all the seniors, getting granted an extra year, there’s probably, I think I’ve heard 500 less spots for high school players to go into the college.

Do you want ranks? Have you heard that number? About 500?

Mike Klinzing: [01:15:14]I haven’t heard the numbers, but I know there’s a lot less. Like we talked to Paul Biancardi from ESPN. I talked to him what was it last week? So a week ago today and Paul basically said that, yeah, he didn’t give me a number, but basically said that if you are a high school player, it was so much more difficult obviously to get a scholarship because one not only were there not spots, but it goes even beyond that.

The uncertainty of college coaches, not knowing which guys are going to come back for that fifth year. So you don’t even know if you have, it’s not even that there isn’t a roster spot. It’s that coaches don’t even know if there’s going to be a roster spot because they don’t know who’s coming back. They don’t know who’s in the transfer portal.

We’ve also had coaches say that in a lot of cases, [01:16:00] like why wouldn’t you go recruit the transfer portal first, where you have guys who were in there who are already proven as college athletes versus taking a chance on a kid. Who’s a high school player who like we talked about in terms of the prep school.

It hasn’t been away from home. Hasn’t adjusted to the physicality and the speed and the being on their own and all those things. So there’s a lot of potential ramifications.

Cory Heitz: [01:16:23] Well, Paul obviously knows way more about this than me, so I’ll take his lead on that.

But my theory. Thinking about this as let’s assume it’s 300. All right. So 300 high school kids are not going to go to D one this year that wouldn’t have normal year. That means that these are 300 guys that aren’t good enough to be there. So the D one games should be better. So those guys will trickle down and other D one transfers to the D two level, which means D two will now be better.

And then players that don’t, there’s no room at that level. Well now trickled down to the D three level and then players, that just aren’t good enough for any college level, period are just not going to [01:17:00] play. They’re going to have to go intermurals or just give up their dreams. So, in my theory, and I don’t know if this is right or wrong, it’s just my theory.

The D one talent pool should be better. The  talent pool should be better in D three, should have a lot of guys there. There should be better than D three leveled normal, but that’s going to raise the level of competition among, among that, that level as well. So what are your thoughts on

Mike Klinzing: [01:17:24] that? Yeah, no, I think you’re a hundred percent, right.

I mean, I don’t think, I don’t see a way that, that couldn’t be the case. When you talk about. And those kids who were all sticking around. If you have a guy who’s a fifth year senior versus you have a kid who’s an incoming college freshmen in which one of those players is going to be better. I mean, clearly all things being equal the fifth year senior is going to be a better player than the incoming freshmen across the board.

Now that’s not to say, obviously that there isn’t an incoming freshman, that’s better than a fifth year senior, but across the board, you would expect that experienced player to be better. And obviously that players taking a roster spot away from somebody who would [01:18:00] be at the lower end of the spectrum. So as you said, that bumps them down to division two and then consequently bumps kids down to division three.

So yeah, I would think that it would raise the level of play at each of those levels. And then it also excludes some kids who ordinarily might’ve gotten a chance at the division three college level. Maybe they are not on a roster, whereas in years past they might’ve been able to make it. And when we talked to, when I talked to Paul, he basically said I asked him one of the questions I had for him was.

This obviously kits used to trickle down year after year, because it’s not only impacting this year’s kids, but it’s going to impact next year’s kids. Because now you’re going to have that 500 kids that didn’t get a D one scholarship out of high school who may have gone to prep school or may have done whatever.

And now those kids are back in the pool competing for those same scholarships. And Paul said, he thought it would take about four years for it to kind of normalize and get back to the level where it was. And who knows, maybe combined what Paul was saying with what you’re saying. And four years to now the level of [01:19:00] play at the division three division two division one, and NAI levels may all be improved because you’ve just had to raise the level of your game in order to even get onto a roster.

So I think that’s entirely possible.

Cory Heitz: [01:19:12] Yeah, I’m going to bring that back around full circle to prep schools. So if you’re class of 21 and he didn’t have any season, didn’t get seen by coaches and you check all the boxes to go to a post-grad year. Like I mentioned before, at least at brick and mortar prep school you can always do the post-grad academy if you want to.

But if you check those boxes and you’re doing this extra year, I tell families think of it as an insurance plan. You’re biding your time to see how this shakes out, because Mike, there’s going to be programs that try taking these transfers for the first time ever that have never done it. And some programs are going to like it and succeed with it.

And others are gonna say, you know what? This isn’t really the culture we’re normally. And we tried it. Don’t like it. We’re going to go back to prep school and high school kids again. So it’s this year, this prep school year is buying you time to see how [01:20:00] these college programs are going to experience this new landscape and either stay the same or go back to the way it was.

So. No, one’s a psychic on this. No one knows that the prep school year is even going to work. And in fact there’s no guarantees. You might spend 65 K on a post-grad year and still not have many good if any options, if you’re not good enough. So there are no guarantees in this at all, but I do not feel sorry for the kids in 21, that aren’t getting opportunities.

The re the real hard line answer I get to that is you that 18 years to get your skill set up your shot down your strength up your grades up. And this is, this is the reckoning here where people are calling your number and you’re either good enough, or you’re not to play at this level. And I know that’s an unpopular thing I’m saying right there, but it’s a fact it’s pure capitalism is pure survivalism.

It is not a right that you get to go to the next level. You have to earn it. All right. So that’s, I’ve been saying that a lot throughout the year and [01:21:00] getting, getting flack for it, but it’s just, it’s the reality of it. So you’ve got all this time, you know? Yeah. It was a surprise. The strongest we’ll get through it, evolve and adapt.

And a lot of kids have it and they’re complaining, but what you didn’t do in the past 18 years, my man.

Mike Klinzing: [01:21:14] Yeah. I think that that is, I think that’s really true. And I’m going to give you another scenario that I use a similar phrase or a similar way of thinking that when you talk about, Hey, what have you been doing for the last 18 years, or how good are you?

Where’s your skill level? And I’ve coached all my kids at a few basketball and travel basketball. And my oldest, my daughter’s a junior and she doesn’t play anymore. And my son’s a freshman. And then I have another daughter who’s in fifth grade right now. And over the years we’ve played AAU basketball.

We’ve played travel and we’ve had teams that are pretty good. And we’ve had teams that are not so good. And as we all know, when you have a not so good team, you’ll occasionally run into a coach, a team, a program that will be up by 40 and they’ll still be pressing you. [01:22:00] And after the game, I’ll have parents.

No complete compares from my team will come up to me and complain or just say, Hey, why was that coach? Well, why was that coach still pressing you? And you shouldn’t have done that. And my response is always, look, if I was that coach, would I still be pressing up by 40, in the second half against a team that clearly had no opportunity to beat us?

No, I wouldn’t do that. I don’t think it’s really good sportsmanship, but if you don’t like it, the best way to avoid that situation is to get better and to work on your skills and to take that as a lesson that, Hey, we’re not good enough where we are now. And sometimes parents look at me a little bit cross-eyed when I say that and I don’t say it to be mean, but it’s kind of just the same thing that you said where look, you can not like it, but you can’t control what that other coach is doing. The only thing you can control is how good you are and how good your skill set is. And if you don’t like getting.

Guess what you got to get better. And that’s just, that’s the reality of sports in a lot of ways. It’s the reality of life. If [01:23:00] you don’t like another company out bidding you for a particular job, guess what, then do a better job with your bid so that you, so that you get it. And you know, we, don’t always like to hear that in the, in the world of everybody gets a trophy, but, but I do think that there’s something to be said for look, you got to get better.

And, and that’s something that I try to teach my kids. It’s something that I talk to players about all the time is if you don’t like getting beat the best way, the best way to avoid that feeling is get better.

Cory Heitz: [01:23:28] So it doesn’t happen so often. Yeah. And that was Billy Tubbs. I think that came up with that quote when Oklahoma used to press teams and they’d win by 40 50 and oh, he got some vile comments and the other coaches get better.

Don’t let me, don’t let me do it. The

Mike Klinzing: [01:23:41] Oklahoma Sooners they’re at sea. Now there’s a team, right? Wayman Tisdale. That was my guy back in the day. I love, I love Wayman posting up on the block and shooting his little lefty jumper. And he was I’ll tell you a funny story, Jason, probably, I don’t know if he even knows his story.

So when I was a kid, there was this game on. Do you remember the Commodore 64 [01:24:00] computer? Absolutely. All right. So there was a game that was, this was a college basketball game. It was all texts. And so what you would do is you would have these teams and it would have all the rosters. And I forget the exact year, but it was, it was the year Wayman Tisdale was at Oklahoma and Xavier McDaniel was at Wichita state.

And so it would have all the rosters and it would have all their stats. And then you would basically just like, press a button and then it would show you the result of that play based on the player, whatever. So you would just sit there and you’d be playing against somebody, you just press this button.

So I would always, whenever I was playing with my friends, I would always be there Oklahoma, or I would be Wayman and Wayman Tisdale, or I would be Wichita state and Xavier McDaniel. And I would just constantly just give them a ball and they would shoot McDaniel would get like 78 and wait a minute.

Tisdale would have 56 or whatever, because they their stats obviously were outraged at the time of college. Those were two of us. Was

Cory Heitz: [01:24:59] that [01:25:00] the courtside college game on the Commodore 64? Is that what it was called

Mike Klinzing: [01:25:03] or something on it? Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t remember for what it was called, but I know I let’s put it this way.

I know, I probably played it quite a bit, considering what it actually was when you look back on it now let’s put it that way. So,

Cory Heitz: [01:25:20] yeah, it’d be funny. Is it take a kid that plays like call of duty for 12 hours a day and say, Hey, you got to sit here for two hours and play this text game,

Mike Klinzing: [01:25:28] right. Just press this button over and over again, to watch eight.

We’ll see if his Xavier McDaniels is going to make the shot.

Cory Heitz: [01:25:33] I used to clean double dribble. That was my game on the Atari and I’d play the first half. And then my uncle who had no idea how to play video games played the second half. And we would see if my lead was big enough to prevent him from losing.

And it would always get the abs. That was double dribble. There you go. It’s

Mike Klinzing: [01:25:50] so funny to look back on that stuff. And I mean, I was never a big video game guy, but I think about like the Dr. J versus Larry Bird one-on-one I remember playing. And you know, now you [01:26:00] think about the graphics and NBA two K and what what kids have today.

I mean, now I pick up a controller and I can, I mean, I can’t even, I mean, I, I could barely play, Pac-Man let alone try to play some of these games today with their complexities and whatever else it was. So, all right here, before we wrap up, we are getting close to an hour and a half. Okay. So what I want to do is I want you to spend a minute sharing why people should listen to your podcast and then give out your website again, give out your social media, tell people how they can reach out and get in touch with you.

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

Cory Heitz: [01:26:33] So the prep athletics podcast is on all major platforms. And we talked to a lot of the top prep school coaches in America. And these are big time guys. They’ve been around a while. They’ve got great knowledge. I’ve also got a couple episodes where I talk about.

Personal experiences I transferred high schools and it worked for me, but I didn’t transfer high schools. I would not have played . And I tell that story, especially now, since transferring is getting a [01:27:00] bad name we have a new round table, which is very informative with three industry experts that give families a good idea on how to do that.

So check it out, pick and choose which one you. They’re real light, but very prep school specific and just lots of good basketball nuggets. My website is prep athletics.com and I have so much good article, so many good articles on there. So many good blogs that will walk you through all the questions you might have about prep school.

How much does it cost or the academics like how does international kid get financial aid? All of that is on there to include a lot of the players I’ve coached in the past. And other fun stuff. Social media I’m on Twitter. Most often, I’ve got a kid that does Instagram for me. So you can ignore that.

Facebook, I don’t know who looks at my Facebook page. I do that just because someone tells me to, but Twitter I’m on there pretty prolific. And I spit out knowledge that a lot of people can’t say about the prep school world. And it’s not to be mean it’s just to educate people. And my hashtag is always do your due [01:28:00] diligence.

Like I said, you do not need to hire me. You can take a prep school, a great one that will change your life on your own. I just have spent the time doing it and visiting places and got experience that I might be able to help you. But you know, you can absolutely do it on your own. Just like you can represent yourself in court on your own, or you can hire a lawyer that does it every day knows the judge knows the prosecutor and it has that expertise.

So that’s kind of my background. I’m based out here in Denver, Colorado, but I can help anyone from any country, any state, any time zone in the world. So it’s my passion. And I hope to do this till the day I die.

Mike Klinzing: [01:28:33] Well, it clearly came across in the episode tonight and Corey, we cannot thank you enough for taking an hour and a half out of your schedule to jump out with us and educate not only Jason and I, but our entire audience about what the prep school world is really all about what people should look for.

And I think as we’ve said throughout the podcast, being able to help educate people about what’s going on in the basketball space and particularly in this space where a lot of people [01:29:00] are not familiar with what goes on and what a prep school is really all about. So I thank you for coming on and sharing that information.

And I think it’s going to be a valuable, valuable episode for anybody who’s stuck with it and listened to the entire thing. Hopefully you’ve come away from this more educated than you were when you first started listening. So again, Corey can’t thank you enough for being a part of it and to everyone out there.

Thanks for listening. And we will catch you on our next episode.