DANNY & DANIEL YOUNG – FATHER & SON – HEAD BOYS’ BASKETBALL COACH AT SHAKER HEIGHTS (OH) HIGH SCHOOL & PLAYER FOR SPIRE INSTITUTE POST GRAD- EPISODE 752

Website – https://www.shaker.org/athletics_home.aspx

https://www.spireinstitute.org/academy/academy-basketball/academy-basketball-pg-roster-and-schedule/

Email  – young_h@shaker.org

Twitter – @DYoung42 @DanielYoung__

Danny Young has been the Head Boys’ Basketball Coach at Shaker Heights High School since 2009 after coaching under Hall of Fame Coach Bob Wonson in various roles since 1993.  Young has won over 200 games as the leader of the Raiders program and taken the team to 6 Regional Tournaments in the state of Ohio.

Daniel Young is currently playing a post grad year of basketball at Spire in Geneva, Ohio.  He was coached by his father during his four year high school career at Shaker Heights High School.  Daniel will start his collegiate basketball career next fall at Cleveland State University.

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Write down some of the great insights you’ll pick up as you listen to this episode with father and son, coach and player, Danny and Daniel Young.

What We Discuss with Daniel & Danny Young

• How Daniel learned from some of his father’s players at Shaker Heights including Terry Rozier
• Putting together an AAU team that allowed to Daniel to flourish and grow as a young player
• Being Extra, Even, or Empty when it comes to putting in work on your game
• The need for Daniel to prove himself early on in high school as Danny’s son
• How they put together a plan to help Daniel keep improving
• Why Danny felt he may have been too hard on Daniel initially
• Some of their memorable moments as player/coach at Shaker Heights
• The importance of bouncing back after not playing your best
• “Why can’t I love up on mine and allow him to fail and make mistakes and figure it out? Why should he be penalized when I didn’t penalize anyone else?”
• How former Cleveland State Coach Dennis Gates made him feel welcome at CSU
• The impact of Covid on Daniel’s recruitment
• The decision to go to Spire and stay committed to new Cleveland State Coach Daniyal Robinson
• Daniel’s day to day schedule at Spire
• How Spire has prepared Daniel for college basketball
• Their best advice for fathers and sons who coach and play for each other

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THANKS, DANIEL & DANNY YOUNG

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TRANSCRIPT FOR DANNY & DANIEL YOUNG – FATHER & SON – HEAD BOYS’ BASKETBALL COACH AT SHAKER HEIGHTS (OH) HIGH SCHOOL & PLAYER FOR SPIRE INSTITUTE POST GRAD- EPISODE 752

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight, and we are pleased to welcome back to the Hoop Heads Podcast. Danny Young, the head boys basketball coach at Shaker Heights High School, and welcoming to the podcast his son Daniel Young, who is currently playing a postgrad year of basketball at Spire Institute in Geneva, Ohio.

Guys, welcome.

[00:00:25] Danny Young: Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Absolutely

[00:00:28] Mike Klinzing: Excited to have you guys on. Looking forward to diving into the dynamics of the Father-Son relationship and working your way through the basketball system and eventually ending up at Spire and just how that all went and what you guys can share with us to be able to help our audience of both coaches and players.

We know there’s a lot of coaches out there that end up coaching their own kids, and so I think there’s going to be a lot of things that we can touch on. And Daniel, obviously you’re going to be able to share a lot of things that you’ve gone through that hopefully players out there who might be listening can benefit from.

So let’s start with you, Danny. Just give us a quick update on where you’re at, what you’re doing, and then where Daniel’s at, and then we’ll jump in from there.

[00:01:08] Danny Young: Okay. Once again, thank you for having us on your podcast. The first time was fantastic and I’m looking forward to tonight. Danny Young head coach at Shaker High High School.

This is year 31 for me working in the city of Shaker Heights. This is year 14, as the head basketball coached coach at Shaker Heights High School. I served as assistant to Bob Watson for 17 years, but now this, this is my 14th year as a head coach. I am currently a school counselor at the high school, which I am enjoying that job tremendously.

I’m in the building helping kids and I get to, I get to see my high school boys a lot, interact with them, and it was pretty cool. You know, I was a counselor when Daniel was there his last year, his, his junior year and sophomore year in, in freshman year as a principal at Woodbury. But his last two, I was a school counselor, which is kind of cool to kind of lock in on the basketball little bit and, and see some of his dreams come true in terms of.

It’s helping us win  League championship his senior year. So where Daniel is now once he left Shaker Heights High School he was blessed to get a full scholarship to Spire Academy, which has been a great experience.

[00:02:18] Mike Klinzing: All right, so let’s go back in time. Daniel, what do you remember about some of your first interactions with the game?

What do you remember about your dad coaching some of your teams? Just go back to some of your earliest memories of the game of basketball

[00:02:32] Daniel Young: I remember when I was little just watching Terry, Terry play and Issa play I was just always go to their practices when I was little and just see how hard they went and how serious they took it.

So I just looked up to them and to play basketball. And my dad, he really had me into it. We would always watch basketball games and stuff like that, and he had take me to the gym to get me better. Cause when I was younger I wasn’t really good. I wasn’t really that skilled. I was really fast, but I didn’t have The IQ yet and just all the skill sets to become a good basketball player.

So it just went over time. We just kept working out and eventually it all clicked around middle school and we built on from that.

[00:03:14] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. I know last time when we talked to your dad, he talked a lot about how at a certain point you guys made a decision to go and, and travel a little bit for AAU basketball.

Maybe to find you a little bit better team to play on, a little bit more competition to play against. Yeah. What do you remember about your first AAU experiences?

[00:03:34] Daniel Young: I’ll say my first, it was a challenge cause I wasn’t the best player. I came off the bench, so it was like, it was my first time playing organized basketball.

It was just an adjustment. It was kind of a rough time for a little bit, but I had fun still. And then just over time, just playing with different players and. Players that were better than me, I kept playing with them and I got better as time moved on. And then eventually my dad started his own AU team.

It was with all Ohio Red at the time, and we were called all Ohio Northeast. So he had his own team and he built it around me so I could gain my confidence and just become a better basketball player. And I would say that definitely changed my trajectory of being a basketball player. Cause that helped me gain my confidence and just go out there and just have fun and not think about stuff.

Cause when you’re thinking about stuff, that’s when you’re not really playing well. So ever since that happened, I haven’t been thinking about anything. And it all clicked for me when that when that happened.

[00:04:33] Mike Klinzing: Danny, what do you remember about that time and that decision and just kind of how you took him through the AAU process?

[00:04:39] Danny Young: Like he said, early on he was on a Brad Downs had an AAU team that I put him with. And like he said, he wasn’t the best at all. But what I always knew was it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And I remember actually what he did. I remember I went to go watch him one tournament. I was like, boy, I mean, you saw the talent.

But like he said, he was struggling and then I had to go to practice. So I was in the car with him after this one particular game. But then my wife, Kenya called me and said, you won’t believe what your son just asked me to do. He asked me to take him to the gym because he wanted to get better. And my wife played high school basketball too at Central Hower.

So she has a little bit of know-how to kind of get him better. So they went to the gym and then that’s that process of getting better clicked. And then I really didn’t set out to coach him in aau. Cause I knew maybe one day I might coach him in high school. But I had a friend down in a, a Cincinnati named Paul McMillan who said, man, the best thing you could do, man, is kind of early on kind of.

The AAU team kind of building around him you don’t want the daddy ball thing, but kind of allow him to kind of blossom and make mistakes and kind of become that alpha, you know not wanting to be the second, third, fourth fiddle, but learn how to be the alpha because once he gets with other alphas, he can still be successful because he understands what it takes to be the best and play with the best.

So then, like Daniel just said, I started all Ohio Northeast with the help of Jerry Watson down in Columbus. He allowed me to kind of run this area up here and we started an AAU program and I just started picking great parents and great kids. So Daniel had a lot of friends in the local suburbs. And so I went and grabbed a couple kids from Strongsville, a kid from Hudson, a kid from Brecksville, kids from Cleveland, kids from Akron.

And before you know it, we had built that team up really strong. And then we transitioned to another organization O B C. And then we’ll be, we plucked a couple more kids. Matter of fact, we got the kid from St. V Raymar Pryor, who, who will be teammates with him. He’s up there right now at Cleveland State.

And then we got Elmore James, who’s at Ohio University. We got Tyler Ganley. We got the kid from Rutgers, Antoine Wolk. We had Jordan Huff, Aiden Loud from Hudson. He’s a running back for I think the Naval Academy or Air Force one, one of those big time division ones football schools. And then before you know it, man, the team just developed into, we got ranked like 13th best team in the country by coast to coast hoops.

When they hit eighth grade, we traveled out to Vegas and we knocked off some big time teams. It, it was just a long process of trying to make that team better and better and better. And then through the process, Daniel and all the kids got better because what I set out to do for Daniel and the other kids, I told their parents, we have two goals.

First goal is we want to become. Nationally known and recognized across the country, which we accomplished at. We got ranked in the nation in eighth grade. The second goal was, I want every single player that plays for me to either start JV or start Varsity or play varsity. And I’m happy to say every single kid that played on that eighth grade team started varsity, did well, and they’re all in college right now, either at the division one level or division two level.

[00:07:59] Mike Klinzing: How did you think about that from a coach’s perspective in terms of balancing out the needs of Daniel? And obviously you’re not only a coach, but you’re his father and you’re invested in his success, just like you were invested in the success of those other kids. But how’d you go about creating the best possible environment to develop your roster one through nine or 10 or however many kids you had on there?

[00:08:24] Danny Young: Well, I knew Daniel would be a combo guard and he’s still that. If you go watch Spire play, sometimes he’s on the ball, sometimes he’s off the ball. I never developed or raised him to be ball dominant.  I wanted him to be able to, when you get into the mix and I’m not coaching you and you’re with four other dogs or four other kids that are really, really good, you just have to figure it out and be able to contribute to wins.

And I’m watching him do that now with spire. Like every single kid on that team was good. Every single kid on that team was their best player in high school. But Daniel was still able to be one of the top guys for a long time. He was one of the leading scores on the team. He’s averaging 25 and four, I believe.

So I think our process worked starting from AAU through middle school and then obviously through high school. But what we did to make sure he could flourish in that environment, like even after AAU practices, he and I had to go do something extra. I always wanted him to have that advantage. And we used to always talk about, do you want to be extra?

Do you want to be even, or do you want to be empty? Even means, okay, after aau practice you go home. We do nothing. Extra player is, we go to aau practice and we have to do an hour or hour and a half above afterwards. And so I kind of cultivated that inside of his intervening in his mind and that followed him all the way from middle school to high school.

[00:09:50] Mike Klinzing: Daniel, what do you remember about when that extra mentality kicked in for you? Was that something that you started develop in elementary school and middle school? When did you start to feel like, Hey, I’ve have to really put in this extra time? Obviously you’re having conversations with your dad as you’re going through and you’re riding to and from games and practices, but when do you remember that kicking in?

Was there a moment or was it just more of a gradual process?

[00:10:16] Daniel Young: I would say it was more of a gradual process. Like I would get extra shots up in middle school and stuff like that. I would say it really hit probably going into freshman year cause I really had a good start to my freshman year, my first ever varsity game, I had 27 points.

So I was putting a lot of work in the summer going into that freshman year because a lot of people thought I was only playing varsity becuase my dad was a coach, but in all honesty, I was playing in the word. He had us playing that summer before, the past summer when we were in seventh grade. He had us playing in high school divisions and like our au ball leagues and stuff.

So we would play like 12th graders while we were in seventh grade. He was doing that for us so we could get ready to play like right out the gate as freshman when we got to high school. So I’ll say that also helped us as well. But yeah, it was a gradual process and really clicked summer freshman.

[00:11:10] Mike Klinzing: What did your workouts look like? Let’s say as you were heading into your high school, so let’s talk about freshman, sophomore year, in the summer. What were some of the things that you were working on and what did you go about doing as you were actually putting together those workouts? Because when you think about what, the way that you grew up and have an opportunity to have your dad as a high school coach who’s extremely knowledgeable about the game, but then you also have ways to be able to see on YouTube and you can watch players, you can model your game and take things.

Just what did you do as a player outside of, again, your team stuff, but what were you doing individually when you got in the gym? What did that look like?

[00:11:49] Daniel Young: It was a lot of reps, a lot of shots. Like a lot of threes because I knew we had a guard coming in, so we would be playing off each other.

Just a lot of threes and a lot of ball handling. Because we had a really good team going into my freshman year, so I wanted to just be able to affect the game in, in other ways. So I just mainly focused on my freshman year, just working on my 3 pointers. So I was really like a standstill shooter my freshman year.

And then each year I would add something into my bag to become a better player. So my sophomore year I would, I was working on being more of a point guard, being able to bring the ball up more and more confidently. Cause my freshman year, I would say I was confident, but I wasn’t really confident in my handle, like bringing the ball up.

beause everyone was bigger and stronger than me at the time. But as my sophomore year, I would say near the end of my freshman year, I gained more confidence. Cause the more games I played, I was used to it. But going into my sophomore year, I would say I really, it really changed I felt like a really different player from what I was my freshman year.

And then my junior year, I would say I added. Working on shooting off the dribble more and step backs. I was watching James Harden, which you really shouldn’t watch him, but

[00:13:06] Mike Klinzing: Just don’t watch him off the ball.

[00:13:07] Jason Sunkle: Yeah, don’t watch him off the ball. Don’t ask, don’t ask Mike for his opinion on James Harden.

[00:13:12] Mike Klinzing: And you’re bringing up the wrong guy right now. Hey, when he’s got the ball, when he’s got the ball in a non playoff game, watch him all you want. Just don’t watch him in a playoff game and don’t watch him when he doesn’t have the ball. That’s, that’s all. I’ll leave it there.

[00:13:25] Danny Young: Exactly.

[00:13:27] Daniel Young: So watching really consistent move that I used my junior year and I would say like that really helped me to shoot tougher shots. Cause my junior year they played me way differently. So I had to be able to make tougher shots than, cause I wanted to get the ball wide open as much. So then my senior year, It was, it was just the same, just reps and reps and forms just doing the same thing over and over.

You have to be consistent with what you do. So it was really that for real. I would say my senior, it was a lot better cause I was the senior, so the confidence was really hot. So I would say just gradually working. Same thing over and over.

[00:14:15] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. I want to come back to that transition sort of from being a freshman to being a senior.

We’ll come back to that in a second. Danny, what was your role doing during these summer workouts? How much were you on the floor with Daniel, working with him, working them out, having discussions about, Hey, this is what you should be working on, versus just kind of letting him figure things out on his own?

[00:14:37] Danny Young: No, it was very strategic in terms of getting him ready. And one thing that I liked he never ducked the work. He never ran from the work. I entrusted him only to a few guys. I didn’t put him in front of a lot of people, but there were a few people I put him in front of and some things that they mentioned they were able to push him really hard and he just wouldn’t quit.

It was a couple times I was sitting there watching him work out and he was getting pushed and pushed and to a point where I wanted to say, okay, that’s enough. But he would not stop. And that was headed into his freshman year. So when he was able to go into the bookstore game, playing against Chris Livingston, who is now at Kentucky, and he was the leading scorer of that game.

He outplayed Chris in that game but Chris is a phenomenal player, McDonalds all American, so it’s not about that. But no one knew who Daniel was in that game, but they knew who he was after that game. And I knew as a freshman shooting the ball would be a big thing for him, and a lot of kids try to do a little bit too much in high school, but what I taught D was, Hey, if you can catch the ball and make stand still threes, you’ll be effective in high school.

And then we built off of that. And then when I was in the gym with him, it was a routine of probably 200 to 300 made threes. We also worked on the midi, but he really didn’t work on the, he didn’t shoot the midi that much as a freshman. And then I wanted him to have a tight handle to kind of get by and get to his spots.

And as he said early on at freshman year, he was confident. But as the season progressed, I saw him get a little more comfortable with that ball in his hand. And then sophomore year we kept adding the same things. And then I would say around sophomore, junior year, he really began attacking a basket like, no, no care for hurt, harm or danger to his body.

And I don’t know where that came from, he and I talk about today and I don’t know if he can even answer this question for you, but there were games where, I mean, he would go to the free throw line 14 times, 15 times, 17 times, 20 times in the regional final game when they got shut down when he was a sophomore.

He scored the bulk, his points in the foul line. I think he was 16 for 18 from the file line. Made a couple threes, made a couple layups, but he went to the foul line against Canton McKinley. I don’t know where that came from, but I’m glad he had it because he was just another added piece to his bag or his game where okay, he got the three ball, he can get to the rim, he can finish with contact against contact, get the free throw line.

And then he added the mid-range shot June, senior year a little bit better, because like you said, and I’ve never seen this before in my life. And I, I’ve coached some great players in Shaker Heights, but I saw a team, and I won’t call the team’s name his senior year and, and they said we want to beat him so bad that we’re not going to let him beat us.

They sent three guys at him every ball screen play that ran not two where they typically bless you with two. They sent two and the right corner guy and they threw three guys at him. And that was when Coach Gates was at the game. And, and one thing that I appreciated, Danny didn’t force the shots. And I tell this story to my guys now.

He gave the ball up to his teammate, Kell Smith, who was a big time player. Now for me, he did not force the ball. And I remember Coach Gates afterwards told him, yeah, you didn’t score your typical 27. He was after 27 at the time. He had, I think he had like maybe 18, 16, something like that. I don’t remember how many he ended up with, but he didn’t force the ball in terms of going against three guys.

He would give it up to his teammates, and now I’m seeing that transition right in Inspire. He doesn’t force bad shots. He gets his, but he also gets his teammates involved. So I’m, I’m seeing things come together for him from his high school experience.

[00:18:34] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. That’s a mentality and maturity thing, right?

Yes. All right. Let’s talk about the conversations that you guys had heading into Daniel’s freshman year. So, I don’t know who, if he wants to take it first, but maybe Daniel, you take the question first is what, what do you remember about what you talked with your dad in terms of, Hey, you’re going to be a varsity player and there’s going to be a lot of people, and you mentioned it earlier, that are going to say the only reason why you’re on this team is because, hey, your dad’s the coach and.

Obviously there’s a difference between you’ve had guys who have been in the program for three years who were seniors now all of a sudden here comes this freshman, who’s the coach’s son. What do you remember about the conversations that you had during that time? Daniel, why don’t you take that first?

[00:19:25] Daniel Young: I remember him telling me, he’s going to hold me to a higher standard. So he said he is going to be hard on me in practice and in games. He was probably a little bit too hard that to the point where all the other players were saying, they, they get it, he’s good. So you, you didn’t have to do it anymore. So I would say that’s when they, that’s what he was telling me.

So before I became a freshman, he was telling me he was always going to be hard on me and treat me way different than the other players to set the tone for the season.

[00:19:46] Mike Klinzing: Danny, what’d that look like on your end?

[00:19:53] Danny Young: He’s right. I was too hard a couple times. I think I broke him, I wouldn’t say broke, but I moved his emotions a couple times in practice and I was doing it on purpose to show the guys.

That he’s not being favored. And so I remember some of the top guys, Dakota Cocker, who’s at Central Michigan playing football. Shama Dante, who’s a professional fighter, Nick Ferguson. All the other guys that he was playing with, they came to me during practice and they said, coach, you don’t have to do that.

Stop, stop coach. We see what you’re doing. We know what you’re doing. He’s good coach. We, he, he can play, he can hoop. We know why he is playing. He’s not playing because you’re the coach. Don’t do that no more. Then my assistant, Ron Burnett, he will call me at night and practice, say, Dan, I’m going to tell you, you may not listen to me.

He’s a older gem. He’s like, I think Ron is like 80 right now. He’s, he called and said, Danny, you going to hurt that boy? You going to hurt him? Stop doing that. The boy is good. He works hard. He can play. Forget what the people say. They going to talk regardless. And so I backed off a little bit, just a little bit.

I didn’t back off too much, but I backed off. I backed off a little bit cause I was a little too hard that freshman year.

[00:21:04] Mike Klinzing: Daniel, from your perspective, what was the, let’s start with the po, let’s start with the positive. What was the best part of playing for your dad as a high school player?

[00:21:15] Daniel Young: I would say just the freedom we all had.

He had us as a team just like he didn’t hold anyone back. He just let them play, play their game, play free. Like I would say that’s probably the best coach to play for in high school. Just to have fun like you see these other schools. It’s like a lot of you have to have a lot of progressions before you take a shot.

Like any of us could take a shot. Like if it’s shot we like, he wouldn’t be mad. Like, as long as we played defense and went hard, he was happy with the results. So I would say that, and then I’ll also say our practices, they were always fun. Like it was always competitive. He made it competitive.

Like we were all, like all the players in school were always talking about practices. Like we were always just looking forward to going to practice. So I’ll just say the preparation before the games, that was always fun as well. And just being around our team I would say our sophomore year as well, when he told us no outside influences, like, don’t let anyone outside our camp infiltrated.

Like parents don’t listen to parents. Like, you should be taking this shot or you should be doing this, you should be starting. Like he had us all as a family and that’s why if Covid never had my, I feel like we would’ve won the state championship that year.

[00:22:28] Mike Klinzing: What makes a fun practice for you from a player perspective?

[00:22:32] Daniel Young: I would say our five on five doing our plays like. We had score stop drill. So that was really competitive. So you would have to score and then get a stop on defense in order to get that bucket that you just had. So it was always very competitive, man. I would say that was probably the best drill that we did all the time.

[00:22:53] Mike Klinzing: All right. Danny, what do you remember about that time? And just thinking about the, thinking about the practices and how you set those up and just how you tried to maximize what, what Danny and the rest of that team could be?

[00:23:03] Danny Young: Well, I’m a practice guy even now, I really enjoy the process of seeing where they are in the preseason, where you have them and early in the season.

And then as a coach, what can you do to constantly get them better? So I used to show them like, these practice plans aren’t just out of osmosis. I’m thinking about the games. I’m thinking about scrimmages. I’m thinking about what can we do as a staff to get you guys better. And I’m always trying to improve myself as a coach.

I go to a lot of camps and clinics, and there’s guys across Cleveland I respect and trust that I go scout, I watch, I try to borrow things. I always go to Columbus. If my team can’t get me there, I go down to the Final Four and I’m taking notes and copying things that I see these guys in  Columbus do.

But it’s just always trying to evolve and everything that we do, I try to make it competitive. Like the one drill Danny mentioned is one of my favorite drills. Score, stop, drill make it, take it with transition where it’s just not up and down, up and down. You have to run your play. If you score, you keep the ball.

If you score, you keep the ball, get the defense, gets it. You get to run, try to get a early transition bucket. If not, you run a set. If you score or don’t score going the other way, it’s still the other team’s ball. So it’s not just continuous up and down. You have to run a play. And then, like I said, it’s called make it, take it with transition.

But every drill that we did, I try to make competitive, even free throws. I got a drill called Ray Allen free throw shooting where? Two to a basket. Ray Allen does this all the time. I got it from the actual Ray Allen. I switches to a make plus one, a miss minus one. So he made free throws. Competitive, you lose, you have to run.

So I just try to, that’s what games are because something I believe when parents ask me what I look for, I got like seven traits that I tell parents. You know, in terms of what do you look for a coach when kid makes, makes Farsi and I, and matter of fact, we just went to our whole program, watched the middle school play today at the high school, seventh grade play.

And I saw seventh grade kid. I met his family and I told him how good I thought the kid would be. I said, but one thing that I value, who are you when you’re down 10, who are you when you’re down 10? Anybody can be special and happy. Go lucky you up eight, up 10. But who are you when you down 10? I’ll tell you one of my favorite moments for Daniel.

I knew he had some, I always knew he was tough cause that’s just how I raised him. But I knew he was tough when senior year at Cleveland Heights and his whole team from Cleveland State was there, the whole staff was there. I don’t think Coach Gates was there, but all the assistants were there. And like half the Cleveland State team.

Seven on our bench and we’re at Heights and we’re down, I think eight to 10.

[00:25:48] Daniel Young: No, we were down 20.

[00:25:50] Danny Young: Yeah, you’re right Danny we’re down 20. So I ripped them a new one at half and, and said some things that kind of got their juices flowing and then hit this switch because they were being rough with him.

Physical with him talking trash in his face. I mean, it was just crazy. I’m getting on the refs. I’m kind of talking to JR Bremer a little, but come on Bremer. He ain’t have to be all like this. But Bremer and I, we got mutual respect, we got a lot of love and respect for one another, and all of a sudden D hit this switch.

And he just put us on his back and went bananas in the game. And not only did he go bananas, he was able to also allow others to get theirs too. I think we had, he had like 27, almost 30, but he helped other guys get off. Two, we had three or four guys with double figures and we came back and won a game by five being down 20.

[00:26:40] Mike Klinzing: Daniel, where do you think that competitiveness comes from? Is that something that you just always remember having or do you think that that was something that kind of was forged through the course of the experiences that you had in the game?

[00:26:55] Daniel Young: I’d say I felt like I always had it. I was always competitive.

Even when I was younger I would always go hard. Even when I played in showcases, when they were talking about this was the best player, I always try to guard them. I didn’t back down from anybody, so I say I always had it in me.

[00:27:10] Mike Klinzing: It’s funny becuase I remember as a kid growing up. Shooting free throws with my dad on the driveway and he and I would shoot a hundred and we’d see who could make more.

You know? And I, at the time I was probably 8, 9, 10, somewhere in there. And just if I would lose, I remember just being so mad at my dad and getting so angry at him like, Hey, can’t believe can’t believe you beat me, dad. Let’s, we have to, we have to shoot, we have to shoot another hundred. And again, it’s one of those things that it never, like nobody ever said, Hey, you have to be more competitive, or, Hey, you’ve have to do, it just was something that, it just was always, it just was always there.

And I think it’s interesting that obviously as coaches, one of the things that we try to do is you want to develop and improve your team’s competitiveness. But I do think that there’s a different level of competitiveness that guys who just have it, it’s completely obvious. I mean, I do think it’s something that you can develop, but I think that there’s a level of competitiveness that some guys just have naturally, that other guys just never get to.

[00:28:09] Danny Young: I agree. I agree with that.

[00:28:15] Mike Klinzing: All right. Let’s talk a little bit about the negative side of having your dad as your high school coach. Is there something that when you look back, you’re like, man, that was a tough patch, or that was something that I didn’t like about having my dad as a coach. Maybe it was even just one small moment.

Does anything stick out for you, Daniel, in that respect? Not that I want you to throw your dad under the bus here, but ,

[00:28:35] Daniel Young: That’s a good, oh yeah. The car rides back home when we lost or like when I did bad. I did terrible. Like he would like me on you not in the gym. You’re not serious. You don’t want to be good. Do you want to work hard? Like it was just stuff like that. I would say car ride the game was the worst thing or a bad practice.

[00:28:58] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. That makes sense.

Danny, what do you think about when you think about what he just said?

[00:29:03] Danny Young: Yeah. but thank God for my wife. Thank God for Kenya. I tell you, because she would, okay, Danny, that’s enough. And sometimes they would just go in the back in our house, in his room and close me out and they’ll be back in that room for hours and they would not let me in.

And then every time he came out that room in the next game, he had a wonderful game. He, he had a great bounceback game I remember. At Mentor or No, no home Mentor. It was a tough one for him. What year was that? D of my sophomore year. Sophomore year. He had to, and the, that’s when men was really, really good.

And well, I thought we had got better in the tournament and, and the guys wanted to play them again. You know, I think we split, I think did we split within that year or They get us twice.

[00:29:49] Daniel Young: We won at their, I think we won at their place.

[00:29:52] Danny Young: Right. So at our place he had a rough patch. He didn’t score as normal at that point.

I think he was averaged by 18, a game, almost 20. He, he didn’t play well. All of the kids played real well. If we had him playing well, we sweep him. We win both games.

[00:30:08] Daniel Young: Hey that, yeah, we lost both becuase we lost by five at their place.

[00:30:12] Danny Young: That’s true. That’s true. So I would say that year, sophomore year we lost twice a minute.

But the second time at their place he played well, but at our place he didn’t play well. And I kind of felt like, dang, if my son would’ve played well, we win the game and you wonder what the guys are thinking. You know, you wonder what the fans are thinking, you know? Cause everybody else had a pretty good game.

Like the Dakota had a good game. Shamiah had a good game. Dante had a good game, and D didn’t have a good game. And he knew it. And that’s the first time early in that season, I saw him. His eyes got watery. He was kind of sad During the post-game talk. And so I’m ripping him all the way home. And then my wife took him and put him all, and she took him in the back room and whatever she said to him, and she won’t let me in there, she didn’t tell me what they talked about.

She said, I got him now. And she, they went in that room and talked and then that very, and from that point, I think he went on a tear. I think he went on a tear. His whole attitude changed. You know, he felt, he let the team down. I think he cried back to his mom. She pumped him up and then after that, man, he got, he got it rolling again.

[00:31:15] Mike Klinzing: I think the most important thing, and this is what I’ve found with my son too, is I think that once they get to the point, and I think for everybody it’s different. I’m guessing that my son came to it later than your son, where they want it more than what you want it for them. I think the, you cross over that.

Cause initially, obviously as a basketball guy, just like me, you, you kind of. Tend to give your kids more exposure to the game of basketball than to other things. And so, right. Eventually, I think once it becomes theirs, that’s when you really, that’s when you really got something. And then at the same time, I think you also realize that you sort of give up some control over what they do and how they do it.

And you obviously had maybe a little bit more control cause you’re coaching him, but certainly the performance is in their hands at a certain point. And, and I think they’re, that’s where sometimes that frustration as a parent where maybe you’re just saying, Hey, you have to get more time in the gym, or you need to play better.

I think that comes out, at least from my perspective, I know I get that way sometimes when you just feel like, man, we need you to play better. But ultimately they know, right? I mean, they know.

[00:32:27] Danny Young: Absolutely. Absolutely. And what I had to understand too is his journey is his journey. And I can’t, I couldn’t, I can’t let other people impact his journey. Because I started thinking about all my years of coaching. I helped to guide a lot of kids to college. I supported a lot of kids. I loved up on a lot of kids, and I’m still loving up on kids. Why can’t I love up on mine and allow him to fail and make mistakes and figure it out?

Why should he be penalized when I didn’t, I didn’t penalize anyone else. And what I’ll say I didn’t treat Daniel any differently than I tr treated any other superstar that I’ve had. Nobody else got treated any differently. He, they got the same freedom that Danny got. You know what I mean? So once I kind of understood that I didn’t care anymore, well really it stopped bothering me.

Really? I have to be quite honest with you. It hit me kind of earlier. I would say it’s freshman year, like the fourth or fifth game, that that’s when it kind of, you all, it’s always back of your mind. You’re thinking about it, right? But I stopped thinking about it that third game when he had the big opening night.

And then I think three or four games later, we played our rival Garfield. And he, he had a career night. He had 35 points, nine threes, and we won by 20 in front of a sellout crowd. Media. Everyone’s coming to see us lose, including his own classmates. Becuase he told me during the day he saw me, he said, dad, everyone’s betting that we’re going to lose.

I said, you have to be kidding me. He said, yeah, everybody’s coming to me saying son’s better, Meechi’s better. You’re going to lose by 20, I mean, our own fans. So what that taught me too, that he got a little bit of, okay, all right, I’m going to show you, but I can tell you okay, you don’t believe in me. All right?

And he came out there and just went on a tear. And I’m not trying to blow down anybody, but he outscored, he outscored both those young men by himself. And we won by 20. So right there, I think the crowd looked and said, okay, all right, just kicking hoop. And I, and then I, I didn’t hear anything else about Daniel after that.

Nothing else. Nothing else came my way, nothing.

[00:34:42] Mike Klinzing: Now when you can put it on the floor and play, that makes all the difference. That gets people quiet. Real fast.

[00:34:47] Danny Young: No question.  Quiet the crowd a lot.

[00:34:49] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. There’s no question about that. Daniel, talk a little bit about the recruiting process and what that was like for you, just in terms of going through and making decisions and kind of what you looked for in a school that you were going to choose and, and just tell us a little bit about the process.

[00:35:08] Daniel Young: I’ll say it was kind, it was a fun process. It was a lot of schools hitting me up. They were just talking for real though. Like, most of them, like, they’d be like, we’re coming to see you. Just come to watch you play. Like my freshman going into my sophomore my a season. I heard from a couple schools I heard from Michigan.

I would say like Bob Perso, Ohio, Akron. Oh, I had my first offer when we played in the district championship my freshman year. But we lost Akron offered me there was another guard on play Clark, he’s at Akron currently. We were playing against him and I played really good, but we lost by one. But I really played really good that game.

And after that game the coach called my dad the assistant coach, and they offered me, so I would say my first offer that made me feel good, but I would say like, It was, it was a unique recruitment process, especially when Covid hit. Cause I didn’t have an AAU season going into my senior year or to junior year.

I was, yeah, going into my junior year. So it was kind of hard cause they couldn’t come and watch me play. So I really didn’t have that many looks after that. But going into my senior year at Cleveland State, they were looking at me and then coach Gates, he’s a great recruiter. Like he made it feel like home.

As soon as I, even though it was really close to home, he just made it feel like that was the spot I wanted to be at. As soon as I took a visit over there he’s a great coach and it was just a fun process, especially on a visit, just meeting all the players and the, the whole coaching staff. It was just fun to be around him.

I already felt like I was there for like four years already. So I’ll say my, my process was pretty unique, especially because of Covid happened.

[00:36:49] Mike Klinzing: The Covid piece of it obviously threw a whole wrench into everybody. It’s kind of amazing when you look at just what this age bracket of kids has kind of had to go through.

Obviously unprecedented, certainly in modern history with the way that that pandemic had an effect on sports and everything that was going on. I mean, it’s kind of crazy that you look at the extra year of eligibility and then you look at the transfer portal and you look at how much more, I think, difficult it is for high school kids to be able to, to really get an opportunity at the Division one level, just because again, you have all these other different options for coaches and teams to be able to reload and retack their roster.

Danny, what was your role in terms of guiding Daniel in the decision making process, and what were some of the things that you talked to him about?

[00:37:37] Danny Young: I just talked to him about work hard and offers and opportunities will come we’re in that generation where, When Danny was coming up as a freshman, everybody had to have an offer as a freshman, if you didn’t have an offer as a freshman, you weren’t good.

You know what I mean? And so I remember he and I having some conversations. He saw some guards that he really did well against. They’re getting offers. He’s not, I remember that. We had a couple conversations about that. I said, don’t worry about that. Your opportunity will come. Just make sure you keep working, work, work, work, work, work.

And he did. I think Covid definitely hurt him because if you think about his resume, and I tell kids this right now about his resume back to back, LEL Player of the Year voted upon by the coaches. I didn’t get a vote in that. The other coaches in the league voted two time All-state, second team All-state.

He left Shaker as a second time leading all time scorer behind Malcolm Sims Greater Cleveland. What was that award Danny, you got at Cleveland? What was it called? He’s a finalist with the football quarterback at Medina. What was that award called? Player of the Year or Athlete of the Year?

Male, yeah. Yeah, the Athlete of the Year, Cleveland. So I can’t remember the actual name of it. But anyway, he had a great resume and he probably had maybe three offers, you know what I mean? And that’s because that pandemic, and I’m looking at some other past athletes. Danny’s resume was very comparable to a lot of other stars, but I just think it’s that climate.

So I talked some guys at around Nike and, and they just said, whatever you get, if they, if it’s a good fit and you feel comfortable, your son feels comfortable, take it because it’s a rough market out here. And I’m still seeing that. I’m seeing kids, I’m looking at, I’m admiring and I love their game.

I’m thinking, man, this kid is good. And you talk to them and they say, coach, I have nothing. I mean, I’m talking about really, really good players. It’s just a tough market. So when Coach Gates started recruiting him, I mean, like Danny said, he’s masterful. He is masterful in terms of recruiting.

I mean, like, he started with me a little bit. Like he’ll call me at weird hours. Like my wife and I are coming back in from, from going out to dinner, he’ll call me like 11 o’clock. Like, what you doing man? What’s going on? How you doing? How’s that son of yours, man, I see you playing. Well, I’m just checking in, coach, how you doing?

You know what I mean? He said, he said, tell the young killer I’m going to call him. You know? And he did that like three or four times, just different times. And then the one time he did it, it was a early morning, it was like eight 30 I think, and I think I might have missed a call first time. And I woke up and I saw the phone and said, coach Gates, oh shoot, how’d I miss this call?

And thank God he called back like 30 minutes later. He called back and he said, what you doing man? I said Nothing. He said, get your son up here right now. We’re about to practice. I want to see him. And so I said, D, get up. We’re going to go to Cleveland State. It was just unannounced. And so we got our clothes on, we drive to Cleveland State, and then he lets us feel special.

He allowed us to pull in like the tunnel where like the big time guys go, you know where he parks right inside the arena. So you open up, he open the garage up, pull the car in, let it down. We walk in, we’re talking, chopping it up, we watching practice it’s a great practice.

And then all of a sudden he takes it in the back of the office and he says Hey man, I love him. Hey, let’s get this done. But I already know you can’t do it cause mama ain’t here. I’m like, what? He said, I know you can’t make the decision, but Mama not with me, I said, no, you’re right. We can’t make the decision

[00:41:21] Mike Klinzing: He’s no dummy.

[00:41:23] Danny Young: He’s no dummy. He said, that’s alright. I’ll get mama next. He said, but here’s my vision for him. I love him, but with this pandemic, I don’t know who’s coming back, who’s not. Let’s ship him off to prep school and don’t look at that as a negative. So for me, I lit up inside, but I didn’t quite know what Daniel was thinking.

I already knew what it was becuase Terry Rozier did that. Rozier did it. And Raelle Hurley, who I coached, Eric, teammates Terry went to Hargrave and Razelle went to Isa and it just makes you better. You learn how to be a college guy before the switch goes on. So I saw a great vision in that. And I think D did too.

At first. He had a look like, Hmm, kind of unsure. He really didn’t kind of know what that meant. And then Coach Gates explained it and then his, then he began to understand. And so as we left, I said, Dee, that would be a great opportunity to kind of go to prep school, get bigger, faster, stronger, learn all the stuff that you don’t do in high school, which is primarily defense, get every rebound, fight the bigs. You get a switch on a big as a guard. You know, don’t take plays off held accountable at a high level, every play you held accountable. Learn how to be a college guy. I think it’d be great. And so I’m just thankful to Coach Gates that he had that vision and know what else I want to say about Coach Gates.

He trusted his eyes. Coach Gates trusted his eyes. He did not rely on the writers in Ohio. He didn’t rely on what other people felt. He didn’t rely on who else offered. He relied on what he knew, what he saw, and what he believed Daniel could be. And I just really appreciate the fact that he afforded him the opportunity.

And then Coach Robinson we, Daniel has developed a good relationship with him. He checks in on him quite often while he’s at Aspire. And, and what, what, for me, what attracted us to coach Robinson is. The first week he got the job. Now, to me, I mean, that, that’s a busy time. You have to do interviews, you have to do appearances, you have to find your wife and children and your family at home, a school system.

He did a home visit for about an hour and a half with D and my wife and I, and really recommitted Daniel to his vision. And that made me feel really good as a dad, that he took time out of  his busy schedule, got his job at Cleveland State. He got so much else to do and, and he felt he felt it.

It was important enough to come down and let Daniel know he still wanted him to maintain his commitment.

[00:43:58] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s a tough situation when you go from a head coach, especially one that you guys connected with as well as you did with Coach Gates, and now suddenly you got a new guy coming in. But it sounds like that transition was pretty smooth once you made the decision to go.

Prep school. Daniel, why Spire? And did you look at any other prep schools and just talk me through the decision making process there.

[00:44:20] Daniel Young: So coach Gates, he asked if I wanted to stay close to home or if I wanted to leave, and I told him I wouldn’t mind staying close to home. So they looked at a lot of prep schools.

There was like one, I’m pretty sure there was one in Indiana

[00:44:34] Danny Young: Yeah, it was Bosco. Yeah, Bosco.

[00:44:38] Daniel Young: It was either Bosco or, and I was like, spires close to home, so I’ll do Spire. So I decided to go Spire. Then I formed a relationship with Coach Sparrow here at Spire Academy. And Coach Dooley. And Coach Gonzalez.

I just formed a relationship with them. They came to two of my games. Near the end of the season and I committed, I’m pretty sure after the season or, yeah, after the season. So that’s how it really happened.

[00:45:08] Mike Klinzing: What’s a day-to-day? What’s your day-to-day experience like at Spy? Walk us through like a day, let’s say when you have practice, what does your day look like?

[00:45:15] Daniel Young: So we have to get up at 6:00 AM every day, and we got a 6:45 AM lift. And then at around 7 45, we have like a, like a passion project class, like something we want to do in college, like if we want to do sports management or psychology, like whatever topic or like whatever major we want to do in college. And then after that, we go to breakfast at nine o’clock.

And then sometimes we have a a student counseling or mental skills meeting. 10 50. This lady named Dominique she comes in she used to be like the mental skills lady for like college teams, like college basketball teams and stuff. All that stuff like that, like northwestern Wisconsin and stuff like that.

And then after that, I’ve lunch at 12, and then we have practice for at two o’clock. Usually we go from two to four, or depending, we might go to two to six depending on how hard we go. So sometimes like we go so hard, we forget that we are in there like for that long. So sometimes we go over the time.

So and then after that we have like recovery, and then we start the whole day over the next day.

[00:46:27] Mike Klinzing: Danny, how has it been for you being able to get out and see his games? Obviously with your coaching schedule and your practices and your games and your job as a counselor. The fact that he’s close I’m sure, makes it a lot easier.

But just talk about what this experience has been like from your perspective as a parent. It

[00:46:45] Danny Young: It has been so much fun watching D play. I get to go just sit and watch and be a dad and what I’m most proud about. I know everybody knows Danny can score. He’s a bucket getter. He’s been built to be a bucket getter, but Coach Sparrow is a defensive guru.

Danny is guarding at an elite level. He does something called a p o a point of attack, which means can you guard your own stuff and how many times does, do you require help? And he rates it every game. And he told me, I asked him about it. He said, if you’re in the seventies, you are a solid defender.

You’re pretty good eighties mean you’re very elite. And then I asked Danny, so where you at? And he ranks like 80, 84 at one point in the season, which means he can guard pretty much anybody he’s going against and not require a lot of help. And I’ve implemented that same strategy with my kids. Right now we’re doing that POA and it’s, it’s helping us a little bit with my young team, but just to see him be able to leave me and I, Daniel had some naysayers in terms of Ohio that still felt, no matter what he accomplished, the Allstate, the back-to-back l player of the year, had a great state run as a sophomore senior year, we had a decent run. He still only did it because of me. So it feels really good to go out there and watch Daniel. He one of the top guys. At one point, he was the leading scorer of the team five and four, and I’m nowhere to be found

I’m here in Cleveland. He’s Geneva. A whole new staff I never met, never knew, and they saw value in him, the same value that me and my staff saw in him. And so I just appreciate the fact that D is able to take what he learned in Shaker Heights, go out to Spire and do the exact same thing he’s doing in Shaker Heights that he’s doing at spire.

I’m very proud of that, very proud of that. And he’s doing on both ends. He’s scoring, but he is guarding and rebounding and he can guard bigs without asking for help, which I love it.

[00:49:03] Mike Klinzing: Daniel, what do you think’s been the best part of the development of your game, being at Spire? Is there a particular aspect of the game that you feel like you’ve really stepped up, being there and just what have you worked on during your time at Spire?

[00:49:15] Daniel Young: I would say being more mature in my game, I’d probably say like in high school I would take like sometimes four shots. Like now I know when, cause I, I like, I have other like really, really like good, talented players around me, like more talented players around me, so I don’t have to do as much. So now I can just focus on knowing when to shoot, knowing what’s the right shot.

So I’ll probably say that. And then just, yeah, just being the overall good all around player now just being more mature in that aspect and just always staying poised. I never been like, I’ve never been riled up. For real, for real. I always stayed, even like at one level I stayed levelheaded. So I’ll probably say just more poison, knowing, winning the best, what’s the best shot?

And I feel like I got better on defense. Like I always been really good at defense, but I’ve been taking it way more serious since I got this fire. Cause if you don’t play defense here, you’re not going to play

[00:50:16] Mike Klinzing: Welcome to college basketball .

[00:50:20] Daniel Young: So this was the best thing to happen to me.

Cause like, we’re learning the details, like the minute details of being a basketball player. Like so when we go to college, we’ll already have our foot in the door at a chance of getting a starting spot and playing right away as a freshman. Cause our coach told us, I think only, what’s the percentages?

Probably like 3% of freshman play in college basketball right now like, like important minutes. So I’m pretty sure he was telling us just focus on the details all the time. So he’s just getting us ready for college.

[00:50:54] Mike Klinzing: How beneficial has it been to be able to focus on basketball for a lot more of your day than obviously you had the opportunity to do in high school?

You’re talking about being able to include weight training in your day and the mental prep and just all the things that you guys are doing there. How have you taken to that? How have you enjoyed that piece of it?

[00:51:16] Daniel Young: Well, I’ve enjoyed it a lot. It’s amazing that we have all day to just get better at our game.

Just get a lot of shots up and just get better each and every day. Cause our coach told us he was. This is probably the, almost the only time you’ll ever have this much time in your hands from the next four years when you’re in college. Like we, we have like 24 hours really in the whole day to just do whatever we want.

And basketball, cause he was like, in college you don’t have to go to class weight lifting. Then you have to go to meetings and stuff. Then you have to come back for practice. Then you have to go back to a night class. Like, it won’t be as much time that we have in our hands that we have now. So just using the most of our time here that we got have left to get ready for college.

[00:52:02] Mike Klinzing: What have you seen Danny, as far as the biggest jump in Daniel’s game since he’s been at Spire?

[00:52:07] Danny Young: Defense on the ball. Defense. Off the ball Defense. What I love the most is they strong switch everything. And when I first went to go see him play, I’m like, holy smoke. See, he got switched into it big when they going to switch back.

And I saw him saying, nah, I’m good. I’m good. I don’t need it. I’m good, I’m good. And he’s fighting and getting around and not getting posted up and actually pushing the pulse out further on the wing. I’m like, good gracious, where’s that at in high school? You know what I mean? So I loved it. It’s the defense for me.

Of course, he can score, shoot threes, get to the rim, get to the free throw line. But I was just in awe of his defense. And like you said I remember one time and I have to see him play quite a bit. I haven’t missed that many tournaments. I’ve, I’ve gotten to see him play quite a bit and I can’t remember which team it was.

And he was on fire. He had like 24 points in the first. And I’m using the bathroom and me and the coach coming out together, or it might have been after the game. No, I thought, I think it was halftime. And we just start talking real quick before he went back out and he said, your son earned the right to shoot the ball that many times and score in the first half.

Because if he don’t play defense coach, he will not be shooting at basketball . And I just love it, man. I mean, if you don’t play defense, man, you are not shooting that basketball. You are not. And so the level of accountability is good. You know what I mean? And just seeing that he can, he can take hard coaching from someone else besides Coach Young for sure.

It’s been great. Cause I always wonder how’s he going to respond if he’s been with me for four years in aau? How’s going to respond from some to somebody else? And he’s been doing great.

[00:53:55] Mike Klinzing: Daniel, what are you looking forward to next year at Cleveland State? When you start thinking about what your college experience can be like, what are you most looking forward to?

[00:54:01] Daniel Young: I’ll probably say just the first day of practice, just making our first impression. Our coach said, you only get one time to make your first impression when you step in college, so make it your best. Cause if you have a bad impression, you might be stuck on that bench for a while. So just making my first

[00:54:20] Danny Young: impression.

[00:54:21] Mike Klinzing: Danny, what advice have you given him, kind of as you, it’s going to be here before you guys know it, but what advice have you given him looking ahead to next year?

[00:54:29] Danny Young: I think I’m telling him right now, savor the moment in terms of he got 17, I think 17, 18, 20 games left. Save the moment. Enjoy it. Like he just said, he got 24 hours in the day.

Maximize it. You’ve been blessed with a great opportunity to be aspire and the focus on your game. Take the lessons and the challenges that he learned at spire and he learned a lot because the culture hitting pretty tough early on. He was able to kind of bounce back and kind of matriculate upstream to being a major, major contributor.

And so take those lessons from Spire, from Shaker to Cleveland State. And I, I’m glad that his coach is telling him that. Cause I was going to tell him that too. Make that first impression. You know, sometimes kids go in there and say, oh, kind feel things out. I’m going to kinda lay chill and kind sit back and see how I feel.

And that’s not how you’re supposed to go about it. You know, you’re supposed to go in there and make that good first impression. So I’m glad he’s being coached and, and guided with that process.

[00:55:32] Mike Klinzing: Danny thinking back over your lifetime, do you have any memories of Cleveland State basketball yourself going to watch games?

[00:55:38] Danny Young: Absolutely. Absolutely. I always heard about the Mackey era, but I didn’t see it. But I went to a lot of games when, what’s his name? D played with Brian. He’s in the Hall of Fame there at Cleveland State. Norris Cole. Norris Cole, that’s it. Norris Cole. I went to a lot of Norris Cole games becuase I, I used take my team to a lot of their camps when, when Coach Gary Waters was there, and Jermaine Kimbrough, who played for Shaker was assistant coach and now he’s at Arizona State.

So I always supported the program and I just really respected Norris Cole. Cause his plight was similar to D’s not a whole bunch of offers, but he made the best of the one he had and look where he is at now. So I’m hoping Danny can follow that trajectory and just make the best out of Cleveland State and work his tail off and, and let the chips fall where they may, you know?

[00:56:27] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely, I mean, Cleveland State, my dad growing up was a professor at Cleveland State, so I spent a lot of time going down to Cleveland State Games. I could go. Even earlier than the Kevin Mackey era, Ray Dinger was the coach before Kevin Mackey. I was the Franklin Edwards and Lee Reed teams. And then obviously you had the Kevin Mackey with Mouse McFadden and Kenny Robertson and Clinton Smith and Clinton Ramsey and Eric Mud.

And man, you could just keep going on and on. But I spent a lot of time at that point it was in Woodland Gym and then they used to play some games over at public Hall too. And I remember going down there and me and my little sister, you had this big cavernous public hall where they had the floor. You know, they’d bring in a portable floor and then they had all this area where, like the stage would be, and I remember me and my sister running around and just acting crazy and eating our popcorn or whatever.

So I kind of grew up with Cleveland State Basketball. So I always, I always love when you see them having success, because I think it’d be great for the city to be able to, to really, to really bring that program back to life. And you know, they, there that time with Kevin Mackey was just incredibly special and that it’s it’s a shame that they weren’t kind of able to capitalize on it and keep it keep it at that level.

Which obviously as a mid-major, it’s, it’s tough to do that, to have that go year after year after year. But man, if, when Cleveland State basketball’s good, it’s definitely fun for the city. It’s fun for the city.

[00:57:46] Danny Young: Absolutely. Totally agree.

[00:57:49] Mike Klinzing: All right, I want to end here guys, with the final question for each of you.

When you look back on the totality of. The basketball relationship, the father-son relationship, if you can boil it down to the most important piece of advice. So Daniel, for a player who plays for their dad, whether that’s an a, a u or high school, what’s a piece of advice that you give would give to a player who plays for their father?

And then, Danny, I’ll flip that question over to you. Once Daniel answers,

[00:58:20] Daniel Young: I’ll say just work hard and don’t think what anybody says, cause they’re going to talk regardless. Even if you’re really, really good, they’re just going to say, oh, he’s only doing this cause his dad’s the coach. So just don’t only think about that, just play like if you had a different, like if that, if your coach wasn’t your dad.

So just have fun with it becuase it goes by quick. And just listen to what your dad say. Becuase I know sometimes the sons don’t want to listen to. Just cause they know what they’re saying. So, yep. Have fun with it and then just treasure it while you can, because when it goes by you be like, dang, I miss playing for my dad.

It was actually kinda fun. So I’ll just say Enjoy it.

[00:59:01] Mike Klinzing: That’s so true, man. Thinking about it going fast, I think that’s a great piece of advice. It’s a great perspective that I think sometimes when we’re young, we don’t necessarily realize, I know your dad and I know how fast it goes, so I’m glad to hear you saying that, that realizing that it goes fast and appreciating it.

Becuase as you get older, man, the years go even faster. So I completely relate to what you’re saying. Danny, what about you?

[00:59:24] Danny Young: I totally agree with Danny in terms of please enjoy it because it’s a blur and it goes very fast. Enjoy all the wonderful lasting memories, enjoy the challenges, but most importantly, enjoy the fun and the positive things that come out of it.

Like the sophomore season where. Danny was able to contribute to the team and help the team get to the, the regional final before the shutdown. And then the, a great, great memory was this last year where shaker Heights had not won the league since 2015. And I walk out there in the hallway where we have all the championships in.

The last one we won was 2015. And now to say we got another one in 2022, and Danny was a catalyst for that happening. You know, it, it just, it feels really good to know that he left his mark on the program as one of the greats in terms of being on the wall for all Ohio and all that. So enjoy it, have fun with it.

Hang onto the memories. And then the last thing I’ll say is once the games are over and practice is over, try your very, very best. To lead basketball at the gym and just be Dad. I know it’s, it’s hard. Like Danny said, I would be tough on the car rides home, but I think I got a little bit better as time went on with that, his junior, senior year.

I think I got a little bit better with that. Maybe I didn’t, but I would say to to dads that are coaching your sons, try to let it, let it go and beat that until the next day you’re back in the jump.

[01:01:01] Mike Klinzing: Gentlemen, that’s well said. Great advice from both of you. Before we get out, I want to give you a chance to share how people can follow you, connect with you, whether you want to share your social media accounts, email.

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

[01:01:17] Daniel Young: You can follow with me on Twitter at @DanielYoung__ with two underscores at the end, and then on Instagram you could follow me @DanielKYoung with

[01:01:30] Danny Young: perfect Danny. For me my Twitter is at DYoung42 and then my email if want to get in contact with me, hdannyyoung42@gmail.com.

[01:01:44] Mike Klinzing: I wish you guys the best of luck for the rest of your seasons and obviously Daniel wish you continued success as you continue on in your career at Cleveland State. Certainly be paying attention to what you’re doing and following you. Danny, wish you luck for the rest of your season there at Shaker and hopefully you guys can get hot and make a little tournament run.

And I thank you for your time. This is a lot of fun. First father son. Well, no, I take that back. We did a second. This is the second father son episode we did, but the last one we did was with two guys who were coaching together as a father and son. Wow. So maybe, maybe, maybe 20 years from now we’ll have you guys back on as a father-son coaching duo.

[01:02:18] Danny Young: That’d be nice.

[01:02:21] Mike Klinzing: Nonetheless, I want to thank you guys for your time. Truly appreciate it. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.