DAVID HIXON – BASKETBALL HALL OF FAMER & RETIRED MENS’ BASKETBALL HEAD COACH AT AMHERST COLLEGE – EPISODE 838

Website – https://athletics.amherst.edu/news/2023/4/1/general-david-hixon-75-elected-to-naismith-basketball-hall-of-fame.aspx

Email – ddhixon@amherst.edu

Twitter – @AmherstMBball

David Hixon, Amherst College’s long-time men’s basketball coach, who retired in 2020, was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame on August 12,2023.

Hixon coached at Amherst for 42 years, winning two national championships and twice being named Div. III Coach of the Year. He compiled a coaching record of 826-293, ranking him 15th in NCAA men’s basketball when he retired in April 2020. His winning percentage of .738 was good for 10th place in NCAA Division III history at the time of his retirement.  During Hixon’s tenure, Amherst participated in the NCAA national tournament 20 times and compiled a 43-20 postseason record.

Hixon is the first Div. III coach to earn enshrinement into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He was elected to the New England Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003.

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Take some notes as you listen to this episode with David Hixon, Basketball Hall of Famer & Retired Men’s Basketball Head Coach at Amherst College.

What We Discuss with David Hixon

• The Hall of Fame selection process and getting the phone call from Jerry Colangelo telling him he had made the Hall
• The odd feeling from having people wanting his autograph during the Hall of Fame Weekend
• Having some of his “basketball family” in Springfield for the weekend
• His conversations with Becky Hammon and Tony Parker
• “It’s your numbers and your resume that gets you into the hall of fame but that’s not the most important thing.”
• “I’ve always made sure I have time. Relationships are the number one, most important thing.”
• The story of how he had to whistle to get everyone’s attention at a gathering on Hall of Fame Weekend
• “Competing” with Dwyane Wade for the attention of autograph seekers
• Growing up watching his father, who was a high school coach
• Winning a high school state championship at the old Boston Garden while playing for his Dad
• The story of how he chose to attend Amherst College
• His advice to players that want to go into coaching despite the misgivings of their parents
• Staring his career coaching other sports in addition to basketball at Amherst
• Getting the Head Coaching Job at Amherst when he was 24 years old.
• “My kids and my wife made me a better person. It made me a better coach. It made me a better human being.”
• Student-athletes, not athlete-students
• “One of the big lessons that athletics teaches is to persevere.”
• The negative impact he sees from the Transfer Portal
• The reasons why he loved coaching at the D3 Level
• Developing a program, not just a team
• Three big changes in the game – The three point shot, the shot clock, and switching on defense
• Being among the first coaches to adopt a switching mentality on defense
• “There’s a lot of preparation involved in making your team really good.”
• Teaching players to learn to read each other and make decisions
•  The challenge of coaching at a mid-major – A coaching colleague told him…”I can either get people who are athletic enough to play at this level with lesser basketball IQ, or I can get people with high basketball IQ, but athletically, they’re not quite good enough to play at this level.”
• “I always tell people that as a leader, when you’re seeing something, but you’re not quite sure what it is, you got to find out what it is in order to be able to address it.”
• Weeding and Feeding players
• Hard work and passion

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THANKS, DAVID HIXON

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TRANSCRIPT FOR DAVID HIXON – BASKETBALL HALL OF FAMER & FORMER MENS’ BASKETBALL HEAD COACH AT AMHERST COLLEGE – EPISODE 838

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason Sunkle this morning, but I am pleased to be joined by basketball hall of famer, long time head men’s basketball coach at Amherst College, David Hixson. Dave, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:17] David Hixon: Great to be here, Mike.

[00:00:19] Mike Klinzing: Thrilled to have you on, especially in light of what you just were able to experience here at the Basketball Hall of Fame, your induction ceremony, the whole entire Hall of Fame weekend. Can you in any way, shape, or form sum up what that experience was like in… A 30 second soundbite. We’re going to dive into it a lot deeper, but just overall your feelings from that weekend, what you took away from it, just sort of big picture before we dive into the details.

[00:00:47] David Hixon: Yeah. You know, it’s really hard to put into words. And I tried with the speech that I gave.  The three days that I was there were truly amazing. And my heroes, the big guys I’ll tell you, they were the best. They welcomed me in like I was one of them. I guess I am now, but you always feel like, geez, division three versus NBA and all the other stuff, but they were great.

And met some, I think some lifelong friends now that I never would have met before. And it’s just terrific.

[00:01:19] Mike Klinzing: How does the process start? When’s the first time that you get wind of. Hey, I may be under consideration for this particular honor. How far in advance does this stuff start happening?

[00:01:37] David Hixon: So I think it was like December 18th or right in that area, they announced the people who have been nominated and I was nominated last year and I took great pride in that.

There was a poster of me and Manu Ginobili and I took pictures of it and sent it to my guys just sort of saying like, wow, how is this right? And so it was really exciting. There’s been a couple other Division III guys in the past nominated before, but then you got to get out of that stage. And so there were 37 people, some really famous names, by the way, nominated.

And the American committee, the North American committee, it’s called, which is nine voting members decide whether they want to push you on or not. And they pushed on eight of us. And so I became a finalist on February 18th, which was announced at the NBA all-star weekend. And then we had to wait five weeks until April 1st to find out if we were in fact in, and that was by phone call.

Sort of a pretty nerve wracking five weeks, I’ll tell you. But so it goes from nomination to finalists. To call telling you whether you’re in or out.

[00:02:32] Mike Klinzing: And that call came from Jerry Colangelo, correct?

[00:02:34] David Hixon: It did. And you really have no hint at all. And I kept looking at the numbers and saying Hey there’s eight of us here, that’s a big class.

And I know there’s five guys going in for sure. And, try to figure out the rest. And so it was a nerve wracking time.

[00:02:51] Mike Klinzing: Who’s the first person you call after you get the news that you’re getting in?

[00:02:53] David Hixon: Well, I’m going to tell you this, even though now it’s over. I can tell you this.

We called both of our boys. And they told us we couldn’t tell anybody because it was going to be properly unveiled. And basically they sequestered us for a week that next weekend at the NCAA division one final four. It was going to be announced on TV ESPN nationally and we weren’t supposed to tell anybody, but you know how that goes.

We tell our kids and say, but don’t tell anybody I’d like to know who they told and who they told and who they told.

[00:03:27] Mike Klinzing: That’s good stuff. That is funny. All right. So let’s get to the weekend itself. the itinerary, you fly into Springfield, you get in there and what’s it like? What’s the experience like? Just walk us through kind of what happens at each step of the way.

[00:03:44] David Hixon: Right. And so here’s the unbelievable thing. My house is 29 miles from the hall of fame, so I don’t, I don’t fly. Nice. You’re driving. Yeah, I was driving. And so I actually, we had to go to Mohegan Sun, which is about an hour and 20 minutes for the first part of the adventure.

And that was on Thursday morning. But I had a media request. At the hall of fame by a local reporter. And so I drove early to the hall of fame right in front of the Naismith statue, did a TV interview, jumped back in my car, drove to Mohegan Sun, I got to Mohegan Sun. And right away, the first thing I had was a chance to practice my speech on the teleprompter, which.

I’ve only done one time before. I’m a storyteller. I love to talk but it’s all impromptu, sort of like telling stories and, and the reading, I thought, boy, this may be a problem. And so went down, practiced it three or four times, went from there to an autograph session went from there to some interviews.

And that was, so Thursday basically got covered with that. The interesting thing for me is because I’m not a real household name as I would walk through the corridors of Mohegan Sun and get absolutely mobbed by autograph seekers, which that I have never experienced that before.

And that was crazy. It was really it was crazy and I don’t know how to handle it. Right. Just, I signed them all. And So then we go from there, we get up Friday morning and Friday morning we go through we sort of all have breakfast together and then we go through another autograph session. We go through some more interviews and those were really cool.

I think they were on NBA TV and then we go to Thursday that we’re on Friday night now, Friday night. was, was the whole ring ceremony. And so we sort of get together with a small VIP reception, spill over into the larger reception, and then go in and get our, our jacket and our ring, and then went out with a bunch of guys after.

And you know, my guys, which was wonderful. Part of my basketball family. And then we get up for the big day on Saturday. You know, we get a chance one last time to do a run through our speech. And then it’s sort of celebrity meet and greet and a big party and all that stuff and bang we’re on.

And so, and then naturally after we had a big party, again, my basketball family, and it was just a wonderful, wonderful weekend.

[00:06:07] Mike Klinzing: Did you have a quiet moment to get an opportunity to talk to any of the other inductees, any moment that sticks out with any of them?

[00:06:15] David Hixon: Yeah, well it’s really funny because I had met everybody except three down at the when we were introduced on the final four weekend and I hadn’t talked to Becky Hammon and I got a chance to spend a good 10 minute conversation with her, which was terrific.

I hadn’t met. And you know, sort of, we’ve been around each other a bit, but we hadn’t really sat down and talked and I had a chance to do that a bit and, and some of our commonalities and people that, that we both knew. And Tony Parker, so interesting. Tony Parker was down. And we just never connected.

And I walk up to him and I say, Hey, Tony, Dave Hixon, and I’m one of the inductees. He looks at me and he smiles. He goes, Dave, I know who you are. I said, all right. I said I feel badly because I didn’t get a chance to talk to you down in Houston, but every time I looked around you were busy and I didn’t want to interrupt.

And so we had a great. Sort of five, eight, 10 minute conversation with just the two of us. And you know, just what a wonderful guy and so welcoming to someone like me.

[00:07:21] Mike Klinzing: You mentioned earlier that you had your basketball family around you. What were some of those? Conversations. What were the sentiments of guys who had played for you, guys who know you, people that had been a part of your circle?

Is there any moment, comment, thing that really hit you that is going to stick with you for the rest of your life that somebody said over the course of this whole process?

[00:07:47] David Hixon: Yeah it’s sort of hard to sort through and pick out one because the sentiments were just, as you can imagine, a phenomenal, the fact that people would travel as far as California to come in for the weekend for me for us really, not for me because like I said in my speech everybody had a, a piece of the night.

In other words, if that player or that player, that player, aren’t there, maybe we don’t win this or win that. We don’t achieve this. We don’t achieve that. And so it’s your numbers and your resume that gets you into the hall of fame but that’s not the most important thing.

I mean, the problem is there’s a lot of hall of fame coaches out there who will never get in the hall of fame, who have been great mentors. And have great relationships with former players. And so just the overall sentiment we had a chance, the Amherst president came down and attended all the festivities, which was wonderful to see.

And Amherst is a really academic school and we haven’t always had that sort of support from our administration. And so it was wonderful to see him come down and the kind words that he said I think left. All of my guys sort of thinking like, wow, that was really cool. Great to have an Amherst president involved.

Great to see that, that the school appreciates this achievement, which, but, but as far as one particular thing, there were just so many great sentiments. I mean, I had tears in my eyes the whole time. It was so wonderful.

[00:09:12] Mike Klinzing: When you think about, and this is one of the things that. When we interviewed your former player, Matt Goldsmith, he talked about just your ability to build relationships and how important that was to him, but also to anybody who is an alum of the program.

And then you think about. The people that came out and supported you over the course of this weekend. And as you said, ultimately, what people are looking at when they see David Hixon Hall of Fame, it’s going to be, here’s his record. Here’s the national championships he won. Here’s all these accomplishments that are down on paper.

I’m guessing based on just the brief time that we’ve had to interact and my conversation with Matt that those relationships that you built over time that ultimately that really is what’s most important to you. So talk a little bit about why those relationships were so important to you and then maybe what you did that enabled you to build the kind of relationships that are going to have people flying in from California to support you in this great moment.

[00:10:19] David Hixon:  Yeah. And I think again, I think life is about relationships. It really is. And you can throw all the other stuff out in the end, but it’s about relationships. And to this day I get calls from my alums whether it’s they’re changing jobs and they want me to connect them with somebody either their kids are looking at jobs and they want to, or colleges and they want to get connected.

Maybe somebody has a young basketball player and they need advice on where to go. They have remained such a big part of my life. And that again, is more meaningful to me than, than all the other stuff. And when I first started at Amherst, a lot of people don’t know this.

I mean, I coached my first 10 years. I coached, I also coached track and field as an assistant in the springtime. But more importantly, I coached three years of soccer and, four of those were one as a head coach with the women and three as an assistant with the women. And I get notes from all those people and not all those people, but so many of those people.

And, you know my very first team that I coached at Amherst was freshmen to be the head coach of was freshmen soccer. And I had never played soccer. I went to a few camps and my boss, thank God, my AD and the head soccer coach was Peter Gooding, who was at the time, one of the preeminent Soccer coaches in the United States.

He was a Brit. And so I went in well equipped, I thought, to coach soccer. But to this day, those kids refer to themselves as the youngsters and I hear from them as much as I hear from anybody. And so, but relationships, it’s about just taking the time. I mean, it really is just about taking the time. I mean one, one of the people that I look up to, John Calipari, I had John as my presenter one of my presenters with Jim Calhoun, but John might be the busiest guy in America.

I mean he’s got something going every minute. I look at his Facebook, he’s flying here, flying there, seeing this kid, seeing that kid. Seeing a parent, blah, blah, blah, doing this and all this other stuff. Plus he’s coaching Kentucky, but he always has time.

And so as I grew up, I always thought that was important, but I’ve always made sure I have time. And I used to amaze my assistants. And Matt usually tells the story, Matt Goldsmith, where we were Xing and Oing the heck out of something, and we’d been going on for an hour or something like that, and an alum just stuck his head in the door, one of my soccer alums, actually, and said, Hey coach, they just want to say hi.

I said to the guys, guys, put this on hold. And I went for a walk and, and talked about his kid and showed him around the school a little bit. An hour later, I come back to the basketball piece and meant so much to that alum and his son. But it also meant as much to me. I mean, and so I do think relationships are the number one, most important thing.

People, and strangely enough, let’s go to wins and losses. People play for you. They’ll play harder for you. The stronger the relationship that you have, they believe you, they trust you. There’s so many pieces that go into building a great relationship with people.

[00:13:29] Mike Klinzing: It’s really well said. And I think it’s a lesson and a theme that if I could put a top three in terms of things that coaches have said to us on the podcast over the years of what is important to them, and ultimately it comes down to relationships is right there at the top, both in terms of relationships with their players.

Relationships with other coaches that then enable you to be able to move on and move up in your career. And I think that Matt did tell us that same exact story. And he said, he added in there that at some point he said, coach, coach, come on, man, we got to get prepared. Like, what are we doing? We can’t be taking an hour out of our time here to go and prepare for this next tournament game.

We got to, we got to be ready. And so he added that little detail, but it is, I think. Telling when you start talking about how do you build relationships and. You can try to figure out all kinds of little tips and tricks and whatever, but I think you said it best when you just said it’s time, right? You have to carve out the time, you have to set aside other things that might be important, but they’re not as important as the people in front of you.

And I think that ultimately, if you can put the people that are in front of you at the forefront, you’re going to end up with a much better relationship. Because people, as you said, They’re going to know that you care about them. And that really is when it makes a difference, especially as a coach, when you’re trying to talk about trying to get the most out of your players, both as basketball players on the floor, but also just as human beings and helping them in their life, which ultimately that’s the, that’s the goal, right?

We’re using basketball as a vehicle to be able to impact lives. And I think that’s really what it, what it boils down to. All right. One more hall of fame question, and then we’ll kind of jump back and go through the, the, the scope of your life. Is there anything that stands out from the weekend that was…

surprising, like something that you didn’t know was going to happen or just you were like, Ooh, that was kind of interesting. Not what I expected. Is there anything kind of fits that particular description for you?

[00:15:34] David Hixon: Well, I mean, a few things, I think, first of all, I think the sort of welcoming attitude of these guys who are genuine stars, and I put that in quotes because the level of the stardom of Dwayne Wade it’s pretty amazing.

And the fact that they treated me as an equal was unbelievable. Matter of fact, you’ll, you’ll laugh at this, the they’re trying to get all these guys together. And you can imagine all these hall of famers and coaches and everything. Then the room is so noisy and the guy that’s trying to get them together from the hall of fame.

So we can go out and be presented in front of this sort of party that they’re having for us. And of course no one’s paying attention. The guy from the hall of fame, his voice is just about shot. And so he looked at me and sort of put his hands out like, Hey, can you help me? So I did something I did when I was coaching all the time because my players knew it.

I put my fingers to my lips and, and gave a really shrill whistle, which always got my player’s attention. The room went quiet. Like in a heartbeat, like not even one murmur, it’s just like, boom. And I felt like, wow, that’s still got it. Still got it. Yeah. And with these guys too, cause I’m telling you what’s getting these guys corralled sometimes is not that easy a task.

So that was like almost startling to me, the result of my whistling. So not that that has a whole lot to do with anything, but that was a moment that really shocked me. And then I got a chance to talk to people like Mike Wilbon. And relate some commonalities that we had and people that we both knew and you know Sage Steele, who was always one of my favorites on ESPN.

And so it was truly amazing to meet people that I never really thought I would meet and tell them what I thought of them and compare different again, commonalities and things like that.

[00:17:24] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s very cool. I mean the opportunity again to sort of rub elbows in that crowd and be able to see people that you may have previously seen on TV or whatever it may be.

And as you said, I think what you realize when you get a chance to talk to people is that we all have way more in common probably than what we oftentimes realize. I think that’s one of the things that I’ve experienced that to some degree with the podcast that there’s been numerous people that In a normal setting, I would never have an opportunity to be able to interact with and just because of the platform here, being able to have conversations and learn from and develop relationships with people that I never thought that that would be possible.

And just. As you’re describing, the opportunity to interact and have a common bond with a fellow human being who, again, has a completely different experience, as you said, walking down the hallway and having a ton of people asking you for your autograph, right? It gives you a little window into, Hey, what’s it like for these guys who are players or coaches in the NBA that everywhere they go, they’re recognized and somebody wants a piece of their time.

And it gives you a little bit more of appreciation of kind of what they, what they go through and, and you kind of get to see them again. As a human being, as opposed to just a face or a body on TV. And I think that’s one of the things that again, we’ve enjoyed with the podcast is getting a chance to know people and have an in depth conversation with somebody for an hour, hour and a half that you just don’t get to do that very often with very many people.

And to your point, to be able to do that on this special weekend for you and for them in a lot of cases is just, I mean, again, the opportunity I’m sure is, is one that. is going to stick with you and the people that were there supporting you for, for the rest of your lives, obviously.

[00:19:09] David Hixon: I’ll tell you a quick story about the autograph thing.

And so I’m walking down with my son and nobody’s sort of coming over, which is great. And I said, keep going, keep going. And all of a sudden I said, coming in 12 o’clock, first guy came in. Next thing you know, we must’ve had 25 people there and somebody in the crowd of people waiting to get an autograph.

Go look. There’s Dwayne Wade, and I’m hoping that all 25 go, right? It’s Dwayne Wade, right? Like, only four people left. Wow. One of the guys in the crowd goes, and he goes, Coach, we’re staying loyal to you. And I felt like, how cool is this, right? And I might even have that on film because I had a guy filming some stuff.

And so, the four people that went over and got Dwayne’s autograph come back. And as I’m signing autographs, I looked up and I sort of quipped I said Hey, any of you guys that left me to go see Dwayne Wade. You are not getting autographs. And of course, everybody loves that. And naturally I signed all of them, but I was hoping all 25 would take off and go, but it didn’t happen.

[00:20:09] Mike Klinzing: That’s good stuff. It’s so funny to me. You think again, the fact that you could kind of joke around and be a part of that and have that experience. And I always think, man, what it would be like to just. Walk out and everywhere you go, have that be in the situation. Like everybody that you see in a public space recognizes you, wants to get a PCU, wants to have an autograph with you, and I’m always amazed that the patience that celebrities, athletes, coaches in those situations, the Again, the patience that you have to have to be able to put up with having people come and talk to you all the time.

Like that again in a, in a one-off moment, you can see how nice that is. And then you think, man, if you had to do that every single day, what would , what would that, what would that, what would that be like if that was what, what your day-to-day life was like and, and you just think about how people perceive athletes, right?

Where you only, a lot of times somebody, a little kid or family or whatever, They only get one chance to make an impression with that kid or that family and obviously they can’t sign everything and do everything and so you think about that delicate balance that they have to walk between being accessible and yet also being able to continue to function in their life.

It’s kind of they got to do a quite a balancing act, I would say. Let’s put it that way.

[00:21:29] David Hixon: They do. And, and it’s funny. One of my favorite all time players who I think may be the GOAT is Bill Russell. And, Bill didn’t give autographs. And so I played in a celebrity golf tournament that he was in.

I wasn’t in his foursome, but you know, they have people who pay for each Tee and there’s, so there’s a sign on, on each Tee recognizing that. And everybody signed the Tee sign with their autograph sort of thing. And so we’ll do it. Cause he knew what they were doing. They were trying to get him to autograph something.

And at the end, two of the guys in his group that they was playing with asked him to sign the cards because you have to have people attest it. He wouldn’t do it. And so imagine how that must be, hear you out that you don’t give autographs and people are on you all the time. So I went over. I went over and talked to him, and the first thing I had to say to disarm him a bit was, Bill, hey listen, I’m not here for an autograph.

I wanted to come over and talk to you about my childhood watching you play. And I eventually got his autograph, not that day, but for a different reason, which is another whole story I won’t go into right now. But it must be really difficult if you’re someone who doesn’t give autographs, because people don’t stop.

They’ll keep asking. And so for Bill Russell, it was even harder than it is most. It’s easy to sign an autograph. It may take time, but everybody’s happy. But when you’re saying no and people are still chasing you relentlessly. So anyway, it’s interesting.

[00:22:54] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. It’s got to get old fast. I mean, again, there’s a, there’s an element of, Hey, it’s cool that people are asking me for my autograph. And then eventually I’m sure that that wears on you pretty quickly that no matter where you go, somebody’s, somebody’s asking for that. All right. Let’s leave the hall of fame behind for a second.

Let’s go back in time to when you were a kid. Tell me a little bit about your first experiences with the game of basketball and what made you fall in love with the game.

[00:23:19] David Hixon: Yeah. So my dad was a coach. I was born in New Hampshire. My first seven years were in New Hampshire. And my dad actually, they won a state championship at a very tiny school called Raymond High School.

And then he went on to Plymouth high school and then he moved when I was seven, he moved to Andover high school in Massachusetts. You know, again, he was a guy that was always trying to make a better situation for his family. He had done a great job building the Plymouth program and they would be one of the best in the States the next year.

But he left to take a team that they went over in 18 his first year, Andover high school, and he was brought in to rebuild it, which he did in a spectacular fashion. But I would go and watch his practices played hoop. Out in the yard, since I can’t remember always wanted to be a coach.

So I draw up the plays for all the guys and we had a little playbook. So we played, we spent countless hours playing hoop and out in the driveway and drawing up plays, I always wanted to be a coach. And so I drew up the plays for the local team and went down and played at the youth center on every Saturday morning, played in the church league group like Tuesdays and Thursday night or something.

So tried to play a lot, made all the teams throughout my life played for my dad. We won a state championship in the old Boston Garden in 1970, which is something I’ll never forget. Sort of the home of my heroes watching the Celtics of the late 60s with the Jones boys and Heinsohn and Russell the whole group, such standards.

I mean, it was an amazing experience to go and play on the court that they played on and win a state championship for my dad.

[00:24:52] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. When you get an opportunity to move on, play college basketball, what do you remember about the decision to go to Amherst? Was that an easy decision? Were there other possibilities?

What were you thinking about as you were heading into college?

[00:25:10] David Hixon:  Yeah, I did have some other possibilities. I had a Division II look, at Bentley College. I had my physics teacher wanted me to go to Brown. My football coach and history teacher wanted me to go to Dartmouth. My math teacher wanted me to go to Amherst.

My best friend was going to Tufts. I applied and got accepted to all of the schools. And yeah, it really, truth be told, my dad was a no nonsense guy. He said, well, where are you going to school? And I said, I don’t know, dad. And he goes, well, I’m going out to a meeting. I’ll be back in two hours. I want an answer.

And so I sat there in about. 10 minutes before he came home, my mother comes out and goes, well, where are you going to go to school? All the financial aid is basically the same except Bentley, which was more. And I said, I don’t know, mom. And she looked at me and she said, well I think if your father had his druthers, I think he’d have you go to Amherst.

I pushed all the others away and signed the Amherst papers. I said, done. My dad walked in and said, where are you going to school? I said Amherst, dad, and he goes, good choice. And that was, we didn’t even tell that story to each other because I didn’t want to give my mom up for telling me when it was supposed to be a secret until he was probably 88, 89 years old.

[00:26:29] Mike Klinzing: That’s good stuff. That is good stuff.

[00:26:31] David Hixon: And you know, actually I was recruited. I was a sprinter and I was third in New England as a junior in the 200 meters. And then I was recruited for football and basketball. And then, but football, I got a really bad concussion in August of my going into my freshman year and they told me I couldn’t play.

And it was really sad for me. But you know, then I totally fell in love with basketball even more so than I had before and thought I’m not interested in football and just played basketball in college and ran track.

[00:27:06] Mike Klinzing: What was the adjustment like from high school to college? What do you remember about that transition?

[00:27:10] David Hixon: Well, I think from the moment I stepped into the gym I loved it because the whole level of competition went up because now, you might’ve been the best player on your high school team, but so was everybody else. And at a place like Amherst, it’s not just Massachusetts it is from all over the country.

And so I had a good friend from Connecticut. I had a good friend from Illinois. I had a good friend from California that were all really good players. And so the competition like right away, pickup games, September 5th or whenever the first time we played together was it was really cool to see that level of competition.

[00:27:50] Mike Klinzing: Obviously Amherst. Great academic school. You mentioned earlier that you kind of always wanted to be a coach. What was your thought process academically? Were you focused on, Hey, I need to get my degree and I’m going to head into coaching. Were you thinking about something else just because of the opportunity that was there at Amherst?  What was the thought process as you entered college?

[00:28:12] David Hixon: Yeah. And that’s always a tough choice. You know, I have other, I have kids who have played for me and I can tell that they want to coach, but they’re having a really hard time communicating that with their parents because of the investment that these parents have made.

And I don’t think I ever told my parents that I wanted to coach until I was a senior. I was a mathematics and psychology major. And so I didn’t know where I was going. There were a zillion different directions I could have gone, but I was lucky enough to get a fellowship presented to one graduating senior and spend an extra year at Amherst fully immersed in coaching. It was a fellowship called the Hitchcock Fellowship, paid for everything. It was a wonderful position, faculty position actually. And for that one year, I thought to myself, no, this is what I want to do. And with kids who really have a passion for coaching, but their parents have this big investment I would just say to them in the end, I would say, Hey guys, listen, most important thing, parents want their kids to be happy.

And They don’t want to see you sitting in a lawyer’s chair or in a big business building if you’re not going to be happy. They want you to follow your passion. When it’s all over and done and all said, they want you to follow their passion. And so trust me, if that’s what you want to do, you should do it.  And that’s how I felt.

[00:29:33] Mike Klinzing: Makes sense. I mean, right. I think ultimately anybody who’s a parent would agree with that sentiment that you want your kids ultimately to find something that they love and that they’re passionate about so that it does translate into. The kind of life that makes ’em happy. And we’ve all seen people who have, from the outside, at least theoretically, great jobs that are miserable.

I’m sure you’ve known plenty of people in that position, , and I’ve, and I have as well, that you think about the way they, they’ve got, they’ve got plenty of money, they got plenty of toys, they got plenty of things that. From the outside, people would say, Hey, this person has everything they could ever want.

And yet they’re not happy. And then you have other people that have followed their passion, whatever that profession may be. And those people have happiness. I think that’s a really a great piece of advice for anyone when you’re looking for a career. So during that year, as you’re getting started with coaching, obviously you had had it in your mind for a long time.

What was it as you really got into it? So for the first time now, you’re playing careers done. You’re in the coaching profession, you’re getting a taste of it. What did you love about it immediately? What was something that the piece of it that you took and you’re like, yeah, this is, this is it. I’m, I know for sure I’m in the right spot.

[00:30:46] David Hixon: Yeah. I mean, I think the competition being on the other side now and, and seeing how hard kids are competing for positions. You know whether they think they should be starting whatever the issues were, I could see this complex. And some people say, yeah, it’s complex, but it’s really very simple, but it’s not all that simple when you’re trying to figure out minutes, you’re trying to figure out how to get someone better so they can get those minutes how to juggle basically starting out with probably 16 or 18 kids, cutting two or three or four and then trying to you got 200 minutes trying to figure out who gets those minutes, who starts, who doesn’t start. And there was this level of competition even prior to games, but then the preparation.

I was fortunate.  I played for an older fellow, Rick Wilson, who in his prime was sort of an innovator in a lot of things in the game. And he loved to scout. And now he’d found a guy who could drive him around New England because he was 65 and, and he didn’t like to drive through snow storms.

I’m 24. I’ll drive through anything, right? I’m 22, 23. Yep. So we drove all around New England until all hours of the night to watch teams play. And so, and then the preparation to sit in an office and try to figure out like, okay, how do we beat this team? How do we get an edge on this team? Who do we need to play?

Who do they guard? There’s so many pieces to it. And I just found that really intriguing, putting the puzzle together.

[00:32:12] Mike Klinzing: Did you have as much passion? You talked about how at the beginning of your career, you’re coaching some other sports as well. Did you have the same level of passion for Those sports, or was it clear basketball was the direction that you wanted to go?

Was there ever a thought that you could go a different direction?

[00:32:30] David Hixon: Yeah, no, there wasn’t. No, it was basketball for sure. I did coach football for two years, but you know, football was a whole different animal for me and wasn’t. And I think my wife actually told me if I was coaching football, she wouldn’t have married me.

But anyway, the track’s different. It’s a very individualistic thing. Although I did work with the relays and loved that. It’s just different. It didn’t encompass me like with the passion that basketball did. And then soccer was really interesting. I mean, soccer, I got to really love soccer.

I was up watching the women’s world cup semifinal at six o’clock in the morning and the final and the USA team, and doesn’t make any difference men, women, whatever it is, and I love the game of soccer and I was given that passion by my old boss, but again, I think the thing about basketball for me, you play more games, it’s in a smaller setting.

And so you really feel like you can coach the whole thing. Whether it’s in practice or game because people are in a close proximity to you. I’ll never forget my first day coaching the women’s soccer team. You know, soccer is a big field 50 yards wide and somebody on the far side of the field, I was trying to communicate to them that they had missed the rotation they were supposed to make in the back defensively and everybody stopped.

I said, what’s the matter? And my assistant came over and said, who was a female? Said coach, don’t yell at them. I said, I’m not yelling at them, I’m communicating with themm. And so it was one of those moments because you had to yell. Right. And I went over to the person and I just sort of said, Hey, the only way you can hear me, but in basketball it’s a bit different and the basketball people are right there up close and personal the whole time.

And so the intensity of it translated over into that passion, I think.

[00:34:19] Mike Klinzing: Tell me a little bit about the opportunity to become the head coach at Amherst, how does that opportunity come to you? And what do you remember about the process of you getting that job?

[00:34:29] David Hixon: Yeah. So I wasn’t going to apply for the job because I was 24.

I’d actually applied for a job the year before up at Deerfield Academy, a mathematics and coaching job. And the guy who was the mathematics teacher decided to stay. And then, so he kept on with his coaching. And so I didn’t get it. And who knows what would have happened if I’d gotten that, like the whole world would have changed for me.

But anyway one of the, my, actually it was my track coach said to me Dave, you throw your application and. I said, well I just feel like I don’t have enough experience. And he said, no, no, we’ll throw your name in anyway. Threw my name in and they brought seven people, including me into interview, and they’re all more qualified on paper than I was, although they weren’t Amherst grads and didn’t know the Amherst team like I did as far as being out coaching basketball, they were older and more experienced.

And so, and when I got into the final three, a little bit like making the finals you know, for the hall of fame, all of a sudden when it’s 37 people, yeah whatever, but when it gets to eight, now it’s serious. Like now don’t mess with me right now. Now I feel like I’m in the hunt to get this thing actually.

And same thing with the job. It was when it was seven, I thought like, okay, thank you for the interview experience. That was wonderful. And then when I got to the final three, I said, no guys, you’ve given me the experience before. This is the real deal. I’m competing, really competing for this job and I feel like I should get it.

And so I did and it again, it was a wonderful experience that started with my, my track coach telling me, Hey, if nothing else, get the experience, apply for the job and then end up with a job, which was amazing to me. And so I’m 24 years old and I’m the head basketball coach at Amherst college.

[00:36:20] Mike Klinzing: How long was it into your tenure before you felt like you had a handle on who you were as a coach? Did you know right away or did it take you a half a season, a season or two before you really felt like, Hey, I know who I am and what I am as a coach.

[00:36:34] David Hixon: Yeah. Well it’s really funny because it evolved and kept evolving.  I think if you talk to Matt or Kevin Hopkins who’s down at Muhlenberg or Luke Flockerzi, who’s out at Rochester they would all tell you that it kept evolving. And I really, I think that’s one of the great things. If you’re a coach when I first started, everybody wanted to be Bobby Knight and you can’t be somebody that you’re not.

And then, as you know, of course, Bobby Knight, a lot Things sort of fell out of favor. You know, people wanted to be this guy. People want to be that guy and you have to be who you are. And you know, the over under at least two, three, four, five years, whatever it was till I really got my feet you know, wet and starting to identify who I was and like I say, it sort of kept evolving and I always tell people, I think one of the big changes in my life that made me the most.

The biggest change, the one that made the sort of starkest change in how you, you related with people was when I got married and had kids. And it wasn’t just basketball. You know, I was doing just basketball. I was so focused on just basketball and, or just soccer, whatever I was coaching at the time.

And when all of a sudden it had to be spread to a second family or what would become my first family, my kids and my wife made me a better person. It made me a better coach. It made me a better human being.

[00:38:02] Mike Klinzing: Alright, so how did you, I think one of the things that we talk with coaches about a lot is trying to achieve, I guess the word is balance, but I’m not sure that always fits, but trying to be able to have time for your family, have time for your basketball family. And then you also had another challenge in that your wife was also a big time college coach. So you, not only are you balancing one coaching schedule with family, but you’re balancing two coaching schedules with family.

So just give me an idea of how you and your wife approach that in terms of making sure that both sides of that equation, both your family life at home and your respective sports at your job got your everything because obviously, if we go back to the story that you shared at the beginning of, hey, I’m dropping everything to spend an hour with an alum, well, that was, At one point when it’s just you, and as you said, it’s just basketball and you’re going full throttle, even then that can sometimes be a challenge.

But now you’re throwing in a whole nother set of people that have demands on your time. So just how did you put all that together? How did you guys work that puzzle?

[00:39:15] David Hixon: Yeah. And it’s a blur but, I give all of the credit to my wife who organized most of it. You know, we get up in the morning, get going.

Kids would go to school even before the kids went to school. You know, we weren’t big fans of daycare sort of had a little bit of a rough experience with my oldest son, he was only in it for a few months. And so we thought they’re better off with us. And so we’d have students take care of them, but they’d usually be in the gym or at the pool all the time. I always tell stories about, my wife would go in one direction with one kid, I’d go in the other direction with another kid and we’d sort of alternate and rotate them. And I think of my five year old we’d win a game up at Williams and on the way home, the guys had earned it and wanted to watch a movie.

Well, I hate to think about what they, I didn’t have enough hands to cover his eyes and both ears. You know, so he didn’t get an early education. Yeah. And it really was a bit of a blur. We really worked hard and there were moments when the baton got dropped, so to speak. It wasn’t dropped, but you know, that somebody was 10 minutes late because they were finishing up with something that was really important with one of their, either with her diver or one of my players before we could hand off the kids, but it was seamless. In the end, it all worked out. And I’ll tell you a favorite story here. So I had my son, Matthew was probably, I don’t know, a year and a half, I’m going to guess, and he gets dropped off and we’re preparing for Franklin and Marshall.

It’s the first time we go to the NCAAs, like they’re number one in the country. Everybody’s already crowned them. And so I’m trying to find something on film. And so we’re watching this film and my wife drops Matthew off and all of a sudden it got stinky. And so I knew he had to be changed.

So nice back in the days you shared an office very often. And so the women’s basketball coach, Sue Zawacki, one of my all time favorites and a great coach she said, Hey, you keep watching film. I’ll change Matthew. I said, terrific. Now she didn’t have kids. And so this was I’m just thinking, okay, go ahead.

So she goes to change kids. Well, she’s got a game that night. And so she’s dressed in a nice black sweater, black slacks. And she takes the diaper off and lifted his legs to wipe him. And I’m getting a little too graphic here. And I got to tell you, there was an explosion that took place. I turned around and look, she was covered in this yellow, whatever it was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Awful. And I have to tell you, everybody in the room, my two assistants, myself and And Sue dropped to our knees and probably cried with laughter for five minutes before we could all right the ship. It was absolutely unbelievable. So, but those were the adventures that would happen only because we’re always running around.

We’re always running around trying to figure out, well, okay. Keeping one eye over here, one eye over there to make sure the kids were safe. And again my wife Mandy did such a great job either getting another athlete and the college girls, they love to take care of our kids and so whether they were in the gym or in the pool, sort of playing with the kids, it was terrific and lucky to be at a place like Amherst, which allowed us to do that.

[00:42:41] Mike Klinzing: All right. So to piggyback on that last point right there, let me ask you this kind of a two part question. When you think about, first of all, what makes Amherst so special? Obviously, you spent the vast majority of your life associated with Amherst, but then to take it one step further, just what do you love about division three basketball?

Because obviously a guy with your success at some point, I’m sure you had people reach out to you about it. Moving up to a higher level, whether it was Division 2 or Division 1, I’m sure you had some opportunities along the way. So just what made it so special at Amherst and what do you love about Division 3 basketball?

You can combine those into whatever kind of answer you want to throw out there at us.

[00:43:20] David Hixon:  Yeah, and that answer could take us three podcasts because it’s… As the game has changed even that equation has changed with you know, the one and done and more importantly, the transfer portal, which all of a sudden makes division three potentially being a one and done or two and done, whichever it is before you develop them enough that they’re good enough.

And someone in the Ivy league or the Patriot league Or scholarship place once saw from, but you know, from the get go, it was just this unbelievable balance. I was brought up by again, this athletic director, Peter Gooding, who was a Brit. And he used to talk all the time about the place of athletics in the academy, the place of athletics, not the place of the academy around an athletic program, but the other way around student athlete, not athlete student.

And That was really special to me. I mean, having gone through, I thought that when I came out of Amherst as a student, I was a critical thinker that I hadn’t been to that level when I went in. And it was not easy. A lot of late nights a lot of tough tests, a lot of disappointments as a student.

But I came out a much, much more intelligent person, whatever that means. I’m not saying a smarter person, more intelligent. I would critically think, I think that helped my coaching as we went on. So I believed in what Amherst stood for and still stands for today. A really true balance between the academic side and the athletic side.

And then I think I really enjoyed. Early on, and I know you can’t do it forever, but I really enjoyed coaching another sport. And then too, when I first started, but another sport and you know, 23 years of soccer and, and being able to get over and coach a women’s team, which I never would have done if I were in division one basketball that’s where I would have been locked in.

And I had a chance to be a head coach of a women’s soccer team and coach women. And that’s a different ball of wax in some ways, in some ways it’s very much the same, but it was an experience that I wouldn’t have been able to have at a higher level. And I think kids with for four years we very seldom had kids leave our program.

And that’s relationships that’s teaching kids. I think what the one and done is done now. The one and done, more importantly, the transfer portal is it’s told kids, look, if, if you don’t like your position leave and try to get the same position somewhere else. And I’m like, no, you just missed one of the big lessons that athletics teaches.

Is to persevere. Okay. And I’m not talking about an unreasonable situation, but I’m talking about in most situations, freshmen don’t start freshmen very often. Don’t play. And if you can’t persevere through that and think that changing your space to another school is, is a solution, you’ve missed that great lesson of getting better.

Because when you go out into the real world, okay. And you start out, you are the rookie. And if you turn around and think like, well, he’s making more money than me. He’s getting the plum assignment and I’m not blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you decide to keep changing your companies. You’ve missed out on that point.

And I think athletics teaches that the perseverance to tie your shoes a little bit tighter and grit your teeth and get back in there and show the coach that you can play, work at getting better so that you can play. And so there’s just so many pieces that I think division three and most division three, unless you’ve had a terrible, terrible, terrible situation, they’re not hiring fire.

In other words, you get a little more leeway. I’ve had some friends that have gone on to coach sort of in the mid major level and it’s helped. I mean, it’s helped. It’s really. You know, always looking over your shoulder because if you’re not everybody thinks that their team should be the ones winning to get a bigger slice of the pie these days.

And it’s all money driven. And I guess if you’re getting paid that much money, then I guess you have to win, but not everybody can win. And so division three was just, and I think I coached in the Camelot years, quite frankly, I think I coached back in the era when parents I think I probably had two or three parents in 42 years complained to me about their son’s playing time, which is so unusual.

And it was a great era to coach in, you know there wasn’t a Dean specifically assigned you know, for anonymous bias reporting whatever that means. And so anyway, it was wonderful to coach during that era. And I think so much of that had to do with the fact that it was division three and so much, so much that had to do with the fact that it was a school and I say a school like Amherst versus just Amherst, because there are really some wonderful small colleges out there and Amherst is somewhat unique, but not totally unique to that whole to that whole scene.

[00:48:11] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, the balance, I think, in division three. And then I think when you talk about the transfer portal, it’s one of those situations where I love what you talked about when you’re talking about perseverance and how I think so often and me. Unfortunately, we see this starting to permeate the game at even lower levels when you start talking about high school or AAU basketball and people looking at their situation and just, hey, I’m going to jump to this place or this place or this place, always looking for something better.

And I mean, you can look at the portal this year and the number of kids that went into the portal that unfortunately. Are still in the portal and may never find another home to be able to continue with their college basketball career. And I think that it’s a great lesson. And the 1 that you shared is 1 that that I learned when I played back.

So I played from 88 to 92 at. Kent State in my freshman year, I came in and we had a really good team and I maybe played five minutes a game maybe. And then the next year I, I looked and kind of figured out, okay, what is my coaching staff like? What do they want? What do, what does this team need? And I figured it out and I worked, and then my next three years I got to start and played a lot and, and played a ton of minutes.

And I’m not sure that if I grew up in the era today that. After that first year that there wouldn’t have been multiple people in my ear saying, Hey, you should go somewhere else. You’re too good to be sitting on the bench or whatever it might be. The messages that kids get. And I think you make a great point that in an ideal world you’d have kids that would come in and build.

And by the time they’re juniors and seniors, they’re ready to play and contribute and be important members of the team. And I think that’s the way that. Again, in the era that you’re talking about, that’s oftentimes how, how you built teams, both at the division three level, mid major level. And now that it’s really hard to do that, right?

Because you develop a kid, like you said, in a year or two at division three, and that kid becomes a really good player. And wow, all of a sudden, it’s, it’s a lot easier for them to go and get an offer somewhere else. And I think the same thing for mid majors where, Mike Klinzing. Used to be you succeed at a mid major by bringing in kids who kind of under the radar, maybe you’re able to develop a kid within your program and now you do that and after a year or two, somebody else is going to swoop in and be like, Hey, we can take this kid and have them playing at a higher level or just give them a different opportunity, whatever it might be.

And yeah, it’s a, it’s kind of a wild west out there. I think it’s going to settle down eventually, but man, it’s, it’s crazy out there right now.

[00:50:40] David Hixon: Yeah. And I think the NCAA, I think has capped it as only two transfers now. And there was a kid that played in New England this year, a very good player that was on his third team.

And so capping it a little bit that takes some of it away. But the other thing that we did when you develop a program, as opposed to just a team, a program, you have senior parents, junior parents, sophomore parents sitting in the stands with freshman parents and the freshman parents are Uneasy with their kids playing time. And, and all of a sudden the senior parent will put their arm around that parent, the freshman parent and say, Hey, be patient, trust me, it’s a good thing. You know, this is good for your son. And I know it’s hard right now. It was hard for me when I was a freshman parent, but let me tell you something.

Four years later, I could tell you this is the best thing your son will ever do. And so we had a whole team. We had a whole program of people supporting each other and helping each other through these things. And I’m not sure that everybody has that. And so again, just one of the great things that we built at Amherst that really made things work well for us.

[00:51:49] Mike Klinzing: And that doesn’t happen by accident, Dave. I mean, I think obviously there are programs around the country, both at the high school and the college level that do what you just described, but I’m not sure it’s all that commonplace because again, it takes everybody pulling in the same direction and it takes a ton of communication between the coaching staff and the parents and the players.

And it takes. Especially on the college level, right? Getting the right guys in the door and you’re recruiting and all the things that that go into making that happen. And then you’ve got to continue to sustain it because as we all know, you can build a culture or build that program. And if you kind of take your eyes off the prize for a year or 2, it can, it can go south.

Really, really quickly. So the fact that you were able to have the success that you had for a sustained period of time for over 42 years is a testament to what you were able to do in terms of building a program. So obviously you’re coaching for a long time, 42 years. What’s the biggest change that. You saw in the game from the time you started coaching until, I mean, there’s probably a hundred things, but maybe pick out one or two things that you feel really impacted the way that you had to coach the game.

[00:52:58] David Hixon: Yeah. So I think I think that the three point shot really changed things up and, and I’m proud to say that, that we although we didn’t embrace it to the level it’s embraced today, where. You know, 50% of your shots are threes. We embraced it early. And so we, we had some really good shooters. We set up specific situations to get people three point shots.

And so that was a fun time whenever things changed like that, when everybody was running four corners when there was no shot clock. And then there was a 40 second shot clock, which they might as well not a 45 second, I think it was. That might not, you didn’t need one anyway. 45 seconds is forever.

So people were holding the ball. I remember going to scout a game that was two nothing at halftime. It was the underdog team just held the ball and I went to scout it. I got nothing I’m thinking I just drove my rear an hour and a half to see this game and I’m, they’re not even running anything.

They’re just holding the ball. So you know, the shot clock change. And now I think, I think 30 is a great amount of time. But the three point shot was a big deal. And then I’ll say this too. The other thing that people weren’t doing back then, and again, because there were so many Bobby Knight disciples that switching was a negative word.

Switching meant that you didn’t have the courage or the toughness or the physicality to get through a screen. And it was deemed that if, if you were looking to switch, that was a weakness. And certainly coach Knight wasn’t going to have any weaknesses. And so everybody toughed it out and good screens are hard to get through.

And you know, you can do all sorts of things to try to disguise what’s, what’s happening, but we started to switch and I’ll never forget where it was against Colby college. We had just made the NCAAs first time in the history of the college that we could do it and the history of our league that we could do it.

And they ran Dick Whitmore as a wonderful coach up at Colby and won a ton of games. And he had this, he ran one of the first like motion offenses where they really, they brought three guys together at the elbow and you didn’t know who was going to the basket, who was popping out, who was fading out to the wing and really hard to guard.

And so we just said, Hey, look, you take the guy that comes up top, you take the guy that goes out to the wing, you take the guy that goes to the basket. And that was the beginning of us switching. And then next year and the next year we went. More so to switching and Matt Goldsmith, we’ve talked about him a couple of times, but his group somebody get put in the game, they go, Hey guys, three, two, that meant we’re going to switch to three little guys and the two big guys only.

And then we might go four, one, and then at the end of the games, we’re always switch five. So we didn’t give up three point shots, depending on what the situation was. And so and I’m watching cause we’re winning a bunch of games. We’re getting into the NCAAs and nobody else is switching. You know, I’m looking at, I’m thinking like, guys, aren’t you seeing what we are doing?

And I started to think like, well, maybe it’s not as good as we’re getting results, but maybe it’s not as good as I think it is. Right. And now as you look, and I’m not saying we invented it by any means, I’m just saying that. In New England, we were one of the few teams and maybe the only team that early on, so that’s 94, that switched either three, four, or five.

And you know, again, switching is a sign of weakness if you don’t do it right. If you do it right, it’s hard to do but boy, it makes it hard for people to get open. And you that. Three point shot, the shot clock, and, and us switching on defense were the biggest changes that I saw certainly in our program over the years.

[00:56:30] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I think the switching thing is super interesting. Again, going back to my own experiences as a player and early years as a coach. Like, I mean, Playing college basketball, I remember switching being again, you just didn’t do it. it was, Hey, you got to get through this screen. You got to fight through, you got to be in position to skinny up, or you got to fight through, or you got to knock or you get whatever, whatever it was, you had to figure out a way as a defender to get through that screen. And if you tried to switch, boy, that was that was cause for concern. And so, that’s right. I mean, it’s just, again, a totally different, a totally different thing. And then when you, when you evolve, and then later on as a, when I was a high school assistant coach, when you got to the point where switching became more normal, so to speak, and you’re looking at it from a coaching perspective, and you’re like, And it’s so much easier.

Like, it just, again, to your point, you have to do it well. You just think about, again, it’s more mentally taxing, right? You have to be aware of what’s going on. You have to have guys with spatial awareness and basketball IQ and all those kinds of things. But From a physical, like getting beat up, trying to get through screens.

I mean, that’s been a huge change in the game. Then the other one that I think has changed a lot, and I say this to coaches a lot all the time, I played four years of college basketball and I might’ve defended and been involved in five ball screens my entire career. And now you look at the way the game is played today and the number of ball screens that are set and the amount of time that coaches spend on ball screen coverages and how we’re going to do it depending upon what the players in the screen and role are capable of doing.

It’s just, it’s amazing to me watching the game. Like in some ways it’s unrecognizable to me the game that, at least not necessarily the one I’ve coached in, but certainly the game that I played in is unrecognizable compared to what it’s, what it’s like today. It’s just interesting how the game’s evolved.

[00:58:21] David Hixon: Yeah. And, I do think that so much of it to do all those things well, whether it’s switching that you’re talking about, it takes a lot of practice and a lot of teaching, like you say, spatial awareness, like understanding that you have to get underneath to get over. And the whole thing is I think to ball screens and ball screens are the hardest thing.

I mean Malone and Stockton

[00:58:43] Mike Klinzing: Stockton and Malone,

[00:58:45] David Hixon: Stockton and Malone. And they made it the thing, but it took people again, a long time to get to the point where we are today, which everything is a ball screen. And if you, if you have one coverage I just don’t know with the ability of players today, if you cover it one way I just think they’re going to figure it out and get the rhythm of it.

And it’s sort of like everything else if you change up and sometimes you’re hedging hard, sometimes you’re flat hedging sometimes you’re switching, whatever it is. It just throws that offensive people out of rhythm enough. Even if you have a little mismatch at times, it’s still throws them out of the rhythm they were getting into if you cover it the same way.

And so I just think, again, it takes a lot of, it takes smart players. Hey guys, we’re in blue coverage, blue coverage on ball screens, right? Whatever you want to call that, whether it’s the hard edge or whatever. Hey guys, we got red. We got red, red is usually the hard edge, right? Because red is the emergency color, right?

So anyway people that use colors, use numbers we talked about switching to switching three, switching four, switching five. You got to have smart players to do that. And it takes a lot of practice, a lot of practice. And people that think that it doesn’t probably haven’t won all that many games unless they have more talent than everybody, because I got to tell you, the amount of time that we spent prior to our Amherst Williams game when Mike Mako was there, and he, he had a lot of these screens, this screen, that screen. We went over all of that stuff and hopefully we had two or three days to, to, to sort of brush up on our coverages of how we’re going to cover that because it’s just different. And so there’s a lot of preparation involved in making your team really good.

[01:00:26] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, there is. There’s no question about that. I think that. It’s just like anything, right? Sometimes people see the product, whether it’s a basketball team or it’s an artist or it’s a musician or it’s a teacher or whatever, you see that final product and you’re like, wow, that looks, you make that look pretty easy.

And you don’t always see what goes on behind the scenes in order to make that happen. I think sometimes that’s the… That’s the genius of genius, right? Is that it’s, it’s all the work behind it. It’s not just what we, what you see out for public consumption.

[01:00:52] David Hixon: Right. And I have to tell you, so maybe one of the greatest compliments I’ve gotten in the game, we won the 2013 championship down in Atlanta and John Feinstein, the famous author came up to me and said, Hey, can I talk to you for a while?

So we sat down and talked and he said something about your team that you need to tell me. He said I’ve watched your guys come down and you guy called one or called fist. And yeah, you didn’t run one or fist. And I said, well, actually we did, we just ran different versions of it.

And he said, yeah, but how did you guys know what versions to run? And I’d say, well, cause they read each other. And so, that team and the other, I’ve had other teams close to it, but that team probably hit the peak as far as being able to read each other and things just morphed off. What one other player did to make the choice of what this player did.

You know, the key. And so, but the fact that Feinstein would ask me that question and just me talking to Feinstein was, I was like blown away. But the fact that he would ask me that question and give me the chance to answer it so proudly as to what our team had evolved into that year, this group of people who just read each other, it’s virtually undefendable.

Because they don’t know what you’re going to run. And those are the teams that go on to be really successful and win championships.

[01:02:17] Mike Klinzing: And that’s kind of the way that coaching has evolved too. Again, right where you start talking about, there’s so many more coaches that are coaching in practice that way.

Trying to get their teams to play more free flowing and more read and react to what’s going on. As opposed to, you go back to the beginning of your career when you’re talking about the Bobby Knight style, where maybe, yeah, you had the motion offense where there’s a lot of off ball screens and that kind of thing.

Or you had. Coaches that were just running set after set after set where there really wasn’t options. It was just, this is what you’re going to do. And we’re going to practice this and beat it into the ground. And we’re just going to try to execute you. Whereas today you have much more, again, players that have to, they have options.

So you have multiple options and you got to read your teammates. You got to read what the defense is doing. And so it makes you a lot harder to defend and scout and all the things that go into being prepared for a game. Another way that the game has evolved for sure.

[01:03:10] David Hixon: Right. And, and I’ll tell you just a quick story.

I know we’re running out of time, but a good friend of mine who coached at a mid major place I’m not going to tell you any names, but he basically would say to me after his practices, he would say, look, I have a choice. He said, I can either get people who are athletic enough to play at this level with lesser basketball IQ, or I can get people with high basketball IQ, but athletically, they don’t quite, they’re not quite good enough to play at this level.

And so if they were good enough. athletically and basketball IQ, they would be at the highest level. And so we’re right in no man’s land to where I’ve got to make a decision. And if I choose better athletes, I sit there and I just like every day after practice, I’m like, I can’t get through to these guys about reading.

Right. And so anyway, that’s one of the things about that level, which is tough.

[01:04:04] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. All right. Give me one story from one of your two national championship teams. Pick out your favorite story from either. I don’t want you to shortchange one of the teams, so if you want to give me two stories, that’s great, but just give me a story from each national championship team.

[01:04:15] David Hixon: Well, and so I’ll just give you this one because it’s my favorite one. So 2013 We start out five and 0, and then we lose to Springfield team, which was good on the road. They were good, but we didn’t play well. And then we came back and we just really laid an egg against a Babson team and Stevie Brennan at Babson does a great job, but he was undermanned.

I think they had six healthy kids or something like that. And they weren’t all those starters and we were not good. And so we go to five and two. And I know there’s something up and I’m trying to figure it out as coaches do. There’s just a little something, right? And we do a lot of stuff to try to figure out what that stuff is from the get go.

But anyway, I had all three captains in my office and I’m sort of pushing and poking to try to get them to talk and the whole thing. And then our big kids Pete Cthulhu, who was 6’ 8” 265 and a wonderful specimen, a good player. Never said a word, of course. And so I’m sitting there and I’m pushing and prying and then out of the blue, Big Peach just like goes at it.

Just lets it all out. Just like you’re pushing on a pimple and finally pops or something. It was volcanic. And Pete goes, you guys are so selfish. You guys all you do is care about your stats. And all you want to do is be first team all Nescac. You’re not interested in playing as a team and winning.

And they get arguing and it was great. I’m almost applauding on the side because I’m thinking like, this is the poison we needed to get out. You know, people aren’t talking to each other. You’re never going to have a great team if they don’t get it with each other. And so when we got done and I thought it was going to be a fistfight and I don’t know what I would have done cause Pete would have cleaned us all out.

But anyway, it was And one of the captains said, coach, before practice, can we go down and talk to the team? Now we had to play a really good Brandeis team the next day. And then we had to play somebody else really good on the Saturday. And so we had back to back games coming up. And they said, can we go down and talk, have a team meeting?

I said, absolutely. And so they went down, they said what they had to say to the team. We came out, we had a great practice. We blew out Brandeis the next day. We won our next game. We didn’t lose again for another full calendar year. And so I always tell people about that is that as a leader, when you’re seeing something, but you’re not quite sure what it is, you got to find out what it is in order to be able to address it and Having that session in my office and, and again, me being skilled enough and further along in my career where I could rather than just say, look, guys, you’re going to do this.

You’re going to do this. You’re going to do this. You need to find out what it is. And so I was pushing and poking and prodding until finally Pete erupted. And it was probably, it probably redirected our program to, again, like I say, we didn’t lose again in front of the whole year.

[01:06:57] Mike Klinzing: It’s amazing how sometimes that stuff that’s bubbling just under the surface.

When you let it out that it can just open the floodgates and make sure that everybody gets back on the same page and everybody’s pulling that rope in the same direction. And that takes, as a coach, that takes having the pulse of your team, right? I think that’s one of the things that I’ve learned both as a coach and thinking back to my time as a player and working with my own kids and that kind of thing.

And you look at it and you say that. Man, when coaches are dialed in and they have an understanding of their players and they’re looking at the dynamics and they’re not just, they’re not just watching the basketball, but they’re watching the people too. Then that’s when you really can put something together magical.

[01:07:39] David Hixon: Well and I think this, and I learned this along the way, and I actually got the original statement from a football coach. I was reading or hearing a podcast or doing something. And I think I was reading cause it was that far back to where this coach, he called it weeding. And every day, like if you have a garden, and you go out and weed every day, then you’re going to keep your garden good.

If you don’t weed for two weeks, your garden’s overgrown and then you got to take the whole garden out. And so and start all over again. And so I would do that. I would get down to practice for 45 minutes early. And when I get down there 45 minutes early very often kids that are having problems will get down there early, get a chance to talk to them about their family, their schoolwork, but you’d also find out just what’s going on.

And I thought to myself, geez, this is really negative that we’re just weeding. How about, and I’m down at Home Depot and I see weed and feed. And I thought, well, some kids, They don’t need the weeding. They need the feeding. And so we changed that to weed and feed. And that has really helped us. We get down there, we try to figure out what kid needs what, how do we get it going find out underlying problems.

And that has really worked well for us over the years.

[01:08:47] Mike Klinzing: All right, Dave, final question. As experienced of a guy as you are, somebody who’s just starting out in the coaching profession, it’s their first day on the job and they call you up and they say, Hey, coach, give me one piece of advice that’s going to help me to be successful in my career.  What’s that one piece of advice that you’d give them?

[01:09:05] David Hixon: Well, I’ll give you one piece of advice and, well, I would say. Comes down to work outwork everybody, but underneath, it’s not one piece because underneath work is get out there and seek older coaches who have been through things.

Doesn’t mean you need to do what they do because Hubie Brown once said, take only what you can teach. And I believe strongly in that, but listen to everybody, take things, bring things in, sort it out and fit it to your program, but all of that takes like so much work, it really does. But if you have a passion for it, it’s not really work.

And weed and feed. every day in your program so you could figure out where you’re going what the kids are thinking because you can’t just be autocratic on everything. You have to hear the vibes. And so, but again, that takes time. And so it really is it becomes your family and you need to really understand it and work at it.

And so I think, I think hard work and passion are the two things, the two words that I would give you that there’s tentacles out underneath all of them. But those are the two things that that get the ball rolling.

[01:10:12] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. Great pieces of advice. Before we get out, Dave, I want to give you a chance to share, how can people connect with you?

Is there a way for people to reach out to you, listen to the podcast, learn your story? How can some young coaches reach out to you?

[01:10:23] David Hixon: They’re always welcome to email is the best way. And then if I can’t do things by email, then I very often I’ve developed a relationship with a bunch of coaches and I watched their games during the year.

I don’t have time to do all of that. Of course, I’m watching a lot of NESCAC and division three games, but if they send it to my email, which is dhixon@amherst.edu, I’ll get back to all of them and But you know, it goes from there or do we have a phone call? Do we whatever it is that we’re doing.

And so I do that when I do clinics. I do that when I do podcasts and they’re more than welcome to reach out to me that way.

[01:10:57] Mike Klinzing: Dave, cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule, especially after the whirlwind couple of weeks you’ve had with the Hall of Fame. So thank you for your time.

Truly appreciate it. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.